Unfinished Hero 02 Creed(52)

I turned away and sucked back beer.

“Sylvie,” he called when he finished laughing.

“What?” I answered the window.

“Look at me.”

I looked at him.

His eyes moved over my face then his hand came up to rest against the side of my head and his thumb moved over my face as he watched it. Then his hand slid down my neck, my chest to press flat where my heart was beating.

“Some people get to live life. Some people survive it. We’re survivors. We can carve out our pieces of happy, and, I swear to God, baby, right now, you got my vow, for you and for me, the rest of our lives, I’ll bust my ass to carve our piece of happy. But we’re foolin’ ourselves if we think we can set aside the shit that happened to us, the shit done to us, the shit we’ve done, and move on. It’ll be with us forever. We just gotta learn to live with it. We bury it, deny it or pretend it isn’t there, we’re fucked. It’ll surface and tear us to shreds. We acknowledge it and keep on keepin’ the fuck on, we’ll be good.”

“You hurt a good woman,” I noted cautiously.

“Not then but now, I’m glad it happened and it’s done. Because, if I was still tied to her when I got up here and found you, I’d get untied. Doesn’t say much about me but I’ve come to terms with the asshole I am. What it does say, is what you mean to me. So, it’s good it happened and it’s over. I’ll hang onto that as I carry that weight.”

That was as beautiful as it was horrible.

Life.

Or life as Creed and I knew it to be.

My eyes went to his throat and I whispered, “I killed a man.”

“You saved a life.”

My eyes went back to his. “What?”

“In my business, I’ve killed two. Both of them, I remember. Both of them stick with me. It is not for me to judge if they deserved to live or die but, in the situations we were in, it was them or me. I saved me. You saved you. I did not deliberately hurt Chelle but I did it all the same. That’ll stick with me. You killing that animal, that’ll stick with you. You may not be grateful that it’s with you but I am because it means, right now, you’re with me.”

I stared into his eyes and said quietly, “He deserved it.”

“Your call. You lived his shit. Way you tell it, I absolutely fuckin’ agree.”

I bent my neck and rested my forehead against his jaw.

Creed’s arm tightened around me.

My eyes to his throat, I asked, “So, what are your plans for our piece of happy?”

“One day at a time. That day starts with me wakin’ up beside you in bed, that’s my piece of happy. I’ll find yours and make sure you get your piece.”

What he said worked for me.

I pulled in a breath.

Creed lifted his bottle to his lips and sucked down beer.

Then I gave him everything.

“I’m terrified out of my mind.”

“Sucks, baby,” he whispered. “But I get that and I’ll help you work through it. For me, we had this one day, that was it, I walked out your front door tomorrow and got shot dead, I’d die happy. And I’d die happy because, even for a day, I had you back with me. Seems I lived a dozen fuckin’ lifetimes knowin’ that would never be. Havin’ it means everything to me. So, I’m not scared. Two things in my whole life I wanted. My Dad back and you. Now, you’re tucked close to me, so that works for me.”

My sun’s rays warmed me straight through.

I shifted my head to press my face in his neck.

Creed held on tighter.



He was chained to the floor, lying in the corner, the dried blood on his face, matting his hair.

Daddy was standing in the room with him and a bottle of water was on the floor between them, just out of his reach.

His lips were dry, crusted, chapped, split.

Daddy moved, toeing the water an inch closer, still out of reach.

“Give her up,” Daddy demanded.

He lifted his head. His sky blue eyes vague with hunger, thirst and pain, he still directed them at Daddy.

The word was weak and it cracked in the middle.

But he said it.

“Never.”

Daddy kicked the bottle of water and it flew across the room, liquid splashing everywhere but none of it where it needed to be.



My body jerked then shot up to sitting in the bed. My knees came up, my hands went back into the mattress and I fell heavily into them.

“Sylvie?”

Creed’s arm was heavy along my waist. The last thing I remembered before the dream was us whispering in bed, me tucked close mostly under Creed like he held me the night before when I was sobbing.

Clearly, we fell asleep cuddled close.

I felt the bed shift with him coming up on his forearm.