The Way Home Read Online Free Page A

might be coming around, lowering her guard enough to let him in, he needed her to know the truth. She needed to know who he was and what he'd done.
    “Willow and I started dating when we were fourteen. We were sixteen when she found out she was pregnant. Seventeen when we got married. I loved her so much, and then our son was born and I didn't know I could love that much. We both managed to graduate high school. I got a job with a company that took tourists out for dives. It was good money. Willow stayed home with Junior. We were still pretty fucking poor, but it worked. It really worked, until James got himself in some trouble. Guys were looking for him. They found us instead.”
    Houdini sat back and stopped speaking as the waitress approached with their food. She set it down on the table and walked away. He took another sip of water, looked at Susan. “You okay?”
    “I'm okay. And I'm sorry, Houdini. So sorry.”
    “Don't pity me.” Houdini leaned forward, lowered his voice. “I don't want that. That's not why I'm telling you, I'm telling you because you matter, and I need you to know.” She nodded and he pressed on. “It was about a week before school was about to start. Junior was going into second grade, he loved school. Loved it. We were out getting some things for him and were going to head to dinner. One of they guys after James saw us in the store, thought I was James. There were four more waiting in the parking lot.”
    Houdini spared her the gory details, the seemingly neverending stream of shots and screams. He'd been hit in the arm, somehow managing to drag his dying family along with him to the cover of a car. As soon as it had started, it was over. Willow bled out before the ambulance got there. Junior died two days later, when they'd turned off his life support because there was no brain activity.
    “Frak,” Susan ran her hand over his.
    “I buried them both four days later,” Houdini drew in a deep breath. He couldn't shield her from the next part, no matter how badly he wanted to. “I found my brother and made him tell me who was after him.” He pulled his hand back from hers. “I found them,” he couldn't look at Susan, didn't want to see judgment in her eyes. “I found them and I killed them, all of them.”
    “Good,” she said without even a pause.
                  “That's all you have to say?” Houdini finally looked at her. Her eyes were the same as they had been, slightly sad but there was no disgust to be seen.
    “I think that's all you want to tell right now. I meant what I said, I won't put any pressure on you. When you want to tell me more, I'll be here. I appreciate this couldn't be easy to tell me.”
    “No, it wasn't.” Relieved that they seemed to have gotten through it without incident, he reached out and took her hand again. She squeezed his fingers hard with her own
    “Thank you for telling me. You want to get out of here?”
    “This pizza isn't going to eat itself,” he pointed out. Honestly, he wasn't ready to head back to Rose's house yet. Sitting around waiting held no appeal for him. He'd rather pass the time eating excellent pizza with the woman that he loved, even if he wasn't ready to tell her that just yet.

Chapter Three.
     
                  Susan was ready to climb the walls of the house. She'd thought that things had gotten as tense as they could; she was wrong. Deacon and Vera had both been furious that she and Houdini hadn't tried to stop Adelaide from going to the pack.
                  They'd been blindsided by the argument the moment that they got back from the Walmart and lunch trip the day before. Doors had been slammed, walls punched and things spoken that couldn't be taken back. There was no doubt in her mind that things might have even come to blows if not for the presence of Shepard and Lina.
    “Whatever spat the four of you are having, we need to focus. The Council agreed to us all coming here because it