Page 384 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘I did owe you one, I suppose. Take a minute. I’ll be in the Watch.’

When she’s gone, Lachlan shifts beneath Kade, drawing in a sharp breath. Kade looks up, eyes wide.

‘What?’

He doesn’t answer at first.

His gaze has gone distant, fixed upon something Kade cannot see.

‘Bodyguard.’

‘I’m… remembering.’

‘Remembering what?’

‘Things that…’ Confusion mars his expression, face still damp with sweat. ‘Didn’t make sense before, they… They make sense now. It’s like I forgot so many little things.’ He lifts one shaking hand to his temple. ‘Not gone, just locked away.’

‘You did it to protect everyone else.’

‘I just feel stupid,’ he confesses quietly. ‘So fucking stupid.’

‘You’re not.’

Lachlan shifts until his back is against one of Riley’s windowless walls, taking Kade with him in his lap.

‘You felt it too?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What did you see?’

Kade swallows. ‘Horrible things. You?’

‘Yeah, me too.’

‘They weren’t real.’

‘Mm.’

‘Can I ask…?’

‘You can ask me anything, baby.’

‘How does it feel knowing she was your daughter?’ Kade asks gently.

Lachlan sighs. ‘I can’t even really process it. It won’t sink in. Mostly because it… I don’t know. It sounds stupid. I was stupid.’

‘No, tell me? Please?’

‘She always felt like mine. I can’t explain it, but it was like I knew and lied to myself to obscure it. The first time I held her when she was sick. She was so little and she just wanted her father but he was gone. She called him Farfar, because he was always far, far away. I picked her up and carried her around with me, wrapped up in a duvet.’

Kade knows this. He read it in the notebook.

But he lets Lachlan tell it, heart rate slowing, calming.

His voice is so soothing.

‘I remember her trying to negotiate with me to pretend just for one day that I was her daddy and she was my little girl. I remember thinking that she was so young to think like that, to have to bargain with people to love her. She was so little. And when I said yes, she was so relieved, she went straight to sleep. That moment changed me forever.’