Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men 6)

“That would be incredibly inappropriate,” Tabby said primly. “If anything, Bea could come to stay with us.”

“Oh, yeah?” Eric lifted a brow. “And how would you protect her? Thump a Bible over the head of any intruder?”

“And you?” Seth questioned coolly. “Kill them dead with your stare?”

“Enough,” I said, laughing to defuse the tension. My three favourite people at First Light had never been able to get along, and I was used to the crackling tension. “I don’t need anyone to protect me.”

For once, they all seemed to agree on their derision of my words.

“Come on, Bea,” Eric said on a little laugh that stirred the long bangs over his forehead. “You probably weigh a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet.”

I tipped my chin up haughtily, but there was no denying the truth. I was slender, small boned, and delicately built without the kick-ass curves my mother and sister possessed.

“Honey, you really should have a man with you at home. Just in case,” Tabby fretted, smoothing my hair back like a woman with an anxious poodle.

“I can take care of myself just fine, thank you very much,” I said primly, but the words were sour with dishonesty.

The truth was, I occupied a strange space between being a damsel in distress and knowing enough about the evils of the world to realize my own vulnerability.

I had the club. The Fallen would never let anything happen to me if it was at all within their control.

But I didn’t want men to come to my rescue.

I wanted to be a badass like Harleigh Rose, who’d sacrificed her own safety and happiness to protect her family, like King, who had faked his own death to get his father out of prison, like Lila, who went undercover in a sex trafficking ring to take down Irina Ventura.

I wanted to be the hero, not the virginal bait or the dumb blonde who dies first in every horror film cliché.

Uncharacteristically irritated, I flashed a tight smile at my friends and offered my abrupt goodbyes. I caught eyes with my mother across the pulpit where she was speaking with Grandpa and jerked my chin toward the door to let her know I’d meet her outside.

As soon as I hit fresh air, I felt better. I sucked in a handful of that clean, briny ocean air and leaned heavily against the rough stone wall beside the oak double doors.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

My eyes popped open, and instantly, I moved into a kind of defensive crouch.

A woman stood three feet to my left. She was middle-aged with the soft creases in her face that spoke of natural aging and a full head of gleaming auburn hair that contradicted the former.

I knew who she was instantly because, reddish hair aside, she looked exactly like her son.

“Brenda,” I said, my voice emotionless with shock.

She tipped her head in recognition, but otherwise continued to fiddle with the handles of her large black purse.

The skin on the back of my neck prickled with alert tension. I forced my body to relax back casually against the wall, hoping my façade of nonchalance would portray confidence when I felt anything but.

“How can I help you?” I inquired.

Brenda wrung the handles of her purse so tightly, the leather split over the cane. “Well, I wanted to say I’m sorry, really, for what happened.” A little sob interrupted her thickly accented apology. “My boy…he was a good boy. Truly.”

Sympathy carved itself into my heart, and I winced at the pain of it. “I thought so enough to go out with him.”

It was a small consolation, but she smiled tremulously at me. “We tried for more, but he was the only. Such a good boy.”

I nodded carefully. There were charcoal smudges under her eyes from lack of sleep and probably nutrition. Red-rimmed, bloodshot, and darting across the lot erratically, her eyes themselves spoke volumes to her mental state. I wondered what stage of grief she was in, cycling through what I knew of Freud’s grief work and the evolution of grief theory since then.

When she reached into her purse suddenly, I froze with apprehension, ready to scream out for help.

But she only produced a crumpled packet of Marlboro cigarettes. Her hands shook so badly that her sweat-damp fingers broke the first stick of tobacco in two. A high, thin laugh punctured her second attempt to pull one from the package, but the moment she successfully placed the lit cancer stick between her lips, her fitful energy eased like a deflated balloon.

“Sorry, uh, do you want one?” she offered with a weak smile. “Started this shit when I was eleven. Not gonna break it now.”

“No, thank you.”

She nodded once, then again, almost to herself. “Yeah, well I wanted to have a kind of parlay with you. About this war we’ve sparked with your club.”