Elle’s knees are shaking. Nuke is in the driver’s seat, body laid out across the center console, head buried in her lap as he attempts to comfort her the way he does with me. I scratch his scruff and tell him to get in the back.
“I’m gonna take you home, okay? Olivia will take care of Spence, and he won’t know anything until you tell him.”
She stares out the window, her expression blank. “I can’t go home.”
“Elle—”
“I don’t want to go back to that house.” Her voice tremors with the words.
“Okay.”
I start up the engine and head for my place. When I pull into the drive, I shut the car off and pull the keys from the ignition. I seem to be making a habit of bringing her back here after disaster strikes. Climbing from the car, I let Nuke out and head around to her door to open it for her. She makes no move to get out. “Ellie?”
“He’s dead.”
I take a deep breath. “Yeah, angel, he’s dead.”
“I never seen a dead body before.”
“Most haven’t.”
Her eyes snap to mine. “But you have.”
I clear my throat. “Yes I have. Now, you gonna sit in that car in my drive all day, or do you want to come inside?”
She moves slowly, getting out of the car and drifting towards my front porch. Her steps falter, and I put my arm around her waist and pull her into me before she can fall.
“I got you.” I plant us on the stoop, fit her into the space between my legs, and wrap my arms around her. She sobs, desperate cries of both anguish and what seems like disbelief. I don’t say nothing; I just hold her.
“I’m s . . . sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying. He was a scumbag, the worst of men . . . the things he did.”
“Shh,” I whisper in her ear, smoothing the hair back from her face. “You don’t have to explain to me.”
“He beat me, Jake.” Her cries grow louder, but if I squeeze any harder I’m pretty sure she’ll break. “He beat me . . . in front of my son . . . his son.”
“He’ll never lay another hand on you,” I whisper, and I hold on, because even the strongest of women just need someone to hold them from time to time.
After a while, Elle quits crying and relaxes back into my embrace. Her fingers absently stroke the scars along my forearm, and I want so badly to pull away because she’s already had so much ugly in her life.
“Why haven’t you found a woman to love yet, Jake?”
I stiffen. Her question catches me off guard. I don’t know how to reply to that. I have found someone, but she deserves better than to spend her life with a freak.
“I like being alone.” That was a lie. “Who in their right mind would have me?” is what I want to say, but I don’t. I don’t tell her how much I loathe myself, or that I wish I was dead, or that at night I lie awake wondering if this was part of Aasif Bashir’s plan in disfiguring me—that he’d hoped that one day I’d roam the earth a free man and yet never know the freedom of a woman’s touch again.
I don’t tell her that I hate being alone because I can never shut off the voices or quiet the sounds of war that ring in my ear long after the dust has settled and the blood has dried. I attempt to fill the void with distractions: Nuke, Ellie, Spencer, pouring myself into something physical until my limbs shake from misuse, but it doesn’t mask the stillness. That’s always waiting for the moment I shut everything off. And it never becomes any less haunting.
“I hate it,” she says, as if she’s echoing my thoughts. “Being alone. When you climb into bed and everything’s so still you could hear a pin drop? There’s something in that silence that screams all my greatest fears.”
“What are they?” I say, too quickly.
“My fears?” she asks with a sigh. “That I’ll be alone forever. That Spence will grow up and leave like all kids do, or that he’ll enlist and my life will be filled with endless days and nights of that sound. Of nothing.”
I feel like she just cracked open my skull and pulled the words from my head, but two hearts as lonely as ours? Well, that’s a dangerous thing. Deep down I know as much as she does that I’m no good for her, and yet I’m still too selfish to push her away.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” I whisper.
“Neither should you.” She leans back into my embrace, and I kiss the top of her hair because I never dreamed I’d be lucky enough to do that again to any woman, let alone to this angel who came crashing into my life and made all the pain that came before her seem worth it.
I survived war, I survived torture at the hands of the Taliban, but I won’t survive Ellie Mason, not with my heart still intact.
