by Stasia Black
And he didn’t understand. The way she’d clung to him for the ride. Even how she was looking at him now. Like she was going to a funeral. Not claiming her freedom, like she said she wanted.
Her hand had to be cramping from how hard she’d been holding his for the whole ride but she squeezed even harder as they came in for the landing. Graham and Mateo had mapped out a landing area in an old abandoned Walmart parking lot right by the park where the Nomansland rep had arranged to meet.
Audrey squeezed her eyes shut and kept them closed the whole five minutes it took for Mateo to bring them down and, with more than a few bumps, land the copter.
Nix didn’t have it in him to breathe out in relief though.
Because landing meant that Audrey was going to leave them.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe this terrifying ride—and facing possible death—had made her rethink her priorities. She’d wanted a choice. Well now she had one. And maybe she’d realized she could choose them of her own free will and it would change everything—
But then she snatched her hand out of Nix’s and immediately reached to release the straps of her harness.
It was a knife to Nix’s guts.
He was bleeding from the goddamned inside out.
You knew this was a mistake from the beginning. It’s your fault for not marching right up to the Commander the second your name was drawn and not setting him straight. There was a reason you didn’t get involved.
It was the same voice that had been shouting at him ever since Audrey told them she was leaving.
Audrey pushed the harness over her head and then, when Nix didn’t move fast enough for her, she climbed over his lap, grabbed the side of the helicopter, and climbed down.
She looked wobbly as hell. Fuck, she was gonna faceplant if she wasn’t careful.
Nix jerked at his own harness. Goddamned fucking buckles. He ripped at the restraints, trying to get free, his stomach lurching with every unsteady step Audrey took.
She stopped with her hands on her knees, looking like she was about to throw up.
Nix finally got the damned buckle undone and he launched himself down to her side. “Are you okay?” he asked, putting a hand to the small of her back. “Babe, you okay?”
Not that she could hear him with the roar of the rotor blades still whirring but she nodded anyway, pressing a hand to her forehead and standing up.
When she stumbled to the side slightly, Nix immediately steadied her.
And reached the conclusion he had every other time that stupid voice spoke up.
He took her arm and pulled her further away from the copter.
“Earlier, you asked me why I hadn’t exploded.” He had to speak loudly, but the helicopter was getting quieter and quieter every moment and Audrey seemed to be able to hear him. “Why I wasn’t yelling and screaming.”
Audrey nodded uncertainly.
Time to put it all on the table. He had to try one last time.
“I told you about my sister, Roxy.”
Another hesitant nod.
“After she died, I just cut off.” Nix slashed his hand down. “Detached. Nobody and nothing was getting in here again.” He thumbed his chest. “Nothing was worth that kind of pain. Nothing. So I did my job. Fought in the war. Risked my life sometimes. Played it safe others.” He shrugged. “Didn’t really matter. Nothing did. That was the point. I spent the last eight years making sure nothing mattered.”
He took a step closer to her. “Until you.”
He saw her heavy swallow and the tremble to her bottom lip. Was he getting through to her? Fuck knew he wasn’t a praying man, but he’d say a thousand Hail Marys every day the rest of his life if she could just hear him.
“I tried at first. I thought I could keep you at arm’s length. I could do my job—protect you—without it getting beyond that. Without getting too close.”
He was the one swallowing now. “Without falling in love with you. But I was wrong. Jesus fuck was I wrong.”
She started shaking her head back and forth but he’d started and he was going to finish.
“The reason I haven’t screamed and yelled this week is because I finally realized the reason I was so scared of loving anyone wasn’t just because of how much it hurt when I lost Roxy. It’s of how absolutely terrified I’ve been of ever letting anyone down like I did her. She loved me. Trusted me to keep her safe. And then she died in the most horrific way possible because I failed her.”
“Nix, don’t,” Audrey said, mouth working as she looked away, blinking rapidly and obviously fighting back tears.
“Letting you go do this is my worst fucking fear,” he bit out. “Falling in love with you was one thing. I thought, fine. I just won’t let her out of my sight. I’ll just guard her twenty-four hours a day. Not that I knew I was doing it because I loved you at first.” He barked out a rough laugh. “Or maybe I’m just an ass and I liked how pissed off it used to make you.”
He caught her wobbly smile even though she tried to mask it a second later, still blinking furiously and refusing to look his way.
“But this week I finally realized this is what love is. It’s not something I can control like my command squadron. I’m not even sure it’s something I ever had a choice in. And even if I did. You’re worth it. You’re worth the pain. You’re worth the fucking years of agony ahead of me if you walk away from me right now. You’re worth risking everything for. Because I love you.”
He reached a hand toward her cheek and she jerked violently backwards.
Finally, finally she looked at him.
She was breathing so hard her nostrils were flaring in and out and there was a sheen of tears over her eyes that she seemed determined not to let fall.
She shook her head, chin trembling harder than ever. “I’m going to be late.”
And then she turned and fled in the direction of the park.
Chapter 39
AUDREY
Audrey was still swiping at her eyes and heaving for breath when she rounded the corner of the overgrown path and a voice said, “You’re late.”
