NINE
Summer
My daughter shot my mother.
My daughter killed my mother.
I was pretty sure that in no version of my reality that I had ever thought that those were words I could think.
But there was no other way to put it.
Because that was exactly what had happened.
I almost hadn't gotten the chance to know that fact. At least not in real time.
They weren't going to tell me.
My husband.
Our friends.
They were going to leave me at Hailstorm wringing my hands, worrying the floors, pretending to put on a brave face for the boys. Boys who were getting older. Boys who knew something was up. Boys who had a lot of questions, and disbelieving brow raises at my makeshift answers.
If I hadn't walked outside at the exact moment I saw my husband climbing into one of Lo's SUVs, I might have been left behind.
I swallowed back my undeniable bruised pride, hurt feelings at still being thought of as weaker, as someone too soft to handle all the hard in their lives, and planted my feet, steeled my spine, demanded they take me to save my daughter.
There were a lot of frightful people in the world, but there was none more terrifying, more unpredictable, more formidable than a worried mother.
Needless to say, they took me along.
I was even handed a gun.
Then we drove.
The most frustrating revelation was finding out that she wasn't that far. She could have been anywhere in the world. Indeed there were people looking for her in every damn corner of it. But she was just a few towns over.
A few towns on a big piece of property with an old, abandoned house, protected by a handful of armed guards.
A small, pitiful empire.
It must have irked V to know that, to know she had been brought so low, to know she had so high to rise still.
She was an appearances person.
She was a reputation person.
And hers had clearly not recovered as fast as she had planned.
Her contacts she had built over decades of ruling the trafficking trade on the east coast had likely moved on, aligned with other people, established new bonds, forgetting all about her existence.
If I knew the woman, and I thought I maybe had gotten to know how her brain worked over the years, analyzing what had happened with my imprisonment, listening to the stories my father told me about the conversations he had held with her, then I knew that she would have made up for her insecurities by being extra vicious, showing her men the kind of ruthless leader she was, forcing their allegiance through sheer terror rather than respect or hard-won loyalty.
And my daughter, my perfect innocent, brilliant, willful, amazing daughter had been in her grips for six days.
Six.
I wasn't sure I had slept that many hours all put together since she had gone missing, making me antsy, frazzled, sick to my stomach wondering what Ferryn was going through.
Had she met V yet?
Had she learned of the betrayal at our hands for never having told her?
And it was a betrayal, no matter how we tried to dress it up.
She wasn't a child anymore. She hadn't been for a good long while, whether I wanted to accept that or not.
And she deserved honesty from us, not evasions and half-truths, rules enforced for reasons we refused to disclose to her.
Had she been angry when she learned?
Upset?
Indifferent because there were more pressing things for her to worry about.
God, what if things were being done to her like they had been done to me?
Or, heaven forbid, worse?
"Stop, baby," Reign had demanded from beside me, his big hand landing mid-thigh, giving it a hard squeeze.
"I can't help it," I had admitted, not even bothering to pretend I didn't know exactly what he was talking about. After all these years, we barely needed to have full conversations anymore to get things across to one another.
"We'll have her soon."
Yes.
But what her?
There was no denying there would be changes.
I had changed after V had taken me.
And I had been older.
I had more life experience.
And pain, hunger, fear, and humiliation, they altered people, they got into your bones and changed your cells and altered your DNA.
The Ferryn we brought home was going to need time, love, space, rest, food, understanding.
And even then, there was no guarantee she would be our same sweet, rebellious girl.
We would have to get to know the new parts of her, show her that they were just as lovable.
Everyone had just gotten into place hidden in the tree line, most of us out front, most of Lo's men out back, trying to take stock of the surroundings, of the men, of the firepower.
And I couldn't deny the almost overwhelming surge of gratitude that overcame me at that moment, for all these people who would do anything, not just because they were commanded to, but because they thought of Ferryn as one of their own, wanted her safe return just as much as we did.
As many trained, hardened professionals that surrounded us, I was pretty sure not one was saved the heart attack of seeing the garage door open, and two girls sneak outside.
Escape.
Our girl.
My girl.
And another around the same age, with lighter hair and eyes, her clothes tattered and blood-stained.
Both were worse for the wear.
My eyes noticed that before they noticed the gun in my daughter's hand, the toilet tank cover in the other's. There were bruises and blooded bits. There were haunted, terrified looks in their eyes.
That was what the mom in me took in first.
"She's got a gun," Reign's voice whispered into my ear, making me aware of it. But only after noticing how raw her wrists were. From some sort of binding. I remembered that pain well.
But she did.
She had a gun.
How?
That was a good question.
And I knew the answer involved violence.
The answer involved her needing to take one of these men down to get it.
There was a small swelling of pride, in her drive, in her ability to pull that off, to utilize her many years of training. But that was all drowned out by the knowledge of how bad the situation must have been for her to take that leap.
Because she had to know we were coming. She had to know that we were using every tool available to us to get her home. She knew that she could have waited it out.
But something had happened to make her feel like that was not an option.
Something had driven her to rise up, to take charge, to free not only herself but this other girl as well.
My stomach twisted to think of what that motivator could have been.
