by Bourne, Lena
But my place is with the MC anyway, and the moment I forget that, things go badly wrong. At least nothing will distract me from doing all I can for the brothers now that Anne is gone.
I’m no stranger to wanting and needing things I can’t have. I’ll make do like I always have.
* * *
Anne
We drove all night, and as much as I hoped, and even prayed for it, Benji didn’t crash the car like I had done when I tried to run away from him. The morning dawned grey and foggy and it didn’t get any better once we reach Benji’s house—my former home and the one place I hoped never to see again.
Benji hasn’t hit me since we left the cabin and his glassy eyes and sallow face, as he pulls into the driveway, tell me he might be too tired to do it now. We only stopped twice all the way here.
My cheek is throbbing in pain, the bruise extending outwards like a star, but I don’t think my cheekbone is broken. I gave him no fight on the way here. Over and over, I repeated to myself that I need to live, for Matt, so he won’t go to prison, so I can find him again one day, so we can spend the rest of our lives together the way it was always meant to be. But the vision of that happy life is drowning in a sea of sadness, of pain and regret, and now that I’m back in my prison, I have no strength left to keep swimming. But I have to.
Benji kept a running monologue for most of the drive, warning me how he will destroy my new boyfriend, if I don’t behave, interspersed with confessions of his undying love for me, which sounded eerie and scary. I used to believe him when he said that in the past, even after years of abuse. But I don’t believe it anymore, nor do those sentiments mean a damn thing to me now. And I won’t let him hurt Matt.
As soon as we’re inside the house, Benji locks the door behind us, pockets the key and sets the alarm. And in that moment, I realize I can’t stay here no matter what. I was stupid to think I could. I should’ve run away into the woods back at the cabin. I should’ve taken my chances at one of our stops, which were both in the middle of nowhere. I should try now.
Whatever happens, I will not be his wife anymore. Whatever happens can’t be worse than the rest of my life with him.
“Make me a sandwich, I’m hungry,” he says and walks into the kitchen, fully expecting me to follow like the obedient wife I was. The brain dead wife who feels nothing.
But I feel every ounce of the hatred I have for him as I follow, along with every ounce of the love I have for Matt. I thought the mixture of the two would be unbearable, but they’re somehow kept separate in my mind because they don’t—can’t—mix. The love is what’s giving me strength now. It’s strong enough to fight the fog.
He takes a seat at one of the bar stools by the kitchen island, looking pointedly from me to the fridge and back. I walk there and open it, realizing that since neither of us has been home in the last couple of weeks, everything inside it is spoiled. I pull out the bag of sliced bread, hardly surprised to see the dark green circles of rot on them. The ham’s gone bad too, I’m sure I can smell that particular sour odor among the mixture of other spoiled food scents coming from the fridge.
“There’s nothing to eat here,” I say, closing the door again and fighting the urge to retch. I’m not sure if that’s from looking at Benji’s face, or the pungent smell of the food. “We could get something delivered instead.”
He chuckles coldly. “Oh we could, could we? And who’s gonna pay for it, you?”
I never really liked his sense of humor to begin with, and it got much worse while we were married. But this is a new low.
“You took my purse and all the money I had,” I answer, equally coldly. “Otherwise I’d gladly pay for it.”
“All of that was my money.” The flash of anger that alights on his face tells me he doesn’t care for me talking back to him this way one bit. But I knew that before I said it, and I don’t care if I get punched. I used to care, used to do all I could to avoid it. But now I want him to do his worst. If he hurts me badly enough, I’ll need a doctor, and going to the hospital is one way of getting out of this house.
This fiery woman is the real me, the true me, the one I found again with Matt. It’s the girl and woman I was, the fearless one, the one that wanted to live a full life more than she wanted anything else. Live free and well. I wanted it enough to leave my family, and everything I knew, to move to the other side of the country for love. I let that fire go out after disappointments mounted and life got hard. But it’s burning bright again now, and I’ll never let it go out again.
