Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Helia managed to bully the hospital staff into letting her go earlier than they’d like. It helped when Collin mentioned that one of his brothers was a field-trained expert medic who would keep an eye on her. Still, they hadn’t been happy. Not that she cared.
Other than the fatigue, she felt fine. She hadn’t fallen and hit her head or bruised or banged any other part of her body.
Collin had seen to that. But the exhaustion…
she’d never felt anything like it. It was as if a hundred-pound weight pressed in on her from the top while every muscle fiber simultaneously grew roots into the ground, pulling her down.
And breathing? Intellectually, she knew her body wouldn’t stop, but every breath felt as if she had to force air into her lungs.
Leaning against Collin, her arm tucked into his, they made their way into the castle. While she waited to be discharged, her parents had picked up her car from downtown, and her bag hung over his other shoulder.
“You doing okay?” he asked, keying in the security code.
“I’m fine,” she said. More or less true. “Don’t step away too quickly, though,” she added, with a smile.
The look he shot her told her the attempt at levity fell flat.
“How long until everyone arrives?” she asked, as the door swung open.
“They stopped for gas at Cordelia Junction, so about thirty minutes.”
“How was Kendall when you left?” she asked, keeping her voice low.
“Still in shock, I think. She requested mac’n’cheese from the store, though. I think it’s a comfort food for her.”
“Helia!” The girl in question popped up from the couch as they entered the tasting room. A fire blazed in the hearth, and Dulcie sat in a chair, a game of Trivial Pursuit on the table between them.
“Kendall,” she replied, taking a step away from Collin. His hand lingered at her back, but he let her go.
Kendall froze about ten feet in front of her. Helia wanted to go to the girl. Wanted to wrap her in a big, safe hug, but she didn’t want to do anything to make her uncomfortable and to date, she hadn’t been very touchy.
“Can I…Can I hug you?” Kendall asked.
Tears pricked Helia’s eyes, and she opened her arms. “Yes, please?”
The girl flew toward her, wrapping her thin arms around Helia’s waist. Collin’s hand at her back kept her steady as she embraced Kendall.
“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” Helia said, her voice quiet, her heart breaking for the young girl who’d experienced far too much in life already.
Kendall’s arms squeezed her, and she sniffled. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, her voice muffled.
“Me, too,” she murmured. They held on to each other, a moment that needed no words.
Finally, Kendall stepped back. Helia let her go, but hid her surprise when Kendall kept hold of her hand and pulled her toward the couch. “You should lie down,” she said.
Helia didn’t have much experience with grief or loss, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that Kendall was dealing with hers by taking care of Helia.
And so Helia let her. Taking a seat, she curled her legs underneath her, then accepted the blanket Kendall handed over.
She had no intention of sleeping, but between the fire and the blanket and the comfortable couch, it might be harder to keep her eyes open than she anticipated.
“Do you want any water or anything?” Kendall asked.
Helia shook her head. “Sit with me. You can tell me about how badly you’re beating Dulcie at the game,” she said, waving to the board on the table.
“Pretty badly,” she replied.
“How you know so much about movies that came out before even I was born or about countries that don’t even exist anymore is beyond me,” Dulcie grumbled, pulling a small smile from Kendall.
“While you two are catching up, Dulcie can help me with the groceries.”
“I’m glad your truck stayed cold enough they didn’t go off,” Helia said.
He waved the comment off. “Makes things easier, but it wouldn’t have been a big deal. I would have sent one of my brothers later,” he said, before he and Dulcie left the room.
Kendall sank onto a cushion on the floor, her back to the fire. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She’d already lost one person today; Helia wasn’t about to let her worry about losing another. “I’d lifted my arm to wave to Collin, and the dart hit me in the side, not my biceps, which probably saved me. Well, that and Collin’s fast response.”
Kendall nodded. “Your reflex reaction to lower your arm probably knocked it out before it could dose you fully.”
“That’s what the doctors think. And because Collin was smart enough to gather the dart, the doctors were able to analyze the contents and counteract everything. I’m tired. Like really, really tired. But there will be no lasting effects.”
Kendall studied her, then slowly nodded again.
