Colour Series Box Set (43 page)

It all goes black. I might be dead; I don’t know I can’t pull myself back so it’s not a panic attack. The pain is still ripping me in half and I can’t make it stop either. Please let Rowan find me, please let Avery be safe. I cannot let this baby die, rather let me die please rather let me die. Black, it takes me away from the pain and panic.

I open my eyes its bright … bleach … I smell bleach burning in my nostrils. I hate that smell; I hear a beeping as I slowly become more aware of where I am. I’m suddenly chocking on fear and panic my hands tell my stomach is flatter than it was, my baby is gone. Where is she? I start to scream and trash in the bed, where is she? Where is Rowan? Is
he
here?

A large nurse pins me down her elbow across my chests crushing me into the bed she talks quietly but firmly to me. “You’re in the hospital, you had your baby, she’s fine, you’re fine, and she’s with your husband. If you keep screaming, I’ll have to sedate you and then you can’t go up there and see them. If you calm down when I let go, I can take you to them in a few minutes. Okay. Are you going to stop?”

I breathe in and nod at her. She’s rather scary, but I want to see my baby, I want to see Rowan. At least he kept his promise to me. He went with her, he never left her alone.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight that was waiting for me in NICU. Rowan was asleep on a chair, his chest bare and all his tattoos on display. Right where his heart is drawn on was curled up the tiniest little pink angel asleep on her daddy’s chest. She has tubes in her little nose and there are machines and monitors beeping all around us. I hear none of it and all I see is the two of them. I knew right then that nothing in this world could take me from them, nothing could feel like this moment, this love. That little pink baby had coloured the ugliest parts of us with love.

We may be monsters but for now, just for now she was an angel. Our angel. Avery.

I don’t wake them I just sit and watch them sleep, while the tears flow silently down my cheeks. I weep for my baby girl because she can only be an angel for a little while then she must find her darkness, her monster, her ugly. She won’t choose it, no she was born into this just like Rowan and I. There’s no choice for the children of murderers.

I WOKE TO FIND
Lauri holding Avery in her arms, she looked so beautiful in that moment her dark hair tumbling over her shoulders and those hazel eyes with the whisper of a tear in the corner. Our little girl was dressed and the sweet little pink bundle stood out against the black and red of her skin something soft against her hardness. I don’t know why it works that way but in an instant I knew that I would kill anyone who tried to harm them. My monster would not be controlled where they are concerned.

It was two weeks before we were allowed to take her home from the hospital and they seemed to be the longest two weeks of my entire life. Robin and Amya were fixtures at the hospital taking shifts to be with us around the clock. As hard as know it was for Amya, I saw something awaken in her when she held Avery, a piece of her that had died with her little boy so long ago. This little girl is healing so many hurts just by being here. I never wanted anything from my life, I simply lived each day as it came. You can’t be disappointed when you don’t want anything - I learned that as a young boy. Now, in this time, I realise that just maybe I always wanted this. Maybe I needed this. Lauri and I were meant to find each other broken because nothing could have fixed me like she has. I’m whole for the first time in my life the darkness and the light are all one and I’m something more important than what I do. I’m a father, a husband and finally more than just a bad man. I’m not just a murderer, I’m her daddy.

I sit looking out over the vineyard we call home, I never called it home before Lauri came it was just a place then. Now the colours of the valley and the sky take me away for a moment and I take it to pray. I sat right here and prayed once that god would give her to me, I begged him in fact. Now I sit here and pray again, I was raised a Catholic so I know he will listen to me even though I am the worst kind of sinner. I hang my head into my hands and let the thoughts flow out of me. I know you listen God, I also know I have no right to ask you for anything, but I’m going to ask you anyway. Please let me be enough, let me be enough for the both of them. You’re given them to me and I will protect them, love them and give them the world but please let me be enough. I won’t be able to live without them.

There are very few things in the world that can make me smile, and I mean smile from the inside out. Seeing my wife being a mom to our baby is one of them. Her sweet little hands against the canvas that is painted on my skin is another. The only other time my soul smiles like this is when I kill someone, when I watch the life drain from them and the spark leaves their eyes dull and I know I did that. I made a promise to my wife when I taught her to take that same pleasure; I promised that I would teach Avery too. That when she was old enough to know who we are she would not be hidden or protected, she will be made fierce and strong. I want so savour the gentle time while I can. The innocent times need to last as long as we can possibly make them.

