by Fox, Nicole
He smirks. “They’re not here.”
I start to take a step forward, but Darragh makes a small gesture with his hand to caution me. I freeze, but my hands ball into fists. I feel the weight of the gun on my hip and the blade at my ankle.
Darragh is right—it’s not time to resort to violence yet. But it’s nice to spend a moment fantasizing about gutting this corrupt bastard like a fish.
“Where are they?” the lawyer asks calmly.
“Not here,” the sergeant repeats with a shrug.
“You don’t mind if I take a look at your holding cells, do you?”
The sergeant shrugs a third time. “Suit yourself.”
I know immediately that he’s telling the truth. My parents aren’t here. He’d never would’ve agreed to show us the holding cells if they were on-site.
But now that Darragh’s asked, we’re obliged to follow.
Everything feels so goddamn familiar as I walk through the police station. This was where I spent my last night in Dublin before leaving for thirteen fucking years.
I’m noticing how woefully understaffed the police department is.
Apart from the sergeant, the woman at the front desk and two or three other cops, the place is practically empty. Maybe not surprising considering the time.
Convenient for me, though.
“Who’s the kid?” the sergeant asks, glancing at me dismissively.
I have to bite back a smile. If only you knew, I laugh to myself. If only you fucking knew.
“My understudy,” Darragh answers without missing a beat.
The sergeant opens the door to the holding cell and gestures us forward. “Take a look,” he offers. “You’ve got five minutes.”
I stay near the door while Darragh walks inside. I know there’s no point searching. My parents are not going to be here.
The Kinahans and Murtaghs would never make things so simple.
Darragh’s eyes graze over the forlorn space. Then, heaving a tired sigh, he turns. “Let’s go. There’s nothing—”
“Wait.”
I freeze for a second. I hear something.
Something eerily familiar.
A song, floating to me from thirteen years in the past.
“..That stands in beautiful vale of Tralee...”
I take a tentative step forward.
Then another.
Then another.
I round the corner.
And that’s when I see her.
32
Saoirse
“Saoirse.”
His eyes are wide. I can see the simmering blue.
This is the first good look I’ve had of him in over a decade.
The glimpse I’d caught of him in the airport was so fleeting. I’d seen the blond hair, the impressive height, the width of his shoulders.
But I’d missed so much, too.
He’s more muscular now. And he carries himself even more proudly. But there are new lines around his eyes and mouth. They don’t make him look older so much as experienced. Weathered.
His hair still has the same golden tinge, but he wears it shorter. It suits him, of course. All of it does.
I push myself up to my feet and ignore the flares of pain that rage up my body.
“Cillian,” I whisper as I step closer to the bars.
There are only inches between us, but the heat coming off him is palpable.
I realize how desperately I’ve craved it all these years.
His heat.
His scent.
The tangible, undeniable presence of him.
For thirteen years, he’s been nothing but a dream. A fantasy. A memory.
Now, here he is. Standing before me. Flesh and blood and so completely concrete. Taking up space and everything.
It’s mind-boggling.
“Saoirse,” he says again.
A nasally voice intrudes. “Cillian!”
I look to the side as a man approaches down the hall. He’s tall and skinny, with the sharpest nose I’ve ever seen.
I can’t tell if I like his face or not. His eyes are shrouded in shadow, and that makes it harder to make up my mind.
“What are you doing?” he says urgently. “We’ve got to go.”
“No.”
That’s something else that’s changed about Cillian, too.
The natural authority. The commanding tone. The complete lack of fear.
His voice alone fills in some of the gaps for me. It reminds me that he’s lived a full life in the time we’ve been a part.
I understand the lines on his face better now. The toughness that’s been drilled into him.
“No?” the man gapes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Cillian ignores him. “Why are you in a cage?” he demands of me.
I shrug, amazed at how calm I am under the circumstances. Perhaps a part of me still thinks I’m imagining this whole scenario.
“I pissed off a man I shouldn’t have pissed off,” I reply. For some reason, I’m unwilling to say Tristan’s name.
Cillian growls low and deep in his chest like a feral animal.
“Oi! Your five minutes are up. What are you doing?”
I hear heavy footfalls before one of the cops in charge approaches my cell. He’s wearing a slightly panicked expression as he looks between me and Cillian.
“She’s none of your concern.”
“Let her out,” Cillian orders coolly.
The cop blinks at him. “I… That’s not possible.”
“I’m not gonna ask you again.”
“You don’t even know what she’s done!”
“Because I don’t give a fuck what she’s done,” Cillian says. “Let her out.”
“Cillian,” the scrawny man beside him says in a forced calm tone, “this is really not our business.”
Cillian’s eyes flicker to mine. “I’m making it my business.”
Then he whips out a gun and pivots to aim it at the officer.
