Page 185 of Caught in the Crossfire

Then, we’d gotten free, and we’d lived on the streets. We’d stolen food to survive, and I felt so ashamed because it was just another sin, another wrongdoing staining my soul. It went against everything our parents had taught us. No matter how much Willow explained over and over that we were just trying to survive,it didn’t change my guilt.

Once we were picked up by the Irish, my mentor there told me that if I wanted to stop feeling guilty for surviving, then I had to put my skills to good use. I would have to do plenty of bad in our line of work, but he told me I had the choice to do good with what the Irish were training me to do.

I latched onto that like a lifeline. I had been drowning in panic attacks. Drowning in shame. Drowning in the pain of everything we’d been through, and how Willow always took the brunt of it for me. What he said that day gave me hope for the first time in years. It gave me a light at the end of the tunnel.

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I thought redeeming myself would ease the guilt, but it hasn’t. I don’t know if I’ll ever wake up one day and not feel this compulsion to be better. I’m frightened that nothing will ever cleanse it.”

Ciel grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together. “Nothing will ever feel like it’s enough becauseyoudon’t believe you’re enough.”

His words speared me through the chest while I stared at our clasped hands. “I’m not.”

“Youare,cariño,” he said. “You’re enough for us.”

How was I supposed to believe that?

“Leona loves you because of who you are, not because she expects you to be better.”

My heart twisted inside my chest. “You think she loves me?”

“I do.” We both turned to see her standing in the doorway, one hand on the frame. “I love you, Wynn. I love you because you care so deeply about us. I love you because you’ve always taken care of me. You’ve looked out for me and expected nothing in return. You fought for me. You almost died for me. You’d do anything for your family, and we all know it. We live in a world steeped in grey, but Wynn, you’ve always been the one pulling me through it. Not the other way around.”

I gusted a breath while my hands trembled. I reached out for her, and she wound her arms around my neck while I crushed her body to my chest. My hands tangled in her hair; my lungs breathed her in.

“I love you,” I breathed. I loved her with every fiber of my being. She and Ciel were the only things in my life that made me feel warm and happy. Everything else was a shade in comparison. “But I don’t deserve your love. Not until I’ve redeemed myself. Not until I’ve fixed the way I’ve let you down.”

She pulled back and brushed her fingers down my cheek. Her voice went soft. “I am not your path to redemption. I am not the key to your goodness. You’re putting me on a pedestal, and you have to stop.”

“I’m not?—”

“You are. I’ve already given you my forgiveness, though younever needed it. I’ve already shown you every ounce of love I can give. If it was about me, that would be enough.”

I blinked, frowning while I processed what she said. “I don’t…”

The truth of her words seeped into my bones. I’d thought my greatest failure was letting her get kidnapped, but she didn’t think that way. If she had forgiven me, if she believed there was nothing to forgive…could she be right?

“Youare the reason you can’t forgive yourself,” she continued. “Until you figure out how to do that, you’ll continue to live with this guilt.”

“How am I supposed to forgive myself?” I asked them both earnestly. I’d lived this way for years. It was the only thing that got me through the darkest parts of my life. It fueled every choice I’d made since then. I didn’t know how to live differently.

“Every day, you have to tell that little voice in your head that whispers you’re worthless to go fuck itself,” she said, touch gentle on my cheek. “You have to tell it that it’s wrong, and that you know better, and that you’ve got a whole family of people around you that prove you’re loved. When it undermines your value, you come to us and we’ll build it back up for you. You accept that you deserve love, just as you are.”

“You’ve always done the best that you could,cariño. Always. That is enough.” His palm was warm on my back. “You are enough.”

What would it be like to feel like I was enough? To feel like I deserved Ciel’s shy smile and Leona’s warmth?

The thought made my entire bodyache. With pain, with longing, with desire. I wanted to be worthy of them, but I’d always felt like it was outside my grasp. Impossible.

But was it possible to do what they were saying?

I’d watched Ciel change right in front of my eyes. I’d watched him go from terrified of losing us and determined to prove hebelonged, to being the most steady and hopeful out of all of us.He’dchanged.

Couldn’t I?

I wanted to try.

I leaned down to softly kiss Leona. Then, I leaned my forehead against Ciel’s. The three of us clung to one another. A flutter of hope darted through my chest. With the two of them holding me up, anything seemed possible.

I exhaled until all the breath was gone from my lungs, and then I inhaled both of them, feeling my world shift. The shadows behind my sternum, the sinking weight in my stomach constantly pulling me down, began to disappear.