30. Chapter Thirty Lakey #2
As I let her drag me along, laughing, I caught Cam's eye over my shoulder.
Something in his face had shifted over the past week.
Not softened, exactly. Cam didn't soften.
But the hard edges had rearranged themselves to make room for something new, something he didn't have a name for yet and wasn't about to go looking for one.
He was becoming more tender, dare I say, almost sentimental, but in the best of ways.
We were changing. Both of us.
We spun until we were dizzy, Rose's giggles mixing with my own breathless laughter.
The Merry-Go-Round groaned and creaked under us, the metal warm from the sun, the peeling paint rough under my palms. For a few minutes, I could almost pretend.
Just a normal little family on a day out.
Going home to a clean house and a fridge full of groceries and maybe a movie on the couch later.
No bodies in the trunk. No blood under our nails.
No daughter out there somewhere that I couldn't find.
Almost.
Rose spun off the Merry-Go-Round and staggered across the cracked pavement, laughing so hard she had to hold her stomach.
She found a rusted swing set and dropped into one of the seats, the chains squealing in protest. Started swinging.
Just swinging, pumping her legs, her hair flying behind her, and she looked so young.
Not twenty. Not someone who'd survived what she'd survived. Just a girl on a swing in the sun.
I sat on the ground nearby and watched her. Picked at the weeds growing through the concrete. Let myself sit in whatever this feeling was without trying to name it or shove it down.
Cam lowered himself next to me. Close enough that our shoulders touched. He didn't say anything for a while. Just watched Rose swing higher, the chains popping and groaning, the whole frame shuddering.
"She's gonna break that thing," he said.
"Let her."
He was quiet again. Then: "You good?"
I leaned my head against his shoulder. "Yeah. I'm good."
It was the truth and it wasn't. I was good right here, right now, in this exact moment.
But the other stuff was still there, underneath.
Lillianna. The fact that my daughter existed somewhere and I couldn't get to her.
The guilt of sitting here playing house while she might be in one of those labs, strapped down, cut open, and I was watching a grown woman swing on a rusty playground.
What kind of mother was I? The kind who didn't even know she was a mother until a few weeks ago, sure, but still.
The knowledge was here now. It was mine.
And it was eating me alive in the quiet moments when I wasn't performing for Rose or fucking Cam or pretending everything was under control.
But I pushed it down. Took a breath. Locked it in the box with everything else. I'd deal with it later. I'd made a promise and I'd keep it. But right now, someone else needed me, and she was right here, swinging, and I could actually help her. Lillianna was a plan. Rose was a person in front of me.
But as the sun started to dip, reality came crashing back. Cam's body went rigid next to me, every muscle locking at once. He was on his feet before I even processed the change.
"We need to go." His voice was tight. Controlled. The voice he used when he didn't want to scare anyone, but something was very wrong.
I stood up. That prickle on the back of my neck was there, the one that had kept us alive more times than I could count. We were being watched. I couldn't see it, couldn't point to a tree or a shadow or a car, but I knew it the same way I knew how to breathe.
"Aw, five more minutes?" Rose pleaded from the swing.
I was already walking towards her. "Sorry. Time to jet." I kept my voice light, easy, nothing to see here. "But hey, we'll come back soon, yeah?"
Rose's face fell, but she didn't argue. She was getting better at reading us, which was both good and fucking terrible.
Good because she'd learn to survive. Terrible because it meant she was already picking up on the fact that our lives were built on threat assessment and exit strategies and the constant low-frequency hum of danger that most people never had to hear.
We piled into the car. Cam's knuckles went white on the steering wheel before we even pulled out of the lot. He took a different route home. I noticed. He noticed I noticed. Neither of us said anything.
The drive home was tense, Cam checking the rearview every few seconds, taking turns that didn't make sense unless you understood he was running a pattern to see if anyone was following us.
Rose sat in the back, quiet now, picking at a thread on her sleeve.
She knew something was off but she didn't ask.
I hated that she knew not to ask. I hated that someone had taught her that.
But as soon as we stumbled through the front door and Cam threw the deadbolt and the chain, some of the tightness loosened. Our shitty little apartment was a dump, but it was ours. Safe enough. I flopped onto the ratty couch, pulling Rose down with me.
"Well, that was fun as fuck," I said, grinning at her. "We should do it more often."
Cam was still on edge, double-checking the locks, checking the windows, doing that thing where he pressed his back against the wall next to the window and looked out through the gap between the blinds. I watched him, my mind drifting.
It hit me then. How fucking weird this all was.
Me, the psycho bitch with a karambit collection and a body count.
Cam, the manipulative bastard who could charm someone into a grave with a smile.
And Rose, this sweet, scarred, complicated thing who'd somehow wormed her way into our otherwise routine lives.
I hadn't planned on keeping her. I just wanted to help her.
Then I realized it had been a week since we'd gone out hunting, and it was weird to know that I didn't miss it. Not even a little.
Until I thought about my daughter out there, alone. With no one to protect her. My gut twisted hard enough that I had to close my eyes and breathe through it. I'd get her when I could. I'd made that promise and I'd keep it. But right now, I had to help someone else.
Goddamn. Since when did I become... this?