Wild Child (A Soul Sister Novel Book 1)

by Audrey Carlan

  “I’m gonna get my arms in front of me.” I announced my plan.

  “How the hell are you going to do that?”

  I gritted my teeth and rolled back to my side. I shimmied all over the place trying to get my arms under my ass, but it was no use. Pain shot through my arms, shoulders, and head as I tried and failed.

  “Maybe if I dislocate my shoulder, I can get my arms out.”

  “Are you insane! You’ll pass out again from the pain. Just try to ease up and bounce to me. Then I might be able to untie your arms,” Addy pleaded.

  Now that idea was a good one.

  I maneuvered back onto my hip then shifted my body until I was up on my knees. The world swayed as nausea stole up my throat again. I breathed through it and waited until it passed. Then I jumped as best I could, landing in an awkward crouch. With as much power as I could muster, I slowly stood up.

  “Okay, good. Now jump over to me but try to be quiet. We don’t know where he is or when he’ll come back.”

  I nodded and started to hop. It felt like it took a hundred years to get over to Addy and what I saw when I got there made a sour taste fill my mouth, so much so I had to spit on the ground in order to avoid being sick.

  Her beautiful, long, elegant forearms had been destroyed by cigarette burns, the skin and flesh molten and black. Some of the wounds were deep enough he must have used the same spot more than once because I could see straight to the meat of her. I spat again and turned around.

  Her fingers tugged on my zip ties to no avail.

  “It’s not working.” Her voice cracked, and tears slid down her cheeks.

  “Just keep trying.” I looked around the open space to see if there was anything sharp I could grate the plastic against but didn’t see anything but pipes, concrete bricks, rat droppings, garbage, and water dripping randomly from pipes. “Where are we?”

  “Not sure. I think an old basement, where the heating and pipes run. I just barely got the gag out of my mouth right before you woke up. But he’s rarely gone for more than an hour or two. I passed the time by counting the minutes. He must live in this building. We have to get out of here, Si.”

  I nodded and my body started to shake when we heard a door creak open somewhere in the back of the space and a quick sliver of unnatural yellow light broke through the dark. The light came and went so fast I barely had a chance to notice there must have been a door in the back of the room, behind the big pipes and metal, square-shaped machinery.

  I stood in front of Addison, ready to take on whatever this monster had in store as long as he spared my sister.

  What I saw made tears fill my eyes and fall down my face.

  Tabby.

  Dressed in black from head to toe, like I’d seen her at the bar. Her dark cap of short hair spiked up all over her head. Her body was barely skin and bones and yet she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in that moment.

  A huge wave of relief poured over my form.

  “Tabby!” I cried out, tears falling down my cheeks.

  She ran over to us, reached into her back pocket, and pulled out a switchblade. “Fucking hell, what did he do to you, Addy?” She swore, her hands behind me cutting the plastic.

  Pain and pleasure shot to my aching shoulders in ribbons of heat, ice, and sizzling pin pricks the moment they were released.

  Before long she’d cut the ties around my ankles and set about releasing Addison.

  I moved around to the back of the chair to work on unknotting the huge rope he’d used to keep her upper body in the chair.

  We couldn’t have noticed we weren’t alone.

  The door didn’t make a single noise.

  No light streaked across the room warning of his presence.

  While I was bent behind Addison’s chair, Tabby was crouched over working on the ropes around each of Addison’s wounded arms.

  “Stand up, skank,” I heard called out from somewhere behind Tabby.

  My body reacted before I did, jolting to attention. I stood up, as did Tabby. Addison choked out a sob. Her shoulders sinking in defeat.

  Tabby held her knife in her hand, gripping the small blade as though she were holding a kitchen butcher knife ready to strike. Her nostrils flared and she stared into my eyes. Hers were the deepest, darkest midnight blue and filled with determination. Her skin was pale. Cheeks hollow. There were smudges under her eyes but it didn’t take one speck away from her strength of character. The arrogant confidence exuding from every one of her pores.

  “Remember, this was my choice. I love you all so much.” Her words were whispered but direct.

