Loving Them

  Quinn threw in a silver chip. It might have helped if I’d read about this before I saw it so I could at least have a sense of exactly what he was doing.

  My tablet pinged, and I looked down. It was Keith’s voice. “What are you doing?”

  “Watching Quinn play something I can’t understand,” I answered him.

  It took a moment for another ping. “He brought you with him?” This time it was Tommy who spoke. They must have been together so that Tommy knew what I had answered Keith.

  “He told me he was here, and I came down.”

  Quinn looked over at me. “They’re going to tell you to leave. You don’t have to. You can stay here with me. You’re perfectly safe. I can teach you how to play.”

  Tommy spoke through the tablet. “Does he seem okay to you?”

  I really didn’t want to do a whole repeat of the conversation I’d had with Quinn moments earlier. “Things are fine. Don’t worry. Love you.”

  I turned off the communication. They knew where I was. They could certainly come on down here and see for themselves if they wanted to. Maybe I was cranky from my lack of sleep. I didn’t know. I wasn’t always sweet and kind. There was really nothing to be done about it. They’d have to know that sometimes enough was enough, as I would, I was sure, have to learn it about them.

  I leaned against Quinn’s shoulder and looked down over it. I’d not really paid attention to the other players, but there were five of them. An elderly woman with wrinkled skin who had three diamonds lining her right ear was way on the end. The jewelry was a sign that she’d lived on Mars itself. They were a hardy bunch to make their way from pod-to-pod on the Red Planet. The three earrings indicated that she was descended from the original settlers.

  Next to her was a man who was too loud and too drunk to be sitting at the table straight. He burped a lot and shook his head. Eventually, he face-planted on the cards, snoring. Two guards came and rushed him away from the table.

  Next to him was a woman in a sleek red dress. She kept eyeing Quinn sideways, even with me pressed up against his back. I hated her on principle.

  Quinn sat next to her, and to his other side was an elderly gentleman, very well dressed. He had ink on his right hand. I focused on it. A scorpion. My heart fell to my stomach.

  Surely… Quinn had noticed it. And then I saw the way that Quinn was blinking too much and not grasping the coins securely in his hands between bets.

  Maybe he really hadn’t noticed it.

  Because if that man had a scorpion tattoo, that meant he was high enough up in the Sandler Cartel that he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, who sat right next to him.

  I kissed Quinn’s cheek. “I need to go, and I need you to take me.”

  He turned to me slowly. “What?”

  “Now.” I tugged on his arm. “Please. I need you. Now.”

  He nodded. I knew, even stoned, if I told Quinn I needed him, then he would help me. That was called love. “What’s wrong, P?”

  “Come on. The elevators.” I was practically dragging him through the casino. I had to hope that scorpion man was staying on the casino floor and he couldn’t follow us up.

  “P…”

  I shook my head. “Now. Quinn. Now.”

  The elevators opened, and there stood my other three husbands. Tommy opened his mouth to speak, but Keith interrupted him. “What’s the matter? Paloma, you’re pale.”

  “We have to go. We have to run.”

  Clay looked past me. “Why are you afraid?”

  “Because the man sitting next to Quinn at the table had a scorpion inked on his hand.”

  Quinn sucked in his breath. “What?”

  “Come on.” I pushed Tommy. Maybe he could make them move. He had to get them going.

  He didn’t budge. “What did he look like? You didn’t notice, Quinn?”

  “I’m detached at the moment.”

  Tommy’s nostrils flared. “You could have just told me this would be too much for you to manage. I even asked you. But fuck that. What did the man look like?”

  From behind me, a deep voice answered. “I’m sorry I scared your wife, Thomas.”

  Clay and Keith looked confused, glancing at each other and then staring past me at what had to be the old man from the table. Quinn turned around. I didn’t see recognition on his face. The only person who reacted was Tommy. His eyes had narrowed, his lips thinned. He wasn’t angry but he was close.

