She felt her heart crack.
A hand shook her. “We need to go.” Tears were cascading down Niall’s face, and his voice was rough. But it was also calm and determined. She watched him physically pull himself together. He picked up Colin’s body, moving him to the van where Uri helped to lay Colin in the back.
Arden didn’t move. Couldn’t force her body to cooperate. She stayed on her knees, focused on her hands, stained with blood. There was so much of it. Red. Wet. Everywhere.
Uri shut the hovervan door. The sound rocked through Arden with finality.
“Get in the van, Arden. We’re moving out,” Niall said.
Arden focused on the security of Niall taking charge. She nodded, yet only moved when he walked over to help her up. But her heart stayed locked with Colin, broken in the back of the hovervan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Choose.
Arden kept her gaze straight ahead, locked on the undecorated urn at the front of the sanctuary. The vessel sat on a tiny table covered with a gold cloth. Colin’s body had been cremated earlier that day and now rested inside. This was all that was left, the totality of his life.
Beside her, her mother sobbed into a handkerchief. Arden’s father had been too sick to attend. That, at least, was a blessing, because she couldn’t take care of anyone else, much less herself.
She couldn’t breathe. It hurt. Everything hurt.
Tears dripped down Arden’s cheeks. She’d yet to figure out how to numb her pain. She didn’t want to, but she knew if she let emotion sweep her away, there would be no way she’d ever be able to lock it in again. She would just let her anger take her to its inevitable end.
She refused to embrace this, the single most devastating moment of her life. It couldn’t be real.
Choose. Colin’s voice echoed in her head, making her crazy.
The rest of the Lasair gang filled the first few rows of the chapel, sitting in the areas designated for family. She felt them like a second skin. Surrounding her. Insulating her from the world outside the doors of the church. Whatever the final outcome, she needed them, especially now.
She felt so alone. There was no longer an emotional anchor in her life. Her safety broken, her family shattered.
Eventually they’d all die.
Wasn’t that what Colin had said? He’d known that their only outcome would be death. He’d warned her. She thought about all his urgings to leave the gang. Wishing he’d taken his own advice. She wanted him back in her life. She’d give anything to have him back.
And yet, she still couldn’t leave the gang. Now more than ever she was stuck. What did she have left without Colin? Lasair was the only family she could count on.
Colin’s parents were on the other side of her mother. The sisters were holding hands. Grasping each other as if they could keep afloat in their grief. Arden was glad for her aunt’s presence. There was little left inside Arden that could give comfort to anyone else.
She avoided looking at them. Couldn’t handle sharing their pain.
She didn’t know what to do. Be something. Do something.
Figure out how to live with no regrets.
The priest walked the circumference of the front dais, swinging a perforated gold ball on a chain. White smoke billowed from the holes. It smelled sweet, almost cloying. It filled the room, making the already insufferable temperature worse.
Several other priests stationed throughout hummed and chanted together in a prayer, maybe a benediction. Either way, the sound drilled a hole into her skull. She shut her eyes against it. Pushed her fingertips against her temples to relieve the pressure. And yet the tears managed to slip out through her closed lids, coating her fingers.
Finally the long service came to a close. She felt drained and empty. Lost.
Arden slid from her seat. She walked toward the outside of the church’s scarred pews, past the yellowed plaster walls and broken stained glass. Head down, she focused on the tiled mosaic floor, not wanting to speak to anyone. She wasn’t capable of small talk. And she certainly didn’t want to exchange empty platitudes.
When she heard her name, she raised her head reflexively, then realized that Niall had cut off the conversation he’d been in the middle of and was now on his way to intercept her. Her heart rate picked up, rocking her chest with dread. He’d been acting irrationally since “the incident,” as he was now labeling the disaster at the factory. Whatever he wanted to say certainly wouldn’t be good.
She turned, hoping to push through the mourners, to escape into the streets for a few hours, or at least for as long as it took to get herself together before she was accosted with demands from the gang.
That wasn’t to be.
Niall cornered her before she made it out of the sanctuary. He looked exhausted. The lines around his face had deepened over the last few days. Aging him. She knew he suffered Colin’s loss as much as the rest of them. Yet he wasn’t broken, not like her. Her world had ended. He’d found a face for his cause. Colin’s death had made him more determined to move on with his plan. As if genocide were a sensible answer.
“Now is the time to strike.” His voice was hard, and he spoke with little inflection. “They’re suffering a loss.”
“So are we.” They were still inside the church with Colin’s ashes cold at the front and his spirit probably looking on, disgusted. Couldn’t they have this talk elsewhere?
Niall pressed. “They won’t expect it. We’ll have the advantage.”
That he was using Colin’s death to serve his needs made her sick. Her stomach swam. She pressed a fist to it, hoping to hold back the weakness she felt. “Niall, let’s talk later, when—”
He cut her off, his hand slicing through the air. “This is it, sis. It’s been decided. I expect you to be there.” He didn’t add that to ignore his order would be her death warrant. She’d end up number one on Lasair’s hit list. “Take a few days. Get your act together.”
Arden exhaled and looked away.
Uri chose that moment to interrupt them. He said to Niall, “We’ve got a situation.”
Niall nodded and stuck his hands in his pockets, affecting a relaxed stance. He turned back to Arden, warning, “Be there,” before walking away.
She looked to Uri, hoping for some words of wisdom. Maybe he’d offer another way out of this. Or at least he could talk to Niall to get him to hold off just a little more. “You’re not okay with his plans, are you?”
Uri shrugged. “He’s right, screw them.”
“It’s suicide.”