Chapter Fifteen. Eshe #2
“I’m not asking you to protect me. H is my friend—no, he’s family.
I’m not sitting my ass at home while you go into that place.
Alone, too? Nope, that’s not how this is going down.
Either we can go together and work on a plan on how we’re going to save H and you, or I can find a way in there on my own.
But I think our chances of everyone surviving would be higher if we work together.
” He flinches when I glance at him, but he doesn’t back down.
“And technically, it’s not an ambush because there’s no element of surprise and all parties are expecting each other. ”
“How the Huntsman hasn’t drowned you in the nearest puddle speaks a lot about that man’s level of self-control,” I growl with more frustration than anger.
Thrusting a hand through my curls, I steer the car out onto the street and try to reason with a goddamn teenager again.
“Look, the last thing H would want is you in harm’s way.
Since he’s not here to protect you, that shit falls to me, and I—”
“No offense—and I really mean that because I bet you know fifty-seven different ways to kill a person and dispose of the body. Did you know there’s a whole dark web chat dedicated just to you?
No?” he babbles, and if we weren’t discussing his stubbornness in the face of Malachi’s, my, and his impending deaths, I’d find it adorable and amusing …
And that chat flattering. “Anyway, no offense, but there’s nothing you can say that’s going to change my mind.
I’m in this with or without you. He’s done too much for me and my moms. Ain’t no way his life is on the line and I’m not helping to save it when he’s saved mine. ”
The passion in his voice convinces me there’s no point in trying to argue with him. And shit, I got respect for the loyalty he has for Malachi. It only goes to prove what kind of man he is to inspire that kind of devotion. The man I see Malachi as, but he isn’t able to. Refuses to see.
“Fine.” I shoot him a hard glance. “But you follow my every order. If I tell you to jump, you—”
“Ask how high. Got it.”
“Nah, mu’fucka. You get that ass in the air and stay there until I tell you to come down.”
“Wow. Okay. I think the laws of gravity might have a say in that, but I get your point.”
“Good.”
Possible plans of action whirl through my head, and I discard every one of them.
If it were just me, I wouldn’t give two fucks about the risk, but with Jamari in my care, moving more cautiously is a must. It’s not just my conscience I have to wrestle with—especially since that would be a really short match considering I don’t have much of a conscience—but he belongs to Malachi.
So he’s precious cargo. Which means he’s now mine, too.
“Where’re we going?” he asks, breaking into my thoughts.
“Someplace safe where we can figure out a plan to get our boy back.” I don’t mention we still have a Terminator on our asses.
“Cool.” Pause. Then: “Are you going to call your Seven to meet us wherever ‘someplace safe’ is?”
I frown. “How do you— Know what? Never mind. No.” I shake my head. “It’s bad enough you’re involved in this suicide mission; I’m not dragging them into it, too. This is my mess, and it’s not their responsibility to clean it up.”
“Are you serious?”
I slow the Camaro to a stop at a red light and glance at Jamari. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
He mugs me and turns to the window, giving me the back of his head. Then, a few moments later, after the light changes and I pull off, he coughs.
“Permission to speak without the risk of you blowing my head off?”
I snort. “Yeah, kid.”
Though he is causing my trigger finger to itch. He’s a mouthy li’l shit.
“I don’t doubt you love your girls, but you’re being selfish as fuck.”
My foot slams on the brake, causing both of us to jerk forward.
My seat belt stretches taut across my chest and horns from other cars blast at me, but I don’t give a fuck about none of that.
My attention is solely fixed on the teen sitting next to me.
The teen who’s 3.3 seconds from me kicking his disrespectful ass outta the car into moving traffic.
“You care to repeat that?” I calmly ask.
With his eyes wide, the white nearly swallowing the dark brown irises, he shoots a look behind us, but I shake my head.
“They can move the fuck around. I asked you a question. You want to repeat that?”
He swallows. Hard. And nods.
I gradually ease my foot off the brake and move forward because, right now, I’m not in the position to draw attention to myself. But sixteen or not, this kid can get it.
“I said”—he swallows again but pushes on, and I swear, despite me wanting to drop-kick him in his throat, he earns even more begrudging respect from me—“I don’t doubt you have mad love for your girls, but you’re being selfish by not letting them know what’s going on so they can help you.”
I chuckle, and out the corner of my eyes, I don’t miss him recoil.
“I’m just saying,” he blurts, “you would willingly lay down your life for them with no hesitation or questions, but you’re not allowing them the opportunity to do the same for you.
You’re not even giving them the choice to do it.
And that’s what’s selfish and a little bit arrogant, if I’m being honest, because you’re making it for them like they’re not grown women fully capable of deciding whether they want to stand by you or not.
And we both know they would. And that’s probably why you won’t ask.
I get it though. It’s why H pushed me away in the beginning and refused to let me help him.
But he couldn’t get rid of me. You have your own crew willing and ready to have your back.
Not only will they be pissed if they find out you went into this shitshow without them, but imagine how they’ll feel knowing they could’ve been there for you and weren’t.
They’ll never forgive themselves. Or you.
I’m just saying, Eshe. Use them. That’s what they’re there for, and they want to be. ”
Shit.
I blow out a breath. “You sure you’re sixteen?” I mumble.
He grins. “I’m fucking wise beyond my years. I keep telling H that.”
“A’ight, Samwise the Brave. Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam.”
“Yoooo!” Jamari holds a fist up to his smiling mouth. “You get it, too, right? Right?”
I laugh, shaking my head.
An hour and a half and several phone calls later, I turn down the isolated road in the New Hampshire woods.
The look of awe on Jamari’s face is a little comical and a lot sweet.
It’s obvious he’s an urban kid who hasn’t been out of Boston’s concrete jungle.
I can just imagine how the isolated beauty of the thick, towering trees lining the single-lane street like sleeping giants would appear to him, even in the dark. Especially in the dark.
“Holy shit,” he breathes when the cottage comes into view. “It’s like a fucking fairy tale.”
He’s not wrong. It’s one of the reasons I love it. Not just its incongruity to this world but to me.
“It was my mother’s,” I explain to him because … Yeah, I don’t know why.
“It’s cool,” he says, sounding years younger than his age. But then he leans forward, chin almost touching the dashboard. “Huh. Do you think one of your Seven beat us here? Because whose car is that?”
I was so focused on the cottage and his reaction to it that I didn’t even notice the black Charger parked just in front of the garage. My heart slows and so does my pulse. Everything snaps into crystal clarity, and I decelerate, bringing the car to a stop several yards away from the front door.
“Wait here,” I order, grabbing my Glock from the center console and turning off the interior light.
I don’t wait to see if he complies but open my door just wide enough to slip out and, crouching, creep toward the strange car.
Pressing my back to the rear panel, I sneak a look inside and see that the vehicle is empty.
Anger flares to life behind my sternum, and I direct my narrowed glare toward the cottage.
I know the fuck not someone didn’t break into my place.
My mother’s place. The sense of violation, of wrongness, scalds me, dirties me.
I hope they enjoyed those fingers they used to get inside, because they won’t have them for much longer.
Just as I straighten and head for the back of the cottage, the front door cracks open and a tall, slender figure steps out onto the porch. I halt, lifting my gun …
The porch light flicks on.
“Who the fuck are you?”