Read Traitor, Book 1 of The Turner Chronicles Page 72
* * *
"I expected you more than an hour ago." Kit sat at the dining room table. Plates, dirty from a meal already eaten, sat before her. Another set, clean and neat, sat across from her. Platters of food rested between the two plates.
"The food's cold." Kit spooned potatoes and carrots onto the empty plate, looked closely at him, and then added a generous portion of ribs. "You look beat."
"I'm dirty."
"You are a mess. Sometime today you had a nosebleed, and I can see that you bled through your pores again. Sit down and eat. Drink a lot of water. You can clean up afterwards."
Aaron obeyed. His legs shook so badly they barely supported his weight as he stumbled to the table. That last translation had sapped most of his remaining energy. Sitting carefully, he released a relieved groan. "How far?"
"Beech is at least five hundred miles away," Kit said. "He must have transported today because he moved a little east and a long way north pretty suddenly. Since I was following you, I know where you stopped in relation to him. Aaron, you lost ground today."
"Damn!" The table shook under his fist.
Chair flying out behind her, Kit sprang erect. "May I remind you, MISTER TURNER, that there are children in this house! If you must be profane you will be so only inside your own head. You will not pollute this Manor with foul language."
"The children are asleep!" Aaron snapped.
"I am here. These are my ears, and I am your wife. Do you have so little respect for me that you are willing to profane MY air?"
Aaron felt exhausted. "Sorry," he muttered.
"WHAT!"
"I SAID I'M SORRY, DA--uh darn it. Sorry." He pulled his temper in. "Kit, you deserve more than this. I'm a sorry excuse for a husband. I treat you badly, and I--I," his voice drifted away. "I got Sarah killed."
"I did not hear that last."
"I said I got Sarah killed and Ernest and God only knows how many others." He looked at her. Despair and self-contempt filled him. "Kit, I've put you through it. I never meant to do that but I did. I--"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
Shocked, Aaron snapped his mouth closed.
"You put me through nothing," Kit said in a coldly reasonable tone. "You put Sarah and Ernest and all those other people through nothing. They were done to by evil people, the same as you were. Are you to blame because there is evil in the world? Are you the Lord? Can you control everything around you? That is pure arrogance, Aaron. Your arrogance disgusts me. Why don't you just shut the fuck up and get off this pity track. You have a job to do. Do it. Kill that man--that--that bastard. Don't do it because he killed your family. Don't do it for revenge. Do it because it is something that needs doing. This man is an unbalanced killer. He needs to be stopped, and you think you can stop him. Well then, stop him. Kill him, and leave yourself alone. Fly off and kill him."
Face flushed bright red, Kit bent, lifted her chair, and sat.
"I've never said either of those words before," she confessed in a much quieter voice. "I never said them in my entire life. Sorry, Aaron."
Aaron ate in silence.
"Speak to me. Are you angry?"
Aaron shook his head. He was not sure what he felt, but he felt something that he had no words for. It was--it was almost like hope. "I'm not angry."
When he finished his silent meal and set his fork down, it clinked softly against his plate. "Thank you, Kitty."