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Why the fuck didn’t she just stay hidden far, far away?
The aunt was a bitch, but she’d taken over her sister’s job of running away. It had taken me fucking years to find them. Her mistake had been feeling safe and settling, and that’s when I’d caught up to them and a whole slew of others. I still wasn’t sure why though. The mom had been killed, dad had been killed, and aunt had no ties to us. Rylee was too young. I didn’t see why it mattered if she had gotten out. She’d never have been allowed to get to initiation. She’d never be on the inside. She was safer where I’d sent her.
She was a conundrum. And so was my motivation to control everyone that threatened her. You would have thought she had been more to me than just the girl next door for a all of few days. But something had always called to my soul. She had calmed the raging storm with a simple look.
She had also brought about the fucking apocalypse within me.
I looked down the street at the rubble that no one had ever bothered to clear. Hell, even the first department didn’t want to come here, even before it got to where this neighborhood was today.
I could remember the way my stomach knotted up as I saw her standing in her yard. Blood dripping from her hands, soaking her shirt, and smeared on her face. Her eyes red rimmed, but no tears. She just stood there and shook.
I’d broken that day. Whatever humanity had been there died as I asked her where her father was and whose blood was all over her.
She’d gotten out a fact or two, but she’d been in shock. I knew the signs now. I’d have seen the signs then had I stopped for a second. Instead, I’d grabbed chains, a knife, and a gas can.Zeid and X had watched me kick in the splintered wood door. They’d listened to a few curdled screams, I’m sure. When I’d walked out, smoke had started to billow through the broken windows. And out on the lawn, Zeid held her until I got closer. He’d let her go, and I’d caught her. We watched that fucking house burn like it was a campfire.
And now she was back, and I didn’t see that scared little girl anymore.
All I saw was a woman who had the power to break me all over again, and I was fucking handing her the weapons to do it.
NINE
rylee
Calliope waltzedin like she owned the scene. If I thought there was something wrong with me for being calm in a situation others found skin-itching scary, she made this look like it was therapy.
“Hey, all.”
She instantly handed out the Vicks. When I didn’t reach for it quick enough, she was unscrewing the top and grabbing out a glob.
“Right, thanks. But maybe not so much?”
She looked around and smirked.
“Girl, what have I taught you about smell? It’s going to get into your nose and stick there, but this shit works every time.”
She wasn’t wrong. I should trust the girl that sometimes had to deal with far more decay than I ever saw.
“So those guys outside,” she stopped and stepped over piles of discarded trash and god knew what to examine the body of what they were calling a judge. I was certainly judging him as he appeared to have had a thing for a hooker, and by the ring on his finger, he also had a wife. Gross. Poor woman. I would stick with my plant and Tamagotchi. As long as I could ignore whatever was going on with Cas.
I took a few pictures as she pointed to things here and there. I still couldn’t lose myself in my job though.
It was this neighborhood. Nothing good ever came out of here, or that’s what I always thought. I couldn’t unsee the weeks I’d been stuck here between my mother’s death and then my father’s. His death hit a little less hard. I’d never even asked if he had a funeral, and I didn’t care.
The door squeaked and slammed from the hallway. I must have been a little more jumpy than I realized, because that small thing had me grabbing for my chest like I could stop my heart from leaping out of my ribcage. I didn’t actually blame the door. I was on edge and I didn’t really know why. I guess I could blame the old memories walking around me like shadows.
“Hey, what happened to the old guy?”
I paused at that voice. At least this time I was expecting someone to talk, but something seemed so familiar about it.
“What old guy, and who are you?” I asked, turning on a rough-looking tree of a man.
He looked me up and down, a slow smile spreading on his face.
“Hey, short stuff, you look good.”
I hit the brakes on my disdain and really looked at the guy. Wait a damn minute. That smile.
“Xander? Holly cow, you grew up. What’s with this?”
