CHAPTER 2 – Ink
We’d been attacked, infiltrated, and now that the shock had worn off, fear was beginning to leech its way into my mind, and it was taking everything I had not to get up and go to Gracie. We were outnumbered, and these men were heavily armed. We had weapons, but it had nothing on this rough looking bunch of mercenaries. They had stormed the compound unanimously from all sides, catching us unaware. We might as well have been standing around with our dicks in our hands the way they effortlessly took control.
We’d prepared for this, my soldiers were sharp and skilled, but over the years we’d obviously become complacent. A large truck with a slab of metal welded to its heavy bumper had rammed open our gates, twisting the metal and giving them access to walk right through. At this moment I had no idea how many men they had. But from what I could see around me, their numbers were high, much higher than that of my twenty-one soldiers, five of whom were teenage boys in training.
My vision kept wavering and blurring, my head pounding as though it might split in two at any moment. A knife wound to my shoulder bleed freely and ribs burned with each breath of air I tried to suck in or expel. Somehow, I remained upright though, watching as Gracie moved reluctantly toward the asshole who called himself Jebediah.
She wasn’t supposed to be here, she was meant to be at the caves we’d agreed on as a rendezvous point if shit ever did hit the fan. Trigger was supposed to get her and Skye out, and considering Skye was nowhere to be seen, I assumed she followed Trigger’s orders, unlike Gracie. It didn’t really surprise me, she was loyal to a fault and loved the people within Liberty. She’d never abandon them, and she’d never abandon me regardless of the wall I’d built between us. I wasn’t a good man, but destroying our friendship had been an asshole move of epic proportions and my one true regret.
“What a pretty little bird,” Jebediah murmured as Gracie approached.
She stopped just outside his reach, her body positioned closer to me.
“Gimme, gimme, gimme,” he repeated, wiggling his hands in a come-hither motion.
With slow and deliberate movements, Gracie lifted her gun, and Jebediah stepped forward to take it. He made sure to touch Gracie as he did, and I didn’t miss the shudder she tried so hard to conceal. She also didn’t step away from him like I knew she wanted to. With stiff shoulders, my proud girl showed this asshole how strong she really was, that she wouldn’t cower. She was facing her enemy and showing no fear. I knew inside she would be quaking with it, her kind, gentle soul, totally inexperienced against this kind of darkness. Jebediah didn’t move away from Gracie, his meticulous scrutiny of her chipping away at my protective instincts.
“What do you want, Jebediah?” I asked, keeping my voice casual. Jebediah’s focus didn’t leave Gracie like I’d hoped it would.
“What do I want?” he answered thoughtfully, dragging each word out.
His hand reached out and gripped Gracie’s hip. This time she didn’t hide her fear, her fists clenching as Jebediah stepped into her body. I snapped to attention, my muscles tighter than a taut rubber band, ready to leap into action. I hated his hands on her, I detested her fear. It drove the adrenaline in my body higher and higher as his hand snaked down her thigh. When he gave her flesh a squeeze, I saw red. With a grunt I tried to push to my feet, but as expected, I was immediately kicked to the ground by a booted foot. Jebediah laughed and when I glanced back up to where he stood he’d taken a step away from Grace, the knife she wore in her thigh harness now in his hand and an amused look on his face.
“You don’t like me touching your little bird, Ink?” Tension burned through my body as Jebediah turned to give me his full attention. “According to my source, she’s the only one you won’t touch, and you’re not usually fussy about pussy.” He began to laugh, a manic, high pitched crow that sounded completely insane. “Word is, you even fucked ol’ Viv over there.” He pointed to Viviane’s unmoving body hanging from the flagpole where our own rebel flag normally hung proudly.
I squeezed my eyes shut to block the view of her beaten and bloodied body. I’d never slept with Viviane, but she hadn’t been shy with her feelings for me. People gossiped, and assumed, but they were wrong. Seeing her ravaged, bloodied body made me feel physically ill.
