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Debriefing, for me, was very short. I gave a concise report of what had happened, and since it had all happened within clear view of the others, I knew there would be no tough questions. I was one of the first to go, and by the time I had been to check on Mari and Cathy and made sure they would be watched, Liam was the only one left in the guardroom.
“Done?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He stood. “Are we still on?”
“I’m clear until six tomorrow.”
He snorted. “Just what exactly are you expecting?”
My voice was quiet. “I’m guessing there’s a good chance you’re going to get roaring drunk and pass out.”
He snorted again and crossed the room, going past me. I followed, quiet and only a touch amused when he went to the cellars. It seemed I wasn’t the only one taking refuge down there. Liam, however, went straight to a keg and tapped it. “You drinking or is it just me?”
“If you promise Norma’s not going to skin me for drinking it, I’ll have some.”
He handed a metal tin to me, already filled, and filled another for himself. Then he slumped down on the bench and took a deep drink. “Life sucks, Joan.”
“Right now, I’m inclined to agree.” I sat down next to him. “Can I ask why yours sucks?”
His tone was mocking and harsh. “You haven’t found out yet?”
I kept my tone calm and even. “I could have asked, but I thought I should ask you before gossiping.”
“Discussion,” he said automatically.
“In the Flip Side, we just call it gossip and move on with life.” I sipped the draft, and appreciated the flavor. It wasn’t bad. “I assume it has something to do with drug dealers?”
He spun the cup in his hand absently, staring into it. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why not? I’ve had some dealings with drug dealers if you’ll remember. One of them has a personal vendetta against me. I’ve had friends involved with drug dealers.”
“Yeah, but you’re different, because yours got away.” He took another long drink, emptying the cup, then refilled it from the keg. “And mine didn’t.”
I understood, but kept quiet and let him think.
“I have a sister,” he began. “She’s the miracle child. She’s fifteen years younger than me. We have one other brother, and he’s only two years younger than me, so she came after my parents thought there would be no more children. She’s smart, beautiful, brave, funny, and she’s got a knack for the sword that puts the rest of us to shame, maybe even Martin.” He took a drink and I sipped mine. “She’s one of the few female pages in the castle. Lady knights are rare, and she could do it. She’s got everything it takes. But she screwed up.”
“Drugs,” I said softly.
He cursed. “Yes. Drugs. She started slipping, started missing classes, disappearing for hours at a time. I thought she was just enjoying her teenage years. I didn’t hear about all of it until recently, not about how much she was missing and how often she’d been disappearing. My mother, our mother, caught her...” He couldn’t finish that sentence and cursed again, his voice harsh. “Nearly broke her. She called me, didn’t know what else to do. Maria, my sister, was screaming, saying it was our fault, out of control. I called Joe; he had to knock her out while we raided her room.” He slammed his cup down, and it was empty again. “How did I miss it? How could I not have seen it?”
“Because you don’t look for it when you don’t expect to see it,” I said quietly. “Why would you expect Maria to get involved in that?”
His fist pounded on the bench, causing the cup to rattle. “I’m a guard! I’m supposed to see this! I’m supposed to know it and recognize it!”
“That doesn’t mean you expect to see it in your own family.” I sipped again. “I never expected Gina to be involved. I’ve attended the required school seminars on drug and alcohol abuse, and when it got personal, it never occurred to me that something else was going on. It never occurred to me that her boyfriend was abusive, although I knew the signs well enough to recognize it in others. I didn’t even know her boyfriend was dealing, although I could have asked anyone.”
He stood and stalked over to the keg again. “Yeah, well, I should have known. I should have paid better attention. How could I miss this? I’m her brother!”
“And Gina is my sister in everything but blood. I was around her every single day while you were around Maria much less than that. You’re almost a generation apart and you expect to understand what goes through her mind and know what’s happening?”
“Yes, I do,” he snapped at me. “I didn’t. She’s possibly screwed up her life, and I can’t do a thing about it other than stand back and watch!”
I drained my glass. “I do remember you taking down a dealer today with a very impressive jousting move.”
He barked a harsh laugh. “Do you know how close I was to running that blade through his miserable heart? I wanted to. I wanted to badly. Very few would have minded, and even fewer would have said something. They know. They all know, and they all would have secretly approved of it if I’d killed him.”
“But that’s not who you are,” I said quietly. “That’s not you, Liam.”
