CHAPTER EIGHT #2
‘A walk?’
‘I was following nearby,’ she adds in a whisper, dropping a wink while she makes coffee for him, ‘but oh, being outdoors did her a world of good.’
‘Wait, I don’t understand. She couldn’t walk last time I was here.’
‘Oh honey, this is how fast it can go into remission when you can afford the good stuff,’ the nurse tells him, stirring his coffee. ‘That new treatment did her a world of good. She—’
‘No talking about me like I’m not here,’ Jocelyn Tanner chides, walking into the room, albeit slowly, but very much unaided. She fixes Lachlan with a lukewarm smile in greeting, then says, ‘Would you make me a tea, darlin’? We can take it out on the porch. I know my son won’t be here long.’
Lachlan clutches his coffee, the cheap smack of granules wafting up with the steam. His mother sits on the porch swing, gazing at the trees and wildlife, a little sunshine peeking through the chilly sky. ‘Why are you here?’
‘To see you, Ma. No one told me you’re in remission.’
She shakes her head, lips pursed. ‘You didn’t ask. I told them all to wait until you asked, but I knew you wouldn’t. Am I supposed to wither and die because that’s easier for you? Hmm?’
‘No, Ma. I’m happy you’re doing better,’ he says, oddly defensive. She could always turn the tables so fast. ‘Sorry I haven’t called more.’
‘How’s that little girl?’
Lachlan resists the urge to rub the tattoo. He misses her.
‘She’s doing well.’
‘You should stay away from her, Lachlan,’ she warns, sipping her tea.
‘I don’t doubt how good you are at this job.
I’ve always seen the… potential in you for that,’ she allows, the word wrapped in paper-thin distaste because not even Jocelyn Tanner is bold enough to call him out when it’s his “potential” that’s paying for everything.
‘But that little girl deserves to live a long, happy life.’
‘I’m her bodyguard.’ Lachlan swallows thickly, eyes stinging. ‘I know what I am, but I’d die to keep her safe.’
‘Hm,’ she huffs, like she wanted to say something else and bit it back out of kindness. ‘Well, regardless. Remember your area of expertise.’
‘And what is my area of expertise, Ma?’
‘Killing,’ she says boldly, no hesitation. ‘You’re a killer. You always were.’
A strange sense of violent injustice is cracking beneath the stone walls of his interior confinement, and Lachlan has never wanted to tell her the truth more than now. ‘You don’t even know what happened.’
‘I don’t need to. Your father wasn’t a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a good man, a decent man.’
The stone is melting. Lava is pouring.
Lachlan’s ears are ringing.
Killer. He’s a killer.
Stone cold, not magma hot.
He’s a killer because killers cannot be touched or hurt.
Killers survive.
‘And you ended him in cold blood. My husband died at your hands. So yes, I know exactly what you are, Lachlan. I always have. Your expertise is death. Even when you were little, the crows used to find you. They’d always find you.’
Lachlan’s hands aren’t shaking because he doesn’t get tremors, they were shocked out of him years back, but he is unmoored by the heat of his anger, so much so it makes him want to fling the ugly truth at her just to break her heart in ways medicine can’t fix.
But she wouldn’t believe him anyway.
Lachlan shouldn’t have come.
He rises to stand, sets down the cheap coffee, untouched.
‘I’m glad you’re doing better, Ma,’ he says, walking away.
It’s the last time he’ll see her alive.
?
He returns to the Estate in a bad frame of mind.
The sun has broken through the clouds. A gleaming bright winter’s day on the outskirts of Varrow City. He strides right back into command, and finds Mimi and Jules playing in her bedroom, arranging dominoes. As soon as he comes inside, Mimi runs to him, flings her arms around his neck. ‘Daddy!’
Lachlan catches her, hugs her close, turning on the spot.
‘Hi, princess,’ he whispers, kissing her cheek.
Lachlan knows now that he’ll die here. He can feel it, but he’s determined to die in service of getting these kids free. He’s not a good man, but he can do something good. That would be good. It will be.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ he tells her, nodding at Jules to follow. ‘Come on, grab Mari, we’re going to need him.’
‘Where did you go?’ Jules asks. ‘You look ill.’
‘You’re coming too. Put a jacket on,’ Lachlan orders.
Mimi, of course, has no jackets or coats.
He can’t believe he never saw it before.
She does, however, have several of those big dolls, the ones that stand almost as tall as her.
So he strips one of a showy faux fur coat and pulls it onto Mimi.
‘You need to wear this, babygirl, because it’s cold outside, OK? ’
Her eyes widen and Jules softly gasps. ‘Really?’
Almost immediately, his rig frequency bursts to life. It’s Fenwick.
Lachlan ignores it, picks Mimi up and bids Jules to follow.
‘Come on,’ he says, leading them down. ‘We’re going to see the lake.’
