Chapter 8
Ethan
“Flint,” I spoke, barely constraining the frustration evident in my voice, “she doesn’t even understand what it means to be a ware yet.
You can’t expect her to understand the danger of a pack like the Tupilaqs if she’s never experienced one before.
You shouldn’t have offered to check into her family before you spoke with me about it first.”
Flint’s chin stubbornly rose into the air an inch. “She deserves to know where she comes from, Ethan. We all do.”
That statement hit home, just as my brother had intended it to.
We, in our own ways, were all lost souls.
Flint, perhaps, most of all. Despite what he’d said about not remembering his parents, and not looking for them, I suspected differently.
I thought part of why he’d gone into the military, and intelligence work in particular, was to look for his parents.
The people he claimed not to need or want but had always been secretly searching for.
“I know she deserves that information, Flint, and I’ll do everything in my power to see that she gets it. But it needs to happen at the right time,” I clarified. “Now isn’t that time.”
Taking another tack then, my brother toggled his head to the side as he stared me down hard.
“Would you wait? If it were you, Ethan, and you didn’t know who you were or where you came from, would you stand around with your thumb up your ass waiting to find out?
Or, like me, would you dive into the deep end of the pool and go looking directly for it. ”
As I’d assumed, this wasn’t about Millie. Not really.
“Flint,” I carefully began, “when’s the last time you spoke to Laurence?”
Laurence was the caretaker of Cascia House.
For over three decades, he’d acted as a father figure to all the boys who’d come in and out of there.
To many of us, including Flint, he was the only father we’d ever really known.
Whenever he was struggling, though he might not admit it to me, Flint would call Laurence and the man would walk him through whatever he was wrestling with.
I knew that because it’s what Laurence did for all of us.
The man was tireless in his efforts, and somehow managed to have time for anyone who needed him.
Flint tried to hide his flinch, but wasn’t wholly successful. “What does Laurence have to do with this?”
As always, when it came to this particular brother of mine, the anger and rage was simmering just under the surface, always ready to boil over if the right buttons, or the wrong ones, were pushed.
“When?” I pressed, not giving an inch.
Flint’s body became stiff and tight then. “Last week. And why the fuck does that matter? Are you keeping tabs on me now?”
I didn’t give in to the bait. Such deflection only led down other trivial, unimportant roads. It didn’t address any real issues. “What did he say?”
Snorting, Flint’s gaze shifted to just beyond my head like he was trying to avoid it without outright submitting. I would have hated to be this kid’s drill instructor. He could be one stubborn son-of-a-bitch when he wanted to be. Which was pretty much twenty-four seven.
“Nothing, alright. He said nothing. He had a new kid show up on his doorstep right after I called and he had to go. It’s not a big deal. He’ll get back to me another time,” Flint dismissed.
It was a big deal. I could tell by the iron set of his jaw and the rigidity of his posture. To my brother, this was the biggest deal there was. And he was completely justified in feeling the way he did.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? You wanted answers about your parents, and he had none to give you.
That’s why you showed up here this weekend.
You were ready to start looking for them and you wanted my help.
But instead of my help, you got turned away again because another person showed up on my doorstep who needed me instead. ”
Two in fact. First Gavin, now Millie. Both needed my attention and time when Flint had only wanted a small piece of it. A piece he’d assumed I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give him. But he’d been wrong. Like Laurence, I’d always have time for him. Always.
Flint’s jaw ticked with unspent shame and rage. “Don’t quit your day job, Ethan. You’re shit at being a therapist.”
While I didn’t disagree about being a shit therapist, I didn’t agree with why he’d said it. Because Flint, as was his way, was deflecting from the main issue: his feelings. Something he seemed to resent having altogether.
“I’m not quitting my job any time soon,” I promised him with a wry smile, “but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
A blanket of silence settled between us as we each searched the other’s blank expressions for answers.
“I can’t find them, Ethan,” Flint finally confessed, as his shoulders sank several inches at his sides. “I’ve been searching for nearly a year now, every day, and there’s no trace of them. It’s like they never even existed. Like I was just born into this world from ghosts.”
That admission pained my heart so deeply I damn near felt it in my bones. “Do you remember what they looked like?” I posed, trying to add something to this discussion, other than sympathy.
