“You learn in school?” I asked.
“Nah. I learned from anime and manga. I’ve watched far too many since I was little. Tanner loves it, so I kinda sorta copied him.” Delilah waved her hands around with the same flair that Henley often had and my heart tightened further, wondering where my friend was and if she was okay, too.
God, I needed to see everyone – I wanted all the people I cared for around me until I could make sure they were real and okay.
“You are suspiciously talented, Delilah Hendrix. I am almost jealous.” I snickered a teary laugh as I stumbled to my feet and leaned on the bed a little too hard, so I could yank a pair of loose fitting pyjama pants on.
I didn’t give a damn about wearing real clothes or even a bra. But my brain knew I just wanted to cover up a little and feel anything other than that nasty ass dress I hoped had been burned into ash by now.
If it wasn’t, then I would do it. Then I would find a way to make my hair different from the black braids I could feel on my head. The ones that were both heartwarming, because I knew Logan had done them even without seeing it, and sad about because my hair was still dark.
Delilah held my arm softly as I shoved some fluffy bed socks onto my sore feet and tried not to flinch too hard at all the cutson them. Without her help, I probably would have fallen onto my ass, so I was very glad she was here, even if I wasn’t sure how to form the words to say it.
“Actually, it’s Montana now. The paperwork for my new identity came in and you are now officially my new sister-mom. Well, legally Beau adopted me and the others because you weren’t here when the paperwork needed signing. Plus, he offered to let me change my first name and stuff if I wanted to. But I don’t – I think Delilah Rose Montana sounds cute.” She sounded far too happy about being a Montana and I wondered if she realized all the negatives that came with such a surname.
All the monsters who could come for her just as a way to make their mark in the world we lived in.
I supposed they were better than the monsters who had come for her when she was a Hendrix.
“The sister mom thing sounds hot in a taboo porn sort of way.” The door had opened again in my sock quest, another pleasant sight quickly heading toward me in the form of a tatted up foolish gangster with too bright a smile on his tanned face.
“Widow.” I grinned through my tears as he came to a stop beside me. “You are not dead!”
I was so fucking glad he wasn’t. It would have sucked to lose one of my friends too, and I had worried about him and Kellan after the crash, and not knowing what happened to them. I knew Angel had been fine enough with his vest on, but on the video my stalker had shown me, I had not seen a lick of Widow or Kellan leaving their car. For however long I had been gone, concern for them had been rife. Widow was an alternate reality me and I didn’t want his life to suck any more than it already had. I didn’t want any of them hurting over a fight they had been pulled into by me.
“Hey, beautiful.” He gently traced his tattooed fingers on my cheekbone, wiping away some tears. “You look like you wentten rounds with Sugar Ray Robinson, but don’t worry; we can still get platonic married, and you can be my sugar mommy. I’m not interested in you for your looks, just your bank account.”
“Is he a friend of yours?” I sniffled a little harder, trying to stop myself from being emotional as Delilah burst into laughter and Widow’s mouth gaped.
He spluttered nonsense for a moment before he sighed. “No. He isn’t a friend. But speaking of friends, mine and yours left twenty minutes ago to sleep and stuff, but I can give them a call and let them know sleeping beauty finally woke up.”
“No.” I shook my head as I picked up Kiril’s phone from the bed, weirded out that he didn’t have a passcode or anything. “Let them sleep a while then they can come; I wish to speak with Beau and things first. I need to get my bearings and stuff.”
It wasn’t just for my men’s benefit that I wanted them to have a nap. I needed a moment to come back to reality and actually believe I wasn’t dead before I saw all of the people I loved and all the emotional things that came with it. Sure, I was talking with those present, but it was different with them.
They were friends, recent ones at that in some cases.
They weren’t the loves of my life who I wanted to kill myself to be with like a fucked up Romeo and Juliet.
“Beau only left for a few minutes. He should be back any second if you wanna just wait for him? I can give you a quick rundown on the basics you missed whilst you were gone.” Widow said.
I nodded and placed Kiril’s phone back down. “Fill me in quickly, please. I know some things. Like that I… that Mal… I saw video of the explosion. It was real, yes? He is gone.”
I knew Malone was dead. It wasn’t just because I had watched him explode on a video, but because I could feel it. There was something deep in my bones that made me sure that the video was not fake – my uncle was gone. Not to mention thatI had been held captive for so long without rescue. The man who had saved me from the dark before had been taken from me and I knew that without a doubt the second he hadn’t rescued me again.
Not that I needed saving in the end.
I’d done what every heroine ought to try – I had saved myself.
Widow’s sad smile clued me in before he said, “I’m so fucking sorry, Sapphire.”
“It’s not your fault.” My knees went a little weak, and he grabbed me, keeping his arm around my waist. “Mal was brave, and he was a warrior – even in the end he was the kind of man I loved him for being, and there is no better way for him to go than that.”
He was with Maggie. I knew that even if I didn’t believe in any sort of God. I just knew my unclehad been reunited with his first love, his unborn child, and my parents. The lot of them were somewhere pretty and safe, living the lives they ought to have had.
They were at peace.
It was just me who was left behind. It was me, and Lincoln and Misha. Retta too, and the others. It was the rest of us who had to deal with the pain of their loss, and we would take it. We would deal with the agony of their absence because it meant they were at peace and what else could we wish for, for those we loved?