  I stepped back, slightly in front of Keith. Whoever this was, I wanted to see him head on. Clay spoke instead of Tommy. “Do you want to introduce us to your friend, bro?”

  “Clay.” The man shook his head. “I’d rather hoped you’d know me, too. But you were very young. I knew the twins would have no recognition.”

  Tommy rocked back on his feet. “This is our grandfather, our maternal one, Adonis Blaze.”

  The room fell silent. Realistically, I knew it hadn’t. The casino was loud. But all noise seemed to stop with the intake of the breaths around me. Everyone but Tommy, whose tone could best be described as resolved. He didn’t like this. Not one bit.

  “I heard Quinn was quite bright. I expected him to notice.” Adonis pointed at his hand. “But your lady did. I know she’s your wife. Those gemstones on the ring. They’re very old, yes? You must have taken that with you when you left. Smart. Your paternal grandmother left that for you.”

  Tommy put out his hand. “I don’t want to talk about gems. It’s been what? A little over two decades? Why here? Why now?”

  “Your mother thinks it’s time you join her on Earth. It’s time for the conversation you need to have.”

  Quinn twisted his mouth. “Our mother isn’t on Earth. She died in an explosion in midair right outside of Sandler space.”

  “Maybe he talks to the dead.” Keith laughed.

  Once again, my gaze went to Tommy. His face had gone blank, but what I didn’t see was shock. I waited. And waited. It didn’t come. “She can’t have done what she did and expect us to show up because she comes calling.”

  “Thomas.” Clay’s use of his full name jarred me. “Tell me that she’s not alive and you knew about it.”

  Adonis wasn’t done. “Come to Earth, Tommy. It’s time you knew why.”

  “Mothers aren’t supposed to abandon their children,” Tommy yelled before he sucked back in his anger, his face returning to its blank stare.

  Keith’s arms tightened around me. I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and if I was as stunned by it, I couldn’t begin to imagine how the rest of them felt.

  “You could feel that way.” Adonis nodded. “She’s beaten herself up about it every day since. And if you want to think about it the way a child would—and you are entitled to that—neither she nor I would blame you. But ask yourself, could she possibly have gotten away from what was to be certain death if she’d attempted to take any one of you with her? You were never at any risk from him.”

  Tommy pointed his finger at his grandfather. “That’s where you and she were wrong. I did what she asked of me. I’ve done it every day since, and I always will because, unlike her, I will never leave my family. I’m not running to Earth because she summoned me. Oh, and make sure you tell Uncle Quinn we say hello, too.”

  Tommy stormed away, punching the elevator button over and over until it came. It was clearly time for a conversation, but Tommy wasn’t going to have any more of it standing there in the casino. “Get in if you want to know. I’m never talking about this again. After tonight, it’s over.”

  In the suite, I moved to the back of the living room. I was their wife, but these were issues from before we’d ever met. My husbands needed to work this out amongst themselves.

  “You knew?” Quinn asked Tommy the question first. “You knew all this time our mother was alive.”

  Tommy stood with his legs slightly spread. I couldn’t help but think of it as a fighting stance. He was worried about this, as he rightly should be since it was a huge deal. “I susp
ected. It’s not like she and I have had conversations.”

  Clay’s voice was low, deceptively so. I saw anger in his gaze. “Why did you suspect?”

  “It’s what she said to me the last night she was alive. We were sleeping in her bed.” He looked away for a second, finding me then returning his attention to his brothers. “We used to do that, Clay and me. We’d start out in our beds and then both wind up in there. You two”—he nodded toward Quinn and Keith—“you were still in cribs, a big one. You wouldn’t sleep separately.”

  Clay shook his head. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, you were two. We couldn’t do it all the time. When Dad was home, we weren’t allowed in there. The nannies would keep us out. One of them was perpetually standing in the hall to hustle us back into our bedrooms should we try. But that night we were there.”

  His eyes were far away. He sucked in a breath. “Mom woke me up. It was the middle of the night. She woke me up, kissed me, and told me to watch out for the three of you. The next day she died. It never sat well. I didn’t forget it. Over time I started to wonder if she’d known. I tried to figure out if she’d known she was going to die.”