The woman who stepped out of the trees was thin, stern-faced, and empty of all humor as she looked Audrey up and down. Her dark brown hair was cropped close to her head and she had an automatic rifle in her arms, held in such a way that it was clear she knew how to use it.
“Sorry,” Audrey said. Her voice came out low and scratchy. God, everything Nix had said—it was like he was intentionally trying to make sure her heart was shredded through a meatgrinder. Opening up like that. God.
But then she pictured Danny. Crushed under a pile of bricks. And she’d turned and all but ran.
“You get here okay?” the woman asked brusquely. “Any problems?”
Audrey clenched her jaw to keep her emotions in check. She forced her back ramrod straight. “Nothing insurmountable. It’s Jade, isn’t it?”
The woman nodded, then looked this way and that like she was expecting an ambush from either side. Audrey could only imagine how dangerous this kind of work could be.
“You alone?”
Audrey nodded. “That was the deal, right?”
Jade glared her way. “Yeah, well not everyone sticks to deals they make these days, do they?”
Audrey jumped slightly at her harsh tone but then she nodded again. She got it. The woman was on edge. Anyone would be knowing they might be walking into a trap or ambush. Meeting someone like this blind was a huge risk to both of them, no matter how they’d tried to vet each other beforehand.
So Audrey wasn’t surprised when the woman waved to her quickly. “Let’s go. I for one don’t want to be around when some raping bastard happens to take a walk in the park.”
When she turned and started deeper into the woods, Audrey hurried to follow on her heels. It was good though. Trying to keep up with G.I. Jane took up all her energy and focus.
Which meant she couldn’t obsess about Nix. Or Clark. Or Mateo. Or Graham and Danny.
; Or not.
Because with each step she took, each of their faces rose like ghosts in her mind.
Which was all they’d ever be to her now—ghosts, like Dad and Charlie.
Except for one key difference, she reminded herself. They’ll be alive.
After about another ten minutes of hard hiking, Audrey’s breath caught at seeing a small motorbike. Jade strode toward it, turning and handing the single helmet from the handlebars to Audrey.
“Oh no, you should—”
“Take it,” Jade demanded, so Audrey shut her mouth and did as she was told.
Her hands trembled as she strapped it underneath her chin. And it wasn’t at the prospect of getting on the motorbike behind this strange woman she didn’t know.
She looked behind her. She hadn’t heard the roar of the helicopter taking off again. How long would they wait?
“Come on,” the woman growled. “We’re sitting ducks out here.”
Don’t think, just go. You can think tomorrow.
Jade got on the motorcycle, and Audrey swung one leg over, sitting behind her and wrapping her arms around the lean woman’s wait.
“Lean when I lean,” Jade said.
And then they were speeding off through the woods. If there was a path, Audrey couldn’t see it.
But Jade seemed to know exactly where she was going. She rode confidently, speeding around trees and after a while, Audrey realized there was a sort of trail. But it was so overgrown it was insane that Jade was going the speed she was.
Audrey clung to Jade for dear life and tried her best to lean when Jade did.
The ride seemed to take a thousand years but was probably more like thirty or forty-five minutes. All Audrey knew was that when they finally stopped, she felt like barfing from the terror of the ride. Which, after the helicopter trip, was saying something.
They came out of the forest onto a road and Audrey barely had time to breathe a sign of relief before she realized that Jade treated asphalt as an excuse to drive at even more insane, breakneck speeds.
If she weren’t strapped to the back of her, Audrey would admire the woman’s balls. As it was, she wanted off this rollercoaster, thank you very damn much.
But eventually, eventually, it came to an end. Audrey had been smelling the sea strongly ever since they’d come out of the woods, so she wasn’t surprised when Jade pulled them onto a street leading right out to the docks.
“Where are you taking me?” Audrey tried to ask.
But Jade either didn’t hear or thought it was useless to try speaking with all the noise because she just shook her head.
It was only when the motorcycle finally came to a full stop on a dock beside a small speedboat that it all really sank in. Another woman sat behind the driver’s seat and she waved to Jade.
It was only midday and in the distance, Audrey could see an island. “Is that Galveston island?”
“No, Galveston Island’s over there.” Jade pointed a little further to the right. “Nomansland is on Pelican Island, the little one to the left. Over there. It’s pretty small but there was a marine biology branch of A&M University there. All the buildings are still in good condition and there’s plenty of space.”
Audrey put a hand over her eyes to try to see better but couldn’t make out much than a few taller buildings. Then she looked all around them. She felt extremely exposed. Jade had brought them to an out-of-the-way shipping dock and there wasn’t anyone else around.
“But don’t you have trouble with men from Galveston?” Audrey and Charlie had studied maps of the coast and there was a long string of islands that ran alongside the coast here. How on earth had Nomansland remained a secret if it was so exposed?
“Drea, that’s our founder, did it smart. She had a hell of an armament when she started and she set up treaties with other like-minded cities that helped protect us.”
“What do you trade? How do you make your money?”
Jade huffed out in annoyance. “Look, we can explain everything when we get there. Sitting ducks, remember?” She gestured around them, then down at the boat.
