42. Sebastion
SEBASTION
TIME TO COLLECT
Almost exactly four hours after Lincoln called and told me they were on the move, I wait outside the regional airport servicing a town that isn’t much larger than three dozen Denver residential blocks pushed together.
I lean against the hood of my truck with my ankles crossed and my phone in hand, but although it buzzes with updates from Mav, it remains completely Scarlett-free.
Because she’s pissed. Which is basically our default setting.
Forty feet from where I’m parked, the airport’s electric front doors whir open with the newest flux of passengers from the last flight that touched down, and though Linc and Nova aren’t among the first out the door, they sure as shit come out near the back of the pack, Linc’s arm thrown over Nova’s shoulder, his free hand weighed down by two suitcases and a duffel bag.
Nova’s eyes scan the world ahead of her, but Linc doesn’t need nearly as long. His focus narrows and locks onto me, so with a dip of his chin, he leads her this way and says something to her I’ll never know.
His lips move, but they’re too far away for me to hear.
“Hey, dickhead.” The instant they’re close enough, Linc drops his bags at my feet and peeks through my tinted windows. “You didn’t think to bring my sister with you?”
“No.”
Scowling, he releases Nova and grabs the suitcases instead, whipping them into the bed of my truck so they land with a crunch that I know for sure would make Princess Scarlett cranky.
“No clue why you didn’t. I’m not here to see your ugly face, and let’s not pretend she hasn’t already told me about your homicidal fuckin’ mother.
” He tosses the duffel bag in last, then turns back and hits me with a glare.
“What? You thought we could bro-bond while she’s forced to stay someplace she doesn’t wanna be, with people she doesn’t wanna be with? ”
Pretty much.
Before I can tell him to fuck himself, Nova steps closer and surprises me with a squeezing hug. I didn’t realize this was something we do. Like she’s my baby sister, though I don’t have any of those. Like I’m her friend, and not the annoying, abusive house guest she couldn’t wait to get rid of.
Glancing down in stunned silence, I study her smiling face and feel something release in my chest. It’s relief. It’s happiness at seeing her. And though I wish I could claim I’m simply relieved to have my code keeper back, I think the truth is I’m happy to see her. Alive and well. Safe and happy.
I guess I’d be kinda sad if she up and died.
“Ah… hello?”
She slaps my chest and circles away again with a laugh on her breath. Shaking her head, she moves to the back door and gestures toward a silent, glowering Linc. “Get in. Do the bro-bonding thing. I wanna see Scarlett.”
“Wait. You actually wanna bond?” Sour-faced, Linc moves in behind Nova and helps her into my too-high truck.
He waits for her to settle into the back seat and fix her seatbelt, then he closes the door and burns me with a sneer.
“I already know too fuckin’ much. I don’t wanna bond, I don’t wanna hear about you and my sister sharing a bed, and I sure as fuck don’t wanna deal with her bad mood if your bonding annoys me so much I end up shooting you in the face.
” He rips the passenger door open and climbs up.
“Get in, Jameson. Drive. Take me to my sister. Do not kiss her when I’m in the same zip code. ”
Snickering in the back while I come around the front of my truck, Nova leans forward and taps her man’s shoulder. Something about stop being mean. And Scarlett’s a grown woman. Relax.
Dragging my door open and climbing into my seat, I start the engine and ignore Lincoln’s beady-eyed stare burning the side of my face.
“What happened with Mills?”
“He wasn’t there,” Nova answers, since Linc’s busy stewing over his sister having a sex life.
“And when we tried to call him, he didn’t answer.
Feels a bit like the relationship has deteriorated, so when he went radio silent, Lincoln figured it was time to come back to Scarlett instead of chasing a cop in circles. ”
“So we still don’t know for sure he’s our guy?” I set my phone into the cradle that connects it to the stereo system, then yanking on my seatbelt, I close my door and release the brake. “We suspect, and we have pretty decent evidence pointing his way. But we don’t actually know?”
“That’s basically the gist of what’s happening.” Furious and unable to hold it in any longer, Lincoln turns in his seat and glares. “I told you to leave my sister the fuck alone.”
