NEARLY Trilogy

by Ashley, Devon

  I should’ve been offended – well, actually, I was – but more than anything I just wanted to become invisible and melt so I could slip down the drain.

  “No. But you shouldn’t have allowed them to take her to where she could be seen by outsiders. You know there will be people looking for her.”

  Friggs released me and strode towards Finn. My throat continued to ache as air rushed in and out to catch up on air loss. I was so fixated on Friggs at the time that I didn’t even realize how much pain was shooting inside my head. Like a bullet continually bouncing off metal walls. “Oh, so you’re doing me a solid keeping her hidden this way?”

  “Sure,” Finn replied sarcastically. “I’ve always got your back. But we had an agreement. My room is sanctuary. Your business and its butthead bouncers aren’t allowed jurisdiction in here. It’s my space and you don’t have permission to enter. Get out.”

  I held my breath over the long silence that followed. Shit, I even held it when he spoke. The guy had some balls for someone so young. Friggs’ response was just a noise he made in his throat as he slowly squeezed his way past Finn in the doorway. “Better hope the boys don’t find a key to this room,” he cautiously threatened. “That’d be a real shame.”

  Finn gave me a single glance before following him out. As their footsteps moved farther away, I allowed myself to slide its way down the wall to the cold floor. My skin shivered, and I fought to smooth out the bumps, wrapping myself up into a tight little ball. A minute later Finn returned, cautiously nearing the shower. He crouched down at the opening.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I figured out a little too late that their movement was a set-up to buy him some time. He’s never done that before, but I still should’ve seen it coming. Unfortunately, it means they’re watching us closely. It’s not going to be easy getting you out of here.”

  I huffed, and a tingle that began in my core sent a shiver up my spine. “It was never going to be easy.”

  “Nope. But it just got a lot harder,” he confirmed. “And I don’t know how long we’ll have before someone does try to pull you out.”

  My hands moved to roughly wipe down every part of my face, making my skin burn even more. I took a long time doing it and Finn let me proceed in silence. Only once I stopped did he say, “It’s safe to come out now. I’m not going to leave the apartment again.”

  “You’ll have to eventually,” I argued. If anything, to get more food once it ran out.

  “But not today.” He slowly stood to his feet, looked down on me for just a moment, then left the bathroom. By the sound of it, he left the bedroom too, but I still took forever coming back out.

  My warm cocoon under all the blankets was suddenly ripped away. “Get up, get showered and get dressed.”

  The air was chilly, and Zander’s abrupt move made me shoot up. “What the hell?” I shouted, still confused over what just happened.

  He opened my side of the wardrobe, pulling jeans, a shirt, jacket and fresh undergarments. “No more moping about. You’ve buried yourself long enough and you’re beginning to smell up the room.” He literally threw the clothes at me. “We’re going out tonight. You need to get out of here for a while.”

  I groaned and tossed the clothes aside. “I’m not going anywhere. Do you not get it? My parents are gone, I just gave up the love of my life and my sister has been abducted by a sadistic asshole. I’m entitled to some fucking mope time.”

  Completely unaffected, he stalked his way over. I yelped as his hand slapped against my foot. Yanking me towards him, he quickly snatched my lower jaw and brought our faces extremely close. I grabbed his forearm but I knew better than to pull on it.

  “If you are not clean and dressed and ready to go in ten minutes, I’m going to drag you by the hair into that shower and fuck you the way you secretly love to be fucked, and I’m going to do it over and over again until you’re so fucking numb it’ll be days before you feel another goddamn emotion.”

  My eyes tensed as they bore deeply into his. “Bet you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” I spat. My heart was beating so fast I had to breathe through my mouth to get enough air.

  He leaned in so far his lips practically touched my ear. “Bet you’d love that.”

  I pushed against him when he let go, rubbing the spots on my jaw where he had me pinched.

  “Tick, tock, Natalie.”

  “My name is not Natalie!” I yelled to his back as he aimed for the stairs.

  “Your name will be irrelevant if I have to come back up to get you. But by all means, stay in bed. Or better yet, take too long in the shower.”

  I screamed and threw one of the pillows, but he was already out of reach and out of sight. I roughly rubbed down my face, trying to get a hold of all the reactions shooting off inside me. My heart was pounding, my nerves were making me squeamish and shivers occasionally burst into existence out of nowhere. What disturbed me most of all was that I could tell I was a little wet, and the muscles down there were lightly contracting, begging for attention.

  Shut up, you fucking traitor.

  I’d love to say that I had the courage to go downstairs and tell him off, but even I wasn’t naïve enough to believe he was just throwing words around. He’d make good on that threat and enjoy every minute of it. I was fast in the shower and down by eight minutes, hair still sopping wet with zero makeup. He gave me a smug look of approval. I still managed to find my voice as I passed him by, quietly telling him to shove it.

  Unfortunately, he had a typical Zander response that was known for chilling me to the bone. “Just tell me where you’d like it, love.”

