Chapter 11 Savannah
I don't know what Cash said to Legion, but something shifted between them. Legion's face when he joins me in the center of the arena is carefully blank—that prison mask he wears when he's processing something he doesn't want me to see.
"Legion, this is Madeline," I say, gesturing to my riding instructor. "She's been teaching Mercy this past week."
Madeline extends her hand. "Pleasure to meet you. Your sister has remarkable natural ability."
Legion nods and shakes her hand. "Thanks for teaching her." His voice is polite but distant, eyes already tracking Mercy as she tries her best to post the trot.
And that’s it.
Those are the last words he says. I almost expect him to leave, but he doesn’t. He holds my hand. Standing easily next to me as he watches Mercy. Mercy calls things out to him, but he doesn’t answer. Like he’s deep in thought.
When the lesson is over, Mercy hops off, beaming with pride when Madeline praises her straight back and light hands. "Did you see me?” she keeps asking Legion. “Did you see how much better I’m getting’?" She's breathless, cheeks flushed with excitement.
Legion ruffles her hair. "Looked pretty good to me, Merce."
"Can I show you my room? I have my own bathroom and everything!"
Legion glances at me, then back to Mercy. "Lead the way."
I thank Madeline when she offers to put the pony away, then follow legion and Mercy inside, and up the grand staircase. But once up there, I hand back a little as Mercy pulls Legion through the door of what used to be a guest suite.
She's transformed it completely in just ten days—horse posters cover the walls, stuffed animals crowd the bed, riding boots lined up beneath the window seat.
I watch Legion's face, expecting anger or at least sadness.
This is everything he couldn't give her.
Everything the Ashbys have that the Kanes don't. But instead, he smiles as Mercy shows him all the stuff we got out of he attic.
Her collection of horse figurines that used to be mine, her books that used to be mine, the fancy riding gear I grew out of almost two decades ago.
I hadn’t really realized that Eleanor kept everything from my childhood up in the rambling three-thousand square-foot attic.
And I do mean everything.
Like this stuff would be important one day. Collectable.
I’d rather it be used and thrown out than turn into a listing on Ebay.
"And look!" Mercy pulls open her closet door. "I have so many clothes now! And shoes that actually fit!" All those are new. The clothes from my childhood, while still in this house, are not fit to wear two decades later.
"It's all real nice, Mercy," Legion says, and I can tell he means it. He's not bitter or jealous. He's just glad she's happy.
I hadn't realized how much I was bracing for a fight until it doesn't come. Cash has been spoiling Mercy relentlessly—partly to win her over, partly to spite Legion. I expected some push back from that.
But he is rather calm about the whole thing. Calm enough that I figure I can slip away. "I'm going to freshen up for dinner," I say, needing a moment to recalibrate. "Legion, we eat at seven."
He nods, already being dragged toward Mercy's bathroom to see her collection of fancy soaps shaped like animals.
In my room, I strip and step into the shower, letting hot water wash away the canyon dust and dried sweat from our afternoon together.
I close my eyes, remembering the way Legion's hands felt on my skin.
How perfectly we fit together. How his eyes stayed locked on mine the entire time we were fucking, like he was memorizing every reaction, every sound I made.
But underneath that perfect moment was the reality we're still avoiding. He wants to go back to his trailer. Back to the club that abandoned him when he needed them most. And I want...
I don't know what I want anymore. Not the life my mother planned for me, certainly. Not Marcus White and his political aspirations. Not the endless performance of being Savannah Ashby, Instagram royalty.
Just Legion. And Mercy. And some kind of peace.
After freshening up, I go down to the kitchen to grab Legion's dinner tray. It's something I've taken to doing since he's been here. Even though I've never been much of a lunch person, three times a day the three of us, Mercy, Legion, and I, gather together for food.
It's been nice. Almost like a real family.
Of course, this is not an unusual thing for me. The Ashbys have been gathering for meals for hundreds of years and all the chairs were always full.
Most years, anyway. Before Eleanor died.
But having dinner as an Ashby and having dinner as a Kane are two completely different things.