“She’d have to be fifty. That’s just sick man,” the crazy pale freak shouted, and my gaze returned to him. There was no point trying to defend myself from his bullshit accusations, they weren’t important. “But…” Jebediah went on, pausing in a way I thought he enjoyed, his words all a game, “… you haven’t fucked the little bird here. My men can’t understand why, she’s a tight little package. Nice lips for sucking…” he drew back a sharp breath as if thinking about Gracie’s lips on his body, “… pale skin that would mark so beautifully. Perfect tits for a man’s hands.” His hands reached out but stopped short of touching her, his palms cupping into a squeezing motion. “Damn,” he snapped, his fingers whipping through his white hair and tugging at the ends, a move that seemed full of frustration.
The way he spoke about Gracie’s body made my anger burn. He was talking about her as if she were some whore, a thing to be played with, a fucking toy. She was anything but. Grace was all innocence, a rose amongst thorns. She’d been my responsibility since she was twelve-years-old, our relationship one of a brother and sister. Over the last year though, my feelings toward her had changed, twisting and transforming into something I was deeply ashamed of. One day I’d been looking at the little girl I’d become so attached to, and the next I was noticing her soft, enticing curves. A week later it was her lips that had me mesmerized, full and soft, with a radiant smile that seemed a whole lot more seductive. Not to mention her husky voice that suddenly made my dick hard. I was looking at Gracie like a man might look at a woman, and it sickened me. I’d promptly distanced myself from her which might as well have been a dagger to my chest. I missed her laugh. I missed her crazy fucking hair styles, I missed her spontaneous love for life. I just… missed her.
It had taken some deep soul searching to realize my feelings for her weren’t depraved or perverted. Gracie was nineteen, she was all woman, and I was twenty-eight, definitely all man. We were adults, and Gracie was no blood relative. I was attracted to her, and finally after a long year of being a fucking pussy, I’d accepted that fact. The thing was now, I didn’t know how to go about repairing the hurt I’d caused her. I’d treated her like shit, I’d been less than discreet with the women I fucked, and I’d rejected her point blank. A broken heart wasn’t something I knew how to deal with.
Jebediah moving around Gracie wrenched my thoughts away from the emotional storm I’d whipped up. He stepped behind her rigid body, his nose dipping into the arch of her neck. I vibrated with anger, my jaw locked so tight I thought I might break a tooth.
Gracie held such fear in her big green eyes, the flesh over her knuckles white from the tight fist she clenched.
“But I understand. She’s special,” Jebediah continued, stepping out of Gracie’s personal space once more. “Special, special, special,” he repeated. “She’s your weakness.” Jebediah strolled toward me. That was good, the further away from Gracie, the better. “You have two choices.” Holding up his hand he counted off one finger. “Choice number one… your death. It will be messy and brutal, and the little bird behind me gets a front row seat.” Jebediah squatted down before me, his smile softening. “I kind of hope you pick that one.” There was a long pause before he held up his hand and counted off another finger. “Choice number two… you work for me.”
“I get the feeling I’d prefer death over working for you,” I said, keeping my voice level and calm.
Jebediah smiled, his head tilting to one side as he considered my words. “Thought you’d say that.”
He quickly stood and made his way back to Gracie, circling her once more, his hand reaching out to capture the long, dark braid which hung almost to her waist, raising it to his face and using the feathered end to rub across his bottom lip. “After you’re dead, the little bird is mine to play with.”
“I won’t let you touch me,” Gracie snapped, the sharp tang to her quietly buried temper gently licked the air.
“Oh, Gracie,” Jebediah sighed. “What makes you think you would have a choice?”
“If you touch me, I’ll gut you, you freak—”
Gracie’s words were cut off as a woman stepped forward and swung a kick to her head. Gracie was thrown through the air and onto her back, her head bouncing off the worn grass as Jebediah laughed maniacally.
