Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
“RIGHT HERE” BY CHASE ATLANTIC
LARK
The hours flow past in waves of pain and numbness.
They allow me slight breaks to go to the toilet or to feed me lunch but am not allowed to take the blindfold off, so I have no fucking clue what the design on my skin is.
Knox stays by my side, at least it feels like he does, his body heat flowing into me as he strokes my hair and places a straw between my lips to give me sips of sweet energy drinks.
Jude is pretty silent the whole time, and I find myself opening up to them both, just as Jude predicted.
Tales from my childhood, before Mom was murdered, fill the silence, and I find myself smiling as I recall them, the action feeling a little foreign on my face.
Everything that has happened to me in the years that have passed since her death has left me with little to smile about.
I am regaling an especially funny story of the time that Mom snuck Rook and I to the Grand Lake beach and Rook got his head stuck in a bucket when a loud crash has me sitting up with a shriek.
“Bro! What the fuck!” Jude shouts, and my hand flies to my blindfold, ready to tear it off and see what is going on.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch that, Dove.” Aeron’s cold voice lashes over me, and my traitorous body responds by coating my lower lips in wetness even as my heart races. I carefully and slowly lower my hand back to my lap.
“You could have ruined it!” Jude seethes, and I’ve never heard him so angry before, the sound of his fury like that of hundreds of ant bites.
“Stand aside, Knox,” Aeron orders, and I realize Knox must be in front of me, protecting me. My brows furrow as I wait for Knox to do as he’s bidden. “Don’t fucking test me right now. Move. Aside.”
A rush of cool air hits my front a moment later, and I can feel my whole body stiffen, awaiting Aeron’s wrath.
My nostrils flare with annoyance that I can’t fucking see anything, but I daren’t anger him further, my hands clenching into fists in my lap, and I’m practically biting my tongue to hold in any harsh words that want to escape.
I jump when fingertips brush my cheek, my inhale sharp as they run down the side of my neck, then along the sore, freshly-inked skin across my chest.
“How long?” Aeron whispers, and I shake my head slightly as I try to work out what he’s asking.
“How long what, Devil Man?” I murmur back, something keeping me from making my voice any louder, fear making my stomach knot.
“How long has your father been letting his men rape you?”
I flinch back, my heart racing as my whole body trembles. Phantom hands try to grasp me, and I have to concentrate hard on not hyperventilating, his words tearing at my insides. I struggle to push the memories back into their tiny box and lock it tight.
“What are you fucking talking about?” Jude asks, his voice soft and hollow sounding.
“Answer the question, Dove,” Aeron commands, and I’m so thrown by my sordid home situation finally coming to light, of them discovering just how damaged I am, that I answer.
“Since the day after my twelfth birthday. The day after…”
“We killed your mom,” Aeron supplies in a tone completely devoid of emotion, and I nod. His hand turns to a fist against my collarbone, pressing into the stinging flesh, and I brace myself for the blow, but it comes in a different, more confusing and devastating form as he speaks again.
“No man will ever touch you without your consent again, Dove. That is a fucking promise.”
“And we will tear apart every man who has dared to touch you,” Tarl adds, his voice close, and I startle at the darkness which laces his tone. It reminds me of being trapped in the cell a few doors down, full of hopeless despair.
“How can you promise that?” I question them, my voice small and frightened sounding. I fucking hate it. A sigh escapes my lips when a palm cups my cheek, and a forehead presses against mine. The scent of clean cotton, vanilla, and sandalwood tells me it’s Aeron.
“Because we are the motherfucking Tailors, and no one touches or hurts, what belongs to us.”
I’m left speechless as he presses a light kiss to my lips, and then cool air hits me once more as his body heat no longer reaches me. His steps sound across the floor, followed by his light tread up the stairs.
“Lie back down, Nightingale,” Jude softly orders, and a large hand—Knox’s, I think by the callouses—helps me to lie back, grasping my elbow.
Tears sting my eyes, forcing their way past my closed lids and soaking into the silky fabric, and I can’t seem to swallow past the lump in my throat.
“It’s okay, Little Bird,” Knox soothes, taking my hand in his and interlacing our fingers. “You will never be alone again. We’ll always be here to protect you.”
A sob escapes past my lips, and once that’s out, I can’t seem to stop the flood of grief that washes over me like a waterfall. I grip Knox’s hand tightly as I let it all pour out of me for the first time since that awful day.
