Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
She’d never wanted any of this.
Cillian trudged through the snow, scanning the white wall that shifted around him as it blew. Almost seemed pointless, trying to find Victoria in this storm. But he had to try. He owed her that much.
She hadn’t wanted to keep looking for Thomas’s killer, to insist the police listen to her, to keep chasing down new suspects and leads. She hadn’t wanted to do any of the things that had made Warren target her.
And when he had started the threats—the shooting, trying to run her over—she had wanted to quit.
“I said that’s enough. We have to stop.” The memory of Victoria at the pregnancy center, when Cillian had walked in after his bike crashed, hit him with a pang behind the ribs. “We need to stop investigating and trying to find the killer. This has gotten far too dangerous.”
What was it she’d said after that? This wasn’t an adventure involving only him.
“You need to think, to consider how your actions will affect others.”
And he’d ignored her. Told her that’s why she’d needed to wait for him so he could keep her safe.
“Cillian, you aren’t listening.”
“I am listening. I’m going to make sure you’re safe until this guy is locked up, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.”
If he could eat his own words now, if that would somehow help, he would in a heartbeat. What a dolt he was. What a jerk, not listening and forcing her to do what he wanted when he knew she didn’t agree, when he knew she thought it was too dangerous.
Oh, no. His thoughts echoed back to him, and he heard them more clearly. Saw himself for the first time.
He was a bully.
He was like her dad.
Shock hit Cillian harder than the wind, stopping him in his tracks. His throat swelled with disbelief. And disgust.
He fought against bullies. His whole mission in life, his career, everything he did was about freeing victims from people who abused power to get what they wanted. People who manipulated and controlled others.
But somehow, sometime, maybe even while trying to beat the bullies, he’d become one himself.
Memories from his childhood and beyond shifted quickly through his mind.
He’d been able to see what the adults around him couldn’t, from as early as he could remember.
He saw what drugs were doing to his mother, how she sold herself to the addiction.
He saw how she abused and used him to get more supply.
He’d known that the men who came in and out of their lives were using her, too.
But he’d been too smart to let them bully him. And he’d decided he would never let anyone else go through what he had. Because he knew what was right.
He knew how to tell when a kid was lying or the adults were. He knew how to use leverage, intimidation, or persuasion to outwit bullies at their own game. He’d freed so many kids from the abuse and control of people in power. He had a perfect record since becoming a social worker.
Didn’t matter how he got that, did it? As long as he was in the right, doing the right thing, it was all good.
But had he always been right? The Mason Blunt case leaped to his mind.
Cillian had freed Mason from the control of a stepfather who had left the boy stranded in the ocean to teach him toughness. Mason had been wearing a life jacket that, combined with a kind stranger who had come along and brought Mason to shore in a boat, saved the boy’s life.
Once Peter Blunt had realized how much trouble he was in, the stepfather became apologetic, promising Cillian he wouldn’t do anything like that again. A far cry from Peter’s initial boasting about his tough-love discipline when Cillian had first visited the family.
Cillian couldn’t risk Peter would gain a judge’s sympathy with his temporary, probably manufactured remorse. So he had gotten in Peter’s face, challenging his ego and masculinity until the man dug-in again, defending his abusive childrearing tactics in front of the judge.
What if Cillian had taken a page from Victoria’s book? Could he have found a more peaceful way to create positive change for the Blunts, one that wouldn’t have broken up their family?
How many other times had Cillian run roughshod over others to secure the end goal he’d determined was best for everyone?
Those other times didn’t matter so much right now. The one that mattered most, the person who mattered most, had been Cillian’s victim.
Was it too late to do anything about it? To make it right? If he could find Victoria, he would set her free from himself, from his own desire to control her and orchestrate her life the way he wanted it to go.
But could he actually do that? He didn’t know how, wouldn’t know where to begin. He needed to be with her more than anything in the world. So much so that he’d tried to force her into the future he’d wanted for them.
It wouldn’t be much of a future if she were forced and manipulated into being with him. And it wouldn’t be any future at all if she…wasn’t alive. Because of him.
He started forward again. At least he thought it was forward. Hopefully, in the direction he’d originally come from.
