Chapter 38

The cabin is silent, all of us too choked to speak but sitting side by side on the couch, hands wrapped around each other. Three mugs of coffee sit on the table in front of us, long ago gone cold.

“They’ve got to be okay,” Mia says. It’s a variant on the one thing we can find to say, begging, pleading, hopeful affirmations that tonight will go as planned. That our men will come back to us.

That we’ll all have our happily ever afters. Even me.

Doubt tries to creep in, that anything good will surely be ripped from me, but I squash it down and choose to have faith this time. Lance is surrounded by good men, and they are all uniquely gifted for this work, as ugly as it may be.

Steven calls out from his station in front of the monitors, “They’re back.”

I’m surprised he can see at all. He’s been on duty for hours straight, only catching a catnap when Jonathan traded watch with him. We don’t trust anyone else with the situation so tenuous, so Steven has been the only guard.

Thomas had this cabin set up as a safe space, so there’s basically an armory, a full security system, and it’s completely enclosed with razor-wire fencing.

None of that matters now, because they’re back.

We all hop up and run for the door to the garage but stop short when Steven reminds us, “Stay inside.”

“Are they okay?”

He shrugs, not helping any. But a moment later, the garage door opens, and they’re back. All four of them.

“What happened? Are you okay?” we ask simultaneously.

I’m not sure if they guide us or we pull them, but we all end up in the living room. Thomas pulls Mia into his lap in a chair, Gabe sits on the floor at Izzy’s feet, and Lance wraps his arm around me on the couch, pressing us together from knee to shoulder. Jonathan stands, arms at his side and eyes scanning our group.

“Are you sure about this?” he asks Thomas.

Thomas looks slightly shaken, honestly, like still waters on top of churning rapids, and my gut clenches as I wonder what happened.

“I am. We’re in this together, and I’m not going to keep tonight from Mia, so I wouldn’t expect Gabe or Lance to keep it either. Besides, we all need to have our stories straight.”

His words send a chill through me. What would they need to keep secret? What story?

Slowly, they begin to tell us about what their night entailed. The tension builds as they tell us about getting to the top floor of Blackwell tower, but my mouth drops open when Lance gently tells me about Trixie.

“I’m sorry, Char. She was trying to get free, trying to help us. I know you’re hurt at her betrayal, but in the end, she sacrificed herself for us. She said to tell you she was sorry and to believe in yourself.” The words choke in his throat, matching the tears that catch in mine.

Lance rubs soothing circles on my back as I bury my face in his chest. “She . . . she’s gone? I didn’t get a chance to tell her . . .”

“She knew.”

I hiccup, remembering all the good times. She did awful things, ones I don’t know if I could’ve ever forgiven her for. But I would’ve liked to have had the chance. At least for us to try. We’ll never have that chance. Now I’ll...

Never hear another outrageous baking pun as she waits for me to laugh at her silliness.

Never pull an all-nighter, high on sugar and karaoke-style singing of old Britney Spears tunes.

Never work by her side, a common dream of success and friendship fueling us.

She’s dead.

She gave up her dream of something greater, giving everything she had, even her life. For me, for us.

No matter what she’d done before, in the end, she was my friend. Trixie was in my life for a short period of time, but she burrowed into my soul.

I will always remember her that way. Not confessing her coerced sins, but bubbly and vivacious, singing and dancing, and so full of life that she brightened my world with her very presence.

Mia quietly asks, “Then what happened?”

I can’t hear, can’t really focus on the rest of their report, too lost in my own emotional tidal wave.

But Thomas keeps talking. “I struggled with Blackwell for the gun and got it. He taunted me, but when he went for Trixie, I had to.” His eyes lock on Mia, hard as marbles. “I killed him.”

His words jolt all of us. I pick my head up from Lance’s chest, but he squeezes my shoulder. I need to control myself.

I see Gabe doing the same to Izzy’s calf, where he’s got himself wrapped around her leg.

But Thomas, the one who made the confession, is waiting for Mia’s judgement.

Her eyes are wide, full of fear, her mouth hanging open. “You killed him?” she asks, looking for confirmation. When Thomas nods, she gathers him into her arms, not condemning him but comforting him. “Are you okay? Oh, my God, are you okay?”

