One heavy foot after the other, Blue found that she barely had the strength to walk out of the room, turning her back on her younger brother and all that she wanted to be there to witness in his life. Each step that she took fell with a sickening weight like bricks on the floor, echoing her pain along with it. Her brain began to frost over and glaze her eyes with ice that could not observe the world as she passed it. The greened walls and chipped ceiling unraveled in her periphery, but she took no notice. By the time she reached the end of the hallway, the pain was covered over with a buzzing sound that cancelled out all she could not bear to feel. Baird, for once, walked behind her and next to Jack, ensuring that she did not sneak one last look at her baby brother before they turned the corner.
It took Blue, Baird and Jack twenty minutes of passing through hallway after mundane hallway to finally reach the entrance. Not that he was surprised, but Baird was relieved that Blue did not turn around once, trusting that he was behind her all the way and that there was no going back.
Liam leaned against the wall at the reception desk at the south entrance of the massive series of buildings. Alec was standing at attention, clashing with Liam’s foot pressed to the wall behind him. Brody’s nose was still a little swollen, and his eyes had black wells beneath them, but he stood before Liam as a front of protection anyway.
Sam slouched next to Liam. Though he was not a guard anymore, the training was in his bones. His eyes drifted to each doorway every few seconds, his lazy demeanor a cover for his years of experience.
Sam’s molded face broke down and relaxed when he saw Blue round the last corner, her auburn hair obscuring what was becoming his favorite sight. As she neared, he realized something was wrong with the perfect work of art. She did not return his smile or even look up to acknowledge his stealthy flirting. So covetous was he of the small moments that he noticed when each miniscule inflection of affection was stolen from him.
“We’ll wait in the parking lot,” Baird informed the men. “Take your time.”
“Uncle Jack! How are ya?” Liam boomed, his indoor voice having never been properly installed.
Jack put on a smile that convinced no one as he watched his only daughter walk away.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Harsh End of the Beginning
The siblings waited in the parking lot for half an hour in silence, Baird giving Blue the space she needed as he sorted through all the possible ways he’d worked out in his mind to say goodbye.
When he sensed that enough time had passed and it was safe to talk, he stood next to her and leaned back on his 4x4 so he did not have to look her in the face. “You got everything in your sack?”
Blue nodded, but offered nothing more to ease along their last moment.
“Good. I, uh, I got you something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a butter knife from the restaurant that he paid for with his tips. “I know they’ll probably get you all sorts of fancy weapons over there, but I don’t want you forgetting who gave you your first one.” He did not look to see the little smile that played on her lips, but he knew it was there. There was not much that he couldn’t predict about his sister. “Just remember everything I taught you, and you’ll be fine.”
Immediately he regretted his choice of words. He knew that she would most likely not be fine. This was the last time he’d spend with her, and he was saying all the wrong things. If Elle had been there, she would have kept him in check. He was horrible with moments like these. He cleared his throat and looked away. “So, I know you know, but I love you.”
At this, Blue’s head shot up. “What? How would I know that? You’ve never told me before.” She seemed to come back to herself a little.
His lips pursed as he fought back the guilt that tried to tie his tongue even more. “Yes, I have. Don’t you remember?” He was a little insulted that she had no recollection of something he recalled so vividly. “We were kids in the old building. Building Two. I was teaching you how to run with your eyes closed and you tripped and fell. You skinned your knee.” He smiled as he pictured it. “Man, you were small. Tough kid, too. Didn’t cry at all. I tried to pick you up, but you wouldn’t let me. You said you weren’t a baby and you could do it yourself. You said that you were just as big as me, which, you know, has never been true.” He breathed to steady his voice. “You said you wanted to be just like me, and I told you that I loved you.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
“How old were you?” she asked, dumbfounded that he remembered something obviously very important to him and she had not.
“I don’t know, like seven? A month or so before I turned eight. It was just before I left for Building Three,” he guessed.
“Baird, I was five when you were seven!”
“Almost six! Five’s plenty old enough to recall important stuff,” he defended himself.
“How could I remember something that long ago?” She laughed, the mild sound relaxing both of them. When she sobered, she kicked his foot with hers. “I love you, too,” she admitted.
“Good thing I wasn’t waiting on that one,” he joked, tapping her foot in return.
“I wasn’t gonna be the first girl to cave.”
“Oh, so now I’m a girl?” Baird smiled, enjoying the turn of levity.
“Yup. A big, giant girl.” Her face changed after a moment. “So when’s the last time you told Griffin that you loved him?”
“He knows.”
Her response came swift, with no room for counterpoints. “No, he doesn’t.” She watched Baird shut his mouth, for he had no retort to that. “You have to tell him. He’s not me. He actually needs love from you. Promise me that after I’m gone, you’ll take care of each other.”
“You know I will,” he assured her.
“Not just physically. I mean, he needs you to love him. So be nicer. Tell him every time you see him. Tell Elle, too, and don’t be stingy with Grettel. I may die first, but you’ll spend your whole long life dead if you don’t start admitting to us that you love us. It won’t make you weak, Baird. We deserve to hear it from you every day.” She paused, steeling herself to say her next piece. “After everything we’ve been through, I deserved to hear it more than once.”
