Chapter 44 Faith
FAITH
“I needed more time to pack,” I pressed. After the whole brick situation, Ryker had bolted from the house, leaving Blake and Axel to guard over me while I gathered up some belongings. But now he was back, walking me toward the front door with Axel trailing behind us with Rainbow.
“We’ll go back when that reporter is gone,” he assured.
“I wish Harper had come with me.”
“She can come too, if you want.”
The mansion loomed before me, all gothic shadows and bad decisions. My feet froze on the threshold. Every instinct screamed at me to turn around, to run, to be literally anywhere else.
Ryker’s hand found the small of my back. He didn’t push, didn’t speak, just waited. Somehow, he always knew when I needed a moment to gather the fractured pieces of myself. Or when I was about to bolt like a spooked horse.
“Take your time,” he murmured, his breath warm against my temple. “I’m not going anywhere.”
God, this man. He read me like I was written in a language only he understood.
Once inside, the foyer stretched before us, all marble and shadows and terrible memories.
Suddenly, I could see it. Blood painting my skin crimson. The horrified faces of the poker players rising from their seats like well-dressed zombies. My stomach rolled.
“Faith?” Ryker’s voice anchored me.
But it wasn’t enough. Not this time.
The memories clawed their way up from whatever dark corner I’d buried them in, demanding attention like needy cats.
The forest. God, the forest.
Cold air burning my lungs. Pine needles crunching beneath my feet. My bare feet because I’d lost my shoes in the fight. My breath coming in desperate gasps. Each inhale tasted like copper and fear.
No. I pressed my fingertips to my temples, willing the fragments to make sense.
Daniel’s face in the moonlight. That smirk that had haunted me for years. “Did you really think you could keep running, Faith?” His voice so calm. So fucking sure of himself. Like he’d already won.
“Faith?” Ryker’s hand moved to my elbow.
But I was already drowning. Going under.
I got away from him and hid behind a tree, its bark rough against my palms. Splinters digging into my skin. My heart hammered so hard, I was sure he could hear it. But wait … was I hiding? Or was I watching? Waiting to pounce?
The memory shifted, twisted. Suddenly, I wasn’t behind the tree. I was standing in the open, my spine straight, my fear crystallizing into something sharper. Deadlier.
“Maybe we should get you upstairs.” Ryker’s voice came from far away, muffled like I was underwater. Or like my brain had decided to take an impromptu vacation.
“Stop!” My voice, raw and desperate. “Leave me alone, or so help me God, I will fucking kill you.”
The words echoed in my skull. Mine, but not mine. Had I really said that to him that night? Had I meant it? Christ, I think I had.
“Fuck. I think she’s going into shock.” Ryker’s voice sharpened, cutting through the fog.
The knife. Silver in the moonlight. But whose hand was it in? Mine? His?
The memory fractured, split like a broken mirror.
And suddenly, two warm hands pressed against my cheeks, snapping me out of the past and back into the present.
“Faith, look at me.” Ryker’s blue eyes burned with concern. “You’re safe. You’re here with me.”
I tried to speak. Really, I did, but nothing would come out.
“Dude, she looks like she’s about to pass out.” Axel’s voice floated up from somewhere below.
I guess that had him all sorts of worried because, in one fluid motion, Ryker swept me into his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against my hair. “I’ve got you, Faith, and I’m not letting go. Not now, not ever. You hear me?”
The solidness of him, the steady thrum of his heartbeat against my cheek, was the only real thing in a world that kept shifting between past and present, like a broken TV channel.
“Blake should have been right behind us. Call him.” Ryker’s arms tightened around me. “Now.”
“On it.”
Ryker carried me up the stairs and set me down on a bed. The mattress dipped under our combined weight as he sat beside me.
“Faith, I need you to hear me. Can you hear me?”
I managed a nod.
“Should I call an ambulance?”
The word triggered something primal. Images of being trapped in the hospital that night. Questions. Police. Handcuffs. “No. No ambulance.”
He looked uncertain, torn between respecting my wishes and doing the responsible thing.
“Okay. No ambulance.” His thumb brushed my cheekbone, the gesture so tender that it made my chest ache.
“You’re trembling.” Without hesitation, he shifted, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me against his side.
The trembling stopped. Just like that. Like his presence was some kind of antidote to whatever poison was coursing through my veins.
“Better?” His voice rumbled through his chest.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. How could I explain that his arms felt like the only safe harbor in a hurricane?
“The last time you were here,” he said quietly, “was the night it happened.”
Somehow, he’d pieced it together. Maybe from the way I’d frozen in the foyer like a deer in headlights. A very traumatized deer with possible homicidal tendencies.
“I’m remembering things,” I admitted.
Ryker stilled. Even his breathing seemed to pause.
“Still just fragments. Pieces that don’t make sense. Or maybe they make too much sense.”
“They don’t have to make sense right now.” His arm tightened around me. “You don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”
The patience in his voice nearly undid me. All this time, he’d been pressing for details, and now, when the memories were finally surfacing, he was telling me to take my time. My well-being mattered more than his need for answers. At least right now.
“What if the fragments are showing me something I don’t want to see?” The words tumbled out, interrupting my confession. “What if I wasn’t defending myself? What if I chose it?”
“Then you had a reason.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because you’re here, shaking in my arms at just the memory of it.” His lips pressed against my temple, and I closed my eyes to savor it. I wished we could just lie here forever. “Monsters don’t shake, Faith. They don’t break apart, remembering violence. They relish it.”
“But what if I could have walked away?”
“I know that whatever happened that night, you did what you had to do.”
“You can’t possibly know that.”
“I can.” He shifted so he could lock eyes with me. “Because I know you. The woman who faces her demons every damn day and keeps going. That’s who you are.”
Tears burned my eyes. Dammit. I was not going to cry. I was not going to—
“You survived,” Ryker continued, his thumb brushing away a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen.
“That’s all that matters. You came to me that night, covered in blood, and you survived.
Whatever you had to do, whatever choice you made in those woods, you’re here.
With me. That’s everything. And you don’t have to carry this alone anymore. ”
He pulled me tighter against him, letting me rest my cheek on his chest.
“God, Faith, I want to keep you safe. Always.”
I turned in his arms, looking up at him again. In the dim light from the hallway, his features were all shadows and sharp angles. Beautiful and dangerous. Like a particularly attractive warning label.
“What if I’m not safe to keep?” I whispered. “What if I destroy everything I touch?”
His hand came up to cradle my face, his touch impossibly gentle. “Then I’ll gladly let you destroy me.”
“Ryker—”
“No, listen to me.” He shifted, turning my body so I was facing him fully. “You think whatever happened that night in the woods changes anything? Faith, that man was a predator.”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs.
“But my memories contradict each other. In one instance, I’m defending myself. In another, I’m the one getting ready to attack him. What if I—”
“What the fuck is going on?” Blake’s voice boomed from the doorway. “Axel said something about an exorcism and levitation.”
Behind him, Axel shrugged with a wink. “I said possible levitation. There’s a difference.”