5
Ghoul
“So, have you talked to your mom recently?” My hand squeezed the back of my neck, and then I scratched at my hairline, not really having an itch. I needed somewhere to direct my nervous energy.
“Not for a few months,” Ginger mindlessly answered, poking a meatball across her plate with the end of her fork. “I honestly don’t know where she is now.” She sighed. “I guess she either changed her number or doesn’t want to talk to me. Who knows?” She was opening up to me, and I hated it took having the FBI involved in our lives for me to ask about her mom. Ginger and I talked often, but typically the subject of family wasn’t high on our list of topics of conversations. Neither of us had an abundance of happy stories from our past. Once we both realized that, we agreed to make our own.
Her focus shifted as the sudden change in topic piqued her interest. “Why did you ask about my mom?” she questioned, biting her bottom lip, and she squinted her eyes.
“Curious?” I lied and shook my head. After wiping my mouth with a napkin and folding it, I sniffed just to be doing something. I didn’t understand why this was so hard. Well, that was not true either. I knew the exact reason; I didn’t want to be the cause of her hurt. When I could avoid inflicting her pain, I did. She was the best thing to ever come into my life; however, I didn’t know what I was to her. She was my balance. Without her, my whole life would be filled with murder and death. It still was, but she made me forget about it for a little while.
“The truth?” I hedged.
“The truth,” she echoed my words, folding her arms, and then her fingertips nervously ran up the length of the opposing arm.
“Ginger, when I’m gone, I’m out killing people. It’s as much a part of who I am as much as it is being in a relationship with you.” I paused, letting what I said sink in, and waited for her to respond. Her head nodded somewhat, and her hand waved in a circular motion in the air, telling me to continue. “Anyway, the people I kill are—”
“Like my dad, I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes,” she calmly answered as if we were discussing the weather or something else lacking the importance I thought this topic should have.
“How?”
“I’ve had my suspicions for a while but overheard the prospects talking some weeks back.”
“Fucking Sleeper and Sledgehammer.” I shook my head, making a mental note to make their life a living hell until I saw fit that it wouldn’t be anymore. Thankfully, the only nonclub member who was usually in our clubhouse was Ginger, but they needed to learn to keep their fucking traps closed. It wasn’t like they were exchanging baking recipes or some shit; they were talking about murder. All it took was one wrong nosey person to catch wind of what we were doing for the shit to go sideways.
“They fucked up, didn’t they?”
“Fucking right, they did,” I growled, remembering she didn’t know all the club rules. Not to mention, my old lady found out something that I hadn’t told her myself. I huffed, standing up from the table, and gathered our dishes. “I’m sorry you had to find out what I was doing from them.”
“It’s okay.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she mulled something over. “If I’m honest, I want to help.”
“You do?” fell from my stunned lips, and I squared my shoulders, trying to hide my shock.
“Hell yeah, I do. Somedays, I feel so weak like I’m hiding from the truth,” she admitted, scooting her chair away from the table and pacing the floor. I opened my mouth to reassure her she was anything except that, but she continued, “I’m tired of putting myself into the same category as my dad.”
“Why the hell would you ever do that?”
“Because I didn’t know, Ghoul. I didn’t fucking know what he was doing, and I should have.” Her feet stilled, and her voice cracked as her eyes focused on the ceiling. I was sure she was trying to keep the tears at bay. She had cried in front of me, but it was rare. Typically, she hid how she truly felt as if she was afraid to let the world see she was human, just like the rest of us.
“You were a kid, Ginger,” I argued. She needed to know about her mom, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. Not yet. The past had already demanded so much, and it was still sucking the life from her like a fucking parasite. The only good thing that might come from telling her was, if she helped us find her mom, it might ground her, give her a better sense of purpose.
“He was my dad, Ghoul. My fucking dad.” The voice she spoke in was so small and defeated, I almost didn’t recognize it as one that belonged to her. “I should have known.” Her head tipped downward, and her shoulders slumped while her breathing quickened.
In three long strides, I was at her side and pulling her against my body. She and I shared the personality trait of once we started losing our shit, it was all we thought about. There had been numerous times I was on the edge of hell, and she jerked me back into reality. Now, it was my turn to do the same for her.
“You should not have had to. No child should,” I enunciated each word carefully and in as soft a tone as my deep baritone voice could manage. If I never got another thing through her stubborn head, she needed to understand this one thing. I had no idea she carried this much guilt. Did I know she was unhappy about what her dad had done? Yes. Blaming herself? No. It was ridiculous to think she could have helped any of those kids when she was a child herself during the time it all happened. As I took a moment to think everything through, I was not the least bit surprised she believed the lie she told herself. It was the type of person Ginger was. Underneath her hard façade, she had a kind, loving heart, which she didn’t allow many people to see. I was lucky enough to be one person she cared for when she didn’t give most others a chance to get to know her. She and I were alike in that sense, so I completely got her reasoning. If you didn’t let people get close, you weren’t risking as much. It was when you let people in that you put yourself on the battlefield, losing a piece of armor with each uncovered secret. Eventually, you were left naked and dreadfully vulnerable before the world.
Tears streaked her face, and I pinned her against my body, not giving her a chance to beat the shit out of my chest as she had in the past. “It’s okay to not be okay,” I offered her a bit of insight I’d learned over the years, and when I was sure she wasn’t going to do something brash, I loosened my grip on her.
Her muscles relaxed within my arms, and she pulled a sharp breath into her body. “It doesn’t feel like it.”
“Do you really want to help?” I put distance between us to fully gauge her reaction.
“Yes,” she said directly without the slightest flirtation of hesitance.
