Sparrows & Sacrifice

by Nellie K Neves

  “What? Like my disease?”

  His discomfort doubled. “I meant you. I’ve been trying not to talk about,” he shifted against me, the space no longer comfortable, “all the other stuff.”

  “Why? Isn’t that the reason Shane asked you to come along? So you could watch for relapse?”

  Ryder tucked his chin into his opposite shoulder, fully turned away from me. “I’ve been trying to eliminate that part of our relationship. I don’t want to be your doctor.” A bitter edge lined his words, a thorn lodged but never removed. “I’m worried about you, not your health.”

  I tried to brush it off. “They’re pretty intertwined.” Something slithered near my foot. I pulled closer to Ryder on instinct. “Besides, I’m getting used to you keeping me safe.”

  He didn’t laugh or make a joke like I expected. His forehead pressed against mine, hard and unyielding, his breath echoing off my skin. “When we fought at Rockin’ B, you said I never see past your disease, and it’s haunted me ever since.”

  My fingers slipped over his cheek, cold at first from the night air, but warm under my touch. “Ryder, I wasn’t at my best that night—”

  The heat of his hand burned against my fingers. “I always see past it. I see how hard you fight to stay in control. I see how scared you get when you think about the future. I’m in awe of your strength even when you have nothing left.” Crickets chirped beyond the dark veil of night, but there was nothing, no one else in my world beyond him. “I watched you fight for your life every day in the hospital, and all I could see was you.”

  The words landed hard against my chest, a weight, not restrictive or painful, but warm and comforting, a blanket to shield against the chill of life. It left me unhinged and awkward, as if I held some tool I’d never seen and had been commanded to use it.

  Eager to change the subject, I asked, “What about you? How are you dealing?”

  Ryder’s weight shifted and fell against my collarbone, a child seeking solace. “I’m remembering things, things I’ve forgotten for a long time.” The bark of the stump dug into my hand as I braced the shift in need. “I never thought my father hit me. Verbally abusive, emotionally, but I’d chalked the vague memories up to nightmares.”

  “Nightmares can be as bad as reality.”

  “Still,” Ryder pulled away and dropped his head into his hands, “every time Nick cracks something against my skull, it jars a memory loose. Charles threw me down the stairs. He smacked me for tracking mud in the house. Raife throws me against a wall, and I remember my father beating me with a riding crop for losing my polo match. I was seven.” His hands trembled with rage before he tightened them into hard fists. “Then the things he did to my mother…If he were still alive, I’d kill him myself.”

  I recognized the pain of memories that wouldn’t heal. I wished I could pull them from him. It was my fault he’d ever remembered them in the first place.

  “They’re going to pay,” Ryder said. “They’re all going to pay for what they’ve done.”

  A new fear rose up inside of me. Fear that he might do something to get himself killed.

  “What’s your plan? What are you doing?”

  The anger melted like a sandcastle in the rain. “I’m doing what you’d do.”

  His declaration didn’t abate my fears. I was reckless. I was stupid and sacrificed myself for the greater good. Ryder couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t survive.

  “Ryder—”

  “Dance with me.”

  The conversation scampered into the night. He didn’t want to hear my ideas or my concerns. Instead, we danced. I assured myself, amidst the spinning light and lilting music, that I had until morning to change his mind. The joy of the moment shoved and pushed fear from my mind. Radiant laughter burbled around me. I felt the cascading vivacity of life as we spent it in that very moment. There was freedom in the dance, in living in the present with no thought of tomorrow.

  Ryder’s arm hooked around my waist and we spun, round and round, dizzy and giddy and sick with happiness and the simplicity of our time. My cries of surrender laced with childish giggling. In the blur of the night, he watched me with a tender love I wondered if I’d ever understand. My skirt swished back and forth as we stopped, still chuckling, still feeling our heartbeats race in sync. The other couples still moved, still weaved and called to each other as the night wore on, but for us, it was him and me, and nothing else.

