Bitter Burn novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Red Marks

He did not speak to me all of Monday.

He ate what Bridie put in front of him and slept with his back to the room.

At dusk Bridie took her skiff out to check her traps, and she looked at both of us before she went.

"Don't break my boathouse," she said.

The door shut.

The stove popped, and the wind pushed at the boards.

I stood by the table with his phone in my pocket, and he sat on the camp bed with his hands between his knees.

"You lied to me," I said.

"Yes."

He said it at once, without looking up.

That undid something in me, because I had expected a fight.

"Our contract has a line about that," I said.

"I know."

"Say it."

"If I lie to you about something that matters, you decide how I answer for it."

"And you wanted that line."

"I wanted it more than any other," he said.

His voice cracked a little on the last word.

Standing there in a stranger's boathouse, with my father's men dragging the harbor for his body, I understood that he was asking.

He was not asking me to forgive him.

He wanted me to hurt him, and I knew why, because I wanted to as well.

"I'm angry," I said.

"I know."

"If I do this, I'm doing it angry."

"Then do it angry."

"Your word stands, Finbar."

"It's lantern," he said.

"It's always lantern."

I looked at him a long moment.

I went out to my car and came back with the bag I had packed on Saturday night, in case.

I took out the leather paddle and a coil of black cord and put them on the table where he could see them.

"Stand up," I said.

"Collar off. Shirt off."

He stood.

He undid the buckle at his throat and laid the collar on the blanket.

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