He mumbles something I can’t hear, and Mia turns to Jonathan. “You fixed this, right? No one is taking Thomas from me. No one, you understand me?”

Her voice is icy, stone-cold threatening. Though Thomas is the one confessing to murder, Mia is the one to fear and we all know it. She loves big and hard and would do anything for any of us. Most of all, Thomas.

“It’ll look like a murder-suicide,” Gabe interjects. “Not sure how they’re going to spin that with the unconscious guards, but there’s nothing to point at any of us. We do need to figure out our re-entry to Roseboro, back from the dead. And what you want to share about Blackwell.”

The last part is directed to Thomas, but he’s had enough for now. “Let’s talk in the morning. It’s late,” Mia says, reading Thomas’ mind.

She looks out the window, where the night sky is already lightening from purple to blue. “Or early, I guess. Let’s all crash for a few hours and reconvene to discuss what’s next.”

We make our way to our bedroom, the same as before, but everything is different now.

Before, we’d been scared, running for our lives and unsure if we were going to make it after the building collapsed behind us and we’d escaped by a narrow margin. Now, the threat has been eliminated, and the responsibility of that is heavy on each of us.

Especially Thomas.

But there is also hope, that damned seed burgeoning forth to bask in the sunshine of our safety. No sword dangling over our heads, a sense of freedom replacing it.

“Is he going to be okay?” I ask Lance, and though I don’t name him, he knows I’m talking about Thomas.

Lance pulls my sweatshirt over my head, then moves to undo my braid. Though I hadn’t been baking today, it’d seemed familiar and comfortable, giving my hands something to do.

“I think so,” he says as he spreads my curls around my shoulders. “He did the right thing. But your first is difficult.”

He blinks, then corrects himself. “They’re all difficult, but he’s not trained. Blackwell forced his hand, made Thomas pull that trigger, sure as if he’d done it himself. He knew Thomas wouldn’t let him make a move toward Trixie.”

I’m quiet, letting that sink in as I pull Lance’s shirt over his head. “Thomas is a good man. He did what he had to for all of us.”

Lance gives me a small smile, but it’s sad. “I know. We all know. He’s going to feel that stain is on his soul for the rest of his days.”

“Mia will love him, no matter what.”

“Which is why I know he’ll be okay,” he says, smiling gently.

I return the smile, reassured. “If he gives himself too much of a hard time, Mia will rip him a new one and probably order him to ‘let it go’. She’d probably even sing it Elsa-style.” The joke falls flat, but it’s the truth. Mia won’t let Thomas beat himself up over this. She’ll help him however he needs.

“I need to hold you,” Lance says, changing the subject but somehow just as on point. He needs me the way Thomas will need Mia tonight. Likely the way Gabe will need Izzy too.

In the back of my head, I hope Jonathan has someone too, but I’ve never seen him with anyone, so I don’t know.

I let that thought go, focusing on Lance and being what he needs tonight.

I push my jeans off, taking my panties with them as Lance shoves his black cargo pants and boots off. When we’re both nude, I pull the covers back.

“Lie down,” I say, not allowing any argument.

Lance reclines, his back stiff and straight, and holds out one arm, inviting me to him. Instead of curling up at his side, letting him be my protecting cocoon, I lie on top of him, my knees at either side of his hips, my arms wrapped around his torso, and my cheek laid against his chest. Tonight, I will ground him, keep him here and now, with me, and be his guardian, his shelter from the world.

Incrementally, he relaxes into me, accepting my comfort.

“I love you,” I tell him, wanting him to know that no matter what happened tonight, that will never change. He could’ve gone into Blackwell’s tower with guns blazing, shooting his way to the top floor, and killing Blackwell himself in cold blood, and I would still love him. Because I know that he’s a good man, my good man, and if he did something like that, it would be for honorable reasons.

Because he’s an honorable man. One who was patient with me when I ran scared. One who stays. One who loves me.

“I love you too, Charlotte,” he says, and I believe him.

Minutes pass, and slowly, heat builds between us as the stress of the night fades into the rising sun’s rays. I lift my hips, and he easily slips inside me. We stay like that for a while before I arch my back, beginning to move. I fuck him this time, and he lets me. I choose him, knowing who he is and what he’s done.

And when he comes with my name on his lips, I fall apart for him too, his name on my lips, because we know who we are to each other. Everything.