by Jo Raven
“Ooh, what a cutie! He’s grown so much!” I swear I never got all misty-eyed over babies until I had mine, but now I get excited every single time. It helps that the parents are good friends. “His name is Lee?”
“Emmanuel, actually. From Emma.”
Of course. I knew that. Emma was Zane’s adopted sister who died recently. Honoring her memory in their son’s name is beautiful.
I lead Jax inside by the hand, and he looks around wide-eyed. He hasn’t been at Dakota and Zane’s place many times.
“Can I hold him?” Audrey coos at the baby and at Dakota’s nod, she receives him in her arms.
He really is cute and even though he’s still very small, you can see he has Zane’s pretty, almond-shaped eyes.
Speaking of whom…
“Where’s Z-man?” Asher asks, entering behind me, Scott asleep in his arms. He walks inside the living room, going around the furniture as if expecting to find Zane hiding behind a couch. “Where is he?”
“Ash, calm down,” Tyler mutters, carrying Isa in her travel crib inside and depositing it on the carpet. She’s fast asleep inside, her small fists clenched on either side of her head. “He’s here.”
“Damn right I am,” a deep voice says from the hallway. “It’s my home, fucker.”
Zane appears, coming out of the dark, a scowl twisting his face, dressed in a wrinkled black T-shirt with the Damage Control logo and jeans. Something’s seriously wrong about the way he looks, though, and it takes me a moment to put my finger on it.
His Mohawk. It’s… shorter. Its colors faded. The spikes wilted.
“Holy crap, what happened?” I blurt, and his gaze swings to settle on me, narrow, and angry, and desolate. “Zane…”
“Erin.” God, there’s pain in his eyes, so much pain it hurts my chest. Then he lifts his chin, his gaze going flat, shields slamming into place. “What the fuck are you all doing here? Get out.”
We all freeze.
“What did you say?” Asher whispers. His face has gone white, and his pale eyes glitter.
Audrey makes a gasping sound, and Asher pulls her close. She hides her face against his chest, but not before I see tears on her cheeks.
The same tears I feel burning the back of my throat.
If we weren’t sure something was wrong before, it’s one hundred percent certain now. Zane may need his space and has his quirks and weird moods like the next guy, but the Brotherhood is his life. He cares for these boys, he cares for all of us more than he has ever cared about himself. The fact he is telling us to get out…
Dylan, his arms slung around the shoulders of his brothers, frowns at Zane. “You don’t mean that. We know you don’t, and I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died, but here we are now. We need to talk to you.”
“Oh God.” Dakota sinks down in a chair, cradling the baby, hanging her head, and I’m thankful when I see Megan move toward her and drag a chair to sit down beside her, their dark heads bent together as she murmurs something.
Rafe’s golden eyes are fixed on Zane, who has turned away from us, his broad shoulders stretching his ratty T-shirt, molding it to his ribs.
I shouldn’t be able to see his ribs so clearly through the cloth. Oh God, when did Zane lose so much weight?
“Just go,” he says, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. They’re shaking.
Crap, this is so much worse than I ever imagined. He’s breaking my heart.
“Zane,” Asher says, and his voice cracks. “Talk to me.”
Zane’s back hunches over. He turns just enough to search for something, someone over his shoulder—Ash?—then straightens again. “I can’t do this right now, fucker.”
“Do what exactly? What the fuck is going on?” Asher passes his son to Audrey and strides up to Zane, grabs his arm and swings him around. “Spill, or I swear to God, I’ll shake it out of you.”
“Get off me.” Zane’s eyes are wild as he pushes Ash back, but that Asher’s in top form and he doesn’t budge an inch. “What do you want from me?”
“The truth. Why you look like hell warmed over. Why your wife looks like she’s about to cry. Why—?”
“Let go, goddammit.” Zane pushes him harder, and Asher jerks back.
“We’re your family.” Ash shakes his head and I can’t see his face. “We wanna help.”
Zane’s eyes flash, and he takes a step back, his chest heaving. “You can’t fucking help, so fuck off.”