We all watched in stunned silence as she eyed the crumbling retaining wall. She could do it. We all knew she could do it. She had been climbing trees and walls and anything else she could get her hands on since she was old enough to pull up her own weight. And after a few hard hits and skinned knees and palms, she learned how to do it without getting hurt.
She could do it.
But she didn't.
And I couldn't help but wonder if it was because she intrinsically knew that the girl with her could not make it.
The survival instinct was an interesting thing, wild and primal.
And usually selfish.
If it came to life or death, most people worried only about themselves. With a few exceptions being made for children.
But my daughter - my good, sweet, amazing daughter - was willing to take a more risky route in order to save this other girl who she barely knew.
Her body shifted, peeking out into the back of the grounds, finding danger, and jerking back.
Then she was moving toward the front, toward me, toward us.
She didn't know we were there.
She didn't know we had her back.
But she continued on with her friend behind her, looking at the lone guard in the front, seeing him get called away, then whispering something to the other girl before they both ran like hell.
But her friend was snagged from behind, her young body jerking violently back, slamming into V's shoulder. Her beautiful, broken face seemed to crumble as the cold muzzle of a gun pressed into her temple, like the weight of the world was on her, like she knew what was ahead for her when she got dragged back inside, how V would make her suffer for trying to escape. My heart broke for her, even knowing we were going to save her, get her back at any cost, take her away from this hell, I could feel - even from across a field - the deep, hopeless anguish coming from her even as V taunted Ferryn, made her stop dead in her tracks, turning back, away from me, making it impossible to see if there was fear there, horror, uncertainty on how to proceed.
She could have chosen the easy path.
She could have kept running.
To her freedom.
Leave the doomed girl to her fate.
But no.
Not my daughter.
My daughter screamed across the field, told my mother to give it up, informed her that she had a black hole for a heart, reminded her of the torture she had inflicted upon me all those years ago.
But then the girl, her friend, mouthed an apology, making Ferryn's shoulders widen, her spine straighten.
And then V - my mother - signed her death certificate.
By threatening to have the girl raped in front of my daughter, forcing her to watch, blaming her for the incident.
I didn't fully seem to register the arm raising, the gun pointing.
The only thing I was aware of was the bang of the explosion as the bullet left the barrel.
As it soared through the air.
As it hit V right in the forehead.
"Oh my God," I hissed, unable to quite grasp it, to accept that my daughter - this girl so innocent in life aside from silly teenaged stuff - had just taken a life.
But there was no time to think on that as men came running, as Henchmen and Hailstorm men and women took them out.
Ferryn stayed frozen at first, watching the carnage before finally turning, seeking us in the tree line.
And she looked right at me.
Right at me.
I couldn't explain the look I found in her eyes - eyes so much like my own that I had always found them easily readable.
And that was chilling.
Not to be able to read her.
To have her staring right at me, somehow seeing me even in the distance, and not be able to know what she was thinking.
Her look was shut down.
Not blank.
Guarded.
Reinforced.
As I sat too stunned to move, Reign broke free from my side, Lo from my other, both of them charging forward.
I saw the second she recognized them.
But there wasn't relief.
There was something else.
Something that almost looked like a grim determination.
Before she did something that, no matter how I thought on it after, I could never understand.
She turn and ran.
But not before telling her friend that she was safe, that her dad and aunt and me would take care of her.
I jumped up as I saw her disappear toward the back of the house, watching as Cash, Virgin, and Pagan took off after her.
I wasn't even aware of the sensation of running until I was in the back of the property, seeing Malcolm and Edison tear into the woods as well, on her trail.
They wouldn't catch her.
Don't ask me why I thought that, how I knew that, but I did.
They wouldn't catch her.
And maybe part of that had to do with the fact that she was fast. So fast that sometimes she blurred when she ran.
But a bigger part, I was sure, had to do with the decision to go.
The decision to leave.
To run away from us instead of toward us.
When she was clearly in her right mind enough to know that she was safe, that we were a means of protection since she told her friend exactly that.
I would never catch her.
I felt an overwhelming sense of uselessness as I stood in that yard as half a dozen of my loved ones - my husband included - tore into those woods after her, while the rest stayed behind, guns out, moving inside the house.
The house where there were likely still threats.
Threats that could open up a window and shoot out at any moment, take my life right from me.
But I couldn't seem to muster the drive to find shelter until the storm passed as I stood planted there, eyes on the woods.
Minutes.
Hours passed.
And then Reign re-emerged.
One look at the shocked, desperate, worried look on his face told me all I needed to know.
She was gone.
Ferryn was gone.
And don't ask me how or why, but I simply knew she wasn't coming back.
And it was right about then that it hit me.
That I couldn't find the strength to hold it together anymore.
And I just broke.
--
Lo
The leader in me knew I should have gone into the house, neutralized the threats with my team.
But everything within me felt pulled to the girl who slowly lowered down to her knees in the front yard, like they had finally, finally given up on her.
She dropped down there, just an inch from the dead body of a woman who had held her captive for an untold amount of time, seemingly unable to find any strength even to move a few feet away.
Just giving up.
