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I wasn’t one to dwell on shit I had no control over. All I could do was ensure this kind of thing never happened again.
“Can you give us a minute?” Cobra asked abruptly.
Not bothering to ask why, I nodded, taking one last peek at Butcher. “Yeah, I’ll be in the car.”
Leaving them to it, I left the room and went straight for the front door. Ice was pulling one of the Jeeps around just as I stepped out. Bella, already here, got in the back as I approached.
“They needed a moment,” I told Ice through the passenger window. Hearing the door open and close behind me I looked over my shoulder, seeing Cobra but not Cam. “A brief one, I guess.”
He lifted his chin, walking towards his car, signaling for me to come to him.
“One sec,” I said to Ice.
I strolled over to the blue classic and paused by the hood. “What’s up?”
“My son,” he began, pulling open the driver side door. “Is he using?”
I crossed my arms and stared. “You’ll have to get that answer from him.”
He looked back at me with a closed-off expression before releasing a small laugh. “You’re just like your dad, you know that?”
I didn’t agree with that comparison, and I heard that shit a lot. There wasn’t anything wrong with being compared to my father per se, but I wasn’t just like anyone. I wasn’t Romero Deville, I was Lucifuge.
“Well, what if I told you Cam’s more like you than you think?”
His head bobbed and he ran a hand through his hair.
“Cameron wasn’t supposed to be anything like me at all. I wanted him to be better, but I guess history has a fucked-up way of repeating itself.” He shook his head and sighed. “Look, I’ve already lost one son, and being realistic, I may have lost my daughter too. Cam’s all we got.”
When he said we, I knew he wasn’t only referring to him and Blue. He meant the Savages collectively, and while his voice was steady, there was an undercurrent of stress I could easily detect.
I didn’t have anything to add on the Lilith subject, at least not anything I was ready to share. There was a glaringly obvious reason why she wouldn’t be coming back, but he didn’t mention what we both knew, so I wasn’t going to either.
I could have told him that what had happened to Cam wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I was pretty sure he already knew that. The only issue now was Cam not being able to tame the demons he’d acquired in the aftermath.
I could only do so much. I’d carry the weight of the world for my family, but that still might not be enough to save them all. Regardless, I refused to give up on any of them.
“We’re not going to lose Cam. He isn’t his brother.”
With a bitter laugh and a shake of his head, he said, “Cam no longer has a blood brother. Braxton is dead. Whoever that person is inside, I don’t know him.” The engine turned over and he shut his door. “But he does have the rest of you degenerates. More importantly, he has you, Luce.”
He reversed, swung around in a circle, and with a growl from the engine, shot towards gate of the compound. A set of hooded acolytes granted him leave, and he disappeared in a glow of fading taillights.
I remained where I was until a clap of thunder had my attention shifting to the darkening sky. I turned my head when Cam stepped out of the warehouse wearing a fresh shirt and carrying a flask.
“Ready?” he asked, walking towards the Jeep.
I had a quick internal debate as to whether I wanted to say something or not about the alcohol, deciding to leave it for later. “Yeah.”
He climbed into the back with my sister, and I hopped in shotgun.
Ice shifted into drive and drove through the same gates Cobra had.
Beyond them was nothing but a private dirt road leading to a wooded intersection and open wasteland.
Ice looked over at me when we reached the split. “Where to?”
“That old farm that was tagged,” I replied, watching one of the marked SUVs pull up in the rearview.
