She looked down at me from so high above, and I read my name on her lips. I wanted to catch her. I wanted to go with her into the smoke. I wanted…
She dropped fast. I ran. Sylv did. We tried to catch her. But she was too far away.
We tried to stop the world from spinning.
It went on and on and part of me died with her.
I loved her. My first love. That love had lived, it always would. Inside my veins. Inside my blood. For one brilliant moment in time, that loved lived.
She went pale before the baby came. Like she knew. My darlin’ Riley had known it could happen. Her body was a thin thing, not like her heart. Not like her spirit. Sometimes a body isn’t built for a spirit that is bigger than the world itself. Sometimes it fails and sometimes that failing destroys the world. It wrecked mine.
She was weak, they told me. There had been too much blood loss.
The baby had come and he was a soldier, a strong champion that grew and lived with the same fire his mama had.
But Riley was pale when I saw her. She hadn’t the strength to lift her head from the pillow. Couldn’t even hold the baby when they brought him in.
“You do it. Please.”
I took my boy, stronger than his mama, stronger, if I’m honest, than I was just then, and I held him because my darlin’ asked me to. I held him close and let him lay beside her wondering if she knew him. Praying she did. Believing she would.
“Riley?”
She’d been too pale. Too damn pale and those eyes slid closed. Dear Lord, how I loved her. How I loved her so. That love had lived, it always would. Inside my veins. Inside my blood. For one brilliant moment in time, that loved lived.
I loved her. It came to me alongside with Sookie’s fear and Isaac’s bottomless sorrow. It came to me when Willow fell, when her keys hit the street and got crushed beneath the metal wheel of the tar truck. It came to me as I shot forward, as I grabbed her and held her away from the noise and chaos behind us.
With everything inside my veins, inside my blood, I loved her.
Twenty-Five
Nash
“I’m sorry. Oh sweet God, Will. I’m so sorry.”
It didn’t matter. The crowd, the worried onlookers who huddled around us, the construction crew all sweaty from work and fear, the movers, unused to such drama in their normally mundane lives. All I saw was the color coming back to her face. All I felt was the death grip of her fingers on my collar. “Willow, I’m so sorry.” I could say it a million times and it wouldn’t be enough. None of it. “Please, forgive me.”
“Nash…” Her voice was weak, but loud enough that it made me look down, a wild rush of relief running through me as I touched her face, her shoulders, as I kissed her over and over until the small sound of my name came again. “Please… just let me breathe.”
“Are you hurt? You fell.” I held her back, fingers everywhere, running over her arms, holding her hands, moving them out of the way to get a clearer look at her. Her sweater was torn and she’d lost a tennis shoe in the tumble to the tar-slick ground, but she wasn’t hurt. Thank the powers that be, she wasn’t hurt.
“I’m fine.” She pushed on my shoulder and I helped her up. “Can we… let’s go inside, okay?”
“But you need a hospital or…there could be internal injuries or, hell…”
“Will you stop?” She waved off the construction foreman when he got closer. “Really, he’s overreacting. I’m fine. Just tripped on my own damn feet and nearly bought it under that truck.”
“Ma’am…” the guy protested, coming closer.
“Seriously, the track was a good five feet from where I fell. It’s fine, honestly. No worries at all.”
Willow moved to her car, grabbing the door before I stopped her. “Where are you going?” I couldn’t believe she was still thinking of leaving, now. She opened her mouth and I thought she was going to say something biting, something that would have me doling out more apologies, so I didn’t give her a chance.
“I’m sorry. I’ll say it a thousand times, I swear. I’m sorry I was an asshole to you. I’m sorry I let you walk away.” I stood so close to her now Will had to rest against the car door to look at me. For once, she was uncharacteristically quiet. “You asked me why it mattered, you leaving? It matters, Willow. It matters because I love you. It matters because I don’t want to go to bed at night wondering where you are, wondering if you’re safe or sad or tired or happy or a billion other things.” I took her face, lowering my voice so only she could hear me. “It matters because God or fate or the universe or whoever clearly wants us together. Because Sookie and Dempsey didn’t get a happy ending, and Isaac and Riley’s got theirs taken from them. I don’t know who they are, Will. I don’t know if it’s you or me or people who share our blood. I don’t care about any of that, about the why, about the how. I only know that I want you, that you twist me up, that I’m sprung, so stupid sprung over you. It matters, you leaving. It matters because I don’t want you leave without me.”
I didn’t wait for her to answer. I didn’t need to hear she loved me. I knew it. It was in every look she’d ever given me. It was in the sweet swirl of her mouth on mine. It was in each touch, each laugh. The words didn’t matter to me at all.
“Nash,” she said when I leaned down to kiss her.
“Yeah?”
“I need to get something out of my car. Then, let’s go upstairs. I—” She looked around, grinning at two movers when they passed us by. “There’s something I need to show you.”
Twenty-Six
Nash
The building was quiet. No lights lit up the hallways and no answer came when we knocked on the door. “We should check the roof.”
Will nodded, holding my hand when I offered it to her as we headed toward the stairs. “You said his cell was disconnected?”
“Yeah.” I held open the door, letting her in front of me as we climbed the stairs. “Been at least a week since I’ve heard from him. But then sometimes he goes AWOL. He always shows up again.” She moved through the door, holding it open for me when I came behind her and we walked toward the cages where Roan kept his pigeons.
“Think he’ll show up again?”
But I didn’t answer Willow. There was a little too much worry crowding my head, coupled with all the other confusing things that had happened that day. The cages were empty.
“There were pigeons. Hundreds of them.” I waved at the empty cages, two sets of six rows, all vacant, even the water from the dispensers and the feed in the bowls were gone. In fact, the only things that remained of the birds were some random feathers and a single spattering of droppings. Everything else had been cleaned away.
She moved around the cages, closing the open doors, her head shaking as she looked first at me, then around the roof. “I don’t understand why—”
“What is that?” I asked, pointing at a red envelope stuck between two of the cages. Will was closer and grabbed it, but once she looked at it, she smiled. “I’m guessing this is for you.”