“I think we need to go see what Maximo wants. We will find your dad and take care of him, then figure out what the hell Moretti’s daughter has to do with this too.”
Take care of.
I’m not stupid. I know exactly what that means.
And I don’t care.
“I won’t let him take her, Prez. No way in hell.”
“I’m sorry,” I say to Reaper. I stare at the stone-cold expression masking his face. He looks so mad, and this time, I can’t stop the tears falling onto the table. “I didn’t want to bring you trouble. I don’t know how he found me. I thought I got away when I ran—” I gasp and zip my lips shut. I have never, ever been that close to saying those words.
A chair creaks when Knives leans forward. He spins my chair, and his eyes analyze me, confused, but then his brows do a little jiggle as they reach his hairline, and the blue irises become even brighter. It’s like a light bulb turned on in his head as he stared at me.
“You ran away,” Knives says in horror. “And you ran right to them, didn’t you? You wanted to be with the Atlantic City chapter. They didn’t steal you, no one sold you, no one trafficked you, you went to them willingly.”
Words catch in my throat, and shame crawls up my neck. I trace the groove in the table with my finger and try to think of an excuse, a lie, something that didn’t make the truth sound so bad, but nothing came to mind.
“Yes.”
“Why? Why would you do that? Out of all places, you could have picked to save yourself, and you picked them? It was as if you were asking to die.”
Reaper clears his throat when the awkward tension heightens.
“You…you went there to die?” Knives whispers in realization. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you ran away.”
“I couldn’t do it myself,” I admit. I rub my palms on my thighs when they start to sweat. “I wanted to die, but I knew I needed someone else to do it.”
Knives stands, picks up the chair, and with an agonizing cry, he throws it over the table. It crashes against the wall, and I jump, closing my eyes as the chair falls to the ground. “How could you do that?” he yells at me. “How could you give up on yourself? How could you?”
“Knives, that’s enough,” Reaper says.
“No. It isn’t. It’s far from being enough. How could you do that? What about me? You were just… you were going to leave me? You would have left me. Everyone always fucking leaves,” he continues to scream at the top of his lungs, which starts to gather a crowd outside. “You would have chosen to give up on me.”
“I didn’t even know you,” I say to him. “All I knew was what I felt, and after what my dad did, I heard about the Atlantic City chapter, and I knew that life had to be better, and if I died, I died,” I shrug.
“Death. Is. Not. That. Simple,” he bites out each word and pulls his ninja stars free. “Death leaves behind everyone that loves you.”
“Don’t you get it, Knives?” I asks. “No one loved me.”
He hangs his head, flipping the ninja star over his knuckles as he thinks. Bullseye comes into the room and tries to guide Knives out of the room, but Knives pushes him away.
Knives throws his star, and it whooshes by me, landing so hard against the wall, it disappears into the crack. “I would have missed out on you,” he says, patting his chest. “I never want to miss out on anything again. I’ve lost, and I’ve lost, and damn it, Mary, I would have missed you if I never met you.” Knives starts to walk out the door and slams into Bullseye’s shoulder. “Get out of my way.”
The guys part to let Knives through, and I want to go after him, but the stomps of his feet going down the stairs tell me he does not want to be bothered since Maximo is down there.
“I didn’t know,” I sob, whipping my head to Reaper. “I didn’t know about him. I just… I felt useless after what my father did to me and… I wouldn’t do it now. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring you trouble. It’s always on your doorstep. It’s the last thing I wanted.” I bury my face in my hands and sob. Knives’ heartbroken face is all I see.
I would have missed you if I never met you.
The words play on repeat in my mind, dissecting what he meant and didn’t mean. I need to know more, but I decide to give him space instead.
“Listen, I’ve known Knives for a long time. He doesn’t handle emotion well. He’s had a lot happen, and he tends to put his feelings in a box and shove them away. You kind of open that box for him. He hasn’t felt in a long time; let him have his space.” Reaper pushes on the table to help him stand, and he gives my shoulder a comforting squeeze as he walks behind me to make his way out.
“Yeah, okay,” I nod, staring at the ninja star embedded in the wall. I wipe the tears and decide to sit in the room alone to gather my thoughts.
This church is so much better than the other kind. Truth is spoken here, love is here, pain is here.
The Ruthless Kings are a religion.
Or at least, they have the qualities that religion is made up of. The right qualities.
Like my father, a lot of people use religion to fuel their hate.
After everything that has happened, I don’t know what I believe in. I find it hard to believe that my path in life has always been set in stone to lead me here.
“You okay?” a soft voice comes from the doorway, and Reaper’s sister Delilah is standing there, tapping on the trim with her knuckles. She surprised everyone when she showed up a few weeks ago. They look so much alike, but it is obvious Reaper is older.
“I don’t know.”
“Been there,” she sighs, slinking into the room. She’s so small, like if a stiff breeze blows, she’ll float away. Her dirty blonde hair is in a Dutch braid hanging over her shoulder. We don’t know much about her. Her stories are hers to tell when she’s ready, which I can relate to. Everyone knows my truth now, and I don’t want to see how they will look at me now.
“Everything will be okay. It might not seem like it now, but it will be. Knives cares about you. That’s been obvious since I’ve been here, and I’m sure it’s been obvious before that too.”
“We bicker a lot. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just sex.” The words don’t sound right as they leave my mouth. They leave a bad taste, because I know it isn’t just sex. It’s more.
“Maybe you’re bickering to stop what you really want to do. Maybe you’re bickering because that’s what you two have been doing for so long, you don’t know how else to be. It takes time to learn. Or maybe it is sex. Would that be so bad?”
My body turns to fire when I think about what happened in the barn. Sex with Knives wouldn’t be bad; it would be out of this world.
And it could never be just sex, because I know I’d fall in love with him if I’m not already there.
Maybe that’s why we fight
It’s because we might love each other after all.
Except he doesn’t want love. And I don’t know how to love.
“Tell me!” I swing the star and cut a gash on Maximo’s cheek. I’m fucking pissed off. Ever since Mary told me the truth, I’ve had this burning in my veins to kill someone. I need to inflict pain. I need to figure out where her father is so I can throw a dozen stars into his body.