I’ve dreamt thousands of times about what it might be like to be rescued and reunited with those I lost. In my dreams, I always tried to picture how my family members aged. Did my father’s thick mane of hair thin as the years went by? Did my mother still have the same flawless skin as she did when I was little? I never forgot her scent and I wondered if she still wore Shalimar perfume.
Then there was my brother. I thought about him the most. I wondered what kind of man he became. As a teenager, he loved to play football and was good at it too. The night I was abducted he was on the field, chasing his dreams under the big bright lights. Anytime I thought of him, I figured he became a professional football player and I prayed he and Celeste found their way into one another’s hearts.
After all, that was always the plan.
It’s the very reason I offered to work her shift at the pizzeria that dreadful night. So she could go to Jagger’s football game and cheer him on. It was one of many crazy schemes we concocted as young girls with dreams of becoming sisters.
Yet, all the dreaming and thinking I’ve done couldn’t have prepared me for what happened when I finally saw my brother for the first time in twelve years. There was no running into his arms or tears of joy.
There was only terror.
I may not have recognized him as a man, but still, something inside of me knew and I gravitated toward him. His bullet ridden body fell to the ground as I stared into his familiar eyes. Eyes we shared, the same ones his little girl inherited. There was no preparing for that moment or how it felt when I realized I had reunited with my other half only to watch him die.
At first, I thought it was another nightmare and dug my nails into my arms as I often did, begging my subconscious to wake me, but it never happened. Helplessly aware, desperate to escape, I sat surrounded by strangers in a waiting room as my brother was taken into surgery.
Slowly, it began to hit me as I stared at Celeste and the men in leather who swore not to leave her side.
I was free.
I was free from the Russians, free from Rush, free from the pain and suffering.
Twelve long years of abuse and torture were over.
That realization terrified me. When Celeste asked me for the hundredth time if I was okay, I jumped out of the chair and ran. I didn’t get far though, as soon as the automatic doors slid open I froze like a deer in headlights.
I had nowhere to go, no life to get back to. Rush was gone and so were the drugs that helped me forget.
I had nothing.
Realizing I was better off dead, I stood motionless in front of the automatic doors staring at the street outside until Jack Parrish came up alongside me. He didn’t try to console me or offer me the promise of a better life. He silently held out his hand and gave me a choice. I could trust him, take his hand and let him help me or not, but the choice was mine to make.
Something I never had before.
Resolving that he had plenty of chances to kill me in the last twenty-four hours and hadn’t yet, I placed my hand in his. He gave me a tight nod and led me toward Wolf’s truck where he helped me climb inside and drove me to his home. Not the clubhouse where women like me belonged, but his home where his wife and newborn son lived. Reina Parrish didn’t ask any questions, she didn’t look down on me or judge me. She kindly opened her home to me allowing me to shower in the privacy of their lavish bathroom. When I was done, after the filth swirled down the drain, she gave me a pair of clean pajamas and conditioned the knots from my hair.
I wish I could say a shower and a change of clothes made me feel like a new woman, but the truth was, the minute I crawled into Jack’s daughter’s old bed my withdrawals hit me hard and I spent the night fighting my demons.
Freezing one minute and sweating the next, my body defied me. Every hour that passed became worse than the last as I curled into the fetal position and begged anyone who’d listen to take away my pain. Between the bursts of sweat and debilitating pain throughout my body, I started vomiting profusely. Reina and Jack took turns helping me to the bathroom; by the fourth trip I was too exhausted to move and asked them to leave me on the tile floor.
Hours later, I’m still in the exact position they left me—hunched over the toilet, too weak to move an inch—when the door opens and the lights flicker on. The room spins violently as I’m temporarily blinded by the lights. I groan as I lay my head back on the toilet seat.
“Jesus Christ,” Deuce mutters.
Incoherently, I mumble a response as his large frame looms over me and his eyes pierce into mine, lighting my clammy body on fire. A moment later the faucet turns on and I feel my hair being lifted from my neck. Chills run down my spine as he places a damp towel around the back of my neck.
“Please,” I beg. “I’d rather be dead than have to feel like this,” I cry, lifting my head a fraction.
“Do you need help getting back to bed?” he asks, ignoring my plea.
“What I need is drugs. I’ll take anything, a pill, a line…whatever.”
“Can’t help you there, darlin’.”
“The fuck you can’t,” I sneer, reaching around my neck to shove the towel away. Gripping the toilet for support, I lift my head and force myself to focus on his badly bruised face.
