Instead, the words I want to say will be hard to get out, but they are true. True to Lacey. I crouch down beside the freshly turned earth and place my hand palm-down on top of it, as though to lay my hand on the girl’s shoulder one last time. “I’m sorry, Lace,” I choke out. A deep breath. Another. How will I do this? How? I don’t think I can. I’m about to stand up, to shake my head and collapse into tears, but a strong hand lands on my shoulder. Zeth. He drops down into a crouch beside me and wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his side. It’s so wrong that he’s comforting me right now, but he gives me strength. I can do this.
“I’m ashamed,” I say, doing my best to pull myself together. “I’m ashamed that you gave your life for mine. In many ways, you were the weakest of us all. You suffered through years of abuse at the hands of people who should have cared for you. Your innocence was taken away, when it should have been protected and cherished. You wanted to give up, but we wouldn’t let you, Lacey, because we saw how kind and sweet and loving you were, and we were selfish. You were a light in our lives and we didn’t want to lose that light…because our lives are so much darker now without you in them. Because while you should have been the weakest, you were quite often the strongest, too. You saw each and every one of us for who we were and you loved us for it. You saw everything.” I break off, trapped between laughter and tears, because it’s true. She really did. “You saw the world in a way none of us ever have. You saw it as an outsider, looking in, and I’m so sorry, Lace, because you deserved more than that. You deserved to be loved. To have a husband and children of your own. To not feel like you had to be invisible anymore. You weren’t invisible to us, Lacey. And even though you’re gone, you’re still always going to be with us. We won’t ever forget you, sister. We won’t ever let you go.”
The sun has gone down by the time I finish speaking.
Zeth has to carry me back to the car.
I. Can’t. Think.
The concierge at The Regency Rooms doesn’t say a word about the blood, mud, sweat and tears we’re covered in as we move silently through the lobby. He looks up—I see him do it—but the guy doesn’t bat an eyelid. He goes back to subtly pretending we’re not even there. This is the kind of discretion you pay dearly for. Not that Zee can’t afford it. I have no idea why I’m thinking about anything as mundane as money right now. We’re all emotionally poor; that’s the only thing that matters.
Everything just happened so quickly. This morning we were going to a funeral to try and get Lacey back, and now Charlie is dead, and we just got back from Lacey’s funeral. Where’s the sense in that? I left the apartment this morning thinking, absolutely fucking positively, in fact, that we were gonna be coming back with our girl. So fucking sure of it.
We’ve all been left utterly bereft by what just took place. And I am really fucking worried about Zee. Not once in all the time I’ve known him have I seen the man like this. He’s just…he’s not even there. He hasn’t said a word since we put Lace in the ground. His silence is far more scary than his dark moods, where you know he’ll tear you a new one if you so much as look at him sideways. There’s always fair warning with those. Right now, with this blankness about him, he seems a little unhinged. Like he could go supernova at any second and there will be absolutely no time to run for cover.
Zee and Sloane go back into their apartment without saying a word. I wonder—I hope for the love of god she can help him through this. I hope he will let her.
The first thing I see when I open the door to my own apartment is the box of Lucky Charms I picked up last night after I’d dropped Zeth off at the shrink’s place. I just stand in the doorway, staring at the smug Irish bastard on the box, too afraid to blink. Too afraid to move a muscle. Charlie dead. Lacey dead. It’s all too surreal.
My phone starts ringing. Not the one I had with me this morning. That one blew up in the car. No, this is the spare I left sitting on the kitchen counter. I pick up the box of Lucky Charms and toss it down the waste disposal chute, and then I answer the cell. I don’t look at the caller ID. I don’t care who it is; I just need the distraction so I don’t snap and start trashing the place. “Yeah.”
“Where have you been, fucker? I’ve been calling you all day.”
Oh, shit. Rebel. “We were kidnapped. We lost Lacey.”
“What? Kidnapped? And I already know you lost Lacey. Weren’t you going to get her back?”
“No, we lost her, lost her. She’s dead.” I can hear my cousin breathing on the other end of the line. Probably can’t think of anything to say. I know I can’t.
“Was it Charlie?” he eventually asks.
“No. One of his boys shot her after she…Lacey…Lacey stabbed Charlie in the carotid artery with a fucking fork.”
Rebel stays silent, taking this in. “That’s fucking badass,” he says softly. This, for Rebel, is an accolade of the highest order. “I’m really sorry, man. I know you cared about her. How’s Zeth taking it?”
“Not too well.”
“Oh. How you taking it?”
“Also not too well.”
“Fuck. Well I suppose now’s a bad time to tell you that Alexis is in town and she wants to see her sister?”