  “Now turn around, bitch,” the man behind her demanded, his voice oily and gritty. I could see he was still wearing a mask. I shook, my body trembling in fear.

  Tabby licked her lips and gripped the knife. “Mama Kerri and my sisters were the best thing to ever happen in my life.”

  “Tabby…” I choked out. “Do what he says. Just follow along,” I begged.

  She sniffed, firmed her jaw. “My love will never die,” she promised us. Then, she spun around on a booted heal and pushed her body to move at a dead run, knife held above her head. She looked like a modern gladiator, poised to strike with a mighty spear, not a small switchblade.

  Two ear-splitting shots rang out.

  Bang. Bang.

  I watched in horror as Tabby’s thin frame took those shots to her chest, her form jarring with each hit, but it didn’t stop her trajectory as she came down on her target, arm in the perfect location.

  She struck, the knife sinking right into the side of our attacker’s neck. It caught and she yanked as they both started to fall. Red liquid spurted out of his neck like a vulgar water sprinkler, painting the space in blood.

  “Tabby!” I screamed.

  “No!” Addison cried.

  Both bodies went down, Tabitha right on top of the masked man as the door creaked from behind them and men in SWAT suits and black FBI bulletproof vests stormed in, massive guns at the ready.

  Only they were a minute too late.

  I ran toward Tabitha, but Ryan came out of nowhere and cut me off, body-slamming me and wrapping me up in his hold.

  “No! Tabby!” I screeched.

  “She’s getting help.” He turned my form to the side. A pair of paramedics rolled my sister off the man but even from here I knew what they’d find.

  Her eyes were open and she stared lifelessly at nothing. One of the paramedics held his fingers to her neck.

  I waited with my heart in my throat.

  Time seemed to become sluggish as if everything was in slow motion around me. Blood pooled around her body, the mess growing larger with every second.

  Then I watched as he shook his head and closed her eyes with his hand. Ryan tightened his hold. I bucked, my body losing control as the devastation tore through me like a two-hundred mile an hour bullet train moving between countries.

  “Shhh, shhh, focus on my voice.” Ryan held me tight to his form and whispered into my ear. “It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. Eventually, honey, it will be okay.”

  I shook my head knowing it would never be okay.

  Tabby gave her life to save ours.

  Remember, this was my choice.

  She planned this. She’d planned to fall on the sword to save me and Addy.

  I crumbled in Ryan’s arms.

  My love will never die.

  Her last words permeated my emotion-soaked mind on rapid repeat. I closed my eyes as I was passed into another pair of arms. Addison locked her body around mine and we held onto one another as time sped back up. FBI and other cops or medical personnel moved around us in a flurry of activity. Large sheets were put over both the attacker’s and my sister’s bodies.

  We were led out of the basement by Ryan and another member of the team, caging us both in. We went up several flights of dark concrete stairs until we came upon a wide-open metal door that led to a bright rectangle of daylight.

  T
he two men maneuvered us over the blacktop and through a patch of parking lot that was littered with black SUVs, SWAT vans, and cop cars. They brought us to an ambulance with another set of paramedics.

  One started to mess with my eye wound, but I waved them off. “Take care of my sister.” I lifted my chin to Addison who was now barely standing. She was visibly dehydrated, her skin green and grimy. The wounds up and down her arms would need serious treatment. For now, the paramedic simply wrapped her from wrist to bicep.

  “Miss, you’re bleeding from your head. You have a rather large gash above your eye that will not only need stitches but could get infected if we don’t treat you.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about me!” I roared in her face. My body got hot and then icy cold as I started to shake.

  Out of nowhere, a presence unlike any other came up behind me. A masculine arm looped around my waist and tugged me back against a very warm, familiar, and beloved body. I felt him surround me in a bubble of peace and serenity as his lips came to my ear.

  “Baby, let her take care of you, yeah?”

  Tears fell from my good eye and I slowly turned around at hearing his voice.

  Jonah was there. His expression was ravaged with fear and concern but still was more handsome and welcoming than anything else could possibly be.

