Chapter 31 #3
My chest aches, and rage fills my veins.
In the world we’re from, no matter how much our family and friends try not to, people like us get used.
Our names. Our blood. Every alliance, every feud, every deal.
Eventually it all falls on someone’s shoulders.
Thankfully, if the bonds in our families and friendships are as strong as we strive for them to be, we never carry that weight all by ourselves.
But a child? Fuck, I know better than most that a child should never be collateral damage. Seven-year-old Lucy was never meant to bear the weight of our world on her small shoulders.
“So this time I left.” She shrugs. “Maybe it was selfish. Maybe it wasn’t.
I don’t know anymore. I just knew I saw the writing on the wall.
People I love were already getting hurt.
” Her voice cracks. “People I love were dying.” She shakes her head.
“No. I couldn’t stay and wait for it to be my turn to let myself be used against them. Not again.”
Goddamn, my heart aches for this brave girl. She thought we’d use her as a pawn against her family. And while we wouldn’t, the Wildes and our enemies would. Hell, they already have.
I don’t blame her one bit for running, and I hate that my family is part of the reason she felt she had to. I hate even more that I never got the chance to make her realize I’d do any and every fucking thing to keep her safe too.
“I’m sorry you’ve had to do that, Lucy. So fucking sorry. But you’re not selfish. You’re the furthest person from selfish. You did what you thought was best to save people you love. That’s brave.”
Moonlight catches the tears gathering along her lashes, and they shimmer like the current lapping against the dock as she tries to collect herself before admitting in the smallest whisper, “But I’m not brave because…”
Her voice shudders from her chest. “Because all this time, I’ve still wanted someone to save me.”
A tear escapes, trailing slowly down her cheek. “Is that so wrong?”
“Of course not, baby.” The answer comes out so harshly it’s almost a curse.
My arms tighten around her beneath the shirt, and my thumbs stroke the bare skin at her waist. But it’s not sexual. It’s just a basic, instinctive need to touch her. To be close to her any way I can.
“This world is hard, Lucy. Everybody wants somebody to love them enough to save them.”
Except for me, actually, if I’m being honest. But that’s another story for another time—probably never. I’m not gonna ruin this moment with my own baggage.
Tears spill freely down her cheeks now. “It just feels wrong, though, you know?” She sniffs.
“I should’ve just disappeared, but every time I left somewhere, I couldn’t stop myself from leaving a card.
It was so stupid—broadcasting where I’d been to anyone looking.
I put the people I love in danger even while I was trying to convince myself I was saving them. ”
My pulse stops cold.
“A… card? Like a… playing card?”
Her fingers knot in my vest as she nods. “I was desperate. I… I wanted to be found. But I only have one left, and now after Frog and Castle I have to—”
She chokes on a sob, then shakes her head. “They never found me, Hatter.”
The words are so quiet, I almost miss them. But when they register, fuck do they hit like a Mack truck, shattering my frozen heart into a million shards of ice.
Because I knew it.
Jesus Christ, I knew it.
All this time she wanted to be found. She left fifty-two cards from a fifty-three card McKennon deck. She didn’t leave them just to reassure her family that she was safe. Every card was a chance. A breadcrumb. People leave breadcrumbs because they want to find their way back home.
Which means Lucy tried fifty-fucking-two times to tell us where she was. And fifty-fucking-two times, I failed her.
The guilt fills me so intensely, I nearly choke on it.
I can’t even tell her that I’ve finally found her. That someone’s finally here to save her. That I’ve spent six goddamn months searching for her.
That I gambled away everything that was supposed to be mine just for the right to keep her safe.
No, I won’t tell her any of that until after I’m done ripping apart the fucker that hurt her. The second I get the answers I need from him, I’m getting her the fuck out of here.
“I’m sure they tried, Lucy,” is the only thing I can give her for now, and fuck do I hate myself for how pathetic it sounds.
She sniffs and absently scratches the crook of her arm. Where a needle would go.
“You’re right. My parents did try to save me. They really did.” Her gaze drops to the water. “But after I found out what the men who kidnapped me were planning—”
“Kidnapped? Who the fuck kidnapped you?” I interrupt, my white-hot rage a burning, tangible thing that forced the words out before I could stop them. “Give me a name, bunny.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She swallows. “After I found out they were going to use me and my friends against everyone we loved, I did what I had to do to escape.”
“Lucy.”
She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“The fuck it doesn’t.” I cup her jaw and tip her face to meet my gaze. Moonlight spills across the freckles dusting her nose and catches in the mascara-streaks on her cheeks.
“Who hurt you?”
For one suspended second, her expression doesn’t change.
Then it morphs so slowly right in front of my eyes, I miss the exact moment the sadness disappeared. In its place, she smiles—a devious curl that shocks me to my core, pumping a different type of heat entirely through my bloodstream.
“It doesn’t matter because…” Her grin widens. “I already killed him.”