But what if he was wrong, and he’d gotten turned around in the near-zero visibility? What if it was too late? He couldn’t make it right if he couldn’t find her.
Frustration and desperation rose in his chest until it exploded out of him in a groan, a yell that echoed back to him from somewhere in the storm.
“You could have it, too, Cillian.”
Victoria’s voice came to him on the wind, as if answering his cry, flying to him to touch his aching heart.
“Christ in you, changing who you are. If you truly want to be better, you could ask Jesus to save you, and He will make you a better man, a better person than you could imagine.”
He had called it a crutch, that faith of hers. The declaration of a bully afraid he would lose control over her. It seemed he’d been wrong about that, too.
“He’ll guide you through life and help you to know the best way to live. He’ll give you hope for the future.”
The memory of her words cut deep into his heart, maybe into the soul he didn’t really believe he had until now. He and Victoria might not have any future, thanks to him. It was probably too late to change, to become the better man she had wanted him to be.
If he could see her again, he’d ask her how to do what she said, what she meant by asking God to save him. But God wasn’t in the business of helping people like him, bullies who tried to control innocent people like Victoria and lead her into disasters like this.
According to Victoria, God did help her.
“God? If you’re listening, lead me back to Victoria so she doesn’t have to die.” More arrogance again. What could he do even if he reached her? Obviously, no one was driving out to this remote location in the blizzard. And he was no doctor.
He nearly tripped in a thick patch of snow. Deeper than before. He must’ve strayed into the ditch. He should angle back up to the road.
He trudged a few more feet.
Wait.
Dark colors streaked through the white that covered everything else.
His bike?
His pulse jumped into his throat. Victoria had been close to the bike. On the road just above.
Please, God. Let her be there. Let her be alive.
“Mom?”
Victoria shielded her eyes with her hand. It was so bright. The light hurt her eyes, but she couldn’t look away.
She knew that silhouette.
Mommy.
Her long black, wavy hair cascaded around her shoulders as she walked out of the light, toward Victoria. She smiled.
The smile found Victoria’s heart, infusing it with warmth. But the pain there didn’t lessen. It was still broken.
“Mom, I’m sorry.”
Mommy reached her hand toward Victoria. “I’m here. I love you.”
But she was too far away. Too far to touch or be touched. Too far to fix what Victoria had done.
“Vicks?”
A touch on her shoulder.
Was Mom closer now?
But no. She wasn’t there. The bright light was fading.
A rushing sound reached Victoria’s ears.
Something shook her. Was she in an earthquake?
“Victoria, can you hear me? Honey, you’ve got to wake up. Please.”
The voice was familiar. Deep.
Cillian? But why did he sound scared? And sad.
“Come on, Vicks. Please, don’t leave me. We all need you.” The anguish in his tone attached to something deep inside her, pulling her to him.
She must be sleeping. She tried to open her eyes.
“Vicks? Did you just move? Come on, honey. You have to tell me how to get right with God.”
She cracked her lids open.
White blurs scattered in front of her vision. But beyond that was his handsome face. Cillian.
“Vicks.” He smiled, though his brows drew together over his coal-black eyes. Moisture seemed to glisten in those dark orbs. “I thought that might get you to wake up.”
She blinked slowly. They seemed to be outside in winter.
He was above her, cradling her head in one hand while the other felt like it was on her shoulder. Or was her head actually in his lap?
She couldn’t tell for sure. She felt so numb. “What—”
“Warren shot you.”
Shock rolled through her at the statement. But perhaps she was already in a state of shock in the medical sense. That could account for the numbness. Though the cold was also likely inducing that symptom.
The boom of the gun as it fired jolted in her memory. She’d thought he had shot Cillian. But then, she’d felt the pain in her abdomen. Or perhaps more toward one side.
Relief had quieted any alarm she might have felt. Cillian was unharmed. That was all that mattered.
Cillian seemed to be pressing something against the area of the wound.
Her coat?
She tilted her chin downward to look. Yes, her coat and his leather jacket layered over the top of it. But that meant he wasn’t wearing a jacket.
She aimed her gaze up at his face. “You’ll freeze.” The words sounded weaker with her voice than they had in her head.
“Cold never bothers me, remember?” His mouth tugged up at one corner.
Always so stubborn, even to the end.