  I reached to touch his face, my fingers light and disconnected from my body. My smile melted, but not to sadness, because there was no room for sadness with whatever burned in my chest. My fingers were numb, it wasn’t new, but as they rested against his face, I felt much more than ever before.

  White hot.

  Blue flame.

  Scorching but not painful.

  Searing.

  Learning a concept for the first time, but realizing it made sense and that I’d known it for years, but I’d forgotten.

  Terrifying. Yet exhilarating.

  Need and want all tangled together tight in the kind of net I never wanted to be free of.

  Mine. He was mine.

  My lips bumped his, once, then twice, careful as if it all might hurt, but nothing hurt, not when joy refused to share the space. He allowed it, a kiss I’d started, that I’d wanted. A kiss that meant more because it was a gift. I feared I might never breathe again, that air and life and existence had been sucked out of the world and my lungs burned to be with him again. The muscles near his eye twitched and pulsed with questions as he faced me, his breath as still as my own. I had no answers, none that were free. I pulled him near once more and let the fire burn.

  Strength and power flooded his arms. He pulled me against him, arching my back as I pressed up on my toes to be near.

  It was us.

  Just us.

  No net.

  No memories.

  No ghosts to haunt or ruin what existed there.

  The fabric of my top balled into his fist, the material pulled against my stomach as it tightened under the pressure. My fingers slipped against his hair, his shoulders, anything I could grab to pull myself closer to him. The words were there. For the first time in my life, the words bubbled in my chest, screaming to pour out, rising in my throat, needing him, needing him to know that it was true, that I felt it too.

  New sounds erupted around us. The music ceased. The night changed, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered beyond what I felt inside me. His whispers feathered against my cheek, assurances that he loved me, that he’d never leave me.

  I wanted to say it.

  Why couldn’t I say it?

  I felt the shape in my mouth. It was sweet and bitter all at once, a taste I was unaccustomed to, but I knew if I said it, the word would become exquisite again.

  “I’ll come back. I swear I’ll come back for you.”

  The hoarse tone of his voice jarred me. The dying embers of the extinguished fire caught light of the emotion pooling in his eyes. Smoke tangled up around us, a cancer that ate away our happiness. A hand tightened on his shoulder.

  Not mine.

  Theirs.

  The night filtered back. All around me women were ripped free of their mates. Harmony crumbled to the ground. Thomas pulled Liam from Genesis’ grasp. The whispers of their love trapped behind obedient lips.

  “We have to go.” Nick’s voice called Ryder from another life, another world where happy endings weren’t promised and men didn’t always come home.

  “No.” I locked my grip on Ryder’s arm and pulled against the resistance. “You said morning. You said we had until morning.”

  A single tear fell over his cheek. “I try not to lie to you, but I had to this time.”

  They pulled him away. My scream cut up the night. Screaming his name, screaming for him to come back. Arms pulled at me, binding ropes made by my friends in a desperate attempt to save me from punishment. A dull ache cracked against my head. Mud surrounded my face as I collapsed to the earth
.

  The fire faded.

  The night was dying.

  Ryder was gone.

  “I love you,” I finally whispered and hoped he might hear me on the wind.

  Chapter 30

  Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours since he’d left. The happiness extinguished. The self-imposed somber mood, born out of depression, had more to do with the men who’d left, rather than the few men who’d stayed. Clandestine missions have high costs and that, on its own, had the power to sober us.

  Fern took it the worst it seemed, perhaps because she’d seen a stark difference in her husband in a short amount of time, or because her mother had been brutally murdered, though I doubted anyone else knew the truth. Either way, she didn’t want me around anymore.

  Harmony welcomed me into the kitchen, though, with the majority of the men gone, there wasn’t much to do. I scrambled eggs, toasted bread over a candle, and drooled over strips of bacon as I helped her fill the plates. There were four in total and without thinking I offered to help her carry them. It wasn’t until we arrived at the main house that I made the connection in my foggy brain.