“What the hell’s wrong with you? You’re the one who always chewed us out for not opening up.”
“You can’t fight a nightmare, Ash.” Zane takes another step back. “So shut your fucking trap.”
A nightmare. What does he mean? I glance at Tyler, but he’s staring at his brother and Zane, his gaze hard, vibrating with tension.
Asher clenches his fists, and stalks toward Zane. “I won’t shut up.”
“They’ll fight,” I whisper. “They’ll hurt each other.”
“They won’t,” Tyler says.
That’s what he thought when he came back, too, that Ash wouldn’t hit him, and then he found himself on his back with a shiner the size of Texas and a panic attack.
“Ty…”
Ash puts a hand on Zane’s arm, and I prepare to push Jax in Tyler’s direction and hurry to stop the two from hurting each other—but no fists fly.
Instead, Ash hauls Zane into a one-arm hug—and Zane sort of falls against him, thumping his fist on Ash’s back, his whole body trembling.
“Just tell me,” Ash says.
Zane shakes harder. “Can’t. I fucking can’t.”
“You can. We’re here with you, man. Always.”
“Damn you, Ash. Pushy motherfucker.” He thumps his fist again. “I just can’t…”
Ash draws back, pulls Zane to the sofa, pushes him down. “You can.”
“Fuck.” Zane bends over and rubs both hands over his face. He’s here.”
“Who?”
“He’s here,” Zane repeats, his voice hoarse, looking up. His dark eyes are wide and unseeing. “He’s back. I can’t… can’t fucking sleep, I see him everywhere, don’t know what the fuck to do.”
A chilling silence greets his words.
What is he talking about? Whatever it is, it can’t be good, not with Zane’s pale face, the dark smudges under his eyes, the thinness of his cheeks. I brace for the worst.
“Who’s here?” Ash asks, sitting down beside Zane. “Who’s back? Who are you talking about?”
“Tell us, Zane.” I step closer. “Please.”
He glances up at me, his eyes red-rimmed. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Dakota gets up from her chair and walks around the sofa to sit down beside him, settling baby Lee in the crook of one arm. She snags his hand in hers. “Tell them. Please tell them.”
Zane glances at us, his dark gaze moving from one to the next, bleak and weary and searching. Whatever it is he sees on our faces, it makes his own crumble a little.
He struggles with it, clenching his jaw, and he finally nods, one short, determined movement. “Okay, goddammit. I’ll tell you, for all the fucking good it will do.”
***
The mood is somber as we sit around the coffee table on the two sofas and an assortment of chairs. Jax is playing on the carpet with little Scott while the babies either sleep or try to, and I keep an eye on my own while waiting for Zane to say something more.
Tyler has brought over the whiskey tumbler, and the guys all have a glass in their hands. I wish I could have some, too, but duh, breastfeeding…
I glance at baby Isa, who’s snoozing in her travel crib and can’t hold back a smile, despite my worry for Zane.
Audrey has taken baby Lee from Dakota and is watching him sleep in her arms, and I’m glad to see Dakota and Ash on either side of Zane.
He’s bracketed. Held. Supported. And even though I would like to also take my place by his side, I know he has the best people for the jo
b right there—his wife, and his best friend.
Tyler reaches for my hand, and our fingers tangle together. He squeezes my hand, and I know what he’s telling me. That it will be okay.
God, I shouldn’t doubt it, but I haven’t seen Zane looking this terrible, this…destroyed since his sister died, and that had been a near miss. He almost died, too, locked in a coma for days before he came back to us. Before Dakota brought him back.
She leans into him, their hands interlocked.
Ash is sitting slightly apart from them, his hands hanging between his knees. He’s the one who breaks the silence, and his quiet voice rings out like a gunshot in the terse silence. “A nightmare, huh?”
Zane grunts and rubs a hand over his face. His jaw is scruffy, as if he hasn’t shaved in days. “The nightmare.”
Ash’s eyes slowly go wide. “Holy shit,” he mutters.
