Burn (7 page)

             
Damien looked around the bar, making sure they were out of earshot from the Scorpions gambling at their tables. When he was convinced they couldn’t be heard, he turned back to Jaxon.

             
“She didn’t want you,” he simply stated. “She made her mind–”

             
“Because of you!” Jaxon icily interrupted. “Because you told her what goes on around here. If it wasn’t for you, she’d still have been here!”

             
“If it wasn’t for me, she’d have been getting fucked by him as we speak! Now you keep this shit up, and he’ll start tracking your whereabouts to make sure you stay away. Is that what you want?”

             
Jaxon had to suppress the violent urge to punch Damien out. Of course he resisted, and not because he didn’t want to, but because punching Damien out was a fucking impossibility.

             
“I did what I could to protect her,” Damien continued, keeping his glare intact. “Told her you were shit for her – anything to get her out of this life. You saw Finley. He would have taken her just to prove he has more power than you.”

             
Jaxon didn’t reply.

             
“You need to let her go. You got brothers here that care about you. They turn to you when they need someone. Don’t rock the boat, bro. No one deserves to die because of one man’s selfishness.”

             
Although Jaxon valued Damien’s friendship, he fucking hated him too.

             
But he was right. His greed would only result in serious repercussions, and although some of the men here had questionable moral issues that disgusted him beyond measure, the majority of them were like family.

             
She
had
decided to walk away, and when he thought about it too hard, the temperature in him rose to a boiling point. He had no fucking clue what to do. One minute they were promising everything to each other, and the next she wanted out. How much more of this uncertainty could he take from her?

             
As a last resort, he picked up his phone and sent text message number infinity and two.

             
Please, tell me where the fuck she is.

             
He knew there would be no response, but it was always worth a shot.

*****

Jaxon’s
heart had stopped. There was no other way to describe it. It just… stopped.

             
How many days had passed by? How many tears had been shed? How many hours had been spent consumed over her departure and where she could have gone? He was losing his mind. He couldn’t even breathe without feeling a searing pain in the pit of him.

             
Didn’t she know how much he loved her? Was it so easy for her to walk out the way she did? But then it couldn’t have been. She’d taken photos with her. You don’t take memories with you of something you didn’t care about.

             
However, all hope was not lost. Lexi had fled too. Those two were inseparable. Surely they were together. Of course they were together! Maybe they were just traveling or hiding out someplace to cool off. Regardless, they would return. They wouldn’t abandon two years of school after all the hard work they’d put in. Sara would come back in time for the new semester and he would find her there. And if, in all its unlikelihood, he didn’t, he had his mother. Sara would never abandon Lucinda.

             
“I didn’t even know things were going bad,” his mother had said when he’d called her the ten millionth time.

             
“Things weren’t all bad. I don’t want to talk about it. Just tell me when she calls you and let me know what she says. I need to know where she’s taken off to.”

             
“Of course.”

             
It was only a matter of time he would see her again. Maybe hours. Maybe days. He was going to fix this.

             
He set the phone down and looked about his apartment. It was just so fucking empty without her. He was trying so hard to keep it together when all he wanted to do was break down. He couldn’t, not with Trevon lingering around the apartment like a bad smell.

             
When a knock sounded at the door, his heart soared. Was that her? It had to be her.

             
It was her.

             
She had come back.

             
He raced to it and nearly took the door right off its hinges with the amount of force he’d exuded opening it.

             
What he saw stomped away every shred of hope he had.

             
Two officers stood before him bearing stern expressions and an unpleasant demeanour. He instantly knew something was very wrong. His blood ran cold and his thoughts repeated the same line over and over again.

             
Please tell me nothing happened to her. Please tell me nothing happened to her. Please…

             
But they weren’t there for her.

Five

The days blended together
until time became an illusion. It was slipping through my grasp until I couldn’t differentiate a minute from an hour. At first, my mind was numb by the repetition. Yet I never asked Remy when this would end. When he’d leave in the mornings, I’d feel loss and loneliness. Sitting in a room all on my own all day without a way to get out, my sanity was receding, leaving me pathetically needy and in want of interaction.

             
I went mad.

             
I did all I could to pass the time. I read the books he’d bring me, watched movies until my eyes hurt, listened to the crappiest music ever… At first, I deeply resented him. So many times I wanted to scream at him and ask him why he was doing this to me! I’d sit around and rehearse my ranting speech; the curses that came to mind were so colourful and hurtful, they were words you wouldn’t even say to your worst enemy.

             
Then, in the evenings, he’d come back… and I was alive again.

             
I’d forget all the choice words I’d put aside for him because if I didn’t have him, what the fuck did I have? Always I wanted to get nearer to him; to feel another human being’s flesh as a reminder that I wasn’t alone. Remy’s voice became music to my ears, and I’d close my eyes when he spoke at times and just listen to his deep, baritone words. They soothed me and filled the loneliness with his presence that I was rapidly becoming attached to.