  Keith spoke for the first time. “That’s quite a jump to go from ‘somehow she knew she was at risk’ to ‘not actually being dead.’”

  “I agree.” Tommy nodded. “So I looked up the explosion, half-expecting to see it was suicide somehow. But… it turned out that there was no shuttle. All of it was made up. That was when I realized she was gone. That was the part Dad covered. Better a dead wife than a runaway one.”

  Quinn walked to the table. Then the chair. Then back to the table. His eyes had returned to normal. Whatever he’d taken to dull his senses was gone now. “How old were you when you started to suspect?”

  “I was twelve, but I was eighteen when I figured it out.”

  Clay spoke through clenched teeth. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Why should I tell you?” The second he spoke those words, the atmosphere in the room changed. I could feel it, like sudden and palpable rage crawled over my skin. The feeling didn’t belong to me. It was my husbands.

  I stood, but no one noticed and good sense kept me from moving. They were either going to defuse this or erupt; in either case I didn’t want to be in the middle of it.

  “Say that again,” Quinn whispered his response.

  “Why should I tell you? Any of you?” His face was a mask, no emotions anywhere to be seen. I had only seen touches of this side of Tommy before. Even when he’d been angry or annoyed, it hadn’t been this.

  Clay stormed over to him. “Because she’s our mother. Because we might want to find her, to talk to her.”

  “You don’t get to do that. She’s nothing. Do you hear me? A woman who left us to a monster she didn’t want to live with anymore for her lover—his brother. You don’t need that in your life.”

  Keith put out his hand. “Can I stop you there? Uncle Quinn?”

  “He didn’t die either. Do the math.” Tommy walked over to the couch and sat down. “Grow up. All of you. I didn’t tell you because I never meant for you to know.”

  Clay shook his head. “You don’t really know what happened. We won’t know until we ask her.”

  “No one’s asking her anything because we’re never ever going to see her.”

  Quinn got in his face, leaning over the couch. “That’s not a decision you get to make.”

  “It is. Because I’m in charge. Like it or not. This isn’t a choice you get to make. You sit down and shut up; that’s what you get to do.”

  Quinn threw his hands in the air. “You know what? If I wasn’t half fucked-up right now I’d…”

  “You’d what?” Tommy leaned forward onto his knees before he stood. “What exactly would you do, Quinn? I’d love to know.”

  Quinn stepped back. “Go fuck yourself. Seriously. For all of this.”

  Keith snorted. “You know what Tommy? He might never do what you’re challenging him to do, but I will.”

  Keith’s fist shot out fast. I cried out, but it was too quick. He caught Tommy right in the nose. My first thought was that there was so much blood, and then I couldn’t really think at all. Tommy swung back at him, catching Keith in his jaw. They went for each other. Fists, legs, mouths, they were on the floor. Rolling back and forth. The table fell over, the couch.

  Quinn and Clay did nothing, each one of them standing still as though nothing at all was happening. Clay made a fist. Was he planning on getting involved? He bent over, hauling Keith up and took an elbow in the gut for his efforts. He grunted before he shoved Keith back at Tommy. A second later, he’d picked up a book and thrown it at them.

  This was different than the playful fighting they’d done when I met them. They were angry, and they weren’t stopping. My breath sped up. I knew fists. I knew beatings. I’d survived them.

  The Sisters and the ways they’d tortured me. I swallowed. And then they’d blown up. Was that poetic justice? I didn’t know. I never wanted people to die. Why was I still here? Bounty hunters. Explosions. Kidnapping. Crashing. More explosions. Death. Blood. It wasn’t supposed to be this way at home. But I should know better than that. Sometimes people hated you at home, too. Or they didn’t help you when they should.

  I covered my ears when Quinn threw a glass against the wall.

  Were they going to kill each other? How long until they turned around and took it out on me? That wasn’t fair. I knew it. They wouldn’t hurt me. They loved me. Except they loved each other too, and here they were pounding on each other over and over.

