Forged Under Blue Fire: Indigo Knights Book VIII

by A. J. Downey

  “Oz, what’s wrong?” I demanded again, stepping aside and grabbing his hand, pulling him inside, closing the door behind him. His eyes were red rimmed as he struggled to speak, and alarm bells swept through my mind, their peal deafening despite their physical silence.

  “You’re scaring me!” I cried, and tears welled in my eyes from my anxiety even as twin crystalline drops fell from his, cascading down his cheeks.

  He gripped my shoulders and smoothed his thumbs over my upper arms and the soft material of my work-blouse. The look on his face desperate and frightened and I nearly shook him, wanted to scream at him to put me out of my misery and –

  “It was me,” he stammered. “Ellie, I’m so sorry – but you had to hear it from me. It was me.”

  “What?” I asked sharply. “I don’t understand, Oz. What are you trying to tell me? What is going on?” My voice trembled as I stared up into his drawn and sallow face and the words that fell from his lips impacted my heart like a meteor strike.

  “It was me, Ellie… It was my gun. I shot Mia. I killed your sister.”

  Devastation.

  His words rippled out from the center of my being leaving such a silence in their wake. I stared at him.

  “That’s not funny,” I uttered, and I don’t know why I said that. I mean, Oz wouldn’t joke about something like that.

  His face crumbled and he began to cry in earnest, and I stared up at him.

  “That’s not funny, Oz! Why would you say that?” I shoved him and he let me go.

  He fell to his knees in front of me, his shoulders wracking in great heaving sobs and I stood there, chest heaving as panic swirled through my breast.

  I sank to my knees, shaking and tried to think but thinking was impossible.

  It was me.

  It was me.

  It was me.

  I put my arms around him, desperate for comfort, for something to cling to, and he wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in my shoulder, in my hair, sobbing like a child into the crook of my neck and the tears slipped down my face as I sat there, numb and in shock.

  It was me.

  It was me.

  It was me.

  The words echoed through my mind, sinister, insidious, and I stared into space.

  I shot Mia.

  I killed your sister.

  I trembled and he clung to me, ravaged by grief and all I could do was sit there until the universe finally decided to breathe in once more and suddenly, I could breathe and all I wanted was to make it stop. All I wanted was to make the pain stop. To it make it all okay again, for me, and for this man who had painstakingly spent the last few weeks of his life making it okay for me again.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered, and it was a lie. We both knew it was a lie, but I didn’t know what else to say. I mean, it wasn’t okay. It would never be okay – but strangely I wasn’t mad. I was hurt, but not because of him. I was hurt for him. I hurt for us, and for what this could mean for us, but I wasn’t mad, and I didn’t know why I wasn’t mad. The only explanation I had about my strange, almost calmness about the situation is that in my heart of hearts I knew…

  Oz didn’t mean to. There was no intention to ever hurt me. There was no intention to shoot my sister. He was trying to stop the madness of that morning. He was the hero of the story in so many ways. He was one of the good guys – a good man, and I loved him.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered, and I held him close, kissed the top of his head, and finally, I wept too. I wept with him, because just what did you do with something like this?

  “Oh, God, forgive me!” he cried, and I held him tighter still.

  Forgive him?

  I held Oz close, hushing him consolingly.

  He didn’t do anything wrong. There wasn’t anything to forgive and I knew that was exactly what my sister would have told him were she here in my stead.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said through my tears. “It’s not your fault.”

  And it wasn’t.

  It wasn’t my fault, or Mia’s fault, or Oz’s fault at all.

  The men whose fault it was were both dead. Oz had stopped them. Oz had killed them. It was nobody’s fault that we were in the way.

  My heart broke for the circumstances of that morning all over again.

  For my sister. For my dad. For myself. For the man I had grown to love, weeping inconsolably in my arms.

  My heart broke all over again and we wept, but our tears watered the seeds of understanding, of forgiveness, and the roots went deep into my heart come what may.