***
After Elle leaves, I head to the market to pick up some groceries. It’s just on dusk when I place the paper sacks in the trunk and Nuke and I swing by the Pier Park Fountain. The area is cordoned off with police tape, and though it was bustling with townsfolk only eight hours ago, it’s eerily quiet tonight. Before long, the police will be knocking on my door. It makes sense. Elle will be their first port of call, but we’ve set some tongues waggin’ around this town these last few weeks, and I’d bet my last penny they already have me lined up in their sights.
Course it don’t help that I know how to fire a rifle and hit a long-range mark from four thousand miles away. It’s only natural I’d be a person of interest, but I didn’t do this, so I don’t know why my hands start to shake on the wheel, or why my breath comes in heavy pants as I stare at the fountain now drained dry of all its water.
Nuke whines and places his head in my lap, and I just sit there, shakin’ like a leaf. Before long, the windows fog with my breath and I turn the dial and blast the AC, but it don’t stop the sweat from beading on my forehead or unease from prickling down my spine.
I was with Elle last night, and I may have wanted to, but I couldn’t have done this. I’d remember killing a man on US soil.
I didn’t do this.
I repeat the words over and over in my head, but after a while, even I stop believing them.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jake
Two years ago
I stare down the barrel of an AK47 at the man I’m instructed to kill. Aasif Bashir tells me to pull the trigger. I don’t argue. Arguing means pain. If it meant death, I might have kneed Bashir in the nut sack to speed things along, but all it means is one more scar to add to the collection, one more scream to get their dicks hard, and I’m tired of being Bashir’s plaything. I’m tired of the pain.
I try not to look at the target, but a voice inside my head screams for me to see because that’s the price I have to pay for taking the easy way out. His children, two boys both no older than ten, are held by Bashir’s men. They whimper, begging in both Pashto and broken English for their father’s life. I meet the man’s pleading black eyes across a dirt floor and mudbrick courtyard, and I pull the trigger. I wait for the kick back, the sound of the bullet firing through the barrel and the metallic ping of the empty shell jumping out of the ejection port and hitting the ground.
But the shots don’t ring out and reverberate through my skull. The kickback doesn’t jolt through my aching body. The bullet never left the chamber because the magazine is empty. It’s something Bashir likes to do—toy with us like that. He holds a gun to your head and pulls the trigger. Sometimes there’s a bullet with your name on it, and sometimes there isn’t. Either way, he just laughs and leaves someone else to clean up the mess.
I roar and toss the gun to the ground, charging toward Bashir. He catches me around the waist, his other arm coming up to grab me by the throat, sinking his fingers in. He could crush my windpipe with the smallest movement of his hand, but though he keeps a firm grasp on me, it isn’t enough to keep me from sucking in breath. I collapse forward, unable to stay upright on my emaciated frame any longer, and I weep against his shoulder.
A gun goes off a few feet away. The ringing in my ears drowns everything out, but my eyes aren’t so lucky
. Crimson blooms on the man’s white kameez. There are four new holes in his chest. He slumps back against the wall, leaving a thick smear of blood and tissue behind as his body settles in the dust. The children scream, but they’re silenced with hard slaps to the face.
I struggle against Bashir, but I’m weak. My head pounds from the harsh bite of the sun on my skin after so long spent cooped up in the dark, and my legs fail me. I fall to the ground, grabbing onto the barrel of Bashir’s gun and thrusting it against my forehead.
“DO IT!” I roar. He says nothing, but his hand pats my head as if I were a small, mewling child asking him for more supper. “KILL ME!”
He chuckles and wrenches the gun out of my grasp, signaling to his men to escort me inside. As he does, he aims at the youngest of the boys and fires, shooting him in the head. He doesn’t even pause to see where the boy lands—just keeps on walking. His brother is silent. Fat tears slide over his face. His body trembles, but he doesn’t make a sound, and I can’t look away because the last trace of faith in humanity has been ripped away from me in this God-forsaken courtyard.
I gave in; I let them win. I pulled the trigger, and though it might not have killed the man, it destroyed me. To this boy and his brother, I became the enemy. I became the monster.
