“He drowned,” I say flatly.
“Very well.” He casts his gaze back over the ocean, his brow dipping at the sudden blot of red in blue. The boat hovers nearby now, a tall figure shaking a huge net over the side. “Quite the tragedy. Did you happen to catch his name?”
Silence. I don’t know what I’m meant to say here—so unusual for me that I just chew on dry balls of words.
“He said he was my Daddy,” Ash pipes up, all hoarse. “But he wasn’t. He definitely wasn’t!”
I nod. “He wasn’t. Don’t worry.”
Daddy, I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it, I just—I wanted—I’m sorry! The little pipsqueak wasn’t talking to Blood Honey; he was talking to me.
“I know what it is,” Leo mumbles into my shoulder. “He told me his name was Abel.”
Agent Chen wipes the sweat off his upper lip and narrows his eyes. “Abel Hart.” He lifts the radio receiver, still looking down at us. “We have a positive ID on the suspect. Tell the embassy we’re bringing a body in.”
Another agent approaches him with an armful of silver foil blankets. I snatch a couple for Leo, bundling her into them and holding her tight against my chest. For a second, she opens her black button eyes and my mouth floods with the flavor of smoked honey.
“Your face.” My fingertips hover over the angry bruise her cheek. “What the fuck did he do to you?”
“I’m not sure,” she whispers. “I went somewhere else.”
“I’m so sorry. I promise, I—”
“It wasn’t like what you do to me, Aeron. I want you to know that. It wasn’t like that at all.”
And then she’s silent, and a stretcher arrives, and I lay her down on the soft fabric while Ash helps to tuck her in.
“Leo,” he tells her softly, “the bad man’s gone now.”
She flinches. “Asher?”
He lingers, his hands shaking.
“Thank you for saving me.”
“I…” He trails off amid another bout of tears. “He p-put me in a suitcase, and I was there for so long!”
Her cuffed hands come out from beneath the blanket, scrabbling around until she finds his. She grips him tightly. “When we get home, we’ll burn a hundred suitcases.”
His brow dips in confusion; he doesn’t know whether to laugh or frown. “Because it will help?”
“Maybe.” She takes a deep breath as the agents haul the stretcher up, and gently releases his hand. “Worth a shot, right?”
He nods. Steadies himself, sniffing. “Right.”
Somehow, amid our reunion, two new boats have pulled up on to the shore. One belongs to an exhausted and bedraggled Hassan; Ethan staggers down to greet him, and I watch, my arms wrapped around Ash’s shoulders so my heart beats with his.
The thing is, firecracker, I’m not a better man. Before, I was the man the world needed me to be; right now, in this moment, I’m the man my family needs me to be. Sweet logic, however you look at it, only the implications are numerous and new laws must be fashioned. The important thing is…I’m alive.
We’re alive.
At the end of the day, you’re just a savage in a suit.
Always such a fucking bitch, huh, Tuija? Fine. Maybe I’ll switch it up a little.
Maybe I’ll be a savage when it suits.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“This is Kasha Elliot with your six PM news. In an NN24 exclusive on the Blood Honey murders, we can in fact confirm that the suspect has been found, and is deceased. I repeat, the serial killer known as Blood Honey is deceased.