Chapter 13
RHETT
As I dish out the pancakes, I watch Elle. She’s all smiles and easy jokes with Mira. Her thin robe clings to her hips, reminding me of last night. The hunger tries to overpower again, but I push it down, ignoring the ache in my groin and the tugging at my heart.
She knows. I know. And now she’s got this Stepford-wife glassiness to her eyes, like she’s silently begging me to avoid reality. Her eyes scream pretend. They scream, don’t make me face it.
I sit at the table with them, smiling at her, knowing I’m probably doing more harm than good. Pretending for her sake. I felt it in her last night, the atomic bomb that detonated in her body, then the strange stillness that followed.
“Do you ever draw pictures, Rhett?” Mira asks.
“I like diagrams, maps, things like that,” I tell her. “Measuring a piece of land or building something, draw it out, get an idea of it.”
“I was thinking like unicorns or devils,” Mira says. “But sure, maps are cool too.”
Elle laughs… a little too hard, almost desperately, and it hurts me. Both because I think she’s pretending and also because here I am again, reducing her down to that one event, judging every damn thing through its prism.
She reaches across the table for the syrup, her hand conveniently brushing mine along the way. She smiles, eyes bright, but also afraid. I wish I hadn’t said what I did last night. I smile tightly, and I’m sure she can sense the forced nature of it.
Mira is oblivious, humming a song.
“What’s your favorite subject at school?” I ask.
Mira rolls her eyes. “That sounds like what a grownup reads in a book called How to Talk to Kids.”
We all laugh, and it feels real. Believable this time.
Then my cell phone rings. I check it. Marshall.
“I’m sorry,” I say, excusing myself. “I need to take this.”
“Is it your best friend ever?” Mira says, grinning.
“It is, actually,” I reply.
She pouts, and Elle mock glares at me. “I think a certain lady wanted you to say she was your best friend.”
Mira shakes her head, but she’s smiling. “Uh-uh. Nope.”
I shoot Mira a wink and walk out onto the porch, scanning the tree line. I answer the phone.
“A bit early for you, isn’t it?” I say.
“Lucian’s out.”
“Lucian’s out,” I repeat, my head not registering the meaning at first. Then the reality slams into me. “Of prison.”
Marshall swallows loudly.
“Lucian fucking Conti is out of prison,” I snarl. “How?”
“He was being transferred. He and three other prisoners attacked the guards. Apparently, they paid one off not to secure their handcuffs. They went at them like animals, using the cuffs as weapons.”
I grip the porch railing, feeling splinters bite into my hand, wishing someone would appear in the trees. “When?”
“Day before yesterday,” Marshall says. “I only heard about it because it’s all over the news. I know you don’t watch much TV.”
The day before yesterday. So, the cigarette butt could have belonged to him. I look over my shoulder at Mira, making funny faces at Elle. Safe, alive. Without some twisted bastard targeting them for the crime of being happy.
“Rhett?” Marshall says.
“Any news on how close they are to catching him?”
“They got the other prisoners, but they’re not saying anything else. Lucian must’ve had some friends waiting, or at least some cash. He’s probably out of the country by now.”
“Hmm,” I murmur, thinking.
Or his obsession has reignited, and he’s gone to hunt down the ones who got away.
“I’m with Elara Vance now.”
A beat. “What?”
“I’m… with her,” I repeat. “I’m at her place. So I’ll know if Lucian tries anything.”
“How did you know… I just told you.”
“She’s my new neighbor,” I sigh. “I guess that voodoo crap you’re always spitting might be true after all, pushing me into her path…”
“There’s superstition, then there’s… this,” Marshall says. “What are you doing at her place?”
“Helping out,” I say.
I can’t go into detail, can’t tell him how the shape of her body is burned into mine, that her laugh is like a prize to me already.
“Does she know who you are?”
I look into the house, into her wide, curious eyes and the nervous smile tugging at her lips. “Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m working on it,” I tell him.