My own temper frayed, and I tried to scramble to my feet. My momentum was brought to a quick halt when a gun was pressed right between my eyes. It was a weapon unlike anything I’d ever seen before, an ostentatious silver piece, a little bigger than your average gun with etchings down the barrel. With the steel pressed against my forehead, I remained still.
Jebediah tsked me, all the while smiling like the insane asshole he was. “You touch my sister, and it’s automatically option number one.”
His sister now stood to his side, her arms slipping around his waist and her head resting serenely on his shoulder like she hadn’t just lashed out with violence seconds ago.
“Meet my sister, Jezebeth. But we all call her Jeze.” Jebediah lowered his weapon as he affectionately stroked Jeze’s cheek, and then leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to her full lips. When his gaze returned to mine, his grin was a proud smirk. “So, what will it be? Your servitude and Gracie’s sweet pussy remains yours?”
I had to keep Gracie safe from this man, regardless of whether she would ever be mine or not. Jebediah currently held all the power, and I needed to be smart about how I handled that fact. There was no way I was letting this fucker walk into Liberty and just take it without a fight, but I had no idea how many men worked for him or the weaponry they had.
Forcing my foot beneath me I began to stand, waiting for the kick which would send me to my knees. Thankfully it didn’t come, and I stood to my full height as I took in Jebediah’s measure. He was only slightly shorter than my six feet three, thin, though muscled in a way that told me he was fit. The fucker was clearly crazy. And the thing about crazy—they had few limits. But I already knew his weak spot, just as he knew mine. Jeze was clearly someone special to Jebediah, and I was already thinking of how I could use that to my advantage.
“I’ll work for you. But Jebediah? You touch Gracie and all bets are off.”
Jebediah’s hyper laughter filled the quiet morning air. “Of course, of course,” he replied in a dry tone.
Turning I found Gracie standing once more. Her shoulders were pressed proudly back even as her cheek began to swell. Limping toward her, I gently ran a finger over the bruising. She didn’t move, her glassy eyes roaming over my injuries.
“I’m sorry, buttercup.”
“Don’t be silly,” she whispered. “You didn’t do it. Are you all right?”
Trust Gracie to brush off her own injury and fixate on someone else’s.
“Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”
Gracie rolled her eyes, an action that might have alleviated the worry held in those moss green orbs if overwhelming fear wasn’t still harbored there.
“Face the enemy, show no fear,” I reminded her in a low voice.
Words I’d said to her many times over the years. The training I’d forced on her in the early days scared her. I’d had to tap into a place deep inside her soul where all her fear, anger, and hate lay buried.
“Face your enemy,” I’d ordered her quietly, but with real meaning. “Don’t show them your fear, bury it deep, and you fight to survive, buttercup.”
Face, fear, fight — three words which reminded her that under the timid, gentle exterior she wore so well, she was a warrior.
“Face, fear, fight,” she repeated.
“Fuckin’ beautiful,” Jebediah shouted. “Your communications room is off limits. Gates are about to be locked up good and tight. As we speak, my men are moving from room to room and searching for any weapons you might have thought to hide from me. If you’re feeling a little rebellious and lash out at me or my men, you get a taste of what ol’ Viviane here got… a beat down and strung up. The Arena is mine. You are mine. So, the sooner you wrap your head around that, the better.” Nobody said a word. “Glad we can come to an understanding. Now get these fuckers out of my sight,” he ordered. “Dig a pit and grab some firewood. We’re going to burn these dead assholes. Those still breathing can return to their homes. Tonight, we’re going to party.”
Trigger stepped forward, his face grim. I gave him my best ‘what the fuck’ look.
“She just…disappeared,” he mumbled, his gaze straying over my shoulder and watching as Jebediah and his militia moved about behind us. Shaking my head, I reached out for Gracie’s hand, wincing when pain lanced my ribs.