  I couldn’t think. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t take another beating. I just couldn’t. The memories, they were all there. Over and over. Faces. Noises. My father. The Sisters. The bounty hunter. I ran into the bedroom, slamming the door.

  I was sobbing. I couldn’t stop. It was the kind of crying where tears didn’t come. There was no space for them. This was beyond that. I locked the door. It wouldn’t keep them out if they wanted to get to me. Who would be the last man standing? They’d need me gone to cover up the murder.

  Even in my head, I knew I’d lost track of reality. There was nothing I could do about it. Maybe I was dying. Maybe I was sick. That had to be it; when all was said and done, I was going to have a disease that no one would be able to cure. I threw my tablet on the bed. I had to run from the Sisters. The bounty hunter was coming for me, and there would be blood—so much blood. Surely, there was safety somewhere. Why hadn’t I gone out the front door? I could have run for help. Something else crashed in the living room.

  No more. I couldn’t hear any more of it. I rushed into the bathroom. I locked that door too. Would locks work? Could they keep my husbands away if they really wanted to come in? I needed to hide. I needed to not be found.

  I put on the water to cover more noise. Sinking to the floor, I covered my ears, and I waited. For what, I didn’t know exactly, but I knew it would be bad. I was supposed to be safe with them. They said they loved me. I loved them. But I’d been wrong before. My parents had supposedly loved me, too.

  Love didn’t keep away pain; it just made me let my guard down. I sobbed some more, or maybe I’d never stopped.

  I couldn’t have stopped. Not then.

  10

  Banging on the Door

  I didn’t know how much time had passed when I heard knocking on the bedroom door. One of them was calling to me. “Please go away. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone, okay?” I hiccupped. “I won’t tell. Just please.”

  I buried my head in my knees. They might or might not be able to hear me over the water and from behind two closed doors. I almost hoped they didn’t. Right then, I’d be perfectly fine for the entire world to forget I was in there.

  Eventually, I heard drilling. I sat up straight. They were going to break through the lock on my door. How angry with me were they going to be? Or maybe it was just one of them, and this was that moment when…

&n
bsp; No, I pushed away the thought. I had to get control of what went on in my head.

  I waited. Whatever was going to happen would happen. There was nothing left for me to do about it.

  I had to be brave.

  I had to get out of the Sisterhood. Wait, wasn’t I out of there? Something made a noise.

  My father was going to kill me. Why had I done this to myself? Was something scratching nearby?

  The bounty hunter would be back any second, and…

  A light tapping caught my attention. “Paloma?”

  Then the tapping again. It wasn’t any of my husbands. It was… Ari.

  The tapping again. “Hey, hot stuff. Do you think you could open this door? I don’t want to take the lock off this door. But I hear the water going, and if your husbands are to be believed, it’s been going for hours now. I need to assure myself that you aren’t dead in the bathtub. That you haven’t hit your head. Or drowned. If you are okay in there, please know that your husbands are still behind the other door where you locked them out.”

  I supposed that was fair enough. I got up on my knees, unlocked and opened the door. “I’m alive. So you can go away now.”

  “Well, I could.” Ari was seated, legs crisscrossed, outside the door. “But I’m not going to because I’m worried about you. They got violent, and you locked yourself behind two doors.”

  I wiped my eyes. I was good at pretending I was okay. Even Ari, who had spoken to me once about my anxiety, didn’t know how screwed up I really was. “Well, I guess I was a little afraid. I’m sure I can…”

  “Gorgeous.” He lowered his voice. “Cut the shit.”

  I forced myself to be still. “Do you talk to all your patients that way, doctor?”

  “You’re not my patient. Psychiatry is no longer recognized in medicine. We’re all too screwed up. No one is ever going to get entirely better in this universe. Better uses for my knowledge base, according to the boards that manage things.” He got up on his knees. “You’re my cousin since you married my cousins. So, cousin, cut the shit.”