I feel tides turning and things changing in our world and I fear that things may not be as they are for long. I fear Callum’s silence and the fact that his business here has all but disappeared. I fear deep in my soul that he was right about us staying hidden from the families that control the underworld back home. I know that both Lauri and Avery would be targets, I’m a ghost no one knows what happened to that lad, only Mick and Callum knew. I need to keep us all safe but the burning in my gut tells me that we won’t be safe here forever. I miss Callum; I miss that I could talk to him when I felt like this, this darkness that has no light. I know I have Robin but he chose to bury his monster and I cannot unload mine on him. He knows who we are and what we do but he wants no part of this life for himself. He was not born a monster he chose it, and then he chose to let it go again. I don’t have that choice.

I need to do something, anything, my thoughts are driving me crazy I’m becoming obsessed with having them in my sights all the time that if I just blink they’ll be gone and I’ll be alone again. I need to go and do something, I need to work. I shuffle through my inbox and there are a few jobs waiting after the two weeks I have spent doing nothing and I pick one at random and start getting myself ready when Lauri’s head appears around the corner. My eyes meet hers and she is smiling at me. “I was coming in here to ask you to please go kill someone. You’re driving me a little crazy, I promise I won’t break her while you’re gone.” She tells me with mock sarcasm. I love that she knows exactly what I need right now. I feel guilty leaving them, which is something new but I need this right now. Lauri comes in and plants a kiss on my cheek. “Go Rowan, I love you. It’s alright that you need this. I need it too.”

As the sun goes down over the ocean to my left, I’m filled with sense of dread, I never feel this way about work. Tonight something is off. My head is not in the right place. It’s at home with my girls. Fuck, how can I need this and them so much that I cannot separate the parts of me anymore? I shake my head and focus on the road and the job. Just get it done Rowan, and go home.

I fucking hate feelings; this was so easy when I had none at all.

ROWAN HASN’T BEEN
gone long when I put Avery in her crib to sleep. Peace and quiet. No visitors, no one but me tonight. I go out onto the patio and breathe. I just breathe in the cold night air it fills my lungs almost burning in them. I needed a moment - just a small bite of time - where I could just be silent and still. The last two weeks have been hard on Rowan and I, but it’s over. Our baby is home safe and despite all my fears and insecurities I can be a mom. Rowan being a dad has just made him even sexier in my eyes, he loves that sweet little pink bundle so much I see it in his eyes. The storm is all but gone form the blue when he looks at her.

I close my eyes for a few minutes. I’m so tired, but I don’t want to sleep just yet.

I sit there with my eyes closed for a long while replaying the arrival of Avery in our lives. It turns out animal sex after murder induces labour for any ladies wanting to get the show on the road. It’s funny to us now but that night it was nothing but fear that I felt. The cold icy grip of fear had taken hold of every part of me and I had a panic attack while in labour so I missed the moment that she entered this world. I feel my scar it’s still sore and tender to touch but it makes it all real. I’m not afraid of pain, I’m afraid of many things but pain is not one of them.

I’m deep in my own mind when I hear it, I feel the whisper of the words on my cheek and there my fear is. “Hello, Little One.” I don’t have time to panic; my eyes fly open to the fucking devil standing in front of me. I know why he is here; he said he would come for me. I’m torn between fighting him and going quietly when he speaks again. “If you fight me Little One, I will kill him and the baby too, if you just go quietly and let me end this I will walk away after and they live.”

He made my mind up for me. I won’t fight him; I love Rowan and Avery too much to place them in any danger. I won’t have their souls on my conscience. I know he’ll leave them alone, he prides himself on keeping promises. So I look him in his dark devil eyes and make him say it “Promise me, you will leave them alone.” He’s smiling, an evil smile I know in all the worst parts of my mind. “You know I keep my word Little One, so yes, I promise.” I nod at him and say silent prayer in my head. Please let Rowan come home don’t leave her all alone for long. Please forgive me for the monster in my soul and please make sure that this man pays for his sins too. Let this be quick I am done. I know that I have loved, and that I was loved more than I ever deserved to be. I know that Rowan will be broken, but I also know that Avery will heal him. Thank you for letting Rowan be mine. He set me free; I am ready to die this time. God I will die so that they can be safe from this devil.

I see the distaste on his face at the sight of my tattoos. He no longer sees me as something he wants only as an object that needs to be eliminated. I stare right into the barrel of his gun. And I know it’s the end. I breathe in one last lung full of the air around me all I get is his smell and I wish I hadn’t breathed at all. The cracking noise deafens me first, and then the searing burning pain rips through me. Then … black. It takes me quickly.