And I knew that look.
In her eyes.
I knew that goddamn look.
I had seen it so many times.
Too many times.
On the faces of far too many girls and women.
But the one that came to mind the most, the one that looked as wrecked as she did right then wasn't one of those masses.
It was Janie.
She looked just like Janie had.
When I found her.
When I simply knew what she had been through, tried to save her.
When she begged for me to just let her die.
That was who this girl looked like.
That was the haunted terror in her eyes.
That was the hopelessness there, the realization that even if her body were now safe, her mind would never be.
I felt it back then, and I felt it as I carefully approached this girl.
A deep-rooted need to wrap her up, to protect her, to love her, to give her some of my strength, to convince her that this wasn't the end, to build her back up, to make her into the woman I knew she could be, a woman who wasn't defined by something that happened to her, a woman who would pave her own way in life.
It was an animalistic thing, something encoded into my DNA.
Something, maybe, just maybe, I would call a maternal instinct.
"Honey," I said, tone low and lilting, the kind you'd use on a scared animal. Which, well, was - if you thought about it - exactly what I was dealing with. I slowly knelt down in front of her. "My name is Lo. I'm Ferryn's aunt," I explained, wondering if she was even hearing me. She seemed zoned out, somewhere else entirely. "What's your name?" I asked, pushing the AK backward, making the strap between my breasts make a scratching sound against the material of my shirt.
I didn't even think twice about it until her eyes sought the gun, making me wonder if I should have discarded it before approaching her.
But she didn't jerk back or stiffen up; she just looked at where it was poking out at my hip for a long moment before her gaze rose to mine.
"Chris. I'm Chris."
"Chris," I agreed, nodding a little. "Do you maybe want to get out of here?" I asked. "I have a car. We can go anywhere you want."
"I want a shower," she said immediately, making me aware suddenly of the dried blood and dirt on her skin, the grease and mats in her hair.
A shower was the last thing you wanted to do after being raped.
It destroyed evidence.
And there was no mistaking it.
She had been raped.
If I knew anything about it - and I did - many, many times. By many men.
But my people, well, they had orders.
Namely, we were cleaning house.
No prisoners.
Just bodies.
There was no redeeming these people.
Our court system seemed unwilling to take rape cases to trial, let alone convict them.
So we were handling justice this time.
Whether that was right or not was open to interpretation.
But it was what was going to happen.
So there would be no need for evidence collection.
There was no reason she couldn't shower.
"Okay. A shower. We can do that," I agreed, standing slowly, reaching my hand down toward her.
She looked at it for a long moment before placing hers there, letting me pull her onto her feet.
"And food," she added, voice barely a whisper as she fell into step beside me, her hand still clutching the toilet tank cover.
She could keep it.
On the walk back to the car, the drive out of this town and into Navesink bank, then the short walk up the driveway of mine and Cash's home, she did, she kept it.
Just in case.
She could keep it.
As long as she needed it.
Then I would replace it.
With a knife.
A gun.
She would never feel defenseless again if I had any say in the matter.
And as I handed her a pile of fresh clothes that made tears well up in her eyes, and switched on the water for her, seeing her head hang as she finally let the tears come, not even bothering to swat them away, knowing more would just replace them, I decided I would.
Have a say in it.
"Don't," she yelped when I slowly started backing toward the door, deciding to let her have her moment in peace.
"Don't what?" I asked, watching her back.
"Don't leave," she begged, turning over her shoulder to look at me.
Raw.
She was so raw.
A bleeding, open wound.
My heart - hardened by so many years of witnessing the evils of my fellow humans - softened, crushed at seeing it.
"Okay," I agreed, nodding, closing the door behind me, leaning into it.
In case Cash came home.
Looking for me.
Full of questions.
Barreling in because there had never been a reason to knock over showers before.
"Why don't you get in at the end, then throw your clothes out?" I suggested when she just stood there, torn for her need of my presence, and that for modesty.
"Okay."
With that, she did.
Her clothes were flung out.
After that, I heard the clatter of bottles as she sorted out body wash, shampoo, and soap. Likely reapplying ten times, but not feeling any cleaner.
Then there was nothing.
Just the sniffles as she cried silently.
For ten minutes.
Twenty.
Until the whole bathroom steamed up, making my shirt stick to me with sweat.
Then, finally, likely out of hot water, her hand stuck out, reaching for a towel, then another.
"Do you want me to leave, so you can get dressed? I can go order food."
More like have Cash do it.
Because I could hear him coming in the front door.
"Okay."
"What kind of food? It's late, but the Chinese place is open. And the diner. So they have anything."
"Fries," she said immediately, making me smile slightly. Sometimes teenagers - even horribly abused ones - were just, well, teenagers. "And mozzarella sticks. Grilled cheese."
"Anything else?" I asked, sensing a hesitation like she was worried she was asking for too much.
"A salad," she surprised me by saying. I must have shown my confusion, because she shrugged a shoulder. "I haven't had a vegetable in four months," she supplied, reminding me of V's many atrocities. She didn't just like to have women raped. She liked to starve them too.
"You got it. I will be right downstairs. Or if you want, there is a bedroom right across the hall."