“It’s fucking Gracie,” I growled. “Off course she disappeared.”
“I’m right here assholes,” Gracie muttered under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear.
“Ink,” Jebediah’s voice stopped me in my tracks. “I will be taking Viviane’s humble home while my men take up residence in the soldier’s quarters. You and your men have twenty minutes to clear the building.” His lips then turned into an exaggerated leer. “Feel free to leave any women you’ve become bored with, I have no doubt my men will look upon such a boon with good favor.”
Viviane’s home was a large cabin sitting in the trees behind the soldier’s barracks. Her cabin was bigger than most, the extra space used for meetings and gatherings. The barracks was a large brick building filled with small apartment style rooms for the soldiers and their families. It was filled to capacity. Moving them all so quickly was going to be a full scale effort.
“I’ll put together a group of men and get everyone moved.” Max stepped up beside me. He was a rebel soldier I’d served alongside before Liberty was established. Max was my oldest soldier at fifty-four, but he was as fit as the younger men, and the people in Liberty trusted him and responded well to his command.
“I’ll get Gracie settled and meet you at the barracks.”
“We got this, Ink,” Max argued. “You need to get sewn up. And from the way you’re standing, I’d say you have at least one or two bruised or fractured ribs. I’ll pack up your things. Where should I bring them?”
Sitting back on my ass while my men emptied the barracks stung, I wasn’t one to sit back and let others do the hard work. “I’m fine. Just give me some time to get patched up, and I’ll meet you.”
“You look like a stiff wind would blow you over,” Trigger added. “Let Max handle it.”
Max arched a brow. “Bags?”
“Gracie’s cabin,” I reluctantly conceded. I knew I had a concussion, splintering pain lanced my head, and my body was aching something fierce. I wouldn’t be of any use to anyone if I passed out.
“One more thing, Ink,” Jebediah said from a few feet away, his sister standing at his back. I had a feeling her position behind her brother was one born to watch for an attack he couldn’t see coming, rather than deference or servitude. “We would be honored if you and Grace would accompany us to the party tonight. A welcome-to-the-compound type thing.” He grinned. “Be at our new residence on dusk.”
The last thing I wanted to do was willingly spend time with this man, but getting to know your enemy was a sound strategic plan. Offering him a slight nod, I turned my back and followed Trigger through the compound. A compound which was usually full of laughter this time of the morning, but now deathly silence fell over the land. Grim faces found mine, and I tried to offer them some sliver of hope, but the sharp sting of shock was still too new and raw. We were all walking an equally rocky path, not sure where to put our foot next.
Tonight, I would find out what Jebediah wanted with Liberty, and then we would figure out how to untangle this web we’d become stuck in.
***
As the adrenaline left my body, the aches and pains filled every inch of me. My head was pounding, my shoulder throbbing, and breathing too deeply sent a stabbing pain through my ribs. Trigger got to work on stitching the cut on my shoulder, he’d already closed one above my eye. He wasn’t a trained medic, but he had enough experience stitching during his time in the forces. We had a doctor in Liberty, Ashlynn, but I knew she’d be busy with other more seriously injured patients. I didn’t want to monopolize her time when Trigger could patch me up.
“He said he had a source,” Gracie muttered as she paced the room. “Someone inside Liberty has been talking to him.”
I nodded, wincing at the pain that spiked with such a simple movement.
“We can’t trust anything he says, he’s clearly insane,” Trigger mumbled.
Insane didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Did Skye get out?” Gracie’s eyes were wide with alarm as if her friend’s wellbeing only just occurred to her. “Was there anyone else at the evacuation point?”
Trigger huffed out a breath of air. “She has self-preservation, Grace. You, though… fuck me! I’ve never known someone so belligerent and disobedient.” He shook his head angrily.
I didn’t like the way he berated her, especially knowing her unwillingness to leave stemmed from a good place. Who were we to punish or belittle her for her compassion?