My captors haul me to my feet and push me past him. He doesn’t reach out or beg for my help the way his father had. He knows there isn’t any to be found. I can’t help him. I can’t help anyone right now, and no one else is coming for the two of us because they’re already dead.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jake
Nuke nudges my arm with his wet nose, and I work to steady my breathing as rain beats down on the roof. I dreamt of the boy again, only this time instead of dark olive skin and hair as black as midnight he’d been fair, with whiskey-colored eyes like his mamma and a shock of blond hair so bright you couldn’t lose him in a snowstorm. My hands shake, and I’m fixin’ for a drink, but I can’t go to that place tonight. I can’t be numb now, or maybe ever again. I have a lot of shit to work through. I probably shouldn’t have punched my shrink in the face, ’cause I could use someone to talk to right about now.
Nuke sits up on the bed and barks. “Yep, I heard you the first time.” He paws at my chest. “I’m breathin’. What the hell do you want from me, dog?”
Woof.
I lean up against the headboard and focus on taking calm, even breaths. He licks my face, and I scratch his ears and turn on the light. Headlights wash over the ceiling, a car door slams, and a gentle tap, tap, tap comes from my front door. I know who stands on the other side of that stained glass. There’s only one woman who’d be visiting this late.
Nuke barks and jumps outta bed, and I follow because I can’t well hide out in my room when she’s bangin’ down my door.
I pull on a pair of sweats and hurry down the stairs. The banging grows louder, more frantic. I open the door to find a dripping wet woman, and every part of me turns hard as steel. Except my resolve. That bleeds away to nothin’ like the rain trailing down her soaked skin in rivulets and pooling on my front porch.
“Hi,” she says, breathlessly.
“What are you doing here, Elle?”
She stares up at me through long, wet lashes. “I had to see you.”
I inhale sharply and grab her arm. I want to push her away and pull her closer. Both are very dangerous things. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Ellie places her hand against my bare chest. I glance down at her small, freezing fingers laid flat against my scars. It’s been a long time since any woman has touched me like this. “I couldn’t stay away.”
I swallow hard around the lump in my throat and she launches herself at me, jumping into my arms so I have no choice but to cup my hands under her ass while she wraps her legs around my waist and brings her soft lips down on mine.
“Jesus.” I break the kiss. “You shouldn’t be here, Elle. This isn’t smart for either of us.” Even as I stand here tellin’ her what a bad idea this is, I can’t keep my hands from wandering. I massage her ass, spread her cheeks apart, and curse her for wearing them jeans. I’d give anything to slip beneath the wet fabric and lay my hands on her milky white skin.
“Please don’t make me go,” she whispers against my lips. I groan. Tellin’ her to leave is the very last thing I intend on doin’. With her legs wrapped around me, I walk us through my house and up the stairs. I know these steps like the back of my hand because I’ve spent nights countin’ every crack in the floorboards between my room and the grand sweeping staircase.
I ease her down on her feet, before the bed and take a step back. I want this, God do I want this, but I’m terrified. Elle’s eyes roam over me and she takes in a deep breath, and I won’t lie—it hurts like hell. I don’t want pity, and I don’t want the woman I care about looking at me like a monster just sprouted from my back. She reaches out a hand and trails her fingertips over my scarred flesh, feeling the hard, ugly edges. I flinch a little, and she pulls away as if she’s been burned.
“Did I hurt you?” she whispers.
“Angel, it hurts just looking at you.”
She smiles and continues her exploration of my body, openin’ old wounds with every scar she touches, and yet it’s as if she’s tenderly sewing them shut at the same time. I haven’t felt the touch of a woman for a very long time, and never again did I think I would, especially not one as perfect and kind-hearted as this.
“What did they do to you, Jake?” Her eyes are bright with tears, and I grab her hands and hold them flat to my chest.
“I don’t want your pity, Elle.”
“You think that’s why I’m here?” she says, staring up at me with those incredible eyes. “You think that’s all this is between us?”
