I didn’t wince. I didn’t move. I’d trade places with Daemon in a heartbeat, and a part of me wished I did die that day, then maybe he wouldn’t have been here today. It was my fault.
“Trickery took over him in 2014. Daemon saw the man who raped him as a small boy when he looked at all their faces and annihilated each and every one of them. It wasn’t until they were dead that Trickery finally released him, but by then, it was too late.”
I didn’t answer.
“That’s what happened today. His greatest war was within himself, baby. He will be at peace now.”
His words were like rubbing salt into a wound. The tears started pouring out again.
“Mads?” Tate came closer to me. My eyes went to hers. She was rubbing the tears off her cheeks, but I noticed a guy with a big spider-shaped scar on his neck standing closely behind her. It was so big that it was one of the first things I noticed. Then it was all the tattoos. Then it was his blatant resemblance to Bishop, only with dark hair and bright blue eyes. “Please stand up. We need to take him home.”
I shook my head, my fingers gripping around him. Her attention went to someone beside her, who I was guessing was Bishop. She nodded, and then someone was pulling me off Daemon. Inhumane screams exploded out of me as tears soaked through my shirt. “Come here.” Bishop’s arms wrapped around me tightly.
“Bishop, take her to Miller. The jet is ready. All of you, go with her.” I stopped fighting when I realized it was no use. My muscles throbbed and every inch of myself ached. My arms swung around the back of Bishop’s neck where I clung on tightly. Silent sobs broke through again, and unable to contain them anymore, I let them flow. Te amo, frater.
“I DON’T THINK SHE’S GOING to be ok,” Nate said, just as the seatbelt light turned off. She had fallen asleep long before take-off. We had waited for Spyder and Ollie to board the plane, both of them fucking around.
“What the fuck took you so long?” I asked Spyder, my eyes drifting to both him and a guilty looking Ollie. “If you tell me you were hitting on a chick, I swear to God, I will punch you.”
“Aw,” Spyder grinned, winking at me. “You and I both know I hit harder, little cos.”
“Our last fight was when I was five…”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“You make no sense.”
He pretended to think over what I had just said, then slowly smirked. “Exactly.”
I hated him.
I looked back to a nervous Nate. “She’ll be fine. It will take her a while, but she’ll pull through. If anyone can, it’s her.”
Nate squeezed his eyes closed. “I can’t ever see her in that kind of pain ever again, so you’re not allowed to die.”
“Ditto,” I muttered before Spyder’s voice stole my attention.
“We were helping your old man.” He tilted his head up to the ceiling, his eyes looking at me. “He has a lot to clean up after your girl there went firecracker and killed the only Steprum walking this earth.”
“She’s not the only one.” Nate shook his head, his finger running across his upper lip. “Scarlet was right, Katsia was lying. Tillie is her daughter, who is a Steprum, which means my kid is half Steprum.” His eyes closed again, I could see he was battling within himself to come to terms with everything he had just learned over the past few days.
“Well, shit,” Spyder grunted, closing his eyes. “I should have stayed around here, seems like more drama happens.”
“You can stay in New Orleans,” I corrected. My cousin and I were actually close, the banter was just what we always did since we were kids.
“I don’t know.” A slow smirk crept onto his mouth but his eyes stayed closed. “I might have just met a reason to stick around.” Ollie’s attention flew to where Tate was sitting, a smug, knowing look passing over his features.
“Of fucking course,” I snorted.
Brantley sat on the seat in front of us. “She’ll be ok, man. No one is as strong as that girl there.”
“That’s what I’m worried about, though,” Nate said, gesturing to where she was curled up under a blanket toward the back of the plane. “She shouldn’t have to deal with this bullshit. She fucking loved Daemon, man. Like full on fucking loved him. They shared a sibling bond that I had never seen before, and now he’s dead? I don’t know.” Nate shook his head. “I don’t know if she’ll come back from this. She barely came back from her little trip around the world stunt. She’s about to feel real loss, fucking crippling loss. Not the superficial kind, the fucking life shattering, earth moving kind. Not many people can survive it.”
Brantley looked at me. “She survived the shit that went on with my dad. She survived being fucking raped as a young girl, Nate. You’re wrong. That girl wasn’t born capable of dealing with that kind of loss, because she built the wall around herself to handle it, and do you know
