Page 59 of Raiden

It makes me realize that no matter how sickening going to that warehouse and taking down those men was, I’d do it a thousand times over for these people and for this.

“I should treat Widow to a spa day of our own,” Lark says as she loads batter into the waffle maker. I don’t know where it came from, but it’s heart shaped, which is just about the strangest thing we have around here.

“You had some girl time at the range.”

Lark twists up her mass of thick hair, wet from her shower, and snaps an elastic around the messy bun.

“I was a bi- uh, not nice at the range.”

Penny happily slicks a thick as fuck coat of pink onto my thumb nail. At this rate, it should take approximately six million years to dry.

“And then we almost died and everything’s different.”

“I invited her over for dinner at Dad’s.”

Lark’s brows shoot up. She pops the waffle maker open, steps back from the steam, and forks out a perfect heart before greasing the thing and pouring in another.

“Before this. I know it’s not my house, but it’s literally our family home and we haven’t been there enough since Mom died. You and Gray and Penny should come too. I was counting on asking you and having you accept,” I say as I glance at my pink fingertips.

“You meant to force us to get along.”

“I did.”

She cuts up the waffle, spreads syrup on it and brings it over to Penny. She eagerly takes the fork and shovels in a bite while holding the dripping nail brush in her other hand. Lark put down a plastic tablecloth on the old Formica table in here, but that shit is going to eat right through it.

“She said it was too much before…” I subtly guide the brush back over the bottle of polish and cap it. Toxic smells and waffles don’t mix well. “If I ask her again, she’d agree, I think.”

Lark shoots a worried look over the top of Penny’s head while my niece obliviously munches down half of that huge waffle, smacking, licking her lips, and getting an entire syrup bottle all over herself.

“Zale’s still out there,” Lark whispers.

“He’s always going to be out there. This is just our life now. One threat or another popping up when it pops up. We have to learn to live with it. Zale was a threat even when we didn’t know it. He was planning and biding his time when none of us even knew he was alive. Our time of peace has been shaky for longer than we ever imagined. We need to go back to living like we’re going to be okay, appreciating life all the more, with that little bit of extra caution.”

After rounding the large island to shovel out the fresh waffles and get another cooking, Lark crosses her arms. She looks like she’s working out what she needs to say, so I leave the silence. I don’t stare at her either, pressuring her. I glance at the straight row of gray cabinets, the white quartz countertops, the stainless-steel sink. The kitchen was redone a few yearsago, since the makeshift one left here when the warehouse was turned into a clubhouse was a piece of shit. I guess it’s pretty fancy for a biker clubhouse but considering recently we’ve been having extra visitors during the lockdown when families stayed for protection, it came in handy. Now everyone save for Gray’s family has gone back to their own places, it’s only Lark who uses it regularly—and maybe some of the brothers who like to cook.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here now,” Lark says soberly. “I need to find a job. Get back to doing something regular. I know it’ll be some time before our new house is ready, so this is as close to a home as we have for the time being. Penny’s going to be in school right away. I already have her registered, even though I debated not going through with it with what’s been going on. I thought about homeschooling.”

Thinking about what she just said makes me wonder about Ella would fit here. Not that it hasn’t been constantly on my mind already.

Lark and I might not have spent a lot of time together in the past five years, but she reads my mind just as easily as if we’d never been apart. “What do you think Widow might like to do?”

“For work?”

“Yeah. She’s staying, isn’t she?” My sister is far too perceptive. I can’t look away and I can’t keep a stony enough expression. “Raiden,” she murmurs. “You’re so far gone.” She slaps the waffle maker open. “If she leaves and hurts you, I don’t care that she saved me or that I want to be her friend and I know I’ve been awful. I’ll be awful again. I’ll never speak to her.”

“It might not be her choice, Lark.” My sister still slaps that waffle down angrily, drowns the stack in syrup, and brings it to me. “It’s not that simple,” I try to reason. “It’s not just aboutloyalty or doing what her father says. She had a life before. She’s almost got her PhD, did you know that?”

Lark chokes. “Why would I know that?” She cleans up for Penny, who is done and listening to us intently.

“Don’t wreck your nails,” she challenges in her little girl bossy voice, staring at the travesty that is my left hand.

At least I can eat with my right. I leave the still drying, probably forever drying, left hand flat on the table.

“In what?” She takes Penny’s plate to the sink and stands over there, processing what I just told her.

“English literature. She wanted to teach at one time.”

“High school?”

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