Chapter Twenty
MARLEY
I DON’T think I’ve ever seen fog this thick before. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I drove after dark. Even with my headlights on low beam setting, the light is still reflecting in my eyes, so I slow down some.
The confusion in my head is about as dense as the fog that is on every side of the truck.
The gravel gutter on the side of the road is still visible at the front of the truck, and I keep the edge of the hood lined up with that to make sure I stay on the road, the last thing I want is to be off the road in the middle of the night.
Why am I driving in the middle of the night, anyway?
While sitting up as tall as I can to see over the hood, I realize that the hood of my truck has turned blue.
Midnight blue. With glitter flakes in the clear coat.
Slowing down even more, I look at the steering wheel, it’s no longer the steering wheel of my late model Maroon GMC Sierra.
It’s big, thin, and old. Like the old steering wheel in Mason’s ’78 Chevy K10 from high school.
Stopping the truck, I look around the cab. Oh God. I’m in Mason’s old truck. Why am I in Mason’s truck? Looking down to put the truck in park, I realize my entire middle console is gone and I’m looking at the stick shift in the floor.
The one with the eight ball screwed on the top that I remember watching Mason grab after Keith attacked me.
My stomach churns, and my insides frost over as a light sweat breaks out across my forehead. I don’t want to touch it, so I push the parking brake down with my foot.
Why am I here?
I was so focused on staying on the road that I didn’t realize I don’t even know where I’m driving to.
Glancing around the cab, I look for my purse and my phone, but neither is anywhere to be found.
Something is in the floorboard, I can’t make it out but when I lean over and pick it up, it’s a bottle of purple alcohol.
My heart flutters in my chest like a bird trying to break out of a cage. Opening my hand to let the bottle fall to the seat, I yelp when I hear tapping on the driver’s side window.
It’s Jax. Relief washes over me, and I crank the window down.
“Hey, Marley.” He smiles, but it looks weird. Jax doesn’t smile like that. The teeth don’t even look like his teeth.
Setting my hand over my heart, I take a deep breath. “I’m so glad it’s you. I don’t know where I am.”
“Okay, open the door and I’ll drive you home.” That strange smile is still on his face.
Why does he sound funny? My gut is telling me not to open the door.
But it’s Jax.
The smile on his face falls, and he looks angry. Something is wrong. While I’m looking at his face to try to put my finger on what, his features start changing. His beautiful blue eyes turn brown, and his short blond hair turns dark brown and shaggy.
Fear paralyzes me as Keith is standing on the other side of the door. But he’s supposed to be dead. Jax told me he killed him. Something in the dark recesses of my mind is telling me this isn’t real, but the panic grabs me anyway.
He grabs the handle and tries to open it, but it’s locked. “Open the door, Marley.” He growls.
Shaking my head, I scoot away from the door. But the window is part way down. He reaches in and clamps his hand around my throat.
“Come here, Marley. I have something for you.” He growls, his lip is pulled up, baring his teeth.
No! Not again!
No!
My legs feel like they are bound as I try to kick the door to get away, but his other hand grabs my arm so I can’t move away further.
No!
I can’t breathe. This can’t be happening again. Tears start streaming down my face as I scream at him to stop.
“Marley!” He’s shaking me, but his voice is different.
No! I try to kick him again and hear a quiet grunt. My head is starting to spin.
“Marley!” His hands are on my face. No, his hands are around my neck. But wait, warm, rough hands are on my face.
“Lepa!”
My eyes fly open, and Jax is hovering over me, his hands cupping my face and his eyes moving quickly between mine as I come out of the haze of the dream.
The ceiling fan slowly turning on the ceiling behind his head.
Is it really him? I jerk back and scrabble to sit against the headboard of my bed.
He lets go and sits back with his hands up in front of him.
Gulping down air like a fish out of water, I look around the room.
I forgot to close my blinds and the floodlights from my stables are casting soft, dim lines of light across one wall.
Yes, this is my room. My bedside table is next to me, my open book face down on the surface, and my boots are messily laying in the floor next to the door.