I learned early in Mercy's stay that children do not fuck around in the this-is-what-I-will-and-will-not-eat department.
The kitchen staff brought Mercy a grilled chicken salad for lunch the first time I was home from the hospital at lunchtime after Legion woke up.
She didn't throw a fit, per se. But it was Mercy's version of one.
She crossed her arms and shook her head.
All the while that upper lip was sneering at that salad.
Cash was there. He was a tiny bit exasperated with her. "Mercy," he barked, "this is what’s being served for lunch. This is the meal. You will eat it."
Of course, she defied him. Shaking her head and stiffening that upper lip even more.
Cash, to his credit, seemed to be trying hard to be nice to her. Why that is, I have no idea. Probably because I was there and he wanted to make me think he was in control of the situation.
But he wasn't. She didn't eat that salad. Or the one that came with dinner, which was burgers that night. She ate those just fine.
So the next day, I asked the kitchen staff to make her child-friendly lunches. Cash didn't argue. I secretly think he's relieved that I'm here, kinda takin' over.
Cash's personality change has been both revealing and surprising. Because he generally seems to like Mercy. I'm not sure what happened in those first days she was here alone with him, while Legion was dyin' and I was frantically trying to keep him alive.
ut something did happen between them. Because Mercy generally seems to like Cash as well. She doesn't have conversations with him the way she does with me, but she seems to respect my oldest brother in a way I can't quite understand.
Perhaps it was the puppy. Or all the clothes in her new closet. Or the new bedroom decorated for a pre-teen girl that did not exist in our house until Mercy came to live in it.
Regardless, she likes him and I think he likes her back. Which is why I took his side about Rimrock Academy.
"You loved it there," he told me, after I learned of his plan. "You know you loved it there. You came home every Friday afternoon with regret, Savannah."
"Well," I laughed. "Eleanor's digital prison never felt like a home." He was right though. I did hate coming home from the academy on the weekends. I would've rather stayed on campus. But Eleanor didn't permit it. The car appeared for me every Friday at two-thirty and back I came.
Of course, I did like seeing Legion on the weekends. But he didn't appear in my life until I was twelve and I didn't go proper boy-crazy over him for three more years after that. He wasn't a part of my formative years, Rimrock was.
So yes, I do think the academy is a good fit for Mercy. She's a bit feral and she won't fit in—at first. But she's adjusted remarkably well to the posh life. She's not a girl who gets put off by bribes. Perhaps she doesn't know that Cash is bribing her with puppies and ponies, but I think she does.
And I think she likes it.
She doesn't talk back to him. She doesn't talk back to anyone. I think Mercy Kane understands that she fell into a Cinderella story and she's not about to let this opportunity slip away without a fight.
I don't blame her.
No offense to Legion, but Mercy's childhood has been a complete shit-show. The movie-of-the-week on Lifetime can't hold a candle to this child's drama.
When I get to the kitchen, there is no dinner tray set up for Legion. "Excuse me, Ms. Charlot? Do you know when Legion's dinner tray will be ready?"
"Oh, he's eating in the dining room tonight, Miss Savannah."
"Is he?" I exclaim.
"Yes," Ms. Charlot says, chuckling a bit at my reaction. "I'm just about to serve, if you'd like to take your seat at the table."
I smile. He's eating at the dinner table. With Cash. Not Wyatt, he's practically disappeared since Legion came, but I've never been close with Wyatt.
Cash is enough though. Because it's just been over a month since that whole kidnapping thing. And I was pretty sure Legion was going to enact some kind of revenge against Cash about it, but there has been no confrontation.
Which should not surprise me, actually. Legion, I've noticed, is not really a confrontational man. He's quiet. Always watching, always listening, but he's not reactive. Posturing isn't something he does.
He's always been like that though. Typically, a man of few words. But also a man of action. When he makes his mind up about something, it's done and there's no goin' back.
"OK," I tell Ms. Charlot. "I'll go take my seat. Thank you so much."
I leave the kitchen smiling. Feeling pretty OK with this moment. Marcus hasn't bothered me, Legion is going to live, Mercy is happy, and even Cash seems satisfied for the moment.
