35. Raleigh

CHAPTER 35

Raleigh

I haven’t eaten all day, so despite the anxiety still wreaking havoc on my stomach and the fury I feel at my helplessness, I go to the kitchen and try to make myself a sandwich for a very late lunch. Iris follows behind me, and I wonder if she’s just making sure I don’t try to crash Thomas’s interrogation of Derrick. Even if it is, it’s a relief to have her close so I don’t have to wait alone.

I’ve… really missed her.

“Raleigh, we need to talk about this.”

Not the most ominous sentence to start a conversation with… I move to the fridge and open it, hunting for deli meat and cheese. Only once I’ve collected my ingredients do I turn to face her.

Iris has removed her sunglasses and hung them from the pocket of her blouse- and I’m shocked to see how tired she looks. The rings under her eyes tell me she’s hardly slept, maybe even since I disappeared days ago. Her lips are even chapped, something she’d never let happen if she were at the top of her game.

Oh god… I really scared her.

In a rush, I set all my ingredients on the kitchen island and come around it to stand in front of her. I owe her a thousand apologies, but even more than that, I owe her exactly what Derrick said. The truth.

I grab Iris’s hands in mine. Her tired eyes widen at that voluntary touch, but she squeezes my hands in return.

“What-”

“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out. “And- Derrick’s the father. And I’m in love with him.” I’m trying to think of all the most important things. With or without context, all that’s important is that I reassure her. “And we’re happy.”

Iris’s eyes search my face, taking in every new declaration with a blink of shock. But she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t scold, or even look disappointed. After a moment of quiet, she swallows.

“You’re happy?” she asks. Like that’s the only thing she heard me say.

Or the only thing that matters to her, at the end of it all.

“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m so happy.”

Iris cups my face and brushes away tears I didn’t know were falling. “Next time,” she says softly, “just let me know you’re alive. Everything else can come later. Okay?”

I nod, almost frantically. Iris nods too, sniffs, and then her eyes suddenly well with tears. “Come here, you brat,” she says, and pulls me into a crushing hug.

I cling to her without shame, and she combs her fingers through my hair and rubs my back with warm hands. If only I’d been willing to accept this woman’s embrace my whole life. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt so desperately alone for the last ten years.

“You’re really having a baby?” Iris asks, her voice muffled in my hair.

“Yeah,” I laugh. “You’re going to have a new brat to keep out of trouble in a few months.”

Iris sniffles back more tears. “Lord help me,” she says, but I hear the smile in her voice.

Over her shoulder, Thomas comes into the doorway of the kitchen. The sight of him standing there alone makes my heart drop. I stumble out of Iris’s arms.

If he’s done something to Derrick-

Iris looks from Thomas to me and sighs hard. “If the two of you are going to fight, you’ll clean up your own blood,” she tells us. And with that, she slips past Thomas out of the kitchen.

I step forward, ready to- god, I don’t know. Throw a package of deli meat at my brother’s head? Take a swing at him?! Why hasn’t he said anything?! I open my mouth to demand he tell me where Derrick is, but he speaks first.

“I’m sorry,” he says. I wait with frozen blood for him to elaborate, but when he does, none of his words are the ones I expect. “I’ve never been the kind of big brother you could come to with your problems, have I?”

Wait… what?

Is he… seriously apologizing for being a shitty sibling?

Of all the outcomes I imagined coming from a talk with Derrick, this was not one of them.

I shift my weight from foot to foot, unsure how to respond. Yes? Does it really matter now?

“It’s not like it was completely your fault,” I manage to say instead.

Thomas just shakes his head at that, which I guess I expected. My brother doesn’t usually put the blame on others when he can accept it himself. He’ll be the first to point out every one of our dad’s flaws, but just try to tell him it has an effect on his own behavior, and suddenly he acts like he has no ears.

Still. It wasn’t little Tommy’s idea to lock himself in his room where he couldn’t play with anyone, let alone me. The four years separating our ages shouldn’t feel like such a gulf, but it does by our father’s design. It’s stupid to hold that against my brother.

It’s even more stupid for him to hold it against himself.

“What’s this about, Tommy?” I ask. I want to know where Derrick is, but there’s a look in my brother’s eyes that I don’t often see. Uncertainty. Guilt.

“It might be wrong to think this way, since I’m not the one who’s pregnant,” my brother says, confoundingly, “but I wish I’d been the one to tell you that Clara and I are expecting a baby. If I’d done that… If I’d built that bridge between us, maybe all of this could’ve been avoided.”

I can’t help it. I snort at that. “You mean if I learned you guys hadn’t used protection, I would’ve been more careful when I got kidnapped?” I ask. Then I realize what I’ve just said and balk. “Wait, how did you-”

“Derrick told me.” Thomas’s eyes are suddenly stormy, and he points that formidable glare at the tile floor. “Of all the people on this planet, I did not want to hear that news from him.”

