An hour later, when Riley had finally fallen into silence, Xander came to the swing for her.
“We need to call your brother,” he said as he approached. “I sent him a text. He says this is a good time. We’ll use the chief’s house for privacy.”
Riley slowly looked up at him. “No,” she managed to whisper.
“Yes,” he insisted. “You can do this. When it comes to you, he’s the same Jack he’s always been.”
He will never be that Jack again.
For days, she’d been dying to speak to her brother. But after Violet’s verbal assault, Riley didn’t know if she could speak to him. Image after image of Jack torturing people to death and Will raping all the women she’d ever met had assaulted her. She alternately wept and screamed as she took in everything they’d done. Only Gabe’s whispers had saved her from insanity.
“I’m sorry,” he’d said tearfully, over and over. “I told Xander… I knew it would kill you to hear what their tattoos meant… we didn’t want you to know! I am so sorry, Riley…”
Now I know. And now I have to talk to Jack — knowing that he did those things — and pretend like nothing has changed?
How?
They’re MONSTERS.
She swallowed, and looked up at Xander.
“You can do this,” he repeated.
—Trust him—
Riley reluctantly climbed off Gabe’s lap. Her legs were wobbly.
“Wait right here,” Xander said to Gabe. “We won’t be long.”
She followed Xander back to the office and sat down on one of the benches. He locked the door behind them, dialed Jack’s number, and put his phone into her hand.
Riley stared at the slim piece of metal and glass. She wanted to throw it. To smash it. To destroy it the way she’d been destroyed. Whatever came out of it now was going to hurt like hell.
Xander sat down beside her and put his arm around her, and he kissed the top of her head. And somewhere inside, Riley felt an undercurrent of deep affection for him. In the midst of his despair over his best friend’s death, Xander was conscious of the pain Riley was experiencing and was trying his best to ease it.
She leaned against him. I’d NEVER get through this without Xander.
Jack answered. “Hello?”
It took her a few seconds to reply. “It’s me, Jack.”
“RILEY! How are you, sweetie? Are you okay?”
I’m numb. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“We’re fine! We’re both… we’re fine!” Jack was so choked up that he was tripping over his words. “Will is working. It will kill him that he missed this. Missed you. Call back again soon… call him next time, okay? He needs to hear your voice.” Jack sniffed, then said, “Sweetie, I... I still can’t believe you... I wish you’d come to me about this!”
“I wanted to,” Riley said softly. “I wanted to tell you everything so badly. I just didn’t know how.” It’s so good to hear his voice.
Is that bad? Selfish?
“And you lifted the Veil the day you took that field trip to the river?”
“Yes.” It was strange to hear him use those words. “I fell in the water, and when I stood back up, everything was glowing. I thought I hit my head.”
He made a strange sort of half-laugh. “I’m sure you did.”
The laugh made Riley’s stomach lurch again. She had to swallow twice before she could continue speaking. “Jack, the women who were killed... I knew them. The second one was my friend.”
“Reed told me… he said that’s why you cried.” Now Jack sounded upset. “No wonder you were so scared!”
“Please tell me you didn’t have anything to do with...” she trailed off, unable to even finish the sentence.
There was a long pause. Too long. By the time she heard Jack sigh, Riley was already crying.
“We were there when they were taken, Riley. Will and I were both there. We were told to keep watch, and that is what we did. Both times. Both women. We never laid a hand on either one of them, but we... yes. We were there. So we are partly to blame.”
They were the lookouts. “But… that means they took Pash after you knew about me! Why didn’t you tell us they were going to do that?”
“I considered it,” Jack admitted, “but in the end I decided we couldn’t risk it. If we had told you they were coming, they would have assumed it was us that leaked the information because of Reed being in the mix. The Poxinosa leadership would have killed Will to exact revenge, and that would have started a war between their clan and ours. And they would have found a way to take a Greenwood hostage anyway. The price was just too high. All we could do in that situation was what we did do — make damn sure it wasn’t you that they took.”
