Page 49 of Rage & Paradise
Cried like she hadn’t cried since the night she took Sina’s last breath away. I held her through all of it, my shirt soaked through with her tears, her guilt, her pain. She kept saying she should’ve done more, should’ve been faster, should’ve known.
But I knew better.
I’ve seen real monsters. I’ve been one myself.
She wasn’t one of them.
Now, a few days later, she’s sitting on the porch of the clubhouse, wrapped in one of my shirts. The hem falls past her knees, her hair is still damp from the rain, and her eyes are on the horizon.
I stand in the doorway, watching her.
She looks like she belongs here, even though I know she doesn’t believe it yet.
“Still raining,” I say, stepping closer.
She nods, but doesn’t look at me. “Maybe it’s supposed to. Maybe it’s trying to wash us clean.”
I crouch next to her, resting my elbows on my knees. “We’re not dirty, Starlight.”
She turns her head then, her voice barely a whisper. “Aren’t we? After everything?”
I reach for her hand. Her fingers are cold, trembling. I thread mine through hers and bring them to my mouth.
“You did what you had to do. What nobody else could. You ended it.”
She shakes her head. “I ended her.”
“Same thing,” I tell her. “The monster died with her. You gave those kids a chance. You gave all of us one.”
A tear slips down her cheek. I wipe it away with my thumb. “I don’t feel like a savior,” she whispers.
“You’re not supposed to. You’re supposed to feel human.”
That gets a small sound from her, half laugh, half sob. She leans into me, her head resting against my shoulder. I press a kiss to her temple and breathe her in. Soap, rain, salt, and something that’s just… her.
“I keep seeing her face,” she admits. “Right before it happened. She looked scared.”
“She wasn’t scared of dying,” I say quietly. “She was scared of you. Scared of what you represented. Freedom. The one thing she could never control.”
Her breath hitches, and I feel her body finally start to relax against mine. It’s taken everything to get her to stop apologizing to ghosts.
The patch brothers are rebuilding the front of the clubhouse. Digger’s healing slow but steady, his usual jokes coming back one by one. Lobo and AZ are running shipments again. Vado’s already planning the next move against the rest of the Canos.
War’s coming.
We all know it.
But not tonight.
Tonight, it’s just her and me, under the hum of the rain and the low thrum of thunder rolling through the hills.
“Do you think it ever ends?” she asks after a long silence.
I take her chin between my fingers and tilt her face toward mine. “Maybe not. But it gets quieter. And when it does, that’s when you find peace.”
She searches my eyes, like she’s trying to see if I believe what I’m saying. Then she nods and leans in, her lips brushing mine in a slow, aching kiss that feels more like a promise than anything else.
“I’m scared,” she whispers against my mouth.
