Chapter 18 #3
It also gave Lawrence and me—though mostly Lawrence—a free place to crash whenever we came to town.
And a place to cache our weapons when needed.
If I snuck in through the storm cellar door, rounded the stairs and pried up the floor boards in my childhood bedroom, I could grab a backup knife to replace the one the police still had stored in evidence.
But I couldn’t bring myself to venture inside.
It was just a vacant home, but looking at it still hurt.
Somehow, standing on the parched and patchy lawn hurt even more than visiting my father in the nursing home. I’d gone there knowing that it would be painful. That he wouldn’t remember me. That he’d ask for Lawrence.
Shit.
A single tear, slid down my cheek.
He was always asking for Lawrence. Even when Lawrence was in the room.
Why had I gone there of my own volition? Yes, I had done it as part of the story the agents and I fabricated for Mads. But I’d also done it for closure. To say goodbye, and I’m sorry, and all of the things that I could possibly say to make everything alright.
But things hadn’t been alright for over a decade.
They hadn’t been alright before Lawrence and I forced our parents out of the cult, only for them to turn against us, and return a week later.
They hadn’t been alright before my parents drank the cult-prescribed concoction that killed my mother and left my father with an irreversible loss of brain function.
Some said he was fortunate to survive, even if he didn’t have the ability to remember. Lawrence and I disagreed.
And even if my father did remember me, I wasn’t the person he knew any longer.
My pillar of strength cracked. Air caught in my throat, claws tore me apart from the inside out, and I collapsed to my hands and knees.
Apparently, that was the last straw.
My breathing came in short and shallow breaths. Tremors shook me from the base of my spine and radiated outwards. I clutched at the earth trying to ground myself, to not get swept into the pull of raw emotions.
It wasn’t working very well.
Eyes blurry, unfocused, at least I wasn’t crying. This was exhaustion. This was overwhelmed. This was the repercussion for keeping all of my raw emotions locked in the tiny box in my mind, telling myself I would deal with it later.
But my body had decided later was now. All because of that house.
Fighting to regain composure, it took me a moment to realize there was a presence at my side, and tattooed knuckles between the blades of grass before me.
What the hell?
Jack and Todd were on the ground with me. Both of them.
Sitting next to me, Jack’s hand drew small circles between my shoulder blades.
I should have pushed him off. Showed him I was strong. Stabby.
But Todd’s knuckles disappeared from my field of view as he cupped my head and brought me to his chest. My face was soon nuzzled into the dip between his throat and shoulder. If I turned my head just so, the tip of my nose would be warmed by his exposed skin.
Another round of tremors rolled through my body before I realized I’d stopped breathing.
“Take a deep breath.” Jack continued his circles, his voice a murmur above the pounding in my ears, “You can act out of spite later, but take a breath for me.”
I wish I could say I thought of some snappy remark, but expanding my lungs seemed a monumental task. Like not breathing was my last resort to keep me from bursting into tears. Resistance was futile.
Pulling air into my lungs, a dizzying array of emotions swirled through me, wrapping me in a blanket of pine forest. Cedar.
A comforting numb dissipated the sizzle under my skin, threatening to turn my bones to jelly. I didn’t dare move. I worked to keep my muscles locked, but my neck didn’t listen. It gave in, relaxing into Todd’s hold, a slow drip of warm milk snaked its way down my spine. My resolve was slipping.
But I still had my last line of defense.
“I’m just angry.” My words a mumble against Todd’s chest.
To which Jack replied, “Of course.”
“And over-tired.” I sunk lower.
“That too.”
“I’ll be fine once I sleep.”
“I know you will.”
“I’m tough.”
“The toughest.”
I sagged until I was a melted heap against Todd. Jack’s agreement gave me nothing to brut up against. There was no resistance. It was like trying to argue against a cuddle. To play tug of war against an unending spool of yarn.
All of my muscles ceased cooperating, the entirety of my body weight supported between the agents.
I reached for the thoughts that would tell me this was wrong. That I needed to fight. But no matter how far I grasped there was nothing left but calm. A soothing fuzz amongst the crickets and katydids.
My eyes fluttered shut. An immeasurable moment passed, breathing in the grass, and cedar, and pine, and the occasional hint of citrus. The circles Jack rubbed against my back looped and looped, and—
“This is why I wanted to go alone,” I whispered so softly I wasn’t sure the agents had heard.
But a gentle tug on my chin had me looking at Todd. “This is why you shouldn’t have gone alone.”