Chapter 14 #2
I wrapped my arms around his waist, my throat aching. We stood for a long time before I could force the ragged words out.
“I don’t want to kill anyone .”
“I know,” he said without hesitation, squeezing me tighter. “That’s why you’re not a murderer, Bones.”
“You can call me ‘Em’ if you want.”
He pulled back enough to look at me. “You sure?”
I nodded.
“Alright, Em,” he said with a smile.
A couple of minutes later, Mac came running up the path, his eyes flashing with a familiar fury. His voice was curt in my head as he demanded to know if I was okay. I gave him the same answer I gave Griz, and he looked angrier. He paused in front of us.
“You good?” he asked Griz, who nodded.
Mac stormed into the clinic. Nemo and several of his men joined shortly after.
It was growing dark now, the last orange and purple glow disappearing behind the mountains.
It wasn’t long before Wolf and his entire crew appeared.
Wolf stopped in front of me, his face serious, and I was acutely aware he knew someone had written “MURDERER” on my wall.
“I’ve been speaking with Nemo,” Wolf said.
My stomach flipped, and my fingers fiddled with my shirt collar, pulling it tighter.
“We’ve worked out a deal that me and my crew will stay here for two months workin’ as security, but the terms are you have to stay at the clinic with us, and you gotta talk to me so we can…figure this out. Deal?”
I honestly wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or not. “I can’t go in there if it…if it smells like that,” I said.
“Smells like what?” Wolf asked.
“Like Madame,” Griz answered when I didn’t say anything.
Wolf gave Lee a sharp look, and I wondered why Lee had left that part out. “What do you mean smells like Madame?” he asked.
“She used this soap that was real strong smellin’,” Griz explained. “Whoever did this broke a whole fuckin’ bottle of the scent in there.” He looked at me. “You can spend another night at Nemo’s while we air the clinic out.”
Wolf’s crew exchanged looks like they were having a silent conversation before Wolf turned back to me. “I don’t want you to be alone.”
My brow furrowed.
“Somebody vandalized your clinic in a personal attack.” He gave me a familiar, exasperated look.
“She won’t be alone,” Griz said.
Wolf frowned, his eyes narrowing on Griz, but Griz had already turned back to me.
“You ready to head over there?” Griz asked.
“Wait,” Wolf interrupted, stepping into my space. “I want to hear you agree to the terms of our deal.”
The angry words about where exactly he could shove his fucking deal almost escaped my mouth, but I managed to hold them in. “Deal,” I muttered. It wasn’t like I had an actual choice.
My brother’s eyes narrowed, almost like he knew what I hadn’t said. “I always keep my end of the bargain, Ember. I expect you to do the same.”
I turned and walked away to avoid saying something I’d regret, and Griz followed my lead.
I drew in slow and steady breaths, and I’d cooled my temper a bit by the time we reached Nemo’s house.
Nemo’s guards greeted us quietly. I recognized several of them as guards who found me in Madame’s cell, and I couldn’t tell if they seemed uncomfortable around me or if I was imagining it.
“Are you staying?” I asked as we climbed the stairs.
“Yep,” he replied, and part of me relaxed.
Griz pulled a folded cot out from behind the bed and set it up in front of the door. Once we were both in bed and the light flicked off, my brain seemed to come alive.
MURDERER.
I swallowed hard and rolled over onto my stomach, trying to think of anything else, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw blood—the gaping hole in the side of Trey’s head, Madame’s neck, the knife in Juck’s chest. I flopped into several different positions, but I couldn’t get my brain to shut off.
“Griz?” I whispered.
“Yeah?” he answered immediately.
“Do you have any family here?”
“Not anymore, why?”
“I was just wonderin’.”
“That why you’re tossin’ and turnin’ over there?” I could hear his smile. “Cause you’re wonderin’ about my family?”
“No,” I muttered. “Just tryin’ to…to not think.”
“Ah,” he said more gently. “You want to hear about ’em?”
“Yeah,” I whispered, relieved.
“My grandma raised me. My dad died before I was born, and my mom died when I was two in a farming accident. I don’t remember much about her, but I guess she loved to sing.
” He huffed a quiet laugh. “She was always singin’, but nobody minded ’cause she was real good at it.
I guess she used to sing when she was out workin’ in the fields, and even the animals would get quiet like they were listening, too. ”
“Do you sing?” I asked.
He laughed. “No, I didn’t inherit that trait, I guess.
My grandma was a farmer, too, when she was able.
She started losing her sight when I was about six.
By the time I was ten, I was takin’ care of her more than the other way around.
