Page 8 of Redeem
“Why didn't ye use the key?” she asks with that hint of an accent. “Did ye lose it?”
I shake my head. She opens her arms to hug me, and I hesitate before I wrap my arms around her small frame. She’s not an overly affectionate person—half the time she's drunk and sleeping—but I can feel how small she's become since I first came here all those years ago.
She used to have a smile and spark in her eyes. But now that's gone, replaced by dull eyes and sharp cheekbones.
“Em, Em,” Lily calls out from behind her mother, and I pull away as the little girl launches herself at me.
I move inside, so she doesn't feel the cold temperature in only her pjs. And the little spidermonkey holds on as if I'm going to leave again. I pull her head to my chest and let her little cold fingers wrap around my throat and under my collar.
“I missed you,” I whisper into her hair as I place a kiss on her blonde hair. I walk her down the hallway to Keegan's room and knock, waiting for him to answer. When he doesn't, Lily turns her head to the closed door. The doorframe is splintered, and I realize that something happened while I was stuck in New Jersey.
“Daddy...” Lily whispers.
And that's all I need to know. I turn the doorknob and the door cracks open. I see the lock has been broken from the violent intrusion into Keegan’s space. His father has been here, and that's never good. I open the door to a dark room. The only light is coming from his computer in the corner, and I see the lump under the covers.
“Keegs,” I whisper to him, not wanting to startle him. I move Lily to my hip and sit on the edge of the bed. It creaks under mine and Lily's weight. His body shuffles farther from me. I reach out and touch Keegan through the blankets that are cocooned around him tightly. I feel him stiffen at my touch.
“How bad?” I ask, but he doesn't have to say anything for me to know it was bad. It was bad when I wasn't here. I should have come back sooner. I shouldn't have stayed any longer with my father...a man who didn’t even consider me a son until a week ago, when Keegan killed the only child he cared about.
“Lily, why don't you go sleep in my room for a while?” I tell her. I know she's scared, and I have a lock on my door so I can keep her father out. I need to talk to Keegan alone.
She clings to me as I try to place her on the floor. Fuck. I don't want to leave her, but I need to speak to Keegs, and I don't want Lily to overhear. She loves her brother too much to hear what I'm about to talk to him about. He never wanted to take someone's life. He vowed to never walk the same path as his father, and saving Izzy meant he broke that vow.
I’m fucking glad he did.
I hear the front door of the house bang open, and Lily grips me even tighter. Keegan shuffles the blankets and his eyes widen, looking at his open door. Fuck. I quickly stand, Lily shaking in my arms, as I move to close the door. Even though the lock will no longer work, I know how important it is for Keegan to have the door closed.
Just as I push it shut, a dark boot kicks it open, and I look up and see Madden.
“Thank fuck yer back.” His words rumble deep in his chest. Lily pulls her head from the crook of my neck and smiles up at him.
It’s not often he gets a smile like that, and even though Madden can scare the fuck out of me at times when he switches, Lily always feels safe with him. It’s funny watching this tall scary fucker get as soft as one can when he’s around her. She holds her arms out for him, and he takes her into his arms.
“Maddy.” She kisses his cheek and he groans. She giggles, and I can see a small hint of smile in his eyes at the gesture. He doesn't hate it.
“Let's get ye to bed,” he grumbles and nods over at Keegan.
I close the door behind them and return to Keegs. “Fuck, Keegs. I wish I knew he would do this. I would have come back with you.” Fuck my father and all his bullshit.
“He’s getting worse. We need to leave soon. He’s gonna kill Lily.”
I nod and run my hands through my hair. I know he will. Our plans are different now. So much has changed since Isabella walked into Roxbury and turned everything we’d planned upside down.
“We will leave. We’ll set things into place and put a hundred miles between here and us.”
He doesn't speak for a while. The funny, cocky Keegan isn't here. This sullen version of him worries me. He was like this when I first moved here. The only thing that made him change was when Lily was born and he opened up to me. We became brothers.
“She won't ever look at me the same...I’m a killer,” he finally whispers.
“Who? Lily? She will understand when she's older that you did all this for her.” She will know we did everything to protect her. She’ll understand.
“No, not Lily.” He turns to me, his hair a mess, and his eyes glass over.
“Isabella?” I ask, confused.
And he lets out a breath and drops back onto his pillow, his arm thrown over his face as he mumbles, “Yes, and I know I shouldn't want her...she’s yours, Em.”
“She’s not mine, Keeg. I don't own her. Hell, out of the three of us, you're the only one who deserves her. You might have pulled that trigger, but you did it for her. And she knows that. She won't think any less of you because you did that. You did it for her.”