With that, I left her, running down the stairs, my hand slamming into Cash's chest as he tried to turn to go up them as well.
"Sh," I demanded, pushing him through the house out to the front door.
"You brought the girl here," he guessed when we were outside.
"Yeah. She wanted a shower."
His face, already pale, seemed to pale further in the realization of why that would be. "She's young."
"Fifteen or sixteen," I agreed.
"Probably got parents worried sick about her," he said, giving me a much-needed reminder. Not all lost girls were strays I could take in. I had to have that talk with her when I went back inside.
"Yeah. We haven't gotten that far yet. She wanted a shower. And I need you to go get her food. Fries. Mozzarella sticks. Grilled cheese. And a salad. Maybe a side of veggies too."
"And you want me to leave the bags on the step," he guessed.
"I'm sorry," I said immediately, knowing I should have asked him first, knowing this wasn't just my home, my decisions to make.
"Don't apologize, sweetheart. You're doing the right thing. I just wanted to check on you before I headed out."
I didn't even know what happened.
Hadn't thought to check my phone.
I had only one focus.
But my team - and Reign's team - were all trained and capable of handling what might have gone down.
"Out where?"
"Ferryn ran away," he told me, the words a punch to the gut.
"What?" I asked, knowing she had run, but figuring it was just shock, that someone she knew would catch her, calm her down, bring her home.
"Dunno. She took off into the forest. No one could find her."
"Get Gunner. Baird's guy. Get him to try to track her."
He nodded at that. "He's on his way."
"I'm so sorry, Cash," I said, moving forward, wrapping my arms around him.
This was supposed to be it.
We were going to get our girl back.
Get her home safe.
The worry that had been churning inside of us for days would be gone.
But there would be no relief.
Not until we found her.
Not until we knew she was okay.
"That fucking bitch," he growled into my ear, making me have to take a deep breath at the pain behind his words.
"She's dead," I reminded him, giving him a squeeze.
"Yeah, but what damage had she done first?"
"Don't jump to conclusions," I said, even though I couldn't seem to fathom why else she would run like that. "We don't know that happened."
"It better not the fuck have."
There was determination in his voice. Even though there was nothing to be done even if that had happened.
V was dead.
Her men were dead.
There was no one else to take vengeance on.
"She killed her," he added.
I exhaled hard. "Yeah," I agreed.
She'd killed someone.
And while I was glad she had the know-how to do it, had the guts to follow through in the moment when she felt she needed to, I hated that she had to.
I never thought all the training I had done with her over the years would be necessary in a real-life scenario.
Because we always made sure she was safe.
We were never going to let her get into situations where she might need to use those skills.
Except we'd failed her.
She'd needed to.
"Killing someone takes something from you," I reminded him, though he damn well knew this himself. "Especially that first time. And especially that young. She's probably just freaked, trying to process it. She's going to come back, Cash."
"She has to," he agreed, voice shattered.
Without having them ourselves, the kids of the club in general had become like kids to us as well. Especially so with Ferryn, the oldest, the first to come drooling and crying into our lives on weekends when we would take her so Reign and Summer could have some free time, time to just be two people, a couple.
The older she got, the more involved we seemed to get. Training and teaching her things.
I couldn't say how many times I had walked into the room to hear her talking to Cash about the music back in his day, and seeing the taken aback look on his face at realizing music he had listened to at her age was now considered classic.
I would come in from work to find the two of them eating pizza straight from the box while watching action movies on the couch.
And each time I saw them together, I got a little squeeze in my chest.
I couldn't fathom never seeing that again, never feeling that again.
She had to come back.
Not just for Reign and Summer whose worry I could only begin to understand, but for me and Cash, and Wolf and Janie, Malc, everyone whose life she had been a part of - and bettered for her presence alone.
The stairs behind me creaked as Chris came down, making Cash and I break apart.
"We both have things to handle," I said, watching as he smiled at my Hailstorm-voice. "We can be mushy and feel shit later."
"Yeah," he agreed, leaning in to kiss my forehead. "Keep your phone charged."
I nodded as he ran off, watching for a second before turning back into the house, finding Chris standing there, watching me with guarded, but curious, eyes.
"Is that your husband?"
"Cash? Yes. He's Ferryn's uncle," I added.
"Is Ferryn okay?"
This was a time when maybe others would sugar-coat it, or lie altogether.
But that had never really been my style.
Women - even severely traumatized women - were a hell of a lot stronger than anyone gave them credit for.
"We don't know," I told her, closing and locking the door behind me. "She just... ran away."
"She's okay," Chris said, conviction seeping into her voice, making her words firm, unyielding, inarguable. "She's strong," she added when I said nothing. "If she ran, she has a reason. And I think she can take care of herself."
She wasn't wrong.
Ferryn had a lot of life skills.
From surviving less than ideal situations to navigating modern life things like how to ride buses and trains by herself, you named it, someone had thought of teaching her.
Just in case.
There were always so many 'just in cases' in our lives.
And Ferryn, the oldest, the oldest girl, had gotten far more individualized attention than likely any other kid on the planet.
She would be okay, technically.