We’re doing this? Alright, let’s go.
“I’m in love with your sister. I’m keeping her for as long as she’ll keep me.
I’m not asking for your approval. I don’t give a fuck if you like me.
” I pull away from the airport’s small parking lot and onto the road, so when my phone finally connects to the car and music plays through the speakers, I glance across and meet his stare.
“But I know you care about her happiness, which means we need to talk before we get back.”
He barks out an incredulous laugh, throwing his head back so his chest and shoulders bounce.
“You wanna talk?” Bringing his eyes back down again, fierce and not at all dancing with laughter, he sneers.
“Let’s talk. My sister is too fuckin’ good for you, she’s too delicate for you, and she’s terrified to her bones of your viper mother, which means all that love hoo-rah you wanna waffle on about doesn’t mean shit, since Scarlett will want to be liked by the woman who birthed you.
Every time Arabella shoots daggers of rejection at my sister, Scarlett’s soul will die a little more.
Eventually, she’ll just be a body moving through the steps of life, but she’ll be void of her heart and soul and all the things that make her good and whole.
” His nostrils flare and his jaw flexes with the rage he barely tries to conceal.
“Are we done now? I feel like we covered everything, so take me to my sister, then I’m taking her away so you and your family can’t hurt her anymore. ”
“I feel like she’s already dying.” I catch his swinging hand, so easily predictable of the brother who lacks emotional regulation when Scarlett is the topic of conversation.
“She’s sad,” I admit bitterly, tossing his arm away.
“She’s defeated and shy and isolating herself.
She wants to be happy about what we could be, but every time I leave her alone for more than twenty minutes, she peels back another protective layer from her mental health and fucks herself over. ”
“All the more reason for me to remove her from your life. Good work, soldier. You kept her alive when I said to keep her alive. But I’ve got it from here.”
“You take her from me, and—”
“And what?” he bites out. “What, Tank? You’ll slit my throat? Cool. Heard that one before. You’ll kill me? Heard that one, too. I think I’ll risk it.”
“No, stupid. If you take her away, you’ll be the reason she loses another layer.
” I wrap both hands around the steering wheel and squeeze until my knuckles turn white.
“She can be happy with me, Castro. When it’s me and her and the world leaves us the fuck alone, she’s happy.
But you’re right about my mom.” And fuck, it burns me to admit it.
“You’re right about her wanting Arabella’s approval. My mom is scared, too.”
He scoffs.
“She’s a bit like you,” I push on. “Protective and unkind when her family is threatened.”
“My sister is not a threat to your family! I’m not a threat.
Nova is not a threat. Jesus! No one actually gives a fuck about where your mom lives or how many clicks south of the Piggly Wiggly she sleeps.
You exist in this bubble where you assume the entire world is searching for this one chick who ran away from her father thirty years ago, but in reality, no one cares except you and a dead man whose flesh is already worm food.
Believe it or not, but Arabella Aster could hire out a stadium and announce to the world who she is, and chances are, not even the crickets will give a shit. ”
I check my rear-view mirror out of ingrained habit, turn at the end of a long block, and circle back toward the airport.
It’s so entrenched in the fabric of who I am, I’m not sure I could stop even if my mother started doing those stadium tours he speaks of.
“My sister doesn’t deserve whatever shit your mother threw at her these past few weeks, and since you’re taking me to her anyway, I’m about to bust three decades of protection and tell that bitch what I think of her anyway.”
“Lincoln,” Nova scolds quietly. “Stop.”
“You’re right,” I admit, though doing so tastes bad on my tongue. “My mother’s behavior hasn’t been okay. And you’re right about Scarlett, too. She didn’t deserve that.” I draw a fortifying breath and fill my chest to bursting. Then I let it out again and add, “which is why I’m walking away.”
Stunned, Nova shoves her head forward until I see her in my peripherals. “Walking away from who?”
“Arabella.” It burns. It hurts. It fucking stings.
