Page 32 of Misery (Raiders of Valhalla MC: New Blood #7)

"No, he won't. You didn't see his face. The disgust. The rage.

He looked at me like I was the enemy. Like I was worse than the enemy because I was supposed to be family.

" She pulls back, wipes her face with her sleeve.

"Besides, I already told them I'm transferring.

Continuing my education at UT Austin. They don't know I already dropped out, and you're not going to tell them. "

"Helle—"

"Promise me, Elfe. Let them think I'm going to another school. It's better than them knowing I'm just running away. That I failed at school and failed at keeping my mouth shut and failed at being a good daughter."

"You're not a failure—"

"I have a 0.8 GPA and I accidentally gave intel to a cartel. That's literally the definition of failure."

"You're not running away. You're starting over."

"Same thing." She stands, legs unsteady. "I should go. Long drive. I want to make it through Alabama before dark."

"You're leaving now? Today?"

"Tonight. After dinner with Mom. One last normal family meal where I pretend everything's fine.

Where I lie about my transfer and my future and pretend I'm not dying inside.

" She laughs, bitter again. "I'm good at pretending.

Pretended to be the perfect daughter. Pretended to be a good student.

Pretended I wasn't giving information to enemies. "

"Stop saying that."

"Why? It's true." She heads for her car, me following. "I left something for you. In your studio at Oskar's house. A painting I did. Before everything. When things were still good. When I still thought I might be artistic like you."

"You are an artist—"

"No. I'm nothing. Just a stupid girl who talked too much to the wrong person."

"Helle, please. Stay. We can figure this out."

"No, we can't. Some things can't be fixed. Some betrayals can't be forgiven." She looks at me, and I see she's already gone. Already in Texas in her mind. "I'm glad you're happy. Glad you and Oskar worked things out. At least one of us gets a happy ending."

"This isn't an ending."

"Isn't it?" She opens her car door.

The interior is chaos—clothes, boxes, her whole life shoved into a space too small to hold it. "I probably won't come back. Maybe for holidays. Maybe. But probably not. This life, this place—it's poison for me now. Every street has a memory of before I fucked up. Every person knows what I did."

"Nobody blames you—"

"Everybody blames me. And they should."

"I don't blame you."

She stops, looks at me. "You should. I'm the reason you were targeted. The reason you were almost raped. The reason Oskar had to kill his friend."

"That's not—"

"It is. Andrew asked specifically about you. About my sister. Where you worked, where you lived. And I told him. Proudly. Bragged about my talented sister." She's crying again. "I basically painted a target on your back."

"I love you," I tell her, because what else is there to say?

"I love you too. Tell Mom and Dad... tell them I'm sorry. Not about leaving. About everything else."

She gets in the car. I grab the door before she can close it.

"Helle, wait. You don't have money. You don't have a job lined up. You can't just—"

"I have enough. Saved from my campus job. And Katie says there are lots of restaurants hiring. I'll waitress or something until I can get on my feet."

"Let me give you—"

"No. I can't take anything else from this family. I've taken enough. Cost you enough, don’t you think?"

She closes the door and starts the engine.

It coughs, protests, but catches.

I watch her drive away, that dying Honda engine fading into the distance.

Watch until the dust settles.

Until the sound is gone.

Until it's just me standing in the driveway of a cottage that suddenly feels like it's on the edge of the world.

"She'll be okay," Oskar says, wrapping his arms around me from behind.

"Will she? She's alone, running to Texas with nothing but guilt and a car that barely runs."

"She's strong. Like you."

"I'm not strong. I stayed. I let them protect me. She's the one brave enough to leave."

"Different kinds of strength."

We go inside. The cottage feels smaller somehow, like Helle's absence has already changed the space.

The painting I was working on looks wrong now—all that bright joy feels like mockery.

I pick up a palette knife, consider scraping it all off, starting over with something that matches this new grief.

"You knew," I say suddenly, setting down the knife. "About Andrew. Vanir told you."

"Yesterday. He wasn't sure. Just suspicions. Patterns that didn't make sense until they did."

"So, you just let her show up and destroy herself with guilt?"

"Would it have been better coming from me? The man who stalked you, telling you that your sister was manipulated into giving information?"

Maybe. No. I don't know.

Everything feels wrong now.

My sister is the leak.

The reason I was targeted.

But she's also a victim, manipulated by someone trained to manipulate.

A lonely woman, and someone paid attention to her, made her feel special.

How is that her fault?

"Ivar's wrong," I say. "To blame her."

"He's angry. Looking for someone to punish. Thiago's dead, so Helle gets the anger."

"That's not fair."

"Nothing about this life is fair. You know that."

I think about the last three months. The slow rebuilding of trust with Oskar. Learning to sleep without nightmares.

The careful reconstruction of my relationship with my parents.

The new normal we've all been building, brick by careful brick.

And now Helle's exile cracks through all of it like an earthquake.

"She didn't even say goodbye properly."

"She couldn't. Goodbye makes it real."

"It is real. She's gone." I start crying then.

For my sister, carrying guilt that isn't fully hers.

For my family, broken in new ways.

For the life that keeps taking from us, even when we think we're safe.

Oskar holds me while I cry.

He doesn't try to fix it, doesn't offer empty platitudes.

Just holds me while I break.

He's learned that sometimes the only thing to do with grief is let it happen.

Later, after the tears stop, I text Helle:

Drive safe. Text when you get there. I love you always.

She responds hours later, probably at a gas station somewhere in the desert:

I will. I'm sorry. For everything.

Not your fault.

It is though.

No. You were a victim too.

Victims don't get other people hurt.

I don't know how to respond to that, because yes, she gave information.