“Aw, for fuck’s sake…” the sharp-nosed man sighs like this isn’t the first time he’s seen this.
The cop facing the two of them turns purple with fear.
But there’s a certain indignation about his expression, too. As though he can’t quite believe Cillian has the balls.
I can, though. I believe.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the sergeant protests in a nervous warble.
“If you need a fucking explanation, then this department is in trouble,” Cillian fires back with a laugh.
Jesus.
That fucking laugh.
That fucking smile.
One look at him and I’m eighteen again.
And I’m reminded of just how I felt back then. When his presence had consumed my world and made me feel like anything was possible.
“Open her cell door.”
“You—”
“Do you like walking?” Cillian asks, cocking his head to the side. He points the gun right at the cop’s knees.
The man goes from purple to ghostly white.
He finally seems to understand that Cillian isn’t joking as he moves towards the door of my cell.
“Jesus, son,” the sharp-nosed man hisses at Cillian. “This was not part of the fucking plan.”
Cillian whips a harsh glare at him. So cold that even I recoil a little bit.
“I’m no one’s son anymore, Darragh,” he rasps.
The tension is razor-sharp.
The man hesitates, then nods and swallows. “No,” he admits softly. “I suppose you’re not.”
Cillian regards the man icily for a moment longer.
Then he breaks into his trademark wry grin.
“Besides,” he adds, “I’ve always liked to wing it. Why don’t you get out of here? I can handle this.”
The man—Darragh, he called him—doesn’t look happy about that.
“This is my problem,” Cillian adds. “Not yours.”
His problem?
What does that mean?
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Darragh sighs before walking out of the long room.
Cillian seems completely unfazed to be alone. And in a police station, no less.
“Hey, he’s right,” I say. “It’s not worth it.”
I’m thinking of Tristan and an army of men in blue pouring in here to beat Cillian to death right in front of me.
The thought alone makes me quake with fear.
He turns his blue gaze on me. “Of course it’s worth it,” he replies with such conviction that it reminds me of what he told me a lifetime ago.
I don’t lie.
And as far as I can tell, he never has.
But that’s not true, is it?
Because everyone lies.
And now that he’s standing before me, I sense that my idealized version of him is in danger of shrinking away, dissolving into nothingness and leaving me bare.
It fucking terrifies me.
The sergeant finally manages to get the cell unlocked.
The moment my door swings open, Cillian seizes my arm and pulls me out. Then he pushes the sergeant inside the cell.
The man fumbles forward and nearly collides with the wall. He doubles back, his face pink with rage, but Cillian’s fist flies out suddenly.
CRACK.
The cop instantly slumps into the corner, his eyes rolling back in his head before they close completely.
“Oh my God!” I gasp. “He’s out cold.”
“What can I say?” Cillian shrugs. “Guess I don’t know my own strength. Come on—and keep your head down.”
I’m too numb to do anything but obey.
We hurry out of the holding cell area. I expect to be confronted by a whole host of cops.
But there’s no one around. The place is practically deserted.
“Do you really expect to just walk out of here?” I ask.
“Let them try and stop me.”
I have this strange sense that I’m still dreaming. At the moment, that makes the most sense.
Cillian steers me in an unfamiliar direction until we reach an obscure door in the back.
“Um, where exactly are we going?”
“Through the back door,” Cillian smirks. “I may have been gone a long time. But I still know a few secrets.”
The door he takes me through leads to a winding series of narrow corridors that eventually let out into a side exit.
It’s still pretty public, but there isn’t anyone around.
I notice a gleaming Rolls Royce parked in the shadows.
He starts striding to the car, but I don’t follow him. I just stand there.
He’s halfway to the vehicle when he realizes that I’m not behind him. He doubles back, a look of urgency on his face.
“What are you doing?” he demands. “Come on.”
“Come where?”
“My home, for now,” he replies. “Until we figure this shit out.”
“What shit?”
“Saoirse,” he says, “we’re exposed out here. And that cop will come to at some point. We need to be out of here before they find you.”
I glance back at the station.
And panic rises inside me like a fucking tsunami.
What was I thinking?
He showed up like a mirage out of one of my fever dreams. I was so blinded that I saw only the knight in shining armor I’ve been dreaming about for thirteen years.
And I followed him.
I fucking followed him without thinking about the consequences.
Because let’s face it: I’m not going to get away with leaving. Tristan made that much glaringly clear.
“I can’t leave with you, Cillian,” I say shakily.
“Excuse me?”
“I can’t. I have to go back in there.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You have to go back in to your jail cell?”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re fucking right about that,” he snarls, a fury I don’t understand sparking in his eyes. “Do you know what I just risked to get you out of there?”
I bristle back.
I don’t know if it’s his expression or his tone that hurts me.