But would she be okay mentally?
Emotionally?
Where would she sleep at night when she was too young to rent a room?
I guess it was one of those things that time would tell.
"They never took her," Chris said, snapping me out of my swirling thoughts. "At least... not like me," she hedged, not there yet, not ready to say the words.
It felt wrong to feel relief, standing here with a girl just the same age, just the same amount of innocent, but there was no denying it. Whatever she had to face up for herself, that was not a part of it.
"They just took her up earlier today. And she came back a few hours later with her wrists torn up, some bruises, but not.... broken. If anything, she seemed almost, I don't know, triumphant. I didn't get it at the time. But as he was coming to take me, she had a key to unlock her shackle. She grabbed the toilet tank cover. And then she knocked him out. Freed me. And we ran."
I nodded at that, walking past her, holding out an arm in invitation as I went into the kitchen. "Tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate?"
"Tea," she told me, sounding surprised.
"That woman," I started as I poured water into the pot, as I found teabags, "she was Ferryn's grandmother." I chanced a look over, finding her watching me, eyes penetrating, but saying nothing. "She didn't know. V had been locked up for all of Ferryn's life because she had once tortured Ferryn's mom. It's a long story. If you want all those details sometime, I can give you them. But they're not important. But V wanted, well, we don't know what she wanted when she took Ferryn. To use her as leverage, maybe."
"She killed her own grandmother."
"You know that phrase, Chris, about blood being thicker than water?"
"Yeah."
"The funny thing is... everyone has that saying wrong. It is actually 'the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,' which is exactly opposite of what everyone thinks. Sharing blood, sharing DNA with someone... it doesn't mean anything. The bonds we form out of love we choose from the people we choose are the strongest bonds. I don't think Ferryn was looking at it quite so much like she was killing her grandmother, but more like she was killing someone who threatened her and someone she cared about."
"You mean me? She barely knew me."
"Maybe. But I know Ferryn. And she has a strong moral compass. She has a giant heart. She would never have let something happen to you because of her. Not if she could do anything in her power to stop it. So she did."
"I could have stopped her," Chris said, voice hollow. "When she grabbed me? I could have done something. I didn't."
"Look at me," I demanded, tone a little firm because she needed it. "Ferryn has had something like eleven years of training from experts in many fields. You, I would wager, are just a normal girl from a normal life. How could anyone expect you to know how to handle a situation like that?" She nodded a bit, swallowing hard. "If you want, I can teach you."
"Teach me?"
"How to react in a situation like that," I clarified. "I don't know if you know what Hailstorm is, but I run it. I also own a gym that teaches self-defense. I can teach you. We can teach you. If you want that," I added. "And, you know, if your parents would allow it," I finished, remembering what Cash had said.
"I don't have any family," she whispered as I turned to flick off the stove, pour the steaming water. I turned back at that, arm aloft with the teapot still. "My mom died. I was in the system when... when they took me."
"For a long time?" I asked, putting the pot down, then turning fully to her.
"Long enough to know it was not the same as a real family."
"Fair enough. I'm sorry about your mom, Chris. And I know everything is overwhelming now, but I need to ask you something."
"Okay?" she said, feet shuffling, thumb from one hand stroking across the surface of the one on the other.
"Where do you want to go from here?"
"I don't think I understand the question."
"You're a child still. Technically. There needs to be a plan for your future."
"I can't go back. In the system. Not after..."
"Okay," I agreed, nodding.
Her head turned away, looking out the back window at the streaks of dawn creeping across the sky in the distance.
"You said you could train me."
"Yes."
"Can you... can I just... stay here?" she asked, each word its own sentence, dragged down by her fear of rejection, her uncertain future if I said no. "Just until I can figure something else out," she added.
"I have a husband," I started.
"You'd need to ask him," she cut me off.
I chuckled a bit at that, never having quite gotten used to the idea of having to check with anyone. Not even after all these years. But then again, there had never really been any of those 'big decisions' for us. We didn't have kids. We didn't have pets because our schedules were so unpredictable. So what was there to really 'check with' him about? The color of the bedspread?
Well, okay.
I should have checked with him about the bedspread.
But when you found a floral one that spoke to your soul, you just had to buy it, right? To hell with the consequences.
At least they're not pink and purple. That was what he said when he came home to see it, throwing the blanket back, then breaking it in with me.
"I was thinking more that... I know men might be an issue for you right now," I said carefully.
"Not all men are bad," she said just as carefully.
"Look at me," I demanded, waiting for her to do so. "I can guarantee you that Cash would never lay a hand on you. I would bet my life on it."
She nodded a bit at that, swallowing hard.
"Okay," she agreed, making a tugging sensation start in my chest, in my heart. "His name is really Cash?"
"Legally," I agreed with a smile.
She waited a beat, nodding her head a little.
"He's too old for his haircut," she declared, catching me off-guard, making me throw my head back and laugh.
So that was how Cash and I became parents.
To a teenager.
--
Cash
Gunner was able to find hints of her, traces of blood from cut feet, but they suddenly disappeared right next to a bus stop.
Hailstorm was on the bus situation.