Baird ran his tongue in between his teeth as the guilt crashed over him. “Twice,” he corrected her, though he did not understand why he was arguing.
In their quiet, unsupervised moment, Blue broke down and began to quake, hating herself through every tremble. “I deserved it every day you told me not to look up at people when they spoke to me or how to get the drop on someone from behind. I deserved to hear it when I was sent to bed bloody for taking Griffin’s beatings. I deserved to hear it when I had a stomach full of scratch shavings after Grettel or Elle would drop a paper weight. I deserved to hear it when no one would come near me because you’d covered my face in scratch.” Her voice rose, now with anger tainting the sadness. “I did everything you told me to, Baird, and I deserved more from you!” The bitter words came out of her after having spent years in rehearsal. “Griffin deserves more, too.” She shook her head. “You give up all your time, your money and your energy to watch over us and train me, but you withhold the one thing that’s so easy to give. I don’t get you sometimes.”
“Stop it,” he scolded her, warning her that he got the point and she was traipsing into dangerous territory. His stone wall was ready to be thrown up at a moment’s notice, and then used as a weapon against whoever angered him.
“It’s my last wish,” she whispered, laying it on thick. “Promise me that you’ll tell Griffin every time you see him that you love him. Tell me that you’ll be nicer and you’ll love Elle well and Grettel, too.”
The tables turned, and Baird found that he did not like being on the submissive end. Swallowing, he took the advice he’d given to his brother. “Okay. If it’s that important to you, then fine.”
“Tell me,” Blue insisted obstinately, and in that moment he coul
d truly tell that he was the one who had raised her.
“I’ll tell Griffin every time I see him that I love him. I’ll be better to Elle and Grettel, too. I’ll be nicer to all three of ’em.” The words were hard to say and tasted bitter in his mouth, but he knew once he repeated them that he would have to find a way to make them true. “I don’t love Elle like you want me to, Blue. Can’t force that.”
“Yes, I can.”
Baird snorted, and then quieted. He stood next to his sister, working up the courage to speak openly the things he hated thinking about. “I do love you, Blue. You’re the only one who really gets it all.” Baird swallowed, gearing up for the big guns. “You’re my best friend. Do you think I liked making you do those things? I couldn’t tell you how proud I was of you, because I didn’t want it to turn you soft. But I am. I’m so proud of you.”
At this, Blue’s control faltered. She started shaking even more. For some reason, this hit harder than his admission that he loved his family. Quickly she suppressed the moment, storing it away in her memory so that she could pull it back out unharmed when she next needed to hear it. She tapped her foot to his again. “It doesn’t count if I’m your only friend.”
To indicate that he’d gotten her point, he grabbed his chest like she’d sent a dagger through his heart. “You got me.”
A few minutes of shared silence calmed them both down. “Hey, do you think long after it’s all over they’ll like, write songs and tell stories about us and everything we went through like they do with Francis Vemreaux?”
“Maybe.” Baird shrugged, considering this for the first time. “In the stories, though, make sure I get the girl in the end.”
“I’d like to be a little taller and, you know, prettier in the poem versions,” Blue joked, her insecurity poking through.
The front door to The Way opened, and the four Vemreaux they’d been waiting on emerged. Alec spotted Baird and nodded as they made their way across the parking lot to the two. Shaking his head, Baird corrected her. “Pretty doesn’t matter…”
“…when you’re slitting throats.” She joined in, spouting off one of his many lessons. “I know, I know.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Baird reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thick wad of bills. Blue’s eyes widened bigger than he’d ever seen when he picked up her hand and shoved it in her palm, closing her fingers around it. “Just in case.”
“No, Baird. That’s not my money.” She tried to press it back into him. “It’s for Griffin, not me. What would I need with money?”
Baird shook his head and moved her outstretched hand back to her body. “They’re just your tips from Tuesday night. Everything else’ll go towards buying Griffin. Don’t worry. This is just in case. You might need food or a ride somewhere, and I don’t want you not to have the money.” He rolled his eyes and sighed. “I won’t let you not take it, Blue, so you might as well just accept it and be done.”
After much internal debate, Blue realized that she had very little choice in the matter, since her brother’s mind was made up. Grudgingly, she took the bills, folded them in half the way she’d seen Baird do it every night when they closed up, and shoved them in the back pocket of her jeans. “Thanks,” she muttered, though her tone suggested something other than gratitude.
“You ready, kitten?” Liam was oblivious to the tender mood between the siblings.
Baird saw the man in a new light now that he knew they were cousins. Reckless with a smile and incapable of being serious, Baird thought Blue would probably laugh a lot in what he hoped would not be her last days. The whisper of a promise that she was guaranteed a grin in the near future gave him just enough fuel to leave her with the foreigners and trust her to fate’s wretched choice for her life.