  It was Tasha’s food.

  I was going to see Tasha.

  With no time to prepare, I’d squandered my opportunity for contact but prepared for dinner. I made sure I was in place when Harmony started cooking again, professing some innocent curiosity about the culinary field. Of course, that meant she wanted to nurse it to fruition. If it meant I could get face to face with Tasha, then I’d learn whatever she threw at me.

  Since Ryder left, I spent every moment kicking myself for staying when he’d begged me to leave. Selfish. Horribly selfish. If something happened to him, the blame fell on me. I’d let the opportunity slip by in order to help my friends, but at what cost? I hung onto Ryder’s promise that he’d return for me and, when he did, I’d be ready.

  I followed Harmony up the path, careful not to let on that I’d developed a secret plan. I kept my head down as we passed a couple of guards, steaming pots of food in our hands. We were ignored as we placed the steaming pots on the counter. No one noticed when I fumbled with the waistband of my skirt to palm the note I’d written. The men would never know that I’d asked her to meet me in the woods near the garden after dark. With relaxed security, it wouldn’t be hard. We could plan. We would be ready when Ryder returned.

  Harmony cleared her throat to gain my attention once more and, like a good minion, I followed. Tasha stood to the outside of the men. I carefully bumped against her, the opposite of what Amos had once taught me for a clean lift. Our hands met in the confusion. I pressed the note hard against the flesh of her palm. My eyes locked with hers for a second, and I hoped she understood my intent.

  “What’s this?”

  One of the guards, Nick I was almost positive, jerked us apart. The paper fell to the floor. Harmony’s hand cupped over her mouth to squelch out her fear. He stooped to snag the paper, but Tasha snatched it first and clenched it in her fist.

  “It’s mine.”

  Every woman at Eden’s Haven had the same voice, the same worn down tone that said they’d never fight back again. I thought it was normal, I’d even developed one myself, but Tasha Saunders had no such tone. Her tone was steel and iron, a command and declaration all at once, as if she were in charge.

  Nick extended his hand once more. “Give it up.”

  “No.” With no thought of her own safety, Tasha cocked her head in defiance.

  My eyes widened as she unfolded the note and read it right there. Faint noises of derision escaped her lips. “It’s nothing more than a pathetic plea to gain entrance into the main house. She’s tired of sleeping in squalor.” Her lips frowned into an ugly sneer as she looked at me. “As if Cyrus would allow something as hideous as you into his home.” The note crumbled along with all my hope. “Get rid of her.”

  Nick’s gun jammed into my ribcage as he thrust me forward. “It’s been too long since I took someone to the pit. This should be fun.”

  “Wait!” Harmony’s voice shattered the commotion. “Wait, not the pit. She didn’t mean anything. She’s new.”

  Time gelled, like amber sap on a tree. We all held steady waiting on the verdict from Sky. Finally, she passed judgment with hardly a sentence. “Fine, the shed.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  It’s not the pit. That’s what I kept telling myself. I’m still alive.

  But everything brought back memories of the cabin.

  Rough walls.

  I might never leave this place.

  Days blurred into nights.

  I’m going to die here.

  No food.

  No water.

  I’ll never see Ryder again.

  Too many symptoms, and too much weakness.

  The shed lacked the blistering heat of the cabin, but the bitter nights made my joints ache with nothing to defend against the wet chill. They never bothered to post a guard. No one kept me inside, but I dared not leave because the alternative was death. I held onto reality at first, but hunger and thirst drove me to a more desperate place where my thoughts were all I had left.

  Tasha.

  The name left me sour. I’d trusted her without cause. I never thought she’d be an enemy. Once more, I had relied on my instincts and failed. Ryder was gone. I’d landed in prison and the case had been lost. Why hadn’t I listened when he asked me to press my pendant? We could have run. There was enough to have cause to search the compound. Maybe the police would have found something. There might have been some evidence to incriminate them beyond Willow’s murder. Wasn’t murder enough? Why had I persisted at such a hopeless task?

