Page 37 of Reaper and Ruin

Violet gazed up at me. “Did you have that…after the accident.”

I stared out at the ice, but all I saw was the mangled wreck of the car accident I’d walked away from. The one that had taken the lives of my entire family.

All I remembered of the days and weeks and months afterward was the darkness. A deep, aching loneliness and depression where every minute had been a battle not to take my own life so I could join them.

The only thing that had stopped me was the knowledge that their murderer still walked the streets, out on bail thanks to his fancy-ass lawyer who’d delayed the tests that would have confirmed the guy was drunk off his ass when he’d hit us.

I’d smelled the booze on his breath when we’d both stumbled out of the wreck. I’d seen the unfocused eyes. My entire family had been wiped out because he’d been too fucking selfish to get a cab home from whatever bar he’d been drowning his sorrows in.

His had been the first life I’d taken. I’d hunted him down and made him swallow a bullet, zero fucks given because I had nothing left to lose.

And then I’d kept on doing it, lurking in the shadows, taking out men who didn’t deserve the families they had. Taking out men who were a danger to society. Abusers who hurt their wives or kids. My actions escalating until I couldn’t stop myself, each kill a blatant fuck you to my own life, the one I didn’t want.

I’d just been waiting to get caught. Waiting to pick the wrong target, the one who would actually fight back. Waiting to go down in a hail of police fire when they finally caught up with me.

Grayson finding me had slowed me down, focused me, gave me some sort of direction, but I had never really stopped wanting to die.

Until now.

Because suddenly I had something to live for again. And they were sitting right next to me.

“Sort of,” I told Violet, finally answering her question about whether I’d been glad to be alive after the accident. “Not in the same way he is, but nearly dying changes everything, and he’s just trying to work out how to handle it. Trying out for the CHL team is probably the least destructive way to process what he went through.”

“He got a nose ring too,” she said with a smile.

Levi leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “No shit? It look good?”

I glanced at Violet too because I hadn’t even noticed it when he’d come to my house.

A little pink flushed her cheeks. “It’s pretty hot actually. Suits him.”

Levi squinted at the crowd of players still registering at the end of the rink and then clapped as X, in borrowed gear, waddled his way toward the gate that led onto the ice. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Let’s go, X!”

Violet took her cue from him and stamped her feet, waving her arms at him. “You got this!”

All three of them turned to me. I pretended I was half-heartedly waving a miniature flag. In my best “I’m bored” voice, I said, “Go, X.”

Violet elbowed me, but it was playful.

I think we all knew by now my disdain for X was mostly for show. I actually cared about the idiot. I wouldn’t have been sitting here on my ass in the cold rink silently supporting his ridiculous quest if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have called the other two in, and I wouldn’t have been secretly hoping he did well.

I didn’t have any hope in hell of him making the team, of course, but I had a silent respect for the way he never hesitated to give something a go.

Violet grabbed both my and Levi’s hands as X stepped out onto the ice.

All three of us froze, waiting for his skates to slip right on out from under him.

I think we released a combined breath when he skated straight and smooth across the ice, not at all out of place amongst the other skaters. He glided around the ring, as gracefully as was possible in that much gear, my old stick clutched in his fingers.

“Wait.” Violet squeezed my fingers. “Can he actually skate?”

X rounded the corner closest to us and lifted his arm to wave. “Hi, Omelet!”

That was all it took for him to lose his balance. His feet slipped from beneath him, spraying up ice, his arms windmilling wildly. The expression of pure joy at seeing us in the stands turned to sheer terror as he tried to save himself from hitting the ice.

He went down hard on his ass. All three of us cringed.

“Shit, that had to be painful,” Levi muttered, half out of his seat like X might need him to go scoop him back up. But louder he called, “You’re good! Nobody saw that!”