Chapter Nineteen
Harley - The next day
I haven’t slept a wink. Not one fucking wink. I went home stupidly late to let Ted out, sat on the sofa and mindlessly scrolled through Netflix until the sun came up.
I’m obviously not new to the fact that a person’s entire world can turn on its axis at a moment’s notice.
But, honestly, my mind is racing. I knew things were bad just from the limited information Quinn had given me in the café the other night.
I didn’t need names or detailed specifics because I have the ability to read between the lines.
I’m a logical person and very rarely act out of emotion, but once my emotions are part of the scenario, there’s no going back.
The lengths I will go to for someone I care about have yet to be determined, but the loss of my parents was enough for me to know that when you meet someone who makes me feel like she does, you cling on to it for dear life.
While most of the survivors are women, eventually we began to take men, too.
They’re two separate factions of the same network so that no one can fall through the cracks or pretend to be a victim to get to a survivor, but there are very few people who know about our network outside of the people who make up the volunteers.
And most of those are previous survivors of domestic violence who came on board after Lulu had helped them.
When she was a teenager, she found herself with a friend who was in an abusive relationship.
They were barely eighteen, not long out of home and should have been living their lives at college or university, drinking away their student loans.
Instead, one day, Lulu came home to find her best friend unconscious in their hallway, blood pooling around her head and a barely-there pulse.
Her friend had a stroke because of her injuries, and they had to turn off her life support.
Lulu never recovered from that image. But her rage from holding her best friend's hand as her chest stopped moving fuelled the fire inside of her to save others.
For a long time, she didn’t want a man. She didn’t trust them.
Even dated women because she was convinced she could never be attracted to anything that came attached to a penis, until she was.
One day she found the love of her life, and her heart went from shrivelled up and dead to alive and fluttering.
As their relationship progressed, it became clear that he was a survivor of domestic violence from a previous girlfriend.
She went to great lengths to stalk them.
Even tried to poison Lulu so that she could console him as he grieved for her.
It came to a head when one night, said ex-girlfriend set fire to their house with them both in it and barricaded the front of the door.
If she couldn’t have him, then no one could.
And from that night, The Trident was born, and the first person to become a survivor inside the network was her boyfriend.
In order to protect him, she had to make the biggest sacrifice of her life and lose the man she loved.
To some, it would be a comfort that he is alive.
To others, it would be torture to know that your soulmate is out there, under a pseudonym that you have no access to and no hope of ever seeing again.
Despite being the leader of the network, he had to have a separate handler to avoid any potential issues if Lulu was to ever be interrogated for both of their safety.
Even though he was the first, for a very long time, she refused to help other men because of the level of damage she had seen be done to the women.
She put her past to the back of her mind and convinced herself it never happened until she came across a man who was quite literally wasting away, and she was reminded that men can be victims, too.
But since that day, the day she had to say goodbye, Lulu has never dated again.
There’s a huge part of her consumed by her hatred for predators, both male and female, but there’s this minuscule part of her that hides behind this cold facade, that hopes that one day, he will walk back into her life and be able to leave the shadows and live in the light.
So far, it hasn’t happened. But I’m sure she will tell you more about that in due time.
Now that I’ve stopped telling the world my cousin’s secrets—don’t tell her, she will kill me, stuff my bits and sell them at a market—it’s time to crack on.
I head to the kitchen, the morning light shining through the window, while the world waits for the sun to rise.
Coffee is my soulmate. My only addiction.
Although, after the last few chapters you’ve read, you may disagree with that fact.
To that, I would say, semantics. My Nespresso machine—Betty—awaits me on the side as she does every morning.
The most loyal and consistent lady in my life.
I pull a cup from the drainer, add two spoons of sugar, because I like to give it time to dissolve before my first sip, and then wait for the liquid gold to turn into liquid crack.
Ted finally appears next to me, side-eyeing me at the disruption.
He loves a lie-in, this dog. An early riser, he is not.
Whenever I have an early client, I let him out for a wee before I leave, and then he fucks off straight back to bed and is usually still there when I get home with a random ball lodged in his mouth as he snores.
I open the door for him to go outside and pick my cup up to lean against the frame as I watch him.
My life is peaceful. I’ve spent a long time perfecting this little haven in my childhood home, warding off the nightmares and welcoming back the memories.
“Come on, Tedster. Back to bed.” He looks at me like I’ve got two heads—because I’m normally taking the piss out of how lazy he is—before trotting towards me and sitting at my feet, tail wagging expectantly.
I fluff his ears, scratching under his chin, and grab him a treat from the jar to tide him over.
He doesn’t eat a meal in the morning; kings don’t like to nap on full bellies.
The bright side of being at the office all night is that all of my stuff is there, so I have minimal things to take with me.
I grab my keys, my coat off the hook, slip my shoes on, and shout, “Bye, bud, I’ll see you later.
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” As the door shuts, he barks his goodbye back, and a smile spreads across my face.
He has no idea just how much he saved my life.
By the time I reach my office, I have the plan set in my head, but instead of going straight to the courts to file a petition, I think I’m gonna go and see her family. At least then, I have some idea of what I’m walking into.
My mum always used to joke that the damsels in distress loved me.
I always found the ones that needed helping or protecting.
And there was one particular one who I knew didn't just like me because she needed my help, but because, despite my quirks as a child, I was enough.
She was the first and last girl I loved.
Some would say it was infatuation. Puppy love.
And up until two days ago, I would have told you love at first sight was an impossibility.
Yet, here I am, two days later, fully convinced that Quinn could be my soulmate, and with my dad’s voice in my head saying, “Go get ‘er, son,” I walk into my office determined to rescue my girl and prove all the naysayers wrong.