             
The outside world didn’t seem to exist anymore. Sometimes I’d listen in on the nothing around me for hours on end. I’d close my eyes and remember the feel of wind against my face, but it was never enough.

             
I was detached. By everything. Memories no longer consoled me because I’d relived them over and over again. I had the option of talking to myself, but I wasn’t at that batshit level of craziness… yet. Not even Jaxon’s face brought a stir in my chest because I couldn’t remember his voice, or the curves of his face, or the feel of his hands on my body. I didn’t even dream of anything.

             
Loneliness is a sickness, and I was clutching onto the only living thing I had at the time: Remy.

             
Cold nights in bed had me comfortably easing into his side, seeking his warmth. He never backed away from me, but he never came closer either. It’s not that he was pushing me away. It was actually the complete opposite. This was him giving me the power. To do what? Well, I already knew. He wanted me, and he was waiting on me to make the move.

             
I never did.

             
Reality was confusing the ever living shit out of me. Attraction to another human being wasn’t supposed to happen this way. This dependency on his presence wasn’t healthy. My mind was telling me this much with clarity and it was comforting to know I still had logic when I sometimes doubted my sanity.

             
However, my heart and being were a different matter altogether. It was yearning for human contact, yearning to be cared and loved. Fighting my heart with my mind was exhausting, and it was the most difficult at nights when tucked into the warmth of a man that wanted me at my command.

             
One very desperate time I entertained the notion of going that extra step. It seemed easy – too easy, really. I could embrace that I was a Jackal. I’d be welcomed into the club at his side, and it would be the most uncomplicated relationship. When it came to Remy personally, there was nothing remotely unlikeable about him. He’d come out of his shell, engaged in conversations, listened to me talk with untiring interest. He chose to be here with me when he could have been anywhere else.

             
And there rested the problem. My confusion was distorting what little logic I was able to retain. He’d put me in here and I felt…
gratitude
when he came to be with me. I knew I shouldn’t. I knew it was wrong and that his excuse for keeping me here was weak at best. Only…I couldn’t help myself.

             
I hated my feelings. I hated how fast they were growing and how helpless I felt at it all. I couldn’t get away from him to stop them from festering, and I didn’t want to get away either. I didn’t want to be alone. I was so
sick
of being alone.

             
But at the same time, I didn’t trust myself. I wouldn’t do anything with him – this much I was certain of.

             
Jaxon. Jaxon. Jaxon.
My mind could only repeat the name now in times of crisis, firing out of pure instinct. He was a prayer on my lips.

Jaxon.
Jaxon. Jaxon.

*****

“Where do you see us ten years from now?” I asked him the first night at our apartment in Winthrop.

             
We were naked and exhausted after a day of christening the bed -- the bed that was our one and only furniture in the apartment. It never mattered to me one bit I was in an empty shell of an apartment with the only piece of furniture under me. I was just so damn happy to be with him.

             
“You beneath me and me inside of you,” he sleepily answered with a lazy kiss on my shoulder.

             
I nudged him with my elbow and tried to turn away from our spooning position, but he held me captive with his arm around my waist, not allowing me an inch to budge.

             
“I’m serious,” I said. “Where do you see us ten years from now?”

             
He inhaled sharply and stirred, rousing himself out of his sleepy state.

             
“Is this you wanting some cliché answer? Because it’s all I’m going to give you, Tiny.”

             
“I want your honesty.”

             
Quiet.

             
Then, “I see us married. I see you fat from having four of my kids. I’ll be bald from the stress of having four kids. We’ll be driving the most exciting family van you’ve ever seen in your life, towing the kids to and from school, dropping little Tiny at her ballet class and little Jax at boxing – because no son of mine is going to not learn how to fight.

             
“We’ll be in a good sized home. Each kid will have their own room. You and I will have a master bedroom with our very own ensuite because kids leave shit stains on toilets, and no toilet I sit on will have shit stains unless they’re my own. I’ll be working some shitty job, most likely. You’ll be doing what you love, hopefully. Either way, we’ll be home in time for dinner because if there’s one thing Mom stressed to me, it’s always having family time at least once a day.

             
“Then we’ll be putting the kids to bed relatively early, and they’ll most likely hate us for it and secretly stay up. At that point we’ll have retreated to our room where we’ll proceed to fuck like bunny rabbits. Put that on repeat, and I call that a damn good life ten years from now.”

             
Silence filled the room for one very long minute. I reflected on his words in quiet giddiness, tucking my mouth into the covers to hide my equally giddy smile.

             
“Happy with that?” he then asked, tracing circles along my stomach with his fingernails.

             
“Happy that you think I’ll be fat?”

             
He laughed loudly. “I’m glad out of all of that you focus on that very minor detail.”

             
“It’s not very minor at all. It’s a rather big detail, if you ask me.”