“Leave it.” Even though I whispered the word, the command was no less, and Trigger snapped his mouth shut.
“I got her to the bunker. I’m assuming she got out, but I didn’t notice anyone else there. So I have no idea if anyone else made it,” he eventually said a little brusquely as he finished off the final stitch and cut the thread. “I’m gonna go check on Max and see how they’re going clearing out the barracks. Ink has a concussion, Grace. Do you think you can follow orders and wake him every hour?”
“Enough,” I growled, furious at the way he was speaking to her.
Trigger didn’t look the least bit contrite as he turned toward the door. Gracie had stiffened at his remark but didn’t say anything. She did, however, slam the door shut behind him, letting us all know she didn’t appreciate it. With stiff, awkward movements, she began to clean up the first aid kit Trigger had been using. At a basin in the tiny bathroom, she wet a hand towel under the faucet and moved to stand before me. I was sitting on the edge of her bed, my body moments away from shutting down.
“He’s just stressed about the situation, we all are. Ignore him.”
“Character is something defined under pressure,” she mumbled, anger still laced in her quiet tone.
“My wise little buttercup.”
Her nose scrunched up like she’d just sucked in a bad smell. “I hate it when you call me that.” She gently began wiping the blood from my face. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that the pet name I’d adopted for her years ago had more recently become something that seemed to irritate her. Habit kept me using it.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re not getting that blood on my sheets. I only have one set.”
The corner of my lips threatened to curve into a smile, my Gracie was a complete neat freak. Never was there a speck out of place in her small home. A home she shouldn’t have been in right now. She should have been in the cave with Skye. Safe.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I sighed, and Gracie’s fingers froze for a moment, her body becoming rigid, her eyes swimming with hurt. “You should be at the cave,” I explained. “You should be away from all this shit.”
“You know me better than anyone, Ink. I couldn’t leave.” She continued to carefully wipe away the blood, taking long moments to clean the tattoo on my face. The word ‘Grace’ had been inked in an elegant script on my cheekbone, under my eye. It had confused her when I did it a year ago. She thought it a declaration of my love, and it was, but I didn’t want her to know that. At the time she’d looked on me with such adoration, then she’d kissed me. The memory of her warm, soft lips forever imprinted on my brain. But I pushed her away and it broke something in me to hurt her that way. It also broke something in her, and I hated myself even more for it. Gracie wore her emotions for everyone to see, and I’d known for a long while she harbored a crush on me. I’d done everything I could think of to dissuade her, and as my own feelings began to change into something I didn’t quite understand, I ran like a fucking coward.
Watching her as she cared for me, I couldn’t help but admire all her little nuances. The dip in the center of her brow as she concentrated, the twitch of her nose, the way her teeth grabbed at her full bottom lip. Her eyes caught mine briefly and her cheeks filled with a rosy hue. I fucking adored her bashful response to me, it was refreshing. The women I enjoyed within Liberty were anything but bashful, their bold sexual appetites feeding my own. Now, though, I found the tentative touch of this beautiful woman as something I hungered for.
The rag carefully worked through my short beard along my jawline, before moving on to my arms which were also filled with dark ink, right down to my fingertips.
“I could just take a shower,” I murmured, hoping like hell she didn’t agree and stop her ministrations.
“I want to take care of you,” she confessed after a short silence.
I liked her taking care of me too. Her eyes hovered over every inch of my exposed flesh, and I felt the heat of her stare burn through my skin, sinking deep. It took several times to clean out the rag before she was finished which was bittersweet. Her attention on me was like adding fuel to a smoldering flame, and my dick was painfully hard behind the zipper of my pants. I wanted to pull her hands back on my body and never allow her to take them away.
A knuckled rap on the door broke the rapidly building sexual tension and Gracie jumped back, putting space between us. Max had my duffle bag packed with clothes in one hand, and a heavy-duty sleeping bag in the other.