  One of his hands came up and tunneled into the back of my hair curling around my nape. The other hovered over my face tracing the damage. Tears filled his dark eyes but didn’t fall as he winced then let his hand curl around my waist. His voice was broken and barely a whisper when he spoke. “I was so scared I’d lost you, and I’d only just found you.”

  That was it. All I could take.

  It was all too damned much.

  Tabby was dead.

  Addison had been tortured.

  Jonah had lost Helen.

  I almost lost him. This perfect soul. The other half to my broken one.

  And that was when I threw my arms around him, shoved my face into his neck, and soaked up his woodsy and fresh linen scent until there was nothing else but him surrounding me with protection and love.

  Jonah Fontaine.

  The man for me.

  The man I loved.

  And I wasn’t going to wait even a moment before sharing this revelation with him. It wouldn’t be right. Not after everything we’d gone through. Not after what Tabitha sacrificed in order for me to have this.

  “I love you, Jonah.”

  “Baby, Jesus.” He locked his arms around me. “Christ, Simone. I’ve loved you since you lost your mind on the ferris wheel, so wrapped up in kissing me you forgot where you were.”

  He has loved me since our first date. I convulsed against his frame, body-wracking sobs pouring from me in endless waves. But he didn’t let me go. He held on tight. Gave me what I needed until I found enough strength to pull myself together. Once I had, he led me to the paramedics, but held my hand as they tended to me. Then Jonah got the paramedics to load me and Addy into the same ambulance, saying something about the FBI needing us together and he’d be our escort.

  Whatever he had to do to keep us together, he did. Putting me and Addy as his priority, making sure we felt safe after the horror we’d just experienced.

  I loved him even more because of it.

  Turns out, getting whopped upside the head is the reason I’d been so nauseous. I had a full-blown concussion from taking the hit to the temple. I’d been seen, stitched up, bandaged, and given instructions on how to deal with this new ailment.

  Not that I gave two shits. My focus was entirely on seeing Addison and finding out how Sonia was.

  Dutifully, Jonah brought me to Addison’s room where my entire family was stationed. They’d put Addison in a private room instead of handling her in the ER because she was related to a senator and we were informed the news vans were already parked outside. I’d seen Mama Kerri when I was being checked out in the ER but not the rest of my sisters.

  I was bum-rushed by Sonia first. When she wrapped her arms around me, I returned her hold just as tight.

  “I love you, SoSo,” I croaked into her hair, emotion coating my throat.

  She sniffed, nodded, and pulled back. “I love you more than anything.” She smiled half-heartedly but I figured for a long time the Kerrighan clan would be half-alive after sustaining such a loss.

  Mama Kerri was next. Heartbreak and grief felt thick in the very air around her form. It would take us all a long time to find any sort of peace after Tabby’s loss.

  Blessing, Liliana, Charlie, and Genesis each hugged me. I told every last one of them that I loved them, needing them to know it and hear it from my lips.

  “Rory?” I scanned the space and didn’t see my niece.

  “Aunt Delores has her at Kerrighan House,” Genesis confirmed.

  After the round of hugs, I went over to Addy’s bed. She was staring vacantly out the window even in a room filled with her family.

  “Hey, sis. How you doin’?” I took her hand, careful not to touch the bulky bandages running up both arms from wrist to bicep.

  She blinked slowly and turned her head toward me as if she’d just realized someone was there and holding her hand.

  “I’m alive,” was all she said. Though it sure as hell didn’t sound like she was any happier for it.

  “Yeah. Me too,” I said flatly. There was no judgement. No score. No positives in any of it.

  We’d made it out alive. Tabby did not. Now the two of us had to live with those circumstances.

  “Do you remember her last words?” I asked softly.

  She nodded. “My love will never die.” The phrase left her chapped lips as though each word sliced straight through her heart.

  “And it won’t. We’ll make sure of it,” I promised.

  A tear slipped down Addy’s cheek. “No. Her love will never die, and ours for her won’t either.”

