The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition

by Janine Infante Bosco

  I don’t know if it was Stryker’s idea or Jacks, but after weeks of sitting in this apartment not sleeping and not eating. Stryker told me we were getting out of here.

  Leaving Brooklyn.

  I laughed at him.

  Did he really think running away from this nightmare would help? Did he think the rape wouldn’t follow us everywhere we went?

  He told me not to think of it that way, not to think of it as though we were running away from something, but instead that we were running toward something.

  I asked him what that something was.

  The future, forever, take your pick.

  That’s another lie I’d like to believe.

  The old Gina would’ve believed it.

  The old Gina would’ve happily packed her bags when he told her he was taking her home to meet his mother. She would’ve probably obsessed for hours on her outfit instead of looking for the least flattering clothes she owned. She would’ve also insisted they ride on the back of his motorcycle not in the van his president provided us. Not that I actually had voiced my opinion on our means of transportation. Jack showed up with a cargo van, stuffed Stryker’s Harley into the back and instructed him to take me on one hell of a long ride when I was healed. Then he turned to me, winked and told me his remedy for everything.

  A Harley and the open road heals all.

  If only it was true.

  If only I believed it.

  If only he hadn’t meant that I couldn’t get on the back of Stryker’s bike because the insides of my thighs may still be bruised.

  “Five facts,” Stryker says, pulling me away from my mind and the scenery I’m pretending to stare at as we drive to Albany. I glance over at him and the urge to smile almost makes its way to my lips as I note how absolutely ridiculous he looks behind a steering wheel. The man was born to ride a motorcycle. That’s a fact.

  “One,” he starts, making sure he has my attention. “Albany is boring as fuck. Two, I haven’t seen my mother in a long time so if she slams the door in our faces…trust it’s not you but me.”

  “Why?”

  He pauses for a moment, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white.

  “Because I couldn’t save her and I got tired of failing,” he admits, then abruptly pulls off to the shoulder and I brace my hands against the dashboard as we come to a complete stop.

  “Shit,” he mutters. “I’m sorry,” he says, raking his hands over his head in frustration. “I don’t want you to think I’m that guy.”

  I stare at him blankly unsure what he’s talking about.

  “Gina, I don’t know what’s going on in your head. I know you’re all over the place and rightfully so, but I don’t want you to over think what I just said.”

  “I think you’re the one over thinking,” I point out. I’d raise an eyebrow, but that requires effort and I’m all out of that. Instead, I watch him lean back and the corners of his mouth curve slightly.

  “There she is,” he whispers, reaching out to run his finger down the bridge of my nose. “My pretty little smartass.”

  I open my mouth to object, to tell him everything he knows about the woman I used to be is gone, but his finger travels down my nose to rest at my lips.

  “She’s in there,” he states. “And when she’s ready, she’ll come back. That’s why I pulled over like an animal. I want you to know I didn’t mean what I said, you’re not my mother…and I’d never give up on you.”

  I open my mouth but he shakes his head silencing me once more.

  “That’s a fact,” he assures me.

  “You still have two more to go,” I say against his finger.

  He smiles again at me, dropping his finger and turning his attention back to the road in front of him. Slowly, he veers back onto the highway and lifts four fingers in the air.

  “Four, contrary to popular belief my favorite meal isn’t bologna and cheese, it is meatloaf. Five, that’s what we’re having for dinner so I hope you love meatloaf too or this life we’re living will be hard on you because there are certain things a man can’t live without, and meatloaf is definitely one of them.”

  I smile.

  A real smile.

  And for a moment I’m human.

  For a moment I’m Gina.

  My stomach even makes an appearance and growls loudly at the mention of food.

  “I don’t remember the last time I ate anything,” I say out loud.

  “Tuesday,” he answers.

  “It’s Thursday,” I reply.

  “We’ll get seconds on the meatloaf,” he promises, those full lips of his quirking again and I start to think believing the lie won’t be so hard. If he keeps smiling, I might just believe I’m normal, that my life isn’t over, that it’s different.

  There is hope for me.

  And hope is delivered to me in a six-foot package. A package decorated in tattoos that resemble stars drawn onto his skin with a Sharpie. A package complete with dog tags and cargo pants. A package named Stryker.

  A package named Chase Kincaid.

  We drive for a while longer. The whole time he tries to get me to engage in conversation, tells me things about his childhood, like the first time he broke the law. His mother’s name is Claire, and she loves gardening. Or at least she used to.

  He goes on to tell me about the Satan’s Knights of Albany and how they are so different compared to Brooklyn. I find myself joining in on the conversation, asking questions and even offering my opinion at times. He explains why he went nomad, what being a nomad even means and I give him one fact.

  “I love Wolf.”

  “You’ve never met him.”

  “Yes, but I love him anyway because if it wasn’t for him we never would’ve met.”

  “We would’ve met one way or another.”

  “You think so?”

  “Pretty girl, that lightning would’ve found us one way or another.”

  Lightning, right there between us.

  I feel it.

  It’s a sure sign I’m still alive and still able to feel the important things.

  Like lightning.

