Page 123 of Reaper and Ruin

X didn’t complain. He just nodded. “Yes, ma’am. You got it. Which one first?Giraffe AttackorMy Daddy Snores?”

“All of them.” Will inched closer to X, though he was practically already on top of him.

X looked like he wanted to pull the kids onto his lap and give them the affection they so clearly had never felt before, but we were all trying to take things slowly with them, moving at their pace, letting them know affection and touch were there if they wanted it but only on their terms, never ours.

It had been the hardest week of my life. All I wanted to do was scoop them up and smother them in love. I saw so much of myself in them, shared all the same traumas they had, and I just wanted to make it better for them.

I would. I had made that vow in my heart the moment I’d seen them there, covered in filth and too skinny to be healthy. But it would take time, and I had to be patient.

A wave of nausea swept over me, hot and thick, taking me by surprise.

X caught sight of my expression and stopped mid-sentence. “You okay?”

I still hadn’t told anyone about the baby. I kept trying to. Every day I had woken up, convinced that today was the day I would tell them.

Then the day slipped away, turning into night, and my mouth still couldn’t find the words.

I knew why.

I was living in a dream. One I hadn’t even acknowledged until I was in it. I was surrounded by these men I loved and two children, who had come out of their shells a little more each day. Watching them realize they were safe and loved, watching them begin to heal, did the same for the wounded child inside me who had lived her own horror in that house.

But this one, this tiny shack in Saint View that was too small for this many people, was a bubble I never wanted to leave.

I didn’t go to work, because work was out there, in the real world, where bad things happened. I soaked up every second of being inside these walls where it felt like nothing could touch me.

Not Toby’s death. Not the fact Nyah was gone, probably dead, and the only person who knew where her body was now slept six feet under himself. Out there were the police and theprison and the reminder I had taken a life and should be in jail for that crime.

If I thought about it for too long, my hands shook and sweat beaded on my forehead.

But then Ari laughed, or Will smiled, and the guilt fell away.

I’d spent my whole life trying to be good.

Letting go of that and realizing that life wasn’t that black and white and living in the gray was new. I wasn’t scared for my soul. I wasn’t worried that killing Travis would scar me for life.

I was only scared the police would find out and I’d be taken from this bubble, where everything felt right.

But that knock on the door didn’t come, and day by day, I put my faith in the men I’d chosen to keep me safe.

“I’m fine,” I promised X. “Just need a bit of air, I think.”

He nodded. “Okay, but if you’re sick, I take no responsibility for it this time.” He elbowed the twins in unison. “It was probably these two gremlins, picking up bugs at school and bringing them home.”

Ari dropped her mouth in indignation. “My school has no bugs, X!”

I hid a smile. They’d only started at the school a few days ago, both of them incredibly eager to go. Though they were a bit older, they’d been put into the kindergarten class so they could catch up on what they’d missed. They didn’t realize they should have been in the grade above, and they were in the same class as my brother’s twins. Madden and Will had become fast friends, both of them a little hyper and talkative. Remi and Ari had been more standoffish, but I’d smiled when I’d picked them up yesterday, and the two girls, now cousins, had walked out holding hands.

Ari and Will were like sponges, their brains never stimulated in any way until now, and Ari in particular had talked at length about every detail of her classroom and teacher, and there was aspark in her eyes that hadn’t been there when we’d found them in that house.

It didn’t surprise me that she wouldn’t hear X talk bad of a place she clearly loved.

“No?” he asked. “No bugs? What’s this then?” He wriggled his fingers at her, imitating a spider about to tickle her belly.

She shrieked with laughter and ran away, her annoyance with him bad-mouthing her school clearly forgotten.

I got up. “No bugs or oysters. I just need some air. I’ve got my meeting at work in thirty minutes anyway, so maybe I’ll walk there.”

X stopped mid-step, pausing their game of chase. “I’ll drive you, especially if you don’t feel well.”