  I was silent the entire drive, which took almost an hour because Zander didn’t want us public anywhere near the house. I sat with my arms crossed and my head turned to watch the world outside as it flew by in a blurry mixture of snow and earth-tone streaks. It was a sunny, cloudless afternoon, and all around us life seemed to be moving forward without us. We drove through multiple towns of multiple groupings with smiles on their faces. Mothers with children walking side by side, swinging their hands as they walked the shops along their streets. Couples wrapped up in one another’s arms. Single adults walking their pets. Everyone out seemed expressively happy, and I couldn’t help but feel envious. I was guessing none of them just lost their boyfriend. It was doubtful any of them just lost both their parents in traumatic fashion. And the odds were seriously against any of them worrying day in and day out over their sister, who had been stolen by a fucking psychopath out to ruin their life.

  Fuck you, world.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I rolled my head to face forward and closed my eyes to it all. When the car finally came to a stop, we were in the parking lot of a small theater. “Seriously?”

  “It wouldn’t kill you to stop thinking for two hours.” Zander popped his seat belt and left the car. He was opening my door before I had even reached over to unlock my own belt. I really didn’t want to be here, but I supposed it was better than the alternative of me wallowing my night away inside a bed Zander might get a little too friendly in. I reluctantly lifted myself out of the seat and let him take my hand to guide me to the box office. I didn’t care enough to choose, so he picked one of the action movies. I had to say, despite it being something I would’ve never chosen, the constant gunfire made it impossible to sort through the thoughts in my head. Twenty minutes in I actually began to pay attention to the movie, and ended up liking it okay by the end.

  Not that I would ever admit it though.

  Neither one of us had been interested in the food there, so we stopped off at a small town diner on the way back. A part of me found it quite cozy, even though the place could be a little cleaner. Not even the tear in the vinyl seat bothered me. Suddenly I could see myself at Breenie’s Diner back in Myrtle Creek, working long shifts to keep from being alone during the dead of night. I was right to be cautious back then. I was so scared a certain man would track me down and abduct me again. And here I was sitt
ing across from that very man now.

  Fuck my life.

  “Clench that knife any harder and you’ll probably break skin,” he suddenly said.

  “What?” I asked, completely muddled. His gaze motioned toward my hand. Apparently I was clenching the rolled up silverware and hadn’t even noticed. The cheap napkin was already tearing. I released it to the table with a muffled clang.

  “This diner reminds me of the one I used to work at. Small town, small diner. Unspectacular food. Good people though.”

  “You did a good job staying off the grid back then. I had nothing.”

  My lips slowly curved into a smug expression. Good. “I lived off cash. Lived close enough to walk to work so I wouldn’t need a car or a driver’s license. Just kept to myself as much as possible. Had to make sure I was forgettable.”

  “You could never be forgettable,” he replied, and I could feel the warmth in his voice.

  My eyes darted down to my left forearm. A smidgen of light pink was peeking out beneath the sleeve of my shirt, but I didn’t move to hide it. “Wasn’t easy with all those burn marks. I wore no makeup, never did my hair. Even my clothes were cheap and oversized. Anything I could do to keep people from looking.”

  “Sounds lonely.”

  I tipped my head and gave him a look. “Not lonely enough to consider buying slaves to keep me company.”

  His expression remained flat. I sighed and shook my head, turning my attention elsewhere, silencing my voice. At least temporarily…

  “If both your parents were dead when you were a kid, how the hell did you end up back in your father’s world?”

  “I never really left it. It’s true, I had no family left but Charles. But there were men who were still loyal to my father. We were taken in by his right hand man, Donatello, who we compensated greatly once we became of age and received our trusts.”

  “Did you ever stop to think that was why the man took you in?”

  “Yes,” he replied bluntly. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t become family. He was good to us, so we were good to him.”

  “Was?” I inquired, picking up on all the past tense remarks.

  “He died of cancer a few years back.”

  “I’m sorry.” For some reason that saddened me. I’d love to think it was because the death of my own parents was still very raw, but I feared it was because I was empathetic. It was difficult and tiring to keep up a constant shield, and little by little he was taking me off guard, slowly breaking it down.

  “And your own parents?” he probed. “How are you dealing with that?”

  My lips pressed together as I lightly shook my head. “Not sure that I am.”

  “Were you close?”

  “I don’t know. We were getting there. Slowly. I mean, I understand what they meant to Claire because I can see some of her memories now. I can feel what she felt. I know she loved them, I just didn’t know them as well as she did. But I was trying to. I have very weird emotions inside.”

  “And Thea?”

  I glared at him. “You’re not going to bring up her and Nick again, are you? Because unless you know what actually happened, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He lifted his hands in surrender and left it alone. When the alarm on his phone went off, he passed it over for me to reset my tracker. Our food arrived after that, and we ate in complete silence before heading back home…which was also mostly silent. It was evening now. A few thin and bumpy clouds streaked across the sky, highlighted shades of orange and purple from the setting sun. I felt so exhausted, yet so far from sleep.

  When we arrived back at the house, I noticed an immediate difference to the inside of the garage. Hanging on the left hand side of the ceiling was a punching bag. Along the wall there was also a small rack of lighter dumbbells next to his heavier set. I immediately got out to inspect.

  “What the hell?”

  “I figured you could use an outlet for all the shit you’re dealing with.”