  “It’ll all be okay,” I whispered, rocking him on my living room floor as the storm of emotion passed.

  “I don’t know why you would forgive me like this,” he murmured an hour later.

  We lay in my bed, atop the covers, close but not touching except for our hands, fingers twined between us.

  “Did you mean to shoot my sister?” I asked bluntly.

  “No.”

  “Then what is there to forgive?” I asked quietly.

  “I shot your sister… She died…”

  “It was an accident,” I said and sniffed, fresh tears welling. Accident or not, it was one of the hardest pills to swallow knowing that the man you had fallen in love with had killed your little sister, intentional or not.

  I was still processing, he was still processing, and things were difficult to say the least.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” he said and closed his eyes, swallowing hard, as if the confession had cost him.

  “I’m right here,” I whispered. “I’m right here.”

  I shifted, leaning forward, and I kissed him. His hand found the side of my neck where it hovered just above the bed, his other hand found the curve of my body, along my ribs just before the swell of my hip and he pulled me closer, held me tight, as if he never wanted to let me go and my heart wept all over again for a different reason this time.

  This time it wept with something almost akin to relief. Relief at finally being loved so well for who I was – arts of depression and heartache and all.

  “I love you,” I whispered fiercely, and he jolted slightly as if the words had shocked him with a very real electrical jolt.

  “Don’t say that, baby. Not now, not after this. It could get so bad…”

  “Bad how?” I asked.

  “People judging –”

  “Fuck ‘em,” I murmured.

  “What?” he laughed slightly.

  “I can take a page out of your playbook, can’t I?” I asked.

  He smoothed a thumb beneath my jaw and searched my face in the close dark of the room. The lights were out and there was barely any light to see by coming through my bedroom window from the street outside, but we could see each other, barely, through the gloom and it was a comfortable dark.

  “Yeah, yeah, you can,” he said, his tone hushed as he stared at me in an almost wonderment.

  “It’s gonna be you and me against the world,” he whispered.

  I nodded slowly, carefully.

  “I-I think I need that.”

  “What?”

  “You. Me. A partnership of sorts. I… I don’t want to go back to being alone.” It was my turn to be vulnerable – for the tough confession.

  “I don’t care what happens, mkay? I’m always gonna be here for you.” He captured my face between his hands and pulled my forehead to his lips. The tension just drained from me at the touch of his lips and I relaxed, sighing out into the dark, pulling myself close to cuddle against his chest. He held me tight, back in the driver’s seat so to speak and it spoke to me of just how much he trusted me to be vulnerable like that in front of me.

  I loved him and I was afraid of what the fallout could be surrounding this new information, but I meant it. I would weather the storm, come what may. I would be a silly ideological little girl if I thought there wouldn’t be any fallout, but there would honestly be no telling just how bad it would be until it made landfall in our lives, if it ev
er did.

  I shoved those thoughts to the side and kissed Oz, let him hold me, and I know it is so action movie cliché, that things like this weren’t supposed to happen in real life, but we fell into each other’s arms. The kissing becoming more heated, hands grappling with clothing as I worked at the buttons of his uniform shirt and he pulled my blouse from the waistband of my slacks.

  “Oh!” I stopped at the unfamiliar vest below his shirt. “You wear a bullet-proof vest even in the jail?” I asked.

  He gave me a sad crooked smile and kissed the corner of my mouth.

  “Stab vest,” he murmured, sitting up and peeling his uniform shirt off from over it, letting it fall to my floor with a metallic click from his badge. “Yale helped get the grant to fund buying ‘em.”

  “Yale?” I asked.

  “Damien Parnell, the ADA. He’s a Knight.”

  “How did I not know that?”

  “Don’t know, but it tells me I got some things to fix, like bringing you around the guys and into my life.”

  “Oh?” I couldn’t help the surprise, but I did manage to twist it with a questioning lilt at the end.