Audrey nodded. She climbed off the bike and walked on wobbly legs down the dock. Jade stowed the bike behind a huge, rusting shipping container, then hurried back.
She reached out for Audrey’s hand to help her down to the boat.
But Audrey hesitated, looking behind her.
What were the chances Nix and Mateo were still waiting for her?
Stupid.
They would have taken off by now. Talk about sitting ducks. A helicopter would be a target for anyone with half a brain. Everyone in twenty miles who heard them pass overhead had probably headed there to investigate and see if they couldn’t get their hands on the thing.
No, she hoped they’d taken off. They could be almost halfway back home by now—
She froze.
Home.
A place she’d never be able to go again.
She bit down on her lip hard.
You’re saving their lives. That was worth anything. Any sacrifice. Certainly worth the price of her happiness.
She was about to reach for Jade’s hand when the worst two words in the English language slipped into her mind, though:
What if…?
Because what if she was doing the wrong thing?
God, hadn’t Jeffries proved to her over and over again how dangerous he could be? What if by running instead of warning Nix and the rest of the clan, she was just helping Jeffries and his friends set the rest of the town up for something awful? Because the way Jeffries talked, he and his accomplices didn’t have benign intentions.
What would happen to Nix once they decided they all were tired of waiting?
Jeffries said he had spies everywhere. And maybe that was true—in town at least. It was why she felt she couldn’t tell the guys. Anyone could overhear, or if they tried to go to the Commander, anyone in his offices or government could be connected and it could get back to Jeffries—
But she wasn’t in town right now.
If she could get back to Nix and Clark, she could tell them everything and they could make a plan. Together.
The thought of anything happening to them because of her had just paralyzed her.
She’d been too afraid to even try.
But what if when Jeffries and his men enacted whatever it was they were planning, Nix and her clan got hurt anyway? Did she think Nix would just stand idly by while Jeffries tried to overthrow the town?
And while their clan might have officially dissolved once she left, she knew her men. The bonds they’d formed wouldn’t just disappear.
They’d fight together.
Oh God, why was she just realizing all of this now?
“I have to go back.” At first the words were just a whisper, eyes frozen on the horizon. But then she grabbed Jade’s arm and whipped her around to look at her. “You have to take me back. This is a mistake.”
“What?” Jade asked incredulously. “But isn’t this what you wanted? What every woman alive wants these days?”
Three months ago, that might have been true. For a girl who’d lost everything and needed a new family to start over? Sure.
But Audrey already had that.
Why the hell wasn’t she fighting for it? Because she was scared?
Charlie’s face flashed in front of her.
Then Dad’s.
She’d been so scared of anyone else she loved dying for her.
But Nix had been scared too. So terrified that what happened to his sister would happen to her. He’d pushed people away the same way she was doing now. But he’d let her in. Let himself love her.
And then, more importantly, he’d faced his worst fear of all and let her go.
But her?
She’d been running scared. All she could see was her fear. She’d choked on it from the very moment Jeffries first threatened them. It was all consuming, all she could see.
She’d let fear drive away everything she lo
ved.
And in the end, they were still in danger anyway. And all because she hadn’t had the courage to open her dumb, stupid mouth.
“I have to go back!” she said louder, taking several steps away from the boat. One hand flew to her forehead. Oh God. How was she gonna get back to Jacob’s Well?
Jade might take her back to the rendezvous spot, but if the helicopter had taken off, which of course it had, then she was fucked. So beyond fucked.
No.
She’d get back to them. Somehow, she’d get back. She’d warn them about Jeffries without him finding out about them. And together, they’d take down that motherfucker and his cronies once and for all.
Jade made another impatient noise. Then she spoke under her breath. “Enough with this bullshit.”
Which was when Audrey felt the prick in the back of her neck.
Even as she tried to spin around in shock, her legs gave way underneath her and she slumped to the ground.
Chapter 40
AUDREY
It was the second time in the last few months that Audrey had woken up in an unfamiliar place.
She was much quicker to jerk to attention this time around, though. Even though she felt groggy and woozy.
She put a hand to her swimming head as she looked around.
It was a tiny, dark room, maybe the size of a closet. A single fat candle on a shelf illuminated the small area.
But Audrey’s attention was immediately drawn to the beaten and bloody woman hanging by chains on the opposite wall.
“Are you alright?” Audrey asked, getting to her feet and taking two steps toward the woman—which was about all the space there was in the closet.
The woman’s head suddenly jerked up. One eye was barely a slit, it was so bruised and swollen. She was dressed in rags and her shoulder-length hair could have been blond or dark brown—it was so dirty and matted Audrey couldn’t tell.
“You think you can break me?” the woman suddenly shouted at the top of her lungs toward the door. She wrenched against her chains. “You stupid fuckers!”
Then she let out a hysterical laugh, shaking her head. “They think they’re so funny. Always throwing the fresh meat in with me. All the women I was trying to ‘save.’” She made air quotes with her fingers even though her hands were in shackles. “So I can watch them break. Day after day. Woman after woman. But I don’t break. Do you hear that, you motherfuckers?! I don’t break!”