Page 25 of The Allure of Ruins

“No, we will not,” I assured him. “Bourbon is vile.”

“That’s sacrilege you’re speaking now.”

I shivered hard.

“We’re almost there,” he soothed me.

“It’s not that. I… I was so stupid.”

“When?”

“All the times I went back,” I said under my breath. “You have no idea how many times I was away cleanly and then returned.”

He shrugged. “What do I say when we talk to women and men who have been through similar situations?”

“No,” I rushed out. “It’s not the⁠—”

“Oh, the fuck it’s not,” he rumbled. “It’s the allure of ruins and you know it.”

“No, Colt, you⁠—”

He tightened his hold on me so I was tucked up against him. “You knew the ruins couldn’t sustain you. That life was no good, nothing there, but because it’s what you were used to, because you understood how to navigate the twists and turns, you went back since you knew it would be good and safe, even if only for a short amount of time.”

“I was an idiot,” I declared.

“You were human,” he replied with a shrug. “Give yourself a break.”

We walked in silence for a few minutes.

“How did you go to school?”

“I got my GED, and then Gen paid for my first two years of school that I started at seventeen when I lived with him. Once I moved here, I transferred to DePaul University and got my BA in criminology. One of these days I should go back and get my master’s.”

“Why didn’t you get the combined BA and master’s?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe…money?”

“Lose the sarcasm,” he demanded.

“Then don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Fine. Go on.”

“I had the ten grand as you recall, but I had to get a job fast because eating was also a priority, and the whole roof-over-my-head thing was necessary as well.”

“Right.”

I laughed suddenly. “You used your GI Bill to pay for school and, well, your parents. I basically had a drug-dealer pimp of a boyfriend for a bit before I bailed.”

He did a slow pan to me, and I lost it.

“Are you drunk?”

That was funnier because he knew better. I’d been drunk once in all the time he’d known me, and that was because we had been celebrating putting a monster in jail forever without parole. The little boy had been so scared of his father, and had finally, after a year, come out of his shell and was trusting his new foster parents—who had since adopted him—when he had to testify. Another witness had overdosed, and they needed Jeremy, the lone child who had survived the night Russel Blevins slaughtered his family.

The little boy had been six at the time, had been seven when called upon, and he was terrified to face his biological father. I had gotten permission for the family dog, Heimdall, a Doberman pinscher, to go with Jeremy into court. They had court dogs who sat with kids, but Jeremy didn’t want one of those, he wanted his own dog who slept beside him every night. It had made all the difference in the world. The little boy was not afraid of his father with Heimdall’s head in his lap. The judge even complimented him on what a good boy his buddy was, and the smile on the little face did something to the jury. I saw it in their expressions, their revulsion and hatred for his father. They’d seen the carnage, seen too the horrific damage Blevins had inflicted on his family before the last time. To see the cutest little boy with big brown eyes appearing so much better, leaning over to whisper to his dog… If looks could kill, his father would have been dead where he sat. When the boy walked out of the courthouse later, hand in hand with his new father, I saw how hard his new mother was trying not to cry. Of course when I gave him a tissue, and he ran over to her and had her crouch down so he could dab at her eyes, that was it, we were all crying. Colton had to keep glancing up at the sky for some reason.

“What is with you?”