This is my room.
The bedroom door is open and a commotion out in the hall sounds like bare feet on the wood floor, then I see Mason, followed by Dad, running into the room.
“Hey, you’re okay. It was a dream.” My eyes fly back to Jax, and a sob chokes out of me. He flinches like he is about to move toward me, but thinks better of it and stays where he is. The concern in his eyes as he watches every twitch on my face makes me feel bad for scaring him.
Gray slides to a stop, from a run, in the doorway. “Is she okay?”
Jax is sitting on the edge of the bed from where he sat down to wake me. Mason steps up behind him, his hands on his hips, and still in his boxers and a T-shirt that he’s put on backwards and wrong side out.
Taking deep breaths, I keep choking back the sobs that want to take over. It felt so real. I hate it when they feel that real.
“Do you want one of your pills, Squeak?” Gray asks from the door.
He’s thrown on his sweats, but he didn’t bother with a shirt.
His shoulders nearly take up all the doorway and his arm is over his head cocked against the door frame, his other hand shoved in the pocket of his pants. His eyes are laser focused on me.
Shaking my head, I look down at the sheets that are twisted around my legs. That’s why my legs felt tied down in the dream.
“No, I don’t like them. They don’t stop the dreams, they just make it harder to wake up from them.”
My t-shirt is soaked with sweat and is getting cold, sending goosebumps across the surface of my skin. Jax looks down at my front and he takes off his T-shirt and pulls it over my head, threading my arms through the sleeves like a parent would a child.
Looking up at my brothers and father, I try to smile at them, but I think it looks more like a grimace. “I’m fine, go back to bed.”
“Do I need to get you some water, sweet pea?” Dad asks, his groggy voice even more gravely. His short, thin hair is standing up in spikes on his head and even when he runs his hand over his head, they stick back up.
Shaking my head, I try to smile again. “No, I’m fine, Dad. Thank you.”
“Hollar at me if you need anything.” Mason says as he steps next to me and grabs my shoulder to kiss the top of my head. He looks at Jax and claps his hand on his shoulder. “You coming?”
Still feeling like I’m in between the real world and dream world, I just nod at Mason. The bed shifts as Jax starts to stand, but I reach out and grab his hand and he freezes, his fingers curling around mine.
“Wait.”
His presence makes me feel better and I don’t want him to go. If he leaves, the room will feel so incredibly empty.
I look down and see his front is covered in tattoos.
There is only the dim light from the hallway nightlights that we keep on for Lainey Rai peeking in through the open door and what’s coming through my blinds, and I can’t really see what they are, but I can see lines and pictures all over his skin.
He’s even more impressive with his shirt off, his torso is nothing but lean muscle. The workout pants he has on sit low on his hips and I can see the perfect outline of a defined six pack. His face is closer than it was before because he’s in the middle of a crouch to stand and my eyes meet his.
His eyes lock on mine in question and I ask, “Will you sit with me for a minute?”
Mason stops at the door and looks between us, his hand on the door frame. His eyes lock on mine and I try to give him a reassuring smile, but he only looks at Jax again before disappearing around the door.
He’s not happy that I asked Jax to stay. He also left the door wide open. I don’t care about that, I’m not hiding and I’m not a child.
Without saying anything, Jax stands, and I worry that maybe the question was inappropriate or he’s worried about what Mason is thinking, and he is going to leave, but he steps to the head of the bed and taps my shoulder. “Scoot up.”
Leaning up, I scoot forward, and he throws his leg over me and sits against the headboard. “Would you like to take off your wet shirt?”
Hesitating for a few seconds, I pull my arms back into his shirt and wiggle out of my wet t-shirt and pull it through the neck hole of his shirt to throw on the floor. His shirt smells like him. Leather and soap envelop me and I’m immediately warm.
He reaches around me and rearranges the sheets to pull them over me, and leans back onto my pillows against the headboard. “Lean back on me, Lepa.”
