Page 65 of Crimson Tears

Her eyes flutter closed again, this time looking more at peace as her breathing slows into a steady rhythm.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask Cillian, trying not to allow my frustration over the situation project onto him. His heart was in the right place running into that building, even if it was a mistake.

I messed up too, coming into the warehouse instead of covering them from the outside. If I had stayed where I said I would, then I could have warned them. I have no idea how many men were involved exactly, but I could have gotten to a few, and they would have been prepared from the inside.

Cillian shakes his head. “Just do what you do best, Old Man. Watch over our girl.”

He might be content to take all of this on himself, but the silence is causing my anxiety to spike. So, while watching over our girl like he asked, I help him put on a show for the cameras.

“You sure have been finding a lot of ways to rest in this situation,” I say.

I want to help those watching us think that all he has been doing is laying on his cot outside of the camera’s view every minute they are not in here.

“Rest can help us find a solution, Old Man.”

I chuckle lightly, shaking my head and keeping my eyes fixed on where his headshouldbe lying to sell the show. But I no longer know what to talk about.

“Hey, Kid,” I chance.

“Yeah, Gramps?” I roll my eyes, the old jokes are growing overrated.

“What’s the red tattoo for?”

His movements pause, and I watch as a lump forms in his throat. He swallows almost audibly. I have been wondering ever since that phone call and cannot seem to get it out of my mind.

He doesn't turn to me as he speaks, keeping his hands busy. “Has she told you about losing her sister?”

I look down at my girl, remembering her talk about that day that has held so much sorrow for her. She’s sleeping soundly now, her breathing perfectly even.

“She did.”

Cillian clears his throat. “I was there that day.”

My brows pinch, Nessa never mentioned him being there.

“I was watching her.”

Because Nessa didn’t know.

“I almost killed him before he got to Enya,” he says, his voice scratchy until he clears his throat to continue. “I couldn’t calculate everything in time. I thought he was just going to talk with Donovan and they would come to an agreement. My scope was trained on Nessa when Ronan stood with the gun. He fired before I had the chance to process what was happening.”

I can see the tension rising within him, his shoulders bunching as if trying to hide away from the awful memory while also trying to fight it.

“I seem to have a knack for being unable to protect the O’Neil women.”

I can tell he is equal parts joking as he is berating himself.

“And the tattoo?” I ask.

Cillian sighs, dropping the rock and turning to face me as he scoops the dust of the debris he has removed from the wall under his mattress.

“When I heard Nessa died too, I lost it for a solid week. I killed every person who tried to even talk to me while I drowned myself in liquor. The kid that helped me save E, Juvie, he was theone to set me straight after I almost killed a sixteen year old boy who really didn’t do anything wrong. I think I ran into his bike, but I blamed him for it and held a gun to his head.”

I can practically feel his pain echoing in the space around us. I cannot imagine how I would react to Nessa’s death, but I venture to guess I would be in a similar state.

Seems we do have a few things in common after all.

“He told me I needed to find an anchor. Tattoos were grounding for me when I became lost in the memories of the past. One thing that helped was putting them on my skin so that they could no longer run free in my head. Once they were there, they stayed exactly as I told myself they were. I couldn’t run with thoughts of what could have been because what was had already happened.”

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