I’m suddenly defensive. “Then don’t force me to sit out of the talk next time,” I snap. “You could have heard it from me, but instead you had to prove you’re king of the mountain-”

“I’m not the one who decided to procreate with an enemy of our family-”

“Oh! Really ?! Because I happen to recall you thought Clara was a spy for her uncle when you first imprisoned her -”

“ Fine .” Thomas raises both hands, but whether he’s asking for mercy or ordering silence is unclear. “Fine. I don’t want to fight.” I scoff, and he levels his glare at me. “I don’t want to fight, Raleigh,” he repeats. “What I’ve been trying to say is that I wish you had come to me when you first knew. Hell, I wish you hadn’t begged Iris to keep it a secret that you were kidnapped months ago. And that I believe it’s my fault you didn’t, and I’m sorry.”

My hands are trembling. “You’re… sorry,” I say, past the growing lump in my throat.

“If I had taken steps to share the things that are important to me, maybe you would’ve felt like you could do the same. We’ve missed… a lot of each other’s lives. I don’t want to miss out on the one you’re making for yourself. And I don’t want you to feel shut out of my life with Clara.”

This feels like a fever dream. My big brother? Trying to connect with me emotionally? What magic spells did Clara cast on him in Europe?

“I… I didn’t plan for it to happen like this,” I manage to say. I rub at my arm, my shoulders hunched. My eyes are pricking, and for all the crying I’ve done since I found out I was pregnant, my brother is the very last one I want it to happen in front of. “It’s not like I went behind your back with Derrick on purpose. It… it really was an accident.”

“I never said I doubted that,” Thomas says.

“I just wanted-” I suck in a breath to steady my voice, but it doesn’t really work. “I wanted to help. I wanted to get rid of Silver, and ruin Derrick, and fix all the mistakes I made. So you wouldn’t have to be- so disappointed-”

I clamp my mouth shut, but if I blink now, tears will fall. Thomas runs a hand through his hair, then crosses the kitchen and plants a rough kiss on my forehead. It startles a laugh out of my mouth, and then I’m sobbing into his shirt as he holds me tight. He rests his cheek on the top of my head, and even if the way he pats my back might be more awkward than comforting, it still warms my heart.

I’ve never tried to hug my brother, and he’s never hugged me. Neither of us are physically doting like that, with or without growing up completely estranged.

Maybe later I’ll blame it on being hormonal, or maybe I can just say Iris already had me crying and feeling affectionate. But for right now, I need this more than I ever thought I would.

“I’m not disappointed in you, Raleigh,” Thomas says firmly. “I’m often frustrated and confused, and sometimes I’m mad as hell. But I am not disappointed.”

“I guess I prefer you being mad,” I sniffle out.

Thomas sighs, some of that dependable frustration showing through. Then he clears his throat and gently pulls away from me. I suppose he’s more than made up for the last ten years of absentee big brothering. “Have you… thought about what you want next?” he asks.

My very first thought is that I want to go back to Beth’s farm and pretend that no part of today ever happened. But before this incredibly emotional conversation ends, I need to make a few things clear.

“This might all have been an accident,” I say, as steadily as I can, “but it’s also become what I want. I do want this baby. And I want to be with Derrick.” And, just so there’s no chance he can claim plausible deniability, I add, “I love him, Thomas.”

“Well, I can’t imagine you letting him live after he put you in handcuffs if you didn’t love him,” Thomas says dryly.

I’ll take that as a compliment. “That means you can’t kill him either, you know,” I say.

Thomas folds his arms over his chest. “I reserve the right to deal with enemies of the Warwick family however I see fit.”

I cross my own arms. Newfound sibling affection aside, I need him to agree with me here. “He can’t be an enemy of the Warwick family if he becomes your brother-in-law.”

Thomas’s lip curls. “We’ll see about that.”

“Thomas, I’m not negotiating on this.”

“His history-”

“ Fuck his history,” I say firmly. “ I am his future. And he’s mine. And if I have to run off with him so we can have that future without any rude interruptions from you, then I fucking will.”

That threat hangs between us, an amalgamation of every time I’ve balked at his control over my life. This time, though, he’s got a family of his very own to think about. And soon, so will I. In his eyes, I watch the moment that realization dawns. How if someone tried to get in between him and Clara, he’d tear down that person’s entire reality to get back to her.

It’s not that we can’t still be family to each other. It’s not too late for that. But there are other people that have come into our lives and blown them wide open. We’re not all each other has anymore, and it’s high time we make space for the other people we’ve come to love.

I soften my tone, just a little. “I’d really rather let you be involved, though.”

Thomas holds my gaze for a long time, and I hold his, willing him to listen and believe. His jaw works, but finally, he gives me a single nod.

“If he hurts you-” he starts, and I shake my head.

“If he hurts me, I’ll deal with it,” I say. “And then I’ll call you to help me bury the body.”

“Deal,” he says, holding out a hand for me to shake, like we’re really making a pact. We shake, and for the first time, I feel like the future might actually be bright.

There’s just one more thing I want. I look my brother in the eye, our hands still clasped.

“When you go after Silver, I’m going to be a part of it.”