He’s pale, with dark shadows beneath his eyes, and his lips are pinched. Is he thinking of Daisy, too, and the small connection he had with her? None of us are going to forget these past few hours in a hurry.
As we head into the rest stop, I turn to Cain. “What happens now?” I whisper.
He frowns as if I’ve asked him something really idiotic. “You come home with us. We all go home.”
“I don’t know if I can just go back to normal.” My eyes fill with tears again, but I blink them away. “I’m not even sure what my normal is.”
“You’re bound to feel that way now, but you’ll be better once you’re back at the tower.”
Being with my three men has been my safe place these past weeks, but suddenly I’m not sure. I’ve been through so much, and Daisy is dead,because of me. I wonder if I ought to go home. To my parents. Give myself time to think about what I really need.
“What is that look for?” Cain asks.
“I don’t know. I’m wondering if I ought to go home for a short while.”
He stops walking and pulls me roughly around to face him. “Your home is with us now, Ophelia. You belong to the Preachers.”
The way he says it, as if there’s no discussion to be had—as if it’s an immutable law of life—causes a shiver to race down my spine.
He takes my hand and squeezes it as we walk into the brightly lit forecourt, but my mind is racing.
CHAPTER 23
Cain
I’m driving now,and I can’t turn my mind off. What the fuck does Ophelia mean that she might go home for a period? That’s not even remotely in the cards. I won’t fucking allow it.
Neither will Rome or Mal.
I glance in the driver’s mirror to see she’s still sleeping, curled up with her head on Mal’s shoulder. Mal’s eyes are closed, too, and I find myself smiling that he’s somehow managed to find time to reapply his eyeliner. He must have done it in the bathroom of the rest stop.
No one really got any sleep last night, and now we’re going to be driving right through the day. I doubt we’ll make it back to Verona Falls much before sunset. We’ll take turns driving so the others can get some rest. Roman has his eyes shut, too, his temple against the passenger window. Despite everything, his injuries don’t look as severe as they had only a couple of days ago. He’s healing fast.
We’re free of the Prophet, and it almost doesn’t seem real.
A stupid idea pops into my head.What if Ophelia doesn’t need us anymore?
Is that the reason she’d mentioned going back to her parents? After what her father did, I can’t help feeling a stingof betrayal that she’d even mention doing such a thing. Ophelia had been with us because we’d helped keep the Prophet’s voice at bay, but now she won’t need us to do that anymore.
I shake the idea out of my head. She loves us, and we love her.
So why even suggest going home?
I take a shaky breath and tighten my fingers around the steering wheel, doing my best to focus on the road ahead. I need to cut her some slack. She’s just lost the girl she’d considered to be a sister, even if she hadn’t seen her in over a year, and taken a man’s life. She’s not thinking straight, and I can’t take that personally.
My self-reassurance doesn’t stop me from wanting to take Ophelia home and chain her to the bed, though.
There’s so much shit running through my mind, and I don’t know where to start. The previous twenty-four hours keep flashing across my vision as I drive down the straight, deserted road.
Things don’t add up. Something is fucking missing, puzzle pieces that I’m failing to put together.
The hours pass, and after another couple of pit stops and a couple of changes in our positions in the car, we arrive back at Verona Falls. Ophelia’s been crying on and off, and I remind myself that her grief isn’t going to go away in a matter of hours, or even days. It’s something she’ll learn to live with, eventually. She’s also killed a man, and that kind of shit changes a person. I should know.
We stop at the gates.
“Welcome back, sir,” one of the guards says, recognizing us. He dips his chin in a nod to the others.
“They’re with us,” I tell him, jerking my head at the RV following us.
