Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men #6) - Giana Darling Page 0,109
a fleet of chrome and black Harleys rounded the corner onto Main Street and rumbled to a stop in the church parking lot. Zeus was off his bike before it was fully stopped, looping across the asphalt with eyes only for his wife. Loulou was already full sprint running toward him, hair flying, arms pumping until she could throw them around his neck as she hurtled into his open arms.
“Little Lou,” he growled, too angry and shaken to curb his volume.
I watched as Loulou successfully soothed him, hands in his tangle of gold-tipped dark hair, lips peppering kisses over his craggy face.
When I turned back, Bat was looking at them, then to Amelia, who was sitting up on the asphalt drinking the water Seth had found for her. Even from a distance, I could hear her wax on about Seth’s heroism and her gratitude.
“She’ll be okay,” I assured him, hoping he couldn’t hear what I did.
Bat’s coal dark eyes cut to mine, more eloquent than any words he could have said. This, somehow, at the end of many years of an unhappy marriage, was the end of the road for Bat with his wife.
Then Dane was there, jogging instead of sprinting, even though his face was cast in marble, features fixed in anger. Steele, Shaw, and Tempest made room for him as he stopped a foot away from Bat and looked him over.
“You good?” he said finally in a tight voice vibrating like a plucked string.
Bat reached out to squeeze his shoulder, and I noticed they were exactly the same height. “Good, man.”
The tension in Dane’s shoulders eased, then fell slack entirely when Tempest stepped forward to give him a hug. Steele and Shaw, not wanting to be left out, hugged them too, then dragged Bat into the fold. The group hug made the back of my eyes burn, and my throat itch.
Everywhere around me, scared people were being consoled by their loved ones.
Except for me.
I turned to find my grandpa and saw him with Phillipa hugging him slightly awkwardly because she was not a hugger.
My throat closed up.
Tears threatened to overtake me, and I tried to breathe through the flux of emotion, reminding myself I am not weak.
But that voice was Priest’s, and it didn’t help.
I closed my eyes to count my breaths and my blessings.
I was safe. I was loved by so many. I was healthy.
I was alone.
Instinctively, I went back to the door of the church, needing the solace of its embrace to soothe me. Firemen had arrived out front and were going through the front doors to survey the damage, but I slinked through the back. The back corridor was empty, only a faint twinge of smoke polluting the air. I trailed my fingers along the stone wall, the rough rock like Priest’s strong, calloused fingers. I pulled away, chastising my thoughts for always leading like a one-way track back to that man.
The main chapel was coated in soot the length of both walls, and some of the pews were damaged, but otherwise, it was blessedly intact. Firemen filtered in and out of the now wide-open front doors.
Out them, framed like a disciple of Christ in the wintery blue light, was Priest.
He stood on the sidewalk a few metres from the entrance staring into the hallowed space as if it was doomed to the foulest reaches of hell.
But he was there.
I blinked, wondering if he was a mirage conjured by shock.
The image of him remained, the long, dark-robed length of him stark against the snow-capped street tableau. He was too far away to see his eyes, but I knew somehow that they were pinned on me.
Deliberately, a booted foot lifted and stepped forward. He shuddered as if even this slightest movement closer to the holy place burned in him.
I’d never seen him within a block of First Light, and he was there, determinedly waiting outside, standing sentry as he had every night for weeks to make sure I was safe from harm, even if that duty brought him his own measure of pain.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes again, but this time they stemmed from the well of surging happiness and hope in my belly.
I ran.
Slipping slightly in the wet that put out the fires, stumbling over the uneven flagstones in my high heels, dodging past chastising firemen, I ran out the doors of the church heading straight into the arms of the devil.