by K. B. Saint
“So when are you going to talk to her?” Nicholai asks as he pulls me into a headlock. I shove him off my neck and duck down to get away with a laugh.
“I think as soon as we get back,” I tell him as we walk into the garage where his car is parked. “I can’t put it off anymore. Hollis is going to break my jaw if I don’t start talking to her soon.”
“Why is it so hard for you?” he asks. “She’s not a bad person.”
“It’s not about her, Nic. At least, not anymore. I fucked up bad bruh, and just left her after everything was taken from her. Even after I found out her grandma died, I still avoided her at all costs,” I explain to him before getting into his car and closing the door and setting the bags I was carrying in the back seat of the truck.
“So what?” he asks once he’s seated with his door closed. He tosses the key into the center console and presses the button to start the truck and looks over at me. “It’s all in the past now. You already know Preston probably told her she has to forgive you.”
“Maybe,” I say with a shake of my head, “but she’s still gonna make me really work for it.”
“He probably told her to make it hard for you too,” he says, laughing.
I smirk, knowing he’s probably right. “I know.”
The music cuts on as his phone syncs to the car and when he pulls out of the parking spot his phone ringer interrupts Future’s “Mask Off” at my favorite part.
“Hello,” Nic says after he answers the call. I can already see who it is on his dashboard.
“Nicholai, I just talked to Hollis and he said you’ve had Messiah out all day,” Preston says, echoing through all of the speakers in the car.
Nicholai looks over at me telling me I better handle this before he gets in trouble. I sigh.
“I had him out,” I clarify aloud. “I was getting grovel gifts.”
It’s silent for a moment before he finally responds. “Good. Get it done.”
Nothing else is said before the call ends the music flows through the car again. Neither of us say anything else on the ride back to the compound. Both of us know what I have to do when we get there and we both know I am going to need all of the mental strength I can get to break through Ruby’s candied exterior.
When we get to the compound, we spot Ruby and Salem walking back to the house from the east woods, guns in their hands. I look over at Nic and I can see his eyes trained on the gun in his little sister's hand. All I can do is laugh as they walk across the grass towards the car, confident as ever.
“Are they fucking barefoot?” Nicholai asks, his eyes narrowing. “What the fuck is wrong with them?”
“Wild and free.” I laugh as he parks. When I hop out of the car the girls are almost to us and the closer we get the better we can see just how wild and free they’ve been today.
“Why are you two barely dressed with no shoes on,” Nicholai calls out, the frown on his face etched into his features sharply, “… and filthy as fuck?”
“Nic,” Salem whines. “You’ve been out shopping all day do not come for me. We were having fun.”
“What? Having fun freezing and casting spells in the woods?” I joke and Ruby cuts her eyes at me making my laugh catch in my throat.
“Maybe.”
Salem laughs and hands the gun in her hand to Nicholai’s waiting hand. He disarms it and puts it in his waistband, holding his hand back out waiting for Ruby to give him her gun too. Of course she doesn’t just hand him the gun though. She quickly mimics the movements Nicholai did a few seconds ago and disarms her own gun. She catches the bullet from the chamber before it hits the ground in her free hand.
She puts the gun in Nic’s hand with a triumphant smile and when he wraps his hand around it she doesn’t let go. His annoyance is clear in his expression and her sass is definitely giving his grumpiness a run for its money.
“Messiah needs to talk to you and it’s probably a good idea for you to not have a gun in your hand for the conversation he wants to have,” he tells her and she releases the gun like it’s fire in her palm but doesn’t take her eyes off of his. “Good choice.”
Nicholai looks over at me and Ruby follows his stare. I look back at both of them for a few seconds before Nic pulls Salem off towards the house, leaving Ruby and I alone for the first time since the Red Room.
“Let’s go to the guest house,” I tell her. She nods silently waiting for me to lead the way, which is the first indicator she’s already changing. Ruby has never waited for anyone to lead her in her life. We walk for a little while before I break the ice. “Do you regret being here? A part of all of this, I mean?”
“No,” she says simply. I think she’s going to be short, but she continues after a few seconds. “I’ve never felt a part of anything this big in my life. I love it here and even though it sucks having all of my freedom gone currently I’ve never been so fed or happy ever in my life.”
My chest tightens at her words. I know better than anyone here how much bullshit this fiery little woman in front of me has been through in her twenty-five years and I feel like an actual pile of shit for leaving her all alone after Cece and her grandma died. She could’ve been happy a lot sooner if I hadn’t been such a selfish dick.
I don’t waste any more time.
“I’m sorry I left you Ruby,” I tell her, glancing over at her as I do. Her face remains hard and impassive, but her eyes tell anyone looking at her a different story entirely. They always have.
“You didn’t just leave me, Messiah. You blamed me,” she counters, pouring the guilt on thick. She sounds so hurt. “For years.”
“I did,” I agree, nodding. “I was wrong for all of it.”
I get to the guest house door before her and push it open for both of us. She won’t look at me as I hold the door open and quickly finds a comfortable place to sit on the couch in the living room. I sit a few feet away from her, the bag from the car still held tightly in my hand. I don’t know if what I got her will mean anything to her, but I hope it will. The promise I made her all those years ago definitely gave us something to hold onto during the worst.
