Aced (The Driven #5) (31 page)

Ace Thomas.

Looking down at my sweet baby boy, I roll the name on my tongue as it repeats over and over in my mind. It’s nowhere close to the unique and trendy names I’d narrowed down on my numerous lists, and yet as I stare at his tiny fingers curled around my pinkie, I can’t believe I didn’t think of the name myself because it couldn’t be more perfect.

Those two names hold so much significance in our relationship so why not put them together? My nickname for Colton and his endless attempts to know what ACE stood for. Allowing my son to have a part of my identity by giving him my family’s last name as his middle name. Our first date at the carnival when Colton used the name as his alias and confessed he used it because he wanted me all to himself. And of course, Colton’s own definition of the acronym that fits so poignantly now: A chance encounter.

And look what we have now as a result of that chance encounter.

“Ace Thomas,” I murmur softly, liking the sound of it more and more with each passing second.

“I had other names in mind but as I was sitting watching you sleep between contractions, I couldn’t get it out of my head. It fits, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” I say hesitantly. When I look from our son to Colton and then back to our son, I know it makes absolute perfect sense. “Hey Ace,” I say to the snuggling baby in my arms. My heart skips a beat as I feel like all the stars have aligned and our little world we’ve created becomes complete.

The soft suction of his mouth on my breast is strangely the most comforting feeling I’ve ever experienced. Almost as if my body knows this was meant to be. And as I look down at him it hits me that this little being depends on Colton and me for absolutely everything. It’s a humbling and overwhelming feeling, but one that warms me completely.

“Are you two going to catch any sleep?” the nurse asks as she checks my vitals yet again on what feels like the ever-constant rotation through our room. And it always seems like the interruption is immediately after I fall asleep.

“We’re trying to,” I murmur softly as I look down at Ace as he eats.

“I know it’s hard with nurses coming in and out constantly but you should consider putting him in the nursery so you can get some sleep.”

“Absolutely not.” Colton’s voice is resolute when he speaks from the recliner in the corner of the room making both the nurse and my head turn to look at him. “There’s a reason Sammy’s sitting outside on a chair. The last thing we need is paparazzi snapping pictures of him, selling it to the highest bidder, and then plastering it all over the place. No. End of discussion.”

I stare at him, eyes blinking over and over as I come to terms with what he’s just said. After the clusterfuck of the past month with the media’s intrusion on our lives, how could I be so ensconced in our little bubble that the thought never crossed my mind? That people will be clamoring to get pictures of Ace to sell and make money from?

“He’s right,” I say, caught off guard as I look at the nurse staring at us like we’re crazy.

“Okay,” she says with a sympathetic smile, “if you change your mind, let me know. We do deal with this fear quite a lot here so I assure you we have safety measures in effect to prevent that from happening. If you end up needing some sleep, just buzz me at the nurses station.”

“Thanks,” Colton says, the muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching as he stares at her.

She finishes checking my vitals and then reaches to check Ace out since he’s fallen asleep and is no longer latched on. She looks at her temporal thermometer and frowns some. “His body temp is a little cold. It’s normal for a newborn to have trouble keeping their body heat but let’s help him a bit and get him skin on skin with you.” She starts unbundling him and taking his white T-shirt off so I’m left with a tiny ball of pink who’s dwarfed by the white diaper.

I know this is normal but it’s a little different when it’s your baby. She hands Ace to me, lifts down the shoulder of my hospital gown so I can slide Ace inside, and his smooth skin is resting against my bare chest.

“We’ll let him be like this for a bit and see if that helps or else we’ll have to bring a warmer in, okay?”

“Okay,” I say as she collects her things. I don’t even pay attention because the feeling of him against me is all-consuming. He tries to suckle my collarbone and I laugh quietly at the sensation and how very surreal this feels.

When I look up, Colton’s eyes are locked onto the two of us, expression completely stoic. “What are you thinking about?” I ask, knowing damn well it could be a loaded question but needing to ask it nonetheless.

“Nothing. Everything.” He shrugs. “Everything has changed and yet nothing is different. I don’t know how to explain it.”

I nod my head ever so slowly understanding and not understanding what he’s saying and needing so much more of an explanation from him but having a feeling I’m not going to get one. Ace moves and I’m drawn back to watch him for a bit as I fight the exhaustion and the fear of hurting him if I fall asleep while he’s lying on my chest.

“I feel like I’m hogging him,” I murmur, my lips kissing the crown of his head, reveling in that scent of a newborn baby, before looking over to Colton as I scrunch my nose up in an apology.

“No. You’re good,” he says with a gesture to reinforce his words before he leans back in his reclining chair and closes his eyes, effectively changing the subject.

“You sure you don’t want to hold him?”

“No,” he says, eyes still closed. “The nurse said he needs skin to skin with you to help his body temperature.”

