“I’m aware.” How is there a smile on her face when there are tears in her eyes? “Everyone is here.”
“Yes, baby, I see.”
Of course, she knows. Didn’t she push her way through everyone? I’m not making any sense.
“Remind me to stay on theotherside of the gun, okay?”
She cringes. “Only if you promise me one thing.”
“Anything.”
She points to the two dead bodies. “We’re not living here, because if you think I’m sleeping in this house, you’re outside your mind.”
“I’ll take it.” Discord raises his hand like we’re in fucking school. “Please, can I have your death house?”
“Why do you have to be so goddamn creepy?” Wraith demands.
“Can we not do this now?” Crow growls. “I’d rather not have one of my best men bleed to death over a flesh wound.”
“Hear that, everyone?” I ask. “He said I’m one of his best men.”
“He also said it’s a flesh wound,” Malice adds.
Flesh wound my ass. This shithurts.
I’m kinda bleeding bad, and once everyone gets ushered out, and it’s just Faith, Crow, and Havoc, we wait for our medical hookup to get here. Dr. Meyer makes house calls on occasions like this when we can’t otherwise go to a hospital. We move to one of the guest bedrooms, where there aren’t two corpses. The good doctor fishes out the bullet (which, fuck you, Crow, it was more than a flesh wound), stitches me up, and gives Faith a once-over. Crow sees that Dr. Meyer gets paid for her services, and he leaves with her just as the sun peeks out from behind the Appalachian Mountains.
Holy hell. It feels like we lived ten lifetimes in only a single night. And maybe we did, because, I don’t know, everything seems different. The same but altered somehow. As if the universe spun us the wrong way. Shook us up. Dropped us back down, and now everything is new. And as Faith comes walking out of the shower, a fresh sensor on her arm and her GB a little off after that massive spike of adrenaline, I know one thing is for damn sure. No matter what life throws at me, I can handle anything with this woman at my side.
20
Faith
Happy.
Such a small word, but one with a heavy punch.
I’ve never been happy until now. Not truly. Not when I was a kid because I was lonely living in my parents’ house. My mother expected me to be what I called Brianna 2.0 rather than Faith 1.0. And even when I was with Jester back when he was known as Luke, I wasn’t happy because I wasn’t me. Not yet. And he wasn’t him. We were still finding each other. Figuring out who we would be when we grew up.
He had to find his place with the Unholy.
He had to break my heart. I had to run off to Brighton.
These thingshadto happen.
They had to shape us.
Same as him killing Daniel.
I didn’t see Jester drag the blade across Daniel’s throat, only the carnage once the deed was done. But it was enough to satisfy my need for vengeance after the chaos Davenport caused. Putting what he did to me aside, when I think of the lives he ruined by producing and pushing that awful drug… People like Daniel are a stain on society. The Unholy do this world a service by eliminating them.
People like my mother would disagree. And that’s fine because what they don’t understand is that when a dragon threatens your village, you need a bigger and meaner monster to kill the beast. The Unholy? They’re the nastier monster. The demons who live under the bed to keep the boogeymen trapped in the closet.
“Jester.” I push away from the desk and spin on the chair to face the open door. “Come see. I’m done.”
“On my way, beautiful,” he calls from the other room.
Discord wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to stay in Jester’s house. He parked his ass right in and made himself at home. I adore the creepy bugger, but oh my God, seriously. He even sleeps in the bedroom where Jester killed Davenport and Abel. Gross. But hey, whatever floats his weird little boat. Sheriff Warren had a coronary event when he arrived at the scene and saw the aftermath. Jester and I were already gone, but Havoc filled us in on the details. From what he said, things got… messy. Obviously. There were three dead bodies. Two in Jester’s bedroom and one out in the yard with his throat slit, complements of Discord.
