Page 74 of One Bad Knight

Light flickered in the dark living room from the news channel with the coverage of the arrest. I most enjoyed the part where Gabe was arrested. When Molly heard the crimes he was being arrested for, her blues eyes widened. Gabe hung his head.

“Is it true?” she asked him over the din of people exclaiming in shock.

The steel manacles clicked around his wrists behind his back.

“Yes, it’s all true. I didn’t want to go along with it. They made me.” Gabe didn’t look her in the eye or even ask for forgiveness.

And then in a moment I found utterly shocking, Molly slapped him across the face. “You asshole,” she said. “How could you do such a thing?”

Again, I could have sworn I heard a Russian accent, but her fury was far more apparent.

Viet came over and took her by the arm and they walked away together with their heads up. She’d refused to be associated with my cousin or defend him. I’d not only forged a new, deeper relationship with Viet, but I felt a new kinship with Molly.

“Why didn’t I tell you?” Gatsby repeated my question. We spoke in low voices because my aunt snored softly from the other side of the sectional. She was exhausted after murdering her brother and talking to the police. She insisted she just needed to sit down a minute before driving back to Colorado Springs, but she immediately passed out. I planned to make her stay much longer. I’d use my head this time, but my heart said I may have found my true family in this ballsy woman.

Gatsby licked his lips before saying, “Because you wouldn’t believe me. The way you loved your family was above and beyond what they deserved, but that didn’t matter to you. You said repeatedly that you owed them everything. You’re right, I was brainwashed by the Luxis, but this dickhead had also been brainwashing you. Making you think you could only live in the polished box he provided. I hoped if I helped you see you could do whatever you want, you could escape them. You are more powerful than him, more powerful than the society that has held you back. And I had no doubts that if I told you what your father did, what your uncle planned to do, you wouldn’t believe me.”

I chewed on my lip. Would I have believed him? I didn’t know. He was right. I had this whole fantasy about what my family life was like, but it wasn’t based in reality at all. If he tried to shatter the foundation of my beliefs, I’m not sure what side I would have come out on.

Gatsby spoke in an even softer voice. “And I couldn’t ask you to trust me. Though it seems you trusted me more than I did.”

I did know that if he’d forced me to choose between him and my family, I would have twisted in agony about what to believe.

Gatsby’s thumb swept across my hand in a soothing motion. “I had only meant to watch how your uncle’s election went and stay hidden but close by, like I had with your father, but I failed both times. I couldn’t stay hidden. Not after you’d already seen me. You have maybe been the only person to see me. And then part of me wanted to trap you with me, so I did push you onto the wild side, knowing it would affect your uncle’s election. Part of me wanted you to witness what a monster he was so you would choose me. But I was never sure I was the lesser evil.”

A laugh bubbled out of me. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh, but it's absurd to me you could think of yourself as evil after all you’ve done. You should have told me about my aunt sooner, how you saved her.”

He was silent a moment. “I never viewed that night as the time I saved your aunt. I only saw it as the night I destroyed your life. I murdered your father, and you spoke about him with such love and reverence. And then I saw your devastation. In all the years since, I viewed that night as my biggest sin. I hurt the person I cared about the most.”

Tears welled in my eyes and a lump formed in my throat. I had been devastated. And if Gatsby had stayed, he would have been arrested if not institutionalized too. Demons weren’t common knowledge. He’d also made it clear the Luxis wouldn’t have let him go. I had no idea we’d been doomed from the start.

But everything was different now. There was no more pretending to be someone I wasn’t. And despite this house being rife with death and demons, without my uncle and cousins it finally felt like home for the first time. It felt like my mother's ghost walked through the halls with me, making this place a home again, like she had when I was six.

A tear dropped down my cheek. My mother’s soul had been destroyed by that demon. A part of me would need time to process that horrible fact.

I intertwined my fingers with Gatsby’s, needing him closer. “The only thing that matters is that you don’t leave me this time.”

I felt a soft kiss on my crown. “Never. I’ll never leave you, Kat. I’m yours for as long as you want me.”

Feeling drowsy, the intense events of the day weighing on me, I let myself drift off in the arms of the boy who I’d found hiding in my tree all those years ago. His strong arms wrapped around me, and I knew I’d finally found my lost boy.

33

Kat

“What do you think they’re saying in there?” I asked.

Gatsby and I had gone to what he referred to as the purple house. It turned out that was where Krystan and Travis lived.

“You know, the usual male bonding,” Travis assured, after pouring us all cups of steaming coffee. Krystan pulled out a can of whipped cream and went around topping off everyone’s mug with a generous spurt.

Emma grunted like a caveman. “Ugh, me have feelings. Me no like.”

Krystan jumped right in. “Ugga ugga, we no talk, we go kill something and ugh go eat.”

Then they continued to grunt at each other in enthusiastic agreement. I laughed so hard, I doubled over.

“You girls are hi-larious,” Travis said dryly, while sipping his coffee.