Flint shrugged. “Not much. I’m not even sure if what I do remember was real or imagined. I was only three when they abandoned me, and I can’t exactly trust the memory of a three-year-old.”
“Most three-year-olds, no,” I said. “But you? I’d take that information to the bank any day of the week.”
Flint cracked a brief smile. “She had dark hair. Down to her waist,” he reminisced then.
“And the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Pale as a blue-bird’s egg.
My dad, he was tall. And big. That’s all I remember about the fucker.
Him with his broad back turned to me as he walked away.
Figures, right? Clearly that’s what the man did best. Walk away. ”
My heart gave another painful twist before I reached out and placed a reassuring hand on my brother’s shoulder. “We’ll start there. With your mother. If you remember her eyes, someone else will, too. I know it.”
“I’ve used every resource I know, Ethan. Spent months combing through the towns surrounding Wompinoque. It’s a dead end,” Flint spoke defeatedly.
“Then we’ll find new sources. Look in other towns,” I reassured him, before I heard frantic shouting from upstairs.
Millie was desperately calling my name. The moment I heard her panicked cry I started running, and when I saw her terrified face, I demanded, “What’s wrong?”
Tossing me her phone, I caught it in midair. “Read it!” She demanded, so flustered she could barely get the words out.
My eyes darted over the last several messages. With each word I read, I became increasingly more enraged. As soon as I’d finished, I shoved the cell into Flint’s waiting hands and pulled Millie into the warm circle of my arms.
“He’s lying,” I soothed, as my gaze flicked up to meet Flint’s.
Handing me the phone after reading the disturbing thread, Flint said, “I agree, Millie. The creep is just trying to upset you. It’s nothing more than a bluff.”
Millie furiously shook her head. Her voice muffled by my chest when she said, “He’s not bluffing. I saw him.”
“What?” I drew her back so I could see her tear-stained face then. “What do you mean you saw him? Where?”
“In the woods,” she stammered. “He flicked a light on and off three times to let me know he was there.”
“He told you he was going to do that?” I said, quickly scanning the texts again to see what I’d missed.
“No,” she explained, nervously tucking her loose, dark hair behind her ear. “But I know it was him. He did it right after he told me he was there and I looked out the window. That can’t be a coincidence.”
I glanced at Flint then, looking for his input.
“Where in the woods?” My brother queried, all business now despite what we’d been talking about earlier.
Millie fairly exploded out of her skin. “You can’t go out there! That insane man could be waiting in ambush for you.”
Flint chuckled. “Babe, that’s adorable. But I’m not afraid of some loser diddling himself in the woods. I’ll be fine. However, I’m really liking this newfound concern you have for me. I think I might actually be growing on you.”
“Yeah, like a fungus,” Millie quipped back. “I just don’t want your death on my hands, is all.”
I had to bite back a smile at my girl’s sass. “Flint isn’t going to die, Millie. He’s a former marine, a mercenary, and a tracker by trade and by natural design. If there’s someone out there, he’ll find him.”
“Yup,” Flint smugly agreed. “I’m the perfect male specimen. A marine and a ware!”
“Perfect or not,” Millie said, revealing her concern, though she was trying hard not to, “a well-placed bullet can still kill you.”
“Not if mine finds him first,” Flint returned as he drew and cocked his gun. “Besides, I’m confident that mine is bigger than his.”
Millie rolled her eyes. “Really, Flint? A dick joke at a time like this?”
“Have you learned nothing about men, babe? There’s always time for a well-timed dick joke.”
Not liking where this was going, I decided to step in.
“Flint, go comb the woods for any possible threats. I have to make a few calls. Based on what this mystery person said, they know who Millie is and that she’s been staying here.
We’re going to need some back up just to make sure there’s always someone watching the house, and Millie, at all times.
That’s a twenty-four-hour job that will require all hands-on deck. ”
Flint snagged the phone out of my hands. “Speaking of which, the loser might be tracking Milie through her cell. As far as I’m concerned, this thing is toast.”
“How could he do that?” Millie posed in utter disbelief. “I don’t even know who this asshole is. There’s no way he could have possibly gotten ahold of my phone in the last few hours to set a tracker on it. I don’t care how smart or fast he is.”