“I shouldn’t have blamed you for anything Ruby, I just made you the easy target. I’m sorry, because you didn’t do anything to justify what I did and I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven but being on the same team again just feels right to me. I fucked up bad.”
“Why have you avoided me the whole time I’ve been here?” she asks, tucking her dirty legs underneath her.
“Because I don’t think you owe me anything, especially your forgiveness and before Hollis told me what …” I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly overly dry, “… how Cece died, I just wanted to not think about all of it. I asked Preston to put me on every job he could and he did, but it wasn’t for my benefit. He always has ways of teaching us and he taught me exactly what always running gets me.”
She looks up at me. “What did it get you?”
I grin at the eagerness in her voice, always so sadistic. “Nothing good, but what I got made me think and realize I didn’t want to run anymore.”
“So even before Hollis told you, you were gonna talk to me when I got back?” she asks, sounding way more vulnerable than she probably wants to.
I nod. “I can’t lie, Preston threatened me, but this is still how I feel. I know what I did to you was wrong. You lost everything and I watched you struggle from a far.”
“You watched me?” she asks, her eyes jumping up to meet mine again.
“I lost you about six years ago, but yeah, I did. I always told myself I did it because I didn’t ever want you getting close to me again, but I’ve realized over the last few days it was because I never stopped loving you,” I tell her and I see the glassiness in her eyes intensify. I know she won’t cry, but knowing my words are having any kind of effect on her is good enough in my book.
“I hated you,” she tells me, her voice strong and defiant. “I tried to hate you enough to stop loving you because you hurt me so badly
, but I just turned numb after a while. I just turned it all off.”
“How did the route you took go?” I ask, and she grins.
“Fine, until Preston.”
I nod, knowing Preston has a way of getting under all of our skin just enough to have us in a constant state of growth, whether we want to be or not. “You still hate me?” I ask and she scoffs.
“I never hated you I don’t think,” she tells me, her eyes still locked on mine. “I just suppressed everything to fool myself into thinking I did and last week it all came pouring out.”
“Preston does have a way with words.”
“Oh yeah, a way which made me want to clip his vocal cords,” she tells me and I laugh out loud. I love the look in her eyes I find when I look back to her.
“Relatable,” I tell her. She nods. “But to show you how much I mean this apology I got you something.”
“You know I’m not one for gifts, Messiah,” she says, already complaining.
“I know. I remembered. I think you’ll like this though.”
I hand her the plastic bag and when she pulls out the folder and small black box she drops the plastic bag on the floor and sets the folder on the table on the couch between us. She holds tight to the little black box as she opens in and when she opens it she stares for a few seconds before looking up at me with tears streaming down her face. “You remembered?”
“I’ll never forget when I made you this promise, Rue. Open the folder.”
I know she already knows, or at least has an idea, of what’s in the black folder laying between us, and she opens it slowly. She pulls out all of the paperwork from inside and as she looks through all of the plans of what we will be doing when we travel back to Tennessee her tears continue to flow.
“Don’t think because I’m crying I’ve lost my edge, Messiah Clarke,” she snaps, swiping the tears out of her eyes roughly. “But this is a lot. I never thought I’d own a pair of ruby earrings worth as much as these are and I damn sure never expected to leave Alabama more than once in my life. Did Preston okay this?”
“He won’t let you travel yet, so I didn’t even say anything to him, but once everything is normal and you have your own place and shit he won’t be so overbearing. We will go then if you still want to go,” I tell her and her teary eyes widen.
“My own place?”
“Yeah, he won’t keep you here forever. We all have rooms here, but we don’t usually spend so much time here these days,” I explain to her and she nods.
“I guess I knew I’d gain some kind of freedom, but I never thought of having my own place,” she tells me. “Do I have to?”
I laugh. “You’ll want to and if you don’t, Preston will just buy you something and let you decorate it and still stay here. He wants us to all have our own places. Salem didn’t want to live alone either, but he still bought her a house when she turned eighteen. She stays with Nicholai usually, but she still has her own place to go to if she ever wants to.”
She nods again, seemingly in thought before looking up at me again and patting the now closed black folder on her legs. “Makes sense and … of course I still want to go. Going to Ruby Falls is a dream I never thought would happen. If you’re saying we will get to go all I can do is hope it’s so. And Si?”
“Yeah?”
She pauses for a few seconds before holding the box up. “Will you help me get them on? I haven’t worn any earrings in a while.”
I take the box and lean in after taking one of them out of the box. I am twisting the back on, securing it in place when she finally meets my eyes again and says, “I forgive you, Messiah.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
RUBY—PRESENT
I sit on the long bar and let my boots hit the wall below me over and over as I wait for everyone to meet me down in the kitchen. I munch on the bag of chips I took from the pantry, the biggest one I’ve ever seen, and wonder what the hell we have to go help Preston with. Elijah got a call from him earlier and whatever job he’s on right now needs back up. So, we are all flying out tonight and while I honestly have no idea about anything they’re talking about, I’m pretty excited.
