Smother (28 page)

“Ryan,” she breathed.

“Yes. Ryan Michaelson. He’s not just into illegal dealings—he oversees the distribution of them. And he’s gaining notoriety and getting influential in all the wrong places.” He pointed a finger at her. “Your bad decisions started a landslide of messes. Leo let his emotions take over his brain and he acted. They retaliated. They’ll keep coming back, and each time, they’ll be angrier. This won’t end until one of them is dead.”

She turned, or maybe it was the world around her that turned. Dizzying heat scorched her brain, sank into her veins, and pumped through her in a waterfall of disorientation. She grabbed her head, tried to steady herself, but the spinning sensation grew. She dropped her hands, swaying on her feet, and studied the being that watched her.

“My bad decisions aren’t yours to dictate. I never asked you to watch over me. I never asked Leo to do these things for me.” Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick.
Leo.
Of course she never asked him. She’d never had to. He wanted to help her, unlike Reese, who wanted to be a victim and wouldn’t help herself. Acknowledging that clenched her stomach at the same time it loosened her shoulders.

Her father’s face told her he had no sympathy for her actions, and she understood that. Life was about choices and she’d made really, really terrible ones, time and again. She had a reason, an excuse, but did that justify any of it?

“The plan was to gather information, and when the time was right, act. Ryan was not supposed to be part of that plan, nor your ex. Brad Kratochwill was.”

“Why would you go after Brad but not Sawyer?”

“You didn’t have a choice about Brad. You did with Sawyer.”

She slowly nodded. “So I deserved it from Sawyer? Because I was old enough to know better, right?”

His eyes were cold upon her face, an icepick to her heart. “Interpret it how you must.”

Reese didn’t say anything, but the glare on her face said enough.

“I had suspicions about Brad and his treatment of you girls, but Leo only recently confirmed.”

Her confession. Of course. She looked away, jaw tight under the weight of disappointment she felt for her father.

“You know, I don’t even care about me.” She met his gaze, hers incinerating with its judgment. “You could have saved Morgan. You were watching me, watching us. You knew I left. You were the adult, the parent, the one person in this world that had the power, and the right, to save us. And you didn’t. That’s all Morgan wanted. She just wanted to be saved.”

Reese brushed tears from her cheeks. “Don’t judge me, or my actions, when yours have been way more deplorable.”

He stared at her, dissecting each feature of her face, probably looking for dissimilarities instead of likenesses. Richard slowly nodded. “Fair enough.”

She couldn’t form words, so she didn’t try.

His voice was the first to break the silence. “I can only do so much damage control, and then I’m out. I’ve done what I can to help Leo, but . . .” He looked down. “I’m done. I can’t protect him anymore.”

“What do you mean, you’re done?”

“I mean, he no longer has my protection. He is no longer associated with me. He’s on his own.”

“You, and your code, and everything you are associated with, is
shit.
” Vehemence trembled in her words. “You used Leo. He probably actually thought you cared about him. You used him and now that he’s a liability, you’re cutting ties. Just like you did with us.”

A tick formed in his jaw. The silence grew, full of overwhelming tension.

“Leo made the decision to go. I agreed it was the right one.” He paused. “Because I do care about Leo, I’ll do what I can for the Michaelson boy.”

“What does that mean? You’ll send a warning, break a few bones?”

“If necessary.”

“Don’t bother.”

“It’s done.” His tone brooked no argument.

She looked at the man standing before her and no longer saw any of her in him. He was an unfamiliar person, someone she didn’t know. “I wish you would have stayed gone. At least then I could have clung to my delusions about the kind of man you were, instead of finding out you’re nothing like what I hoped.”

Time faded away as daughter and father stood in a silent battle of what was, what could have been, and what would never be. What could he say to that? He could explain himself, give more excuses, but none of that would change anything. It would be a waste of time and words.

He probably did the best thing he could for her when he turned and walked out of her yard.

Reese slowly turned, legs numb, heart squeezed into a mockery of what it should be. She entered the house where it was warm, and still she shivered. Reese stood in the kitchen, back to the door. She felt even more broken, and she didn’t know how there was any of her left to fracture. She pressed a hand to her heart and hung her head.

She’d just officially met her father, and she regretted every second she’d spent in his presence.

Reese walked through the kitchen with limbs that fought to move. It was the disillusionment that hurt, she realized. She’d hoped for one thing and was shown another. She told herself it was time to move on, to say goodbye to that hope. Reese didn’t want to know her father anymore, and she carefully put him behind a door in her mind, and locked it.

She stopped in the doorway to her bedroom, staring at a room she was painstakingly trying to make into hers. It was hard to decorate a room that symbolized her when she didn’t really know who she was. For now, she’d found herself in pictures. Her room was decorated in framed photographs of her and Morgan and Leo’s artwork.

Leo had given most of them to her and helped her put them on the walls. It had been his way of trying to make up for things he didn’t need to feel bad about. She’d told him that. And like Leo, he’d nodded and left. Pieces of the things she cherished most were on the walls, and she supposed in caring for Leo and Morgan, they became part of her. In that sense, Reese was reflected in the drawings and pictures, and that was something be thankful for. This could be her identity.

She didn’t take the bed with her when she moved, asking Leo to get rid of it for her. He’d narrowed his eyes at her, but given his silent consent. It took three paychecks worth of savings to do it, but Reese bought a new bed, complete with sheets, bedspread, and bed skirt. She had to laugh at how much a physical object could hold such power over her. But when that new bed, untainted by any living form, was placed in her bedroom, it freed a part of her. Another piece of the slate was wiped clean.

Reese was trying to give herself a second chance. If it was possible to do such a thing, she’d willingly take it.

