CHAPTER 4
AVA
I start the next morning just like every other – with a huge handful of pills, and the desperate hope that they’ll ease my pain enough to give me at least a low-pain start to my day.
I give them ten minutes to kick in as I just lie still, then I begin the arduous task of making my uncooperative and broken body get me out of bed.
I’m relieved my pain is a lot less than the night before as I get to my feet and don’t feel any spasms down my back, or cramping in my thighs.
Thankfully, the bottle of Vodka I’d picjed up before leaving home and stashed in my backpack, had been enough to knock me out for around five hours, which I knew would be enough sleep to get me going that day.
It likely wouldn’t be enough to get me through the day, but that was a later problem and right now I had enough now problems.
As I rifled through my bag for a clean set of clothes and toiletries, I already knew there was no way I could shower in the attached bathroom off to my right.
The shower in there was over the luxurious spa tub Colt had installed for me when I was teenager.
I had loved it before. Taking a soak in that enormous tub with it’s massaging jets had been my happy place after a stressful day, but now it was just another obstacle I could never overcome, no matter how hard I trained and did physio.
It was just an early morning reminder of how very far I had fallen – ine I truly didn’t need right then.
Angrily sweeping up my clothes and washbag I tucked them under one arm and stormed from my room.
I was so frustrated with myself. I’d been back in the city for just over twenty-four hours and I was already allowing cracks to show in the armor I had spent the better part of a year constructing.
Deacon had carried me the night before, for fuck’s sake!
I had cried and fallen in front of him and shown so much of my broken, just the thought of it made me ill.
I didn’t need pity! And I never again wanted anyone to see me as some weak victim in need of help, or worse, as such easy prey to do with as they wished.
Now I was wallowing in self fucking pity and I hated it. It was such a useless waste of energy to feel sorry for myself when I was stuck the way I was!
I walked into Colt’s bedroom and moved through to his adjoining shower room, slamming my hand over the control to get the thing started, then cranking the heat as high as I could.
Being back there was a huge challenge to the emotions and memories I had thought I had a tight rein on for so long.
That shower, right there before it, where I stood, it had been where Colt brought me that fateful night ten years before.
The tattered remains of my clothes had been sticking to the deep wounds beneath as the blood dried, and Colt had so carefully dampened them and peeled them away so I could climb into that very shower and wash away my shame and terror.
When I had crumbled after stepping out if that shower, my body almost in as much pain as my tortured thoughts, Colt had raced back into the shower room and held my towel wrapped body right there on that very spot.
He’d held me protectively and just let me cry, then when the exhaustion became too much he had carried me to my bed, tucked me in, and laid at my side all night.
The memories were right there, waiting to drag me right back to that night.
I could smell the blood, feel the stiffness in every movement from the blood smeared and dried across my skin.
The pain was so real too, and the fear. Ut was all right there, as close and horrifying as it had been that night ten years before.
I turned and slammed my hands down hard on the cold marble vanity.
I didn’t have time to go back there and I sure as shit didn’t have time to fall apart.
Colt needed me, maybe as much as I had needed him that night and I wasn’t going to let him down again.
I had been a shitty sister to him ever since that night.
I was determined to find him and prove I could do better.
I rushed through a shower, fighting like hell to push back the flashbacks that were weighing down heavily on me.
I was already feeling tired by the time I stepped out, but I forged on and pulled on a pair of jeans which were too damned big on me after the amount of weight I’d lost since I last wore them.
Since they were all I’d brought and my other pair were dirty from the day before, I just shrugged it off, rolled the top once and pulled over my oversized CPD sweatshirt.
I was so beyond caring about my appearance anyway, I reminded myself as I braided my wet hair, and stepped into my ankle boots.
I didn’t even look in the mirror before ditching my wet towel and yesterdays clothes in the hamper near the door.
I was decent, and that was all I had in me.
I go back to my room to grab my meds, which I shoved into my backpack, and the empty vodka bottle. If Colt magically came home the last thing I wanted him finding was my empties lying all over.
Halfway down the hall to the living area I froze as the sound of low male voices reached me.
No one should be in the apartment, I realized.
Deacon assured me he was leaving after he helped me to bed.
My heart raced at the thought it could be Colt, but if it was, then who was with him?
Instinctively, I slipped my arms into the straps of my backpack, leaving my hands free, and had my hand around the hilt of the knife hidden in my boot when deep laugh echoed around me.
A laugh I knew all too damned well. Mason.
I released the knife and charged down the hallway as much as I could with my limping gait and the clicking of my stick against the shiny wooden floor.
“What the fuck is this?” I demanded as I entered the open plan living area and found Deacon and Jack kicking back on the sofa, and Mason propped against the wall between the huge windows that overlooked the city below, looking as though he belonged there.
And if I found myself admiring how good he looked in his charcoal slacks with a matching vest that fit him like it was made for him, and the rolled up sleeves over his muscled forearms, of the crisp white collared shirt he wore underneath, then that was just my police training.
Take in and retain every detail of every one you meet is what I’d been taught.
“Hey Ava, How are you feeling?” Deacon asked as hre turned to look over the back of the sofa at me.
“Don’t you fucking ‘hey’ me. What the fuck are you doing here? You said you’d leave? And how the hell did they get in?” I demanded as I moved my glare from Deak and over to Mason and Jack.
“I couldn’t leave you. The alarm system had been disarmed, Ava. Someone has been in this place and they could have come back,” Deacon sighed.
“And we let ourselves in. You really think Colt didn’t give me access to his place?” Mason told me smugly. He and Jack were both looking way too hard at me and I felt so stupidly uncomfortable under their scrutiny. I shouldn’t care what they think. They’re nothing to me, I reminded myself.
Turning my attention back to Deacon I took a deep breath and tried to rein in my anger. It wasn’t like I could blame the poor guy too much for thinking I was vulnerable after the shit he’d seen from me the night before.
“Look, I appreciate you looking out for me, but you don’t need to. I do just fine at taking care of myself,” I told him more calmly.
“Yeah, it looks like it too,” Mason sneered and when I turned to him with rage, I realized what he was smirking at. I still held the empty and sizeable bottle of vodka in my hand. “Thirsty were you?” he asked as he finally lifted his gaze and met mine.
“Fuck you Mason!” I snapped as I moved past the three of them into the kitchen to throw the bottle into the trash.
Seeing a coffee pod machine on the counter, with a rack of pods beside it, I set to work making myself coffee, filling the small tank with water and fighting not to mett the eyes of any of the men I could feel watching my every move.
“Did you actually do what was asked of you last night and file a report that Colt’s missing?” I growled as I started looking through the cabinets for a cup.
“Yes, and I ran a trace on his cell too, but it’s either turned off, or out of range,” Mason answered aftrer a deep sigh.
“What was the last location and when?” I dared to look up, but I only glanced at him for a moment before reching for the higher cabinets above me. Just the small movement had me jolting as a pain ran up my back and I tried hard to keep it contained.
“The day he left Jack and I voicemails, eight days ago, two blocks from Temple ,” Mason replied.
I forced myself to straighten up and reach for the next cabinet, refusing to lose face in front of these assholes, and also in desperate need of coffee, but I’d barely moved before I felt a wall of heat right at my back.
“I’ve got it , love,” Jack whiusoered so close to my ear I could feel the warmth of his breath against my skin, then he was reaching over me, his strong body pressing against mine as he easily opened the cabinet and pulled down a mug, which he handed to me.