Page 13 of Raiden

Widow paused six feet away, her back to me like she doesn’t want to watch what I’m doing because she’s sensed for a while that I’ve fucked this up. In the spirit of why we’re out here in the first place, she’s decided not to say anything and now she won’t look at me because it would be like poking an already provoked bear.

I’m no tracker, and tracing our steps back seems nearly impossible when we zigzagged all over the place to try and choose the path of least resistance.

I should have been dropping stones or letting out string. Something. Anything that wasn’t so stupidly brazen and self-assured. It’s my own damn fault, if I’d gone into this in a better frame of mind then I’d have checked I had the fucking map.

There are rocks jutting up all over the place, a big one not twenty feet away, poking out of the moss and covered in lichens. I walk over and sit down on it, letting the cool of the earth seep into my ass. I just need a second to figure out what the fuck to do.

Widow walks over. She clears her throat and finally looks up, eyes as unnaturally green as the moss that’s beneath my boots.

“Were you a Scout when you were younger?”

There’s nothing taunting in her tone or face. I catch the slight spark in her eyes that says that she’d desperately like me to say yes.

“Yeah. When I was real young. Gray too. Zale didn’t give a shit if he went or not, but my parents made sure we did it together. My dad didn’t like me hanging out with Gray, but I heard my mom telling him one night that he was just a kid, he didn’t have to turn out like his father. My mom wanted to save Gray, but it went the other way, at least in her mind.”

“He pulled you into the darkness.”

“I went willingly, but it wasn’t dark at all. Prospecting with the club was the highlight of my life, and patching in? It was beyond the best day I’d ever known.”

She eyes the endless trees. “Do you know where we are?”

“Honestly? No fucking idea.”

“Oh.” She spins in a tiny circle and makes a noise in the back of her throat.

“You ever been camping?” I ask gruffly.

She shakes her head. “Not like this.”

My hands curl into fists. An uncontrolled rage sweeps through me, as devastating as if a real wildfire ripped through these woods. Just a spark would soon burn out of control. All that anger is directed at myself. This isn’t the man I was raised to be. Sure, I deviated way the fuck off that morally righteous path that my parents put me on, but I’ve never been one bit ashamed of who I am until now.

I’m the reason we’re out here. I chose to marry this woman, made her promises, and I’ve done nothing but cause her pain. That wasn’t my right, no matter how angry I was. She’s not her father. I never stopped to even think what her life has been like. She’s not some pampered princess. She’s hard becauseshe has to be, covering up her real feelings with brassy sass and snark. I’ve treated her like an enemy and an obligation, uncaring and cruel. I’m a man through and through, a hell of a lot rougher than my upper-middle class rearing, but I’ve acted like a child.

Seeing her stripped of her usual ballsy, tough as nails shield, presses into my protective instincts, flaying me open like the lash of a whip.

“I’m sorry.”

Her head snaps up, a halo of sun kissed soft gold surrounding her beautiful face. “Excuse me?” She’s wary of a trap, waiting for me to snare her and trip her up. Her eyes are heavily lined, and they narrow into black kohl slits.

There’s no trap. No heat. Only me spreading my palms like an offering. “I’m sorry for what I said and how I said it. It wasn’t fair by half. You can’t help who your father is.”

“He wasn’t in my life growing up. You know that, right?” she snaps.

“Given that he was here, and you weren’t, I guess that’s obvious.”

“He sent money. My mom kept in contact. That’s as far as it went. She was a badass.” She jerks at her own words, pressing on nerves that are still raw.

I feel that same pang deep in my chest thinking about my own mom. She was most definitely not a badass. I’d barely made my peace with her—not even really sure that’s what it was—and she was gone.

“I guess when Zale was finished here, he decided to check up on us. I had my life together, but I knew from the second heshowed up, offering that rough kind of freedom, that I needed it. The only thing I regret was that I wasn’t there when she died.”

I stay quiet. I haven’t earned the right to ask her to share any of her pain. She tells me anyway. Maybe she needs to talk about it.

“It should be some kind of warning to me that she died on her bike. She would have wanted to be around for quite a while yet, but if it was between that or dying in her bed an old lady or wasting away with sickness…” She inhales sharply. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I know your mom just passed and I know it was cancer. I wasn’t trying to be insensitive. I normally think before I speak.”

“Me too.” I clear my throat. It’s so much louder in the silence that engulfs us. “I’m better with numbers than with words.” I let out a humorless laugh because I’m always saying that, and I realize what a copout it sounds like.

“I get that.”

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