“I thought about it.” I nod. “I can’t see much other reason that a woman like you would want someone like me. I’m a freak and a drunk, and you? You’re so goddamn beautiful it hurts.”
She takes a step towards me and presses her finger to my lips to keep me from talking. “You’re not a freak, Jake. If you only knew how beautiful you were.”
I scoff and she sharpens her tone.
“I mean it. You don’t see what everyone else sees—”
“Everyone else sees a lie,” I snap.
“I don’t. I see you, and only you.” She pulls off her T-shirt. It lands on the floor with a wet thud, and she stands at the end of my bed, shivering in a black lace bra and jeans, her fingers struggling with the button on the wet denim.
I cover her hand with my own. “What are you doing, Elle?” I reach out and tuck a strand of wet hair behind her ear. My fingertips trace the curve of her neck all the way down to her collarbone where she places a soft hand over my scarred one and squeezes. “If you give yourself to me, I can’t promise I’ll give you back.”
Slowly, Ellie peels the sodden jeans down her legs and steps out of them. She stands before me in her bra and matching panties. “I’m countin’ on that, Jake Tucker.”
She unfastens the clasp on her bra. Full, lush breasts fall free, and I swallow hard. I could cut diamonds with my cock right now. The wisp of fabric falls away and she looks at me with wide, pleading eyes. I trail my fingertips down between her breasts and watch her nipples form hard peaks and her skin break out in goose bumps. I palm one fleshy globe, marveling at how soft she is, how perfect. Such a contrast to my puckered, pockmarked skin. I pull away but she grabs my hand, pressing her lips to the back of it. I cup her cheek. It’s cool from the rain outside and it tempers my burning skin.
“Please Jake?” Her voice catches. “Please?”
I draw her toward me, relishing the feel of her soft breasts, her hard, pebbled nipples against my chest. “You’ll be my ruin, angel.”
I lean down and kiss her, slide my hands into her hair and force her to open further to me, but she pulls away.
“Let me touch you.” Her voice is small, as if she’s afraid I’ll tell her no. The idea of refusing he
r such a simple thing hurts my heart, and as much as I hate it, as afraid as I am of her rejection once she sees up close how horrifying I am, I nod my acquiescence.
She reaches out her fingertips and runs them over the scar on my left pectoral muscle. I try my best not to flinch. Her gaze meets mine; there’s no pity left in it, just curiosity, desire, and the barest hint of challenge.
I clench my jaw and look away. She presses her lips to the scar in a soft kiss. Her hands follow my disfigurement from clavicle to neck where she places feather-light kisses over my skin and down along the pitted and angry flesh of my left arm.
It itches. I want to tear at it with my blunt nails, but I hold perfectly still, my hands clenched into fists, my teeth slammed together so tightly that no breath could pass between them. Elle’s hand slides down my forearm, glancing over the crisscrossed network of alive and dead flesh. She pries my clenched fingers apart, traces the hard ridges of my palm, and weaves her tiny fingers between my own, bringing them up to her lips.
She releases my hand and touches the brand at my waist before gliding around the back of me. Softly, she kisses my ribs, my shoulder blades—the places she can reach—and the long stripes of scarring across my back where they beat me bloody with a copper pipe.
I shiver as she presses her bare breasts against my back, and her arms come around my front. Her hand rests over my heart, and we’re still, her heart thundering against my back, mine pounding against her fingers. She holds me. I swallow my fear, and some tortured part of me still tethered to Bashir, to that desert, breaks free. I never expected to feel a woman’s touch on my ruined body again. I never expected to let anyone get close enough, and yet here she is, kissing my scars, touching me as if I am someone she both desires and cherishes, and I don’t know how to deal with any of it. I don’t want to be made weak in front of her, but I don’t have another choice. She breaks down all of my defenses; she breaks me in ways that they hadn’t ever been able to, and in that moment I both love and resent her for it. I clear my throat and turn to face her. Tears stream down her face.
Toward the Sound of Chaos Page 14