Surviving Raine 01 (39 page)

“You don’t know when your real birthday is?” Raine sounded absolutely mortified.

“No,” I responded.  “They just took me to the doctor who told them I was probably born in May, and they picked a name and birth date to make the birth certificate.”

“Oh my God,” she mumbled, her fingers working their way up into my hair as I snuggled closer into the space between her neck and shoulder.

“It’s okay – I don’t really give a shit.”  I took a deep breath, inhaling her scent before I went on.  “The social worker said no one knew my real name, so they gave me that one.”

“How did you get to be Stark, then?”

“It’s Landon’s last name,” I said.  “I took his name about three months after I started fighting for him.  He’s the closest thing I ever had to a father, and I wanted a tie to someone, even if it wasn’t real.”

“Just like Mister Fluffy,” Raine said.

“Not the fucking dog again!” I growled, tilting my head to look up at her.

“He didn’t have a name either.”  Raine pushed my hair behind my ear and trailed her fingers down to my neck.  “I never knew where he came from or how he got where he did.  He had nightmares, too, you know.”

“The
dog
had nightmares?” I snorted.

“He did!” she insisted.  “He would whimper and growl in his sleep.”

“You know I don’t like that shit,” I reminded her, “comparing me to a fucking dog.”

“I loved Mister Fluffy,” Raine said quietly, “and I love you, too.  You have a lot in common.  He was fiercely loyal to me and would try to protect me when people he didn’t know came around.  It took a long time for him to trust me, but once he did, I couldn’t have asked for a better companion.”

I thought about it for a bit, but I still didn’t like it.

“What did he think of your boyfriends?” I heard myself ask.

“He didn’t like Andrew too much,” she said.  “He did eventually stop growling at him, though.”

“What about the others?”

“There weren’t any.”

“Why not?”

“No one ever…appealed to me in that way.”  I felt her shrug her shoulders.  “After my dad died, I had Andrew.  He understood what I was going through, so I didn’t have to explain it to him.  Once we broke up, I had so much else going on in my life when my friends were dating and stuff, it was just too much.  I didn’t want to have to explain to some guy why I would start crying out of the blue, or why I was in therapy, or why I kept visiting with lawyers even when they said they couldn’t do anything else for me.”

“So you never went out on another date?”

“Well,” Raine laughed.  “I tried to once.”

“Tried?”

“This guy asked me out when I first went to college,” she said.  “We went to dinner, and Andrew showed up and kind of caused a scene.”

“What did he do?”

“He was really mad when he found out I had a date.  He showed up at the restaurant and started questioning the poor guy.  He was acting like an overbearing parent, and when my date figured out he was my ex, he just threw some money down on the table and walked out.  He said he wasn’t going to put up with that kind of…stuff.  He never spoke to me again.”

“Andrew’s a dick.”

“He’s not; he just wanted to protect me.  He was afraid I would get hurt.”

“If I had been on that date with you, I would have fucked him up.”

“Bastian!  You can’t just do that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“You can’t just beat someone up for something like that.  People have a right to their own opinions, and you can’t hit them just because you don’t like what they do or say.”

“Some motherfuckers seemed to be of the opinion that you should be fucked against your will.  Do they have that right, too?”

“No, of course not.”

“I would have fucked this
Andrew
up,” I reiterated.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“It is as far as I’m concerned,” I grumbled.  “He did something you didn’t want and screwed up what could have been a good thing for you.”

“And if he hadn’t, maybe I wouldn’t be here now.”

When she put it to me like that, all my arguments went out the window, so we lay on the sand in silence for a while.  The sky was starting to brighten and bring in a new day, but I didn’t really feel like moving from where I was.  I had way too many thoughts going through my head at once – the remnants of the dream, Raine’s date getting fucked up by her douche bag ex, being compared to the fucking dog again – and I couldn’t seem to make them stop.  I wished I had something I should be working on so I had a reason to get up and do something.  However, lying with Raine just felt too good, so I stayed where I was as the sun rose, and Raine kept stroking her fingers through my hair.

“What do you miss the most?” Raine finally asked.  “I mean, from the real world?”

