Page 2 of Own

Yeah, I’d let her too. However, it won’t be a problem.

“Ma, you know I didn’t.” She spits towards McKenna, who in turn acts like it’s a full-on assault and starts her screeching again. “Could you escort my mother back to her cottage?” I ask Miles, who looks at me like I’ve lost my damn mind. I raise a brow, and he shakes his head before coaxing her to drop the knife and make him some of her famous strawberry sweet tea.

Outside the kitchen, I see two more of my men hovering, waiting for direction, so I wave a hand at McKenna, not interested in dealing with her. “Clean her up and take her home.”

“What!” she screams. “Cato, this is bullshit. Those are my children too. They clearly aren’t safe here; they need to come with me. They want to.” She fists her hands on her hips; I think she believes her own lies.

“Seriously? You want to play that shit with me. Where are they safer, exactly, Ken?” She fucking hates that name. “And if they want to come with you so badly, why are they locked in a closet, waiting for you to leave?”

She lets out a frustrated growl, and I’ve had enough. Nodding to my men, they enter, grab the knife before she can harm either of them, and pick her up to leave. Once the noise has ceased, I knock on the pantry door and wait for Nathan to open it.

“She gone?” he asks before the lock disengages.

“She’ll be out the door in a minute.”

Slowly, the door opens, and his brown hair peeks out before I see the same chocolate eyes I look at in the mirror every day. Nate is my spitting image, and thankfully his sister isn’t too far off either.

My son’s normally mischievous eyes are filled with worry and sorrow, and it fucking kills me. “Why did she have to come here?” he asks, not coming all the way out.

Over the last few months, Nate has begun asking more questions about what goes on around here. He doesn’t like being left in the dark. So before we went into lockdown, I did explain the reason, and he understood and helped keep Scarlett calm and happy.

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I sit on the floor, leaning against the wall across from the pantry, and try my best to explain. “When we had you, I vowed to do everything in my power to make sure that you, and now Scar, would have both your parents for as long as possible.” Nate inches out a little more. “At the time, things were good between Ken and me, and I told her that no matter what happened to us, I would always protect her too. I don’t want the two of you to lose your mother because of a mistake of mine or one of my enemies.”

“Can’t she be somewhere else, though?” He sits across from me now, legs crossed and arms folded over his chest, too damn much like me.

I chew on his question for a minute before answering. “If this is a problem in the future, I can make alternative arrangements for her.”

He nods and a second later, Scarlett comes tumbling out of the pantry, a candy bar in one hand and her beloved pink unicorn in the other. Unlike me, she has grassy-green eyes. No idea where they came from because my entire family has brown eyes, and Ken’s are mostly blue or brown too.

“Princess.” I open my arms for her. Scarlett falls into my lap, sobbing into my chest, and soon Nathan joins her.

For the next thirty minutes, we stay that way. Sitting on the floor, my shirt soaked in their tears, and promises to go to the library tomorrow are made because, apparently, Scar can’t miss story time again or she’ll just die. She gets her flair for the dramatic from my mother, but I won’t turn her down.

In the month before learning about the threat, we began going, and a pretty, new librarian, fresh out of school, was weaving all kinds of magic in our local library, creating quite a buzz. I’d barely seen the woman, but according to Nate, she’s vibrant and beautiful, and Scarlett says she makes the worst stories into the best. Like Pinocchio, there’s no princess, so I guess it’s not a good one, but our librarian has made it fun.

I suppose tomorrow I’ll have to finally meet the woman who’s won over not only my kind-hearted daughter but my guarded son as well.

CHAPTER 2

Hester

Breathe, Hester. Just remember to breathe.

It’s what I tell myself every day before opening the library to the public. Before exposing myself to people who have no idea I exist until they need my help.

After unlocking the doors and setting out a few display signs, I begin opening curtains around the front desk. The sun shines nice and bright this morning, and there’s nothing I love more than feeling the warm rays on my ordinarily cool flesh. I’ve lived in San Diego my entire life, but I’m never warm, only cold, so I’ll take any chance to absorb the heat and especially more Vitamin D.

“Well, look at you.” I spin around to find Chelsea, my workmate, standing a few feet away with a big smile on her face. “Off the shoulder. How very daring of you.”

“I-i-is it t-t-too much? Should I ch-ch-change?” Today, I’m wearing a knitted greyish-green off-the-shoulder sweater over a black tank top, paired with black leggings, fuzzy socks that come to about mid-calf, and black fur-trimmed ankle boots. The outfit is pretty normal for me, except I usually wear a thick sweater that covers everything.

“No, Hester, you look stunning. This suits you so much better than the baggy sweaters that hide the fact you’re even a woman.” She laughs, but I don’t get it. I don’t get a lot of things.

My personality is kind of weird, with even weirder quirks. Working in a library feels natural to me since I don’t interact with a lot of people and spend all my time with books. Shelving them, cataloging them, and most importantly, reading them.

“I do?” Frowning down at myself, I don’t see what she does. My chest is mostly flat; I’ve never had the need to wear a bra because I don’t have much junk in that particular trunk, according to Chelsea. I’m also abnormally skinny due to a very high metabolism, so gaining weight has always been a challenge for me. I’ve been underweight my entire life, which led me to some not-so-nice foster homes because my social worker would question why I wasn’t gaining weight and growing like most girls my age. Word got around, and the good families refused to take me in, so I was placed in houses I’d rather forget.

“Girl, please, don’t act like you aren’t the most stunning creature in the whole state.” I laugh, assuming she’s joking, but her serious expression indicates that she’s not. I still don’t believe her, though.