Chapter 2
Two
JAXON
He stole her lips, he… fucking Dimitri.
“I can’t believe you kissed her,” I snap as I change the channel on the TV. Hope went to bed two hours ago and my unease hasn’t left me. I can’t get the image out of my mind. It fucking haunts me.
“Relax, Jax. It was just a peck,” Dimitri says, but I see that smug glint in his eyes. Bastard.
“Knox, it seems we’re the only two she hasn’t touched yet,” I grumble and silence stretches on.
“Knox?” Dimitri asks.
“Not the time,” Knox mutters and I toss a couch pillow at his head.
“That’s your favorite sentence, isn’t it,” I snarl and shake my head.
“Fine, but promise you’ll let it go,” Knox warns.
“I promise nothing,” I say, and Dimitri takes a sip from his beer.
Knox’s gaze shifts between me and Dimitri as he says, “I fucked her before…”
“Fucked her?!” I screech and jump off the couch. My skin feels on fire, my hands tingle.
“Jax,” Dimitri calls out and my chest heaves with every breath, yet a smile spreads on my lips and Dimitri mumbles something under his breath.
“How was it?” I ask.
“Perfect,” Knox says with a smile before taking a nip from his beer.
I slump back down and stare at the bedroom door. “He didn’t break her,” I whisper as the reality falls back. “She wants us, right?”
“Trading one monster for three. Yes, she wants us,” Knox says with a roll of his eyes.
“Don’t say that,” I snap. “We’re better than him.” We have to be.
“He shaped us, fucked with our heads… I just hope we can be better,” Knox says with a sigh.
He shaped us… not only us. We weren’t the first and I’m sure we weren’t the last. The thought forces disgust to rise as my stomach twists.
She wasn’t mine to protect.
I fixed it, I changed it this time. I saved Hope… even if I couldn’t save her.
Memories threaten to take over, pulling me back into the dark past. But I can’t, not until I’m sure Hope’s safe. That we’re all safe from whoever called Coach and whoever watched the feed.
“Any news?” I ask Dimitri and he grabs the laptop from the coffee table.
“The whole site went dark. I checked the phone number and it’s already disconnected.” He opens the laptop and refreshes the page. “See, nothing, as if it never existed.”
“Who takes the first shift tonight?” Knox asks and finishes his beer.
“I’ll watch her,” I offer.
“You need sleep, Jax,” Dimitri mumbles. “You never wake us up, and you can’t… never mind.”
“The nightmares are getting… better,” I note.
“Better?” Knox scoffs. “She might seem better during the day, but at night? Fuck.” He runs his hand through his hair and curses under his breath.
“She doesn’t seem to remember them,” I say with a shrug off my shoulders.
Knox rests his elbows on his knees as he stares me down. “Remind me, why did you take all your piercings out?” Knox pushes.
I narrow my eyes. “Not all.”
Dimitri chuckles. “Just the ones she tried to claw out during one of her nightmares.”
“Jax doesn’t seem to mind,” Knox teases. “He probably thinks it’s their love language.”
“Fuck you,” I spit out. “And yeah, I do.”
A smile spreads as Knox and Dimitri laugh.
“I’ll take every hit from her if that means she feels better,” I say and their laughter dies down.
“We all will, smartass.” Dimitri sighs and places the laptop back on the coffee table.
“We can’t stay away from the team much longer.” Knox changes the subject.
“She can’t go,” I say. The bruises on her face, her neck—she can’t handle the questions.
“I know,” Knox answers. “But I’ll go tomorrow and tell Carpenter we’re back and that Hope is with us. I’ll make up some story; it will be okay.”
“Will it?” Dimitri asks. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m still waiting for whoever called Coach to barge in here and kill us.”
I nod and lean back. “We should move,” I say.
“That’s not going to fix this,” Dimitri snarks.
“I know,” I snap back. “But it will help Hope.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my apartment,” Knox grumbles.
I tilt my head slightly. “Your apartment, exactly.”
“Wait, you want us to… like… move in with each other?” Dimitri asks.
I shrug. “How do you think this will ever work? That she moves every night so we can all share her? And you think I’m the dumb one,” I scoff.
“I never think you’re… just…”
“Special,” Knox finishes with a smirk on his lips and Dimitri chuckles.
I shake my head and get up. “Well, this special guy is going to lie next to our girl, again, while you two can rub each other off here in the living room.”
Assholes.
“Wake us when it gets too bad,” Knox says but I know they both hear it, that neither of us sleep well. Not when she screams out our names, not when she cries out in agony.
Sometimes I wonder who fucked her up more.
Her dad, or us.
“When you hear me scream, then come help,” I say before leaving my beer on the coffee table and head towards Knox’s bedroom.
“Goodnight,” Dimitri adds and I almost scoff.
My last good night’s sleep was before Hope was taken.
“Yeah,” I whisper as I twist the knob and step inside the dark, cold room.
I shut the door behind me and toe off my boots, shuck my shirt, and slide out of my jeans before I crawl in behind her, slow and careful.
She flinches at the dip in the mattress.
Then I just watch for a minute. Watch her chest shake with little gasps, the way she keeps swallowing in her sleep like her throat’s closing. Her hands won’t let go of the pillow.
I twine my fingers through hers, gentle at first, then firmer, as I try to unpeel her clamped fists one knuckle at a time.
For a second, her eyes slit open and there’s nothing in them but pure panic, but I whisper, “It’s just me, Hope. I’m here, okay?”
She looks at my hands, then up to my face, and her whole body sags. “You’re cold,” she murmurs, voice sticky with sleep.
I pull her closer, wedge my thigh between hers, and wrap my arms so tight around her it’s like I’m the only thing stopping her from folding into herself. Her skin is damp, the back of her neck slick, and the scent of her sweat is sour and scared.
