AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I did. That’s all that matters.”
No, that’s not all, but I’m not ready to pursue that. “What did he do in the end?” I ask instead.
“He killed Augustus.”
I nod. I can guess how. “My father?”
“Dead.”
“Did he… How?”
“Bullet. It was quick.”
Did he deserve quick? I’m not sure. But that block, the terror of it, it makes me shudder thinking of it now.
“It’s over, Blue. After he killed Augustus, he left. Walked away with Ines and left rubble in his wake.”
I scrub my face, see the cuts on the backs of my hands. I look down at myself, drawing the blanket away to see the bruises and scrapes on my legs.
“You’re okay too, more or less,” he says.
I look up at him, see his small smile, and I smile too.
Zeke takes my face in his hands. I must be crying because he’s doing that thing he does, wiping away my tears with his thumbs. “Don’t think about it, Blue. There’s nothing to be gained by that. It was justice. Cruel, but no less so than what happened to him, what happened to you and Wren.”
I draw a deep breath in. He’s right. But that’s not why I’m crying.
“Why did you come?” I ask, taking his hands from my face and holding them because I need some opening or some closure.
“Don’t be stupid.”
“I knew where the drive was, and I didn’t tell you.”
“I know.”
“It was the only way. To give it to him, I mean. It was the only way I could save you.”
“I know that too.”
“I didn’t think… I didn’t know what he’d do but I couldn’t take a chance that Augustus would hurt you or your family because he definitely would.”
“How did you hide it when Augustus’s men came to the house?”
“I put the drive and Girard’s card in the fireplace. Covered them with ash. I was going to tell you where it was but when you said you’d send me away, I had no choice. I didn’t want to lie to you, but I had to.”
“I know, Blue, but the danger you put yourself in. I can’t think about what might have happened to you. My mind keeps imagining?—”
“Stop imagining. I’m here.”
He pulls his hands from mine and walks to the window. I watch him. He’s quiet for a long minute before he closes his eyes and draws a deep breath in, seeming to make up his mind. He turns back to me.
“You could have died, Blue. He could have killed you on that plane. He could have killed you in his house. He could have killed you a thousand times over.”
“It was the only way, Zeke.” I get up off the bed and walk to him, my bare feet cold on the tile floor. I reach up to touch his face, my eyes wet with warm tears. “You told me I shouldn’t care about you, but I do. I don’t have a choice. I think in a way it started that first night when you sewed up my hand. So stupid.” I shake my head at my own naïve longing, my loneliness. “And then everything else… I don’t know. Maybe I’m stupid and there’s definitely something wrong with me, but I couldn’t live with myself if something had happened to you. I couldn’t?—”
“What about me, Blue?” he asks more forcefully, facing me fully and taking my face in his hands. Is he angry? “What about what I couldn’t live without?” The raw emotion in his voice, his eyes, stops me dead. “What about that?” he finishes, angry.
“I don’t… It was the only way?—”
