Page 61 of Violent Skies

“She was.” Riggs shifts uncomfortably. “For a week I woke up with her sitting right there,” he points to the old chair in the corner, “staring at me. She wanted answers I couldn’t give to her without destroying everything she knew about Koa. So I ate that pain, that frustration, her questions, her digging. She spent most evenings down where the accident happened just walking the street, trying to get everything to make sense. She fell apart, Cress.”

I chew my lip and hug myself a little tighter.

“We both did. And it was a mess of the two of us trying to be strong for each other… When she came to her senses, the first thing she asked me was why I’d let you just walk away.” he says. “She wanted to know why, after everything, I didn’t try harder for you.”

“Did you answer her?” I ask, curious.

“No,” he shakes his head. “But I should have. I should have told her that I’d bring you back to us. That I’d fight to make sure that I kept the family together. I let her down.”

“Will you now?” I ask and he laughs gently like I’ve said something funny. “What?”

“I don’t have to,” he answers. “She knows, and there’s only one thing Birdie loves more than racing.” Riggs smiles.

“She loves to be right.” I finish his sentence with a nod.

“Get up. We have too much work to do,” he reminds me as he disappears from the room. I intend to but my eyes drift to the photo of them. Birdie would be okay. Rafe is still on the fence, I can feel it every time he looks at me. Murphy is just sweet, but that’s how he’s always been and I don’t think time will ever take that away from him.

We can fight now, together, I think and rest my chin on my knees.

“Hand me that,” I say to Birdie who’s standing near the bench. She swipes the wrench off the top and swings it to me and an underhanded arc. I move to catch it and grunt loudly in pain. My ribs are still bugging me and my arm is itchy under the stitches that Cress put in my arm.

“They aren’t very good at being sneaky,” she says, leaning over the hood as I angle my head back to watch Riggs slide his hand around Cress’s lower back.

“Great, so he gets to play lovey today and I’m stuck tuning this fucking cramped engine for the race tommorrow?” I huff. “It’s my fucking birthday.”

“Aw, grumpy.” Birdie teases. “Finish what you’re doing and we can go out for drinks.”

“No one is going anywhere,” Riggs pipes up and I’m tempted to throw a wrench at him to curb the fucking ‘everyone has to do their part’ speech that’s about to come out of his mouth. I turn and take the rag from Birdie who leans against the hood of the car with me as Murphy spins in his computer chair to listen.

“You aren’t locking me up for my safety. I want to go out,” I instantly argue.

“Slow your roll, Rapunzel.” Riggs glares at me. “You got your ass kicked by a booty call. I don’t want to find out what happens when someone your size jumps you.”

“Fuck you,” I really consider throwing the wrench that time.

“I just figured we could have a barbecue, like we used to…”

I stare at him. If she wasn’t here, we’d be doing exactly what we always did—ignoring that any of us have birthdays in the first place.

“Loverboy wants to bond over burgers?” I ask, forcing a smile to my face.

“Rafe,” Birdie huffs beside me.

“It was just a suggestion,” Riggs says, trying to approach the conversation gently, but I’m still uneasy about Cress’s presence. It’s suspicious and no one seems to want to talk about it. Cress just shows up here, needing help after not needing anything from us for years. It’s weird and Riggs knows it, but he’s too busy making eyes at her while we all get assaulted by some unknown villain in the streets.

He’s trying. Let him. Koa’s encouragement rattles around in my brain.

“No, no… it sounds nice. I’d like that.” I swallow the sting of resentment hoping that she proves me wrong but if she doesn’t at least one of us is ready for the fallout.

“Are you sure?” Cress asks, her voice soft and sweet as ever. Everything about her itches at my skin and I can’t explain it to anyone.

“Yeah. Birdie and I can go pick up a cake.”

“We can?” She sounds caught off guard.

“I’m sure you’re just as stir-crazy as I am.” I give her a look

She grins, the bruising around her eye has deepened but the swelling is gone and I can see the glimmer in her iris again. Thank God. For two days we held our breath hoping that she wasn’t permanently blinded from it, waiting for the results from her visit to the eye specialists. But she was given a clean bill of health and we all inhaled with relief.