Page 115 of Heads You Lose (Grim & Beast Duet 2)

Things could’ve been so different for all of us if he had just told me.

Christy needn’t have gone through what she did on her own. Ford could’ve lived a very different life if my dad had been a better man.

What if my dad hadn’t taken me from her arms as a baby, could Mary have loved me the right way? Did the pain and loss of losing me twist her mind into this evil, cruel woman, or was she always going to be that way? If she had kept me around and still had Ford, would she have treated him any differently? And if not, could I have protected him from her abuse?

There are so many questions I have, and no answers. All I know is that he’s my brother, he deserved better, and I killed her for what she did to him, what shewantedto do. I will live with that decision, that choice, and onlyIwill bear the weight of it.

This isn’t on him. It’s on me.

“She’s gone. She’s gone. My mum is gone!” he wails, but beneath the sadness there’s relief. I see it in the way his shoulders relax, his body telling a truth that his brain isn’t able to catch up with yet.

“It’s alright, kid. We got you,” Beast says, and those six words seem to unlock something inside of him, something Ford’s kept chained up his whole life.

He purges it now with a scream that is deafening, fucking heartbreaking. Neither of us are immune to his pain. Not me, and certainly not Beast who wraps his arms tighter around Ford’s frame and fucking cries with him.

My Beast, my protector, my lover, my best friend and my heart, cries with Ford. He’s not ashamed. He’s not telling Ford to pull his shit together. He’s not accusing him of being weak. He’s not belittling Ford’s feelings, or his own. He’s just holding him, comforting him, crying with him,forhim.

“Come here, Kate,” Beast says, noticing me hugging myself as I watch them both.

“He needs a moment,” I say, wanting so much to go to them, but knowing that Ford may never get over what I did. Maybe he never truly believed that my protection would come in the form of murder, but he needed someone to step in on his behalf, and I was the only one who could have done that for him.

I don’t regret it.

I’m glad she’s dead.

I’m glad she can’t hurt him anymore.

Eventually his tears subside and his sobs quieten. When he steps out of Beast’s arms he looks almost embarrassed, but Beast just squeezes his shoulder and gives him a warm smile.

“Ain’t nothing wrong with tears, mate. You gotta get it out one way or another.”

Ford nods, using the sleeves of his holey sweater to clean the snot off his face.

Beast’s nose wrinkles. “You ain’t gonna be pulling anyone with snot halfway up your sleeve. Rule number one, always keep yourself looking sharp,” he says.

It’s so out of left field, given the conversation we’re having, that Ford lets out a nervous laugh.

“Like you?” he asks, raising his brows at Beast’s outfit.

He’s wearing a pair of joggers and a well worn t-shirt that has seen better days. To be fair, he didn’t get a chance to go home and grab a change of clothes after helping Cleveland and the cleaners shift the bodies, so he only had what he’d left here previously.

“I’ve already got the girl,” he shrugs, winking at me.

“Yeah,” Ford says, finally resting his gaze on me. “My sister.”

He’s conflicted, uncertain, unsure. Scared in all honesty, and I don’t blame him for any of that. I don’t even know what to say, but I know that I have to say something. So the truth it is.

“It was quick.”

“How?”

“A bullet to the brain.”

He swallows hard, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Why?” he asks, his voice tight as he holds back the tears.

“Because she hurt you.”

“So you hurt her back?”

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