At first, I don’t know if I can do it. I sit there for a few moments, breathing and telling myself that he would never hurt me. I know he wouldn’t. But the damn dream is messing with my mind. Slowly, I lean back onto his chest, letting my head rest on his shoulder next to his neck. He’s so warm.
His arms come around my upper body and he locks me into an embrace, his fingers curling around my upper arms, and leans his cheek onto my head. “Sleep. Nothing can get you now.” His accent is thicker than it usually is.
It only takes a few minutes, but my body has relaxed and I don’t think I have ever felt so safe and comfortable. His chest is hard against my back, but there’s no place I’d rather be.
A chuckle bubbles up from my chest.
“Something funny?” Keeping his voice soft and low because it’s still the middle of the night, I can still hear the humor laced in the question.
“The mystery is solved. I’ve wondered if you have tattoos on your chest and back, and now I know you have them all over your front.”
His chest vibrates under me with a chuckle, the sound deep and comforting. “If you wanted to get me naked, all you had to do was ask.”
Heat creeps up my neck and I don’t know what to say to that. One hand squeezes my arm, and he chuckles again. “I’m kidding, Lepa.”
We are silent for a while and my eyes are getting heavy, but I don’t want to go to sleep because I feel so good leaning against him right now.
Sucking in a breath, I keep my voice low. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Da.”
“Tell me what your home was like in Serbia.”
It’s slight, but I feel him freeze under me for a fraction of a moment. I set my hand on his forearm that’s across my chest and say, “Something happy.”
A deep breath lifts his chest under my back, and I lower with him as he lets the breath out, the exhale moves some of the hairs across the top of my head.
“My father had two brothers, they were very close. Our dom was on one large piece of land with a common garden area. I remember a lot of green, trees in all directions, not so different from here.”
“Dom?” I ask.
“Our homes.” He clarifies, and I nod.
“Our mothers would spend a lot of time together in the garden while all of us kids would play together. I had lots of cousins. Some trees had pink blooms and some white, there were always blooming flowers in every direction. Our mothers loved their garden.”
A big yawn stretches my mouth, and I cover it with my hand before I ask, “Do you ever go back to visit?”
Another sigh. “No, it is all gone. It was burned when we escaped.”
I’m jarred out of my cozy comfort, and I try to sit up, but he holds me tight against him. Setting both of my palms on his forearm, I sigh. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Don’t be sorry for wanting to know me better. It is a gift, one I don’t take for granted.”
“But I don’t want to cause you pain.” A slight hitch of emotion in my chest makes me hiccup. After I have a nightmare, I tend to be emotional after, and, as much as it pisses me off, I often end up crying myself to sleep.
He shushes me and squeezes my shoulders harder. “You did not cause me pain. I like to think about my mother sometimes, especially during happy times. Her face has become fuzzy in my memories, and I don’t have pictures of her, so talking about her is a comfort.”
Nodding again, I ask, “How old were you when you came here?”
“I was twelve.”
“Where did you live?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Did you have family there?”
He hesitates, and I wonder if I’m asking too many questions.
“Da. I stayed with them until I went into the service.”
“What made you want to go into the service?”
He chuckles again. “Shouldn’t you be getting some rest?”
Does he want me to hurry and go back to sleep? I’m enjoying sitting here with him, but maybe he doesn’t feel the same. The thought makes my heart sink in my chest and I roll my lips between my teeth.
Like he can read my mind, he says, “I want to answer all your questions, Lepa, but some things are easier to talk about than others.” He squeezes my arms again. “I will make a deal with you, five questions per day. Anything you want to ask, da?”
My smile comes back and I lightly squeeze his forearm again. “Da.”
He chuckles at my use of his word. His lips brush the top of my head. “You’ve exceeded your quota for the day, go to sleep. I will stay here with you.”
Just as my eyes are getting heavy, I remember something, and it startles me a little. “I need to go into town tomorrow and get a special formula for the gelding.”
“Then I will take you.”
“Okay.”
We lie here in silence for a little while before I can’t hold my eyes open any longer and I drift off into a warm, deep sleep with no dreams.