And, more useless than I had ever felt in my life, I asked Lo if it was safe to stop by, then made my way home to my woman.
"Where is she?" I asked, walking in to find Lo sitting on the couch cross-legged, one of her books opened on her thigh like a bookmark.
"Sleeping."
"She has no family?" I asked, dropping down beside her.
"Well... sort of."
"How can you sort of have family?"
Her face turned to me then, a face I knew so well that she often didn't even need to speak, I could just tell what was up by looking at her.
But this was a look I was sure I had never seen before.
It made her brown eyes bright, but not with amusement, not even pure happiness. It was something else. Something like hope and fear and tentative joy, a combination I had no way of interpreting.
"Congratulations, Daddy... it's a girl?"
I was equally lost hearing those words as I was trying to explain her expression.
My system seemed assaulted all at once with a mixture of sensations.
Confusion.
Understanding.
Fear.
Anxiety.
But underneath all of that, trapped somewhere so deep, I wasn't even sure it existed until right that moment, a need.
It had been - for us - an easy decision not to have children. We could have tried. We could have attempted adoption. But that need had never been there. And if you didn't desire it more than you desired everything else in your life, well, then you had no business taking on a child.
And it wasn't like we were lacking in the kid department. It seemed like every couple of months, someone was popping another one out. We were surrounded by baby giggles and Play-Doh, and Legos to step on, and Barbies to look at and genuinely sit and wonder if it was a sign of something bad that someone had painted the faces like death masks, or just kids being weirdos.
I got to teach someone how to ride a bike.
I got to be the designated court jester to an otherwise all-female kingdom.
I got to play catch, kick a soccer ball, attend about a thousand school functions, birthday parties, spend thousands of dollars on toys every Christmas.
It was like having kids, with the nice break of a full night of sleep, and the freedom of having wild, sweaty sex anywhere we wanted without having to worry about scarring kids for life.
That was the life we had chosen.
Happily, I might add.
Without a single regret.
But hearing that she didn't just want to do what she had done a dozen times before - take someone in at Hailstorm. Like she had with Janie once upon a time.
She wanted to bring her home.
With us.
Yeah, that meant something more than I could put words to.
"She knows about me, right?" I asked.
"Yes. She's okay with it. She said she recognizes that not all men are like the ones she knew at V's place. Maybe a bit of a wide berth physically for a while would be wise, but I think engaging her would be smart. Maybe I will have Mina and Renny over for dinner in a week or so, let them get a feel for her, give us some direction."
"Janie turned out great, baby," I reminded her, grabbing her book, carefully tucking a weekly advert between the pages because I knew she would flay me if I dog-eared the page, then tossing it on the coffee table, pulling her legs over my lap.
"I just want to be sure," she insisted. "Janie seemed great, but struggled for a long time. Years. Not sleeping. Never getting involved with men. If Mina or Renny could give us some advice on how to avoid that, maybe she could be just a tad more well-adjusted."
"Or meet her own Wolf someday," I suggested, knowing that had been a turning point. For her. For him. Never had I seen a love so capable of healing, a couple more suited.
Lo snorted, rolling her eyes at me. "Love doesn't save people, Cash."
"No?" I asked, raising a brow.
"What did love save you from?" she demanded to know.
I shrugged a shoulder, smirking. "A life of debauchery."
"Right. Because we are a couple of squares," she teased, poking me in the ribs with the tips of her toes. "Oh, speaking of square, parental things. Your new daughter thinks you are getting too old for your haircut."
"What?" my voice hissed out of me as my hand rose to rub up the shaved side of my head.
"Hey, you're someone's old man now. It's time for one of those haircuts that says you've given up on life."
"Or maybe I will dye it bright blue, and humiliate her everywhere we go."
"There's a real dad talking," she said, smile warmer than I had maybe ever seen it as she scooted until her ass landed in my lap, her head tucking under my chin.
"We're gonna have to move," I voiced my thoughts aloud a long couple of minutes later. We had a one bedroom. And while we had a basement, I figured that was a place she was never going to want to live in, not even if we refinished it.
"There's a house for sale across from Repo and Maze," Lo agreed. "Two beds, two baths. Two minutes from the compound."
"I'll call the agent sometime tomorrow."
She made a murmuring noise, her fingers tracing down my arm, then twining her fingers between mine.
"I want our girl back," she said, articulating what we were both thinking.
"Me too," I agreed, trying not to harp on the pit in my stomach, trying to remember that Ferryn, for all her youth, was mature for her age. She would be okay. If she survived V's compound in one piece, she could survive anything.
"What are we going to do about the legality of this?" I asked, knowing that a girl suddenly popping up in the town might make some people - like the cops - rather curious.
"I have a judge who will grant us guardianship."
"What'd he do?" I asked as my hands sifted through her hair, wondering as I so often did how it was always so soft. I knew Lo and her people had something on everyone, something they could use against them, use to blackmail them. If you were a person in power, Hailstorm had a file with your name on it jam-packed full of dirty secrets.
"Before or after his trip to Neigh Ranch?"
"Do I even want to know what Neigh Ranch is?"
"Ever hear of pony play?" she asked, and I could hear the smile in her voice.
