Incendiary (Inferno 4)

Chapter Fifteen

When I get back home, it’s almost nighttime.

I hadn’t meant to spend so much time away from my fatherly duties but coming back with a truck full of food and other things I think should more than enough make up for it.

Besides, these kids will have to learn to fend for themselves eventually and they can view this as a trial run.

I honk the horn before I turn off the engine and step out of my vehicle. I may have gone out and bought all of this shit, but they know they have to bring it inside.

I think it’s part of the reason Richter doesn’t ‘forget’ about what we need. One time I came home with so much shit that it took them at least four of five trips each to bring it in and unpack it all.

Skylar comes running out first, then her brother. Something about the way they aren’t looking at me right now tells me they may be hiding a secret or two.

Doesn’t matter.

I’ll flesh it out by will or force and they both know it.

There aren’t any secrets under my roof. I don’t allow that bullshit because that’s how trust gets broken, and I’ve already had more than my fair share of that.

“Once you bring everything inside, come into the living room,” I say to them over my shoulder as I start walking toward the front door.

I get comfortable on the couch, the same one this entire thing started on.

The one that made me first realize that I wasn’t a normal son to an ordinary mother. The one that I first showed Jocelyn how to be a good wife on.

It’s one of the very few things I kept after I left Taylee’s home, and it’s been pivotal in helping me continue being the man I know she would have wanted me to become.

As I shrug off my jacket and toss it to the side, I find myself wondering if she was ever proud of me.

Granted, I know she wasn’t born as crazy as she turned out to be with the circumstances she dealt with and all, but I don’t know. I guess there was always that hope there that when she started acting like a normal, caring mother, it would stick.

But it never did.

And now I am who I am because of her, and I can’t say that I regret it much.

Another ten minutes or so of me being lost in the thoughts of things I can’t—or wouldn’t—have been able to change, and they finally waltz in the fucking living room.

“We’re done, Daddy” Skylar says as she and her brother come to stand in front of me.

“Sit down,” I say patting the spot next to me. I glance up at the boy and motion for him to sit on the other side of me, and watch as he carefully lifts my jacket, folds it, and places it on the coffee table.

“Did we do something wrong?” he asks nervously.

“Did you?” I question as I turn my attention toward him. “It took you both an awfully long time to come outside and start unpacking the truck.”

“What?”

His face screws up in confusion because he knows that they came out almost immediately.

But this is a test and I want to see if he passes.

“What kept you?” I query as I lean back against the couch cushions.

“Nothing. Honest, Dad. As soon as we heard the horn, we stopped what we were doing and ran out to help.”

Gotcha.

“And what were you doing that needed stopping?”