Page 17 of Ramshackle
Aside from Kellan, who gets drunk as a skunk each night and passes out on the couch. It’s one of the reasons I’m sure Vera decides to go to her own room shortly after dinner. He takes up a good portion of the couch on the long side, sprawling out, and half the time winds up snoring obnoxiously so you couldn’t carry a conversation in the same room if you wanted to.
He’s suspiciously quiet after her door closes, and I have to wonder if he’s faking his drunken state for the very reason of annoying her.
I check my phone for the hundredth time, waiting for a call from Jackson to tell me what information he extracted from our next target on the list. Or news from Cibrina. Evie. Silas. Fabian.AnyoneI’ve recruited to track her down. When my notifications are still clear, I sigh and stand from the dining table. There’s nopoint in me staying out here anyway where Vera could overhear our conversation.
After I found a piece of a radio in my Aston Martin before leaving for the bunker one morning, I haven’t left the firehouse since. If Cibrina needs me for anything, she’ll have to call or send Reid directly to my room so no one even knows I’m gone.
I’m ninety percent certain it was a tracker.
Vera may be trying to play the sweet, misunderstood sister since Jackson threatened her, but we’ve all seen what she’s really like. None of us are fooled. At least, I hope Dane isn’t. He’s been talking with her more, and itseemslike they’re getting along. I’ll have to follow up with him to see what that means and make sure his stance hasn’t changed.
If it has, we’ll adjust, but not in a way that would compromise the mission of getting Raegan back.
I can’t get her out of my head.
Not the pain in her voice nor the words she’d shredded me with before she was taken.
I didn’t get a chance to talk to her alone after that, not that I have any idea what I’m going to say yet to fix all I’ve done.
All I can see when I close my eyes at night is the fear on her face when she’d seen Gordon during the attack on the Guild. And then the sinister smile Gordon wore when she’d promised herself to him in order to save us.
It makes me sick.
I almost walk away from Kellan but stop and turn back to reach over the couch and pick up his liquor bottle. I bring it to my nose and take a short whiff.
Nothing.
The label says vodka, so it would be easy for him to swap it out for water. A smile tugs at my lips now that I have confirmation.
Setting the bottle down, I stroll out of the main room and stop a few steps into the hallway. I wait for noise to indicate if Dane or Vera are still awake. It’s past midnight.
Passing my own room, I stop in front of Raegan’s and open the door. I’m careful to close it softly behind me. This is a routine I’ve adopted over the last several weeks that has become a compulsion more than anything. Even if I try to go to my room and sleep, I toss and turn until, inevitably, I wind up in here, anyway.
It starts with me walking around the tiny room, which takes a matter of steps, my fingers grazing over books, clothing, and any random things she had in her room. At first, I would find something new to look at; another piece of her that I missed before that I can learn about now. What she’s reading. What sorts of clothes she wears when she’s not in her vengeful assassin getup.
But it’s barely a week before I’ve seen it all.
And none of the items really tell me more about her. Not in the way I’d hoped they would. She’s an enigma. A mystery that she guards as if her life depends on it. As if, by sharing her secrets, she believes this world, or perhaps just her world, will end with it.
Then, as with all other times, I find myself at her bed. Her sheets are always a mess, because she can’t be bothered to ever make it. I’d considered making it for her one night but couldn’t do it. It looks like she just rolled out of bed and will be back soon. It doesn’t make her being gone look so…permanent.
I kneel by the side of her bed, leaning over it and clenching the sheets in my hands. Her vanilla scent is still there, but it’s faded so much that I have to try hard to find it. Once it disappears completely, I don’t know what I’ll do.
I thought I could let her go again if I had to. I’d done it once before, so why not?
I’d done my damnedest to push her away before it was too late. I threatened her. Insulted her. Yelled at her.
But none of it mattered.
She’s done something to me this time that makes her impossible to forget. She’s like a disease that’s invaded my soul. And even if someone were to hand me the cure, I’d want no part of it.
She’s the fire in my blood. The driving beat of my heart.
I don’t let myself imagine what she’s going through right now. Anything I picture sets my teeth on edge and pushes me to walk out the door and start doing as Jackson is right now until I find her. Fortunately, I’m not as impulsive as he and Kellan are. I can’t let emotions rule the decisions we make when time is of the essence.
I tell myself that whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. I can’t stress over what I don’t know yet.
I suck in another lungful of her diminishing scent and whisper her name like a promise on my lips. I push myself up from the sheets, stroking them, and then stand. Iwillmake it all work out. We just have to get her back first.