“I brought you back for your own good,” he says. “You and me, we belong together, and you know that. You know you can’t live without me.”
I almost retch again, only barely manage not to. He slides off the bar stool, and I tense up, my body getting ready to flee even though my mind knows I won’t get far if I try.
He approaches, stops mere inches from me. I’d move back, but the counter is already digging into my back as it is. There is no escape.
“You know you love me, Anne. Stop pretending I don’t excite you.”
“I hate you,” I hear myself say. It’s not really me talking, it’s that woman I used to be. The fierce and fearless one. The one I forgot. The scared one I became, is pleading with me to take what I said back, to apologize, to stop antagonizing him, to make nice, so he won’t hurt me. But I can’t listen to her anymore. She’s the one I must forget. “I never loved you, Benji. You just fooled me into believing you were something you aren’t, someone who loved me. But you never loved me either. You’re incapable of love.”
His palm shoots out, closes around my throat with no warning save for the flash of anger in his eyes. He squeezes tight and I can’t breathe, but I don’t care. I either survive this beating and escape, or I don’t. Those are my two options. There is no third where I stay here and pretend to be his loving wife.
I grope around behind me on the counter, saying a silent thank you as my fingers find the handle of the heavy glass blender jug. I slam it as hard as I can against the side of his head, the grip of his palm on my throat loosening instantly. I seize the opportunity and run, only look back once as I exit the kitchen. He’s fighting to stay conscious as he lumbers after me, yelling my name in a psychotic tone of voice that I never heard him use before.
I reach the door but it’s locked, and the window next to it won’t open either. I run into the living room, manage to open the sliding door, but I only set one foot on the patio before he yanks me back in by my hair.
Then his fists are flying, hitting me everywhere, the pain lessening with each punch. I’m on the floor, and he’s on top, pinning me down, hurting me worse than he ever has, looking down at me with an expression so vicious and psychotic it looks like it was drawn onto his face. I had one chance to escape him and I blew it. Now he’ll make good his promise that he’ll never let me leave him alive.
Matt’s smiling, sunshine eyes are the last thing I see before I lose consciousness. The love I felt falling asleep in his arms is the only thing I feel. It’s filling every crevice of my mind now, flowing into the rest of my body, borne by the blood my heart’s still valiantly pumping around. That will stop soon, but I hope it doesn’t happen before I’m filled to the brim with love and happiness, pleasure and belonging. Freedom.
If I must die, it’s better it happens here, far away from the place where I’ve—where Matt and I’ve—been the happiest.
24
Doc
I jerk awake in my bed at Sanctuary, my sweaty hair sticking to my forehead, the sky outside still grey with dawn. In her note, Anne wrote that we haven’t known each other long. Why the fuck would she write that? I’ve known her since she was born.
Hell, I remember being real annoyed with Billy for making me sit around his living room, while he did big brother stuff with her when she was a baby. As in sang to her and rocked her to sleep, and other boring shit like that. I didn’t know my memory went back that far, but it does. And she knows all that very well. Of
all the things she might have written in her goodbye letter to me, saying she hasn’t known me for long is not one of them. I was there on the day her parents brought her home from the hospital.
Something’s wrong!
Cross isn’t in his office, not that I expected him to be this early, and I’m feeling foolish for wanting to go wake him, but the urgency that rose when I realized how wrong Anne’s goodbye letter was isn’t abating either, it’s getting worse.
I could just go to Hawk, get her husband’s address and go look for her there myself, but that kinda messing with an FBI agent requires Cross’ go ahead.
I can hear his son coughing through the door of their bedroom, along with Roxie’s placating words as she tries to comfort him, so I knock on the off-chance that Cross is in there too.
“Yes?” his gruff voice sounds through the thick wooden door.