  My hand traced around the bag. I could already imagine myself going at it, and suddenly I was bouncing with energy. Zander found a couple pairs of gloves and passed one of the smaller sets to me. These were more padded than the others. “You can start with those but I’m sure you already know it’s in your best interest to hit without the padding.”

  “Yeah, I know. My trainer already gave me the long speech.” I slid one of them on and fisted my hand several times. Incredibly stiff, they weren’t broken in like the ones at the gym. “So you threatened me earlier just to get me out of the house? You know, you could’ve just said I’ve got a guy coming to install some equipment so we need to leave for a few hours.”

  “You misunderstand. I meant every word I said earlier.”

  My lips parted slightly but my mind couldn’t come up with anything to say. He just cocked both brows and headed toward the house.

  Regaining my thoughts, I said, “Thank you for getting me something to hit. But you forgot something.” Curiosity got him to turn back around. With a little bit of humor, I said, “The picture of your face to tape up top so I can better imagine what I’m hitting.”

  I could sense the amusement behind his eyes, but mine completely fell away when he suggested, “How about I try to find a picture of Friggs instead?”

  He disappeared past the door and left me to an empty garage. His comment brought to life the growing mass of emptiness inside me. I felt angry. Tired. Depressed. To the point I was slowly becoming numb to it all. And quite honestly, I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing…or a bad thing.

  There was a sweet satisfaction to pounding the bag every night. It was rhythmic, like my own choreographed dance bursting inside me, desperate to get out. I kept the garage door up, letting the cool air sting my moistened skin. Its icy touch kept me electrified with energy. I was sore, but it was easing day by day as my muscles built themselves back up again.

  Satisfied and drenched with sweat, I grabbed my hand towel and headed inside to grab a glass of water. I stood there resting, getting my heart beat back under control, when Zander came in from the study to grab his own drink. His glance told me he was more than turned on right now.

  “Seriously? I look like a drowned rat. How could you possibly be interested?”

  Before bringing his cup to his lips, he smiled and said, “Oh, I’m always interested.”

  Dumbfounded, I asked boldly, “Why the hell do you even like me? Besides me looking like that girl from your youth, why am I here?”

  “At first it was because you looked like Natalia and because I was angry that some slave managed to burn down Charles’ house.” Narrowing his eyes, he added, “With him in it.”

  I hardly had a reaction for that. I didn’t regret it then and I didn’t regret it now.

  And Natalia? That’s why he called me Natalie? Give me a fucking break!

  “But then I realized how very different you were compared to the other girls. With most, obedience is easy once you hit them enough times. But with you, no matter the obstacle presented, you always rose to the occasion. You intrigued me. You’re a fighter, and you presented me with a new challenge.”

  “To break me.”

  “Yes. But you’ve proven to be incredibly stubborn.” With a twinkle in his eye, he added, “At least in that department.”

  “Every department,” I argued.

  “No, love.” He leaned in incredibly close but I refused to move. “You still do everything I ask.”

  His eyes dropped down to watch his finger twist itself with the top of my bra strap.

  “I am not sleeping with you,” I said defiantly.

  With a blink his eyes were looking deep into mine, his expression almost playful. The corner of his mouth twitched just the tiniest bit. “You will, love. Our time will come.”

  Tipping my head to the side, I confidently challenged, “Yeah? Then what are you waiting for?”

  He pulled his hand away and retrieved his cup again. “I have my reasons. But if you’re
wanting to move up the time table, I might be willing to oblige.”

  I pretty much rolled my eyes and pushed myself off the counter. “Why don’t you just go find my sister already?”

  He shrugged lightheartedly. “Give me a reason to hasten my search.”

  I could feel a tiny little fire burning inside my stomach. This guy had an answer for everything. “Sometimes I just want to smack you.”

  “Sometimes I like it when you do, love.”

  “I’m not your love,” I replied harshly.

  “You can choose who you call love, but you cannot choose who chooses to love you.” With a curvy half smile, he added, “Like it or not you have my utmost attention.”

  I flung my towel over my shoulder, its end whipping the back of my shoulder. Turning on my heels I abandoned him for the upstairs shower. I hated that the freakin’ door didn’t have a lock. All of his damn houses had locks on every possible door, but this one didn’t even have one on the bathroom? It scared the crap out of me sometimes, because there was nothing I could do to keep him from coming in.

  I showered incredibly fast, fear driving my actions. It was too early to turn in, so I headed downstairs and picked up the book I had grabbed from his study the other day. Evelina. One constant amongst his houses – Zander’s love of reading. There was always a surplus of books.

  The sun had long set and the sky darkened to an inky shade of dark blue before he made his way out for the evening, his laptop in tow. As he made his way up the stairs, he said, “So how’s this for timing? Looks like one of my scouts picked up a solid trail.”

  I silently gasped, my heart revving its pace. Thea. Jumping to my feet, I threw the book aside and ran after him. “Friggs? Is Thea with him?”

  “I don’t know. Our agreement was for me to find Friggs.”

  I actually paused on the stairs. “No,” I began, but Zander cut me off. Pointing his finger at me, he said, “I’ve only ever said I’d find Friggs. I never once said anything about Thea.”