  It didn’t matter. I had to make a plan to keep Ryder safe. That was all that mattered. I’d watch for my chance. I’d risk my own life if necessary, but I’d keep him safe no matter the cost.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The sun set, the second, or maybe my third day in the shed, I couldn’t be sure. Defeat clung to me like my wet clothes. It rained earlier, and I positioned myself below a crack in the roof. A steady stream of rainwater dripped from the tin sheet metal right into my mouth. Though gritty and bitter, the water quenched my parched mouth. With night spreading its wings and the cold creeping beneath the cracks and crevices of the shed, I tucked myself into a ball and prepared for the pain I knew would come.

  A beam of light broke through the cracks in the door and blinded me momentarily. The door groaned and something landed at my feet.

  Bread.

  I tore into it without a thought of where it had come from. Poisoned or not, I planned to eat.

  “Why on earth did he send someone like you?”

  Her voice killed my appetite for a second.

  Tasha Saunders.

  She didn’t deserve my response, and I resumed eating to prove it.

  “You’re not a cop. So, what are you?”

  I still didn’t answer, though half the bread was gone.

  “You’re certainly not a civilian. Those last guys never stood a chance. I didn’t even have time to help them.” Her volume dropped as she watched me with curiosity. “But you, you’re different.”

  Maybe it was the food. Maybe it was the way it almost sounded like a compliment, but I decided to end her confusion.

  “Private investigator,” I said between bites. There was no need to lie. Tasha knew most of my secrets.

  Tasha nodded as if she’d come to the same conclusion. “That explains the rebellious nature. What? Couldn’t cut it as a cop? Or are you my father’s favorite?”

  I snickered through my delirium. “Hardly. I was his last hope.”

  “And the guy you came with? Is he a PI too?”

  “Not even.” I shoved the last of the bread in my mouth and spoke anyway. “A friend who got roped into this mess.”

  “Too bad for him,” she muttered.

  My stomach ached from the sudden surge of food. “What now? Bullet to the head? Toss me in the pit? What’s your evil scheme?”
/>   Her mouth twisted into a frown. “You’re awfully direct, aren’t you?”

  Shrugging, I said, “Why beat around the bush? The second you crumbled up that note I knew I was dead.”

  “Well, don’t make funeral plans yet, I did that to protect my cover.”

  I pulled a face. “Cover? What cover?”

  “I’m on a deep cover assignment.”

  “You’re a cop?”

  “I’m an FBI agent.”

  I scoffed at the idea. “Your father would have mentioned that.”

  “My father doesn’t know.”

  My confusion mixed with doubt, clearly visible even in the unsteady flicker of her lantern.

  “We’re not close,” she said. “My parents divorced during my early childhood. I grew up with my mom. Neither of my parents wanted me in law enforcement, but what can I say? It’s in my blood and I’m good at it.” The rain began again, but even that couldn’t drown out her bragging. “I was top of my class at Quantico and immediately selected for field work. It wasn’t long before I started pulling these deep cover assignments.”

  “Then where’s your back up? Why are you still here?”

  She slumped against the strongest part of the shed and slid to the floor. “This case wasn’t exactly an official assignment.”

  “How so?”

  “A friend of mine, Deidra, joined Eden’s Haven over a year ago. She was always the hippy type, free love, everything in common, save the earth and all that junk. I should’ve used my contacts to run background on this place, but I was working on a big cartel case and I didn’t have time.” Her head twisted beneath her guilt. “Then she was gone. I couldn’t find her. We grew up together, high school, college, the whole gamut. She’d been there through my parents’ divorce. I was there when her mom died. As soon as my case ended, I started investigating Eden’s Haven in my spare time.” Regret etched in at the corners of her eyes, tightened her cheeks, and pulled the corners of her mouth into a frown. “I brought what I found to my supervisor, but it wasn’t enough. All I wanted was a chance to check it out, but I was denied.”