Page 18 of Lily and her Mercenary (CHANGING OF THE GUARDS)
Ryker
W inters had the air of someone who’d spent her whole life swimming through bureaucratic bullshit and could hold her own in any situation. She wore a blazer that looked bulletproof and walked like each step cost the taxpayer money. I liked her immediately.
She nodded at me, a silent order to leave, but I only moved down the parking lot far enough to be close if Lily needed bailing out and still within earshot.
I watched, and when nobody was looking, I stole a cigarette from Royal’s stash and lit it.
Neither of us had smoked for a decade, but emergencies called for old comforts.
I could see Lily sitting with her hands folded in her lap, listening and nodding occasionally. Winters leaned in, voice low, her questions so measured and rehearsed I could hear the careful cadence all the way over here.
Mia and Connor were fifteen feet away, speaking in their own hushed tones, heads together.
It was the same body language that Lily and I shared.
A kind of mutual awareness of just being close that made you instantly relax.
I shot Mia a look. She certainly didn’t have the stature of a woman with a body count bigger than Royal’s and mine combined.
Winters’ line of questioning drew out twenty minutes. When she finally stepped back, I could see Lily was shaking but holding herself together the way she always did—shoulders tight, jaw set, eyes dry.
Winters walked over to me. “You can go to her now, Mr. O’Toole,” she said, voice clipped.
“But your girlfriend is under federal protection for the next thirty days. She’s going to have a tail on her for the next 30 days.
And if either of you decides to run off again, you’ll both end up in an Ontario bunker so deep you won’t see the sun until the year 2050. ”
She started to walk away when I said, “You’ll have to catch us first.” Winters turned back around, and I shot her a wink and a grin. She just gave me a look as a ghost of a smile touched her lips and walked away.
I crossed the distance fast, and as I crouched beside the open passenger door, Lily looked at me like she wasn’t sure if I was still real.
Her hair was a mess, her eyes ringed dark like a raccoon, and she smelled faintly of antiseptic, sweat, and the marshy wind off the Sound.
I loved her more than I’d ever admit. Especially now.
“I’m free to go?” she asked.
“I’ll fight anyone who says different.” And then, because I could, I pressed my mouth to hers in a kiss so filthy and honest that the air between us practically hummed.
Royal whistled from the curb. “You two are gross,” he called out, but I saw the smile in his eyes, the kind you only give to someone who’s made it out alive.
"Would it be alright if I rode back with Mia? I'd like to spend some time getting to know her and share a bit about us."
"Of course, that's exactly what I'd want."
“I wanted to tell you something,” she said.
Her fingers worried at the seam of her sweater, her voice low and steady.
“I wanted to kill him myself, you know. Vance. I had a knife and had every opportunity to do so when he slept.” She looked up, eyes burning through me.
“But I couldn’t. I just… couldn’t. What does that make me? ”
I took a slow step forward and closed the gap between us until I could feel her breath. “It makes you human,” I said. “That’s worth more than all the shooters and killers in the world.”
She reached up and took hold of my neck, pulling me down until our foreheads touched. “I wanted to be brave,” she whispered, the words ghosting between our lips.
“You are,” I said, and meant it.
She laughed, the sound like shaking glass like someone testing to see if the world would break. “Do you know what got me through it?” When I shook my head, she whispered. “This. Being with you.”
I kissed her again, slow and deep, until her trembling stopped. “I can live with that,” I said.
She wiped her face with the heel of her hand, grinning like the world owed her seven lifetimes of happiness and she intended to collect on every one of them. “You’re such a cheeseball,” she said.
“I must be. I picked you.”
Six months later
We made it back to Vancouver after Connor’s swearing-in ceremony as Captain of the Clan, just in time for the cherry blossoms to open. Every street was frothy with impossible pink petals drifting down onto the wet sidewalks and sticking to windshields like band-aids.
Lily got her job back. The school board welcomed her with strained smiles and a “trauma counselor” who lasted three days before calling in sick.
The kids didn’t need to read the headlines to know something was different—every kid knew when a teacher came back new and shiny like they’d survived a summer camp for grown-ups.
The kids started leaving her gifts. Tiny rocks, cat stickers, a hot pink stress ball labeled BOSS LADY.
Every Friday at noon, I’d wait outside her classroom.
Sometimes we’d go back to my shitty apartment that sat right across from hers.
We’d make dinner and then make love. And sometimes we’d walk Mabel through the park, letting her stalk crows and growl at the trash pandas.
Sometimes we just lay on the sofa, her head in my lap, watching crime documentaries on Netflix.
For a while, I thought the danger would find us again. I’d look out, see a black van, feel the hairs on my arms rise, and before I could blink, another world of chaos and conspiracy would come racing around the corner. But it never did.
Eventually, we settled into a life that is, by some miracle, boring in the best possible way.
Three months later
We are living together, and its heaven.
There are still nights when she wakes up in a sweat, clutching my hand in hers like she's holding on through a hurricane.
Sometimes we just sit in the dark, her head tucked beneath my chin, waiting for the old terror to drain away.
Sometimes I tell her stories, about the first time I fixed a car, about running off with Royal as kids, about the night I first saw her through her rain-blurred apartment window and knew she would wreck me forever.
Three weeks after the school year ended, I proposed to her on a dock overlooking Vancouver Island. I have no ring and no words, just her hand in mine and the uneasy certainty that, if she says no, I'll still sit there beside her every night for the rest of my life.
She said yes.
She wears a glitter-glue ring the kids made for her, and I buy a thrift store suit, and when we get married at the city hall, half her class shows up with homemade signs and confetti rice.
Royal, Mia, and Connor fly in for the day.
It's casual dress only, and Royal takes that to heart, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a mango-shaped boutonniere, and when he takes our wedding photo, we all look like idiots.
But we are idiots together, and for the first time in a long time, that is enough.
At the reception, over barbecue and beer from a local brewery, I catch Lily watching the kids run wild at the community center gym.
The light is soft, the world gentle, and her smile is the last thing I want to see before I die.
"You happy?" I ask, pressing my forehead to hers, the way she first did to me so long ago.
She laughs, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "Even if it means I have to bathe in glitter glue for the rest of my life, I am."
"Deal," I say, and kiss her so hard the cherry blossoms blush in the window behind us.
THE END