Not only am I excited for the job, I’m also excited to see the outside world again. I’ve been wrapped up in the world of the King Valley Saints and while I wasn’t lying when I told Messiah I love it here, it’s been a long month of being cut off from the real world. I’ve learned a lot and unfortunately cried quite a bit more than I ever wanted to in my life, but it’s odd feeling at home with these people who were complete strangers to me only a month ago.
“You know Preston is gonna have your head when he gets back,” Nicholai says as he and Salem walk into the kitchen together.
“Why? I’ve been as good as all of y’all shit heads.” I laugh.
“Which is not saying much,” Salem laughs, hopping up onto the bar with me. “But he’s talking about your boots.”
I hold my legs out and look down at my boots. “What’s wrong with my boots? Preston bought these for me himself.”
“I’m sure he’ll be regretting his purchase when he sees the wall ...” Nicholai warns. I look back to where the heels of my boots had been hitting the wall.
Sure enough, there are black skid marks all over the wall and all I can do is laugh. “Yeah ... he probably will have my head.”
I look at Salem and she shakes her head at the naughty look I give her. “You just want him to spank you.”
I shrug, “I mean I’m not objecting—“
“I can just spank you now and we can get it over with,” Hollis says, interrupting me as he walks into the kitchen with Messiah hot on his heels.
“Don’t tempt me with a good time, Daddy.”
Hollis cuts his eyes at me, but he doesn’t correct me on what to call him and heat ignites in my chest at the look he’s giving me.
“Just clean the wall before he sees it,” he orders and I nod at him. “But not now because we have to go. Elijah is already pulling the Expedition around and our plane leaves the strip in fifteen minutes whether we are out there or not.”
Things move into overdrive at his words. None of us packed anything extra for this trip because Preston promises it’s going to be a quick one and we’ll all be home by tomorrow morning to shower but I don’t know what he means. What kind of quick job would he need us all, even me, for?
“You’re overthinking it,” Messiah says once we are all outside of the house waiting on Elijah to pull up. The twin guards are back on post at the front door, looking scrumptious as usual, but they don’t even pass a glance my way. I guess I wouldn’t either if Hollis, Elijah, Nicholai, and Messiah were all around. They can be a little intimidating.
“Wouldn’t you be? I have no idea what to even expect,” I tell him and he laughs softly.
“None of us ever know what Preston has up his sleeve. He likes it this way.”
“So, you don’t know what we’re about to go do?” I ask as Salem walks over to us. “None of you?”
“Elijah or Hollis sometimes know, but not this time. He only gave E the time the plane was leaving. The pilot knows where to take us and the rest is on Preston,” Messiah tells me and I just stand there frowning, not understanding how they all can just get on a plane and not know where they’re going or if they’ll ever come back.
“Preston says it teaches us to only focus on our tasks and live in the moment how he wants us to,” Salem explains, and I look at her. “He keeps us safe and gives us the opportunity to just be in the right here right now.”
“So, none of you ever worry?” I ask, still frowning, and still not understanding how they can just give away all their anxieties about life.
“We worry,” Hollis tells me from across the driveway. “Just not as much as you do.”
I cut my eyes at him but his smile stops me dead in my smart mouth tracks and melts away whatever insult I was going to throw back at him.
“You’ll learn,” Messiah assures as Elijah pulls up. “
Once you believe someone actually has your back, you’ll learn.”
I don’t have the chance to respond because Elijah rolls the front window down and shouts, “Hurry the fuck up, we have to go!”
We do hurry and are all in the car in record time, Salem and I being forced into the very back due to being the smallest. Salem complains a little but Nic shuts her down like he’s always doing and she just pouts next to me making me grin. She’s so cute when she pouts.
The plane is waiting on us when we get to the same airstrip Preston and I used last week and when we get out of the car we all load into the plane with a few guards and as I sit down and look out one of the windows I see one of the other guards from the house getting into the Expedition and driving away. None of us know how long the flight is but we all get comfortable anyway.
It ends up being a fairly short flight and Preston is waiting for us when we get there. He doesn’t look particularly pleased but I can tell it has nothing to do with us. The greetings are short and I stay quiet through the instructions he gives to us all. No one is joking around like we do back home and as I look around I realize they’re all hanging on his every word.
When I look back up at him I find him looking at me already and I feel my cheeks tingle at how he’s eyeing me and what I have on. It’s nothing special, just black jeans with rips in them up and down the legs and a black crop top and a black jacket to go over it but the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like it doesn’t matter what I’m wearing because he just wants it off of me.
“Ruby, I’ll need you with me and Hollis tonight,” he tells me and Hollis breaks away from the group and walks toward Preston. “We’re in the first car. Nicholai, you and Messiah are in car two and Elijah takes Salem in the third car. The drivers know where you're heading.”
Everyone disperses to where they’re supposed to be and I jog to catch up with Hollis and Preston. I’m quiet in the car and I listen to Preston as he explains why we are needed up here. Apparently, there have been some people from Atlanta moving in on territory across the river and starting it’s becoming an issue.