Page 108 of After All The Wreckage
“And Demi. She might be dead too.” I swallowed hard, those same unexpected emotions from all week overwhelming me—loss I never thought I’d feel over our mother.
River leaned up against his workbench with his heavily tattooed and muscled arms crossed over his chest. Normally, his face was hard to read. A blank sketch. He was calm and cool-headed ninety-nine percent of the time, but if you did enough to actually rile the man, he was hard to bring back down. Now there was only sadness in his eyes.
“You’re not responsible for that woman, Gage. Never have been. She was the adult. The parent. She was supposed to look out for all of you, not the other way around. If she got tangled up into something ugly, it’s her fault for pulling you into it.”
I knew that. At least, logically, I did. But every instinct told me it wasn’t that simple. Worse, I’d dragged Rory into it too. Her mom was dead as a result of our actions over the last few days. My chest grew tighter and tighter until I thought it might implode like an atom bomb, causing even more wreckage to strew across our lives.
I tried to give myself an out. Rory’s mom had already been involved. Her car accident was proof she’d been working this case long before Monte’s vision and kidnapping, but what would have happened if I hadn’t asked Rory to find Demi? Would everyone still be breathing?
Rory wouldn’t stop now. Not until she got justice for her mom. Not because she envisioned herself as some VeronicaMars clone, but because exacting justice was in her DNA. It was at the core of who she was. And what would happen then?
What would happen after?
I’d told her I wanted her at my side. Wanted her in my life. And I’d meant it. Hell, I’d basically told her I loved her. But what if keeping her meant bringing this kind of evil closer to my siblings over and over again? What if the worst happened and I lost one of them? And yet…
I still didn’t know if I could let her go. Just the idea of walking away made me feel like my arms were being ripped from my body. As if I wouldn’t ever be able to move again until she was at my side.
“What else is going on in that brain of yours?” River asked.
“I slept with Rory.” It slipped out before I could even debate saying it.
His eyebrows lifted, and his lips twitched. “Well. Good for you, man. It’s been too damn long.”
I rubbed the scruff on my chin. “It should have been weird. Hell, she was twelve when I first met her.” I shook my head. She was an adult now. A stunning force that drew me like gravity. “Instead, it just felt…”
“Right,” he finished for me.
I nodded.
“Once when I was a teenager, I asked my mom how she knew my dad was the one for her,” River said. “Her response was, ‘I just knew.’ When I told her, ‘That was fucking useful,’ she slapped me for swearing. But it was the truth, because as soon as Audrey turned her smile on me in Art 101, that’s how I felt. It was like my entire life slid into focus. As if I’d been stumbling around in the dark until she showed up.”
His words settled inside me. That was how I’d felt next to Rory. Like everything else was out of focus except her. As ifshe was the only place where I’d find peace again. Except now, everything was in chaos.
“Regardless of how this ends with Demi and Dunn and the Lovatos, Rory is going to be out there putting herself at risk. If not as a PI, then as an agent. It’s who she is. It’s what she’s wanted from the moment I met her. How do I invite that uncertainty into Ivy and Monte’s world?”
“Plenty of law enforcement types have families, Gage.”
“But my family has lost so much already,” I said, my doubts showing in every syllable.
He stared at me for a moment. “Who are you really trying to protect? Your brother and sister or yourself?”
River picked up a roll of wire from his bench. “You’re afraid to unwrap the metal cage you’ve locked your heart inside. For four years I’ve watched you going through the motions, keeping everyone at bay. This isn’t the life you’re supposed to live, man. You gotta put it all on the line. So what if it gets stabbed once or ten more times? At least you will have actually lived.”
I bristled. “I don’t have my heart locked up. I give it every day to Monte and Ivy.”
River’s eyes narrowed, and he shrugged. “Yeah. You love them. You keep them safe. But you don’t show them how to live. How to put yourself out there. How to accept love as much as you give it. You’ve taught them how to shield themselves, which isn’t a bad skill to learn, but learning to open yourself up is also important.”
Before I could respond, Monte’s scream ripped through the air, and I bounded out of the room with River on my tail. Monte’s cry died away into a choked sob as I skidded into the living room. He was sitting up on the pullout bed, eyes wild, hair standing up.
I landed on the bed, dragging him into my arms. “It’s okay, Monte. I’m here.”
He was trembling so hard that it made my body quiver too.
“They’re all there, Gage. Demi and Dunn and Rory.”
I nodded, my chin grazing the top of his head as I squeezed him tight.
“No… What I mean is”—he pulled away from me, terrified and tortured eyes meeting mine—“they all die.”
