by J P Barnaby
“Just a Coke, please,” Thomas told him, and Aleks asked for the same. Hannah, who had insisted on the name Elizabeth after Lizzy the lizard, asked for a Sprite. Her tummy wasn’t feeling too good. Thomas thought maybe that had more to do with the flight than her illness. In the days since Polytech, the Gleevec had given her color and more stamina than she’d had since he’d known her. It would be several months before they could reassess, but it seemed to be helping.
Then he took a long look at his daughter. The tears were starting again. She’d been crying a lot over the past few days. It had been a long, hard road for them all.
“Would you mind switching?” Thomas tilted his head to indicate Hannah across the aisle. At some point he would need to become familiar with all of their new names, but until they got to the other side of the ocean, he’d just try not to use any names at all.
Aleks kissed him lightly on the forehead and unbuckled. It took him just a moment to stand and then lift the tiny girl from her seat, setting her down next to him. Thomas reached across her lap and tugged the seat belt, locking it around her thin waist.
“Hi there,” he whispered to her conspiratorially as she giggled from the unexpected toss in the air.
“Hi, Daddy,” she whispered back.
“How are you feeling, baby?” Thomas took her hand in his and squeezed lightly.
“Squish,” she said.
“Squish,” he said back.
“I’m okay. My tummy feels funny.”
“There has been a lot going on. It may take some time for things to get back to normal. If you get sick, there’s a bag right there in the seat pocket.” Thomas indicated the airplane sickness bag tucked in the pocket.
“Ew.”
“Yep,” he said with a laugh.
“Daddy?” she asked, her voice even quieter as the ambient noise in the plane started to get louder.
“Yeah?”
“How come Wes couldn’t come with us? I miss him.”
Thomas sighed. “I know, honey. I like Wes too. But he didn’t want to come with us. He’s going somewhere else.”
“Did you ask him?”
One of the most painful moments in Thomas’s life was walking into that hospital room to see Wes before they left. He’d never seen Wes anything but jovial and kindhearted. The man lying in that room couldn’t have been farther from him. He was broken and angry, so fucking angry. All of it directed at Aleks.
They’d broken his jaw and his hand. The doctors weren’t sure his nose would be the same once everything healed. Aleks took care of all of his medical expenses and gave Wes a seven-figure severance package. With Polytech reeling in the wake of the damage to its offices, the security breach to its servers, and the death of its CEO, there wasn’t anything at Polytech for any of them.
Thomas wanted to do more for him, but Gerry said it was time to cut and run. They needed to disappear before the dust settled and the bad guys could pick up their trail.
“We did ask him, but he wanted to stay there with his family,” he lied. He imagined it would be the first of many as they found their way through the next few months in a different country with different names, trying to be different people.
“Oh.”
Her face fell again, and Thomas kissed the top of her head and then pretended to gag at the taste of the wig. She giggled again.
“I’m scared, Daddy.”
“Me too, honey. So are Aleks and Grandma. It’s okay to be scared. It’s a brand-new thing for us.”
“You can’t call him Aleks anymore, Daddy. Mr. Gerry said so,” Hannah chastised him for about the twelfth time that day.
“Sorry, Nick and Grandma are scared too.”
“Will I like France?”
“Honestly? I think so. It’s got a lot of really cool stuff. I’ve never been there, but I’m excited about going around and seeing it all.”
“And you’re going to get a job? And Nick will get a job?”
“Probably. We need to look like everyone else, and everyone else has jobs,” he said with a laugh.
“Will it be easier for you to get a job in France? Is that why we’re going there?”
How did you explain to your daughter that you were hiding out from the mob? How did you explain that life would never be the way that it was?
“It will. Since we helped the police, they took an eraser and made my bad thing go away. So I can get a job now. And Al—Nick won’t have any trouble. He’s smart and very good at business.”
“Will I get to go to school since I’m getting better?”
“At some point, yes, you will, baby. Since you don’t speak French yet, we’ll have someone come over and help you for a while. But when you’re ready, you can go to school.”
The flight attendant, a smiling man named Michael who reminded Thomas a lot of Wes, handed Hannah her Sprite. He’d also brought her some crackers to help settle her stomach, a thoughtful gesture worthy of the first-class tickets. Hannah leaned back in her seat and took a sip from the glass.
“Lizzy said she wants to go to school. I think she’s going to like France.”
More from J.P. Barnaby
Celebrated Young Adult author Julian Holmes pits the heroic characters in his Black Heart series against all different kinds of monsters. But when a critical heart defect threatens his son’s life, he finds he has no champion. No amount of books, classes, or practice can prepare Julian for the fight to save his beautiful son’s life.
Suddenly there are hospitals, transplant lists, and the nightmare of insurance red tape to navigate. In the midst of his trouble, Julian meets Simon Phelps, the insurance coordinator for Robbie’s case. Simon lives so deep in the closet he might never find his way out, but he dreams of exactly what Julian has. Then one night, drunken need and desperation brings them together, and a new fight begins.
A Survivor Story
I can’t describe what it’s like to want to scream every minute of every day.
