Ilona Andrews - On the Edge

Fear trickled down her neck. She reminded herself that she could fry him with her flash at any moment. “Why are you here, William?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

She searched his face and saw a blank uncertainty tinted with wariness. That’s exactly what Jack looked like when he blundered into the unfamiliar territory of human emotions and clenched up, not knowing what to say or do next. If Jack was any indication, William was stretched to his limit. He could snap and lash out at any moment.

“Come sit with me,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “We’ll talk.”

He followed her to the house. She removed the ward stones, letting him in, and pointed to the porch chairs. He sat on the steps instead, and she sat on the other side, keeping enough distance between them. She glanced at the kitchen window and saw two faces. They ducked, but not before she hit them with a first-rate scowl.

Rose looked back to William. He was at an emotional cliff, and one wrong word or look could push him over. She’d talked Jack from this same edge more than once. Of course, an eight-year-old boy and a trained killer approaching his thirties were two different things. She’d have to tread very carefully. Honesty was paramount. Jack instinctually sensed her lies, and William would probably do the same. It was best to stay away from subjects that might agitate him.

“I saw you with Declan,” he said. “Are the two of you . . . ?”

There went the careful treading. “I love him,” she said.

“Huh.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Does he love you?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t discuss it, so he doesn’t know how I feel.”

“Why him? Why not me?”

He had delivered the questions in a perfectly neutral tone, but she glimpsed the emotion behind it—a lifetime of rejection. He deserved an honest answer, and she took a moment to think about it.

“It’s difficult to explain. We’re alike in many ways. You wouldn’t think it, but we are. He makes me feel wanted and safe, and he makes me laugh . . . He also irritates the daylights out of me. I almost flashed at him at one point.” She paused. “It’s very hard to break love down to explainable pieces, William. It’s a force, a feeling. You know when you feel it and you know when you don’t.”

“So you feel nothing for me?” The question was delivered in a flat, neutral voice.

“That’s not quite right,” she said. “I don’t know you well, but there are things I like about you. I like that you’re honest. I like that you’re patient and kind to the boys and that you’ve watched over them. I didn’t like that you hung Emerson upside down on the tree and then scared me half to death.”

“I was frustrated,” he said. “You weren’t happy.”

He had made her a present and didn’t understand why she wasn’t thrilled. Just like Jack. “I appreciate the thought behind it. I still wish you hadn’t done it.”

William gave her a suspicious look.

“Once George and an older boy got into a fight. The older boy hit George in the mouth and knocked him off his feet. Jack decided to jump in. He beat the older boy very badly. Broke his nose and knocked out a tooth. He thought he was a hero. I grounded him for a week. If he had punched the boy and left it at that, I would’ve let it go. But he had done too much. Hanging Emerson off the tree was too much.” She sighed. “Believe it or not, Declan and I had this same discussion. I don’t want anyone to fight my battles for me. It’s my business, and I’d like to handle it myself.”

He considered it. “Fair enough.”

“I do have feelings for you,” she said. “Gratitude for trying to watch out for the boys and for checking on me when I’d lost my job. But they aren’t the same feelings as I have for Declan. When Declan’s gone, I miss him very badly. It’s like something isn’t quite right with the world.”

“I get it,” he said. “But what does that make you and me then?”

“We could be friends,” she said. “Friends make the world bearable. It’s an honor of sorts. Of all the people that a person knows, they pick you to be their friend, and you try to be worthy of that friendship. Or at least I try. I don’t really know you, but I feel we could become friends if we had more time.”

William’s face darkened.

“You can tell a lot about the person by the company they keep,” Rose said. “For example, you have a friend—Declan. You must be a glutton for punishment.”

William said nothing.

“He’s been trying very hard to find you,” she said. “That time when you were on the phone with me and I wouldn’t give it to him, he almost bit my head off.”

No response.

“What’s the deal with you and Declan?” she asked gently.

“We were in the Legion together,” he said. “Did he tell you that part?”

She nodded.

“It’s easy to be in the Legion.” His voice went dull and toneless. “They tell you when to get up, when to sleep, when to eat. What to wear. Who to kill. All you have to do is be where they tell you when they tell you and don’t ask questions. We were in for a long time. Most people don’t survive that long. He kept to himself, I kept to myself. We’d talk once in a while. Never said much, but he had my back and I had his. He dragged me out of a burning ship once and swam through the night until a cutter picked us up. I was out of it, a dead weight. I asked him why he did it, and he said because I’d do it for him. I thought he was like me, you see? A damaged twisted sonovabitch with no place to go.”

He looked up. His eyes were full of fury.

“Do you know he has a family ? His parents love him. He has a mother, and she loves him. His father thinks the sun rises and sets on Declan’s word. They’re proud of him. He has a sister, and she loves him, too! I went to see them when I became a noble, and she hugged him. He stood there, and in my head I saw all the blood we spilled dripping from him, and I knew that they wouldn’t care. All this time I was thinking he was fucked up and alone like me, just hid it better. But no. The bastard could’ve left the Legion anytime and they would take him back and love him anyway. You tell me, what kind of a sonovabitch walks away from a family like that?”

She didn’t know what to say. “It isn’t his fault that he has a family, William,” she said finally.

“No. But I can’t forgive him for it. I have nothing. The clothes on my back? I stole them. What you see is everything I own. The Legion was everything I had, until they took it away from me. Even that Declan threw away.”

Rage emanated from him. William would kill Declan if he got his hands on him; she was sure of it. She had to steer him away from violence. “Declan didn’t want to leave the Legion. He doesn’t care for being a noble. He doesn’t want the responsibility. He did it to help you.”

“I didn’t ask him to do it,” William snarled.

“But he did it anyway,” Rose said. “I didn’t ask you to attack Emerson, but you did it anyway.”

“It’s not the same.”

“It is. Sometimes people try to help us even when we don’t want the help. What would you have done in his place, William?”

“I would’ve broken him out,” William said.

“And some people would’ve died in the process, you would be wanted criminals, and then Declan would be pissed off at you.”

William leaned back. A long growl reverberated in his throat.

“Why did you follow Casshorn out here?” she asked. “Because you knew Declan would come and you’d get a chance to fight him?”

“No. Once Casshorn ‘adopted’ me, he started hinting that he wanted Declan out of the way. I told him no. The thing between me and Declan would happen on my terms. It didn’t sit well with him. He gave me a house on the edge of some woods, made sure food was delivered to me, but other than that, he let me be. Then three weeks ago he invited me to come with him ‘on a little adventure.’ I declined. He smelled . . . odd. After he left, I went to his place and broke into his study. He had papers prepared blaming me for this entire mess in case things went sour. So I tracked him down, but he had too many hounds by the time I found him. He tried to hunt me, and I went into the Broken.”