  “Yeah.” The sound of Velcro giving way was loud in the cozy space of my bedroom.

  I pulled my blouse off and lifted the satin camisole I wore beneath it over my head. We quietly stripped to our underwear and got between the sheets, naturally coming together. Holding onto one another, battered spirits connecting just as much as our lips in our emotional exhaustion.

  Hands sliding over each other’s bodies, soothing hurts that went soul deep. He loved me slowly, cocooning me in a protective embrace whispering to me, “I thought I would lose you.”

  I smiled sadly and cupped his face in my hands murmuring, “I can’t lose you, too. I just can’t. I –” I choked up and he silenced me with a kiss and kept me close, cradling against his heart which needed to beat for the both of us for a scant moment as different emotions swirled in my breast, stole my breath, and tried to suck me down into a maelstrom.

  I clung to Oz, anchoring me to the earth, body, heart, and mind, back in control, holding me close, and sheltering me from any more harm.

  “I got you, babe,” he whispered against my hair, and I believed him.

  “I got you, too,” I said and we held each other tight.

  23

  Oz…

  “How she doing?”

  I sighed and bowed my head. “Better ‘n me, bro.”

  “That was my next question.”

  I heard the shower shut off and said, “Can I come by?”

  “Yeah, man. You know I got you.”

  “Okay, be there as soon as I can. She’s got to get to work, I’ma give her a ride.”

  “Good deal, keep the shiny side up, brother.”

  “You got it.”

  I hung up the phone with Golden just as her bathroom door opened. She had gotten up in the middle of the night, had left me sleeping, and had finished the painting of her sister. I looked over at her, dragging my eyes off the painting with some trouble.

  She smiled a little wanly and immediately came to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. I hugged her close. Didn’t even care that my tee soaked water from her wet hair. It’d dry out. We both stared at the perfect rendition of her sister on the canvas, so real it looked like a photograph, and had a little impromptu moment of silence.

  “I don’t know whether to give it to my dad, or if I should keep it. I mean, should I give it to her fiancé?” She seemed troubled and I sighed.

  “Why don’t you keep it?”

  She shrugged against me and said, “I could always paint another one.”

  “Well, yeah, you got me there,” I said.

  We were silent for a few, regarding the beautiful piece of art she’d created in front of us and she shook herself as if waking from a dream.

  “I’m going to be late.”

  “Nah, I got you. I’ll give you a ride over. It’s not far and with traffic, we shouldn’t go too fast. Just get ready and we’ll get goin’.”

  “Okay,” she said softly.

  I finished getting dressed, putting on everything I’d had on last night getting here. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, and I wasn’t technically allowed to wear my uniform in public – safety reasons – but I would have my jacket and cut on and would head back to my place after dropping her off.

  A knock fell at her front door as she was putting in her earrings and I swung my jacket on. She walked across the carpet in her kitten heels and had her hand on the door knob when my head caught up to the situation and it was too late to warn her.

  She opened the door. I expected a gang of reporters on her doorstep, flashbulbs going off like in the movies, but it was just one woman with a notepad and a pen.

  “Hi, Ms. Köhler. I’m Mindy O’Donnell and I’m with the Indigo City Register – can I have a moment of your time?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. I’m going to be late for work.”

  “Are you aware of the –”

  “Let me stop you right there, Princess.”

  Ellie opened the door wider to reveal me and I stepped up behind her and asked her “You ready to go?”

  “Yeah, let me just grab my stuff,” she said unhappily. I was unhappy too. Vultures were quick to a fresh kill this morning, golll-ee!

  “Yeah, she knows. No, we don’t wanna comment, you go on and have a nice day now, you hear?”

  I stepped out onto the stoop with Elka while the girl just wouldn’t quit. Peppering us with questions all the way to the bike. I fired it up, drowning the reporter out and without even putting helmets on, pulled away from the curb. We stopped briefly a couple blocks up and around the corner out of sight to get our lids on.