Two years after a terrifying night of pain destroyed his normal teenage existence, Aaron Downing still clings to the hope that one day, he will be a fully functional human being. But his life remains a constant string of nightmares, flashbacks, and fear. When, in his very first semester of college, he’s assigned Spencer Thomas as a partner for his programming project, Aaron decides that maybe “normal” is overrated. If he could just learn to control his fear, that could be enough for him to find his footing again.
With his parents’ talk of institutionalizing him—of sacrificing him for the sake of his brothers’ stability—Aaron becomes desperate to find a way to cope with his psychological damage or even fake normalcy. Can his new shrink control his own demons long enough to treat Aaron, or will he only deepen the damage?
Desperate to understand his attraction for Spencer, Aaron holds on to his sanity with both hands as it threatens to spin out of control.
A Survivor Story
From her perch on a shelf above my bed, the doll accuses me with lifeless eyes of failing Juliette in the most heinous way imaginable, forcing me to crave the bite of his whip and the steel in his voice to drown out the ache in my chest.
For his entire life, Benjamin Martin’s parents drilled into his head that he must watch out for his little sister, but one horrific night, he failed. Now, the bite of a whip, cuffs digging into his wrists, his arms and legs stretched beyond endurance, these things give him what he needs to forget his sister’s violent death, at least for a while.
When Ben’s latest Dom casts him aside like a broken toy, he manipulates his best friend, Jude Archer, into picking up the pieces. Jude has been in love with Ben for years, but his fantasies about his friend never included whipping him. He doesn’t understand why Ben needs BDSM and he worries about Ben’s addiction. Most of all, he fears losing his humanity because he’s already lost himself in Ben. When he’s forced to trade the marks upon his soul for the pain that ravages Ben, Jude learns the real definition of submission.
A Survivor
Story
It’s been nearly five years since Aaron woke up in the hospital so broken, he couldn’t stand the sight of his own face. The flashbacks no longer dominate his life, but he’s still unable to find intimacy with his lover, Spencer Thomas. With time, patience, and the support of his family, his therapist, and his loving partner, Aaron has figured out how to live again. The problem is, Spencer hasn’t. His life has been on hold as he waits for the day he and Aaron can have a normal relationship. Hoping to move things forward for them both, he takes a job as a programmer in downtown Chicago, leaving Aaron alone.
Reeling in the wake of Spencer’s absence, Aaron receives another shock when his attackers are caught.
Now, he must testify and verbalize his worst nightmare. Publicly reliving his trauma without Spencer at his side destroys his precarious control. But he finds someone who can understand and empathize in Jordan, who watched his brother cut down in a school shooting. With Spencer gone and the DA knocking at his door, Aaron seeks solace in Jordan, and Spencer will have to risk everything to hold on to Aaron’s love.
A Survivor Story
Aaron Downing worshiped his mother. She saved his life. She did everything for him. But Anthony Downing has a different perspective. He sees the woman who tossed him into a basement for eight long years and forgot he existed. When Anthony decides he’s done being invisible, he packs up and heads for Detroit to stay with his Internet friend Jay, but fate intervenes.
Brendan Mears lost everything the day the man with a gun came into his father’s store. Now, he’s tethered to a business he can’t manage and a brother who resents him.
Different in all the ways that matter, Anthony and Brendan struggle to overcome their psychological obstacles, until a crushing betrayal sends them running for cover and each other.
Readers love the Survivor Stories by J.P. Barnaby
Sophie
“…one of my favorite series of all time…. Although Sophie can be read as a stand-alone novel, you are going to want to read all five books.”
—Happily Ever After, USA Today
“Sophie is a rewarding story that puts a wonderful finish on this excellent series.”
—Joyfully Jay
“Barnaby did an excellent job with keeping all the characters true to themselves throughout the series. There was never a false note.”
—The Novel Approach
Anthony
“The writing, the characters, the stories… they were perfect for me, and I will highly recommend them to everyone who will listen.”
—Diverse Reader
Ben
“Ben and Jude have quite the story to tell, progressing from despair to pain to love, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to read their tale.”
—QUEERcentric Books
“This is a story of hurt and comfort, of stretching your boundaries, of putting others first.”
—Prism Book Alliance
JP BARNABY, an award-winning gay romance novelist, is the author of over two dozen books, including Aaron and the Little Boy Lost Series. She recently moved from Chicago to Atlanta to appease her Camaro, who didn’t like the blustery winters. JP specializes in recovery romance, but slips in a few erotic or comedic stories to spice things up. When she’s not hanging out with hot guys in leather, she binge-watches superheroes and crime dramas on Netflix. A physics geek, she likes the science side of sci-fi and wants to grow up to be Reed Richards.
Want to keep up with JP’s latest releases?
Follow her on Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, or on her website.
Amazon: www.amazon.com/J.P.-Barnaby/e/B003ZL3J9A
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Website: www.JPBarnaby.com
By JP Barnaby
Bane of Boston
A Heart for Robbie
Mastering the Ride
Papi
Saving Hannah
LITTLE BOY LOST
Enlightened
Abandoned
Vanished
Discovered
Escaped
Sacrificed
SURVIVOR STORIES
Aaron
Ben
Spencer
Anthony
Sophie
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Saving Hannah
© 2018 J.P. Barnaby.
Cover Art
© 2018 Tiferet Design.
http://www.tiferetdesign.com/
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-805-8
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64080-933-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018944254
Digital published December 2018
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America