Arrow (Spartan Watchmen MC #3)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

EMILEE

E milee couldn't shake the sense of dread that had settled in her stomach as she moved through The Citadel. The night was supposed to be just another catering gig, another chance to earn a paycheck and move further away from her past. But the moment she spotted Catie in the crowd, everything changed. She’d never expected her to be at the BDSM club’s elite party. She’d heard through the grapevine that she was found and had gone through a year of recovery. Emilee was happy for her; she knew first-hand how hard recovery had been. Seeing her with the tall, sexy man, she was sure Catie had found more than just a second chance at life. She’d found love, too. Love. It wasn’t something in the bags for Emilee. No man would want her after everything she’d done in her life. Dirty. Used. Discarded. Anything but girlfriend material, let alone wife material.

After an hour of trying to avoid her, Emilee finally approached, her tray of champagne flutes trembling slightly. “Hey, Catie,” she said, her voice slicing through the din of conversation.

“Emilee,” Catie replied, her voice barely above a whisper. “You work here now?”

“New gig with Grand Ridge Catering,” Emilee nodded, offering the tray. “Never thought I'd see you here, looking all... clean.” Damn. That wasn’t the right word. Why was she so awkward?

“Life changes,” Catie replied tersely, declining the drink with a subtle hand gesture.

“Sure does,” Emilee agreed, her glance lingering for a moment too long before she moved away. They’d been best friends once. Could she call them that? Really? Were they ever best friends? Surviving the streets, with a needle in one arm or sniffing drugs off a random man’s table, they’d been inseparable. Together, they were safer. Sometimes, they’d even talk about their hopes and dreams, not that either of them was stupid enough to think they’d come true. One hit to the next, it was how they’d lived. She could feel Catie’s eyes boring into her back as she walked off, the weight of unspoken words pressing down on her shoulders. She knew she couldn’t leave it like that.

Taking a deep breath and summoning up courage from the tips of her toes, she turned back and found Catie again, sitting alone. The surrounding air seemed to tingle with static anticipation as she approached. It hadn’t been this way before. They were comfortable together; it was an easy friendship.

“Hey, Catie.” Emilee's voice trembled. “I couldn’t do it, just walk away without telling you that... I'm sorry. I couldn’t pretend everything was okay.” She was sorry Catie had been kidnapped and treated so poorly.

Catie's gaze drifted up, her eyes cold and distant. “Sorry?” Catie's voice cracked, barely containing her anger. “For what? For that night? For allowing them to take me and not doing a damn thing to help?”

Emilee nodded, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. “I was there, high out of my mind. You needed help, and I... I didn't get it.” In time anyway. She’d tried. Damn, had she tried. But she’d woken up in a hospital and no one could tell her anything about what had happened to Catie.

“Didn't…” Catie's voice faltered. “Ran away,” she whispered, voice laced with frost. “You ran when they came for me.”

“God! Yes, I did. I did. I didn’t know what to do…” Emilee's admission sliced the air, raw and jagged. “And I'll never forgive myself.” She ran to get help. Ran to find a police officer. She ran… and couldn’t remember what happened after she ran. The words wouldn’t come out. She choked on them.

“Neither will I.” Catie stood up, her body trembling with barely suppressed rage. “Do you know what they did to me? They kept me captive, shooting me up for compliance until… until they left me. Alone to go through withdrawal by myself in the middle of the cold forest. Do you know what withdrawing off heroin without help is like? I thought I was going to puke out my organs. The pain… the helplessness… the desperation–”

“Please, Catie,” Emilee reached out, a plea in her touch. She did run, but she ran to find help. She was strung out on drugs, sure, but she’d known the desperation of the situation and wanted to help her friend.

“Stop.” Catie recoiled, her voice a viper's hiss. “Just stop.” There was silence, a chasm stretching between them. Emilee watched as Catie’s face contorted with anger. She wanted to say something, anything, to make it right, but the words caught in her throat.

“Look at me, Catie.” Emilee's voice was insistent, demanding attention.

Catie lifted her eyes. “I see you,” she said, each word a hammer strike. “I see you. I see the coward who stood by and did nothing as her best friend was kidnapped by vicious, violent men.”

“Anything, I'll do anything to make it right.” Emilee's words tumbled out, desperate.

“Live with it,” Catie returned sharply. “Like I have.”

“Please, Catie, I…” Emilee's voice faltered. I tried. I tried to get help. The words wouldn’t come out, and even if they had, would Catie believe her?

“Stop,” Catie interjected, her whisper a serrated blade. “Just stop.”

“I was lost too, back then. I didn't know…” Emilee reached out a hand.

Catie recoiled, a reflex born from survival, not spite. “Didn't know? Didn’t know how to call 9-1-1? Didn’t know how to scream for help? Didn’t know how to report to the police what you’d witnessed?”

“I was high… I didn’t know if what I’d seen was even real until days later. But, look at you now, though. You're so strong.” Emilee didn’t say what she wanted. She’d woken up in the hospital and demanded someone look into Catie’s disappearance. The detective told her there was no evidence of a kidnapping, chalked it up to her being high. Told her it was a nightmare, not reality.