Tyler suddenly swears viciously under his breath and glances at Rafe and Dylan who are wearing matching dark scowls. Audrey looks like she’s about to cry, and Megan is biting her lip.
What am I missing? The looks on all their faces tell me they’ve realized what Zane is talking about. What nightmare?
“You said he’s back?” Rafe asks. “Where did you see him? When?”
“You don’t fucking get it.” Zane releases Dakota’s hand to rub both hands over his head, over the shaved sides and his disheveled Mohawk. “I’m not even sure it’s a memory. It’s all in my mind. How can I fight a nightmare?”
He can’t mean… Oh Christ, I’m finally catching up, and please, not that.
Not the asshole who hurt him when he was a child. I don’t know much about it, only what he’d been abused as a child, but it’s enough to make my blood run cold.
“It’s not all in your mind,” Dylan says. “You have the scars.”
I’ve seen them. Round, pinkish marks lost in the riot of ink on Zane’s back. Cigarette burns. And long, thin scars on his lower back, as if done with a knife.
“They don’t mean anything.” Zane rubs his temple, as if fighting a headache. “Doesn’t mean I remember who gave me those scars. Could be the kids in any of the foster homes. See, I went… went to a shrink, years ago. When we were at school. What I remember could be a made-up memory.”
“The shrink said that?”
Zane nods. “God knows I can’t remember much from that time. It’s all distorted and twisted up in my head.”
“But you say you saw him,” Ash insists, spots of color on his pale cheekbones. “That man.”
“Dunno what the fuck I saw.” Zane lets his hands drop on his thighs. “I thought he was,” he swallows hard, “that he was standing on the street, I…”
“On the street, where?” Tyler asks, his voice sharp, and I turn to him, surprised. “When?”
“Dunno…”
“Were you heading somewhere specific? What was the guy doing?”
“Ty, what the hell’s your problem, man?” Ash hisses, shooting daggers at his brother. “Slow down.”
Tyler shrugs his broad shoulders. “Just asking.”
“He doesn’t believe I saw him, either,” Zane whispers. “He thinks it’s a dream.”
“You think that?” I ask Tyler, confused.
He doesn’t deny it. “I struggled for a long time to find the line between nightmares and real memories, and I wasn’t a kid when bad things happened to me. It’s normal not to be sure. Sometimes our mind makes up memories to fill in gaps. To explain the fear and the pain.”
“Something bad happened to him.” Ash jabs a finger at Tyler. “Same as it happened to you. I didn’t believe you when you told me what Dad did, how he carved you up, but now I do. How can you not believe what happened to Zane?”
Zane suddenly lurches to his feet and stumbles away from our little circle. He leaves the room, and Dakota scrambles after him.
A door slams inside the apartment.
Shit.
“Whatever happened to him,” Dylan says quietly, “involved people. Someone put those burns and scars on his back. And if he really saw those people walking around in this town…”
His words hang in the air between us. A chill rolls over my skin, raising goosebumps.
All gazes swing to Tyler who stares back, his face blank. I don’t like it. That blankness hides pain, and I don’t want him to be in pain—from remembering his own bloody past, from his worry for Zane.
“Fine, this I can work with,” he finally says. “Let’s assume that he really saw someone who hurt him. That even if his memory of the past isn’t good, he does remember the face of an abuser.”
Rafe works his jaw, then rubs it as if it hurts. “And if Zane really saw that abuser walking around in Madison…”
Tyler nods. “If Zane saw him, there’s the trigger for his nightmares and flashbacks.”
I shiver.
“It might have been someone similar,” Rafe says. “Not the man himself, but someone who reminded Zane of him.”
“We need to ask him what he dreams of,” Dylan says bleakly. “What happens in his memories, and where. So we can check, verify the facts, and make sure he’s never reminded of that time of his life again.”
I always believed Zane’s memories were real. I never thought they were only dreams, or made-up stories. But I also never knew the details.
Hearing those words from Dylan’s mouth, I feel ice driving into my bones. Something did happen to Zane, something bad enough that his mind may be shielding him from it, something that took place at a specific location, in a specific time of his life.
