91. Deacon
Chapter 91
Deacon
Henri is leaning against the wall, looking out the window, when I find her, and the whole room seems dark and dim with her somber expression.
“Hen?” I call to her as I lean against the doorframe.
She doesn’t look at me, and alarm bells sound in my brain, tension creeping into my shoulders.
“Hen?” I say a bit louder, hoping she’s just lost in thought.
This time she turns her head slightly.
“What’s going on?” I’m struggling with how to comfort her again. Do I approach her? Don’t?
Her arms are crossed, wrapped around herself. Is she guarding herself from the world or holding herself together?
“What...” She cuts herself off, and many long breaths live their life during the pause before she starts again. “What are suicidal thoughts like?”
My wolf pushes, trying to get me to go to her. But I’m the one with experience here, so I stay away from her, giving her that space.
“For me?” I offer, and she gives a brief nod. On a ragged breath, I answer her with a sick feeling in my stomach, knowing she’s not asking because she’s curious. “For me, they’re a dark feeling. Questions like how to end the suffering? How to not feel like this anymore? That I would do just about anything for a moment of happiness, but since that will never happen...” I swallow hard, putting to words, the best that I can, the torture that wanting to die feels like. “Since happiness wasn’t supposed to be a possibility in my life, I should quit trying to find it. Chasing happiness seems so futile.”
Henri nods, not saying anything. But I need to know if she’s safe or if I need to put the family on alert. I’m not intentionally letting her out of my sight, but I can’t shoulder this alone. They wouldn’t want me to.
“It’s different. I feel and know the difference between ideation and intent. Intent feels harmful, like I’m running out of oxygen on command, and if I don’t take my own life in this next breath, something worse is going to happen.” Henri shakes her head almost imperceptibly, and when I blink, she’s blurry through tears. My beautiful mate is feeling my darkness on her own. I hope she identifies with this next bit because it would be easier for me if this was what she was struggling with. “Ideation is soft and sweet and lulls me into believing that there’s hope of freedom from pain. It’s right there, so close I could touch it.”
I nearly miss her single head bob while wiping the tears from my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Henri.” I try to keep myself from falling apart because it’s only fair that I give her this. Henri needs to be the one grieving and sad.
“Me too.” It takes maybe another dozen breaths before she turns away from the window.
It’s an invitation to her side, and I accept it faster than ever.
Henri doesn’t meet me halfway across the room, but when I get to her, she wraps her arms around my torso faster than I can envelop her with my body.
“I just want the pain to stop,” she admits, sobs shaking her whole body. “What makes the pain stop?”
“Time.”
It’s a pathetic answer, and I know it. But it’s better than what I really feel, which is ‘Only you.’ How can you tell someone that they’re the only thing keeping you alive? Especially when they’re struggling to keep themselves on this earth too? It’s not fair.
I’d kill him again if I could .
“Are you in physical pain?” I feel like I should know that.
Our mating bond is thrumming, but so much emotional pain can mask the physical beyond measure.
Henri pushes back from me. “Why does that matter?”
“Answer the question.” I push back, sassing her a little bit.
We’re both mourning in our own ways, but I can’t let her live in her head like this.
I give her the smirk I know she loves.
“Joys of being a wolf. You can take a stabbing and be up and walking around in no time.” She gives me an uncharacteristically snide remark.
“No, you know, you’re right. When you’re back at work, maybe we can start a campaign of reasons people should want to become a wolf. ‘Take a stabbing, keep on walking’ or something.” I laugh, and she rolls her eyes at me.
“It would at least have to rhyme.” Henri scoffs. “Besides I don’t think we should be encouraging people to ask to be turned.”
“Okay, but if we were going to, you agree that we could start by marketing it to potential mafia members? I bet that would help Finn quite a bit.” I’m biting my lips together by the end, trying not to laugh .
Fake frustration is changing Henri’s face from sad to a little livelier.
“Come with me?” I offer my hand out to her.
“Where?” Henri eyes my hand, not accepting it.
“You’ll have to come with to find out.” I look at what she’s wearing, and it’s not suitable for where I want to take her.
My taunt piques her curiosity enough that she places her hand in mine. I lead her into our closet, pulling clothes off hangers on the way.
“I don’t want to go out,” she objects.
“Mm-hmm.” I ignore her objections, turning on the shower to warm it for her, and start stripping her clothes off.
When her sweatpants and panties are down around her ankles, Henri steps out of them. She covers the silver healing scars from her attack.
I don’t fight her to move her hands because she’s not ready to heal like that. Instead, I step back and open the shower door for her.
“What, you’re not coming?” Henri looks me up and down.
I shrug and pull off my shirt. “Lead the way.”
Henri is slow to get washed and then to dry off and get dressed. I wonder if she’s doing it because she’s tired or because she really doesn’t want to go, and she thinks that if it gets to be late enough, I won’t make her go anywhere.
When I pull a band T-shirt on, Henri looks at what we’re wearing. “Okay, so where are we going?”
“Out.” I step close to her and tip her head up toward me, planting a kiss on her nose. “We’re going out.”
When she gives me a ridiculously big sigh, I clarify. “We’re going out of the house, and then down the driveway, and then out the gate, and then down the road. And then to a place with other people. And we’re going to have a good time, and then we’re going to come home. But to know if it’s bingo with Ms. Gertie or something more fun, you’ll have to come with and find out.”
