“Thanks.” I accept the plate, holding it awkwardly in front of me. I’m not near a table or something else stable and flat enough to secretly put it aside. So, awkwardly holding it is.
“Let’s step outside. The fresh air will help.” She puts her hand on my back and pushes softly.
I follow her guidance, stepping out onto the balcony, finding a table there to put the plate, before I lean against the railing, looking out over the fields.
I know that Mum wants to ask me a lot of questions, wants to know what happened, where I was in the last years. I’ve been able to avoid the questions all day by always being busy or finding excuses to get away, but with everyone here, having dinner, finding excuses is much harder.
“Can I ask something?” She keeps her voice quiet as she leans next to me, her familiar pheromones soothing, but also making me tense, because I don’t want to bring her more pain than she’s already been through. And with the look in her eyes, I’m sure her question isn’t going to be a fun one.
When I don’t say anything, not really sure how to reply, she goes on, “what these people, this pack, are doing isn’t exactly legal, is it?”
I shake my head. No, most of what they’re doing is definitely not legal. And before I learned about the Hearts and the whole Suits Syndicate, I would have condemned them for what they’re doing.
Now? ‘Legal’ and ‘right and wrong’ are two very separate and much more complex concepts. The world is not as easy to define as ‘legal is good’ and ‘illegal is bad’.
Mum thinks for a few moments, before turning to me more, her eyes on my face, ready to read my every reaction. “Are they good people?”
Crap. How do I answer that? “I’ve only known them two hours longer than you have, I don’t know them that well. But I think it depends on your definition of ‘good’.”
What I do know is that they have no problem killing people, they steal things either because they feel like it or because they’ve been hired to do it and they kidnap people —though, not for the same reason as the Hearts do, but still, kidnapping is kidnapping. If I’d go by all of that, I wouldn’t call them ‘good’.
But they also rescued the kids and me from the Hearts, immediately jumped into action to make sure my family would be safe when they heard the Hearts could harm them and they’re doing their best to find new and safe places to live for the kids and my family… All of those are genuinely good things, no matter how you look at them.
They care. They genuinely care about people around them and want to do good.
They want to take down the Hearts and whatever other parts of the Suits Syndicate that they can, people who are very obviously ‘bad’ and do ‘bad’ things, no two ways about it.
“Do you trust them?” Her quiet question surprises me, but I don’t even need to think before I reply.
“Yes.”
“Because they’re your scent matches?”
I stop moving, my breath caught in my chest, until I remember to breathe. Fuck. That was definitely not how I thought this conversation was going to go. “Why do you think that?”
“Because I’ve got eyes, and a nose. It’s clear something bad has happened to you that makes it all very complicated. But the way you look at them, you can’t hide it, everyone can see your connection.”
“I trust them not because they’re my scent matches.” Though that definitely makes it easier. “But because I haven’t had a reason not to trust them and many reason to trust them. They are who they are, they’re clear about their intentions, I don’t see a reason to doubt them.” Everything I’ve seen from them has been out in the open from the start, why they do things, how they do things, they’ve always been pretty open about it.
Are there things I might never be comfortable with? Sure. But I know that and they also already know that about me. It’s not a secret.
“I’m sorry they’re not telling you much right now.”
“We understand. We’ve been plunged into a world we know nothing about. A world that’s probably pretty scary. We understand why they’re trying to shield us from it. It’s getting to Leo, he doesn’t like not knowing everything, but that’s normal for him.” She laughs quietly and I can’t help my own smile. Yes, that’s what he’s like.
Then her face falls. “I know they’re going to move us somewhere else, give us new names, new identities. Does that mean we’ll never see you again?” Her pain suddenly flares in her pheromones and I quickly wrap my arms around her, not for the first time becoming aware of how thin she’s gotten, how much losing me has aged her.
“You’ll still be able to see each other.” Riley’s voice is warm as she sends her dark red rose pheromones ahead of her. Mum tenses in my arms, until she notices the sincerity in Riley’s pheromones.
“They’ll give you new identities and people from your old life won’t get to know about them, for your and their safety. But you’ll still be able to meet with Luca and you’ll still be able to talk to him. They won’t rip your family apart, not now you’ve finally found each other again.”
Riley stays a couple of steps away from us, looking slightly awkward, like she regrets speaking up out of nowhere.
“You... Ehh...” She rubs her hands together, her pheromones losing the earlier confidence. “If you want to know about getting new identities and things like that, you can ask me. I’ve helped with it a couple of times. I might not have many answers about the past or right now, but I can talk about what’s going to happen in the coming weeks, what to expect.”
Mum turns to her, smiling softly. “I would like that, yes. Thank you.” Then she looks at me, nodding to the plate I put aside. “Make sure you eat something. You can’t keep going on an empty stomach.”
“I know. I’ll try.” I pick up the plate and sit in a chair, putting the plate in my lap.