Blue did not respond to Liam, for nodding would only have been a lie. Baird and Liam exchanged a bit more information and paperwork concerning her purchase and impending freedom, which Liam assured him would happen the following day when they could file the papers in Europe.
When all was said and done, it was Baird who had trouble leaving. Despite their audience, he pulled his sister into the first hug he’d given her since he’d been bought by Master Joe and left The Way.
Before he could pull her to him, her arms flew up, one forearm blocking her stomach and the other crossing her breasts. He’d seen her do this before when someone would get too close and try to hold her against her will. It was her way of bracing herself for an attack of emotions and love that she did not think she could handle. He could feel her fists balling up against him as she shook in his arms. In his periphery, he saw her face turning red as she held her breath to stave off the onslaught of agony that ripped them both apart.
He decided to be brave and throw caution to the wind by placing a kiss atop her head. “Hey,” Baird whispered as he grabbed her to him so tight that he could feel her heartbeat through her back. He flexed his muscles so that she didn’t even have the room to tremble. Baird squeezed her so fiercely that a short sob escaped from her before her mouth clamped shut. “Hey, I love you.”
Baird wished that she had not braced herself for the hug. He wanted her to return the gesture and hold him together, as well. He took it as a just repayment for all the times he’d told her how important it was not to get emotional. Of all the things he’d taught her, hugging was never one of his instructions for survival, though he needed it now more than anything.
“Goodbye, Blue.” Baird squeezed his sister one last time with the brunt of his strength before releasing Blue and turning his back on her as she stumbled forward miserably, collapsing to her knees.
“No, Baird! Don’t leave me!” Blue shouted after him. “No! I want to stay with you!” She allowed the child she always tried to quiet inside of her to finally speak. “Don’t let me do this, Baird! Please! Don’t let me die!”
True to form, Baird did not look back as he climbed into the car and drove away without a second glance at his only sister.
Blue willed Baird to come back, to say something that would rescue her from her anguish, but he remained gone from her vision and her life. She sagged hopelessly on the pavement, and did not even notice when Sam lifted her and carried her to their car.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Held Together
Sandwiched in between Sam and Liam in the backseat, Blue had little room to air her grief as Brody drove them all to the private airport after they left The Way. Sam’s arm stayed around her, permanently affixed there through her anguish, and she realized that she did not stiffen at his touch anymore. She was so wrecked from leaving her family that she could scarcely breathe without feeling the crushing weight of despondence. His breath tickled her hair, but she did not thrill at the sensation. His thumb rubbed soothing circles into her shoulder, but even that was not strong enough to pull her out of her pit of despair.
Sam’s warm body drew her to his side, and although she had precious few other places to go, she allowed him to lean her head on his sturdy shoulder until the shaking subsided. Even Brody had the decency to allow her a moment of silence before making a crack about the Americans and their terrible driving habits.
“Okay, old man,” Liam teased from the back seat, shifting uncomfortably from one too many bodies stuffed back there. He was tall, but did his best to accommodate the girl.
“Old man? Hey, just be glad it’s not Sam driving. We’d get hit for sure with his lead foot.” The attempt to bring Sam into the conversation fell to the wayside, for the Vemreaux was intent on stroking the woman’s sullen face with his free hand, and could pay attention to little else. This irritated Brody, but he didn’t push it with Alec sitting next to him in close punching range.
“You ever been on a plane before, kitten?” Liam asked, trying his luck at pulling the more diplomatic of the two out of their shared funk. He reached over and rubbed her back gently with his palm.
“No,” she answered, too depressed to resist the contact.
Liam grinn
ed. “You’ll love it. Your first flight’s on a New World One airplane? Man, who else can say that? The seats are way bigger than a regular airplane.”
“Since when have you ever been on a regular airplane?” Brody challenged, glancing in the rearview mirror at his friend.
Liam decided not to dignify that with a response, even though Brody had a fair point. “The ride’s real smooth. Better than driving with this pothole magnet behind the wheel.”
He indicated Brody with a silly look that Blue missed entirely, due to her head still enjoying its new home on Sam’s firm shoulder.
Though her mind told her body to tremble, it would not obey anymore with Sam’s command of comfort on her cheek. Eventually the tremors stopped, and a buzzing filled her ears so that she could not understand any of the banter that was picking up around her. She thought of Baird’s last bone-crushing hug, Griffin’s angry tears and Grettel’s endless sobs, but it was Elle’s words that surfaced above the agony of deep depression.
With perfect clarity, she recalled the goodbye in the hut that morning as she left the girls. With Grettel barely able to make out an intelligible word, Elle was the one who found her voice amidst the tears. She had pointed directly into Blue’s face like she was Baird giving an order. “Don’t you lose that fight, Idahlia Jane.”
Blue cringed at the use of her real name.
Elle yanked her into a hug and whispered in her ear. “I love you, Dolly, and you’re not going out there on your own. You’ve got a whole team of guys who believe in you, so don’t be scared. Kill that predator and never look back. Let them take you anywhere. And let that Sam take you everywhere.”
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