And we’re going to find out everything we can to get him back.
Chapter Seven
Tyler
I believe Zane.
I believe something real fucking bad happened to him. I said that, didn’t I?
Yet Ash is glaring at me like I kicked him in the balls. I know what he’ll say. That he’s known Zane for a lot longer than I have, that they’ve been through a lot together, that he’s privy to more and better information than I am, and can therefore make a better call.
So let’s have it. “Spit it out, Ash, before you fucking choke on it. What’s gotten your panties in a bunch?”
“How can you doubt him? He’s been through hell!” Ash points at the empty hallway Zane disappeared through. “People don’t make shit like that up.”
See, I knew it.
“Never said he made it up, kiddo. Said his mind could have made memories up to explain how he feels about those years of his childhood.”
“That’s bullshit,” Ash mutters. “You don’t know…” He swallows hard, shoots a guilty glance at the hallway. “You don’t fucking know everything. How he was before he met Dakota. With sex. He couldn’t face anyone… anyone he slept with, okay? Wouldn’t kiss them. Wouldn’t let them touch him. Touch the scars on his back. He’d flip out real bad.”
Goddammit. Sexual abuse? This is so much worse than I thought.
“I didn’t know any of that.” I swallow hard. This does seem like a piece to the puzzle. “Again, I never said he didn’t go through something bad. I’m only saying we need to sort out what he remembers or thinks he remembers before we take action.”
Ash gives a grudging nod. “Fine. As long as we look into this.”
“Damn right we will.”
Ash relaxes marginally.
Christ, did he really think I was gonna give up, pretend everything’s in Zane’s head?
Zane, the guy who practically took me in when I arrived to this town, sick in my head and alone, with my brother and Erin hating me for vanishing that long ago, and gave me a job? A job, and his friendship, and a family bigger and warmer than any I had ever had. Who gave me a chance. The guy who took care of my brother and Erin before I came back. Who always takes care of everyone but himself.
“We will find out what really happened,” Dylan mutters. “Like you said. Tease the real facts apart from the dreams.”
“But not now, not tonight,” I say, g
lancing at the kids and taking Erin’s hand again. “Let’s do it at the shop. Tomorrow.”
And it seems what I’ve said tonight, my hinting that I’ve faced similar doubts about the sanity of my mind, has cast me as the leader of this investigation.
Or it has become obvious I’m the biggest basket-case in the room and therefore best suited for this task.
Yeah, well, not contesting that. It’s probably true.
Everyone nods their agreement to the plan. Even my girl who I bet is dying to run to Zane’s side and consequences be damned, just nods at me.
“Help him, Ty.” She swallows hard. “In this…I’m not sure I can.”
The fact she trusts me to take care of her friend—our friend—sends a rush of warmth through my chest.
“I will.” I squeeze her hand even as nerves turn my stomach into a hard ball. “I’ll do all I can to help him. I swear it.”
***
Mondays are usually booked up midday to evening, and today is no exception.
Which means it’s well after nine by the time I put up the Closed sign on the shop door. By the time I call the guys to come down here to talk, Erin texted me ten times asking what went down, Ash texted twice and called once, and Dylan passed by and left again with a frown on his face.
Yeah, it’s late. We have babies and young kids waiting at home for bedtime stories and a cuddle. Our girls are there, tired and in need of our help.
But they’re also hoping to hear I’ve tackled this. That I’ve found out the truth and how to help Zane. Can’t put it off any longer.
The last customer leaves Ocean’s cubicle, and I lock up the register, then power down the computer and grab the bitter medicine I brought with me for the occasion. I put the bottle on the desk and walk around it, aware I’ll need to drag Zane out of his booth. No way will he come along willingly.
Rafe comes out of the office at the back of the shop and nods at me. Two of the other inkers are still here—Ocean and Micah—while the other three, Shane, Seth and Jesse, work nowadays in the other wing of the shop, next door.
Which means it’s a simple thing of waiting for the two of them to gather their stuff, bidding them goodnight and turning back toward Zane’s cubicle.