CHAPTER 5 – Grace
It had been almost a week since Jebediah infiltrated Liberty and ruthlessly took away our freedom. Even though I’d lived the last seven years within the walls of a compound that left me feeling somewhat claustrophobic, I’d never been scared. That anxiety now bled out like an open wound, making me jumpy, my sleep coming in fitful spurts, even though Ink demanded I sleep beside him every night tucked safely into his shoulder. I felt constantly wired, and the lack of control over my present situation and any possible future made me restless.
When I found myself close to the walls of the compound, my gaze would linger on the high, rough iron, wondering about the world beyond.
Was it safe out there?
Was it safer than in here?
Then I’d wonder about Skye and if she was okay. The cave, our rendezvous point was well stocked with canned food, blankets, a couple of weapons, some clothes and wood for a fire, but it wasn’t meant to be a permanent home. Neither Ink nor Trigger thought it was safe to go check on her, not yet, but admitted someone would need to soon. Not that we had any idea how anyone would get out of the compound. The walls were well guarded on all sides, the front gate locked up tight, and our underground tunnel inaccessible. We were trapped.
Ink had done well to keep me busy. My job in Liberty was to cut hair, and on a good day, I might see two or three clients. Today I’d seen six, and they were all soldiers. I was grateful for the distraction, even if Max and Toddy’s hair had been so short the clippers didn’t take a single strand off their buzz cut heads. Working was meant to keep me busy and distracted, but my mind always managed to find its way back to worrying about the psycho who was Jebediah and his scary as hell sister.
Sighing, I dragged my gaze once again away from the northern compound wall. A couple of hours ago I’d found my quiet spot on my swing. I’d swung gently back and forth, daggers of light spearing through the high canopy, and the dried pine needles under my feet filling the area with the scent of the forest. Birds darted amongst the trees, and the normal noise of Liberty’s central township was lost in the distance. This was my peaceful place, a spot I could lose myself to nature and wonder about what my life might have been like if I hadn’t killed my father.
Would I still be living at home?
Would he still be hitting me?
Would he have eventually killed me, perhaps?
I hated getting lost in thoughts of ‘what if’ but coming back to reality, in the cocoon of Liberty, always helped refill me with positive energy. Today, all that positivity was missing, and I couldn’t find a single ounce of happiness in my own little paradise.
Ink would have tanned my hide if he realized I’d been out there all on my own. Just like he’d be furious to know I’d taken a jog around the perimeter, also all on my own. Breathing deeply, I sucked air into my over-exerted lungs and stretched my rubbery legs. Like a stubborn magnet that wouldn’t let my eyes go, I was drawn back to the compound wall. That barricade was meant to feel safe, a barrier between Liberty and the rest of the world. Now, all it resembled was entrapment and fear.
Trying as best I could to shake off those violent thoughts, I headed toward the long path which led me away from the wall and back into the center of Liberty. Several minutes later, I passed the enormous barn and took a moment to rub the nose of Mildred, my favorite dairy cow. She chewed her grass with a cool indifference I wished I could possess. Another several minutes passed, and I wandered around the corner of the infirmary, waving to Hadley, Ashlynn’s daughter. She smiled back, no sign of fear or shock on her pretty face. She was either good at blocking it out or knew something I didn’t. Hadley was a sprite of a girl, one year my junior, with a fierce personality. She had a terrible stutter which made speaking challenging and at times frustrating, but she didn’t let that keep her down. She worked tirelessly with her mom, learning everything she would need to become the next generation of health care for Liberty.
“W-w-why don’t you h-h-h-have Ink s-s-s-stop by sometime,” she stammered out. “I’ll ch-ch-check his w-w-w-wounds.”
Raising a brow, I chuckled. “Do you honestly think I haven’t tried to get him here?”
Hadley smiled. “M-m-m-maybe I should come t-t-t-to him.”
Snapping my finger, I pointed her way. “Thinking outside the box, I like that.”
With her grin still in place, Hadley waved and entered the small facility we used as our hospital. As I passed by a few more people, they offered strained smiles, some even glancing at my hair with a worried frown. Why would they be concerned about my hair? Because I never left my room without it looking immaculate, or at the very least, crazy and wild. Today it was thrown into a tousled mess on top of my head, and the few curious looks were making me feel a little insecure about it. It had been a long time since I’d given my locks such a halfhearted effort, but I’d been too tired this morning to give it any thought. People were staring, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because they were shocked by the style, but rather the lack thereof. When a dark dressed figure suddenly dropped from the low roof of a building, I yelped and took a good jump away.
