Chapter 5
Jace
“You bedding down for the night?” Dalton asked.
“Yeah, we’re by Poole’s Island,” I said.
I was using the burner phone Dalton had purchased for me after I’d called him from a payphone earlier in the day to let him know what supplies I’d need.
He’d bought one for himself too, so there’d be no chance of anyone tracing the calls.
The fact that no one, not even Ronan, knew about my friendship with Dalton made me comfortable enough to keep the lines of communication open with him.
It would come in handy in more ways than one.
But as helpful as the phone was to have, it didn’t have the best reception and I wasn’t about to waste my time trying to search out anything on the internet about the attack this morning.
“You find anything?” I asked.
“I found mention of a cabin burning in the local paper, but it didn’t make the wire yet. Either your guys didn’t stash the bodies in the cabin or some idiot at the fire department’s not doing their job.”
“My guys probably made sure there wasn’t much left to discover. They are good at their jobs,” I said.
Dalton snorted, then said, “No news about the shooting either. Really like to know how you pulled that off. ”
“Can’t take credit for that one,” I said.
I hadn’t told Dalton the full details of the Jennings encounter, other than I’d been involved in a shooting at the man’s house and to let me know if my name or Caleb’s came up at any point.
It was driving me crazy to still have no idea how Caleb had known Jennings wouldn’t give his name to the cops.
My gut was telling me it was bad, whatever it was.
It was the only explanation as to why Jennings wouldn’t want the cops finding Caleb.
Because Caleb had something on him.
“Well, you guys take it easy, you hear?”
“Yeah,” I said. “You too.”
I’d been fortunate enough to walk away from the military with only a giant chip on my shoulder, considering all the bullshit I’d seen and been forced to do during my four deployments.
Dalton hadn’t been as lucky. In addition to having sustained injuries in a roadside bombing that had not only left him scarred but in constant pain, he’d also walked away with a hefty case of PTSD.
It was one of the reasons he’d holed himself up in his little house by the water and had spent a good chunk of his savings on the cabin cruiser that he spent most of his days on.
I felt guilty for asking him to let me borrow the boat for so long, considering it was one of the few things that brought him any measure of comfort as he fought the demons war had left behind, but he’d assured me he could use the time to work on his house.
And the reality was, I’d been desperate.
I spent a few minutes checking that everything was locked down for the night.
I’d picked a quiet place near a small, uninhabited island for us to moor overnight.
My plan was to play it by ear in terms of how far down the Chesapeake we traveled.
I wouldn’t make the decision to leave the bay for the open ocean until I absolutely had to.
In truth, I was floundering a bit, both with my plan and with my charge.
I’d gotten used to working alone, so being without Ronan’s team to back me up wasn’t a new thing, but the stakes were higher than they’d ever been.
If I’d just been protecting some average joe, I wouldn’t have felt so off-balance.
But there was nothing average about any of this .
God, he’d cut himself again.
Under my own goddamned nose.
Even now as I thought about the three almost perfectly uniform cuts, I wanted to throw up.
On the one hand, I just wanted to shake Caleb and tell him to wake the fuck up from the zombie-like state he was in and just come back to me.
But the other part of me knew I had this one chance to make things right and if I pushed too hard, I’d just drive him further away.
I had a little bit of hope that the old Caleb wasn’t completely gone yet, because I’d seen glimpses of him when he’d taken care of the cuts on my face.
His touch had been gentle, but his reaction to the close proximity of our bodies had been anything but.
I’d heard his ticked-up breathing as he’d practically been pressed nose to nose with me.
I’d felt his warm breath coming in quick bursts against my skin and I’d seen the slight tremor in his hand as he’d tended to my injuries.
It would have been so easy to turn my head at any time and just capture his mouth with mine.
But the same things that had held me back from taking what I’d wanted two years ago were the same things keeping me from storming into the bedroom below deck and covering his body with mine as I sought out his perfect mouth.
He was still just so damn young.
And the vulnerability was a thousand times greater than it’d been when I’d first met him.
But worst of all, I’d joined the list of those who’d betrayed him.
I had no illusions about what would have happened today if we hadn’t come under attack. Caleb had said as much right before the first shot had been fired.
He’d had no intention of going home with Mav… or coming anywhere with me. And at nineteen, there’d have been no way to force him except to actually force him.
Which I absolutely would have done, Mav and Memphis be damned. So if there was a silver lining to the events of the morning, it was that Caleb was once again reliant on me. But unlike the last time that had happened, I wasn’t going to squander the opportunity .
As I made my way below deck, I stopped in the kitchen and checked the microwave to see if Caleb had eaten the plate of food I’d left for him.
I’d kept things simple with dinner by just heating up the leftover lasagna Dalton had included for us when he’d stocked the fridge.
I wasn’t surprised to see the food was sitting untouched.
I sighed and found some plastic wrap to cover the food with, then put it back in the fridge.
I searched out the small containers of milk I knew would be in the fridge and took two into the bedroom.