  I swallowed down the cotton lodged in my throat. “She died so we could live.”

  Addy nodded.

  “How do we live with that knowledge?” I whispered, not knowing how the hell to carry on without our sister there.

  “I don’t know. One day at a time, I guess.” She sighed deeply.

  I squeezed her hand. “One day at a time.”

  And that is when Addison and I formed our own connection. It went beyond the sisterhood, beyond our family by choice. We’d survived something together. Something life changing. Our lives had been threatened, we’d suffered tremendous loss, but we’d made it out alive.

  We’d been saved.

  Spared.

  When Tabitha sacrificed it all for us, she’d connected us in a way others might never understand. She’d given us a gift—one we could neither take back nor return. We’d have to carry it with us forever.

  I looked at Addy. For a long time, we stared into one another’s eyes, both lost to thoughts of our fallen sister.

  Mama Kerri walked to the side of Addison’s bed and sat down and took her other hand. Jonah came up behind me.

  “You ready to go home?” he asked.

  I frowned and a fissure of fear skated up my spine.

  “I need to be at Kerrighan House,” I announced, matter of fact.

  Home.

  I needed to be home. The only home I’d ever known.

  “Me too,” Addison said, her eyes locked on mine.

  “I think maybe it’s a good idea if all my babies come home until they’re ready to enter back into the world after all we’ve endured.” Mama Kerri’s voice was filled with heartbreak but her request would not be denied.

  “When everyone’s back at Kerrighan House, I can go over the details behind the rest of what happened,” Jonah shared.

  I nodded, as did Addy and Mama Kerri. Which was also when Quinn slipped into the room. He waved at Sonia. “They’re not being put off. The press have surrounded the hospital. If you don’t make a statement and let them see you, we’re going to have problems.”

  Sonia clench
ed her teeth and made fists with her hands. She looked around the room and her face contorted into one of sadness and fury. “Fine. Let’s go. Now. I’ll see you all back at Kerrighan House.”

  “I’ll wait until Addison is released. Why don’t you all head on over and I’ll bring our girl when she’s out,” Mama Kerri stated.

  Jonah nodded and curled his hand around my shoulder. “Come on, baby. Let me take you to your ma’s.”

  I clenched my fingers around the railing of the hospital bed, surprised at my sudden reluctance to let go or leave Addison’s side.

  “Um, I think I’d rather wait until Addy’s released,” I whispered.

  “Si, I’m okay. I’ll be there soon.” She sighed tiredly.

  I frowned at my white knuckles gripped around the rail. “But what if something happens between now and then?” I choked the question out, emotion clogging my throat.

  She reached her arm out and covered one of my hands with hers. “Let go of the railing, Si. I’m fine. I’m alive. And I’m right here. No one’s gonna get to me in the hospital. And besides, he’s gone. Dead. Remember?”

  I peeled my hand away but kept hold of hers then sat down on the side of her bed. “I’m gonna wait until you’re released.”

  Jonah rubbed a hand up and down my back soothingly. “No problem. We’ll wait for your sister.”

  I nodded, still not sure why I couldn’t break away, just knowing I wasn’t ready to do so.

  Not long after the others left a nurse came in and went over the outpatient information and discharged Addison.

  Together, the four of us piled into Mama Kerri’s Subaru Outback. Jonah drove. Mama Kerri in the passenger seat, me and Addy huddled together in the back.

  As each mile passed and we got closer to Mama Kerri’s, the exhaustion took over. I leaned my head onto Addison’s shoulder, and she leaned hers on to mine.

  In the safety of my mother’s vehicle, my mother present, my man ever watchful, Addison safely sitting next to me, I closed my eyes and allowed sleep to take me.

  Back at Kerrighan House, we all huddled around one another on the giant U-shaped sectional. Mama Kerri sat in the single chair, a plate with an uneaten grilled cheese sandwich on her lap. She’d made a bunch of sandwiches. I ate mine tasting absolutely nothing. I could have been eating a block of Play-Doh for all I cared. The rest of the sisters were in various stages of eating or not eating.