“Am I?” Doubt crept into Catie's voice.

“Of course. You've come so far.”

“Far?” A snort escaped Catie.

“From everything we were.”

“Everything we were?” Catie repeated. “That girl I once was is still here, in the shadows, waiting to remind me how fragile this all is. I fight against her every second of every day. Do you think it’s easy? It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever fucking done. Getting up everyday knowing it’s another day in battle against my own fucking self.”

“Yes, but every day, every moment, you choose to keep moving forward.” As she had. She spoke from experience. Some days, she was only one decision away from returning to the pits of hell.

“It’s a choice. A choice I make over and over again. Like the choice you made to allow me to be kidnapped and do nothing about it.”

“I make the same choice. I’ve left that life behind,” Emilee said, reaching out only to let her hand fall back to her side. She really couldn’t get her brain and her mouth to connect. She wanted to bite back at her, tell her she was wrong. Catie saw her run as she was taken, but she didn’t know what happened after she ran. Somehow, she knew Catie wouldn’t be open to hearing any of it.

“Left it behind?” A bitter laugh escaped Catie's lips. “It's never behind me. It's beside me, with every step I take. The memories, the nightmares, the flashbacks… I’ve learned how to deal with them, but they aren’t behind me. They still haunt me.”

Emilee's gaze faltered, pain etched into the lines of her face. “That doesn't mean you haven't changed. It doesn't mean?—”

“I have changed. I’ve found strength I didn’t know I had inside of me. But, change doesn't erase the past. It doesn't warm the cold nights I spent alone in that shed, wondering if I'd die before morning. It doesn’t erase the fear I felt, or the hope that faded. Surely, my best friend has called the police. Rescue will come. She got the license plate number… I waited and waited, thinking you’d done the right thing. That hope faded when they never came, because you never called them. If I’d died, you’d have been partly responsible. You watched evil happen and did nothing to stop it.”

“Please, don't do this,” Emilee begged, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

“You ran when I needed you most. When I was dragged away into the night, where were you?”

“Lost,” Emilee confessed, her composure fracturing. “But I'm here now, Catie. I’m so sorry–” She’d tried to get to the police station but she’d gotten lost along the way. She’d turned and been hit by a car. Waking up in the hospital, the first thing she did was ask about Catie. Demand to see a detective…

“I need you to hear what I am saying,” Catie snapped. “I spent nights in that shed, freezing, convinced I was going to die alone. Do you have any idea what that does to a person? Save your apologies! I don’t want to hear them!” Catie's shout sliced through the growing tension. Heads turned, eyes peered, but she didn’t appear to care less. “Your apologies can't warm the cold nights or erase the screams that still echo in my ears!”

“Please, Catie,” Emilee begged, her own voice cracking, louder than intended. “I'm trying to make it right.” And failing miserably at it.

Catie’s boyfriend appeared next to them, and stepped close to Catie. A silent bodyguard, Emilee understood the message he was sending her.

“Make it right?” Catie's laugh was bitter. “You can't undo the past. You can't give me back what I lost! You think you can step in and simply apologize now? After leaving me to fend for myself in the darkest moments of my life?”

The silence that followed was deafening; even the distant hum of the party seemed to hold its breath. Catie's vulnerability was raw, a wound reopened for all to see. Emilee's mouth opened and closed, no words finding their way out as she grappled with the gravity of what stood before her—a living testament to her failure. She should have fought harder, should have followed through and demanded they look for Catie. Instead, she let the detective convince her she’d been dreaming and let it go. She lived with the guilt.

“Every day,” Catie's voice broke, “every damn day, I fight to be someone worth something. Not just to the world, but to myself. And every night, I battle the demons you helped summon into my life.” Catie stood there, chest heaving with ragged breaths, the remnants of her broken past reflected in the shimmering tears that traced paths down her cheeks.

The conversation was quick, the words back and forth between them. They’d been more than friends; Catie was all she had back then. She felt like the conversation was going nowhere, repeating itself over and over.

“I said I was sorry! What do you want from me?” Emilee begged. She wanted Catie to hear her. Not listen to the words, but hear them. Feel them. Please understand.

“Enough!” Catie’s boyfriend’s command sliced through the tension like a steel blade. Another man flanked him, Catie’s sister’s boyfriend, his own expression grim as he moved towards Emilee.

“Come with me,” he said, his hand firm on Emilee's elbow, steering her away from Catie and over to where Jay, the owner of The Citadel stood by the bar, his brow furrowed in concern.

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Jay said, holding up his hand when Emilee opened her mouth to answer. “But, I can tell Catie isn’t comfortable with you being here. Now is not the time or place to get into it. I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’ll go ahead and pay for your time, including the hours you won’t be here for. I don’t have to remind you of the nondisclosure contract you signed, do I?”

“No,” Emilee said sadly.

“Good girl.” Jay handed her way more than her hourly pay. “Please walk her out,” he nodded to another man nearby.

Money in hand, Emilee walked sadly to where her car was parked in the back lot. The little two door Chevy Cavalier that doubled as her home. She climbed inside and numbly drove to Main Street. Parking behind The Rusty Crab, she crawled into the backseat, pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed.