Untamed (77 page)

But I know I’ve wronged Duncan, and thinking about it even briefly threatens to unravel me.

The idea of being all alone, of not having him by my side when he’s been there for so long, supporting me…

…and then I think: What about him?

He’s had me there by
his
side, supporting
him
.

He likes to think he’s some kind of superhero who can take anything,
anything
. But… I know him better than that.

He’s human, even if he’s amazing to me. He’s still human. I don’t know how this is going to hit him. I don’t know how it’s going to affect him.

I could sit for hours just thinking about the possibilities, but I can’t descend into that.

That’s… that’s a road that’s now been wiped off the map.

Anyway, I can’t risk my child, can’t risk letting Dad get his hands on my baby. If it’s a boy, he’ll groom him into a fighter, just like he did Duncan.

God damn it, everybody that falls into Dad’s gravity ends up suffering!

I don’t want my child to suffer at his hands.

I want my child to do what he or she wants. I don’t want my child to be brought up thinking there’s only one way to live. I don’t want my child anywhere near crime, the mob, the violence, like I was as a kid.

I can’t stop Dad from doing what he does. I’m not under any illusion here. People might want to judge me, might say that I should have turned my own father in with the mountains of evidence I had access to.

But… he’s still my father.
Family
. The only true thing he’s ever said to me is that family is everything.

In the end, what else do you have?

Me…? I don’t even
have
family anymore. I have nothing!

Damn it, the thought makes me feel weak.

I sigh. There’s so much I could testify to. I’ve watched my father and Frank beat a man to a bloody pulp for not paying back a debt. His body was still, unmoving by the end of it. I was in the car with the inside lights on, maybe eleven years old. Dad told me to keep them on so I couldn’t see outside.

Of course, I just cupped my hands around my eyes against the glass, and watched them. It was by the river, right in the middle of town, and before midnight. Nobody who passed by stopped. Dad’s limousine, the license plate,
M4R1-N0,
was effective signage:
Stay Away
.

The guy lay there, in the winter night, out-cold, when Dad and Frank returned to the car. I never found out what happened to him.

He probably died by morning of hypothermia.

My thoughts invariably come back to Duncan. I wonder what he’s doing right now.

I wonder if he’s with Dad. I know he will have won the fight. He will have looked for me, searched up and down that hangar. He would have asked Dad where I was, would have asked Frank if he’d seen me.

He will have gone home to his — our — apartment, and not found me there.

Dad would likely call him in for a meeting the next day. He’d question Duncan. That’s Dad, suspicious of everybody.

When he learned that Duncan had no idea where I was…well, that’s when the hunt would begin.

I glance at my watch, it’s still on home-time. Roughly twenty-two hours have passed since I left the fight.

It’s only a minimal head-start, but I have a plan.

That plan involves changing who I am completely.

Chapter Thirty One