Page 137 of Savior

“I’ll show you more believable,” I growled, just as Lauren stepped in between us.

With her palms planted firmly on my chest, she led me away from the giraffe. “Easy there, Tex.”

I dropped my hands to her belly, the tension leaving my body instantly. “The fuck were you thinking, Red? You were supposed to let me know of any changes in the plans.” I mashed my lips to her forehead. “How are you? Fuck, your nose and your eye—Jesus! You just—my girls, are they okay?”

My shoulders began to shake uncontrollably, and I clenched my jaw, fighting against the strange sound I seemed to be making. I managed a ragged breath before the floodgates opened, and I began bawling like a scared kid. “Thought I was gonna lose you—”

“Shhhh...” She let her forehead rest against my chin. “We’re okay, Mike. It’s over. You saved us. We’re safe now.”

Safe.

When was the last time I’d felt that?

I wrapped my arms around the redhead who’d saved me on a beach in Galveston, throwing out a lifeline and towing me to shore. She’d put my feet on solid ground and challenged me to be a better man than I was the day before.

Lauren was my Charlotte, my front porch swing partner and the woman who was going to be holding my hand when I left this world.

I’d sacrificed myself once before. If anyone stood against my family, I wouldn’t hesitate to become their savior again, exchanging my life for theirs.

Until then, I was going to spend every day showing her and my daughters just how much they meant to me. I would be their protector and their rock.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Grey

My eyes opened to the face of an angel with green eyes. She smoothed the dirty and damp hair off my forehead and kissed my brow before whispering, “You saved me.”

“No, princess. You saved me.” I licked my cracked lips and shook my head, unable to put into words the strength I’d drawn just by seeing that she was still wearing her ring. “Kept me fightin’, even when I wanted to give up.”

“You can rest now,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

Maybe by sending one monster to hell, I’d earned myself a few extra minutes with my family in purgatory before the Reaper showed up to collect.

I could’ve slipped into oblivion and forced Mikey to pull the trigger, or demanded that Bear take Betsy to one of our facilities to be put through the same hell I had.

In the end, I tried to give my family what we’d chased for seventeen years.

Closure.

As much as I wanted to watch her die over and over again for the things she’d put my family through, it wouldn’t change the past. No kill in the world could set things right.

The memories of the things we’d lost were like scars. They might fade over time, but they’d never truly go away. The war might’ve been over out here, but we’d forever be sifting through the rubble in our heads.

They loaded me into the backseat of someone’s truck, and I reached for Celia’s hand, needing to free her like she’d freed me. “Need you to do somethin’ for me.”

She followed me in and settled against my side with a solemn nod. “Whatever you need.”

I lifted my left arm, ignoring the stiffness in my joints as I let it rest against the back of her neck. “Doesn’t have to be now, but when you’re ready, I want you to know that I’m here.”

Her eyebrows moved together. “What are you saying?”

I caressed the nape of her neck, touching her skin with my wedding band as if it had healing properties. “I’m sayin’ that it’s okay to cry.”

Moving on was a foreign concept for both of us. We’d always been running, from one thing to the next, that we never got a chance to come to terms with the past.

Her eyes filled, and the tears spilled over onto her cheeks as she let go. I sat in the pain with her as she grieved the seventeen-year-old girl who’d envisioned a fairy tale and been given a horror story.

I held her when she broke apart over the loss of her parents and the people she’d needed them to be.

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