Chapter Fifteen #6
By allowing her to see that she could still anticipate and win had made her indestructible. While she might be tired, she wasn’t off her game.
The game she written the rules to.
“Catherine isn’t that skull either. I have faith, Christopher.
My parents are in a better place. Now, had he dug up Sam, and blamed me for his death…
that would have hurt. I have regrets with how I was so angry at him after we broke up, and how I didn’t talk to him for the longest time, even when I was living in Salem a mile from him. That would have done some damage.”
Chris leaned on the side of the desk.
He knew what she was saying.
When Charlie and Sam broke up, she’d been reeling from their own destruction. She didn’t try to reconnect with Sam because her whole world had been in shambles.
In fact, neither of them tried to hold onto their connections with the people they’d loved.
They’d been too damaged.
“Digging up my dad…this won’t undo me, but digging up his father, the man who recently died and taught him everything he knows?
That’s going to fucking destroy him, and turnabout is fair fucking play.
When you poke a woman, you risk the wrath of generations of us being rained down on you.
Now, I’m going to make him feel it to his soul—that blackened, rotting, festering mess deep in his body. ”
Chris said nothing.
It was clear that his wife was not as far gone as everyone expected. This was a chess match, and she’d been playing it since the beginning.
And she’d play it for the rest of her life.
When you danced with the devil, you learned the tune.
“Update me,” she stated, still holding her father’s skull in her hands.
He held her his whole life, and now, she’d carry him, and the memory she had of him.
She wasn’t hiding from where she came.
If Charlie was there, he’d tell her to dig in, and fight like her life depended on it, because it did.
All of their lives did.
Later, she’d regroup, but right now…
It was time to suit up for fucking war.
Chris shared.
“They will be out of the ground and on the way to that warehouse by mid-morning. They are in two different cemeteries. They were easy digs. Both were in mausoleums.”
She was curious.
“Was his ornate and fit for a king?” she asked.
He nodded.
“It is a spectacle. One of our techs went to make sure it was handled, and he sent me photos. From what I saw, someone revered the man, and while I’m not a profiler, I can tell you that he not only loved daddy, but he wanted to be him.”
She corrected him.
“Wants. Present tense, not past. He would give his left nut to be as ‘great’ as his father was. I’m going to bet mommy was put in a simple grave.”
He nodded.
“She was above ground, too, but it was just stone. There was no love or care there.”
Elizabeth was curious.
“Did we open the caskets?” she asked. “To make sure that piece of shit pervert and his bones were still in there?”
He nodded.
“A brief look.”
Good.
She was going to blow his world to kingdom come when she got in the same room with him. Since he liked hiring explosive experts, she was going to return the favor before she put a bullet in Devon Slater’s head.
For Jet.
For Vivian.
For Rayna.
For Caspian.
She held her father’s skull in her hands, and Chris had to know.
“What do you want me to do with Dad and Catherine?” he asked.
In that moment, she made up her mind.
“We’re going to hold onto them for the time being.
We have to find a place for Jet yet, and it’s not going to be on the Rez.
Lance RunningWolf is going to kick our asses off that reservation the second he finds out his ONLY daughter died because of a case tied to us.
I’m talking even Wyler is going to be booted.
There’s no way he’s going to let us live there—or be buried there. ”
That was a huge problem.
“Ethan is the Shaman.”
She laughed.
“Well, that’s going to be an interesting little game, now isn’t it?” she asked. “He came home, and he’s going to be sent away. Don’t worry about me, Christopher. I’d worry about him. I guess in the days to come, he might be faced with a very difficult choice.”
Chris didn’t like this.
“And you’re not going to intervene?” he asked.
She looked at him.
“No. Ethan has to choose his path, like we all do,” she stated.
“And before you ask if I’m angry with him over what he said, I’m not.
I just can’t make decisions for grown adults.
If he wants to stay there, and be Shaman, he’ll have to figure it out.
If he wants to come home with us, he’ll figure it out.
Either way, I’ll support his choices. Like I hope everyone supports mine. ”
Still, that didn’t clear it up, and Chris didn’t like how ANY of that sounded.
It sounded like their family’s foundation was fracturing under the weight of this mess.
“Elizabeth.”
She stared into his baby-blue eyes.
“My love, sometimes when we feel like we’re the most lost, all we have to do is come out of the darkest spaces, and into the light. We’ll figure it out,” she said. “Above all else, I have faith.”
Chris was glad she did.
Because…
Jesus.
Christ.
Their lives were a mess.