Page 77 of Tank
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Nadya
One more minute turned into one more hour, and one more hour turned into one more day. Then a week. I wasn’t ready to leave yet. But I didn’t spend all that time in an oblivious void. I made plans, and more plans, and back up plans for all those plans.
I called Lucy, who seemed to be too distracted to give me more than a few minutes at a time. It seemed like everyone had something big going on. Though, I did tell her where I was, not like I needed to. She already knew, having tracked my phone when she hadn’t heard from me for a couple of days. She nearly melted when I told her how I’d been spending time with Logan. Then she got a little too emotional for me when I told her that I actually liked the kid. That was one conversation that I cut short.
The sun danced through the tree line, rising to bring a news day. I watched from the shadows of the back porch, my head a complete mess and my tea doing nothing to calm the storm inside of me. There was no more putting it off. I’d said goodbye to Logan the night before, reading him one more story and telling him point blank that he might never see me again when he asked me what was wrong.
One thing I’d learned being around him, he was intuitive. Maybe it was just a kid thing. I had no idea. But Logan always seemed to know when something was off and he always made a point to ask. Having no experience with kids, I always gave him the answers as straight as I could. Maybe not in so much detail, but he understood that I had to go. That I had to take care of some things so he could be back with his dad.
“It’s time.” Is all that he says to me when I tell him I am leaving. I can’t say anything else because I can’t seem to get my voice to work, so all I can do is nod. “I will see you again,” he says with a shit-ton of conviction in his voice that I truly believe that he thinks he will. And it breaks my heart to tell him that he doesn’t know that for sure. But the damn kid only smiles up at me and then he places a tiny kiss on my cheek as he wraps his little arms around my neck.
Remembering that only made this impossibly hard. Almost harder than walking away from Noah that night. I couldn’t believe how strange the path of my life had turned. I wondered if there was somewhere that I blinked and lost my way, or maybe found it. I had no idea. All I knew was that everything seemed to be harder lately, my heart seemed to be wrapped up in every thought and every decision I had to make.
The back door creaked open but I didn’t turn my head to look.
“Hey,” Grant whispered.
“Hey,” I parroted.
The silence stretched out and neither of us said anything. I could hear it in his breathing that he wanted to say something. He came out there for a reason but I could only imagine that I wasn’t the easiest person to talk to. And instead of giving him an easy opening, I kept silent with my eyes hard set on the thick trees surrounding the cabin.
“You should go soon, before he gets up,” he finally opened his mouth and broke my climb to the state of calm I was trying to reach.
“Yeah, I know.”
“If you don’t leave now, you will never go.”
“Know that, too,” I said emptying the air out of my lungs in a slow, controlled exhale.
“People like us walk on the shaded part of the line,” he said, his voice full of understanding. “We may work in the darkness but we wear a lighter shade of white. But it’s always hard to kill the monster and keep yourself from becoming one.”
“It’s too early for cryptic words of wisdom shit,” I said a little laughter in my tone. I understood everything that he was saying but I wasn’t one for heart-to-heart bullshit. Not that deep down I didn’t appreciate it.
“Yeah, I get it. Tough ass woman. But don’t forget that I’ve seen you with your heart out.”
In my peripheral, I could see him nod his head to the cabin. I couldn’t deny his words.
“I’ll never be what they need. I’ll never be good enough. My hands have too many coats of red on them,” I whispered like it was hard to release the words from my throat.
“It took me a long time to realize this, but if you will walk through Hell to protect someone, then you are good enough for them. Someone much wiser than me told me that once. It took me a long time to come to grips with it, and I’m not even sure that now I completely do. I just have to believe that if they think I’m good enough, then I am.”
“Keep them safe,” I said ending anything else that either one of us might have to say.
“Make them safe,” he said pointedly before turning and walking back inside.
With a deep breath of cool air, I took one last look around. It was time.
It took me a full day of driving to get the shit that I needed. I was virtually left with nothing after Savage’s men ransacked my place. But a few calls, a couple of connections later, I had all I needed and my destination was only another day away.
Time for plan A.
“Who the fuck are you?!” someone asked as I made my way through the hall into the main part of the clubhouse that Noah called home. I didn’t stop, knowing exactly where I was going thanks to Lucy having the layout of the place. I wasn’t surprised when the guy followed me, drawing a gun from his pants. “Stop!”
But I didn’t. I was only twenty feet from the door I was about to bust open. I knew this guy wouldn’t shoot me so I didn’t even pause. Then they all seemed to come out of the woodworks. Two appeared in front of me, but I was closer to the door than they were. With a smirk, I kept walking.
“The fuck is going on out there?” I heard from behind the closed door to the sacred meeting room.
