Chapter 5
JESSIA
Iknew this was a bad idea the moment I walked in, but I couldn’t back out now, so I chose a mat at the back of Justice’s practice room and went through the motions of warming up.
My body screamed at me thanks to my painkillers wearing off.
I was supposed to be taking it easy, but after the letter, after Pierce getting into the compound, I needed to feel strong and dangerous again.
Every defensive manoeuvre, every strike and arc of my hands through the air settled my mind.
It didn’t matter that pain shot through me like a star when my fist sailed into an imaginary assailant’s throat.
No, not imaginary. I pictured the men from the Alpha’s Bark.
I pictured them choking on air, stumbling back, and then I imagined driving a knife into their stomachs, gutting them while they were off balance.
I didn’t know who I was anymore, who I was becoming. Even after Pierce, I’d never daydreamed about hurting people, but now the need crystallised in me. I wanted the noise inside me purged from my head, wanted the pain I bore inflicted on someone else. I was so—angry. I was angry?
“Lift your elbow a little higher,” Justice coached, startling me from my violent dream. “You’ll have more power if you hold it like this.” He adjusted my arm with a quick, barely-there touch, like he’d done a dozen times before, but my stomach twisted.
Nausea swirled through me. I yanked my arm back, fear hitting me like a fist, and the urge to purr, to soothe, to save myself rose so swiftly that I hated it.
I hated this purr, and the stupid urge that spiked every time I was afraid.
I throttled the sound in my throat, shoved it down, and Justice backed up with a reassuring smile and a knot in his brow.
He was too perceptive, too understanding, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.
He was remembering that I’d been kidnapped and assaulted and locked in a grimy, stinking basement, helpless and powerless until the Knights arrived.
All the self defence classes in the world wouldn’t have saved me.
But here I was, trying to remember what it felt like to be strong when the rage had been ripped away like a veil, and I couldn’t feel anything at all.
“Do you need to take a break?” Justice asked quietly enough that only I would hear, those kind eyes pretending not to see my mind cracking apart.
I parted my lips to tell him I was fine.
But I couldn’t handle the thought of touching anyone, or anyone touching me, and this was only the warm up.
If I couldn’t do this, I couldn’t spar, couldn’t even practise defensive moves.
So I nodded and slipped out of the room without putting my mat away like I normally did.
Sweat ran down the back of my neck, tickling the flat space between my shoulder blades, and it almost felt like a rough hand pinning me down, forcing me to take what I didn’t want.
I walked as quickly as I could stand, breathing through gritted teeth. I should go back to my room where I’d left the painkillers Giant gave me. I slept on the sofa last night; the idea of returning to my room where Pierce had intruded made me physically sick. But now where could I go?
I knew what I would have done weeks ago, before the basement.
I’d have sashayed into the bar in the rec room, found someone’s lap to warm, and luxuriated in the touch and attention.
It was my way of taking power back from Pierce, who made me fear the sound of clothes shedding, covers moving back, and bed springs creaking.
I never knew what mood he was in, whether he’d touch me with affection or vent his anger.
But here, in the clubhouse, I’d bared my teeth at that fear.
I overcame it, and made it into my own power.
Every touch made me strong, every bit of attention showed I’d survived and would never flinch at the simple twitch of a hand.
It should have been the same now, but I hovered on the threshold of the room, listening to beer bottles and pint glasses clink against the sticky tables, familiar voices muttering, shouting, or laughing.
I’d reinvented myself in this room, not Jenna the victim but Jessia the confident vixen who could walk into a room and turn heads, who could turn a biker’s bad mood into contentment with a few words and fewer touches.
All most people needed was a little care.
All they craved was someone to see through the shields and swearing and swaggering attitude to the person beneath.
Although, that had never been true of Pierce or any of the men in that basement.
And maybe it was just that the Knights didn’t have that kind of cruelty in them.
“Come on,” I whispered, psyching myself up, unwilling to admit why I was really here. Not to fall into my old life where giving care made me feel good, feel important, but because Devil had said to find him if I needed to fall apart, and I hoped he’d be here.
I scanned the room as I entered, the booths sparsely occupied at this time of day and only Crook at the bar nursing a half-empty scotch.