But she was a woman manipulated by a trained operative.

Where does blame really lie?

With the lonely girl who talked too much or with the system that made her a target?

That night, Oskar and I lie in bed at the cottage.

The sounds of spring are different from winter—insects, birds, life returning.

The world is moving on like it always does, indifferent to human grief.

But all I can think about is Helle, driving through the dark toward Texas.

Toward a new life built on exile.

Probably listening to music too loud to drown out her thoughts, stopping at sketchy rest stops, eating vending machine dinner because she won't want to spend money on real food.

"Will she really not come back?" I ask.

"Maybe not. Sometimes leaving is the only way to survive something."

"But family—"

"Family can be the thing that saves you or the thing you need saving from. Sometimes both at the same time."

I think about that.

About my father's cruel words to Helle.

The way he must have looked at her—I've seen that look, when he's disgusted by weakness.

About my mother trying to hold us all together while everything falls apart.

About the price we all pay for this life we didn't choose but can't escape.

"I'm angry at him. At my father."

"You should be."

"He drove her away. She made a mistake—not even really a mistake, she was deceived—and he drove her away."

"The guilt drove her away. He just made it unbearable to stay."

"Same thing."

"Maybe."

I curl against him, seeking comfort that can't quite fill the Helle-shaped hole in my chest.

But, before I can even think, my phone buzzes.

Text from Mom:

Helle says she's transferring to UT Austin. Says it's a better program for her major. Did you know about this?

I text back:

She mentioned it. It's a good opportunity. Better weather too.

The lie feels necessary.

One last way I can protect my little sister.

One last lie to keep my family sane.

She seemed upset at dinner.

Big changes are hard.

Yes. They are. Will you visit her with me? When she's settled?

Of course.

I wonder if Mom knows. Really knows.

She's perceptive, has had to be to survive Dad and this life.

But maybe she's choosing not to know.

Maybe that's its own kind of strength.

The strength to not look too closely at things that would break your heart.

"She'll be okay," Oskar says again.

"You don't know that."

"No. But I know running toward something is better than running from it. And maybe that's what she's doing. Running toward who she's supposed to be instead of who this life would make her."

"That's very philosophical for you."

We just hold each other while spring sounds fill the darkness.

I think about Helle, wondering where on the road she is.

Think about the life she's leaving and the one she's heading toward.

Think about choices and consequences, and the way this life takes its pound of flesh from everyone, just in different ways.

From me, it took innocence and privacy.

From Helle, it took belonging and home.

From our parents, it took their children, one to violence and one to exile.

From Oskar, it took his friend.

But it gave things too.

Gave me Oskar, complicated and violent and mine.

Gave me strength I didn't know I had.

Gave Helle the push to leave she might never have found otherwise.

In the morning, I'll paint something new.

Something for Helle.

Something about sisters and secrets and the kind of love that survives even inadvertent betrayal.

Blues and grays for grief, but maybe some yellow too.

For hope. For new beginnings. For the sun that shines the same in Texas as it does here.

I'll mail it to her when she gets settled, a piece of home she can hold onto or burn as needed.

But tonight, I just lie here in this cottage that's seen so much.

Where I was first kissed by the man who'd been stalking me.

Where my sister came to say goodbye.

Where we're all trying to build something from the ashes of what we've destroyed.

The MC life gives and takes at the same time.

No, that's not true.

It takes more than it gives.

Always has.

But we stay anyway, most of us.

Because it's all we know.

Or maybe leaving means victory.

Maybe Helle's the smart one, the strong one.

Maybe we're all just too stuck in this tar pit to see that struggling only makes us sink deeper.

"Do you think she'll find happiness there?" I ask. "In Texas?"

"I think she'll find something different. Sometimes that's what we need."

"I miss her already."

"I know."

"It's not fair. None of it."

"No. But it's what it is."

I'm learning to live with that.

With what is rather than what should be.

Learning that sometimes the ledger doesn't balance, that sometimes you're left holding debts that aren't yours to pay, but you pay them anyway because that's what family does.

Or what family should do.

But Dad won't pay this debt.

Won't forgive. Won't see that Helle was a victim too.

He'll let her carry this guilt alone into exile because his pride matters more than his daughter.

And Mom will let him because that's what she does.

Enables. Smooths over. Pretends.

And I'll lie to them about Helle thriving at college because that's my role now.

The bridge between what is and what we pretend.

Helle will find her way, or she won't.

Either way, she'll do it on her own terms, which is more than most of us get in this life.

That has to be enough.

It's all we have.

"I love you," I tell Oskar in the darkness.

"I love you too."

Simple words for a complicated truth.

We're building something here, in this cottage, in this life.

Something that started with violation but might end with choice.

Something my sister couldn't find, but maybe we can.

Or maybe we're just better at pretending, better at accepting the unacceptable.

Either way, we're here. Still here. After everything, that's its own kind of victory.

Even if it comes at the cost of everyone else's defeat.

The spring insects sing their night songs.

Life continues.

With or without us, it continues.

Tomorrow I'll deal with my parents.

Tomorrow I'll paint for Helle.

Tomorrow I'll keep building this imperfect life with this imperfect man.

Tonight, I just hold on and let go.

It's all any of us can do.

The cottage settles around us, wood adjusting to temperature changes.

It sounds like sighing.

Like the house itself is tired of holding so many secrets, so much pain.

But also love. Also hope.

That's what we are, Oskar and me.

That's what Helle is too, driving through the night toward whatever comes next.

Different kinds of survival. Different kinds of strength.

All of us just trying to find a way to live with what we've done and what's been done to us.

***

Don’t wait - read Helle’s book, Sinful, here.