Riley turned her head toward Xander and bit back a scream. Xander held her tighter, his hands shaking.
“This may sound strange,” Jack said slowly, “but part of me was always thankful that you were Veiled. You are the goodness in my life, Riley. Every time I came home after a job I could never take pride in, and you would crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to see me, you healed me a little. You were my reason to keep going. My reassurance that I’m not...” He trailed off, wavering.
—He loves you more than he’s ever loved anyone—
Riley’s heart squeezed, and warmth flooded through her. “You’ve got to stop all this, Jackie. I don’t know how much they’re paying you, but no amount of money is worth the damage you’re doing to your relationship with me. And now that I know what’s going on, I will stop you myself if I have to.”
“Do not interact with the Poxinosa.” His voice, now, was full of ice. “Do you hear me? Do. Not.”
“If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll leave me with no choice. I won’t stand by and let you hurt innocent people when I have a chance to stop it. That’s why I left home in the first place. But if you stop interacting with the Poxinosa, I’ll give you my word that I won’t either.”
“I wish I could stop,” Jack said. “This isn’t fun for me. Someday I will be in a position to change the way things work in Terrapin, but today that’s not a possibility, Riley. I have orders from my elders, and I have no choice but to follow them.”
“What if you join our clan?” Riley’s heart leaped as she thought of him moving to Greenwood, too. “Then you can fight against the Poxinosa instead of with them.”
Jack chuckled. “Me? Join Greenwood? Do you have any idea who I am? Who you are?”
“I know exactly who I am!” Riley snapped, angry that he was able to find anything to laugh about in a conversation like the one they were having. “And I thought I knew who you were, too, but I was wrong. Jackie, please stop. Please! I can’t have you as an enemy.”
“Sweetie, I will never be your enemy. What we need—” A loud crash sounded in the background. “I’ll call you back,” Jack whispered.
And the line went dead.
Riley slipped Xander’s phone back into his hand. Xander pulled her against his chest and held her close. “He was there!” She choked on a sob.
“He was also there for you.”
Riley looked up. Xander’s face was streaked with tears. “Your brother has done terrible things,” he said. “But he also defied a fire clan to raise two Veiled children all alone. As a teenager. The courage that must’ve taken… I can’t even imagine it. And he owned his actions today, even though he knew how you’d feel about what he said. He didn’t lie or sugar-coat anything.” Xander put his phone back in his pocket with a sniff. “This call gives me hope. People only change their behavior when they care, and he cares. We may be able to work with Jack. He isn’t a lost cause.” He stood and wiped his eyes. “Come on, let’s get you back to Gabe. I need to go talk to the Colonel.”
Riley went back outside and joined Gabe on the swing. Gabe took a look at her face and frowned, first at her and then at Xander’s back as he walked uphill to the dining hall. “I guess your phone call didn’t go well.”
“No, it didn’t. We got cut off, but what little we said did not go well.”
He pulled her close to him. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “After everything Violet said, that was a hard conversation to have.”
Gabe took Riley’s hand and kissed it. “What did Jack…” he trailed off, and then he tensed.
“What’s wrong?” Riley asked.
Suddenly she found herself falling sideways toward where Gabe had been sitting. He’d morphed into his cougar and was sprinting past the chief’s house. As she put out a hand to steady herself, Gabe ran around the corner and disappeared down Camp Lane, screaming his cougar scream.
A few seconds later, Xander went tearing downhill as a panther, headed in the same direction.
“Riley, stay on the swing!” the Colonel yelled at her as he raced after his nephew.
She nodded, speechless.
A few seconds later, she heard a horrible scream. A human scream. Then another. And then another. Two sets of screams.
Colonel Matthew stopped running and dropped his head to his chest. He put a trembling hand over his face, fell to his knees, and he wept.
Riley closed her eyes and sucked in one last breath as the tidal wave of grief slammed into her.
They found Pash's body.
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