Page 16 of O'Mega's Revenge
“What I was is still a part of me. Who I was then influences who I am now. There is no escape from that. I am not going to pretend that what happened didn’t just because I’m on the other side now. What I was made me want to fight this fight, and if you don’t respect that, then I don’t know how to …”
How to continue? How to abide with knowing I was being judged? How to stop the pain from leaking out? It tumbled around in the mess I’d buried deep inside.
“We have your back.” Trot was sincere. She made certain to let that statement sink in.
“My back also includes my past.”
“Yes. Yes, it does.” Her hand dropped on my forearm and squeezed hard. Wisely, she’d avoided my wrist or hand. Or even the power position of my upper arm.
Hours later, Wolf showed up with a couple of men from the local club. Their arrival was met with catcalls and whistles. Like Sprout did before them, they ate it up.
I slipped out, unwilling to get angry at my sisters for having fun. Down the hill, there was a long dock attached to a fancy boat house. Sprout added a sweet runabout early this summer. Before then, the building had sat empty for years. The lake was calm with barely a ripple. The surface looked like deep blue-black glass. The glow from Harrisburg lit the skyline to the east. Directly above my head, the sky shimmered with stars. Night sounds bounced around the valley. Frogs, crickets, strange nocturnal calls I couldn’t identify. This far from the party, nature threw its own. Fireflies danced in the deep grass of the meadow that skirted the property’s edge.
Heavy footsteps warned me that Wolf had made it out of the zoo. I glanced back to confirm.
“Why aren’t you inside?”
“Thinking.”
He settled in an arm’s length away. If someone looked at us, they’d have no clue he was inside me earlier. That’s just the way we worked. Apart or touching to abandon. There was no in-between.
“Who are you planning to kill?”
The corner of my mouth went up. “You.” It was our little game.
“Mind telling me how this time?”
I paused a second to land on a method that would be both effective and humiliating. The forest that ringed the view gave me an idea. “Deer attack. I’ll rig a musk bath, then let loose a dozen rutting male deer.”
“Bucks. The males are called bucks.”
“I spaced on the word. Thanks.”
He shifted a few inches closer. “You mad at me for tonight?”
It took a ten-count before I could talk through the tightness in my throat. But the hesitation didn’t help. If anything, the invisible fist closed harder.
“Yes.”
He exhaled heavily. His face twisted.
“I’m not going to blame it on Jackson. I was just as much a part of the planning as he was.”
“I bet you picked up the mattresses.”
“No, that was Hickey.”
One of his brothers.
“You know how it looks for me, right?”
He spit into the water near his feet. “Yep.”
I waited.
Each second he didn’t elaborate or defend himself was a wound on my heart. The lump in my throat got so large I had to swallow. The pain bubbled up. To distract myself, I worked on Trot’s request.
“Did Jackson score points with the bigwigs?”
