Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
No one was going to break into my unwanted house again.
That was exactly why I was camped out in the back of my car again on a Saturday night.
Teens and squatters beware—Bellamy Children’s Home was going to stay in the condition I’d received it.
I didn’t want to feel like I owed anyone anything when I gave it back, and that time couldn’t come soon enough.
A pounding on my window startled me just as I was halfway into my sleeping bag. I shot back, clutching my chest. The muffled laughter of Dax followed, which, considering I thought I was about to be murdered, wasn’t entirely unwelcome.
“We seem to have had the same idea,” he said as I opened the car door while attempting to free myself from the nylon cocoon.
He leaned against the driver’s side door while my legs flailed.
He looked about as calm as someone evaluating the surf conditions on his day off, and it infuriated me.
His black t-shirt and jeans that matched the five o’clock shadow on his square jaw mildly made up for that though.
“Except this is my house, not yours,” I huffed. I gave up on my flailing and flopped out the door, grunting. What the hell was my foot caught on?!
"Need a hand?" Dax smirked at his feet while I squirmed again.
"No," I groaned. My frustration getting louder as the fabric caught in the zipper. I'd loved Chinese finger traps as a child, but my tolerance was slim for the full-body experience.
"Need a hand?" he asked again as my throat growled. I must have looked like one of those inflatable balloon people that flop around at car sales. I stopped moving and blew a strand of hair out of my face, my hands still trapped in the bag trying to free my foot.
“Fine,” I sighed.
He crouched, wide shoulders blocking the moonlight. Pine and cedar, with a hint of mint, filled my nose as his tilted neck moved into my space.
“There,” he said, standing.
“What the hell?”
The bag was completely unzipped, and the black cord had been removed from around my ankle.
“I find it’s best to go gentle when it comes to matters of the hands,” Dax said, wiggling his fingers.
I gulped. Where had all the air gone?
“I didn’t trust the station to respond the way they should,” he added, replying to my earlier comment and skirting the innuendo he’d just made. He leaned down, peering into my car. “Cute set-up, by the way. You going to defend yourself with that pillow?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you here again?”
“I told you." He stubbed at the car tyre with his heavy boot, and then his forehead creased. “And maybe I think the loyalty of some at the station is in another person’s pocket.”
I got the vibe he hadn't meant to share that. Or wasn't supposed to.
"Minions of Miss Lissy's?"
"Seems that way," he said, dragging his hand across the line of his jaw. "What did you do to her anyway? People tend to avoid crossing Liss. She comes out swinging."
Didn't I know it.
"I was born." I laughed out a sigh. “Came here,” I waved at the house. “I was a child. I may have briefly threatened her the other day. Take your pick.”
Dax's brows arched, and he chuckled, dipping his head. “You threatened Lissy Fotherington? You really are something, Riley Walls.”
A shiver ran across my shoulders as his dark eyes met mine, and I had to look away.
“What’s the plan here?”
“Well, no offense, but you’re not the most observant,” he said not missing a beat. He pointed at the front gate, now open, with his black ute parked just inside by the old playground.
How did I miss that?
“Where’d you get a key for the gate?” I snapped.
“I’ve had it since I changed the locks. Keep forgetting to give it back to you.”
I narrowed my gaze and held my palm out. He rolled his eyes, pulling the keychain from his front pocket before dropping it into my hand.
“Seeing as we’re both here, want to stand guard together? I promise not to take any calls. Or act like we’re mates. Business only,” he said, drawing a cross over his chest with his finger.
I looked back at my car, torch glaring. My earlier sleeping bag performance fresh in my mind. Who was I kidding? I was the worst scout ever.
“I don’t need your help, you know,” I said, arms folded.
“Oh, I know,” he replied, not an ounce of humour in his voice.
I studied his face, trying to read him in the moonlight. For better or worse, it seemed things might go better if he stayed.
“Fine. But only because two sets of eyes are better than one.” I wasn't about to tell him I was relieved. He was right that I could take care of things. But the squeeze on my chest softened when I didn’t have to.
I moved my car inside the gate to hide it behind the overgrown hedge that used to line the old garden shed and went to get into the passenger’s side of Dax’s ute when he pulled down the rear gate.
“Over here,” he grunted, gesturing to the back of the ute before pulling himself up. In the back tray were wool blankets and a cool box. My stomach summersaulted, and I took a couple of steps backward, ready to leg it back to my car. Complete set up.
