Chapter 18 Maeve
MAEVE
I sat up — my heart racing, my face aching — and wondered if Ethan Todd was making his way down the hall to my cell, if Mr. Skinny was bringing my tray of food.
But I wasn’t in the cell. I was in a well-furnished, brightly lit bedroom.
Bram’s room. And Ray was lying at my feet.
He scooted toward me on his belly with his tail thumping when he saw that I was awake.
“Hi, boy.” I bent over to bury my face in his soft golden fur. “I’m glad you’re okay. I missed you so much.”
He licked my cheeks and burrowed closer. His tongue stung my tender skin, but I didn’t care.
I looked around, trying to get my bearings. I had almost no memory of the trip home from… wherever Ethan Todd had been holding me prisoner. There were just flashes: a fire, a car, a plane.
The Butchers.
I shuddered as the memory of Anton’s blood returned. I gagged and ran to the toilet in Bram’s bathroom, retching until my stomach clenched in pain, but there was nothing there to throw up.
I was in clean underwear and a T-shirt I recognized as Bram’s.
The Butchers had obviously managed to get me in clean clothes, but when I looked in the mirror my face was battered and bruised.
My reflection stared back at me with haunted eyes, and there was a rust-colored smudge on my neck that I instinctively knew was Anton’s blood.
I gagged again, then turned on the shower as hot as I could get it.
It burned when I got under the spray, but I didn’t care. I wanted to sear the memory of what had happened from my mind and body, wanted to burn it all away.
I washed my hair with Bram’s shampoo twice and carefully washed my face, wincing and gasping in pain. Then I washed my body three times, fighting the shame that washed over me when I remembered the bucket I’d had to use as a toilet in my cell.
I hoped to god the Butchers hadn’t seen it, but I knew it wouldn’t matter if they had.
All of you.
I’d meant it when I said it. I knew Bram had meant it too.
My skin stung when I finally turned off the water, but I felt better when I stepped from the shower. I combed through my hair, dried off, and wrapped a towel around my body, then swapped it for a clean sweatshirt from Bram’s drawer.
I was out of luck in the underwear department, but the sweatshirt was long enough to cover my ass, and I pulled on a pair of Bram’s socks, so huge they almost went to my knees.
I felt almost human when I opened the door to the hall. I didn’t have a phone so I had no idea what time it was, but Bram’s room had been bright, and when I descended the stairs to the second floor, the sun was streaming through the loft’s living room windows.
I heard their voices before I saw them and felt an immediate rush of familiarity. It was the sound of comfort and safety.
Of home.
The Butchers were talking in hushed tones in the living room and I stepped hesitantly into the room, feeling like I’d just landed from another planet.
Poe caught sight of me first. I saw the concern in his dark blue eyes as he rose to his feet and hurried toward me. “You’re awake.”
I nodded and Bram and Remy crossed the room. They all enveloped me in a hug, and I was pretty sure I’d never felt safer than surrounded by the three men the rest of the world thought of as butchers.
We stood like that for a long time, just holding each other, their arms a fortress around me.
When we pulled away, Bram took my face tenderly in his big hands. The scar that slashed across his face had never been more dear to me, and I almost fell into the vacuum of his dark eyes. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Probably not much of a sight for sore eyes though.”
He didn’t laugh or even smile. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life than you, standing here right now. Alive. Home.”
I blinked back the tears that sprang to my eyes. I hadn’t cried once while Ethan Todd had kept me prisoner.
I wasn’t going to start now.
“Did they hurt you?” Bram asked.
There were a million other questions hidden in the words, but I knew what he wanted to know.
How bad had it been? What had Ethan Todd done to me?
“I think so. I mean, it fucked me up, but mostly they just kept me in the cell, fed me shitty food, made me listen to Ethan’s rants. And then…”
“The tunnels.” Remy’s blond hair looked damp, like he’d just taken a shower, and without thinking I pushed it back from his forehead.
I nodded. “That part was…” I took a deep breath and forced myself to exhale slowly as the memories threatened to overtake me. “That part was rough.”
“You fought back.” There was pride in Bram’s voice.
“We saw your booby traps,” Poe said. “The chain, the rope.”
“For all the good it did me.” Anton had caught me in the end.
“It did a lot of good,” Bram said. “You slowed them down, bought us time to find you.”
I looked at each of them in turn. “I knew you’d come.”
Bram’s eyes burned like the deepest night. “Always.”
“Are you hungry?” Poe asked. “I could make you something.”
I swallowed against the bile still lingering in my stomach. “Maybe some toast? And I’d kill for a coffee.”
“You got it.” Poe headed to the kitchen.
“Come sit down,” Remy said.
Bram pulled out his phone. “I’m going to call Doc.”
“Who’s Doc?”
“The doctor we use for house calls,” Bram said. “He’s one of the Blades.”
I shook my head. “No doctor.”
Being seen by a doctor who was a member of a local MC seemed strange, but that wasn’t my reason for saying no.
“But— ” Remy started.
“No doctors,” I said, cutting him off. “I’m okay, and I don’t want anyone else touching me right now.”
Remy and Bram exchanged glances.
“Okay,” Bram said.
He pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it over me, then tucked it around my body like my parents had when I was a kid. It was such a tender gesture, and I wondered if Bram had done that for Cassie when she was little.
In spite of the circumstances, the thought of Bram tucking a child in at night did something weird to my body, and I was pretty sure my ovaries were screaming.
Poe brought me a cup of coffee, then returned to the kitchen for the toast.
I sighed when I took the first drink of bitter black coffee, and my head cleared almost immediately. The disgusting taste in my throat disappeared.
I took another drink, then looked from Bram to Remy. “Now I need you to tell me some things.”