All I know is that I’m not about to stand here and get yelled at by another man.
“I didn’t ask you to risk anything for me!” I hiss at him.
“Keep your fucking voice down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“You’re being a fucking brat right now,” he spits. “So I guess nothing’s changed, huh?”
If he’d slapped me, it would have hurt less.
“What did you just say to me?”
“You heard,” he says, doubling down. “You’re a brat. I’m just trying to help you. I’m trying to save you. Like I’m always fucking doing.”
Right.
So that’s what this is about.
It’s silly of me to expect that thirteen years of absence will just cause our last meeting to dissolve into the cavern of lost time.
My logical, sensible side says that he has every reason to be bitter and hurt.
But I’ve been through a lot.
And of the two of us, it’s clear to me, that the last thirteen years have been easier on him than they have been on me.
So I ignore my calm, sensible voice.
Instead, I listen to the small, petty part of myself that’s been bruised and broken and betrayed in countless different ways since we’ve been a part.
“Fuck you,” I snarl at him. “You have no idea why I said what I said back then. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“Nothing great, considering I found you in prison.”
“It wasn’t prison; it was a fucking holding cell,” I snap. “And you don’t know a goddamn thing about me.”
“No, you’re right about that. Maybe I never did.”
His features are hard as they stare down at me. It feels… wrong. Unnatural. Alien.
He looks like another person, and for a moment, I’m actually glad.
Because that little fact makes it way easier for me to walk away from him.
I whirl around, but before I can get very far, I find myself airborne.
“Hey!” I yell as Cillian throws me over his shoulder. “Let go of me!”
He doesn’t answer.
He just shifts me higher on his shoulder as my ribs burst with pain. I groan, but I don’t cry out because I’m a little preoccupied with concentrating on not throwing up.
I hear the sound of a car door opening and then I’m being hurled into the back seat.
By the time I straighten up, Cillian’s behind the wheel and the engine is already roaring to life.
“Stop… no, Cillian… Don’t…!”
He ignores me and whips the car onto the road. Within seconds, we’re driving at a hundred miles an hour.
The streets whizz past and I slump against the back seat as exhaustion overcomes me.
Yeah, I decide silently. This is definitely a dream.
* * *
We’ve been driving for a while when I open my eyes and groan.
“Hey,” Cillian’s voice is calm and concerned. “You okay?”
“Stop the car,” I whisper.
“Not this again.”
“Please,” I beg. “I need to get out of this tin box.”
I raise my head to see his eyebrows furrow. He considers my request for a moment before he finally concedes and pulls onto the side of the road.
When I look up, I realize that we’re in the middle of nowhere. At first, all I see is darkness. But as my eyes adjust to lack of light, I realize that there’s nothing but meadow for miles around.
The moment we pull to a stop, I try and get out. But the doors are locked.
“Jesus, Cillian. Let me out. I need air.”
His answer is cracking open a window.
“Seriously?”
“You wanted air.”
“Who’s laughing?”
I try to unlock my door, but it remains stubbornly shut.
I can feel his eyes on me, trying to figure me out. At this moment, though, I can’t really help him.
I’m trying to figure myself out.
“Let me out of this goddamn car!” I scream suddenly. “I’ve been trapped by men my whole life. And I won’t do it anymore. Not even for you!”
His eyebrows rise with shock.
I’m a little shocked myself.
All I know is that I just spent the night in a jail cell after a failed attempt at fleeing my miserable life, I’m close to a panic attack, and I need to put some distance between Cillian and myself before I completely lose it.
I don’t even see him move, but the door unlocks.
As soon as it does, I’m out like a bullet, running away from the car and into the ocean of grass.
I hear Cillian swear from behind me, but I don’t slow down. I keep running until my lungs feel like they’re going to burst right out of my chest.
I run and run and run.
Like I can escape this fucked-up dream-turned-nightmare-turned-dream.
I only fall to my knees when I can’t run anymore.
The grass feels soft and comforting underneath my touch. I clench my fists and pull up tufts in each hand. Loose blades just sift through my fingers, falling off like fine dust, unwilling to be tied to anyone.
“Is there a reason you’re running from me like I’m the enemy?”
I look up at Cillian.
He’s run over here, too, but unlike me, he hasn’t broken a sweat. He doesn’t even look tired.
I fall back against the grass with my face to the dark, starlit sky.
He takes a step forward and looks down at me. His face outlined against the Irish heavens.
He’s gotta be a dream.
He’s too perfect.
I’m too broken.
“Are you real?” I ask in a delicate whisper.
He smiles. It’s like the sun has come out in the middle of the night.
“Take my hand,” he says, stretching it down towards me, “and find out.”
33
Cillian
She stares at me.
Her wild red hair sprawls out across the dark grass. Her azure eyes reflect the stars hanging above us.