She spread her arms wide, closed her eyes, and fell backward onto the bed, allowing a smile to hug her lips. The comforter was the color of coffee beans, soft, and smelled of laundry detergent and innocence. A memory hit her—two blond girls, the first snowfall of the winter, giggling as they found a random snow pile and made snow angels on their way home from school. Her chest pinched, but she kept smiling as she heard the happy squeals, remembered how they found something to laugh about in a life painted in black.

“I miss you, Morgan,” she whispered through lips that barely moved. “I wish I could have saved you, but I’m only now learning how to save myself.” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, christening the bed with pain, but also with love.

Whenever tears felt the need to fall, Reese was usually able to keep them at bay, but not this time, and not much recently. There was constant pressure in her chest, heaviness in her heart. She hadn’t properly mourned her sister. She’d been so full of guilt, eaten up by it daily, that she hadn’t allowed herself to really accept that she was gone. She kept Morgan alive for the wrong reasons instead of how she should.

Morgan wasn’t a debt unpaid. She wasn’t revenge. She shouldn’t be guilt. It was intolerable to think of her as fear. She didn’t even deserve to be sorrow. She should be lovely and free. Something treasured instead of grieved. Reese understood about birds now. Morgan needed to fly, and Reese’s destructiveness kept her tethered here, in this ugly world. She’d already fallen, and now it was time for her to soar.

Reese released Morgan with her tears. They came hard, and were unrelenting. She wept, dampening the new blanket and sheets with the loss of a sister finally acknowledged. Her throat ached as she sobbed, hugging a pillow to her like it was Morgan. She remembered them running through the yard, squealing in the sunshine as they chased one another. She saw her soft smile, the way her blue eyes lit up like an ocean filled with lanterns.

She cried for hours, and each time she thought she might be done, another memory brought on a fresh set. Her heart cried as well, all of her trembling with the farewell. She refused to think of what might have happened after she left, or even before she left. She couldn’t think of the bad. She wouldn’t think of how it ended. She would think of how it started in goodness.

Each life, each death, was a hello and a goodbye. She would focus on the beginnings instead of the endings. She said her hello in the form of smiles and laughter and hugs, pouring from her eyes in clear, untarnished salty rivers.

“Fly away, Morgan.”

It took me a while to accept who I am. Who I am is not defined by what I do or don’t do in life, but by how I view myself. It was a hard lesson to learn, and I don’t always like me, but I understand me.

Reese has no clue who she is. How do you accept something you don’t understand? Either you don’t, or you work at it until you do. ~ Leo

“I haven’t seen you for a while.” Three days, to be exact. Three long days of no Leo.

He shrugged one shoulder, sifting through papers in a way that told her he wasn’t really seeing them.

“You’ve been purposely staying away.”

Leo looked at her then, not denying it, but not looking away like he would have in the past. His gaze was molten, searing in its overwhelming ability to speak louder than any words could.

She stepped farther into the room, missing the smell of it, the feeling that she belonged in a certain place. She’d known her job here, known what was expected of her. She’d made coffee, done light cleaning, set up appointments, and glared at people. In a warped way, she’d felt a kinship with Leo and this workplace, even if it wasn’t logical.

“Why?”

“I won’t chase you.”

“I have to come to you, is that it?” She stopped when mere feet separated them, drinking in the sight and scent of him.

He stared her down. “That’s it.” His expression didn’t change, but she noted the way his nostrils slightly flared at her nearness, how the pulse in his neck picked up.

“I don’t want you to chase me.”

“I’m not sure you know what you want.” He moved to the window and looked outside.

“That’s not true.” At his baleful look, she corrected, “Sometimes it’s true, but not always. I know a few things—a few basic, irrefutable truths that I need to remember and work with. I’m hoping it’ll get easier as I go, that I’ll emotionally evolve or something, because so far, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Meaning?”

She took a deep breath and walked toward him. “I can’t trust myself with you. I can’t trust what I feel, because everything I’ve ever felt, has been a black, twisted parallel of what it should be. How do I know that what I feel is good, normal? Healthy?”

Leo lowered his gaze. Even with his bowed head, she saw the way his jaw tightened. “Not every good feeling is bad.”

Reese exhaled loudly, unaware she’d been holding her breath as she waited for his sparingly given words. She’d needed to hear that, to be reminded. He was her voice of reason when hers was missing.

“Thank you.”

He nodded, still not raising his eyes to hers.

“Leo?” she asked hesitantly as she closed the space between them until there was but a few inches. “How do I learn what’s right and wrong?”

That lifted his head and gaze. Leo looked at her like he was memorizing each tiny detail of her so that he could later turn her face into artwork. He touched her cheek, the roughness of his fingertips soothing against her skin. “If you can’t trust yourself, trust me.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You know,” was all he said.

She swallowed thickly. It was true. “I think I can do that.”

He moved away and rustled through a stack of papers, the thickness and color of the paper alerting her that those were his drawings he was so carelessly handling. Reese put a hand on his, stopping his movements. Leo looked up with a question in his eyes.

“Be gentle. Those are important.”

His eyes softened, letting her know her words were important to him. “Looking for something.”

“Well, look more carefully for it.”

The ghost of a smile crept over his mouth.

“So.” She took a deep breath as she let go of his hand, stacking up the courage that was presently trying to run, screaming and scared, away from her. “Do you have plans tonight?”

Leo frowned at her.

“Is that not computing?” she asked in exasperation when he didn’t answer.

“No plans.”

“Okay. Good.” Reese nodded. “Want to come over for dinner and watch a movie? Just so you know, I’m a terrible cook, and I only have Netflix, so there is a limited selection. I think I saw ‘Ghostbusters’ on there and that’s pretty much a classic. Can’t beat Bill Murray and ectoplasm.” She was rambling, not giving him a chance to say no.