“I know you have Rush’s drugs,” I hiss.
Quickly, his eyes dart toward the open door before they narrow back at me.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he seethes.
“I know what I saw,” I insist as a bout of nausea washes over me, forcing me to lean back against the tub. “You took pity on me then and I wasn’t nearly as fucked as I am now.”
“That was then,” he says simply, rising to his full height.
Looking up at him for the first time, I notice how big he is compared to myself. Aside from his height, he also has very broad shoulders and his arms—his arms are fucking tanks. Leaning against the wall across from me, he scratches at the coarse hairs lining his jaw. The short stubble he had the first time I saw him is growing into a short beard, making him more mysterious, and a touch more dangerous. He stares back at me with irritation and despite the silent warning his eyes seem to possess, I don’t cower. Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m dying and I don’t want to suffer alone.
“What difference does it make?”
My question sounds like a dare and I watch his jaw tick with annoyance.
“You were nobody then.”
“I’m still nobody,” I remind him.
“You’re Cobra’s sister,” he replies, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. “Makes you somebody to all of us.”
A day ago the name meant nothing to me. Sure, it was the reason Jack didn’t kill me, but I didn’t know the Cobra they spoke about was really my brother Jagger. That wasn’t something I processed until I watched him bleed out on the pier. To be honest, I’m still not sure I fully comprehend it all.
“And if he dies? Then who am I?”
Staring at me thoughtfully, he chooses his words carefully.
“I don’t know, Ally. Who are you?”
Fighting back nausea, I lift my head and defiantly stare back at him. My lips part and the smartass retort dies on my tongue as he shifts his weight, pushing off the wall. Taking a step closer, he winces as he drops the toilet seat and sits. His body shifts awkwardly trying to get comfortable before he pins his dark eyes on me.
“Are you the victim or the survivor? The drug addict or the recovering addict? The girl who was lost or the one that was found? The girl who gave up or the one who took back her life? No one’s going to make that decision but you. You can beg me for drugs, hell, you can raid the medicine cabinet and down a bottle of cough syrup for all I care, but it would be a damn fucking shame because not everyone gets rescued, not everyone gets a second chance.”
I wish his words had the power to awaken the hope buried deep inside of me, but words are just words and actions are what count, actions I’m not sure I’m capable of. Sure, I’d like to be the girl who takes back her life, finds her purpose and puts the nightmare behind her, but I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know where to begin. My life hasn’t been mine since I was a child. It’s easier to succumb to poison than to hope for a better life, a better me.
Yet, part of me can’t ignore his words.
“Why do you care?” I whisper, wrapping my arms around my body as chills dance across the back of my spine.
“I don’t,” he insists, placing his hands on his knees. “You’re a pain in the ass and nothing but trouble since I laid eyes on you,” he hisses as he pushes himself up from the toilet. “I only came in here because I need to take a piss and I’m too fucking tired to drag my ass down the stairs.”
I don’t know what bothers me more, his honesty or the way I feel in response to it. I shouldn’t give a damn what he thinks of me. Ten minutes ago I wanted to die, and now I’m not so sure. Part of me wants to prove everyone wrong. Part of me wants to spit in the face of despair and claim victory. When your life hasn’t been your own to live, you don’t know where to begin. When you’re sitting on the floor of a bathroom inside a strange house, surrounded by people you’re not sure you can trust, well, you can’t help but feel hopeless.
“For what it’s worth,” he starts, pausing as he reaches the door. “I don’t know what you’ve seen, what you’ve had to endure, but judging by all the screaming you did in that cabin, I’d say it was ugly as fuck and it’s probably easier for an outsider who doesn’t know the details to judge you. But your life isn’t the only one that ended when you disappeared. I might not care too much about your final decision but that don’t mean your brother won’t.”
My mind wanders to Jagger and I try to block out the memory of him on that dock, covered in blood and staring at me as though I was a ghost. Maybe I am. Like he clearly isn’t the brother I remember having, I’m not the sister he’s mourned. We’re strangers, two strangers who have a chance at being reacquainted. Deuce is right, not many people who have lived through what I have get a second chance.
“Don’t be the girl waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. Be the girl who strikes the match,” he says softly.
Lifting my head, I watch as he walks out of the bathroom, leaving his words hanging heavily in the air.
They’re just words.
Strong words but still just words.
Until someone decides to make them actions.
Someone being me.