My heart stuttered and sank. Dreamer could always be found at the bar with a scowl on his face and a beer in hand, that frown softening into something like a smile for me.
I’d never see him sitting there again. And instead of that almost-smile, when I thought of him I remembered the wide cut in his throat, the blood that had soaked his skin, his clothes, and the floor of the shop. When I thought of him, I saw him dead.
“Jessia?”
I glanced away from Dreamer’s seat at the bar and mustered a smile as Wizard came towards me, confusion mingled with interest in his eyes. The thought of getting into his bed again made my nausea intensify, even though Wizard was a perfect gentleman.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, touching my shoulder.
“Stupid fucking question,” Crook snapped, throwing back the last of his drink and sliding off the bar stool. “What do you think’s wrong?”
“Don’t be a dick, Crook,” Wizard sighed, sliding his arm across my shoulder like I needed shielding from the older Knight.
“Me don’t be a dick?” Crook laughed harshly, his scowling, well-lined face as familiar to me as the cadence of my own breathing.
“Dreamer’s dead, the Hunters are growing at a fucking alarming rate, and Jessia’s clearly traumatised to shit by what those cunts did, when she should have been safe with us. But sure, I’m the dick.”
My shoulders burned, prickled, stung where Wizard’s arm rested.
Static rushed in my ears, Crook’s words repeating.
I shrugged out from Wizard’s hold, my hands shaking.
Cold, empty numbness spread through my chest. He might have said my name.
They might both have, but I didn’t turn back to see them as I fled.
I couldn’t feel my fingertips, couldn’t feel my feet even as I took step after step. I had no real destination, walking blindly along corridors, not seeing the rooms I passed or the people within them.
Wind slapped my face, dragged tears from my eyes I hadn’t noticed, and I startled to find myself in the middle of the garden. Cold bit into my arms and I shuddered, that sensation breaking through the numbness.
“Angel?”
Instead of jumping, my shoulders dropped and a small sound broke free, like I’d subconsciously known he was here.
Devil stood from the wooden planter that ran along the clubhouse wall, brushing dirt from his hands on his jeans, his blonde hair loose around his shoulders today.
“You said I could come to you if things got… bad,” I rasped, knotting my fingers as he came closer, concern settling into the wrinkles around his eyes.
His nearness should have made me tense, should have brought that numbness and fear back, but it was the opposite.
Relief spilled like air through my chest and I sighed.
“What can I do?” he asked, hovering a few steps in front of me, scanning my face with concern.
I needed to scour the image of Dreamer’s slit throat from my head so I could pretend he was okay. I needed to blank out the memories of the basement so I could go back to normal. “I—” I blinked at him. “There’s dirt on your nose.”
“Does it ruin my dashing good looks?”
“You have dashing good looks? I hadn’t noticed,” I said before I could even think through a response. The words came easily, effortlessly.
“Ouch.” He clutched his chest. “You wound me, Jessia. Wanna plant some radishes?”
The whiplash of those sentences made me pause for a moment, but… “Yeah,” I said. I did want to plant radishes. I had nothing better to do, and this wasn’t going to make me flinch like the bar or strain my injuries like the lesson.
“And you can talk to me about what made you run out here,” he suggested, trudging back to the planter.
“No, thank you.”
“The radishes will be sad if you don’t.”
“The radishes?” I asked sceptically, perching on the lip of the planter and looking at what he’d done so far. “I doubt they’re interested in hearing my worries.”
“On the contrary,” Devil said, dragging a fork through clumps of soil to make it fluffy. “They’re very interested, because when they know what’s wrong, they can help fix your problems.”
I looked at him, my heart heavy. “You can’t fix this, Devil.”
“Wanna bet?” he asked with a gleam of determination.
I shook my head, watching him create a divot in the soil to place a seed, replicating it when he handed me a seed.
“Let me help, angel.”
“Why do you call me that?” I muttered, filling the hole with soil and staring at the speck of dirt on my hands. “I’m not an angel. Far from it.”
“Even when I didn’t know what you’d been through before you came here, it was obvious you’d faced hell. You were afraid, and hurt, and recovering from something traumatic. People don’t just turn up at the gates and ask to live here unless they’re outrunning their nightmares.”