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“Mad at what? What’s going on Spence? What aren’t you telling us?”
She takes a deep breath and her eyes dart from me to Riot and back again.
“I can leave,” he says as he starts to stand.
“No, no. Stay. If everyone is going to bat for me, then you all need to know what I did.”
Riot sits back down and I furrow my brow in confusion. “Okay.”
“I told you about my mom’s journals Travis, how I found out that Evan and Grant weren’t who I thought they were. I panicked,” pausing, she takes another deep breath, pressing her eyes closed, and I reach out hesitantly, rubbing small circles on her lower back.
“It’s ok, whatever you have to say. It’s ok.”
“I couldn’t just leave, Evan would have tracked me down. One day, while he was working, I started to rifle through his belongings. I don’t know what I was looking for really, just something I could use to guarantee my freedom. Something I could hold over his head. What I found was a flash drive. That’s when I learned that Evan wasn’t just some random guy who performed a transaction with the Syndicate. He was one of them. A very important one. He had spreadsheets, files, photos, things that didn’t make sense to me at the time. Names, dates, dollar amounts, countries,” tears roll down her cheeks but she keeps talking and I don’t interrupt.
“I knew that flash drive was important so I shoved it in my bag along with a couple of outfits and all the cash I could carry from the inheritance my mom left me.”
“And that’s when you ran.”
“I didn’t just run,” she shakes her head. “Evan wanted to mold me, Travis. He wanted to break me first and then groom me to be like him. To be by his side. His obedient servant to help him recruit and break the girls. He never would have stopped searching for me, and I - I couldn’t do that…”
“What are you saying Spence?”
“Remember old man Mitchell?”
I chuckle at the thought, remembering the crazy old man who lived on his farm on the outskirts of Lakeview. The stories about him were not only crazy, but a favorite among teens. His family had died decades prior, and he was a few cards short of a full deck. The decrepit farm didn’t have animals, it had underground bunkers and tunnels. He was prepared for the end of days. The apocalypse. He’d stop and preach to anyone who would listen that the end was coming. He was off his fucking rocker.
“Yeah,” I respond warily, not sure what that nutcase would have to do with all this.
“I snuck into one of his bunkers one night. The man has…everything.”
“Red, what does this have to do with running away?”
“I wanted to fight back. I knew if I just ran, I wouldn’t get far. Evan’s reach spanned across the country. So I went to old man Mitchell’s bunker looking for something I could use to fight back. I was scouring the shelves when I came across it. Cyanide.” She exhales and her shoulders fall.
“I poisoned Evan’s coffee the next day. I hid in the stairwell and watched his body seize and convulse. I watched him vomit all over himself as he tried to crawl toward the counter for his phone,” a tear falls down her face.
“When his body stopped twitching, I grabbed my bag and I ran. See, they don’t just want me back. They want revenge. I killed one of The Four, and stole highly classified information.”
“Shit,” Riot whispers, cutting through the awkward silence that hangs in the air between the three of us.
“Don’t you get it now? It’s my fault. I started a war I could never win. This is my fight, not yours. I wouldn’t blame any of you if you wanted to back out. I can disappear again. A new city. A new name.”
“What?” I flick my eyes up to hers in confusion, “No. Get that shit out of your head. What they did to you is fucked up and if anything, it just makes me more fucking bloodthirsty.”
Pulling her into my lap, I wrap my arms around her and she lays her head against my chest. “I meant what the fuck I said. They all die Spencer. I’ll make sure of it.”
Pushing to his feet, Riot walks over to us and takes her place on the arm of my chair, “Sweetness, we aren’t abandoning you. Fuck that.”
Leaning down, he presses a kiss to the top of her head, “You did what you had to in order to get out. You’re a fucking fighter.”
A small laugh cuts through the tears and my heart warms up.
“Spence,”
“Yeah?” she answers, looking up at me.
“What happened to the flash drive?”