  “You alright?” I asked her as she took her helmet from me, hands shaking. I stood from locking up my saddlebag and watched her carefully.

  “Yeah.”

  “You watch yourself today,” I said. “Call me right away if anything happens.”

  “I will,” she vowed and I got back on the bike. I took her to work, and I waited until she was inside and past security before I sighed and rolled my head on my neck.

  I didn’t even fuckin’ bother going home. I went straight over to G’s brownstone and cut the bike out front. His front door opened and I looked up.

  “Jesus Christ, you look rough, brother.”

  “Yeah, I feel it,” I said unhappily.

  “Come on inside. Lys is cookin’ up some breakfast.”

  I hauled a leg over the bike and stood, my hip flexors and hamstrings bitching from the sex last night.

  I took the steps a little stiff and Golden smirked as I crossed through the door past him and into his home.

  “We figured when you dropped off the radar you went to your girl’s place last night.”

  “Yeah, was gonna stop home and change but man, the vultures are already at it.”

  “Oh yeah? How’s that?” I looked further back down the hall at Backdraft sittin’ at the kitchen counter. Lys set a plate in front of him but was lookin’ at me and Golden curiously. He shut the door and we moved down the hall and into the kitchen.

  “Fuckin’ reporter for one of the local news rags was camped out in front of her apartment this morning.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Makes me glad I went and told on myself before anyone else could do it.”

  I pulled off my jacket and cut and hung it on the back of one of the chairs around the kitchen table before sliding onto one of the breakfast barstools. Golden took up the one on the other side of Backdraft.

  Lys set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me and I gave her a crooked smile.

  “Thanks, girl.”

  “You’re welcome, and how are you doing? Really?”

  I sighed.

  “I feel like shit – obviously.”

  “Yeah but you have to know it’s not your fault,” Backdraft said.

  “The fuck it ain’t,” I said, shaking my
head, food forgotten for the moment, my stomach roiling with unease.

  “My dude, there’s no way you could watch all your shots in a scenario like that. It’s not like you were aiming at a stationary paper target at the range. Remember, I’ve been there. Real-world scenarios are wild, unpredictable, and one of our worst fuckin’ nightmares.”

  “Yeah, well, I wanna wake up,” I said miserably.

  Silence descended on us and Lys reached out, empathy radiating from her eyes as she covered my folded hands with one of her own and gave them a squeeze. She turned back to the pan of bacon on the stove and sighed.

  “So, what did she say?” she asked and the guys looked at me expectantly.

  “That it wasn’t my fault, that I didn’t mean to kill her sister – which, you know, I didn’t but that doesn’t change the fact that I did kill her.”

  “She forgive you?” Golden asked like he dreaded the answer.

  “Pfft! What is there to forgive?” Lys demanded. “Oz did the right thing, we all know that. It was an accident.”

  “That’s exactly what Ellie said,” I said quietly.

  Backdraft nodded and said, “She’s a good woman. A smart lady. You should listen to her and believe her.”

  “She said she loves me, but I don’t know how,” I said.

  “That there are your own issues talking,” Golden said with a heavy sigh. “You’re all twisted up inside with guilt, and I know how it is. Nothing any of us say is going to change that, Hombre. You gotta come to that conclusion on your own and that shit takes time.”

  I rubbed my forehead and sighed.

  “Yeah. Yeah, man. I think you’re right. I’m just not ready to hear it right now.”

  “Eat your food before it gets cold,” Backdraft said around a mouthful and I tried a forkful of eggs.

  “Good stuff,” I mumbled at Lys, who seemed pleased as she set a plate in front of Golden. “Where’s Lil at?” I asked the big corn-fed country hose boy to change the subject.

  “Writing,” he said. “She opted to stay in her ivory tower to get some words down. Didn’t want to overwhelm you or fuss. She gets it, somehow.”