I snickered at her, wondering if she thought this was actually some kind of fantasy.

“Booze, smokes with nicotine, and fucking huge Chicago-style pizzas,” I replied after a moment.  “What about you?”

“Showers.”  I felt her nod her head.  “A nice, hot shower would feel really, really good.”

“Yeah, that does sound nice.”  I thought about showering with Raine and almost forgot to ask her about anything else.  “So, is that it?”

“No…I miss sleeping with a pillow, too.”

“I still sleep with pillows,” I murmured softly.

“You use me as a pillow; that’s not the same.”

“It works for me,” I said.

“I’ve noticed!”  She giggled and went back to stroking my hair again.  A minute later she let out a genuine laugh.  “I miss underwear as well!”

“You have mine,” I reminded her.  “If you ask me, that’s almost as sexy as it would be if you were wearing a thong or something.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep.  Seeing you in my boxers makes me want to rip them off you and fuck you in the sand.”

“You’ve done that.”

“True.”

“You’ve done that when I was wearing my own shorts as well,” she reminded me, as if I needed reminding, “and when I wasn’t wearing anything.”

“Well, no shit!” I laughed.  “What can I say?  I’m a horny motherfucker, and you’re beautiful in anything and nothing.”

“You are a little insatiable,” Raine agreed.

“Are you complaining?” I asked and then immediately realized I did not want to know the answer.  Fuck, I never should have asked the question.

“Not at all.”

Thank God.  If she had said anything else, I would have toned it down for her sake.  It would have been okay, but she was so fucking beautiful, and I couldn’t help but want her all the time.  I loved being here where I could take her whenever I wanted, and was thrilled she didn’t seem to mind.  I hoped she enjoyed it, too, but I had gotten lucky with the answer to my last question.  I didn’t want to push my luck by asking another.

“Are you getting hungry?” Raine finally asked.

“A little,” I said.

“Why don’t you get the fire built up, and I’ll see what’s for breakfast?”

“I guess.”

I reluctantly removed myself from lying on her and winced as my leg cramped up on me.  I pushed through the pain and flexed my thigh a few times.  It really wasn’t bad at all once I got moving on it.  Raine went back into the shelter, and I started tossing wood on the smoldering fire.  I pushed a bunch of the shit out of my head by focusing on the task at hand, but other thoughts came in to take its place.

I found myself thinking about John Paul a lot lately – where he was and what he was doing, assuming he had survived at all.  I honestly didn’t care if I ever saw him again, but it would be good to know if he was alive or not.  Since I had taken care of Raine’s needs, I had more time to think about what had happened that night.  I had certainly heard John Paul’s voice and assumed he got onto one of the lifeboats with the other passengers, but I didn’t know what had happened to cause the ship to roll in the first place.  I had theories ranging from the plausible to the extremely improbable, starting with the storm being worse than I thought and going all the way to wondering if Franks had decided to kill me off.  I doubted the latter.  If he wanted me dead, he would have found me long ago and taken care of it.  Why would he bother, anyway?  Gunter died in prison within six months, and Franks was completely exonerated.  Nephew or not, if Franks had cared about Gunter in the least, Gunter never would have been convicted.

After a half hour or so, the flames had burned down to embers and Raine started cooking a kind of stew she had come up with that included a mixture of the edible plants and fish.  It was pretty good, considering what she had to work with.  It had me wondering what her cooking would be like if she had a whole fucking kitchen to exploit.  I would have bet it was fucking awesome.

“Bastian?”

“Yeah, babe?” I responded while tipping a seashell bowl full of Raine’s stew into my mouth.

“I still miss my dad.”

Placing the shell on the sand next to the fire, I looked up at her and saw tears in her eyes again.  Reflexively, I wanted to both comfort her and beat the shit out of whatever had upset her.  Since she was obviously upset about her dad, I didn’t know what to do other than pull her into my lap and hold her.

“I’m sorry, baby,” I said when she finally took a deep breath and seemed to have calmed down.  “I should have done something…”

“Hush,” Raine reached up and placed her fingers over my lips.  She was getting to be far too fond of that particular act.  “You know, when I think about everything that has happened since I lost him, I have to admit that I’m pretty confused about my feelings.”

