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* * *
After Nana left, I paced and fiddled with my phone, waiting to hear from Xander. I knew he expected to be back before nightfall, but there was no news yet. I didn’t want to bother him with requests for updates. Instead, I opened my contact list and scrolled through the names.
At my mother’s, I paused.
Nana said Mom wanted to talk to me. I still wasn’t sure if the feeling was mutual. She’d spent my childhood alternating between obsessing over my appearance and body, like I was a doll with some factory defects that left me looking less ideal than the picture on my box, and ignoring me completely.
If I’d been kidnapped, how long would it have taken my own mother to realize I was even gone?
I scrolled back up to Gena’s contact and opened our messages. I’d sent her several since she’d been discharged from the hospital, but they were all unread.
I missed her and her easy smile. The way we could joke around about the silliest things, our faces aching with laughter. I even missed the shifts we’d worked together at Evergreen Hills, where we were overworked and understaffed.
More than that, though, I felt guilty. When I asked her to be the twins’ godmother, she’d been so excited. She’d taken off work to drive up to Portersmith with Kingston to spend time with them. With us. She had no stakes in the world of shifter feuds and politics that I’d entered when I fell in love with Xander. She hadn’t done anything to Melony Houghton, anything to deserve being attacked.
She’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught up in the wrong storyline. Friends with the wrong people—me.
She’d come between Melony and my sons and had paid the price.
Hey, I texted her, adding to the pile of other messages. How are you feeling? Xander and I are back in Evergreen.
She was lucky she’d only come away from the attack with a concussion, that she’d been able to get discharged quickly and head back home with just a bad headache and a scar. Kingston hadn’t shared that luck. She probably hated me for dragging her into this, for putting her in harm’s way. I didn’t expect a response.
My heart leaped when I got one, anyway.
Welcome home <3 Wanna come over?
I almost smiled.
Of course I did.
* * *
It’d been a long time since I’d driven the Flamingo. Actually, a long time since I’d driven at all. My ugly, old, two-tone pink Kia still smelled faintly like the last pine tree-shaped air freshener I’d hung over the rear-view mirror six months ago—bright yellow Vanillaroma. My work Crocs still sat in the passenger seat next to the lanyard that bore my name tag, like artifacts from another life.
I parked outside Gena’s house and headed inside.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t answer your texts,” she gushed as she hugged me in the entryway. “I’ve been recovering up at my dad’s place. The cell service there is dogshit.”
“You don’t need to apologize.” I glanced at her suitcase next to the door as she pulled away. “Did you just get home?”
“Just this morning, yeah. You?”
“We’ve been at the lodge for a few days,” I said, following her into the living room. Her apartment was comfortably messy. A bra hung over the arm of the couch. Pedro Pascal fought mushroom zombies on the TV. “How’re you feeling?”
“Concussed, I guess. The doctors say I’ll be fine, though. It gets better every day. You?” She yanked the bra off the couch and tossed it across the room as we sat down. “Wait, no. Don’t answer that. You’ve probably got people asking you that all time.”
“Yeah.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. It made the thin folds of extra skin over my stomach roll awkwardly, a reminder of how quickly I’d lost the baby weight. “I just wish I had a different answer.”
“You will. Someday soon.” She put a tentative hand on my shoulder and turned toward me. “Felicity… I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Don’t say that.” I shook my head quickly. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is, though.” She raised her hands to her temples. “I keep playing it back in my mind. If I had just been paying better attention, I think I might have been able to hear her coming, or if we hadn’t taken the boys out to the garden—”
“None of that would have mattered. Melony was already on the estate.” We still had no idea how she’d managed that. “She knew what she wanted. She would have taken them no matter where they were. And if Kingston didn’t hear Melony coming, there’s no way you could have. You’re a human, Gena. You’re lucky she didn’t maim you. Or kill you. I’m just glad you’re okay.” I took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry—”
“Hey, no. If I’m not allowed to apologize to you, you can’t apologize to me.” Her cheeks went a little pink—a feeling I knew all too well. “Just… Come on. Please. Is there anything I can do?”