"You're shitting me."
"His Honor Mister Ed," she agreed. "Have some very private pictures of him getting brushed down with blinders on. It's good stuff. His wife - who spends every waking hour working at the local church - would not like getting her hands on those."
I had an evil genius for a wife, one who read raunchy shit and wanted to reenact it and put flower blankets on the bed and, well, I still fucking loved it.
More and more each day if I were being honest.
"Babe?"
"Yeah?" she asked, sounding half-asleep. As she should be. She hadn't slept in days.
"Feel like I should know our daughter's name."
"Oh, Chris," she supplied, shaking the sleep away.
"Short for?"
"Christienne."
Christienne.
"She likes tea. And cats. And speaks French."
"So we can look forward to her one day cussing us out in another language?"
"Maybe it's time for some night classes," she agreed, leaning up to kiss the underside of my chin.
"Our whole world is about to change," I said.
"I know," she agreed, squeezing my hand. "I kind of love it."
"Me too."
--
Reign
The car came screeching up to the gates.
For the second time.
That T-bird.
With the same guy at the wheel.
Vance.
But this time, with his sister Iggy in the passenger seat, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth.
He muttered something to her, huffing out a breath when all she did was shake her head at him, then climbing out of the car alone.
"Ferryn was at my parents' house a little while ago," he supplied immediately, cutting through all the bullshit. "She's gone already. And she wouldn't tell Iggy where she was going because she didn't want to put her in the middle. But I thought you would want to know. She showered, ate, took care of her cuts, shaved her head, and took off."
"Shaved her head?" I couldn't help but repeat, brows drawing together.
While, as a whole, Ferryn was pretty down to earth and level-headed, there was always a small bit of vanity in her, as with just about anyone her age. She was fanatical about her hair. It seemed so unlike her to shave it off.
But that was important to know.
We had to get that out there to all the people looking for her, the police stations, everyone. A shaved head would make her look completely different.
"Okay," I said, nodding. "Thank you. Anything else, Iggs?" I asked, moving toward her open window.
I had a good enough rapport with her after about two thousand visits to our house.
"She said that... she needed to become lethal," she told me, eyes a little red-rimmed and watery. With as tight as those two had always been, I knew this was weighing on her as well.
"Lethal," I repeated, not quite grasping it.
"She said she needs to be a weapon, that she can't rely on you all to protect her anymore."
Because we had failed her.
I'd failed her.
Even though I had a text from Lo that claimed the other girl - Chris - said that Ferryn hadn't been abused. Other than the bumps and bruises she got for striking out first.
It wasn't about the severity of the damage done to her.
It was that no harm should have ever come to her on my watch. And my watch was twenty-four-fucking-seven hours a day.
That was my one goddamn job.
And I failed at it.
I had failed her.
So badly that she now couldn't trust me to do a better job in the future.
So badly that she thought the only answer was to run off, find someone to turn her into an even more lethal weapon than she already was.
And then what?
Even if she managed to sneak away with all of us looking for her, what was the plan?
Weeks?
Months?
God, years?
I couldn't fucking fathom that reality.
"She said she was going to call or write," Iggy said, seeming to sense my worry, my uncertainty, my confusion. "She said as soon as she lands somewhere, she was going to get in contact. She doesn't want you to worry."
Right.
Like there was any chance of us not worrying.
For however long she was gone.
Didn't matter if four years passed, she was over twenty, and had a life of her own going. I would still worry. Every fucking moment of the day.
And Summer.
Fuck.
Summer.
She had to have known what this would do to her mother, her mother who already felt guilty about the entire V situation as a whole even though she had no hand in it, couldn't help where she had come from.
And she had just started to come back to us. After Lyon's murder right there in front of her eyes. After the long spell of grief that came from that.
Then this fucking V shit.
And now Ferryn was going off on her own.
At sixteen years old?
Couldn't even drive a car yet, and she was going to make a life for herself without us?
God, I hoped she at least had the sense to take money. Hell, fucking drain the account for all I cared. Whatever she needed so she never felt desperate, never had to stay in unsafe areas, never had to defend herself against predatory hands again.
"Anything else you can think to tell me, Iggs?" I asked, watching as she seemed to replay the whole situation in her head.
"I gave her a piece of jewelry to hock if she needs it. And my laptop."
"You're a good kid, Iggs. I'll pay you back for that."
"That's not necessary," Vance cut back in.
"It is," I countered. "And if you two need anything, you let me know. You two did everything you could to help me find my girl. I won't forget that."
They left a few minutes later.
I didn't see Iggs for years.
Or the dark-haired guy who used to sit in the driveway not looking at my daughter.
Not until he showed up at my gates for a third time.
Calling in his marker.
Wanting to prospect.
But that was a story for another day.
--
Summer
Everyone was watching me as though they expected me to splinter apart.
Maze had called in the girls club like some emergency intervention, like they would all be there with tweezers and glue in case I needed to be put back together.
My daughter was gone.
My daughter who I had spent every single day with for sixteen years... was gone.
The most surreal part of that whole realization was that it couldn't overtake everything, it couldn't change the fact that, well, even with her absence a giant hole in our home, in our hearts, life had to go on.
