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“Not to be judgmental, but you were together for a while. How come you didn’t pick that up before?” James questions.
“I’d been working on blocking for years. Nobody wants someone around who can hear their lies, trust me. When my father told my mother he hadn’t been cheating on her, he lied, and he knew I knew about it. He put that on my shoulders and warned me that I’d tear the family apart if I opened my mouth. And that’s just one example. There are a thousand more. Blocking people was for my sanity as well as theirs. It took me a long time and a lot of focus, but I figured it out. There were times, though, when my guard slipped. Like when I was overly emotional. Sad, worried, angry.” I swallow. “Or blissfully happy.”
“It might have started out that way, Avery, but that changed—” Creed begins, but I shake my head.
“The day I found out, I was a wreck. I went for a drive to clear my head and figure out my next move. I was so upset that I almost totaled my car. I pulled over and just sat there, deciding what to do. I knew I should leave, but I couldn’t. I might not have been the love of your life, but you were mine. I was willing to pretend, hoping you’d grow to care for me.” I huff out a laugh.
“But you did leave. You didn’t give us a chance to fight for you. To prove we’d change,” Hawk growls.
“Sorry, Hawk, but I didn’t actually owe you anything. And I didn’t leave on purpose.”
I tug my hand free from Ev’s and rub my eyes, sore from crying. “A man found me on the side of the road. He calmed me down and listened to my story. I told him everything. Even what I could do. I talked to him until I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I was back in my hometown in a hospital.”
Hawk and Creed surge forward. “What happened? He hurt you?” They talk over each other.
“I was told I’d had a psychological break, and I’d been in the hospital for a week. Eventually, I returned to work, and they moved me to a new department. One that dealt with gifted people like me.”
“I don’t understand,” Ev says gently.
“Like Hawk, the people I worked with assumed I read people, and I was damn good at it. One of the best in the business. But thanks to the man who took me back, they knew the real reason I was so good at my job.”
“He told them what you could do? That motherfucker.”
“I didn’t know it was a bad thing at the time. I trusted my employers and the work we had done. We had saved so many kids. How could it be bad?”
“Fuck.” Hawk grips his hair as Ev squeezes my shoulder.
“We thought you ran.” Creed looks haunted.
“I had only my purse on me, that was it. You didn’t question why I’d leave everything else behind? You never even looked for me. You just thought I’d run. But I’d never do that.”
“Of course, they looked for you.” Greg sighs, but when he’s met with silence, he turns to Hawk and Creed.
“We thought she’d left us,” Creed says.
“Ev, tell me you looked into it.” Greg seems almost desperate now.
“I wasn’t with Apex then,” E reminds him gently.
“The man who you talked to”—James touches my arm lightly—“was his name Penn Travis?”
His question has the same effect as the oxygen being sucked out of the room.
“No. And I’d never spill my guts to a stranger.” I look around and see everyone’s confused faces. “I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” Greg asks.
“That the man I talked to, the one who handed me over… It was Cooper.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hawk
I’m so fucking angry, I’m shaking with it. Every vile word I spewed made me want to rip out my own tongue, but I couldn’t stop myself. I never can. People might say I’m a classic product of my childhood, the son of a man who was both verbally and emotionally abusive. I guess, in a way, they’re right. I might never have lifted my hand to a woman or child, but my words might as well have been laced with poison with the amount of damage I’ve done. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, making her want to hurt as much as me. I’m a fucking bully and exactly like the man I hate.
Still, nothing was breaking through the haze of anger, not with how at ease she was holding Ev’s hand. She is giving him a piece of her that isn’t hers to give. It’s mine, dammit. All her pieces are mine and Creed’s. I don’t give a fuck if that makes me sound like a caveman. Nothing about this woman has me acting like anything other than a one-track-minded asshole.
Nothing until she mentioned Cooper. That snapped me out of my anger as the truth in her words began to bleed into my brain. Everything she’s been trying to say, every reaction—it all makes sense now. All that poisonous hate aimed her way when I should have turned it inwards.