“My home. My family. Richard’s dead,” I rasp, “and my mom is safe. My brothers will have her back, and if they don’t declare me a deserter, they might even take my calls sometimes and update me if things change.
” I study my mirrors again, turn, and continue onto the freeway.
“I’m gonna go wherever Scarlett goes.” If she’ll have me.
“I’ll be wherever she’s happiest. Because she’s the very best of us all, and she’s the only one of us who never signed up to have her soul stripped away for someone else’s war.
You and me,” I glance across at Linc, “We knew what we were getting ourselves into. Even you,” I meet Nova’s eyes in my mirror.
“Ry set you up so you could disappear into a whole new life, new name, new home. You could’ve left all this behind, but you stayed.
You walked onto the front line and drew your weapons.
Scarlett didn’t ask for any of this, and she sure as fuck doesn’t deserve it, so I’m gonna lay down my guns and take her away from the line.
I’ll protect whatever is left of her soul. ”
“But, what?” Nova whispers. “I feel a but coming on.”
“But… she needs to be able to trust me. She needs to know I’ll always tell her the truth, even if it stings a little.
Which means we need to tell her about Mills.
” I exhale a heavy sigh. “And then I need to tell her I’ve completely violated her privacy the whole time she’s been at my parents’ house.
I swore she was free to go anywhere, talk to anyone, do anything…
but I didn’t tell her she was being monitored every minute of every day.
I gave her a phone and access to you, but I didn’t explain how every word she typed and every conversation she had was available to the people she already hated. ”
“Every text?” Lincoln growls. “Every word?”
In the silence save for the song playing quietly on the radio and the thrum of my tires on the road, I drop my chin in defeat. “Yep.”
“So when she told me how your mom would have her shot in the yard?” he snarls. “Arabella read all that?”
Again, I nod.
“And the conversation she and I had about you? Where she bared her fucking heart, not only about love, but about her insecurities and fears? About junker cars and how she was terrified she was broken… you heard all that, too?”
My pulse thrums painfully in my chest. “Yep.”
“Which is basically the equivalent of tearing her diary open, reading every page, sharing those pages with the world… and now you want to tell her?”
My throat is dry. My tongue, dry. My entire fucking soul, dry. “Yes. I want to tell her.”
“You’ll break her heart!” he roars. “She was already sad and scared and lonely! Her only escape was with that fucking phone, and now you’re telling me you wanna destroy that escape too?”
“To be worthy of her trust, I have to tell her, then I have to choose her. And when we figure out the Mills stuff, I have to tell her that, too.”
“Which will also break her heart! What? You have a humiliation kink you wanna try out on her? Fuck!”
“I need to treat her like she’s not delicate.”
“She is delicate! It’s our job to shield her from heartbreak, Jameson! To shield her from pain. Not cause it. Are you stupid?”
“She needs to be treated like she’s strong,” I bite back.
“Because she is strong. She’s brave, Castro.
She’s fucking capable. But she doesn’t believe in herself because she’s never been given a chance to stand on her own two feet.
She doubts her abilities, because every time she could have tested them out, big brother Linc rode in and fixed everything for her. ”
“So you’re putting her pain on me?” He unsnaps his seatbelt and slams his hand to the door. “Pull over. Let’s discuss this the way we’re meant to.”
“I’m not putting any damn thing on you.” And I definitely don’t stop the fucking truck.
“I’m just saying her worst regrets are not the men she’s dated, or the situations she’s landed herself in.
They’re not the breakups she’s experienced, or the arguments she’s had, or the tears she’s cried.
She regrets all the times she knew how to stand up for herself, but didn’t.
Because freezing makes her feel weak. It makes her feel unprepared and, worse, incapable.
You’ve given her all the tools, Castro. Taught her all the things.
But you never took the training wheels off, and now, when she wants so badly to ride on her own, she’s scared she can’t do it.
” I tap the steering wheel with the tips of my fingers and meet his seething expression.
“She deserves to know she can take care of herself. She deserves to feel safe always, not just when you’re standing over her shoulder.
And she deserves the fucking truth, even if it’ll end with a bullet between my eyes. ”