Page 28 of Worth the Ruin
But I do like to think that in whatever life is after this one, wherever we go next, Gabrielladoesknow, and that she, Mitch, and Gabby are all together somewhere, safe and happy.
“Oh, well, I’m no big deal,” I say to the older woman with a smile.
“It is nice to meet you officially finally. Everyone just calls me Abuela.” She smiles, her eyes crinkling again, and I think that she must be older than she looks.
“It’s nice to meet you too.” I glance back to Traeger only to find him still watching. “So, uh, does Traeger not usually keep a close eye on newcomers then? They don’t all stay in the suite beside him at first?”
Abuela laughs, a deep, hearty sound that warms my chest.
“Oh no, my dear.” She leans in and adds with a mischievous glint in her eyes, “And he most definitely does not watch every new resident of our little community likethat.” She nods conspiratorially towards Traeger and I just stop myself from turning to look again. My cheeks flush and I rub the back of my neck a little self-consciously.
“Well, I didn’t ask for special treatment. I didn’t ask to come here.” I purse my lips. “Ok, well actually that’s a lie. Ididtechnically ask, but it wasn’t like I wanted to come.”
“Is it so bad here?” Abuela asks.
I let out a long exhale and Abuela nods to a picnic table nearby, as if she can sense that this is a…complicated question. We sit and I think about it. Is it so bad at FOS? Though I still don’t want to acknowledge that Traeger isn’t actually the monster I thought him to be, and feel like a traitor admitting the truth, I can’t really deny it any longer. I sigh.
“No, it really isn’t so bad here at all.”
“Did you leave people behind then?”
“I did. Jonah.” I try to breathe around the lump in my throat. “He’s the reason I left. I offered myself up to Traeger to keep him safe, to make sure he stayed there where he needed to be.”
“Well, that was very brave of you, given what I’m sure you had heard about this place.”
I hike a shoulder. I didn’t feel brave for doing it, I just knew it was what had to be done. I love Jonah more than anything, but he found Mulligan and had another chance at real happiness, at a real life after all the pain and suffering and surviving. I couldn’t let that be taken away from him. And I couldn’t let anyone else at The Cove suffer needlessly either. Everyone there had…someone. I didn’t. I was the expendable one, so it made sense for me to be expended.
“So, you don’t mind him?” I tilt my head towards Traeger. He isn’t staring anymore, instead deep in conversation with a couple of FOSers and looking thoughtful.
“Of course not,” she says, looking at me like I’m crazy.
“But…you know the things he’s done, don’t you?”
“Mija, you know that the world has changed. Right and wrong, good and evil—it isn’t as it used to be. There are no clear lines anymore, everything is blurred. He has done what needed to be done to keep everyone safe, to give everyone the best chance at life again.”
“I understand that. Believe me, I’ve done my fair share of what needed to be done too, but…he’s different."
“How so?” It isn’t defensive or angry, just conversational, like she really wants to know what I’m thinking about the man.
“I’ve killed, but it was always in self-defense or to keep my people safe. He kills just to kill. To prove a point and make people fear him. I get that the fear is necessary to an extent, to keep everything running the way he wants it to and to keep the people here safe, to keep everyone in Haven safe, I guess, but…” I shake my head. I know I’m grasping at straws, but I can’t quite make myself just fuckinggive inand accept what I know to be true. So, I’m still fighting. I’m still going to throw everything I have at the wall and see what sticks. My guess? Not much.
“He wiped out an entire settlement,” I point out, desperate to have her confirm that he is, in fact, a horrible person, that even if it was a necessary move to solidify his place as a leader and keep the other settlements in line, that it doesn’t make it ok.
“Did he now?” Abuela says in that motherly way, likes she’s letting me discover the right answer on my own. The old woman places her elbows on the table, resting her chin in one upturned hand. I narrow my eyes at her suspiciously.
“…didn’t he?”
“He did,” Abuela says breezily, “but not in the way you think. That settlement was a true hell, worse than even the worst rumors you have heard about FOS. The men there were the worst kind of humans left, the rot of the earth. They kept women and children as slaves, used in whatever manner they wanted. Any man who stood up to the others was tortured in unspeakable ways. The people were starved, beaten, raped, tortured, forced to fight each other and fed to Bloodies for entertainment.”
My mouth falls open in horror and fire flares in Abuela’s eyes, a rage on the surface and pain just below it.
“Until Austin. He did wipe that settlement off the map, and he did deliver the heads of those men on spikes to the other settlements as a warning, but herescuedthe others. He saved them, gave them a safe place where they were cared for and respected and felt unafraid for the first time in too many years. They were all too happy to keep his secrets in order to preserve the peace and safety they’d found, in order to help others have that same safety, and to keep the same thing from happening anywhere else ever again.”
I stare at Abuela with wide eyes. Every word rings with absolute truth—truth of someone who witnessed it firsthand.
“You were there.” It isn’t a question. She inclines her head.
“That man is not what you think he is. He is not perfect. He can be vicious and cruel and lethal when needed. He does what is necessary, but the lives he takes are never without cause and never just for show, I promise you. He’s smart and calculating and shoulders far more than you could ever imagine. He lets everyone but those within these walls think and see the worst of him. It takes a toll,” she says sadly. “He’d never admit it, but I know that it does.”
