I went on, feeling it was too soon to dive into it. “So after high school was over and I left Palm Valley, I found out my uncle had a heart attack and I went back to help him on the date farm.”
“Where were you before?”
“Colorado,” I said.
“Doing what?”
I shrugged. What the hell had I been doing? After high school was over, I just drifted around from state to state, working odd jobs. I didn’t have a real life or a real purpose. Nothing seemed tangible until I realized what I had to do.
“I was just trying to survive.”
He cocked his head and gave me a curious look. “And what are you doing now?”
I pursed my lips in thought. “I’m going to try and make the best of it. I want to do more than survive. I want to live.”
“And that’s why you’re here. You think I can help you live, is that right? And what is living to you? What life do you want?”
Though Gus’s voice had a hard edge to it that made me a bit nervous, I could tell he meant well. I could also tell that this might end up being harder than I thought. He was already sounding fatherly, and I had that problem with Uncle Jim. I didn’t want someone to look out for me, I just wanted them to help me.
“I want to let go of my past. I have things I need to get over.”
“Like what?” he asked, but from the way his tone softened, I could tell he knew.
I looked at the cows in the distance, under the wide Texas sky that made everything feel so free. “I want to hurt the man who hurt me. I want to destroy him for destroying me. And I won’t be happy, I won’t be free, until I do so.”
A thick silence came over us like a cloud moving in front of the sun. I’d never admitted any of that aloud before, it had always stayed locked up in my head. As scary as it felt waiting for his answer, for his judgement, it felt good.
Gus studied me for a few moments with those dark eyes of his. “I see. I figured as much, Ellie. What happened to you was terrible and you never had any kind of support to get you out of it.”
That was an understatement. What had happened was something out of a movie, except it wasn’t a movie. This was real life. I was only ten years old when I was robbed of my youth, my innocence, my confidence, my love. My parents had used me in a con to get money from a dangerous man. When the man found me trying to rob him, he retaliated by throwing acid on my leg. He scarred my leg for life, scarred me for life. He took away all the good in my past and robbed me of a future. I never became the person I was meant to be. Instead, I had to become someone else. And I didn’t know who she was yet.
I kept my eyes focused on the cows, trying to keep the tears from spilling. “What did you know about what happened?”
He sighed and ran his hand through his silver hair. “I know only what your father told me. That they made you rob Travis Raines, a man that has more enemies and allies than anyone I know. That your father knew it was a bad idea. That you got caught, because you were only a f**king child. That you nearly lost your leg. That child services was sniffing around. That your parents were going to quit being con artists. That they wanted to give you a better life.”
I couldn’t help but let out an ugly laugh. “Yeah, a life that lasted about a year. I was only in Palm Valley for one year before they pulled another scam and left me there.”
I could feel him watching me, feel his sympathy. I hated it.
“Your parents,” he began, then looked down at his beer. He gave his head a quick shake. “One of my biggest regrets was walking away from them, you know that? I just didn’t want to get involved. I should have supported them. When I found out they were moving you to California, I should have been there for you, and for them. But I couldn’t. I regret that, you know?”
“I don’t blame you,” I admitted. The sun was baking my jeans, but to remove them and put on shorts or a skirt would reveal the criss-cross of ugly scars on my leg, something I always kept hidden. “They obviously would have brought you down with them somehow.”
“But I feel guilty,” he said roughly, and I looked at him in surprise. His eyes were shadowed from his furrowed brow. “Because maybe I could have talked some sense into them. Maybe I could have prevented them from leaving you.”
As damned selfish as it sounded, it felt nice to have this older man feel so much on my behalf. After my parents nearly got caught with their scam and had to leave Palm Valley, I was put into Uncle Jim’s care. But as much as I loved my uncle, his care had been reluctant. I was more of a burden to him than anything else—at least I sometimes felt that way.
“That’s why I’m going to help you get what you want,” Gus said. “Even though what you want won’t make you happy when you get it.”
I swallowed hard in disbelief. “I think you’re wrong.”
“I’m right, Ellie. You want revenge. You want vindication. And I hope you get those things. But the relief will be fleeting. Because you can never right the external wrongs until you fix what’s wrong inside you.”
“Seeing Travis Raines with a face full of acid will give me my life back,” I sneered, feeling an inky hatred swarm through my blood, saturating me. “To watch him suffer will fix everything.”
“Is that what you want from me?” he asked point blank. “Do you want to burn him as he burned you? Perhaps even worse? Do you want to kill him?”
The casual way that Gus said those last words gave me a start. A strange feeling spread inside my chest. “No, I don’t want to kill him.”
I’d been dreaming about revenge since I was ten years old. I never once imagined killing the man—I’d never thought of killing anyone. Death wasn’t revenge; it was the easy way out. I wanted to make things as hard as possible.
Still, it made me second guess going to Gus for help. I’d known he was with the LAPD at some point in his life, maybe when I was very young. I knew that at the time of the accident, he had gotten fired or quit and had taken to helping people like my parents out, with what I didn’t know. I’d been under the impression he had turned into a con artist, just like my parents, only with a few more tricks and connections because he had been on the “inside.” But maybe I had totally underestimated him here. Was killing people just something he did?
He was watching me carefully and nodded. “Take it easy, Ellie. I’m not saying you need to kill him. Or that you should. Or that you should do any of this. I just want to know what you want. Specifically. So I can help you get it.”