Page 36 of Storm
“I know. He did everything he could for me.”
“You know he’d be proud of you, Kenz.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re a great person. He raised you right, darlin’. He’s lookin’ down at you and smilin’ right now.” Now she laughs a little, and it makes my heart swell. I know she needs this. She needs to hear it, and I’ll be the one to tell her over and over again because it’s what she deserves.
“You were really wild last night in your sleep,” she tells me. She pulls back, wiping her face as I look down at her.
“I get like that at times.”
“From prison?”
“Not just prison.”
“What else?” I shake my head. There’s no way I can tell her that. “No secrets, Storm. You said it yourself.”
“It’s his birthday, Kenz. You don’t wanna hear this,” I tell her. Her face pales, but she nods her head anyway.
“Yeah, I do.” We both walk over and sit on the edge of the bed before I grab her hand in mine and hold it in my lap.
“The call went out. Your dad, he called right after he must have sent you to hide. I was closest to the house,” I tell her.
“Really? But you weren’t the one who found me,” she adds.
“No. I, uh, I found him.”
“Oh my God.”
“I got there as fast as I could. Fuck, I was only about ten minutes away, and by the time I got there, they were all gone. I would have killed them, Kenz. Every one of them, if they were still there but they weren’t. I had my gun pulled and ready. I walked in the front door, and there he was.”
“You saw it all,” she whispers.
“Yeah. Every single thing.”
“Storm,” she whispers before standing and climbing into my lap. “I’m so sorry. You were just a kid back then.”
“I’d seen a lot more than that as a kid, but that was probably the worst of it all,” I admit to her.
“And you still see it?”
“In my dreams. It’s like being back there all over again and findin’ him again. Your uncle came in not long after me, and he lost it. The others went in search of you, but I couldn’t handle it. I had to leave. I had to get the fuck outta there.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothin’. There’s nothin’ to say. I want you to know that what they did to him, I’m gonna do worse to them, Kenzee and I don’t want you to be a part of that. You’re not a killer.”
“I can’t sit back and not do something, Storm!” Now she’s out of my lap, pacing the floor.
“Yeah, you can. You can let the club handle this. Let us take this on because you don’t want to have these fuckin’ dreams, Kenz.” She turns to look at me, and I can see that fire in her eyes.
“You think I can’t handle it?”
“I think you shouldn’t have to. You lived through this shit once, baby. There’s no reason for you to do it again.”
“This is bullshit. You trained me, Storm!”
“I know I did. And I’m gonna keep trainin’ you if that means you can defend yourself but this isn’t you. Killin’ people? That isn’t you. You don’t want to live with what that does to a person, Kenz. Trust me.”