“It’s a stupid question, but how are you?” she asked, keeping her voice quiet as the men traipsed in and out, shuttling the grocery bags to the larger kitchen at the back of the castle. Idly, she wondered if these trips were Collin’s first time setting foot in that part of the building again.
Kendall’s eyes dropped, and she futzed with one of the game pieces. “I don’t really know,” she said, a single tear dropping onto her hand as she answered. “Is that dumb?”
“No,” Helia said without hesitation. The desperation in Kendall’s expression broke her heart.
“I’m not going to pretend to be some sort of guru on loss and grief, but you’re dealing with a shit ton of emotional stuff right now.
The death of your mom and, in many ways, the death of the life you’ve always known.
Plus, there’s the reality of a future that you probably never imagined and all the questions that come with what that’s going to be like.
Everything from new relationships to a new place to live to a new way of growing up.
” She paused, then huffed out a breath. “Now I’m stressing myself out, too. ”
A ghost of a smile touched Kendall’s eyes. “Sometimes it’s hard to know which direction you’re going when you’re in the middle of a storm?”
Helia blinked back tears. Out of the mouths of babes. “Yeah,” she agreed. “And you’re in one helluva storm right now, sweetie.”
Grief dulled Kendall’s expression, but she nodded. “Want to play?” she asked, gesturing to the board, apparently done talking about her mom.
“I don’t think I can sit up for too long. Why don’t you read out questions, and you can laugh at how many I get wrong.”
Kendall’s lips tipped up. “Done,” she said.
A few minutes later, Dulcie and Collin joined them.
Dulcie took the seat he’d vacated earlier while Collin sat at the other end of the couch, tugging her feet onto his lap.
He also handed her a pillow, and she stretched out, resting her head on the arm of the sofa, the pillow tucked underneath.
Kendall and Collin were in a dead heat when his phone dinged. Pulling it out, he glanced at the screen before tucking it away again. “That was the system at the gate letting me know it’s been opened. Everyone is here.”
Helia’s stomach fluttered, although a gentler flutter than she’d expected. The attack on her life and Kendall’s mom’s death had a way of putting things in perspective. The exhaustion might have something to do with it, too. Stress required a lot of energy she didn’t have right now.
The sound of cars filling the parking lot drifted down the hall, followed by car doors slamming shut. Helia swung her legs off Collin’s lap and sat upright, but he stayed her when she tried to rise. “They’ll understand if you don’t get up to greet them,” he said, rising.
By the time the first arrival walked into the tasting room, a man with dark blond hair and a pair of light green eyes, Dulcie and Collin flanked Kendall as they stood with their backs to the fire.
One by one, Collin’s family trickled in.
Ten brothers, five women, and Leo. The brothers were easily recognizable by their build and similarly watchful expressions.
The group paused on the other side of the table, not a standoff, but a sort of assessment.
The moment fractured when the one with the green eyes stepped forward.
“I’m Mantis, but I answer to Noah, too,” he said, stepping forward and holding his hand out to Kendall. She looked to Collin, who reassured her with a nod and a gentle shoulder squeeze.
“I’m Kendall,” she said, holding her hand out.
The tension broke, and everyone filed in after that. She appreciated how they started with Kendall. The girl needed to feel welcome, feel special. So did Helia, but she was an adult. And she liked that the club trusted her enough to understand what they were doing and not take it personally.
With sixteen of them, it took a while to meet everyone.
Ten of Collin’s brothers: Mantis, Philly, Stone, Viper, Marley, Lovell, Hawkeye, North, Scipio, and Einstein, who everyone mostly called Stein.
And of course, Leo, who gave both Kendall and her a hug.
Their five partners followed: the twins, Charley and Joey; Juliana, a lively blond librarian living with Stone; Lina, the ex-CIA agent Collin had mentioned, living with Viper; and Callie, the ex-FBI agent married to Philly.
Her head spun with all the new information, although Kendall seemed to take it all in, her gaze darting among everyone as they spoke.
She might appear collected, but Helia wondered what she was thinking.
If she and Collin chose to keep the foster relationship in place, this group would be her new family.
And to go from having only one person in her life to so many?
Well, to say it would be an adjustment was a gross understatement.
