The tension in the small group had just heightened by ten. I looked to Eagle who pressed a kiss to my forehead before stepping back. “Go get your sister,” he told me, not as an order, but as a request, so I was not involved in this conversation.
“We’ll be discussing this later, yes?” I asked, refusing to move until he told me that he would share with me what was going on.
The corner of his mouth kicked up just slightly. “Yes, we’ll talk about it later.”
Satisfied, I nodded and made my way through the entranceway, jumping a little when the door was shut sharply behind me. I rushed down the hall and into the living room where I had to pause for a moment and stifle a giggle.
Emerald looked up just as she was stuffing her mouth with a hand full of Doritos. She gasped when she saw me, tossing the chips in the air and leaping from the sofa. “Sky!” She grinned as she plowed into me. It took me a second to realize that she had called me by the name I’d chosen when I left the Colony, and not sister or Sapphire.
That alone brought tears to my eyes. I tried to swallow back the burning in my throat, not wanting her to see me upset, but Emerald being Emerald she noticed right away. “Oh no, I have made you sad?”
I shook my head back and forth, laughter spilling from my mouth. “No, you have made me very happy.” I pulled her in and hugged her to my chest, tickling her under the arms and making her giggle like I used to when we were young. “I have something amazing to tell you,” I said to her once I found my composure again and pulled back.
Her eyes lit up with wonder. “Tell me!”
I couldn’t fight the smile on my face that just grew wider and wider. “Eagle and I, we are together now, and I’d really like it if you’d come to the clubhouse and stay with us.”
I didn’t want to explain to her the rumors about Abel and the Militia, the last thing I wanted was for her to be scared.
Her mouth fell open, and her smile lit up her face. “I am so happy for you,” she gushed. “I hope that one day I can find someone who I choose to be in a relationship with, who makes me happy, too.”
I hadn’t spoken too much to Emerald about Eagle, but we had grown up together, and we could read each other like a book. The few times that Eagle had dropped me off to visit with her, he had always made an effort to come in and say hello and ask how she was. That just showed what kind of man he was right there.
Even when we were still figuring out how we felt about each other and things were still strange and new, he stepped out of his shell, the one he used to keep others away, and made an effort to be polite to the person who was most important to me.
“The clubhouse still makes me nervous,” she confided as we walked down the hallway to her room. “Is Deacon okay with me leaving? He has been so lovely, I will miss him. Will I still be allowed to see him?”
“Yes, of course, you may see him, and I’m sure he will be happy that you and I can be together again,” I told her, hugging her closely to my body. “The people at the clubhouse will be very respectful, I promise.”
At that point, I’d forced myself to not think about where things would go next. Emerald couldn’t live at the clubhouse forever, and things were still changing. I would have a place to live, but the club would no longer be paying my school fees.
I forced those thoughts to the back of my brain as I helped her to pack her things.
Everything would be okay.
I knew it would.
I had my sister back, and I had Eagle beside me.
Abel could come at us, but he was about to get a lesson in true family and just what that meant.