“Then get to working,” Marshall says.
“Keep me posted,” I tell him. “And maybe plan your trip to the Peaks sooner than later. I could use the backup.”
“You got it, Rhett.”
I hang up, then head inside. The best way to do something ugly is to get it over with. I learned that in the military, and I learned it with force, and my current employment definitely reinforces it.
“Elle, I mentioned it last night. And I’m sorry. I know you want to pretend—”
Her chair screeches as she pushes it back. She glares at me. “Okay, okay, big deal. You read about what happened to me. There. Band-Aid off. Can we just move on with our lives now? It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s more than that.”
Mira is staring at me, looking far older than she is, vigorously shaking her head. Elle notices, turns, then turns back to me. She does a double take, then a triple take.
“Do you know?” She asks Mira.
“It’s nothing,” Mira says. “You don’t want to know, Sissy.”
“Now I have to,” Elle snaps, turning back to me.
“Sissy—”
“Tell me, then,” Elle says. “If you’re so determined to live in the real world.”
“I was there that night,” I spit out. She drops into her seat. “I was the police officer who carried Mira from the scene, and I saw you, briefly. I saw what happened to your parents. I responded to the call, but it wasn’t my case.”
She wraps her arms around her middle, shaking her head.
“Why!” Mira leaps from her chair. “Now look what you’ve done!”
“I’m fine,” Elle says, staring off into space with a shellshocked expression. A ghost of a smile touches her lips. “It’s funny, you know. Meet a guy, have some fun, let yourself, ha-ha, believe, and then it all comes rushing back.”
“Sissy, he’s still… Rhett.” Mira’s shoulders slump.
“Elle, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I say. “Mira remembered me and I—”
“He wanted to tell you!” Mira yells. “I told him not to, Sissy.”
“None of that matters,” I cut in. “What matters is that I knew, and I said nothing.”
“Why?” Elle looks up at me. “The first day, the first time we talked, why didn’t you just say anything?”
“I guess I wanted you to forget. To pretend.”
Elle laughs hollowly. “I liked pretending. I can’t lie about that. But I also feel like I might be sick, so I’m not really sure what part to focus on.”
I sit, reach my hand across the table, then draw it back when I realize she won’t take it. Would holding her hand even be a good idea now? Mira twists her hands together, eyes glassy.
“There’s something else,” I say quietly. “You deserve the full truth.”
“What now?” Elle says tiredly.
I almost don’t want to tell her. The look in her eyes is too tragic, too exhausted. It’s like she just wants a break from the bleakness of life… and she deserves one.
“I don’t think we should discuss it in front of Mira,” I say. “It’s your decision if you want to tell her after, but—”
“I can hear what Sissy hears!” Mira snaps.
Elle chews her lip, looks at her sister, then looks back at me. “Really?”
“I think it’s best all around.”
It’s bad enough I have to terrify Elle out of her mind. I don’t want to traumatize the child too.
“Mira, go to your room,” Elle says.
“But—”
“Now, please,” Elle says sternly.
Mira huffs and grabs the back of a chair. For a second, it looks like she’s going to tip it. But suddenly she stuffs her thumb in her mouth and stomps out of the hallway. Elle lets out a broken sigh as she watches her go.
“Great,” she says with bitter sarcasm. “Now she’s regressing. How wonderful.”
“I’m sorry, Elle.”
“Me too,” she murmurs. “I’m being a bitch.”
“You have every right to be—”
“A bitch?”
“I’d never call you that,” I grunt.
“I love her,” Elle whispers. “And I love how much you’ve helped her. But I don’t think things will be the same now.”
“No, probably not,” I agree somberly.
“So, tell me, then,” Elle says. “What’s the second half of this crap sundae?”
I wish there was a way around this. But I can’t keep hiding the truth from her.
Fuck, fuck, fuck…
I don’t want to do this.
“Rhett, stop delaying,” she sighs.
“Lucian has escaped from prison.”