“Holy crap, Slink,” I gasped, my hand clutched at my chest.
Slink was our fourteen-year-old resident sneak. His real name was Peter, but he’d earned his nickname for obvious reasons. The boy could sneak up on just about anyone without being detected. His slim, lanky build was perfect for creeping around the shadows. Today he was dressed in baggy black jeans and a faded black jumper, his dark hair a chaotic mess that made me wonder if he’d managed to put a brush through it when he woke up this morning. My fingers itched to reach out and fix it. His sharp, dark eyes looked guilty, and he swallowed hard, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing with the action.
“Sorry, Grace,” he murmured.
“What are you doing up there?” I chastised the boy. “You scared the crap out of me.” His pale cheeks reddened.
“I was just watchin’ that ghost man… he’s talkin’ with Robbie.”
“Ghost man?” I wondered out loud.
Slink took a few steps to one side and pointed around the corner of the building. With movements which obviously helped him maintain his charade of being sneaky, he crouched low and peered carefully around the building. Intrigued, I followed suit and did the same.
Jebediah’s hyper laugh drew my eyes straight to what had captured Slink’s attention. His pale form was clear amongst the buildings and trees. With a feverish grin on his face, he stared at Robbie, a nineteen-year-old Liberty civilian who had recently begun training with Ink and his men to become a soldier. They stood close together, close enough that Jebediah could reach out and touch Robbie if he so wished. Although Robbie was tall and had recently gained some muscle, Jebediah still seemed to tower over him, not physically, but in personality. Their posture couldn’t be more different. Robbie’s shoulders hunched forward, his face downcast. Jebediah stood tall, his shoulders back and head held high.
“Head home, Slink.”
The boy didn’t need to be told twice. He scampered away without a word. The thought of confronting Jebediah made me feel physically ill, but I refused to allow him to subjugate or hurt the people I felt so protective over. Pressing my shoulders back, I rounded the building and walked right up to the two men. A pair of insipid eyes turned my way, and I didn’t miss the spark of interest as I approached. Robbie’s reaction as he turned my way took me by surprise. His shoulders tightened, and his lips pinched as his eyes narrowed. He looked livid… at me.
“Hey, everything okay here?” I asked with far more bravado then I felt.
“Little bird, you look ravishing,” Jebediah purred.
Somehow, I avoided glancing down at my yoga pants and figure-hugging zipped cardigan. It was my usual exercising gear, but I felt vulnerable standing before Jebediah without a few extra layers. From the look he was giving me he wasn’t averse to the sweat that clung to me following my jog. Ignoring him took everything I had as I turned to the frustrated looking Robbie.
“You okay, Robbie?” I asked.
Robbie rolled his damn eyes.
“Everything is fine, Grace. Why don’t you mind your own business and keep walking?”
His quick, cruel words shocked me speechless.
Jebediah muffled a giggle as my brow lowered and settled into one of slight irritation accompanied by a large helping of confusion. Robbie had never spoken to me with anything but respect, and up until a few months ago went out of his way to be nice to me. His little crush had been clearly evident, but once he began dating Prudence I assumed he’d finally moved on, amicably. I had no idea where his hostility had come from.
“Calm down, Robbie. Little bird is simply protective of her flock,” Jebediah murmured.
“I’m not her flock,” Robbie spat out. “And I sure as shit don’t need her protection.”
I wanted to grab Robbie’s arm and pinch the shit out of his ear like I’d seen old Nanna Suzie do with the grouchy teenagers. Instead, I pretended to be unaffected by his outburst.
“I was on my way to find Ink. Want to walk with me?” I asked Robbie in an attempt to get him away from Jebediah, who continued to leer like a creeper.
“I’m meeting Pru, my girlfriend. You do remember I have a girlfriend, don’t you, Grace?”
What the hell? Did he think my interest in his wellbeing meant I was interested in him in a more than friendly way?
“I’d be happy to walk with you,” Jebediah inferred, interrupting my thoughts. The way his eyes dragged up and down my body with unrestrained lust made me shiver. I’d rather shove needles in my eyes than suffer through Jebediah’s company.
“Did Ink speak with you about increasing the rations for the children?” I asked Jebediah, my mood now sour and impatient to get away from here and find Ink.
Jebediah nodded but said nothing. One of the itty-bitty changes he had implemented was a reduction in rations for everyone. Instead of three meals a day, we were down to two, breakfast and dinner. Even though rations were always tight in the lead up to winter, we always made sure everyone got three square meals a day, especially the children.