This might be the most peaceful I've felt in years.
I enter the dining room and stop just inside the doorway, taking in the scene.
Cash sits at the head of the table, where he's sat since Eleanor died.
Mercy's sitting on his right, her legs swinging back and forth beneath the chair, not quite reaching the floor.
And Legion—my tattooed, scarred, just-barely-survived-sepsis Legion—is sitting across from her, on Cash's left.
All three of them look up when I enter. But it's Legion who pushes his chair back and stands. He crosses to me in three long strides and kisses me on the cheek, his lips warm against my skin.
"Hey," he says quietly, just for me.
Then he's pulling my chair out—the one next to his, across from Mercy—and waiting for me to sit.
I blink, momentarily frozen. Legion's never pulled out a chair for me. Not once in all the years I've known him. I'm not even sure he's ever seen anyone pull out a chair for anyone else. It's not exactly standard procedure at the Badlands clubhouse.
"Thank you," I murmur, sitting down as he pushes the chair in behind me.
I'm still processing this unexpected gesture when Ms. Charlot appears with steaming plates of lasagna, setting them down in front of each of us before returning with a basket of bread and a large bowl of salad.
The food looks incredible—layers of pasta, meat, and cheese with perfectly browned edges. Mercy doesn't waste any time, immediately digging in with the enthusiasm of someone who's spent most of her life never knowing when the next meal might come.
The table falls silent except for the sound of forks against plates. The quiet stretches just a beat too long, becoming that specific kind of awkward that happens when four people who probably shouldn't be eating together find themselves doing exactly that.
I open my mouth to ask about the weather or something equally banal when Cash beats me to it.
"Mercy," he says, cutting his lasagna into perfect squares, "did you look through that school catalog I gave you yet?"
My fingers tighten around my fork. I glance at Legion, expecting to see his jaw clench or his shoulders tense. But he's just... eating. Focused on his food like Cash hasn't just deliberately brought up the one topic guaranteed to cause friction.
Mercy, however, lights up instantly. "Yes! I read the whole thing. Twice." She sits up straighter, fork momentarily forgotten. "They have a science lab with real microscopes, and an equestrian program with thirty horses, and a climbing wall in the gym and—"
She continues rattling off facts about Rimrock while I watch Legion from the corner of my eye. He continues eating methodically, seemingly unbothered by the conversation happening around him. This is not the reaction I expected. Not even close.
Cash takes a sip of his water, his eyes fixed on Legion over the rim of his glass. "What do you think about Rimrock Academy, Legion?" he asks, setting the glass down with deliberate care. "For Mercy's education."
I hold my breath. Here it comes. The explosion. The argument. The end of this strange, fragile peace.
But Legion just looks up from his plate, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He turns to Mercy—not Cash—and says, "I think it's a great idea, sis."
The smile that breaks across Mercy's face is like nothing I've ever seen from her. Pure, unfiltered joy.
"Really?" she practically shouts, bouncing in her seat. "You mean it?"
"I do," Legion says, nodding once.
"Did you know," Mercy continues, words tumbling out faster than she can form them, "they have uniforms? Real ones with plaid skirts and everything! And the dorms—you get to stay the night! All week long! You only have to come home on weekends!"
She says this last part like it's the most exciting thing imaginable, not seeming to realize what it means—that she'd be away from Legion five days a week. Or maybe she does realize it, and that's part of the appeal. A clean break from her old life, even if just Monday through Friday.
I watch Legion's face carefully, searching for any sign that this hurts him. But if it does, he doesn't show it.
Maybe this is it, then?
Maybe this is how we keep the peace?
Mercy goes away to a good school where she wants to be.
Cash gets to pretend he's altruistic.
And Legion and I can… well… start our lives.
We don't have to live here. I'll happily live at his trailer.
I don't mind at all. I mean, I don't really have a job, exactly.
I maintain the social media sites just because…
well, they're worth a lot as far as reach goes.
And people genuinely seem to like what I do—which is nothin' really.
Odd. But I guess watching someone else live their life makes it easier to ignore your own.
I can do that from anywhere.
All I need is a phone.