He whacked me in the back almost too softly. “I’m not done. What I was saying is that when we get through this, whenwe get to where we need to go—” The lean muscles in his cheeks flexed, and his voice went slightly tight, it wasn’t anger but maybe resignation? “—you can live with me until we can figure out a safe, long-term solution.”
I hadn’t heard him correctly, had I?
My cheeks started to tingle, and more tears bubbled up in my eyes as I stared at him. Mostly in disbelief. Maybe a little bit in shock.
“You can interrupt me now,” The Defender said.
“But… you don’t even like me.” There, I’d said it. It wasn’t like that was anything new.
There was literally no hesitation in his response. The son of a bitch even shrugged a little bit. “You’re all right.”
I was all right.
Me. Gracie Castro was all right.
Half the shit that came out of his mouth was rude, and he had the patience of a toddler, butI was all right?“I don’t understand why you’re doing this.” Was this the dumbest thing to argue over? Yeah, it was, but it was the truth.
Then he gave me more of that personality, that reminder of who he genuinely seemed to be. A grumpy man who saved people. “I told you already. I owe you.”
I held back tears, trying to pick my words carefully, even though most of them escaped me.
I had to think about this rationally.
He was right. I understood that, even if I didn’t want to. Even if it felt like the end of the world, which it kind of was.
The end of my world at least.
But it was what it was, and I couldn’t rewind time.
He was doing this out of pity. No shit he was. Neither one of us had known what was going to happen on the day he’d landed in my yard. I’d done what I had to do. I’d known it was going to be complicated.
The idea of relying on someone went against every instinct in my body.
But Iwas, and I didn’t have anyone who could actually help, and the idea of having something to fall back on, somewhere to actuallygo…
To not be alone, at least for a little while longer…
Especially in this shit storm of a situation.
“Maybe you could make it a month, maybe a year, but eventually, they would find you,” he said quietly, stressing his point.
It was a good point.
“I know,” I muttered, still trying to convince my body that I didn’t have another choice.
Because I didn’t.
Of all the things my grandparents had taught me, of all the things they had asked of me, there was one that rang the brightest and the truest: survive. It was all they’d ever wanted. I was the one who had wanted more than just that.
But all I’d wanted was something. A little something more than I already had. Which was a whole lot of not enough.
I needed to survive any way I could.
This would be the same as lying to protect other people. As keeping to myself. As wearing my wig and carrying pepper spray and religiously clearing my browser and cookies every single day.
Forcing myself to stand up straight, I rubbed my face with my palms and tried to calm down. Dropping them, I lifted my head and wiped under my eyes before nodding as another roll of thunder pierced the forest we were in, and I shivered. We were so vulnerable here.
I was going to be vulnerable everywhere now though, wasn’t I? That was the whole point. Everything had changed, and I either rolled with it or I let it roll over me.