My mother had just died, shot down at my twelfth birthday party when she’d taken Rook and I to the local diner to get burgers and milkshakes.
Not much of a party, but enough for me as we got so few happy times, always under the thumb of my tyrannical cunt of a father.
We were just leaving, and I remember the loud sound of a car backfiring, only my mom fell forward onto the asphalt, red spreading in a puddle around her.
I held her as she died, begging for help, but they came too late, and I watched as the light left her eyes, her mumbled words of love faint.
I was numb as my sperm donor drove us home, unsurprised when he locked me in my room.
Her death was my fault. After all, we wouldn’t have been at the diner if it wasn’t for my birthday.
They left me alone in my blood-soaked grief for twenty-four hours, not even allowing me a shower to wash the stain of my sin off.
I remember the feeling of relief when the lock clicked, my door swinging open.
But no angel stepped in, instead my father’s second-in-command, Sherman. A man I’d known since birth.
Only, he didn’t look at me like someone looks at a child. The devil was in his eyes as he told me I had myself to blame, that what he was about to do was just punishment for what I did to my mother.
I come out of the memory screaming as hands pin me down, desperate voices calling my name, but they can’t reach me, and all I see is Sherman’s leering grin as he forces his way inside of my unwilling child’s body, feeling the agonizing pain of being torn apart by his twisted desires.
“Little Bird! Lark! Calm down, baby, please!” Knox’s face appears, only to be taken over by one of the Soldier's faces.
Then another.
And another.
They keep coming, filling me with their lust and depravity until I truly am the broken bird that Jude accused me of being when we first met.
“I’m so sorry, Pretty Bird,” Tarl’s deep melody reaches my ears right before I feel a sharp pain in my neck a second later.
Then nothing but blissful darkness.
I open my eyes, the black of my blissfully dreamless sleep fading to be replaced with the light of predawn that fills the room. It’s a struggle to get them to open fully, like great weights are trying to pull them back down.
“‘It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale,’”
I look to the side to find Jude lying beside me, his chest bare, all of his beautiful ink and tattoos on display. He reaches out a hand, pushing sweat-slicked hair away from my face as he leans down and brushes our foreheads together.
“Did you just quote a line from Romeo and Juliet?” I ask him, my voice hoarse and scratchy, as if I’ve been screaming for hours.
“I’m not just a pretty face, Nightingale,” he murmurs against my lips, rubbing our noses together. “And it’s one of the great romances. Plus, it seemed fitting.”
“But it’s so sad,” I say, swallowing past the sudden lump in my throat. “They die, Baby Devil. All because they fall in love, and their families hate each other.”
“I told you it was fitting, Nightingale.”
“Are you telling me you’re in love with me, Jude?”
My heart races and my blood thrums in my veins as I wait for his answer. He takes my hand in his, pressing it to his exposed chest, all the while keeping our foreheads touching.
“It hurts here whenever I’m apart from you,” he confesses in a whisper, and I can feel the thud of his heart as it pounds against my palm.
“I feel rage here in my soul when I think about anyone hurting you.” He moves our hands down to his diaphragm, to the place that’s often associated with someone’s soul.
Next, he moves them up to his temple. “It feels calmer here whenever you are near. You chase the darkness away, Nightingale. Now tell me, is that love?”
My breath stutters as I think of his words and I open my mouth several times, only to close it again. I blame the fogginess that lingers in my brain for the truth that comes spilling out.
“I’ve never wanted—no, craved anyone, as much as I crave you. All of you. I should fear you, but I’m not scared. I feel safe for the first time in ten years and have had nights unplagued by fucking demons. For what happened to Mom, I should hate you all, but I don’t. I can’t.”
His body quivers, his hand tightening around my own which is still against his temple. He brings them between us, moving his head back so that he can kiss each of my knuckles.
“Whenever I hear a gunshot, I go back to that day. To holding the other half of me as she died in my arms,” he confesses in a strained tone, his ocean eyes swirling like a stormy sea.
His image wavers as warm wetness spills onto my cheeks, leaving a trail of anguish.
“Me too,” I choke out, gripping his hand like it’s the only thing keeping me afloat. “My childhood ended the day she died. I often wondered if she kept them away up until then.”
“I’m so sorry, Nightingale,” he whispers, his neck corded and throat working. “So fucking sorry.”
I take a shuddering inhale.
“Me too, Jude. Me too.”