Risk & Reward

Thirty-Seven

"FUCK!"

Calum's heart feels shattered in two at the outburst, watching Shi throw something off the deck before she kicks the railing. He carefully slides the back door shut behind him before approaching her, trying to get a read on how best to help, and failing miserably. She's dropped her elbows to the top of the beautiful wood railing, head in hands and fingers pulling at her own hair. She's sobbing, and mumbling, and cursing loudly in the mix as well.

"Shi." He cautiously rests a hand against the small of her back, rubbing slowly when she doesn't jerk away. "Hey, I'm here, baby." He adds when he gets no acknowledgment from her, hoping that reassurance instead of asking how to help is the way to go. He has no idea how to help, but he's fairly certain she also has no idea what will help right now. That was a lot of information to digest in a short conversation, and it wasn't personal to him the way it is to her.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" She seethes and yells again, moving enough to start punching her fist into the solid wood she had just been leaned against.

"Hey, hey!" Calum panics, grabbing her wrist as dark red spots collect against the wood grain. Her eyes barely meet his as she's forced to turn, broken, lost, and hurt beyond reason filling those sapphire irises he loves. She's crashed into his chest before a full second has passed, his arms adjusting to catch her full weight as she lets it go against him.

"Shhh. Shhh. I'm right here." He coos, lowering his arms to lift her thighs, surprised when she manages to help him lift her fully, her legs clinging around his waist as tightly as her arms encircled his neck. He manages to walk across the deck to a small couch, lowering himself with care until he's sat with her still wrapped around him and sobbing into his neck.

He's not sure how long they sit like that, her uncontrollably lost in her emotions, him trying to soothe her any way he can. He rubs her back, hugs her tightly, whispers continuously how much he loves her and that she's not alone. Eventually her tears seem to run out, but she doesn't move, just holds on a little tighter and so he waits. He notices a few faces flicker past the back door while they sit, Paul, Caleb, Tess, Paul, who he assumes is Jess, Paul again, then Caleb a second time before Paul appears again. Eventually he can tell Paul has taken up a seat at the table just inside, not necessarily watching them, but doing what he is, waiting for whatever Shi needs next.

Finally, when the shadow of the house has grown noticeably longer, Shi picks herself up and climbs off Calum's lap. Dropping into the seat beside him on the couch, her non-bloody (and probably broken) hand clutching to his tightly though. "Under literally any other circumstance, Paul probably would have killed us both by now for how I was sitting on top of you."

Calum is so shocked by what she said that he can't help but laugh. After the way the day had gone that was far from anything he thought she'd say. And his laughter seems to become contagious because she laughs too, not as hard or as long, but it's genuine.

"Let's not tell him about what happens when we aren't at his house then." Calum chuckles back.

"I mean, he probably knows in that way that all parents know their adult children are adults. But we don't need to draw attention to it." She nods.

"Are you okay, Shi? At all?" Calum asks after a beat, crashing reality back down on them.

"No." She sighs. "I don't honestly know how to move on from that information at all. Any of it, let alone all of it..."

"How much of it was new to you?"

"Almost as much as was new to you. We didn't really get a full in-depth run down of what life was like in that world, and we were too young to remember. We knew it involved drugs, and gangs, and gunplay, and it was a violent life. But the strategy and games... the way Paul seemed to be anything but himself once Cam showed him that tattoo. That tattoo... Paul has it too, he's had it inked in but I have no doubt it was once the same one. I didn't know it was the gang's tattoo until today."