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Wit nodded and walked ahead to get the door for them and then call for the elevator. The men stood in silence, loaded on the elevator quietly, and rode it all the way to Killion’s floor without a sound other than the occasional hiccup of emotion coming from Rainy. When they arrived at the proper floor, Wit walked ahead again and punched in the code to unlock Killion’s door, earning a stray look of confusion.
“You gave it to us so we could come and go while helping with the babies,” Wit said, holding the door.
Killion nodded and passed by Wit, ignoring Finn and Ayelish as he passed them in the living room.
When they stood, concerned by what they saw, Wit was quick to reassure them, “She’s okay. Shook up, but okay. Killion too.”
Killion ignored the comment and took Rainy straight to her bedroom, laid her on her bed where she rolled to her side away from him, and grabbed a soft blanket folded at the end to pull over her, then took the chair next to her bed and stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the other end of the room and watched the city lights twinkle against the dark night sky.
“She good?” Finn quietly asked, standing in the doorway with Wit and Ayelish who’d spilled inside as well.
Killion’s stare didn’t budge, other than a nod.
“The babies are fine. Fed and sleeping, right on schedule,” Ayelish offered, earning another nod from Killion. “You have a few hours before they’ll need you.”
He nodded again, perched his chin in his hand, thumb hooking his chin, finger across his lips, and rested his elbow on the arm of the chair like he was already so deep in thought that it was too late to throw a life preserver. Killion heard the door close in the distance, unaware they’d even left until that moment.
Time passed in immeasurable stretches… for all he knew, time was standing still because nothing changed to indicate otherwise. The night sky remained as dark as the emotions he felt resting in his gut weighing him down in a way it threatened to split him in two. Anger? Sadness? Confusion? He wasn’t sure what it was. But fear seemed to make its way to the surface, as it often did when it came to Rainy, and it was a lot for him to unpack because it was so new. Feeling anything so clearly was new. Understanding it was impossible for the man who understood everything… everything but that.
He was aware that his mind worked differently, as did his heart, and that emotions were not his strong point and more his kryptonite because they were foreign in a way most wouldn’t understand… he couldn’t put his finger on a single thread of clarity. It wasn’t that Killion didn’t love or know love. It was that it wasn’t always obvious to him. Especially when others were involved. His family loved him, and he loved them, but it was more that he knew it than felt it. As illogical as that sounded, and as confusing as it was, that was Killion. Social cues, reading others' emotions and intentions, and fitting in were all things he’d never had to reconcile because anyone who knew him understood him and how he operated.
Nothing was wrong with him, just that he perceived the world and all its nuts and bolts differently. He could solve the world’s problems quite simply with a formula or program he wrote on his hi-tech accessories. Deciphering codes and untangling maniacal threats were easy. Deciphering human emotion was something entirely foreign, and sometimes impossible for him.
When most people laughed at a joke, Killion found himself looking for the reason in it, a way to break it down and reconstruct it with its literal pieces to find the meaning. When he cracked a joke, it was because he understood the timing of comedic drops and what people found funny, even if it wasn’t to him. It wasn’t natural to him but constructed by literal circumstances he’d learned to piece together and deliver in a way that struck others as humorous. It was the same when tragedy struck, and he didn’t respond emotionally like others did. Though he felt a sense of loss, his manufactured response was based on what he’d learned as an appropriate response.
It wasn’t psychopathy –– he’d tested for that –– he just processed differently than others. Grief wasn’t an emotion but more a sense of being to him. Just like comedy didn’t earn an emotional response. He was far too literal. Different from others, and he was okay with that. Until now. All that he’d learned about himself and who he genuinely was didn’t make sense anymore because if social cues, emotional responses, and everything else that made him different were easily explained away by research, understanding how his mind worked, and that he was simply just different in those ways… how could he account for how he felt now. If those things didn’t cross his radar and register like everyone else, how did he explain the fear he was experiencing?
Why did that register wholly different with him? How did that trigger an emotional response when other emotions didn’t? Sometimes being a genius felt like a gift, but at that moment, it felt like a curse because the guy with all the answers had none for the first time in a really long time. How did fear register, and why couldn’t he shake it?
Killion had seen the worst the world had to offer over the course of his career, and it was ugly. He knew it was because social norms said it was and because he knew right from wrong and followed the line of good like a damn martyr. You followed the rules because you were supposed to, and when you didn’t, it made you bad and had consequences –– everyone knew that. He’d never felt any particular way during or post case, ever. But he did now, and it nearly knocked the air from his lungs.
Seeing Rainy crumple before him tugged at something inside. It could be explained as painful even, yet he didn’t have an explanation as to why. What was that feeling, and why was it so selective? It was baffling beyond belief, as was the deficit he’d discovered in analyzing the varying pieces. None of them fit. The only thing he knew was he felt fear, and it was as foreign as hell as much as it was selective as hell.
It circled his children. It circled Rainy. It was his family he feared for and felt like he couldn’t protect them enough from upset baby tummies to hardened maniacal criminals. It was a clusterfuck he couldn’t unfold and rebuild in a way that allowed him to stand firmly in front of it like a shield of armor protecting them. That felt like failure, and it felt overwhelming because despite being able to multitask the most complex cases all at once, he couldn’t even micromanage the smallest piece of this.
Worse… he didn’t understand the root of the fear. What the hell caused it. Sure, he’d been concerned about his brothers and sisters before, his cousins, parents, and the other operatives who’d become family, but this… this was something entirely on its own. This was complicated, messy, and made zero sense.
It was like a monster in the darkness, and he was too blind to see it –– and it was coming for them. It tried tonight. It almost got to Rainy. It was probably standing in the shadows outside watching back as he stared out the window and she slept, finally calm from the last attack. There was a ticking time bomb and he didn’t know the code to stop it. He couldn’t protect them, and the panic that caused was nearly unbearable. Maybe if he figured out the why? Why did he fear for them? What was different?
Besides… everything?
7
“Hey,” Ayelish whispered from the doorway. “You okay in here, brother?”
Killion nodded but didn’t look her way, only said in a quiet voice, “We’re fine. She just needs rest, and she’ll be fine. She’s… exhausted.”
“The babies are going to want to eat soon, so I thought I’d pop back in and see if you need help,” she said quietly.
Killion looked at his watch and quickly took to his feet. “I didn’t realize so much time had passed.”
Walking over to Rainy, he straightened her rumpled blanket, swept a stray strand of hair from her face, and tucked it behind her ear. When she stirred, he stilled, not wanting to disturb her more than he had. When she let out a deep sigh and pulled the blanket tighter around her, he turned to leave. She was fine, sleeping as peacefully as one could after such an experience.
Ayelish pulled the door mostly closed behind her as she followed Killion down the hallway. “I’m sure that was overwhelming for her. For both of you.”
“Not really,” he said, flipping on the lights to the kitchen. “I’m used to it.”
“But she isn’t and…”
