Page 67 of The Preachers' Promise
“Very,” Cain agrees.
I’ve never thought of myself as lovable before. I’m the one who’s awkward, and weird, and scarred. I’m sure my parents loved me, in their own way, but this is different. These men have chosen me, when they could have had anyone. They see me for who I am, and that doesn’t frighten them. It only makes them want me more.
“I love you all, too.” I tell them. “So, so much, you can’t begin to understand. You’ve given me something I never thought I’d have again. A sense of safety.”
“And in time, you’ll get that sense of safety from yourself.” Roman brushes his thumb over my jaw before letting go.
I frown. Why are they always trying to make me secure in dealing with my issues with the Prophet myself? It’s as if they’re planning for a time when they won’t be around.
“You’re scaring me.”
“Why?” Cain asks.
“Because all of you keep insisting that I must be the one to deal with my fears and issues. It makes me think that you’re planning on leaving me. You tell me that you love me, but then you talk as if you won’t always be with me.”
“Angel, I’ll be with you so long as I have breath in my body, and so long as you want me around, but you need to be able to overcome your fears by yourself. It’s not healthy for you to rely on anyone else to do it for you.”
Anger and shame hit me hard. They think I’m weak. That I’m some pathetic creature who needs them to fix me. And they’re right. I am, and I do.
“Well, I won’t bother any of you with my issues again.” My tone is terse, my body stiff as I stand, letting the sheet drop as I stride through the room, as naked as the day I was born.
Roman’s arm snakes out and he grabs me as I pass him, pulling me into him. “Baby, we don’t mean it that way. You’re not bothering us. It’s only that weknowyou can do it. We believe you have that strength in you. I love you. I know my brother Preachers feel the same way. We aren’t walking away from this, and like Cain says, so long as we’re breathing, we’re yours, but life can be cruel. I want to know you’re going to be okay no matter what.”
I stare at the three of them. “I can’t promise you that. So long ashe’salive, he haunts me. I hate my weakness, but that’s the truth.”
Pulling my arm free, I head to the bathroom, closing the door and turning the shower on as the tears streak down my face.
33
MALACHI
I watch her go,and my heart hurts. Turning to Cain and Roman, I see the same helplessness and anger in their gazes.
“We need to kill that fucker,” I say. “Ophelia won’t be truly free until he’s dead.”
It’s what I had been thinking about as I ran our situation around and around my brain. I kept coming back to the same thing. We have to kill the Prophet.
“Agreed.” Cain nods. “It also will give us a bargaining chip with her father. I’ve been thinking, if we call him and offer to take out the Prophet in return for him letting Ophelia return to Verona Falls with us, we kill two birds with one stone.”
Rome shakes his head. “We’ve been AWOL with his daughter, so we owe him more than a call. We need to take Ophelia home first. Then she can talk to him with us, face to face. He might not agree to our demands, though. He seems like a dick to me.”
I snort. “They’re all dicks. Our families are, too.” I don’t often talk about what happened to me because I feel that it pales in comparison to the shit Cain and Rome went through, but it was fucking bad enough. No child should have to grow up with anaddict for a mother, and then deal with my father’s violence on top of that. It’s what had pushed me to the breaking point.
As I think about it, my heart starts to race. The worst thing was being held down. There’s nothing more terrifying than that feeling of being utterly helpless and trapped. It’s degrading, too. Even as a child, the anger and impotence you feel in that moment is soul destroying. The anger has nowhere to go, so you start to turn it inward. I became an obsessive child. I worried, and watched, and was far too aware of the emotions of the adults around me. I walked on eggshells my entire childhood.
It's made me go the other way as an adult, and I’ve perfected my disinterested, asshole persona. It served me well, until Ophelia. Now she’s cracked my façade and wormed her way deep inside. It fucking terrifies me. Caring about someone as much as I do about her is a weakness. If you love something or someone so much, then others can use that against you. The thing you love can become a sword of Damocles hanging over your head.
When I was about seven years old, I’d found a stray kitten under the porch of my house. I’d guessed it was about six weeks old, and I looked everywhere for the mama cat, but I hadn’t been able to find it. My dad hated cats, and I knew if he found the kitten, he’d drown it. So instead of bringing it into the house, I’d taken it into the shed, and set it up a little bed, and fetched it some milk and cold cuts, because I’d heard cats liked milk and ham. I thought I’d been doing the right thing, but I didn’t know the milk would upset its stomach, and there wasn’t enough nourishment in the ham. Looking back now, the kitten was probably too young to be away from its mother and wouldn’t have survived whatever I’d done.
I’d tried, though, and I’d stroked the kitten and pressed my nose and lips to its tiny head and replied to its little mews when I felt it was trying to talk to me. I finally had something that was just for me.
I’d loved that kitten, but two days later, when I went to check on it, I found it dead. I cried like my heart was breaking, and I remembered thinking fiercely how I wished it had been my father who’d died instead.
The image of the dead kitten I had once loved flashes into my mind, and I push it away aggressively.No, no, no. I cannot go there now. Losing my pet had been the very darkest moment of my life in that fucked up house. I won’t call it a home because it doesn’t deserve that title.
“Are you okay, Mal?” Cain asks.
No, I’m not fucking okay. I feel as if I’m about to have a panic attack. Needing to move, I push off the wall and head to the door.
