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“Does that count toward my job?” I asked. Probably shouldn’t have. I really didn’t want the fucking answer. I wasn’t sure I could handle the fucking answer right now.
“What do you mean?” Declan replied.
“Come on, Dec.” I sighed. “We both know you think less of me because of what I fucking do. Maybe it’s not my fucking mental health you’ll hold against me, but it still fucking counts.”
Not-entirely-sober-me was saying the shit I didn’t want to say otherwise.
“I don’t think less of you.”
“Can you be honest with me? Please? I can’t fucking handle the back-and-forth bullshit. I get it. My job isn’t fucking normal. And I know I don’t meet your standards of… well, everything.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he growled. “I don’t think less of you. Surprised by it? Yeah, I fucking am. But I’m also worried about what it’ll do to you. Killing people… that’s not normal. It’s not healthy. And when you talk about it… it’s like it doesn’t faze you in the least.”
“Benjamin Carter was a fucking troll—an actual fucking troll—who used magic to make him look human and worked as a school teacher. He kidnapped girls between four and eight years old. When he was done torturing them for over a week, he’d cut out their organs to eat them and leave their bodies in the middle of the road,” I snapped. “Should I be sorry I tracked him down and killed him?”
“That’s…”
“Fucking horrifying,” I finished for him. “Jason Wyland was a wolf shifter who kidnapped people, turned them, and forced them to kill each other. If they refused, he’d go after their families and turn their children. Should I be sorry for killing him?
“Martin Grue was an ogre who kidnapped young women and kept them alive for weeks while chopping them up little-by-little—while they were fucking conscious mind you—to eat them. Do I need to feel bad for fucking killing him?”
“Okay, you made your point.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Fuck. I don’t want to hear more.”
“I remember the ten people I killed, but they weren’t really fucking people, Declan,” I said angrily. “They may have passed as human, but they were fucking monsters. Yeah, the fucking hunter hadn’t done shit, but I’m not sorry. My job is to protect people, and I’m damn good at it. I have to do this job. I don’t fucking care if I sold my goddamn soul to do it. I’ll pay the fucking price.”
“Because you couldn’t protect them,” he whispered. I stared at him, his words halting the rant in my head. “You do this because you couldn’t protect Ginny and you couldn’t protect your son, am I right?”
“No,” I lied, but he was fucking right. I couldn’t fucking protect Genevieve from everything she went through, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could’ve done to protect my son. It wasn’t fucking fair. I didn’t like being helpless.
This job—no matter what the proverbial cost on my goddamn soul—I could protect people. I could keep them from getting hurt or worse.
“You’re a shit liar,” Declan commented.
“And you’re too damn observant for your own good,” I shot back. “Want to fight about it?”
“Nah,” he chuckled, “I’m not in the mood to kick your ass.”
“Fat fucking chance.” Still, I fucking smiled. We fell into a comfortable silence. I tossed away the butt of my cigarette and immediately lit another one. I needed something to do with my hands—something to do with the rampant energy trading places with my drunken state. I blew out a huff of smoke. “Hey, Dec?”
“Yeah?” Declan replied.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
Chapter 74
Killian
Mom eavesdropped the entire time I talked to Declan. That much I fucking knew. A part of me was annoyed to shit by it, but the other part understood her… clinginess? Were we calling it clingy? Was it being clingy if you followed your kid around after they tried to shoot themselves? Was clinginess a part of the intervention?
“You can quit lurking, Mom,” I said with a sigh and dropped cigarette number two to the ground.
“I’m not lurking, baby boy,” Mom replied, coming outside to join us. “I’m just keeping an eye out.”
“You’re being my fucking babysitter,” I muttered.
“No, I’m being your mother,” she retorted. Touché. She had me on that one. “Declan, sweetheart, will you go help Sam out front?”