“How so?”

“I miss my dad,” she said again, “but if he wasn’t gone, I wouldn’t have you now.  I lost my dad, but through an extremely roundabout way, he brought me to you.  I…I don’t know how to feel about it now.”

My muscles tightened up.  She was right, of course.  If I hadn’t watched her father die, we wouldn’t be here right now.  If whatever events caused him to show up that night hadn’t occurred, Raine would still have her father but we would never have met.  For a brief moment, it all made sense.  Everything – from my parents ditching me, to juvenile detention, to the reason sixteen people had to be slaughtered – it all suddenly made sense to me.  Everything had to happen exactly the way it did to bring her to me.  Otherwise, there would have been no way for us to have ever met.  Henry Gayle had to die so I could be with his daughter, and I was abruptly
glad
it had happened.

I guess I was a selfish prick after all.

Chapter 16 – Gift

Blinking my eyes a couple of times, I knew right away I was awake way too early.  It was still quite dark out, and there weren’t even the sounds of any morning birds.  There weren’t any horrible images left over in my brain from a nightmare, so I didn’t know the cause of my sudden wakefulness, which confused me. I didn’t usually wake up without a reason.  I twisted my neck around a bit, stretching it out, and then tried to figure out what woke me up.

Raine was underneath me with her head tucked into my chest and her legs tangled up with one of mine.  Both of my arms were around her, holding her securely around her shoulders.  I rested my head on top of hers, nuzzling into her hair a little.  I heard her take in a deep breath, causing my arm to rise slightly, then let it out slowly.  She wasn’t asleep, so I started to untangle myself to roll off of her, but her fingers gripped my arm, holding me in place.  I gazed down at her, even more confused.  Usually if she woke up before me, it was because she needed to pee and wanted me off of her as soon as possible.  It was still so early in the morning, though, and that wouldn’t fit her normal routine.

“What’s the matter, baby?” I whispered.  I don’t know why the fuck I whispered – it wasn’t like someone else was going to hear me.

“Nothing,” she replied.  She cleared her throat and looked away from me.

“Bullshit,” I said.  I placed my hand under her chin and tilted her head back to look at me.

“It’s nothing, really,” she said again.  I scowled at her, and she sighed.  “It’s only…I just…
I miss Lindsay!
”

Raine broke out in tears and covered her face with her hands.  I moved my arm up around the back of her neck and held her against my shoulder, wishing I could do something about it.

“I want…to go…home!” she sobbed between broken breaths.

Fuck.

“Aw, baby.”  I wrapped my arms around her tighter and held her against my chest.  It fucking hurt, seeing her like this and knowing there was nothing I could do to make it any better, especially when it came to something I didn’t want to see happen at all.  I had no desire to go…well…anywhere else.  I didn’t have a home to miss unless I wanted to entertain the idea of hauling it up from the bottom of the sea.  I was also pretty sure trying to fit me into Raine’s idea of home was going to be problematic at best.  This was not something I planned on discussing with her – I didn’t see the benefit of doing so.

“I’m tired of waking up here,” Raine went on.  “I’m tired of eating the same food every day.  I’m tired of my skin being dry and flakey from washing in salt water.  I’m tired of wearing the same clothes every day.  I’m tired of-of-of…
everything
!”

She was getting close to becoming hysterical, and the idea of slapping some sense into her crossed my mind but only very briefly.  She shook, and she sobbed, and she screamed out her frustrations as I held on to her and tried to figure out what I could say that would make any difference.  It’s not like I could tell her it was going to get any better because I had no idea if that was true.  We could be found today or tomorrow or next year or never.  I couldn’t offer her any false hope, not just because it wasn’t available, but because I was afraid if I managed to get the words out of my mouth at all, she would immediately know I didn’t want it to happen.

“Raine,” I whispered as I slid my arm up around her head and held her closer.  I buried my face in her hair and inhaled, wishing I could offer her some sort of comfort but resigned to the fact that I could not.  She continued to cry, and I continued to have nothing to say of any value for quite some time.  Eventually, her crying subsided and she sniffed loudly.