“And?” I asked, a little exasperated, and probably pushing whatever button had set off Jebediah’s crazy.
As expected, Jebediah grinned, then stuck that awful forked tongue out of his mouth to flick one of the rings in his lower lip. It was disgusting.
“As I explained to Ink, my little bird, we have extra mouths to feed with me and my men here. So we all need to sacrifice to survive the winter.”
I wanted to tell him if he and his men would just fuck off we’d be fine. But I didn’t. I held my tongue, somehow, and huffed out a frustrated breath.
“However delightful I find your company,” Jebediah’s gaze dipped to my breasts. I wanted to cross my arms or flip him off, I did neither because I didn’t want him to know he was getting to me. “Robbie the Rumbler and I have business to discuss. If you’d like to continue this delightful dialogue, you could go wait in my cabin. Jeze is out, we’ll be alone.” He did another perusal of my body which left me feeling used and dirty. My glare shifted from him to Robbie. Robbie seemed as if he couldn’t care less, and I found myself wanting to slap them both. Instead, I turned and walked off to the sound of Jebediah’s hysterical laughter.
I found Ink hunched over a pipe that was squirting water in every direction. Trigger was crouched down beside him, using a wrench to try and tighten a joint Ink was struggling to hold. The muscles in his forearms and biceps were flexing with the effort, and I couldn’t help but let my eyes rest on them for a moment longer than what would be considered appropriate. The swelling around his eye had gone down, his bruises beginning to fade into an ugly brownish yellow. His ribs were still bothering him, and according to Ashlynn, they were likely bruised and would take a few weeks to be one hundred percent. Mind you, she hadn’t been able to X-ray or check them herself because he was ‘too busy’ to go see her, so she was only guessing. Another soldier, Handy Andy, stood watching Ink and Trigger. He was called Handy Andy because he was handy at fixing things… like broken pipes.
“Shouldn’t you be the one down there fixing, and them up here watching?” I asked as I approached.
Handy Andy looked up and smiled my way, reaching out his fist for a bump. “Nah, figured the half an hour it takes them to fix it would help distract them for a bit. That water is also damn cold. I’d rather stay dry.”
“Or you could have switched the water off and fixed it half an hour ago, then we’d be having a drink about now,” Trigger added.
“Or a shower,” Ink mumbled.
Handy Andy grinned and bumped my shoulder with mine. “How’s it going, Grace,” he asked.
“It’s going,” I murmured, my greedy eyes dropping to Ink’s wet shirt which was clinging to the muscles of his chest and abdominals I’d been privy to this last week. So engrossed in gawking, I didn’t notice when Ink turned my way, Trigger having tightened the joint enough that it stopped spraying water.
“You okay, Gracie?” he asked, concern in his far too handsome gaze.
“Uh-huh,” I managed, feeling the burning heat in my cheeks at having been sprung ogling him.
The corner of Ink’s mouth twitched in such a way I thought he might have been fighting a smile.
Trigger stood beside him with a giant grin on his stupid face. “Check these out, Grace.” Trigger’s shirt was no less wet than Ink’s, and when I glanced down at his equally impressive chest, his pectoral muscle bounced, first together, then the right and left individually. As remarkable as it was, it wasn’t sexy, or at least not for me.
Now, maybe if Ink did it…
Ink slapped Trigger across the chest with the back of his hand.
“Cut it out.” His typical brooding scowl was firmly back in place. Stepping forward, he took my hand, linking our fingers like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I hid the little sigh that longed to slip through my lips every time he touched me, but the way Trigger and Handy Andy watched me with matching grins made me think that they saw straight through my unaffected façade. God, I hoped Ink didn’t. I’d humiliated myself enough where he was concerned. Ink flipped off his friends, and even though I found our new unacknowledged hand holding sweet, he was once again dragging me through the compound like a child.
I hated that. I was a woman for god’s sake, and I didn’t want to be hauled along behind him like some spoiled brat. He treated me so differently from everyone else, and it infuriated me. When he spoke to me, it was always with frustration and slipping patience, like a parent might do a wayward child. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, perhaps the stress over Jebediah and his militia, or perhaps I was just tired of Ink treating me like this, but I gave a hard tug of my hand and pulled my fingers free from Ink’s. Of course, he paused and glanced over his shoulder with a raised brow. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him, much the way Robbie had done to me. Ink exhaled loudly, and looked around us, perhaps wondering who was going to witness the tantrum I was about to throw.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“This,” I quietly hissed, trying not to gain the attention of the few people who passed us by.
