Every day is perfect. I get to be like them. Except we're not like them. No, this is truer. More crazed. We hold secrets that are as destructive as atom bombs. My brother, the only other keeper, is running for mayor now and very much in the lead, further cementing his pact to protect the family name.
My promise to Vesp isn't hard to keep. I don't want to go out there anymore. She feeds the ravenous animal that lives inside of me.
Now I finally have the family I never had. A little brother who I can treat the way Andrew never did me. A mother, who for all her faults, is nothing like the woman who locked me away in her secret shame and fear. You might not approve of what I did, but you can't tell me it didn't work.
Vesp rustles, feeling for me with a half-smile. She opens her eyes when she doesn't find me. “Mmmm,” she says as she opens her sleepy eyes. “What are you doing?”
She knows. “I'm watching you.”
She motions for me to come into bed. I look outside the window one final time, It all seems like he was someone else. I slide in, and take her in my arms. She closes her eyes and almost instantly falls asleep again. I made that happen. I made her love me. I made her feel safe in these arms.
Don't tell me this isn't love. When you love someone, you'll do anything—lie, manipulate, kill (even yourself)—to keep them. You just aren't willing to go that far. When I let her go, that's when I knew what this was. I'd never felt it before. And I knew this couldn't be the end. There were moments it felt that way, when I thought she wouldn't come back, but just like from the very beginning, I knew I had to be consistent. I had to do whatever it took to bring her back to me.
Love isn't flowers or poetry. It's this. Ask yourself. Has anyone ever loved you the way I love Vesp? Can you say anyone has done for you the things I've done for her?
Carter was a breeze. Soft and comforting. Safe. But it doesn't move things, it doesn't shake things. I am the storm. Strong and violent. Dangerous. I will tear down anything in my path to have her. When I roll through, you see evidence of me all around. You will see branches broken, windows shattered. I will move obstacles that seem insurmountable.
I have to be honest with you now. I let her go is because I knew I had done my job. I knew she wouldn't snitch. I knew she would come back to me. As sure as I know the sun will set every night. But still, I had to test her. Even if that meant putting my own life on the line. It was her final exam, and she has been rewarded.
And none of that makes this any less real.
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STRAPPED SERIES
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Take Me With You Page 36