Page 78 of Judas
“I don’t…” My voice comes to a stop when he raises his other hand to silence me.
“Yes you do. Go, wasn’t a suggestion.”
“At no point were you given permission to touch me, nor orders.”
“I don’t take orders from you anyway. Get lost. He’s not going to give you anything today and even if he did, it’s probably going to be a lie or something else that gets under your skin.”
“I need to do this.” Replying to him, my arm grows heavy, relaxing against my wishes.
“They need you more.”
Fuck him. Being logical and shit.
Extracting my arm from his old Marine clasp, I turn back to Lucien who’s a little dazed. Not surprising—he’s been fading in and out a lot since Sadie got ahold of him. Lack of food and water, as well as blood loss, will do that to even the strongest people.
Begrudgingly, I step away from the piece of shit that is Lucien. In the kitchen, I turn the water on high and wait for it to warm up, observing Babel as he shoves his sleeves up to his elbows. Putting my hands under the water, I wet them for a moment and attain the soap that’s sitting by the faucet. Pumping some into my palm, I begin scrubbing from under my nails all the way up to my elbows. Ensuring there’s no part of his foul frame remaining on my skin.
They’re talking low right now, Babel using a ‘hug a thug’ approach to speaking and dealing with Lucien. In the world outside of jail, I believe the younger generations call it ‘gentle parenting.’ There’s no gentle-shit with him—you have to be effective in psychological torture to get anything of substancefrom him. I’m aware of that, Babel may not be, but he could. He did watch Sadie with Lucien the other night and witnessed it first hand.
I’m still figuring him out. When I reached out to him, I expected muscle and nothing else—total meathead, especially with his background. But he’s been more supportive than I anticipated. When he about lost his shit on Lucien, at the gas station where he was publicly humiliating Sadie, the tables flipped. At no point during our brief call was I calm. Watching your child go through the shit Sadie was dealing with breaks something inside of you, and I am sure there will come a point when Nadia starts asking why in the fuck I didn’t step in sooner.
Her.That’s why. I needed Nadia within the same vicinity to make sure I got my hands on both of them. That was the most important thing. Healing comes later. I had to have her; not just for me but for Sadie, too. I barely know the first thing about raising a girl, especially being emotionally and mentally supportive to one built like my daughter. This whole thing required all of us and still does, Babel included. I expect the heat I will catch for leaving Nadia behind—she will make me pay for that. But ending the fight before she was in my grasp again? I couldn’t tail her longer and approached after she finished grieving for God, what, the third or fourth time? Knock on her door one day, act like nothing happened, and try to rekindle feelings she fought so hard to move past? No. So, we waited and mobilized as soon as she got out of her cute little car.
Rinsing my arms and hands off, I wrench the faucet off with a slight squeak and begin drying them on a nearby hand towel. Needing to make sure I’m clean enough to be seen in public, I head to the bedroom and change quickly. Jeans, shirt, boots, phone, and the gun I have been hiding from Nadia shoved in the back of my waistband. My hair is always fucked, therefore there is no need to do anything with it—leave it unruly, she use tolike it like that. Gave her something to grab on to when we were alone together.
“Need anything while I’m out with the girls?” I throw at Babel on my way to the front door. He shakes his head, reaching for the brass knuckles on the table, feeding his fingers through them. Slow and methodical. Guy has a huge chip on his shoulder, we definitely need to switch out. He needs to cause pain, and I need to heal mine.
Chapter twenty-nine
Havok
Iam on a mission to find the girls right now. They’ve managed to stay out of the way and keep themselves occupied while I dealt with Lucien, not that much has been accomplished. It took my conversation, and trade off with Babel, to get me out of the damn apartment and track them down.
Things haven’t been quite as smooth with Nadia as I had hoped they would be, not surprising. We’ve gone so long without one another—her grieving over me, me plotting rather than being there. One track mind, in a way, what can I say? It’s not excusable and I should have known better. I want her to understand but this wound is so fresh, trying to field-dress it will only make it fester and spoil. She needs time, and I have plenty of it now.
Lucien moans when Babel cracks him, but the door shuts before any more noise can escape. Other than my heavy footfalls down the staircase to the shop, there’s not a whole lot to hear—worrisome. When you lose a sense, your others sharpen andmine have. One eye was enough to increase my hearing; I’m able to lock onto things that most people can’t really hear without sitting in silence and thinking about it.
For example, this morning I heard Nadia sniffling in the shower through a wall. I’ve never seen her cry, sure as fuck don’t want to, because hearing it was enough. Knowing my girl was in there alone, dealing with emotions she can’t contain, while I was getting ready to fuck Lucien up some more, put my mood in a black hole. What’s worse is that she wouldn’t come to me so I could give her the comfort and support she should get—I know, I can’t expect her to pretend like everything is okay, either.
Sadie on the other hand, she’s so quiet. Almost like she’s had a lot of practice keeping her movements smooth and lite—fearful that something would catch her doing things she shouldn’t be doing. Like sneaking out of the bedroom while Nadia was asleep and raiding the fridge. I don’t sleep a whole lot, so when she came through the living room that has started to smell more like a meat locker than a home, I zeroed in on her and watched her tiptoe through the mess.
We stayed there together, after I calmed her down from scaring the hell out of the poor girl. Even made her a quick snack to tide her over until morning time. She devoured it, licked her fingers, and if I would have let her I bet she would have licked the plate. Xavier helped in keeping an eye on her while she was growing up, as well as a few other sentries. So seeing her so starved was a revelation I wasn’t ready to fight. Her adopted parents fed her regularly—which sounds so fucking strange. Therefore, I’m going to put the blame where it’s owed—on Lucien. Knowing damn well that he likely had nothing to do with how they treated her but everything to do with not making sure she was fed while he had her abducted.
When she went back to bed, I returned to my place on the sofa. Keeping visual on the sack of shit that checked out once Naamahwas done warping his brain. Sadie passed out, full on fell-over-passed-out afterwards, too. Babel and Nadia moved her away from Lucien and back into the room where she stayed until they woke up and left for some girl time earlier.
Despite Lucien being down, I know he will be back. He’s like a hemorrhoid, hanging around for the right moment to be a nuisance. He isn’t Babel's problem either, his job is done. Sadie has been retrieved but he’s still hanging around for whatever reason. Guess he feels like the other shoe is about to drop, something I also get a sense of. Whenever that time comes, I’ll manage it. This isn’t his problem anymore. They’re my family and my responsibility.
Right now, I need to find them, to lessen the space between the most important people in my life and myself.
Rounding the bottom stair, I come into the coffee and ice cream duo at the base of the building. One glance tells me they’re not in here, which is fine, other than not having a visual on them. Something I’m not quite fond of, but I trust them. I trust Nadia to keep the both of them safe while they’re getting a damn coffee and some sunlight. I know they’re fragile right now and me storming through the shops like a raging bull will only set the both of them off. Careful is the key.
Marching up to the counter, I give the boy there a half wave and draw him over to me. He’s spry for a young kid, attentive since it doesn’t take him very long to make it over to me. Before he’s standing close enough to tend to me, I notice him sit down on what appears to be one of those hand-held gaming devices. I’ve seen the kids carry them around a lot in the past several months. Trying to learn what they are into nowadays, since there was a great possibility I would be bringing my own teenager home.
“How can I help you, sir?”
Manners, too; someone raised him better than my parents raised me, for sure.
“Have you seen a dark headed woman about yay tall walking around here with a girl a little younger than you, looks like me?” I ask, holding my hand up to Nadia’s general height.