“It’s Doc,” I say. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
The thing is, I’m going after Anne even if he tells me not to. But he’s my president and my friend, so he deserves to know what I’m planning to do.
“Come in.”
“How’s Hudson?” I ask Roxie once I’m inside, and she gives a weak little shrug.
“Better, I think,” she says.
I walk over and feel his forehead for fever, which he has. Finding Anne as soon as possible is urgent, but Cross’ son wouldn’t be running a fever and coughing his little lungs out if I were around to check on his cold before it got this bad.
“They gave him antibiotics at the hospital, right?” I ask her.
She nods.
“If he doesn’t get noticeably better by tomorrow morning, you should take him back,” I say, since I don’t much like the sound of his cough. Roxie nods.
“I appreciate this early morning house call, Doc,” Cross says. “But I’m sure you didn’t knock on my bedroom door at dawn to check on my son.”
“It’s about Anne,” I say. “Maybe we should talk in private.”
“Anne? Is something wrong with her?” Roxie asks.
Cross doesn’t even flinch at this reveal that the two of them know each other, which tells me he’s already heard all about their history together.
“She’s gone,” I admit, surprised yet not, at the heavy weight that lands against my chest as I say it. “She left a note, but I don’t think she went willingly. I think her husband abducted her, and I’m sure she’s in danger now. I want to go look for her.”
Roxie seems shocked, but Cross just looks pensive. Then again, that’s how he always looks. Nothing much shows on the man’s face, ever.
“I ran into her at the hospital when I was there with Hudson,” Roxie says. “She didn’t seem like she was getting ready to leave, but she looked very unnerved by something. I assume she was there for a job interview and it was just nerves over that. I even said to tell you to bring her around sometime, and she said she would.”
Roxie’s voice faded off at the end, probably since she realized everything Anne said could’ve been a lie. I don’t think it was, but I also don’t know what she was doing at the hospital. Probably meeting that husband of hers. I should’ve kept her as far away from him as possible.
“You sure she wasn’t hurt?” I ask. Maybe he hit her hard enough so she needed medical assistance before he took her away. Maybe she’s still at the hospital.
“She was having a cup of coffee in the cafeteria,” Roxie says. “She didn’t look hurt.”
The hope that she’s still at the hospital rose strong, and it’s deflating painfully now.
“Brick brought the truck you borrowed back from your cabin last night, but he somehow managed to hit a tree on his way back to town,” Cross says. “The guys at the garage found a GPS tracker on it. Hawk says it looks like a heavy duty, government-issued thing.”
“Fuck! That piece of shit husband of hers must’ve put it on there,” I say and Cross just nods.
He must’ve done it while we were at the beach, since that’s the only time he had the chance to do it. Then he just came to get her the moment I left. Doesn’t explain what she was doing at the hospital, but I still know I’m right about this.
“I’d like to ask Hawk to find out where he lives, and then I’ll go look for her,” I say. “I’ll go on my own. None of it will come back to the MC.”
Cross looks at me with unblinking eyes, but Roxie’s face isn’t nearly as calm.
“Her husband is abusing her, isn’t he?” she asks breathlessly. “You have to go find her if that’s so. Even if she thinks he’ll change, he never will. She should know that.”
I don’t know if she’s speaking to me, or to Cross. Maybe she’s speaking to both of us.
“She helped me so much, Cross,” she adds, leaving no doubt that she was addressing him the whole time. She seems to be able to read him the way no one else can. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her. Hell, I might not even be alive. I know it’s a lot to ask, if her husband is FBI, but we should help her.”
Something softens in Cross’ eyes as they share a look, but they’re once again black and unreadable when he looks back at me.
“You’ll need backup,” he says. “Get Rook and Ice to go with you, and take Scar too, but make sure they know the risks, though I doubt any of them will say no to you. Do it fast and don’t be seen, especially not when you bring her back here.”
He wants me to take some of our best men, which makes sense, since it’s a delicate operation, but it’s also a sign of trust.