I actually liked it, takin’ care of her, but she wanted me to go be somethin’ more than her caretaker or a farmer. ”
I remembered all the times Griz nursed me back to health; no wonder he was so good at it.
“My grandma wanted me to get into the guards. I didn’t really want to, but I realized if I worked my way up, I could provide her with an easier life in her final years.
When I started training, I bunked with three other kids.
Two wouldn’t stop talking, and one never said a word. Bet you’ll never guess who they were.”
“Trey, Sam, and Mac?”
“Yep. While I was in training, my grandma’s heart gave out, and she passed. I took it real hard. I felt so guilty I hadn’t been there. I think that’s about when Trey decided we were all gonna be a family since none of us had any.”
I felt another stab of guilt that I hadn’t bothered to learn anything about them until now. “What about Raven? And…Lana and Exo?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “Lana was Raven’s roommate. She didn’t want to join the guards, but Exo was her only family left, and she was terrified of being separated from him. They were both Rusters, and her options were real limited. Her choice was to join the guards or join the brothel.”
I winced.
“She wasn’t cut out to be a fighter, and she was at the very bottom of the pecking order until Raven broke down and took Lana under her wing.
But even with Raven’s help, she was barely passing and still got beat up pretty regularly.
Exo would lose his shit when she got beat up and was obsessed with avenging her, but he was a pretty scrawny kid and always went in way too hot and ended up getting the shit kicked out of him, too.
So she stopped telling him about it to try and keep him from gettin’ involved and hurt. ”
“Gods,” I muttered under my breath, and he paused.
“That sorta thing is encouraged…or was, I guess. The trainers never intervened ?cause they said it was nature’s way of weedin’ out the weak.
Not many people got kicked outta training, but plenty of ’em quit or died.
Things with Lana escalated pretty bad, but she refused to quit ?cause she wanted to be with her brother.
Our second year, Mac caught some of the other trainees practically torturing Lana, and he beat the shit out of ’em and told ’em Lana was under his protection from then on.
That earned Raven’s respect, and I’d known her and Exo from when we were kids, so they just naturally merged with the rest of us. ”
I lay silently, Lana’s red-rimmed eyes full of hatred lingering in my memory.
“Lana was a…complicated person,” Griz continued quietly.
“She’d been hurt her whole life, and Exo was the only one who tried to protect her before she met us.
I dunno what she needed, but I think it was more than we could give her.
She got stronger physically but always seemed…
on the edge of somethin’ . Mac and I had a whole conversation a few years ago about what would happen if Exo died.
” He sighed. “I was afraid she’d snap and hurt herself.
I never would’ve guessed she’d hurt someone else. ”
I didn’t want to feel sympathy for Lana. I still had nightmares about Dale and Pike, but the ache in my chest couldn’t be ignored. I knew far too well what layers and layers of pain could do to a person.
“I cared for Lana, but when she asked me to intervene in bein’ exiled, I told her I wouldn’t. Raven told her the same thing. I guess we all kinda took a step back and really looked at her and saw how she used her pain as a weapon. Not just toward you, but toward everyone.”
The pain in his voice was easy to hear, and guilt clogged my throat. “I’m sorry?—”
“No, Em,” he interrupted firmly. “None of this was your fault.”
I stared at the firelight flickering on the ceiling and worried my bottom lip between my teeth. Lana and I seemed more similar than I’d thought.
“I can hear you thinkin’ from here.”
I huffed.
“What are you thinkin’ about?”
“Just…Lana and I… we’re not that different?—”
“Yes, you are,” he interrupted again. “You’re practically opposites.”
“But—”
“Em, gettin’ to know you is what helped me see the kinda person Lana had become.
Sure, you both had a lot of hurt, but Lana wielded her hurt, and she was good at manipulating people with it.
She thought the world and everybody in it owed her ?cause of what she’d been put through. And then there’s you.”
The fondness in his voice made my eyes well up.
“You acted like you owed the world every piece of you. And I’m not sayin’ that’s a good thing, ’cause it’s not, but your natural inclination was to give and give while Lana’s was to take and take.”
“I used my pain as a weapon—” I argued, my voice wobbling.
“No, I think you used your pain as a shield,” Griz corrected. “I’m not sayin’ you haven’t done anything wrong or that you haven’t hurt people, too, but at the root of it, the two of you are day and night.”
A tear trickled down my face and into my ear.
“She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done,” he added. “She was angry because she felt like we’d picked you over her. She kept actin’ like she’d done nothing wrong, and when we’d remind her, she just brushed it aside.”
After a short silence, Griz started telling another story about his grandma, and eventually, his low, soothing voice lulled me to sleep.