Rebel had sat up on the air mattress she’d been lying on. Shep said there had been a single stream of blood on her forehead, but it stopped almost as soon as he saw it. Like she’d healed that quickly. Laughing hard, she seemed to understand that Cort was going to be ended tonight. But the how of it still boggled all their minds.
“You mean you’re not going to poison me, as you did my brother?” Cort laughed like he was surprised anyone had figured it out, Shep told him. “He’s told us all about your coming into the house uninvited. Also, we’ve made sure that your cameras are all turned back on just for this event. You see, we knew you’d be here. And that you’d be trying something nasty with my niece.”
Shep told him the man seemed almost giddy knowing someone knew what he’d been up to. Then he went on to tell Rebel he’d been doing this for years, with other renters, as well as other little kids.
“It sickened me, I tell you, Rodney. Made me want to shift and tear his throat out right there on the spot.” Rodney asked Shep what had stopped him. “Your mate. She beat me to it. She beat all of us to killing him.”
While he’d not been there when she did indeed kill Cort, he’d heard about it enough times that he could see it all. Not only had Rebel killed Cort with magic that was her own, but she’d done it in a way that no one would question her about being part witch. He was reasonably sure she was as full a witch as he’d ever known.
“Mr. Marshall? Your wife has been cleaned up. She wants you to come back to see her.” The nurse looked at his grandda. “If you’re her grandda, she wants you there too. I’d be tender with her if I were you. She’s having guilt issues right now, and they’re overwhelming her. The doctor said she could have something to calm her down, but she wants to see the two of you first.”
Grandda pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his face, and then blew his nose. Waiting on him, then asking him if he was all right, Rodney hugged Grandda back tightly, as Grandda told him that he loved him more than anything.
“All you boys and your mates. You’ve no idea how much you’ve all come to mean to me. To think I might have missed this without Harris being mean to me that day.” He’d heard the story several times in the last few months. How Harris told him if he was sitting by Grandma’s grave when she came home, she was going to bury him alive. “I surely am the luckiest man alive, I tell you, son. I don’t think there is a man luckier than me right now.”
They went back to the room where Rebel was. She was wearing hospital scrubs, and her hair was wrapped up in a towel. He supposed they would have let her shower, but he’d not thought about bringing her anything to wear home. Hugging her, then letting Grandda hug her, it felt like all his worrying just slipped off his shoulders.
“I killed that man.” Rodney hugged her tighter when she broke down. “I had no idea he was going to try and kill me until he pulled out that gun. It was like I was doing it all in slow motion. I just thought of him dead and shoved all that…whatever it was at him. I swear there were no fancy moves or anything. I just raised my hands up like a person would do if there was a gun pointed at them. Rodney, he exploded. One second he was standing there with that gun out, and the next, he was just spread out all over the room. Literally.”
“Shep said it was you or him. And I’m glad you were still standing after you took him out.” Rodney had never been so happy in all his life as when Shep had come to tell him it was over. “Now that I’ve had time to think on it, I remember Shep being a little green around his face when he came to get me after it was done.”
“Now that I’ve seen that you’re all right, darling, I’m going to go down to the cafeteria and find me a piece of pie. I need it after worrying so much.” Grandda asked if they wanted something. He didn’t, but Rebel asked him for a large glass of something sweet. “That’ll be the magic you used. I’ll get you a bunch of them if they don’t have anything big enough to fit the bill. I love you, Rebel. I’m so glad you’re doing all right now. I’ll be back.”
When he left them, Rodney pulled Rebel into his arms again. “I was so worried. I knew as soon as Shep came into the room that something had happened. I swear, I didn’t even notice the blood on him until I went to the other room. But him telling us not to touch you nearly had me begging to keep you safe.”
“I was safe. Even if he’d not pulled the gun on me, I would have been all right. Shep and Harris said they were just set to get him when I reacted.” Taking her hands into his when he sat down in the chair, he asked her what made her react the way she had. “I don’t know. All I could think about was what he’d said. That he’d been doing what he’d done to our family for years. I have a feeling that once this gets out that he’s dead, they’ll come forward. It would be shameful, I think, to know he was doing this to me if I was another renter of his. But this will make others brave enough to come tell their story. Cort was a