Eventually, the room settled down, though Helia wouldn’t call it quiet, not with twenty people in it, and the group sprawled out between the chairs, the high tops, and the floor.
“If anyone needs anything to eat or drink, it’s in the kitchen,” Collin said.
“We stopped for a late lunch when we hit the traffic on the interstate,” Mantis replied. “We’re here to help—what do we need to do? At the very least, we have a shit ton of beds to make,” he added with a smile that turned into a grimace when he glanced at Kendall. “Sorry, I’ll watch my language.”
Collin and Dulcie snorted. “We’ve come to an agreement about language,” Collin said. “So long as the swearing is appropriate, in context and setting, we’re not going to make a big deal out of it. And that applies to everyone in the room, right, Kendall?”
Kendall rolled her eyes. “Yes, Collin,” she singsonged, earning a few chuckles.
Mantis didn’t look so sure about that agreement but let it slide. “What do we need to do?”
Collin had taken the seat beside Helia, and she reached over, covering his hand with hers. He didn’t look at her, but his grip told her he appreciated the support.
Inhaling, he started. “Other than this area, I’ve only been in my old room, Kendall’s room, and Roger’s. With a short dash through a few other parts when I was searching for Kendall.”
Helia appreciated how his brothers didn’t question his choices.
“I’ve thoroughly searched Roger’s room, but nowhere else. Gretchen knew about Roger’s drugs, and if it was common-ish knowledge, it made me worry there might be more than the one stash I found.”
All eyes went to Kendall except hers, Collin’s, and Dulcie’s. “Kendall knows everything that’s going on,” Collin said to the group. She doubted they’d challenge him on that, but the firmness of his statement dissuaded any who might have entertained the thought.
“We need to search everywhere else. All the rooms, hallways, everything. Not to mention the secret passageways.”
“There are secret passageways?” Marley asked, his eyes lighting up.
Collin winced. “More than a few. I know where they all are, but I think there’s an architectural map in Roger’s safe. I can look when we’re ready.”
“I claim the passageways,” Marley said.
“I’m coming with you,” Philly piped up.
Mantis waved a finger between them. “You two aren’t going anywhere in this castle together. That’s tempting more trouble than I want to deal with right now. Scipio, you’re with Marley.”
“C’mon, Mantis,” Philly whined.
“There are swords on the third floor,” Kendall interjected.
Philly blinked. Callie groaned. “Swords?” Philly repeated. Kendall nodded. “Like real swords?”
“Fifteenth-century, from what I could tell,” Kendall said. “You’d think they’d be dull, but Roger kept them sharp.”
“You are not playing with swords,” Callie said.
Philly arched an eyebrow at his wife. “Don’t even pretend you don’t like playing with swords, woman.”
“I like playing with one specific sword, which is why the possessor of that sword will not be playing with large, sharp, heavy fifteenth-century swords,” she retorted.
Helia had expected Callie to shut down her husband’s trip down double-entendre lane, and Callie’s response so surprised her she barked out a laugh.
Along with most of the others in the room.
Even Philly chuckled, pulling his wife against his side and kissing her temple before whispering something in her ear that had her blushing.
“How many floors are there?” Mantis asked, bringing the room back to the task at hand.
“Three and the basement,” Collin answered.
“And an extra floor on the towers,” Kendall said.
“And an extra floor on the towers,” Collin repeated.
Mantis nodded his head in thought, then rose.
“Okay, here’s how it’s going to go. Marley and Scipio, you’re on the passageways.
Hawkeye and Philly, you’re with Monk on the third floor and towers.
Viper, Lovell, and Stein, you’re on the second.
Stone and North, you’re on this floor. I’ll take the basement with Dulcie. ”
“What about Leo?” Kendall asked.
“I’ll grab an office and focus on continuing the background work,” he said. “We passed a few on our way in, any preference for which I use?” he asked Collin, who shook his head.
A beat later, everyone, well, all the men, dissolved into their assigned tasks, leaving the women in the tasting room. A few cast worried looks as the brothers left, but most wandered over to the table and took seats, leaving the couch empty for Helia to stretch out again.
“Oh, my favorite,” Juliana said, pointing to the board on the table as she took the seat Dulcie vacated. “Anyone up for a game?”