Dax took in my coiled features, and his eyes darted over the back of the ute’s contents, deciphering my panic.
“This is how I always set up when I’m doing low-risk recon! I swear Riley. I promise it’s not for your benefit. Or mine,” he added, clearing his throat.
My shoulders relaxed, but a pang of wounded pride lingered. Get a grip, Riley.
“If it makes you feel better, we can sit on opposite sides. I assume you’re not going inside?”
“I’d rather re-enact scenes from a Stephen King novel,” I muttered, climbing into the tray and letting my legs dangle.
“Sounds like you already did.”
“Yeah, well.” I shrugged. He wasn’t wrong.
If I ignored the nightmarish house looming two storeys high in front of us, this didn’t feel as awful as last time.
The full moon in the sky could even trick me into thinking it was kind of nice.
The dark backdrop spattered with patterns of stars in a way that was never visible in the light-polluted cities I was fond of.
The ocean below the cliff line was lit up by the same orb, creating a light carpet to somewhere unknown.
I leaned back on my elbows and tipped my head back toward the blackness.
There was something about the full moon.
My skin needed it in the same way it needed the sun.
Something in it caused my insides to sigh and relax the same way it did when it found a warm spot on a winter’s day.
I blew out a steady breath I hadn’t realised I was holding onto and let my nose fill again with the smell of summer evening air.
The breeze still carried glimpses of the day that still felt uncommonly warm.
I cracked an eye open to see what Dax was doing, relieved to find that while my current dry spell meant I couldn't ignore his appearance, it hadn't blinded me. I didn't trust him completely, word slip or not.
His long body stretched out on his own blanket, one arm under his head, the other holding a beer. Wasn’t this a work night?
I kicked off my platform sneakers and helped myself to a drink from the cool box.
“What was it like?” I asked after a few minutes of silence.
“What was what like?” he asked, rolling onto his side to face me. A part of me cringed at his closeness. Another part relaxed.
I picked at the label of the craft beer. “War.”
“Oh, that.” He pressed his lips together and rolled back to face the stars. “Loud. Dirty.”
“No, really.”
He let out a breath. “You’re exposed to the worst things a human can do to another human.” His voice quietened. “And sometimes, you’re forced to do those things yourself.”
Silence settled between us, and I felt guilty for asking.
“What was it like in there?” he asked, nodding at the house.
I let the quiet stretch. I couldn’t get mad when I’d asked him the same.
Annoyed, yes. Angry, no.
“You’re exposed to some of the worst things a human can do. Sometimes you’re forced to do those things yourself,” I said, echoing his words.
I hugged my knees to my chest, chasing a memory I wasn’t sure I wanted to catch.
Dax nodded, eyes fixed on the building, its bared windows on the second floor giving away some of its voracious nature.
“If the rumours are even close to true, I can’t imagine going through something like that as a kid.
It was never your choice like it was for me.
I knew what I was getting into when I enlisted.
Sort of.” He swallowed and looked dangerously close to arranging his features into one of those sympathetic looks that I hated.
“Do you still think about it?” he turned to face me again.
“Honestly? No, well I didn’t. Except in my dreams. But now…”
He nodded again. “You can’t control it?”
I kept my gaze on the bottle in my hands as my eyes grew tired. There was nothing I hated more than not being in control of the things in my life.
“Do you still think about it? The war, I mean,” I asked, stretching out on my back to shift the focus away from myself.
“Sometimes, but not like I used to. It’s not intrusive anymore.” He opened another beer.
“Sounds like heaven. How long until that happens for me?”
He snorted. “I didn’t get there on my own,” he said, his mouth twitching in the moonlight.
“Brain transplant?” I teased, propping myself up on my elbow. I loved relying on other people’s help to feel better.
Not.
He rolled his eyes at me and grinned. “You think you’re ready for it?”
“Give it to me,” I replied before I grimaced at the opening for a that’s what she said joke and was grateful he missed it entirely.
Dax sat up straight, glancing sideways like he wasn’t sure he could trust me with his big secret.
“Yoga,” he said. The top of his neck flushed pink.
I snorted.
“Well, specifically yoga nidra,” he clarified, ignoring my amusement.
“And that really works for you?” I asked, barely concealing my snigger. “Like with an om and a tree pose and all that stuff?”