Her Name Is Knight(Nena Knight #1)(104)

He scoffed, “By taking the law into your own hands. Some kind of international vigilantes.”

If that was what he wanted to call it. “I mete out justice for our own, by our own. It’s how we do things.” She thought for a moment. “Is it dissimilar to your Black Panthers? Malcolm X?”

He laughed dryly. “Who said how they went about things was the right way to do it every time? You can’t speak about them. You’re not even from here.”

He made a point. “But their message, their goals, their intent to make strong Black Americans, to give you rights and freedoms, to give you safety from racists and others who sought to keep you under their thumbs. Was that not right? How different is it from the Tribe?”

He shook his head. “It’s against the law, Nena. That’s why we have laws, rules from which we govern to keep everyone in check.”

“As do we. We have rules, and without them, there is chaos. I prevent chaos.” If they’d already gone this far, Nena decided that Cort might as well know everything. “There’s only been one time I’ve broken the rules.”

He looked at her suspiciously before finally asking, “When?”

“When I shot Dennis Smith instead of you.”

The monitors hooked up to Cort began a chorus of beeping as his pulse and heart rate quickened. Nena worried he was going to have a heart attack or the nurses would have to come in.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he whispered.

She told him.

Told him how she’d recognized him the night before when she’d brought Georgia home and how she’d chosen to shoot Attah instead of him two days later.

“You killed him because of what he did to you,” Cort said. “If he wasn’t there, would you have killed me?”

She shook her head. “No, because when I saw you the night before, I—” What was she supposed to say? Was this when she professed her feelings for him? “I felt something different about you.”

“You felt what?” he pushed.

She was struggling. Professing love—emotions—was not her norm. The word love floated in her head, still so like a dream to her that she couldn’t bring herself to say it aloud. She didn’t say it to her family. They just knew and accepted it as her way. She wished Cort could do the same.

“Affection. I feel . . .” She licked her lips. “I care for you.” It was the best she could do, but the way Cort’s face fell told her it was not enough. Her choice of words was all wrong, and she didn’t have the wherewithal to figure out the appropriate thing to say at this moment. Every fiber of her physical being hurt. And now, seeing the way Cort looked at her, as if she’d torn out his heart, her emotional being had nothing else to give either.

“You care for me,” he repeated. “How fucking lucky of me.”

The monitors began to slow, his pulse regulating. “And if you hadn’t seen me the night before? Would you have killed me?”

“No, I would have killed Attah.”

He shook his head at her response. It wasn’t good enough. “But if Attah wasn’t there? If it was just me and you hadn’t seen me the night before or saved Peach from those assholes, would you have killed me?”

She waited a long beat. If there was any time to lie, it was now. But Cort didn’t deserve lies. He had earned the truth.

“Yes,” she whispered, forcing herself to hold his gaze. “It would have been business as usual.”

She laid her hand lightly on his arm, the need to explain overwhelming. “But fate saw differently. Does that count for anything? You care for me, too, Cort. Can you get past my omissions of truth? Can you take me as I am? There will be no more secrets between us. You know it all.”

It was an eternity before he answered. He considered her, and in his look, she saw what she’d seen on the beach. The space behind her eyes felt hot, and her vision blurred.

“Is that what you believe? That I only cared about you? The word’s love, Nena. Love. As in I love you.”

Her heart thundered in her chest, its beats tripling. For a second it looked like he might be able to see past it all. To see what she’d become, not what she used to be.

“But all of this,” he continued. “What you nearly did to me . . . what you do . . . it’s too much.” The crestfallen expression on his face dammed her flow of happiness and hope. Cort wasn’t like the dad in Pet Sematary. He wouldn’t take Nena in whatever capacity he could have her. And the realization was crushing. Of all the things Nena had overcome, would this be what broke her?

“Please.” It was the closest thing she could say aloud to the I love you playing on repeat in her mind. If only the words would come out. Then maybe he’d see how much he meant to her.

His face mirrored her heartbreak. “Your world and mine are too different. We believe in different things, Nena. How can I reconcile that? I’m bound to uphold the law. And you are the antithesis of everything I’m supposed to believe in. But you made me believe in you. And you made me . . .”

His eyes were glassy, though Nena couldn’t really tell through her own. She willed herself to stand firm. She knew there could be no other outcome than this.

“You made me love you. Made me think I had another chance.”

She held her breath.