“Your room had already been checked, stuff was tossed everywhere, your hidden stash was emptied,” Max explained. My hidden stash being three handguns, two knives and ammunition. “They’re headed this way no doubt to begin checking cabins. I’ve got Axel and Charlie trying to get a head start knocking on doors and collecting any weapons we can hide.”
Gracie reluctantly handed Max a knife she had hidden away in the bottom of a drawer, and soon after he left, her cabin was methodically checked over just as Max assured us it would be. One uniformed soldier stood at the doorway pressing the barrel of his gun to my head, while another tore through Gracie’s belongings, taking his time with her underwear.
“Be seeing you around, princess,” one of the men leered as they turned their back on Gracie’s now destroyed cabin. My body reacted on auto-pilot and I swung, clipping the fucker who had called her princess on the jaw. He fell back through the door, his partner quick to start waving his gun in my face. Gracie’s hand gripped my forearm, stopping me from lashing out.
“Stop it, Ink.” The panic in her voice was crystal clear. “They want you to fuck up, they’ll take any excuse they can to kill you.”
I knew that, but it didn’t seem to lessen my need to attack.
“Be seeing you around, fresh meat,” the man with the gun seethed, his knotted beard covering his lips.
I watched them retreat before locking the cabin door. Then I helped Gracie put her home back together, refolding clothes and sweeping up the glass from a broken vase. My vision was beginning to blur, and my head felt like it was ready to split in two. I couldn’t recall ever feeling the pull of sleep like I did right this minute. I ended up taking a shower, needing to scrub the filth of the morning off my skin. The moment I collapsed onto the mattress of Gracie’s bed I knew I was going to fade. My eyes tracked her movements around the room as she reached for my dirty, bloodied clothes.
“Leave it be for now,” I quietly ordered her.
“I need to get the blood off before it dries.”
“It’s already dry. They’re ruined, Gracie. Just leave them be, we’ll dispose of them later.”
“Ink, we don’t have the luxury of throwing away clothes,” she began to chastise me, one hand sat proudly on one hip.
She was fucking beautiful.
She was everything I wasn’t—smart, humble, innocent.
Gracie laughed a lot, knew all the people of Liberty by name and played with the children as if she was still one herself. She was also known as the girl with a temper that was slow to draw out, but when it appeared, you made yourself scarce. At five-feet-five, she wasn’t tall, yet her legs seemed to go on for miles. Her breasts were a small handful. Perfect. Her waist dipped narrow before flaring to an ass which was made for worship. Her facial features were delicate, moss green eyes with dark lashes, a nose that lifted slightly at the tip, and full lips. Angelic was the word which sprung to mind when I found myself thinking about Gracie’s beauty. Her exquisiteness was only heightened by her own indifference to it. She was completely oblivious to the way men reacted to her, which at times, I found endearing and other times just plain frustrating.
Watching Jebediah and his men leer over her while being helpless to stop it broke something in me. It was if the wall I had erected around my heart when it came to this woman crumbled spectacularly to the ground. With a groan, I squirmed further onto the bed, enjoying the soft mattress beneath my aching body.
“Come lay with me,” I murmured.
“I’ve got things to do, I don’t have time to lay around all day.”
“Things have changed, Gracie. There’s nothing you need to do right now, and I want you beside me while I rest. I need to know you’re safe.”
That’s all it took for a soft sigh to leave her lips as she dumped my clothes back on the floor. Walking toward me, her eyes dropped to the bed, a light blush settling into her cheeks.
“I don’t know how to do this. I’ve never slept beside a man before, and the bed is small and you’re huge, and you’re hurting.”
Her words made me smile. I liked the fact she hadn’t slept beside another male, and I liked that she cared about my aches and pains. I’d never had anybody care about me the way Gracie did. Taking her wrist, I pulled her down, and her arms caught her weight before she pressed against my body.
“Climb on over, buttercup. I want you between me and the wall.”