“He can be skin to skin with you and get the same thing,” I explain, my tired mind trying to understand how on earth Colton could say no when I don’t feel like I ever want to let him go.

“No. No. I’m okay.” He rejects the idea quickly with eyes still closed and arms crossing over his chest.

He’s afraid of Ace
. Big man. Teeny baby. Lack of experience. Fears of inadequacy. The notion flickers and fades through my mind: his history, his staunch refusal, the way he’s seemed busy when I’ve needed him to hold Ace, add validation to my assumption.

I’m scared
. Colton’s confession from the ‘I’m game’ float through my mind.

“He needs you too,” I whisper softly, my voice breaking with enough emotion to cause his head to lift so our eyes meet. “Your son needs you too, Colton.”

“I know,” he says with a slow nod of his head. And even though there is guarded trepidation in his eyes, I don’t back down this time from our visual connection. Instead I let my eyes ask him everything I can’t say aloud or push him on further. “You two look so peaceful and perfect together. I just don’t want to disturb you.”

And as much as I know he’s being honest in his response, I also know he’s using it to distract me from delving deeper into his nonchalance.

Talk to me, Colton. Tell me what’s going on in that wonderful, complicated, scarred, scared, beautiful mind of yours.

I want to reassure him, tell him he’s not going to drop Ace, harm him, or taint his innocence, and yet I don’t think there is anything I can say that will lessen his unease.

Give him time, Rylee
.

T
HIS CAN’T BE REAL. I
know it can’t be.

She’s dead.

Kelly proved it to me. So why is she calling to me from inside
that
room? The one that fills me with such a vile, visceral reaction. Bile’s in my throat. My mouth feels like the morning after I’ve drunk a fifth of Jack. My stomach a bath of acid.

Run, Colton
. Put one foot in front of the fucking other and escape while you can.

“Colty, Colty. Sweet little Colty,” she says in a singsong voice. One I’ve never heard her use before. It calls to me. Draws me in. Makes me want to see and fear to know.

Goddamn ghosts. Even sound asleep they come back to haunt me.

I clear the doorway, the smell of mildew and must hits my nose and pulls the nightmares I thought were dead and gone from my mind. The problem: they’re not nightmares. They were reality. My reality.

And when I look up I’m knocked back a step to see the woman in the rocking chair. I know her but don’t remember her looking like this at all: dark hair pulled back, a pink tank top on, and the softest expression on her face as she looks down at the baby cradled in her arms. She’s sitting in the stream of moonlight, a smile on her face, and the baby’s hand is wrapped around one of her fingers.

“Colty, Colty. Sweet little Colty,” she sings again and all I can do is blink and wonder if what I’m seeing is really real, if it really happened, or is just a figment of my imagination.

That’s not me. Can’t be.

This is me.

I pat my chest. See the glint of my wedding ring against the light. And yet I can’t help but stare at my mother looking so real and normal and . . .
nice
. Not the strung-out, crazy-haired, high monster who used to trick me, trade me, and starve me for her own benefit.

“Stop calling him that. He’ll get a complex.” A deep voice to my right startles me. I catch a glimpse of the man in the shadows: tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair, jeans hanging low on a shirtless torso.

But I can’t see his face.

My heart races. Is it my dad or the monster?

Is he one and the same?

The bile comes up—fast and furious—and I throw up all over the carpet as the thought rips me apart in a way I never thought possible. Was the monster my dad?

I throw up again. My body rejecting the idea over and over, dry heaves of disbelief, but no one in the room moves or notices me.

It’s a dream, Colton
. A goddamn fucking dream. It’s not real. It is not.

And yet when I look up again, the man coming out of the shadows seems different, more familiar than moments ago, but it’s my mother’s voice that whips my head her way.

“Acey, Acey. Sweet little Acey.”

No
! I scream but no sound comes out as she looks up at me. Her eyes are bloodshot and ragged now. Her mouth painted red like a twisted clown. She starts to lift the baby,
my son
, up and out to the man in the room.

“No!” I yell again. I can’t move, can’t save him. My feet are stuck to the floor. The darkness of the room is slowly swallowing me whole.

“Yes,” the man growls as his meaty fingers reach out to take Ace from her.

The hands.
Those hands
. The ones that fill my fucking nightmares. The ones that stained my soul.

I fight against the invisible hands holding me in place. Need to get to him. Have to save him.

And then he steps out of the darkness and into the light. My shout fills the room and hurts my ears. But no one looks. No one stops. It’s the monster from my childhood’s life taking my son, but he has my face.

My face.

My hands.

I’m going to abuse my son.

Spiderman. Batman. Superman. Ironman.

I’m shocked awake from my struggle when my ass hits the floor as I fall out of the hospital recliner. I lie where I am for a few seconds in the room’s silence. My breathing harsh. My mind fucked. My heart racing out of control.