  “Time to eat,” he announces, pulling into a parking spot. I glance up at the little diner that mimics a trailer. “Don’t judge a book by its cover, pretty girl. This place has the best fucking meatloaf in all of New York.”

  He gets out of the van as I pull down the visor, fitting the baseball cap to my head as I try to hide my face. Even though the evidence of my attack is long gone, every time I look in the mirror I still see the image reflected back at me the very first time I saw myself after the rape.

  He pulls open the door and holds out his hand.

  “You’re beautiful,” he insists, closing the visor.

  “You may be biased,” I say as I climb out of the van with his help.

  “I’m one hundred percent biased,” he agrees, lacing our fingers together as he leads me to the diner.

  “Is this the hot spot in Albany?”

  “I have no fucking idea what’s hot and what’s not but the meatloaf is a killer.”

  “Do you realize how much our relationship is based on food?” I ask thoughtfully as he pulls open the door for me.

  “The way to a man’s heart is his stomach and isn’t that the end goal?”

  “And there he is,” I say as I step inside the tiny diner. The aroma of good old-fashioned comfort food hits me and my stomach churns again. “At this rate it’s the way to a woman’s heart.”

  “Then I guess I’m lucky,” he says, planting a kiss to the top of my head. “Table for two please.”

  “Right this way,” the hostess says cheerfully, leading us to a booth.

  “Do you trust me?” he asks as she hands us menus.

  A simple question but one that I’m not sure I can adequately answer. He’ll never know how much I trust him. Never. So I nod in reply because words won’t justifiably answer his question.

  “We’ll have the meatloaf special. Two o
f them.”

  “Four of them,” I correct, glancing from the waitress back to him. “You promised me seconds.”

  “Four of them,” he repeats.

  The waitress leaves to fill our drink orders and Stryker digs into his pocket, producing some change and shoves it into the tiny jukebox sitting on the end of the table next to the bottle of ketchup. He speaks to me softly as he searches for a song, but I don’t hear what he’s saying as my mind travels.

  I think about the evolution of us.

  How a simple game of pool turned into a lifeline.

  I think of that first night and how I felt the next morning when he left. I think about all the times he wouldn’t fall asleep in my bed, how I always found him in the chair or on the couch. I think about the one night he did stay in bed with me and the torment etched in every single feature as he fought to remain in control simply to fulfill a promise to me. Finally, my mind leads me to the night he fell asleep and the nightmare I witnessed him suffer through.

  “I get it,” I blurt, watching as his eyes drift back to me, narrowing at me in confusion. “I get it now,” I start again. “I get why you felt the need to leave me.”

  “Gina—” he says, but I mimic him by leaning over the table and placing a single finger against his lips.

  “It’s not that you didn’t want to stay. I bet you wanted more than anything to stay with me that night, but you didn’t because you thought you were doing me a favor. You didn’t want to burden me with your demons. I get it now. I feel it. I know the embarrassment, the fear and the shame. I know what it’s like now and I forgive you for walking away. I commend you for it because you’re stronger than I am and a whole lot less selfish.”

  I pause tracing my finger along his lips before dropping my hand and laying both palms flat on the table as I lift my gaze to his.

  “Five facts,” I breathe. “One, I don’t know when I will be myself again, if I’ll ever be myself. Two, the old me would’ve jumped all over the fact you’re bringing me to meet your mother. I would’ve probably thrown in a jab that you surely love me if you’re taking me home to mama. Three, this new me has trouble looking at you because I can’t possibly understand how you can still look at me the same way you did before. Four, I don’t know how this is ever going to work because I can’t fathom you ever wanting me again—”

  “I do,” he interrupts.

  “You do what? Don’t say you want me. I’m not ready to hear that, to hear that and know for a fact I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready to give that to you again. Right now I can’t imagine standing in front of you naked much less being intimate.”

  “I do love you,” he says. “Fact,” he continues, reaching for my hands. “So, you might want to start writing Gina Kincaid in a notebook, test it out, see if it works and when you’re ready, let me know. You said it takes at least a thousand times before you can even consider it, right? Well, if you write real slow maybe by the time you’re finished, we’ll have figured out all the rest.”

  Hope.

  Right there.

  In-between the sparks of lightning.

  Inside a little diner waiting for four servings of meatloaf.

  “When you’re ready, Gina, whenever you’re ready I’ll be right here, all you gotta do is reach for me,” he whispers hoarsely, squeezing my hands in assurance.

  My hero gave me hope.

  -Thirty-eight-

  Stryker

  Pulling into the driveway, I kill the engine on the cage and glance over at Gina. The meatloaf has put her into a coma and she appears to be sleeping peacefully ever since we left the diner. Not in a hurry to wake her I turn the headlights off and stare out the window at the little house I grew up in. From the outside one wouldn’t think such a dysfunctional family lived inside. You’d never know almost all the walls had holes in them, a product of my father’s fists. You would never know that the woman who has the most immaculate flowerbeds on the block served as a human punching bag or the little boy slept on the floor of his closet with his hands covering his ears.

  No, you wouldn’t know any of that.

  Because you judged the house by its appearance not knowing what lived inside.

