Page 33 of The Aftermath

“Don’t walk away,” Hunter warns softly as if he knew what I was thinking about. I nod my head as he walks off, and I slowly climb onto the small cot behind her. It’s as if she knows I’m here and scoots over, giving me space. I wrap my arm around her and pull her as close as I can get her. I lean my face into her hair and inhale her scent.

“I fucked up, Angel,” I whisper, not knowing if she can hear me or not. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have forced you to do that.”

“You didn’t.” She is awake.

“Yeah, I did. And I’m so fucking sorry,” I apologize to her.

“You made me let go of something, Silas. You forced me to give up a part of me that was holding me back. Don’t be sorry for that.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I admit to her.

“Don’t say anything. Just listen. I hated what was done to me. I’ve lived with it all these years, and I didn’t know how to make it stop. The pain, the hate, the anger. I couldn’t make any of it stop. And now I can because you know. They know. And I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore,” she says softly. Is she crazy? How could she think I wouldn’t want her? She’s all I fucking want.

I reach for her face and turn it so she can see me when I see the tears in her eyes.

“Why wouldn’t I want you?”

“I can’t have kids, Silas. Don’t you want kids?”

“I’ve never thought about it much, but if having kids means losing you, then I don’t want them.”

“What if you change your mind?” I shake my head.

“I’m not changing my mind, Angel. We haven’t come this far, and I haven’t killed people just for you to leave me. If that’s your plan, you better rethink it because I will hunt you down, and I’ll make you pay for trying to get away from me.”

“I-I don’t want to leave you, Silas.” That’s exactly what I wanted to hear. I lean down and press my lips to hers, savoring every bit of her. She’s everything to me and I don’t know how she can’t see that.

“Glad you’re awake,” I hear Rylan and pull away from Angel. I sit up and shove off the cot before walking toward him. He holds out his hand to me and I take it before he pulls me into a hug. “Don’t do that shit again, Silas.”

“I know. I won’t. It all just got too much,” I tell him before Levi pulls me in next.

“You could have lost something last night. You’re lucky you didn’t.” Levi nods toward Angel. I look over my shoulder as Tamsyn pulls her off the cot, and they both walk toward us. I reach for her and pull her to my side, tucking her in tightly against me.

“I appreciate what you guys did for me.”

“None of that girly shit. We do what the fuck we do, and we move on,” Rylan says, causing everyone to laugh.

“What do we do now?” I ask them.

“We know what the ultimate goal is for you. We’re behind you but like I said last night, we’re waiting until after the ceremony.” I nod my head. I agree with that. I think we should wait.

“You want my fucking input?” Hunter asks as he walks toward us.

“Of course,” I say.

“You take it all back. The three of you. Once you handle the leaders, you take the society back.”

“Why the hell would we want it? They’ve fucking ruined it.”

“You can change it, Ry. You can make that shit what you want it to be. Change the fucking rules. Hell, you’ll have millions of dollars at your disposal once the leaders are out of the way,” he says. It makes sense. The businesses our dads own, in the event of their death, would come to us.

“He’s not wrong,” I tell Rylan.

“No, he’s not, but is that something we want?” he asks, looking between all of us.

“I don’t know,” Tamsyn softly answers as Angel clings to my side. “There’s been so much bad shit that it’s hard to see the good,” she says. She isn’t wrong, either. They’ve driven this society into the fucking ground and made it into something it never should have been.

“Yeah, I get that, but look at the bigger picture, right? Change it. Make it better. Give those girls different expectations. Give them something to look forward to and not dread,” Hunter adds.

---