He took a gulp. “Yeah, well, tell me you wouldn’t have cared. Tell me you would be able to sit here and drink with me if I had.” Disgusted, he drained the cup and poured another. “You wouldn’t. You have these ethics and you stick by them. You don’t even doubt yourself. You never would have considered killing him, and it probably bothers you to know that I could and would have.” Moodily, he stared into the blackness of the cellar.
“I wish I were as good a person as you think,” I said quietly to my empty cup. The memories I’d fought earlier were easy to find. “But I’m not. I’ve stood in your shoes. And I almost made the wrong decision. I could have as easily as you could have today.”
He studied me, then sat down, listening and watching as I let the memories take me again.
“It was late. I was steaming. Gina had snubbed me at school again, was refusing to talk to me. I’d quit trying to call her, and I’d almost given up speaking to her. I was to the point where I was about to write her off and just ignore her and never speak to her again. If I wasn’t important enough for her to even talk to me, if a few months with her boyfriend could replace all the years of friendship, then I didn’t want to be her friend. What did I need her for?” I remembered the hurt and anger and betrayal clearly. “And then the phone rang. I was worried because it was after midnight. Dad was working the night shift, picking up some extra hours because we were tight for money at that point. Cathy had been growing and she needed new clothes. I was at the house with her and I thought maybe it was him, so I picked up the phone.”
I closed my eyes. “It was Gina. The instant I heard her voice, I wanted to slam down the phone, and I almost did until I figured out she was crying. She begged me to help her, and so I threw on some clothes and figured out where she was and went to her. I didn’t even ask why I was going. I drove there as fast as I could. She saw me coming and stumbled out of the house. She threw herself in the car and Jak came after her. She was screaming at me to go, and I floored it out of there. Gina was still crying, bruised, and her wrist had been fractured. It took me a couple blocks to figure that out, and once I did, I could have turned around. I wanted to. He would have attacked me. I would have won.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” I opened my eyes and gave a bleak smile. “Not really a conscious decision. I was more worried about Gina. I took her to my house first. She told me everything.” I shuddered slightly. “I wanted to kill him then. He had almost taken Gina from me, and I had been stupid enough to miss what was happening. Worse, I had almost lost her twice, first to Jak, and then to drugs.”
He handed me his cup and I drank from it. “Thanks.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he went to refill mine. “I took her to the hospital, and then I waited. While I waited, I debated going back or calling Jim. I knew that I should call Jim, but I wanted revenge and I knew I could get it. It took me hours to decide that calling Jim was the right thing to do. The next day I went to school with Gina. Rumors hadn’t circulated yet, but I knew they would since Gina’s arm was in a sling and in a brace. Jak showed up, still furious. We argued, I shouted for the school to hear that I knew he was a drug dealer and said everything I knew would get him to attack me.”
I had to close my eyes and breathe as hatred gripped my body. “The hardest thing I’ve ever done was that day. I could have fought back, given him a few return blows for the blows he’d given Gina, but I had to let myself get beaten. I stood there until knocked me to the ground, and I didn’t do anything until Jim and the other police officers pulled him off. I vowed that if I wanted to kill that badly, then I wouldn’t kill at all. That’s why I haven’t gone through police training yet. I’m not supposed to pick up a weapon without being ready to kill with it, and I’m not certain what’ll happen if I ever have to face shooting someone to kill. I still have nightmares about...about the war.”
We were quiet for a few minutes. “I guess our stories were similar,” he said quietly. “And we both made the same choice.”
“I don’t think less of you for wanting to kill him. I know what it’s like, and I would have understood if you had killed him. I just don’t know if I could have looked myself in the eye again if I had gone back and deliberately killed Jak. It’s something I’ve thought of on bad days, which is a lot lately, when I’ve considered tossing Charlene into the moat.”
Liam chuckled. “I’d stand beside you and help you push,” he offered.
I laughed with him and we clinked glasses and drank.
“I could have joined the interrogation for the runner,” Liam said reflectively. “It was offered. They’re hoping if we can get him to turn, we can pass on the information so the guards who deal with this can track down the rest of the chain and shut it down permanently. The only chance I’ll have of getting some kind of satisfaction was this interrogation, but I turned it down. I knew that he would be let off easy if it came out that my judgment affected my actions. So I told Martin I wouldn’t do it.” His mood soured and his brown eyes went flat. “They all know. They know that I want to choke that vermin until he turns blue and bash his head into the table a couple times. Maria is suffering so much.”
