Page 22 of Frayed Owner

I didn’t think so.

But it also brought me back to what was really going on with me. “I killed someone. I ended their life.”

Pity filled her eyes. “Yeah, you did. That won’t ever fully leave you, especially us who are tied to life and magic. But it will get better. I promise you that it will.”

A whoosh of air left my lungs as what she was saying hit me. “You know.”

“I do.”

She gestured with her head for us to get back to jogging. We didn’t say anything as we finished the lap. We grabbed what we’d left out—gels, dates, and drinks. We would need it the next miles, and there was no point to carrying it when we didn’t have to.

“The first time I had to kill it was multiple people, but I was trained for it—there was a reason and purpose.” She took in a sharp breath. “Except someone was there that shouldn’t be. I killed him along with two others we were supposed to. Ten were supposed to die. We killed twelve when the dust settled.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve gone back and forth so many times and I still don’t have the answer,” she admitted. “There was no information on him being a bad guy, but could someone be clean who is the brother-in-law of a terrorist? What if he was forced? But he was still involved in dirty things then, right? How forced—people are forced into gangs, but they could choose otherwise.”

“And how much was lies or their evil?” I muttered. “I feel that way about Clare. So much was lies that I didn’t understand. She’s stepped up and admitted it was her blinders of being young and our fucked-up house—her resentment of me that Grandfather loved me. But she has no idea it was completely about me being blessed by a goddess.”

“Shit, that’s a lot. Fuck,” she whispered. “Yeah, it’s all got so many levels. Drives me nuts.” She let out a heavy breath. “I still see his face sometimes. Every few months.”

“The others?” I hedged. “The ones who were bad?”

“No. I feel the loss of life, but it’s more sometimes I wake feeling a weight on my chest. Like I know what I’ve done—even if right—still weighs on me.”

“I don’t really see his face,” I muttered after another mile or so. “I didn’t see it really that day. I see them coming around the corner with their guns out. I see them flying into the wall and getting upset that I was relieved they were out of the picture. Then I see him being loaded in the body bag.”

“All normal.”

“How long untilIcan be normal again?” I asked, tears in my voice.

“There is no normal again, Bevin,” she said firmly. “There is just you. Your new reality after taking a life. Just like with any other trauma or major change in your life. You aren’t the same Bevin you were in that house. You’re a new level—a different Bevin. You adjust and move forward.”

“I don’t know that that helps,” I admitted.

“You do what feels right,” she tried again but then snorted. “Or if you’re me, you go fuck a human you absolutely hate but was hot and everyone said was really great in bed. He was, and I wanted to feel anything else other than what I was feeling.”

“Did it work?” I wondered.

“Yes. Absolutely. Did it fuck with my head? Yeah, but looking back it definitely wasn’t a bad response. I don’t think there are bad responses, just responses. I mean, yeah, don’t go kill animals or the weird shit. But if you want to go have hot sex—have it. Drink? Sure. Run every day too hard? Okay. Eat your weight in donuts? Yeah, makes sense.”

I snorted, but then I seriously considered what she said. “It just feels weird being normal after I killed someone.”

“Yeah, because you’re not a fucking sociopath, hon. Of course. But you—it would be weird if youmurderedsomeone and went and had sex or a hot date or anything normal. It was an accident. You have to stop thinking that you killed someone.”

“But I did,” I argued.

“Yeah, you did, but I—it’s framing. He died becauseheput himself there. He died because he was a corrupt fucker and went to kill Kevin. He died because of the situationhewas in. He pulled his gun and youreacted. That’s how you have to start thinking about it. If he hadn’t shown up to do wrong, he’d be alive. That’s not on you.”

That was what others had been trying to tell me, but they hadn’t said it that way—it hadn’tclickedfor me. They’d said that I’d taken a life to save one or I’d done the right thing.

But it all had been framed in what I’d done. This was… Better. It was better for me.

“Thanks, Emma,” I whispered.

“I get it. It’s a lot and hard to process. Only people who have gone through it know. Shit, I know people where a kid has accidentally died in their drone strike or they killed a lot of people in the wrong target. I’m not saying what you went through isn’t valid or hard. I’m saying you arenotas alone as you feel right now.”

“You’re also saying there are others around me that I can talk to about this,” I hedged.

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