Page 181 of Aftershock
“Good. Good.” A weight has been lifted off my chest. When I turn to Hope, I say, “Don’t forget to tell him I’ll cut his balls off if he hurts you.”
At that, all three of us laugh, talk some more, and…
Live.
Without evil parents getting in the way, without secrets or distance keeping us apart, we finally get to just live.
EPILOGUE
Alaric
A year later
“Who’s next?” my beautiful, perfect, and impatient wife asks right after we throw a body down the river.
“We discussed this.” I lean in, kissing her forehead, then lick the salty sweat beads off it. The sound of her purring is one I’ll never get enough of. “It’ll be a year before we consider a new test subject.”
It’s mostly dark on the Hudson River at this time of night. Still, I can see her sweet pout and the little line forming between her eyebrows.
After a minute of silence, she huffs. “A year is such a long time.”
Her serious tone and genuine indignation push a laugh out of me.
I do a lot more of that these days. Laughing. As with everything good in my life, it’s thanks to Lilith.
The banter between us is just as sharp, fun, and playful as it’s been since day one.
Then there are the moments we spend at her old place with Hope and Isaac, when all four of us aren’t working. We have dinners, Sunday brunches, and watch so many movies with the new speakers I installed in both our apartments that Lilith has gotten used to grabbing the remote and turning the volume up herself.
Hanging with them is a gift. They’re the family I wasn’t born into, but the one I chose. The one that keeps choosing me.
With one exception. Lilith and I haven’t told them about the storage unit. We’re protecting them as much as ourselves.
But as I told my wife, who’s become both a serial killer and the sweetest employee atHope’s Treats, we won’t be seeing much of that place during the coming year, either.
“Little devil.” I cup her cheeks. Immediately, she leans into one of my palms. I fucking love it. “We’re already obsessed with this baby, and she isn’t even here yet. Can you imagine what it’ll be like when she’s born? If you weren’t so insistent?—”
“Don’t you say that.”
Did I mention her attitude is one of my favorite things about her?
It is.
Which is why I finish the sentence anyway. “If you weren’t so insistent on my getting back to work, I wouldn’t.”
“You can’t.” Her eyebrows shoot down. “Your patients need you.” A pause. “Especially the ones who really, really need you.”
There’s no kinder, more compassionate soul than Lilith’s.
A year ago, I thought this precious side of her would reject me altogether.
These days, I know better.
Lilith isn’t just good. She’s a vigilante, like me.
Thank fuck for that. In retrospect, the lying, the hiding, the goddamn loneliness, they’d been getting to me. Eating at me for years.
No more.