  Turning my gaze back to Gina I silently take in all her beauty. Once the bruises started to fade and the swelling went down I’d look at her and still see them. It took some time to look at her beautiful face and not remember the days she tried to conceal her bruises with make-up or recall icing the swelling around her eyes. But now, it’s easy for me to look at her and see only her and not the remnants of the rape. My only wish is for her to see that for herself, for her to not only see the beauty she possesses on the outside but the beauty that’s inside her as well.

  Heart.

  Strength.

  Will.

  She thought she was fierce before the attack; that she was unstoppable, and her strength had no bounds, but in truth she never knew her strength until she had to fight out of the darkness. She still doesn’t know how strong she is and she won’t for a long time. But I know her strength. I see the ferocious woman hiding beneath the mask of despair.

  She’ll suffer at times.

  Doubt herself more than she’ll believe in herself.

  She’ll break down and need a shoulder—my shoulder.

  But she’ll prevail.

  Because beyond these walls built around her isn’t horror.

  Torment doesn’t live where beauty does.

  She’ll learn that.

  I’ll teach her.

  I’ve got a whole lifetime to do so seeing as I already told her I was marrying her.

  What the ever living fuck kind of shit was that?

  A drifter doesn’t stick.

  He doesn’t stay in one place long enough to fill out a change of address form at the post office, but here I am planning on sticking around long enough to sign my name to a marriage certificate.

  Fucking crazy shit right there.

  She was wrong. I am selfish, selfish enough to make her mine in every way that counts. Selfish enough to never let go, to give her my burdens and take on hers.

  Selfish but maybe a little bit honorable too.

  Because I plan on being a man of my word.

  When I tell her I’ve got her I want her to know those are the only words she ever needs to believe.

  To know she can trust I’ll always have her.

  I’ll have her grief.

  I’ll take her pain.

  I’ll bear the ugly.

  And I’ll take all the beauty.

  I’ll take those green eyes and hold onto them with everything I’ve got.

  Yeah, who am I kidding, I’m a fucking selfish prick.

  Sighing, I trail my fingertips down her arm. I fight back the urge to wake her with my lips. A simple kiss, touch my lips to hers and remind her that a kiss isn’t an act of violence but a declaration of affection. But I won’t do that, not until she asks me to. Until she’s ready to erase the ugly and make the beautiful. I’ll wait.

  Wait as long as it takes for her to come to me.

  “Hey, pretty girl,” I murmur, lacing my fingers with hers. Hand holding is the only touching she allows and for a brief moment I wonder if it’s because they didn’t touch her hands.

  I’m not oblivious.

  I’m human too.

  And as much as I block out what happened to her there are times when I think about her attack. Without knowing all the gruesome details, I think about what she’s lived through, what haunts her, what those cocksuckers did to her. I picture her in that alleyway the same way I relive being on top of that roof. And just as I flinch when my subconscious pulls the trigger time and time again on that little boy, I flinch when I imagine all the things they did to her.

  When the time comes, when she’s finally ready to give herself to me fully, it will be rewriting the nightmare for both of us. For her it will reaffirm how a man should touch a woman, how a man should respect a woman’s body and her limits. For me it
will reaffirm that she’s mine. That no other man will ever have what’s mine.

  “Hmm,” she mumbles.

  “We’re here,” I whisper, squeezing her hand as I look back toward the house and notice the porch light as it flickers on.

  “We’re here?” she questions, wiping the sleep from her puffy eyes and following my gaze out the window. “You weren’t kidding about the gardening, huh?”

  “Tulips for days,” I mutter, drawing out a deep breath. “You ready to meet my mom?”

  “Are you ready to see her again?”

  “Not really,” I admit.

  “Well then it’s a good thing you brought me to buffer the awkwardness,” she says, squeezing my hand, giving me another glimpse of herself with no effort at all.

  There she is.

  “Come on,” I say hoarsely. “Let’s take you home to mom,” I tease, ignoring the dread churning in my gut.

  Stepping out of the van I move to the passenger side as she climbs out and takes my hand, repositioning the baseball cap with her free hand.

  “Okay, I think I’m ready,” she says, tugging on my hand. She attempts to walk forward but I keep my feet firmly planted on the driveway and wait for her to turn back to me.

  “No, you’re not,” I say, taking a giant leap of faith. “Lose the hat, pretty girl.”

  She opens her mouth to object but I trail my finger down the bridge of her nose until it falls to her lips, silencing her.

  “It hides your eyes.”

  “Eyes that tell a story—”

  “Eyes that tell the story of a beautiful woman,” I interrupt, leaning my forehead against the brim of the hat. “Lose that hat, pretty girl,” I whisper. “Show the world and my mother you survived.”

  I take a step back and assess her features, knowing my words will either wound her or motivate her. Seconds tick by, maybe minutes but then she lifts her head and I recognize the fire in those green eyes. An inferno mixed with courage and fear blazes in them as she raises one hand and slowly pulls the rim of the cap off her head.

  She slaps the hat against my chest, forcing me to take it and I watch those eyes glaze with tears. I’m about to hand her back the hat and apologize for pushing her too far when she lifts her hands again and tucks the strands of hair covering her eyes behind her ears.