in saying you were all just using survival instincts? We’re born with those, right? You’re an intelligent man. You must have read all the studies, the same as I did.”
He had. Of course he had. He rubbed the pads of his fingers over her pulse. That heartbeat that connected the two of them.
“Yes, literaturnaya ledi, I read them. You are correct. We ran on our instincts. But later …”
“As teens? Trying to survive impossible circumstances? You said worse and they sounded worse. Sorbacov brought in brutal men and women. You and your brother did what each of the others did. You banded together in order to find a way to survive, your instincts kicked in. You were older, so they were more sophisticated and more developed. None of you knew if you would live. You got by minute by minute, hour by hour. Isn’t that true?”
That was certainly the truth. Sometimes it felt as if it was seconds. He nodded.
“When you were beaten and raped and barely alive, the others rallied around to save you. You became a single unit to survive. You’re an intelligent man, Absinthe. Step outside your emotions and think about what those teenagers were doing together. They formed a pack. A tight pack. A unit where they each played a part in order for all of them to live. They needed one another. If one went down, they all were going down. They needed each other. If you didn’t know it at that point, the leaders certainly did. They needed your talent and your brother’s talent in order for each of them to survive what was being done to them. What they were forced to do. Do you really think Savage would have stomached what he was doing if you hadn’t helped him? He’s strong. A fighter. He would have forced them to kill him.”
“Maybe it would have been more merciful,” he said, stating aloud what he’d thought so many times. “He lives in hell. He fights his inclinations every day. Sometimes I can help him, but most of the time he doesn’t come to me.”
“He’s alive and that means he has hope.”
“For what? What chance does he have?”
“You found me.”
His heart jerked hard in his chest. He couldn’t seem to comprehend what she said. “Scarlet …” He didn’t know what he was going to say. Hadn’t she understood him? “All those girls? Demyan? I let them down when they needed me the most. They counted on me and they died. Savage was here in our home and you were terrified. You had your own flashback because of me. I was somewhere else, taking a trip down memory lane, and I couldn’t come back. That could happen anytime, anywhere, when you need me the most.”
“First of all, Demyan’s death was definitely not on you. Had you been connected to him, he still would have died and you know it. He disconnected, not you. You’re holding a grudge against Steele because you can’t face that loss. You already know this, I don’t have to tell it to you. You’re too intelligent not to know. At some point you had to have put your emotions aside and studied this horrid event from every angle. You know those men killed him. I assume you hunted them down as well.”
“Steele killed them. Every one of them. He returned broken, a mess, but he killed them all himself,” Absinthe admitted.
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“You’re right. I did look at Demyan’s death from every possible angle. I knew the highest probability was that my brother had been the one to disconnect and I had changed the way things had happened on my end in my mind because I couldn’t face my brother’s death. Someone was to blame. Steele or me. I wanted to condemn both of us, but you’re putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of the monsters attacking the two of them. Even while you’re doing it, my mind is screaming no, we were to blame. It was my responsibility. It was Steele’s.”
“You blame the two of you because you had already formed your pack, that tight unit, and all of you were taught to watch out for one another. Steele has to feel as guilty as you do. It’s ingrained in you to watch each other’s backs. In this case, neither of you were able to do so, it was an impossibility. You both have to let that go.”
On some level he knew Scarlet was right, he’d