Ink’s head tilted in thought. “This what?”
“You… dragging me around like a damned child. It’s embarrassing. I’m not a child, I’m a fucking woman.”
Surprise filled his face. I rarely swore, so when I did it meant my temper was beyond frayed. The asshole began to smile, and when I glared at him a little harder, he at least had the decency to hide his humor behind a hand that rubbed his full lips.
“Gracie,” he whispered, stepping closer. “Buttercup—”
“That right there… “ I snapped, pointing right in his face. “I hate that, too. Buttercup! You’ve been calling me that since I was a little girl and I’m not a damn little girl anymore.”
Taking a deep breath for patience, Ink nodded, agreeing.
“I know, Gracie.”
“Then stop treating me like one.”
His fingers linked behind his neck and his gaze lowered to the ground. The movement enhanced the beauty in his muscular biceps, but I refused to admire anything about him when I was so angry. He seemed to be thinking hard about something, perhaps trying to find the fortitude to deal with my outburst. Slowly, those deep, dark eyes lifted and captured mine.
“It’s not my intention to treat you like a child.”
“That’s what it feels like,” I explained, trying to keep the snippy attitude out of my voice and failing. Fuck me, I sounded like a child, no wonder he was treating me like one.
“Trust me when I say, Gracie, when I look at you all I see is woman.” Ink’s hands fell from behind his neck, and he took another step forward, standing so close now my chest almost brushed his wet one. Then his tattooed hand rose until he reached the zip of my cardigan. With excruciatingly slow and deliberate movements, he pulled the tongue through the metal groove until he had exposed the V-neck shirt I wore beneath. He didn’t unzip all the way, just enough to get his hand inside and rest one finger at the base of my neck. My pulse was hammering, my stomach flipping and flopping, my mouth went dry and all the words sitting inside faded away. I was frozen, ensnared in the power of Ink’s intense stare, caught under the power of that single touch.
“You’re all woman, and you’re stuck in my head.” His finger began to trace an invisible line from my throat, down my chest. “I can’t shake you out, don’t even wanna try anymore.” When his finger reached the deep V in my shirt, he hooked it beneath the fabric and began to follow the line of the shirt, across one breast that rose and fell rapidly. “If anything, I want you deeper. I want you so deep you couldn’t even wiggle free if you tried.”
His touch was like a flame, and my body responded in a way I was completely unfamiliar with. I’d touched myself enough to understand the logistics of ‘feeling good,’ but this was so different. I felt as if I was tangling with a beast who was way out of my league. But damn, did the beast feel good. The way Ink’s eyes followed the path of his finger, with molten desire simmering within them for me, I’d never felt so powerful and needy all at once. With that thought, I recalled all the times he’d belittled me and ignored me over the last year. The women he flirted with right in front of me after I’d declared my feelings for him. The hurt he’d inflicted on my heart over and over again. Stepping away from his body, I zipped my cardigan back up. It seemed to break whatever trance Ink had been trapped in, and he shook his head, glancing around with a curious flush to his cheeks.
Was he embarrassed about being caught touching me that way?
“I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve told me to ‘grow up’ over the last year or so.” The color in Ink’s face disappeared. “You’ve made it perfectly clear you can barely stand my presence, so excuse me if I don’t understand this new-found need to be close to me. You hurt me.”
“Gracie…” he began, his voice rough and raw. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It doesn’t matter if you meant to or not. What matters is… you did.”
He nodded, a bleak look on his face. “You’re right, I was a shit to you. I disrespected you, and I sure as hell don’t deserve your forgiveness. I want you to know how sorry I am, and that I had my reasons for the way I behaved. And although that behavior was shameful, my reasons were true and honest.”
Did I really want to know his reasons? There was so much hurt buried in my heart I wasn’t sure his reasons would make a difference. But at the same time, he had piqued my curiosity.
“Let’s go inside somewhere warm and we’ll talk.”
I raised a brow and sat my hands on my hips. “Are you embarrassed to be seen out here with me?”
With that, Ink smiled. He didn’t smile often, but when he did I’m positive the sun would get a little brighter, and the air a little warmer. That rare smile had the power to change the world around me. Or maybe it just changed the way I looked at the world.
“Buttercup, I’m proud of the woman you’ve become and want nothing more than to be seen with you, but I’m freezing my ass off here. I’m worried if I don’t get dry and warm soon, I’ll do permanent damage to my balls which I’m sure have turned blue.”