“Thank you. I’ll never fail you again, Cross,” I say.
He fixes me with a puzzled look. “You’ve never failed me, Doc. But make sure you come back in one piece. We need you.”
I’m glad he didn’t order me to make sure her husband remains alive and unharmed, because I wouldn’t be able to carry it out. If he’s hurt her in any way, he will answer for it in kind.
* * *
Hawk had no trouble tracking down Anne’s address in Seattle. It’s a medium-sized, two-story house in a quiet suburb of Seattle on a hill overlooking the ocean, all as pretty and calm as can be. We’ve been parked near it since late afternoon and it’s dark now. All the other houses neighboring it are lit, but Anne’s is still completely dark. There’s no way to know if anyone’s in there at all, but we’re gonna find out as soon as the neighbors go to sleep. We’re in luck, because the back of her house is separated off from the neighboring yard by a high fence, so we could probably go in now, which is what I want to do, but Rook wants to err on the side of caution with this job.
“It looks empty to me,” Ice says. He’s here because he’s as deadly with his fists as he is with a knife or a gun, and very quick about using any one of those weapons.
“It’s early still,” Rook replies. Cross wanted him along because he knows he’ll counsel caution no matter what, and make sure none of us get out of line.
Scar came too, and what he’s best at is frightening even the most hardened men. I suppose that’s why Cross wanted him with us. But while Scar can be a very scary dude, I’m not sure that just scaring Anne’s husband will be enough.
I keep scanning the windows of her house, hoping to see her face looking out. A few times, while twilight was falling, I imagined I did see her ghostly white face in one of the upstairs windows, but I was wrong each time. No one was there when I looked more closely. All those visions brought was a renewed sense of urgency to get to her, which is fucking choking me by now.
“Let’s just go in,” I suggest as a car pulls into the street that leads past Anne’s house.
We’re all watching its progress, my heart rate rising as it draws closer and closer. Maybe Anne’s in that car. Maybe we won’t have to break into the house at all. I could just get her in the driveway, no need for the others to even reveal themselves.
But the car passes her home and enters a driveway two houses down.
“There’s still too many people coming and going,” Rook concludes. “We’ll wait a little l
onger.”
Another car enters the street from the other side, and this time my heart starts pounding worse than is warranted, given that we’ve been watching cars come and go all afternoon. This car slows before it reaches Anne’s house, and I get a good look at the driver as it passes our truck.
“That’s him,” I whisper, even though there’s no need to be quiet. “That’s her piece of shit husband.”
He pulls into the driveway, the garage door already opening for him to slide in. A minute or so after it closes behind his car, the light in the front of the house comes on.
I suggest we go inside again, but Rook makes us wait. He finally pulls the bandana up over his face once the streetlights go out at midnight. The living room of Anne’s house is now lit with the bluish, flickering TV screen light, and that’s the only light in the house. Most of the other houses on the street are already dark.
“Let’s go,” Rook says. “We’ll go in from the yard. With any luck the guy’s asleep on the couch and hasn’t set any kind of alarm yet. But be as quiet as you can. You stay back, Doc.”
“Like fuck I will,” I say and get out of the car first.
Rook shakes his head, but doesn’t argue. The street is so quiet our breathing sounds very loud, but that probably just seems that way because my nerves are so high strung. I’m getting flashes of memory from all the bloody battles I was in, recognizing this as the calm before all hell breaks loose, which is always the worst time of any shootout, but the flashes aren’t overwhelming me like they sometimes do. I’m doing this for Anne. And I have to execute it perfectly.
Ice stays behind, guarding the front of the house, while the rest of us slip past the garage into the yard. Our luck’s holding well, I realize as I see a section of the translucent white curtain blowing out through the open patio door. If I needed a sign that we’re right where we need to be, doing exactly what we need to be doing, it’s that. The other one is the sound of the TV, which is loud enough to mask our approach.