“You only saw her after she was Healed.” Zach’s voice was full of his worry for Emma. “You didn’t see what Gordon did to her.”
Riley’s eyes flew to James. Gordon did this to his own child. God.
Emma gave one last soft moan and then slowly softened, her body going lax in Zach’s arms.
Riley checked for lasting pain, running her Shadows over Emma’s form. She was exhausted, but the pain was easing, and Riley slowly withdrew.
Zach kissed Emma’s forehead as her eyes fluttered open. “Didn’t I say we were never doing this again?” he muttered.
Emma rasped out a huffing chuckle as she gave him a wobbly smile. Then she rolled her head toward James. “I touched you.”
James flinched back, horrified guilt in his eyes. Riley immediately stepped up beside him and wrapped her arm around his waist, circling him with her Shadows. Trying to show him that she supported him.
“Not your fault,” Emma grunted. “But James… I saw you fighting Gordon.”
James’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t say a word. And Riley knew with chilling certainty that he’d been expecting to fight Gordon all along.
“What do you mean?” Riley asked. “Fighting him how?”
“I Saw James fighting Gordon years ago.” Emma’s gaze locked on James. “When you were a boy. He put you down. Again and again. And then he made you forget. I’m sorry.”
James shuddered, and Riley held him tighter. God. How she wished she could take the suffering he’d borne and fling it far away.
Zach set Emma to her feet, and she leaned heavily against him. “James, I’m so sorry, but you have to fight him again. More pain is coming.” Emma wiped a trembling hand over her face. “He’ll never let go. He’ll never accept anyone else’s authority. And something terrible is going to happen downstairs.”
“Happening now?” Kay demanded, fear for her family written across her face.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Emma admitted. “We have to move.”
Emma stumbled forward, Zach at her side, and the others followed as she made her way unsteadily toward the door into Gordon’s house. But Riley hung back, just for a moment, holding James with her.
His face was bone white, and she could feel the hard thrum of his pulse through her Shadows.
She looked up into his blue eyes—clouded now by grief and sorrow—aware of how unsettled and fragmented his Shadows had become. “You’re not your mother,” she said quietly. “And you’re not Gordon either.”
James cleared his throat roughly. And Riley knew he was about to argue. So she did the one thing she knew would stop him. She went up onto her toes and pressed a firm kiss to his mouth. “No more apologies, remember.”
“I remember,” he agreed quietly, his hands sifting through her hair as if it settled him.
“You’re not them. You never were,” she insisted.
He grunted, but his expression stayed grim. “I’m trying not to be.” One big hand settled on her cheek. “But they are still my responsibility.”
“You don’t have to fight him,” she argued. Emma’s prediction of another battle, of more pain, was almost too much to bear. “It doesn’t have to all be on you.”
James’s thumb glided slowly over her face as he looked down at her, his gaze filled with a kind of hopeless wonder. But he didn’t back down. “Riley, baby, I love you. I would do anything for you.” He swallowed. “But this is my part to play.”
“No.” She shook her head roughly. He’d done enough. “I’ll face Gordon. I’ll do it for you.”
“Can’t you see?” he asked in a tortured whisper, his eyes still locked on hers. “That’s exactly what I never wanted. I’ll take whatever he throws at me a thousand times before I let him touch you.”
God. This man. He honestly had believed he was protecting her all along. And now it was her turn to do the same for him.
She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him down for one last quick kiss. He wouldn’t believe her if she said it, but she could show him instead.
He wasn’t alone. Not anymore.
ChapterSixteen