“Deacon—” Henri starts to object.
“I mean, you’re already showered and dressed, would be a shame to waste that clean hair.” I smirk, and she knows I’ve got her. “Besides, if we get there, you walk inside the building, and you decide you don’t like it, then we’ll turn around and come home, and I won’t make you try to do anything new for at least two weeks. And I’ll let you book me something ridiculously boring to go to, and I’ll even pretend to care about it. Maybe some sort of charity for illiterate kittens or something?”
Come on, Hen. Come on. I’m pushing her. I know I am. But I can’t let her sit up here and wilt away.
“Okay, but if it sucks, we’re coming right home,” she reiterates.
“If it sucks, we are coming right home.” I nod, walking backward through our sitting room and out to the hallway.
I keep walking backward until I get to the elevator and push the button.
“We could take the stairs,” Henri offers.
“Mmmmm, pass.” I shake my head.
The doors open, and I lead her in, pressing the button for the main floor. And then I push Henri up against the wall and kiss her deeply.
She kisses me back, fisting my shirt. When the elevator comes to a stop on the bottom floor, Henri growls.
“Mmm.” I smile against her lips. “Alright. I could be convinced to give up on our outing to take you to bed.”
“Nope.” Henri pops the p , walking out of the elevator. “You tricked me into cleaning my hair.”
Henri and I get to the kitchen, where family dinner is wrapping up.
“Don’t you two look lovely.” Ms. Gertie smiles at us .
“It’s not bingo.” Henri looks over her shoulder at me.
“It’s not bingo,” I agree.
Confused expressions stare back at us around the room, and Henri engages our family. “Deacon is apparently taking me somewhere of such national security that he can’t tell me where it is.”
“Ahh.” Cade nods, playing into her joke. “Well, as we know, Deacon does have a higher security clearance than I do, so it must be true.”
“It’s not an emergency. I even told her if I got her all the way to where we’re going and she didn’t like it, we could come back.” I shoot them daggers with my eyes, and they all get the message.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine. He’s wearing a random band T-shirt. Anytime he’s been arrested, it’s been wearing something much more inconspicuous.” Cade misses the mark, but he tried.
“Oooo, if it’s early enough when you come home, could you bring back donuts?” Thalia bites her bottom lip. “Chocolate ones with the fun fillings?”
“You got it, little red.” I put my hands on Henri’s shoulders and guide her past my family through the kitchen to the mudroom.
“If I promise to go, no matter what, will you tell me where we’re going?” Henri whispers.
She had put on a brave face for my family, but now darkness and uncertainty cloud her expression again.
“I got info on a DJ coming here on a trial tour back in January, and I thought for sure he’d cancel this tour since he was picked up by a bigger label, but he’s still doing these shows as a trial run.” I cock my head to the side.
“No.” Henri shakes her head, disbelief widening her eyes. “No fucking way.” She covers her mouth with her hands. “I mean, I saw the message because it was my job. But I... ”
“Come on, Hen.” I smile at her and open the door to the garage.
She pulls her sneakers out of the bin and walks with stocking foot into the garage, nearly running for the SUV.
I follow Henri, glad to see her excitement. She’s scrambled into the passenger seat with the door closed before I get there, and I barely get my ass in the seat before she’s trying to push start the ignition.
“I take it you’re excited?” I ask, easing the SUV out of the garage.
The question hits wrong because Henri pauses. Darkness flickers into her body as she deflates into her seat. “Is it wrong to be excited?”
I shake my head, and our security detail joins behind us down the driveway. “We are allowed to feel happy after loss. It doesn’t make us less alive or empathetic. Life is meant to keep moving, even after someone we’ve loved has left us.”
“It just...” Henri waits for us to go through the checkpoint and, when our windows are rolled back up, adds, “I sound like a terrible person.”
Playing back the conversation, I try to guess which of the many emotions I have that she might feel too. “You feel like a terrible person because how could something, someone, so small, who we weren’t even fully excited about when we first knew about, cause us so much grief?”
“And then I feel guilty for not being happy about it in the first place.” Henri volunteers.
“Because,” I attempt while setting the cruise control, “Finn and Lena are struggling with something we idiots couldn’t remember to think about preventing?”
“We are terrible people, aren’t we?” Henri scrubs her hand down her face.
When I put my hand on her lap, some of her tension floods away. “We’re not terrible people. Our path and Finn and Lena’s path are very different. I mean, you saw the hell Cade went through for Thalia.”
“I’ve lots of thoughts and feels on that now that we’re together, and I feel like I can ask a couple more questions.” Henri redirects herself. “But now isn’t the time. I just don’t know how to be sad and move on and be okay with being sad and moving on.”
“Well, if it’s any help at all.” I shrug, drumming my fingers on the bottom of the steering wheel for a beat. “I just keep reminding myself that the thoughts are gone when I’m in the same room with you, that the tally marks in the notepad on my phone are still there, and so are you. That I can take all the hurt and the suffering and live in it. Or I can live with you and work to make the world make sense.”
“What if it doesn’t ever make sense again?” Henri whispers.
“Well, I was kind of hoping you’d look past the part where it didn’t really make sense in the first place.” I tilt my head over, looking at her with a grin. “Come on, Alice, we’re all a little mad here.”