81
EMERSYN
We stayed like that, under the trees, for what felt like a very long time.
I worried the moment I let go he’d disappear, and this would be nothing more than another drugged dream.
I think he felt the same, because he didn’t once loosen his grip.
At some point I’d stopped crying, but I continued to rest my head on his shoulder and watched the light play through the leaves and scatter across the ground.
“I miss them,” I mumbled.
“Every day,” he agreed. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don't think about them.”
I sighed and slowly pulled away. He held out his hand, but I stared at it warily.
“Are you going to include me?” I asked.
He raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to live out here if I say no?”
I looked at him in annoyance laced with amusement. “No, but we can’t just pretend there aren’t still issues here.”
He looked at me dryly. “Em, there will always be issues. No family is perfect. Least of all this great big pack of misfits that I have back there.” He gestured behind him toward the house. “And I’m not asking for you to act like all is forgiven. I know that will take time—”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
My father sighed and dropped his hand. He ran it over his face instead.
“Despite everything in me that screams to lock you away in your room,” he said dryly. “I won’t.”
“Yeah, that would be weird,” I said, unable to stop the small grin that tugged at my lips. “So, I can go with you to kill Mahoney?”
My father blinked, like he battled with something at those words. He shook his head and threw up his hands in defeat.
“I probably should be concerned that this is how we’re father/daughter bonding—but, I would have taken you hunting with me anyway once you were old enough, so I’m going to pretend this is the same thing to make myself feel better,” he said dryly.
My hopes rose, and I knew he saw it on my face because his expression softened.
“Yeah, you can come.”
I smirked. “Like you said, we’re not a normal family.”
“Far from it,” he agreed.
We headed back toward the house. I felt lighter than I had in a really long time. I walked next to my father and tentatively let reality wash over me—the reality of being home.
I slipped my hand into his. I still carried a lot of anger and trauma around our past, but at least in that moment I allowed myself to revel in the reality of having found him again. Against all odds, we were together, and we would weather everything else as it came.
I stepped through the sliding glass door behind my father and immediately smelled smoke and heard a smoke detector blaring.
“God damn it, Lach. I told you three-seventy-five!” Nyx shouted. “For thirty minutes!”
“Okay, but I don’t see why I can’t have it at four-hundred for half the time.”
I waved smoke out of my face as we rounded the corner and stepped into chaos.
The kitchen looked like someone had waged a war against baking supplies, and lost. Horribly.
Dishes were piled everywhere. Flour coated every available surface.
Eggs lay broken. Nyx wielded a spatula as he chased one of the men I recognized from the war room around the island with it, swatting at him whenever he got close.
I couldn’t help it—I giggled. Their attention jumped to us, and they immediately stopped.
“Emersyn!” The blond man came over and extended a floury hand to me with a rogue grin. “I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier—I’m Lachlan.”
“A fucking shitty cook is what you are,” Nyx growled.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering with cooking lessons, Nyx,” my father said.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him,” Atlas said. “I think most of them fail miserably on purpose so he doesn’t rope them into kitchen duty.”
I hadn’t noticed Atlas before through all the smoke and debris around the kitchen, but he was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, casually reading a book like this was the most normal scene in the world. And maybe it was.
“It just would be nice to have some help sometimes,” Nyx said in exasperation.
“Then hire a cook!” My father exclaimed.
Nyx frowned and crossed his arms. “That’s no fun.”
“I’m sure he, or she, would let you help,” Atlas drawled as he turned a page.
“Ugh, you all are impossible,” Nyx turned his attention to me. “What about you? Your father is shit in the kitchen, but I don’t think the condition is hereditary.”
My father scoffed. I couldn’t have stopped the grin even if I’d wanted to.
I shrugged. “Haven’t really had many chances to try.”
Nyx pointed the spatula at me. “Good. You’re next then!” He proclaimed. “Lach, help me clean up this mess—Lach?”
Lachlan had disappeared.
“Son of a bitch!” Nyx exclaimed.
Atlas sighed, but it was impossible not to see the fond amusement in his eyes as they tracked Nyx through the kitchen. His attention briefly settled on my father as they traded silent communication.
Atlas nodded. “Yeah, I’ll order a few pizzas.”
In order not to be caught on cleaning duty with Nyx, I disappeared upstairs to shower. I also needed a break because this was the most people I’d been around in awhile, and it was a little bit overwhelming, even if I had to admit I enjoyed the ones I’d met so far.
I thought I recognized Nyx and Atlas from the clearing with Vetticus, but there had been a lot going on and I couldn’t be sure.
If so, they’d been by my father’s side for the long haul, and it was obvious they were close because of it.
They’d gone through hell that night too, and in a weird way I felt connected to them through that.
Sometimes I caught them staring at me like my father did, like they were shocked I was actually here, and I realized I just might have acquired two more father-figures that I hadn’t been anticipating. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I also wasn’t upset about it either.