Dishes still piled in the sink, needing to be cleaned. Laundry piled in the hampers, needing to be washed. My hollow-legged boys still needed three - or, let's face it, at their age... five - square meals a day. Homework needed to be done. Bills needed to be paid.
Life had to keep moving forward.
Even as her bedroom collected dust bunnies in corners.
Even as her library books went so overdue that Reese showed up to the house to retrieve them herself.
Even as our phone didn't ring.
Even as our mail never brought word from her.
And I couldn't get a moment alone to process the whole situation. Even when the boys went back to school, giving me my mornings and early afternoons.
Even then, the times when I was usually left to my own devices to catch up on chores, or wallow as I wanted to do now, there was no peace.
Someone showed up at the door with food, with plans to go out, with demands I come back to training.
As if keeping me busy could make me forget that my daughter was missing. That a giant chunk of my life was gone. That life would never again be the same.
At least not until she came home.
If she came home.
"Mom," Fallon said, making me jolt hard away from the potato I was supposed to be peeling as Reign sat just a few feet away, casting worried glances in my direction every few minutes.
"Yeah, bud?" I asked, forcing a small smile.
"Where's Ferryn?" he asked.
He hadn't.
Asked.
Finn had.
Twice.
He was younger.
He was easier to placate with a careful white lie.
Fallon?
Yeah, he was getting older, smarter.
And, like I had come to expect from him with his quiet introspection, he bided his time, weighed his words.
Then came for the gut-punch.
Two weeks later.
When I had taken a breath finally, thinking he was just going to let it go, that it was one thing off of my very full plate.
"And don't tell me that camp story," he added when I opened my mouth to tell him exactly that.
My gaze found Reign's, seeing his opinion there before he even opened his mouth to tell me it. "He's not a kid anymore."
I looked back at Fallon, unable to see him as anything other than my little boy.
But, at the same time, I could see my mistakes so clearly in hindsight.
The lies or evasions we had fed to Ferryn over the years, over the last several months especially.
Had she been in on things from the beginning, would the situation had played out differently? Would she never have slipped her guard? Would she have understood why we had been so strict? Would she never have been taken? Would she be here right now with me?
And because I had no answers, because all I had was the harsh reality that may have stemmed from our silence, I took a deep breath, and I told our son what had happened, where his sister had gone.
He was silent for a long few moments after, thinking it through, considering his words.
"She'll be back," he decided, tone full of a confidence I wish I possessed. "You know her. She'll be back. When she feels ready," he added. "And until she's ready, I don't think you're going to find her."
There had been no leads.
Some bus drivers who remembered her, though had mistaken her for a boy, but couldn't remember in which direction she had taken off in after they dropped her.
Janie and Alex and a whole slew of hackers they had hired for the job hadn't found a single trace of her.
They looked in the most likely of places.
New York
Philly.
Chicago.
Nothing.
Not a single breadcrumb.
Not even Gunner, who had been on it day and night, could pick up a trace.
Our girl was a ghost.
Utterly un-find-able.
Just how she wanted to be.
And Fallon was right.
We would only find her when she was ready.
When she wanted to be found.
That was a hard reality to accept.
First, as an adult, a whole team of worldly, experienced adults actually, to be bested, thwarted by a teenager.
Second, as a parent, to be unable to know the most basic of things - if their baby was okay. If they were eating. If they had a roof over their heads at night. If they were safe.
But that was the reality we were forced to live with.
It was a full month before we got a letter with no return address, though the postmark was from Pennsylvania.
"Mom, Dad, and, well, everyone else -
I know you're worried. I know you don't understand. But I had to do this. I promise I am safe. I'm eating - you can even tell Rey that I am eating the veggies she always tried to push on me. I have a place to stay. I don't know how long I will be here. But I am welcome for however long I need to be. And when I am ready, I promise I will come home.
And until then, I'll write.
Mom, I know you need more than that. So, I will write once every week.
Dad, stop beating yourself up. This isn't your fault. This is just something I had to do for myself.
Fallon, watching other kids play Minecraft is a waste of time. Go take some lessons with Uncle Pagan.
Give Finn my room. He's too old to share with Fallon now.
And please tell Aunt Lo and Uncle Cash to take care of Chris. She needs them. She was so broken. But if there is anyone I know with a steady hand with glue, it's Aunt Lo.
Tell Aunt Janie, and Uncle Malc, and, well, anyone who ever trained me for even one afternoon that it helped. It all helped. When I wanted to give up, give in, just surrender to it all, it was their voices in my head telling me to get up, to fight. And thank you, Mom. Because I know you were the one who made sure I got that training.
Oh, and my library books are overdue. Can you give them back before Aunt Reese has a heart attack?
I love you, more than you know. And I'm sorry I am making you worry. But I promise I am fine.
XOXO Ferryn."
Fallon started lessons the next day.
Finn moved into Ferryn's room a few months later, when we knew for sure that there was no reason to leave it as a shrine.
And me, well, I waited for that letter.
Every single week.
Of every single month.
Of every single year.
It always came.
Until one week... it didn't.