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A thin laugh escaped me as I dropped my hands from my face.I’m safe?He really didn’t get it, did he?
“I know that was scary,” Vance said as the bed dipped to my side from his weight. “It’s over now, though. It’s okay now.”
“You think this is aboutme?”How could they misunderstand so fully?
“You’ve seen stuff like this before,” Char said. “I know it’s scary, but you’ve been through worse. We kept you safe because we always will.”
His words snapped the chain on my mouth. I rolled my shoulder to knock Hayden’s hand from my back. “Do youreallynot get this? Not understand why I’m upset?”
The expressions on each of the men’s faces said no, they really didn’t understand at all.
Just seeing how clueless they were drove my temper higher.
“Vance, you juststoodthere, with a gun to your head, and you chose a bullet! What the hell were you thinking?”
He blinked slowly, then frowned as if my words made no sense. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“What were you supposed to do?” I shoved his chest hard, unable to stop myself when he appeared so damned clueless. “You were supposed to value yourownlife, too! You’re supposed to think that your own life matters and work to protect it as well!”
I rose then took a few steps backward, feeling the way they all stared at me as though I’d lost my mind. I couldn’t really disagree with them about that one, though. It was like the frustration inside me, that helplessness, it had grown to the point where I felt entirely stuck and lashed out at everyone around me.
Or, in this case, at the people who were causingthispart of the anger.
“Of course I’ve seen violence before. I’ve seen people killed, I’ve been in danger before, I’ve had guns pointed at me. Hell, I’ve beenshot. I’ve seen bodies and blood and death lots of times. Those things don’t bother me, but watching you four fight with no care for your own wellbeing?Thatis my problem.”
“We didn’t—” Hayden started to say.
I cut him off by pointing my finger at him. “You did. You’ve done it before. We’vehadthis talk before! Even when the Quad fought, when I saw them kill, they never did it as recklessly as what I just saw. You all seem like you don’t even care if you live.” Admitting that made my stomach drop, the truth that I’d tried not to see.
The way they fought, the way they’d lived for the past five years, the way they pushed me away, it all came together to point to that one horrible truth. I swallowed, trying not to cry, not to lose it. They needed to hear me, to talk to me, and that couldn’t happen if I let myself fall to my own pain.
No one spoke at first, and when someone finally did, it was Char. That fact startled me more than anything else. “I lost my wife five years ago because of Lorien. He stole the only thing I’d really wanted, the thing I’d wanted to protect, the entire life I’d built. When we all decided to go after him, we did it knowing we wouldn’t survive, that there was no way this would end with us alive. We’re going up against someone that dangerous, that vicious, and we went into it accepting that we wouldn’t make it out alive.”
His words were exactly what I’d suspected, but somehow hearing it hurt worse than I’d thought possible. I’d thought they’d only thought I was more important, but now I realized it was deeper than that. They not only didn’t expect to come out alive—they didn’t want to.
Vance’s soft voice came next, and he stared down at his right hand as he spoke. “If anyone understands, I’d think it’d be you. It wasn’tjustmy hand he took, it was a piece of my soul. I see things in my head, feel this need to create, but because of Lorien’s actions, Ican’t.I’ll never be able to again. My family thinks I’m useless, and all I’ve ever had in my life that I cared about, that I was proud of, was what I could create. I’ve lived the last five years only because I want to punish the person who did that to me. After that?” He shook his head. “Once Lorien is gone, even if that doesn’t kill me, I don’t think I can go on knowing I’ll never paint again.”
My legs trembled, my knees only seconds from giving way. Even if I’d suspected this some of the time, hearing them talk about themselves in this wayhurt.They’d felt like my solid place, like a foundation for me, but now I discovered that I didn’t have that. They’d crumble away the moment they got what they wanted.
Hayden hunched forward, setting his elbows on his knees, looking almost broken. It was strange to see him like that when he normally seemed invincible. “I’ve spent my entire life willing to trade my life for my clients, working to protect people. I’ve been willing to take life to do it, but it’s always been to save others, always a last resort. That day, when Lorien bombed that building, he didn’tjusttake the life of that client. He made me realize that sometimes sitting back and just waiting isn’t enough. He took away my trust that I could do anything to save people, made me willing to strike first. He turned me into something I don’t recognize, someone willing to kill in revenge, and that person isn’t someone I want to be anymore.”
I stared at the floor, and a pair of dark bare feet came into view. I lifted my gaze to find Tor in front of me, but I still didn’t look him in the eyes. I couldn’t. If I did, I knew I’d lose the tenuous hold I had on my boiling emotions.
I expected to hear the buzz of my phone, but instead, he leaned in so close that his lips nearly brushed my ear. I’d only heard his voice once, when he called my name, but I’d never forget that raspy, quiet quality of it.
“You saw what I really am today. I dropped man after man, ended up with blood all over my hands. I’m a killer, Kenz, but I thought before that sticking with targets who harmed people made it okay. Seeing Lorien take that contract, seeing all the pain he caused, it made it clear that I’m not really any better. I can’t pretend what I do is okay because I don’t allow for collateral damage, because I try not to take any contracts for innocents. I’ve got too much blood on my hands and that weight is just too heavy now. I want to do one good thing before the end. It won’t balance the scales, but getting rid of Lorien will mean I didsomethingpositive.”
“This is why you all push me away, right? All the other stuff, about me being young or innocent or any of that, those aren’t really the reason, are they?”
“I don’t want to leave you hurting any more than you have to,” Hayden said. “You got dragged into this mess, are going to have to live with what happens, but I want you harmed as little as possible. I want you to go back to your life afterward and have a good life, to do the things you want, to be happy.”
He set his palm on my cheek, as though pleading with me to understand. “You’ve got a long life in front of you, and I want to make sure you get to live it the way you want.”
I knocked his hand away, his touch like acid on my skin. The fact he wanted me to understand, that he gave me that bullshit, it made it all worse. “How dare you,” I said, my voice steady and low, reminding me of the tone Nem had used, the one my mother had used when pushed past a breaking point.
It was the first time I felt any true connection between those strong women and myself. I wanted to say I wasn’t so different from them, but I knew that wasn’t true. They would have stepped up and fixed this somehow, would have done more, would have saved these men. Me, on the other hand, I could only complain.
“I know exactly what it feels like to lose people I love, to keep living when they’re gone. I know that guilt, that pain that never fully goes away as I wonder why I couldn’t do more, why I couldn’t save them, why I’m still here and they aren’t. I remember the night I found out about my mother and sister, when I lay in bed and couldn’t even cry because I just wanted to be with them, whatever that meant.” The pain from that loss, the memory of that hopelessness, I stopped pushing it down.