“Detox?”
He nodded. “Joe’s helping, as a personal favor,” he said bleakly. “Helping her with the withdrawals and addiction. She’s getting better, but she may not get to be a lady knight. It’ll be up to the royal family’s discretion whether or not they think they can trust Maria with their lives and country, and Maria has to be worthy of that trust. Right now, they would have every reason and right to say no.”
“Except I have a feeling that Maria is a lot like her brother,” I remarked. “Which means that she’s someone they can trust. She’ll be okay, Liam, and when she becomes a lady knight, she’ll owe it to you. The guards on this case have a new person to get information from, which means they’re that much closer to shutting this ring down. And when that happens, it will have been because you stopped him and left him alive.” I pressed a kiss to his cheek. “If you drink much more, you’re going to be drunk really soon.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He took a drink. “I’m off duty tomorrow. Martin told me in no uncertain terms that I was to take a couple days and get myself together. He knows I’ve been distracted. I know you hate him right now, but I owe him.”
“I know. I understand.”
He glanced at me. “Do you want to talk about why your life sucks?”
“No. Not today.” I leaned against him. “But thanks for asking.”
Liam took another drink but let me rest my head on his shoulder. “You know, I had a thing for you.”
“Had?”
“Yeah. Still do, I suppose, but I can’t think straight with everything going on with Maria.”
I didn’t move. “I was told that most of the guard has a thing for me.”
“Yep.” The drink had loosened Liam’s tongue. “But Martin still does, and he’s still jealous, so we stay back.”
I was irritated. “He has no claim to my life. He’s with Charlene.”
“Only sort of. She says it, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t deny it either, but he’s not over you yet.”
“Too bad.”
He chuckled. “Joan, I don’t want on your bad side.”
“Yeah, well, I’m only this mad because I still love him.” It seemed that the drink had loosened my tongue as well, although I’d drunk considerably less.
“Yeah. Figured. He probably does too, but you won’t give him an opening.”
“He doesn’t deserve one. I can’t trust him anymore.” I sat upright, indignant. “Where does he get the idea that he gets to control my love life?”
Liam snorted with laughter. “He won’t, not forever. But some of us value our lives and careers, and so we’re letting the dust settle, so to speak, before we venture out there.”
I leaned back against the wall. “Why does my life have to be so complicated?”
“Because you’re a complicated woman who fell in love with a complicated man. Everything about you is complicated.” He paused. “Except for your morals and ethics.”
I drained the rest of the drink in a gulp while my groan echoed off the walls. “Maybe I should bend my rules a little,” I mused. “Get roaring drunk too and see what it’s like.”
“It sucks, and you’re not off duty tomorrow. You’ll spend hours throwing up and wishing you were dead.” He got up and went over to the keg and poured more for himself. “And you’ll have a massive headache that’ll make blinking hurt.”
“Then why are you working on getting there?”
“Because I won’t be able to sleep without remembering how close I was to turning that spear around the other way, and what it would have been like to run that spear through his heart. You, however, won’t have that problem, and you’re too dedicated to protecting our girls.”
“Our girls?” I repeated.
“Cathy and Mari are all but sisters. You can’t see how she lights up when Cathy comes. Those vacations here did our princess a world of good, and she gave Charlene fits when you couldn’t come the last few months.” He leaned against the keg, which I was sure was well on its way to being empty. “Which I’m sure you appreciate now.”
“Immensely.” I sighed and put my head in my hands. “I wish it didn’t. I wish I didn’t love him enough for this to hurt this badly. I just can’t stop wondering what lies he told me.” I closed my eyes in misery. “Did he not feel guilty, or did he just enjoy what Charlene offered more? Am I lacking somewhere that she excels, or am I just not enough for him? Dang it, Liam, I hate him for doing this to me. I doubt myself every day, wonder where I went wrong, if I went wrong, and it’s eating me. It isn’t getting any easier.” I sniffed, held back tears, and Liam sat down beside me, and let me rest my head on his shoulder again. His hand rubbed my back as tears slid silently down my face and into his shirt. “Life sucks,” I choked out.
“Don’t we know it,” he murmured. “Don’t we know it.” He fell silent and we sat there as time slipped by, each of us contemplating our own miseries.