“Can I ask you a few questions?”
“Sure. Anything you need to know. I owe you that.”
“Okay… How old were you when you escaped TNS?”
“Nineteen.”
“Hmmm.” That’s pretty good. He rejected them about as early as one could hope.
“I didn’t run a lot of missions. They scared the shit out of me. I got out as fast as I could, but… I can’t say I never did things I regret. Silas, too.”
“And James?”
Sid shakes his head. “James’s hands are clean. TNS picked him up as a teenager, but they never let him in the field. Too much of a flight risk. He can be an asshole in his own way, but he never fired a shot for them.”
“I thought you said he was the one who ended up with demerits when you got here.”
“Right?” A faint smile comes to Sid’s face. “I do not understand the guy. He mouthed off to Tom a hundred times worse than he ever did to anyone in TNS. I guess he knew Tom wouldn’t kill him for it.”
“But TNS would have?”
“Eventually,” says Sid. “They beat his ass the few times he did, so he shut up. Everyone learns to keep their head low.”
“Everyone?”
He’s silent for a moment. Then, he reaches up and touches the side of his broken nose. “Everyone.”
My vision blurs as hot tears overwhelm me. At some point in his childhood, somebody intentionally did that to him. And then he had to obey that person, or risk it happening again. I’ve teased Sid about his upright, rule following nature a few times, but it feels far less funny now. Between the pair of us, I don’t know who TNS hurt more, but clearly, they hurt him longer.
“You okay?” he asks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but… it’s not because ofyou.” I wipe my eyes and make myself breathe through the anger, because Iamstill angry. At him? A little. But mostly at this awful world that put us in this horrible position. And mostly atthem. The people who tried to ruin both our lives. “I just wish… I wish you’d told me.”
“Me too,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I never left the mainland until we escaped on that boat with James. Never went to Vancouver Island. It wasn’t me or anyone else I knew who had anything to do with Port Alberni or… well, anything else.”
He gives me a quick glance, looking for confirmation of his suspicions. I guess he’s heard enough about my life that he knows some kind of bullshit happened to me after Port Alberni fell.
When all is said and done, I don’t know for certain TNS killed Mum and Curtis. I blame them, because I hate the alternative; that someone else murdered an innocent woman and teenaged boy without provocation, and I’ll never know who or why. It’s easier, pining all my anger on one villain.
But whoever that faceless, senseless villain might be, it isn’t Sid.
“I believe you,” I say. It’s not quite as good asI forgive you, but it’s a start.
He lets out a long, shuddering sigh. “Thank you.”
I pull my knees to my chest so that I have something to hold onto, wishing, as I always do, that it wasn’t my job to soothe my own aching heart. April is too young to lean on emotionally. I can’t put that burden on her, even when I want to. I can’t even remember the last time someone held me while I cried. It must have been all the way back when my parents…
No. That’s not true. It was the night before the wedding. It was Sid.
An awful ache fills me as I realize how badly I wish I could do it again—crawl into his embrace and let someone else be the strong one. But when I look at him, I don’t see a man who radiates strength, just someone struggling not to go to pieces himself. I can’t beg him for comfort. Not when he clearly needs it, too, and I’m in no position to give it. So I fight the impulse to cling to him. I stay in my chair and he stays in his and we let the silence drag out between us.
He recovers first, sitting straighter, the controlled man I’m used to taking shape once more. “So, what do you need from me for this situation to work?”
A friend. To get that trust back. “I don’t want anything to change. We’re the same people so… same deal as before.”
“Even appearing with me in public? People do know about my history. They might ask you about it.”
“I’ll just say you like to fire a shotgun round off before sex every night. Keeps your culture alive.”