I want to kill every ghost in her head. I want to make it so she never has to be afraid again, but I know I’m part of the problem. I’m part of the architecture of her fear.
“Let go,” I say, not sure if I mean her grip on the pillow or the way her whole body is locked in a constant flinch. “Let go, sweetheart. I got you.”
She doesn’t, not right away. But then her fingers loosen and the pillow falls.
Her arms snake around my ribs instead, holding on for dear life.
I tuck my chin over her crown and smell her scalp, the cheap shampoo, the faint trace of blood from where she scratched herself raw three nights ago.
Her breath settles. I can feel every rib in her, the way her pulse judders under her skin.
“You don’t have to stay,” she whispers, and I press her harder against me.
“Not leaving.”
She’s quiet for a long time. I think she’s drifted back under, but then she says, “You want to know what I dream about?” I know better than to answer. She’ll tell me if she needs to.
She takes a shuddering breath. “It’s never just the same thing.
Sometimes it’s him, sometimes it’s… you.
Sometimes it’s me but I’m not me, I’m like watching myself from the ceiling.
Like a camera.” She laughs, a low, bitter sound.
“Sometimes you’re all standing over me and I can’t move, I can’t even scream, and you just keep saying good girl, good girl, and it’s like my ears are bleeding.
” I bite my tongue until I taste metal as my eyes sting with tears.
“Want me to stop?” I rasp, voice thick.
“No.” It’s a whimper, but the most honest sound I’ve ever heard from her.
“Is it always that bad?” I whisper, my throat tight.
She shakes her head, but I feel her breath skip and falter. “No. Sometimes it’s worse… But with you, it’s at least honest. With him…” She trails off, and I know which him she means. I don’t say anything. Just hold her, just keep holding, as if my arms might convince her I’ll never hurt her again.
“We’ll figure it out.” I put my mouth against her hair. “You’re not alone, okay?”
She doesn’t answer but she lets out a breath, slowly.
I hold her like that until my legs go pins-and-needles and my spine hates me. I don’t let go. I’ll never let her go. Not again.
After a while, her breathing smooths out, and for the first time in days, I feel her really fall asleep.
I stroke her cheek, careful not to wake her, and I wish I could tell her all the things I never said. That even broken things are worth loving. Maybe especially broken things.
I can’t sleep but I pretend, counting her breaths, the skipped beats in her pulse. I keep watch, the way I always do.
She starts to twitch in her sleep. Little kicks, her jaw grinding, lips curled back from her teeth.
I know the rhythm by now—three deep breaths, then the first whimper, then her fists ball up and she thrashes so hard she nearly knocks her head into my chin.
I tighten my grip, using my body to lock her down before she can hurt herself.
She jerks so violently she almost slips my grasp, and then her voice rips out—it’s not a scream, not at first, but a choked, feral sound.
She’s trying to speak but the words don’t line up, just garbled syllables mashed together.
I stroke her hair, cradle her skull with my palm, whisper her name again and again.
She claws at my hand, nails biting into my wrist. “Stop,” she sobs, “stop it, stop touching, please don’t, please no, no no—” and I realize it isn’t me she’s talking to.
It’s him.
“Hope, you’re safe. He’s not here, it’s just me. It’s Jax.”
She’s fighting me so hard I can barely hold her. She thrashes, gets a foot on the mattress, and nearly knees me in the balls. I pin her down with my weight, but I keep my voice as soft as I can. “He’s gone, Hope. He’s fucking gone. He’ll never touch you again. I promise. I swear it.”
“Don’t,” she chokes out. “Don’t touch me, don’t—” Her breath is ragged, her eyes wide, but she’s not here.
I grip her wrists, not to pin her but just to keep her from hurting herself, and I stretch my body behind hers so she can feel how much bigger I am, how easy it is for me to hold her, and maybe that’s fucked up, maybe that’s exactly what she’s scared of, but the first time I tried to let her go, she almost broke her own hand against the wall.
She shakes her head, loose hair sticking to the sweat on her forehead. “Stop, stop, please—” Her voice cracks and the next thing out of her mouth is a scream, a real, unfiltered shriek, and it shreds me from the inside.
I think about waking the others, but I don’t want them to see her like this. I don’t want her to have witnesses when she finally breaks down.
She keeps screaming, wild and empty, until her voice goes hoarse and the fight leaves her. Her body sags against me, ruined and limp, and I press my lips to her temple, tasting salt and shampoo and whatever chemicals make up fear.
I crawl up the headboard, rest my back against it, and pull her into my lap, rocking her the way my own mother did after a bad dream, back when there was still someone around to care.
Hope’s eyes are still open but she doesn’t see me, not yet. She’s somewhere else, somewhere darker, colder, a place I’d burn to the ground if I could.
“Hope,” I say, and I do the only thing I know will reach her. I press my lips against her hairline, right above her temple, and I say, “Good girl.”
She shatters. The tension goes out of her, every muscle slack. Her arms droop, her head tips back against my shoulder. I hear her breath, raw and high and wet, then she starts to sob, ugly and wordless.
I keep rocking her, like it will keep the horror out of her mind.
I whisper her name in her ear, over and over again, until my voice is a rasp. She clutches my arm and buries her face there, and I let her. I’ll let her bite through the skin if she has to.
After a long while, she calms. The shakes get smaller. Her breathing finds its way back to normal, or as close as she ever gets. We don’t talk. I just hold her and wait for her to pull herself back into her skin.
When she does, she lifts her head and looks at me, and even in the dark I can see the fierce light in her eyes.
“I hate him,” she whispers.
“Me too, sweetheart, me too.”
More than she even knows.