Four people emerged from the night and came onto the porch. I’d called the bears Mahon assigned to guard our street. Raoul, short but so broad-shouldered that he looked almost square, stopped by me. “No worries. We’ll sit on them for the night.”
“Thanks. If anything nasty comes up, the wards around the house will hold it off.”
“If anything nasty comes up, we’ll break it.” Lilian patted my hand.
“Thanks, guys.”
I went to the stables and got my giant donkey. Cuddles must’ve sensed that now wasn’t the time for her “special” behavior, so she gave me no trouble. I saddled her and left.
Around me, the city lay steeped in magic. I breathed the night in and tasted the magic on my tongue. We were oddly at peace, the magic and I.
The lights of the feylanterns blinked in the distant windows, enchanted blue sparks fighting against the darkness. I kept riding. I didn’t know where I was going, but I didn’t want to stay in our house. It was our house together. Every memory and everything in it was something we’d made together. It felt like I’d ruined it.
I needed time by myself to think and sort this out. I couldn’t do it at our house, in our bedroom or on our porch. I needed space. Curran would be back. He would stand by me no matter what, and I would stand by him. I didn’t want to be me right this second. If I could’ve crawled out of my skin, I would’ve.
I let Cuddles meander her way through the streets until I raised my head and saw we were in front of my old apartment building. I stared at it. When I worked for the Order I would be coming back exactly like this, except riding Marigold. I’d have to punch my aunt for killing my mule. Too bad she wouldn’t feel it. I must’ve unconsciously given Cuddles some cues. Where to turn, which way to go . . .
Just as well. I put Cuddles into the apartment’s stables, went upstairs, and unlocked the door. I hadn’t had a chance to set any wards after Curran had it remodeled post-my-aunt-wrecking-it, but at least we had put a new door on it. I didn’t have the best luck with doors.
I went inside, pushed the door shut, and sat at my kitchen table.
This used to be Greg’s apartment, and then it was mine. There were memories here too, but a lot of them were mine alone.
I sat at the kitchen table and tried not to think. I felt too bruised inside. Numb.
This is where it all started. When I came to Atlanta to investigate Greg’s death and eventually ended up in this apartment. Life was so much easier back then, when I was a simple merc. Even working for the Order wasn’t too bad. The job wasn’t always straightforward, but I helped people more than I hurt them.
Fuck it.
I got up and went into the living room. It was a one-bedroom apartment and even after Greg’s death, the bedroom belonged to him and his memories. It was his space. When I lived here, I always slept on the couch in the living room, which was why Curran had put a bed here. And of course, it was almost four feet high, and you needed a ladder to crawl onto it.
I would give almost anything for him to be on that bed right now making fun of me.
I opened the windows, unlocked the bars, and let the night in. Why the hell not. It wasn’t like anyone would come to bother me anyway. I took off the leather harness with Sarrat in it and put it on the night table. I pulled off my boots and sat on the bed. I kept thinking my father would wreck my life, but no, turned out it was all me.
A hand gripped the windowsill.
Now I was seeing things.
Curran vaulted into the room, human and dressed. He came over and sat next to me.
“Stopped by the house?”
“I tailed you to make sure you got there in one piece. Talked to the kids after you left. Thought you would be at Cutting Edge, but you weren’t. This was the next place. Would’ve gone to the Savannah house after that.”
“Trained detective.”
“That’s right.”
We sat side by side. Outside the window the stars winked at us.
“I leave to clear my head and you run away from the house,” he said.
“I didn’t run away.” Yep, I totally did.
We sat quietly for a few more moments.
“I wanted to tell you about Adora.”
“I understand why you might want to hold things back. We both deal with fucked-up shit and we try to shield each other. I don’t like it, but I get it, because I’ve done it before and I can’t swear I won’t do it again. But I don’t understand why you hid her. Derek and Julie tried to explain it to me, but neither of them made sense. Did you think I wouldn’t listen to you? I’ve always been cool. I might not like things that you did, but I always listen, Kate. What made you think I would lose it?”
I sighed. “I hid her, because I would have to explain why I didn’t kill her.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because her existence made me so mad, my hands shook. I wasn’t mad because what was done to her was wrong. I was mad because my father dared to send her into my territory to take what was mine. I wanted to hurt him. If I’d had a knife and could’ve reached him in that moment, I would’ve sliced all the flesh off his bones. You have no idea how much I wanted to do it. I took her away from my father, because I wanted to send a big ‘Fuck You’ his way. Her life at that point didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care that she was a person. She was a thing. She was my father’s toy and I took her away so I could taunt him with her. I almost made her into a slave. I only stopped because some switch flipped in my brain and I realized you wouldn’t like it. Enslaving her goes against everything I stand for. That’s not me. That’s not who I am. I should’ve stopped because of that. I didn’t want to explain it to you. I didn’t want you to know this about me.”