‘Outside?’ Mimi asks, playing with his rig in his ear, the wire that leads to his chest. ‘Is outside bad?’
‘No, it’s beautiful,’ he tells her firmly. ‘You’ll love it.’
Jules hurries to keep pace. ‘Did you get permission? Did you—?’
‘Stop right there,’ Fenwick orders, stepping swiftly in front of the doors that lead out to the grounds. Doors Lachlan will be crossing through. ‘Let’s have a chat, shall we, Tanner? You and me.’
‘Get out of my way,’ Lachlan says calmly. ‘Now.’
‘Tanner, you cannot—’
Lachlan pulls his gun out and swings it into perfect aim. ‘The children are mine to manage,’ he says. ‘And if this child is to be exposed to all kinds of new people, she needs air and germs, understand? Do you want the child of Alistair Penhalyx to seem malnourished? Sunless?’
Mimi looks between Fenwick and the gun and giggles.
‘Bang bang,’ she whispers and Lachlan will never again be able to untangle the instinct he is now possessed by. That this little creature is his daughter and always will be. ‘Make the mean man go fall down ouchie, bang bang! I wanna see my waterballs!’
‘Waterfall, sweetheart,’ he corrects calmly. ‘Fenwick, I’m counting to three and then I’ll field your replacement next week.’
‘Tanner, I’m begging you.’
‘One.’
‘Please, I will advocate with you to Penhalyx, just—’
‘Two.’
‘Bang bang, Daddy, bang bang!’
‘Please don’t do this!’
‘Three.’
Fenwick steps aside with barely a fraction of a second to spare.
Lachlan kicks the doors open and carries his little girl out into the sunshine.
She squeals with delight, waving at the sun.
Five seconds later she’s rubbing at her nose as it starts running, followed by an adorable sneeze, but the first time he sets her down on grass…
oh, that’s worth whatever hell the old man throws at Lachlan.
Her little face. The wonder. The way she touches it.
‘This grass?’
‘Yeah, baby. Grass.’
‘’S prickldy.’
‘Prickly, yeah.’
Jules seems worried, glancing back at the Estate to see if anyone followed but it’s only Blaire who comes out.
Jules, perhaps sensing that of the two, Blaire is the more down-to-earth, seems to relax when she joins them instead of telling them to go back inside.
Lachlan, who is most definitely going to die here before his contract is up, dares her to do a cartwheel.
Blaire laughs, but kicks up into a near perfect one, hands on the flawlessly lush, short grass and Mimi applauds, tries to do the same which is nothing but hands on the ground, legs kicking up one at a time.
Jules cheers her on and actually manages a half-decent roundoff himself.
‘Daddy do one, Daddy do one!’ the little girl yells, too happy to remember their arrangement, and Lachlan doesn’t correct her.
He wants her to have this, wants it to strengthen her, Jules too.
He wants them to remember that there was someone who advocated for them no matter the consequences, even if only for sunshine and grass.
‘OK, prepare to be so jealous,’ Lachlan crows and then throws himself into an atrocious attempt, purposefully landing on his ass. It makes them all laugh, and that memory will carry him through every second of what comes next.
?
Penhalyx arrives the next day with his entourage, clearly unhappy.
When asked, Lachlan stands firm that if Mimi is to be introduced to new people, she needs fresh air for her immune system and he was thinking ahead for the party, how best Alistair’s children might perform for him.
Lachlan politely reminds the old man that he was never told explicitly not to take Jessamine outside, nor was it in his contract, therefore he technically didn’t break any rules.
Fenwick forbade it, yes, but Lachlan’s authority was established before.
‘Did it ever occur to you that there was a reason for this restriction?’
‘No, sir. I wasn’t told—’
‘Believe me, if I told you everything about my children, it would take weeks,’ the old man snaps for the first time, his patience visibly frayed. ‘You meant well, I understand that, but the situation cannot pass without consequence.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You’ll be given thirty strikes delivered by Fenwick with any implement he chooses.’ The old man looks at Fenwick, standing on Lachlan’s left. ‘My only condition is that the strikes must draw blood.’
Fenwick says, ‘Heard.’
Lachlan stares ahead blindly. Soldier stare.
Penhalyx moves closer. ‘And my children,’ he utters, ‘will watch.’
?
Lachlan is strapped across a bench in the training room, shirtless, face down, but once Fenwick takes position behind him, he looks up and winks at Mimi, her face tearful and blotchy.
Jules is so very pale. He’s holding Mimi tight.
Blaire stands behind them both.
Lachlan doesn’t brace; knows there’s no point.
Fenwick wanted revenge.
He chose a long strip of laminar alloy taken from the ballistic drapery. It’s a nasty crop of near-liquid metal that’ll bite much deeper than any whip, belt or cane. Lachlan hears it swishing on the floor like the tail of an impatient dragon. Alistair stands across from his children.