I flipped on the small light right above the bed and then sat down on the edge of it.
“Caleb, wake up,” I said as I settled my hand on his shoulder.
He barely stirred.
His exhaustion was starting to worry me.
It wasn’t normal for someone to sleep so much after having been sleep-deprived for so long.
As much as I would have liked to believe being around me made him feel safe enough to lose himself so deeply to sleep, the fact that he’d chosen to cut his own skin during the few minutes I hadn’t had my eyes on him was telling.
That peace I’d found so much pleasure in being able to give him was a thing of the past. If anything, being around me now was the reason he’d taken something sharp to his arm in the first place.
I set the milk down on the shelf that was built into the headboard of the bed and then climbed in next to him.
I drew the blanket off his body and scooted up behind him until our bodies were pressed together.
I let my fingers toy with the soft skin just behind his ear.
“Caleb, I need you to wake up,” I urged as I let my hand skim down his shoulder and along his arm until it came to a stop at his waist.
“Mmmm,” was all Caleb said, then he was turning over and pressing his face against my chest. He kept moving until I shifted my arm beneath his shoulders and cuddled him closer to me.
He let out a breathy sigh against my neck.
I managed to position a pillow beneath my head so I was a little more comfortable and then just held him for a while, relishing the way his breath fanned over my skin.
His left hand was wrapped around my upper arm as if he was afraid I was going to try and get away from him.
I played with his hair for a while, then pressed a kiss to the top of his head before I said his name again.
He let out a little groan of protest when I began tickling his ear.
When it became too much, he frowned and swatted at my hand.
His eyes opened and for the briefest of moments, they were completely clear as he looked up at me.
A small smile graced his pretty mouth as he muttered, “What are you doing?”
Before I could even answer, his eyes shuttered themselves again and he righted himself so that he was no longer pressed against my body.
I immediately missed the contact, despite what having his lithe body practically draped across mine had been doing to my libido.
He looked around the cabin. “What time is it?” he asked.
“Just after ten.”
“Oh.”
Caleb sat up, so I did the same.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
Not surprisingly, he shook his head. I reached behind me and grabbed one of the milks and handed it to him. “Would you please drink this? You need to get something into your system.”
I was amazed when he didn’t argue with me.
“Strawberry milk?” he said with a smile. He worked to rip the straw free of the small container, then got it out of the plastic. “I haven’t had this in… God, I don’t even know how long.”
I reached for my own container of milk. “It’s a weakness of mine,” I admitted. “One that Dalton indulges me in every time I come up here.”
I swore I saw Caleb tense when I said Dalton’s name, but the moment was fleeting.
“I wouldn’t have pictured that,” he murmured.
I shrugged my shoulders. “My father had a hopeless sweet tooth that he passed on to me and my sister, so my mother had to come up with ways to feed our need for sugar while still keeping it somewhat healthy. She’d let us have a treat every night before bed and it was always strawberry milk for me.
Can’t explain it,” I admitted with a smile as I tugged the straw free of the packaging.
“But knowing there’s strawberry milk waiting in the fridge for me just makes everything look better, you know? ”
Caleb smiled. He was quiet for a moment before he said, “Sno Balls.”
When I looked at him in confusion, he said, “You know, those round pink coconut-covered cakes?”
I laughed and nodded. “Oh yeah, I remember those. They were nasty.”
“They were awesome,” Caleb countered, his grin growing wider. It did funny things to my insides to see him smile. I’d seen it a few times when he’d shown me around Seattle once a couple of years earlier at Christmas, but I hadn’t thought I’d see it again anytime soon.
See, Caleb, not shattered beyond repair , I wanted to say.
“I’d eat them any chance I got. I even used to ride my bike down to the store after school every day to buy some when my mom stopped getting them for me.
She had to go down there and tell the manager to tell his cashiers not to sell me more than two a week.
” Caleb chuckled and said, “As soon as I walked in the door, the cashiers would call out to each other and say if they’d sold to me already that week or not. ”
I laughed and asked, “How old were you?”
“Nine or ten, I guess.” I saw his smile falter, then he dropped his eyes. I had no doubt he was thinking about how his life had changed so drastically just a few years later, since he had been only thirteen when his father had touched him for the first time.
I gripped my milk hard enough that some of it spurted up the straw and dripped onto my hand.
“I haven’t had one of those things in a while,” he murmured. He lifted his eyes again and managed a half-smile. “Guess we all have to grow up sometime, huh?”
I lifted the milk and said, “Not completely, no.”
He nodded and took a sip of his milk. “You have a sister?” he asked.
I automatically flinched at the question, though I’d known it would eventually come up, since I’d let it slip earlier when talking about my father’s sweet tooth.
I nodded.
Something must have clued Caleb in because he fell silent, then began to fiddle with the straw. I knew he wouldn’t ask me what he obviously wanted to, so I bit the bullet and said, “I don’t know where she is. She’s been missing for almost two years.”