Careful not to jostle my body, she did as she was told. Stretching out my arm, I watched as she laid her head on my bicep, holding herself rigid and uncertain.
“You smell good,” I said, burying my face in her messy braid. I loved her hair. It was long to her waist with thick, gentle waves in a brown so dark it was almost black. She was always playing with it, twisting it into weird styles that little girls begged her to replicate in their own hair. Personally, I dreamed of having it wrapped around my fist while I did things to her body that would make a nun blush. Those fantasies had grown over the year and had become a new kind of torture. My need for her grew as quickly as the gap between us did, a gap of my own making.
“I smell like sweat,” she noted.
“Your sweat smells good.”
“I highly doubt that.”
My eyes were heavy, and while I wanted to enjoy this moment, having her so close, the pressing weight of fatigue was soon going to steal me away.
“I killed someone.” Her soft words came out with a tremble, and I turned to take in her features. She was frozen in a mixture of grief and horror, her bottom lip caught in her teeth. Her hands rested on her stomach, fingers linked tightly together, and I could still see the tremor in them. Casting me a nervous sideways glance she went on. “It was after Trigger ran off toward the north wall with Skye, I was alone, and he came at me so fast. I told him to stop, he didn’t.”
My eyes shut for a moment and regret shadowed my thoughts. Gracie wasn’t a killer, taking a life was going to leave a mark on her soul. But she’d protected herself, she’d survived, and done exactly as I’d taught her. Reaching over I unlaced her fingers and linked them with mine. “It was him or you, Gracie. The men who stormed our compound aren’t here for a social call. They aren’t friends. They’re our enemy, and this is war. There are always going to be casualties in war. You did the right thing. I’m proud of you.”
“It was awful,” she admitted after a short silence.
“Taking a life always is,” I conceded. “Death isn’t pretty, and if it ever gets to the stage where it doesn’t affect you, then there’s something wrong.”
“Does it still affect you?”
I’d killed several men over the years, and every one of them was a regret that burned deep, but not one of them hadn’t been justified. They’d all been enemies, whether it be enemies of the country or ruthless murderers in the Underworld. Even so, killing them marked my soul.
“Always.”
“How do you deal with it?” she murmured, her sweet voice nothing but a soft whisper in the quiet of her dimly lit cabin.
“I accept the guilt. I acknowledge it. Then, I let it go. I let them go, Gracie. Those faces. I have to let them go. Otherwise, they’d haunt me till my dying day.”
Silence fell over us and eventually all I could hear was the sporadic whistle of birds and the occasional mumbled conversation from neighboring cabins. The compound should be well and truly filled with life at this time of the day, but instead, it was as quiet as night. Remorse slammed into me hard, and my brain ran through scenarios on how I could have prevented this.
Liberty had been compromised. I had failed my one mission—keeping the people safe. I’d overseen the security here for seven years, supervising the soldiers and keeping the perimeter guarded and the peace within its walls. Even though we trained for this event, we never really thought it would happen. I needed to get back out there and sort this shit out, but I’d barely come off a night shift when Jebediah attacked. My body was running on fumes, and the pounding of head relentless. I needed to rest. Just a few hours, I promised myself, and I’d get up and go looking for Trigger and Max so we could put together a plan.
Each minute we laid in silence, Gracie relaxed until her warm body was soft and pliant against mine. Our fingers remained linked together and rested on my lower stomach, avoiding my bruised ribs. If my concussion and exhaustion weren’t pressing down like a heavy weight, I might have enjoyed how close her hand was to that part of my anatomy that always grew painfully hard in her presence.
“I’m not going to sleep. I need to wake you every hour, Trigger’s orders,” Gracie murmured, breaking the silence.
“Just stay with me,” I quietly whispered as my foggy head began to drift with impending sleep.
“I’m always with you,” were the last words I heard before I was lulled into the promise of darkness.