24. Clara

CHAPTER 24

Clara

I'm confined once again to my high security guest suite.

Iris's face was blank and her tone professional as she escorted me here last night and told me I was being returned to the role of prisoner. Indefinitely. I could tell from the clench in her jaw that she'd prefer to wring my neck and be done with me, but she kept her hands to herself. The sound of the lock clicking behind me was louder than normal.

At least she spoke to me. When Iris met us in the garage, he left me in her care without a word to either of us. I tried to follow him- even if he couldn't bear to look at me, I needed to know that his wound wasn't too serious- but Iris placed a firm hand on my shoulder and kept me back.

I haven't seen Thomas since he walked away. I don't know how much pain he's in. I don't know how last night's shootout will affect his plans with Derrick Lindman.

What I do know is that it's my fault we're in this mess.

It was instinct, bone-deep and shocking, that made me shove Thomas's arm and ruin his shot. I've played it back a thousand times in my head, but it happened so fast that I can't even remember the moment I decided my uncle needed to be spared. I just… acted.

Thomas will consider it a betrayal. And I can't deny that it was.

The estate is mobilizing around me. I can hear the distant thrum of more footsteps above and below me, and through my windows I can see more people crossing the yard behind the house, heading to various other buildings. The armory, the barracks, the storage units. They're preparing for war, one I failed to prevent last night.

My mind plays back over those last moments before the firefight again and again. My uncle pointing a gun at me. The blood spreading over Thomas's suit jacket from the bullet he took for me. The sound of his heart beating beneath my ear, steady and even despite the war raging around us.

And that makes me think of how fast and hard it was pounding when we were alone in his car, and he was inside me-

I shake my head. Scrub my hands over my face. Will thoughts of Thomas taking me apart in impossible ways out of my mind. Remembering those moments will only make this harder. After last night, there's no way Thomas will ever put his hands on me again. I failed him, I almost got him killed to save my uncle, and now the war he's tried so hard to bypass is on his doorstep.

He… has no use for me anymore.

It's absurd to think that I'm missing even being a tool of his now that he's left me behind completely.

There's a knock at the door of my room, and my whole body jumps. I'm on my feet and rushing for it before I remember it's locked. The knock was just a warning that someone is coming in. Is it Thomas? Will I have a chance to apologize for the mess I've made before he ships me back to my uncle, deemed too much trouble to bother with ?

But when the door opens, it's Raleigh who steps inside, not her brother. I get a glimpse of Iris standing out in the hall before the door closes again. No sign of Thomas anywhere.

I haven't talked to Raleigh since she stormed away from the breakfast table, berating me for taking part in her brother's scheming. Now that things have gone so spectacularly wrong on that front, I have even fewer words to string together than I did then.

Raleigh leans back against the door, her arms hugging her stomach, as if protecting herself from me. A brown paper bag dangles from her pinky.

I'm tempted to cross my arms over my own stomach. We're intimate strangers, blessed with insider knowledge about each other, and cursed by ten years' worth of different experiences. I know her weaknesses, and she knows mine, but we don't understand them anymore. We're not sure what wounds are off limits, and which are waiting to be soothed.

A moment of silence passes between us. Then-

"I told you so."

I blink and step back, shocked. "I… I'm locked in a room. Is that really all you came here to say?"

Raleigh jabs a finger at her own chest. " I broke you out of this room, remember? I stuck my neck out to help you escape."

"And then three men attacked me at the bus stop!" I exclaim. "It's not like I walked back here on my own!"

"But as soon as you were back, you gave up! All that big talk about wanting to get out of the mafia was bullshit! You just…"

She trails off, which isn't like her. I square my shoulders. " You just what?"

Raleigh shakes her head, her jaw setting. "Honestly, Clara? You should have just stayed at Morgan's house if all your escape plans hinged on other people doing everything for you."

It stings like a slap. Worse to hear it from Raleigh's mouth than to think it to myself in my lowest moments.

But is she wrong to say it? Especially after my actions brought her directly into danger? And last night, Thomas could have been killed when he tried to defend me. If I'd never left my uncle's home and reunited with them, Raleigh and Thomas's lives would be better right now.

It's a devastating thought, one I don't want Raleigh to see in my face. I turn my back on her, my arms crossed so tight it's hard to inhale. "So, is that it?" I ask, my voice thick with grief. " I told you so ?"

There's the crinkle of paper, and the paper bag Raleigh had been holding lands on the floor at my feet. It tips over, and tubes of paint and brand new brushes spill out. I stare at them, uncomprehending.

"Since you're going to be here a while," Raleigh says, her own words tight. Before I can ask why she'd bring me a gift when she's so mad at me, I hear the door close and lock behind me. I'm alone again.

Slowly, I kneel beside the bag and dump the rest of its contents on the ground. There are three different brushes, a cheap plastic palette for mixing, and a dozen different tubes of acrylic paint in every color of the rainbow and several shades in between. I pick up the tube of blue paint and turn it over and over in my hands, searching for some hidden meaning. After a moment, it clicks.

Raleigh doesn't apologize. She never has, not as long as I've known her. Sometimes, I admired her for that brazenness. Other times, I was hurt twice over that if she said or did something that I didn't like, she would refuse to admit her fault. But there were times, now and then, when we'd be in a bad fight, and although she wouldn' t say she was wrong, she would retreat. And when she came back to me, she would bring me a gift. Others might have thought they were being bought, but I knew her better than that.

I learned to accept those gifts as the closest thing to an apology as Raleigh's pride would allow.

Raleigh might have come here today to chastise me, but she also came to tell me she was sorry, in her own way. I only wish I knew what she was apologizing for.