by Hart, Eve R.
I guess I should have just been grateful that he’d gotten me out of there.
And now the nerves started to mess with my stomach.
I was about to see Silas.
My past was about to come washing over me in the biggest way, and I didn’t think I was ready for it.
No.
Oh my God.
Sure, I’d had nearly three days to prepare for this moment but I hadn’t actually let myself believe that it was real. Maybe in the back of my mind, I was thinking this Hunter guy was really driving me somewhere so he could torture and kill me. It wouldn’t have surprised me at this point.
I studied his profile.
The man didn’t come off as a killer.
He was closed off and kind of rough. Definitely standoffish. Not all warm and fuzzy with the feelings. But he wasn’t a killer.
I would have bet that there was a soft heart under all that harsh silence.
“Stop staring at me, it’s weird. You aren’t going to see anything I don’t want you to see,” he said, his eyes never leaving the road in front of us.
With a shrug, I figured he was right.
I let out a long sigh as I thought of how this whole thing might go down. I should have been scared. Maybe I was. Maybe I just hadn’t thought about it enough to realize that this Silas wasn’t the same one I once knew. This man, this grown-up version of the kindhearted boy I once knew, was a killer. He was deadly.
“Am I going to be safe with him?” I asked only half aware that I’d spoken the words out loud.
I blinked and returned my focus to the man behind the wheel. His gaze was ahead but his brow was raised.
“You’re asking me if you’re going to be safe with a man that let me kidnap you?” he asked and this was the first time I sensed a hint of humor from him. I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Fake kidnapped!” I reminded him with a smile.
“Right,” he said and I could hear the eye-roll in his voice. “We’re here. It’s a little too late to back out now.”
I hadn’t realized the car had stopped.
I looked up, my eyes instantly coming into contact with a cute, mid-sized cabin.
Well, he was right, we were here now and there was no turning back.
The moment I stepped out of the car, I felt something wash over me. I couldn’t explain it, but it drew me up the front steps and into the house behind The Hunter without any question.
This was where I was supposed to be.
So I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t have any more doubts until I got some answers. Maybe it was some kind of closure that I was supposed to get here.
Or maybe it was something else entirely.
-19-
Jessica
“You’re alive,” I breathed out completely stunned the moment I laid eyes on him. I mean the sight of him laying in bed didn’t exactly scream alive. It was more like half dead. But that didn’t seem to matter right now. “You’re here. It was real? You were really there? How… why… Oh my God! Silas!”
Oh, the words came out all kinds of wrong. I wasn’t smooth no matter how you looked at it.
Tears were in my eyes and I instantly felt this, like, sense of relief flow through me.
He didn’t look very good but there was a smile on his face. It looked a little pained but that part didn’t seem to register as I flew at him. I hugged his body as best as I could given that he didn’t sit up.
I pulled back, wetness clouding my eyes.
“You’re safe,” he said and I felt his hand on the side of my face.
Then it was sliding away as his eyes closed and his head went slack.
“Oh my God! Silas!” I yelled willing him to come back to me. “What happened? What’s wrong with him? Is he dead?”
No. No. No.
My head fell against his chest and I breathed a sigh of relief when I did hear a heartbeat. I was expecting that I wouldn’t.
“He’s had a rough couple of days,” This Hunter guy told me in a flat tone. “He did get shot and fall off of a balcony after all.”
“He what?!” My head whipped around to look at him and I knew there was a horrified look of shock on my face.
“It was only one floor. He’ll live.” He gave a little shrug. “He needs some rest and I should probably look him over.”
“Yeah, okay.” I backed off and got to my feet. “What can I do?”
“There should be a huge bag in the bathroom, black. Under the sink. Get that.”
I did as he said ignoring the way he sounded angry as he barked his choppy order. I hadn’t known this guy all that long but I got the feeling he wasn’t a people person. He meant nothing by his shortness.
I didn’t care as long as he fixed Silas. I had so many questions running through my head. And I needed to know everything!
What were the fucking chances of this?
No, I didn’t put that much stock in Fate. There was something more at play here. I just had to know.
I brought the bag to Hunter, trusting that he knew what the hell he was doing, then I went into the kitchen to try and make myself useful.
Which meant what exactly?
I had no clue.
My mind was spinning so fast that I couldn’t even think about doing anything.
As a distraction, I opened up the fridge. There wasn’t anything but a jar of pickles in there. The freezer didn’t hold much either and what was in there didn’t look like something that should be eaten. Yeah, I wasn’t going to touch whatever that was.
The pantry held a bunch of canned goods and some rice. I could make some kind of soup. Well, I could try. Just throw a bunch of things together, that should have been easy enough.
If anything, it would give me something to do and keep me from going out of my mind.
I was just stirring the pot when Hunter came into the kitchen.
“Is he going to live?” I asked sounding way too panicked.
“Yes. He’ll probably be out for a little while.”
“Thank you. I don’t even know what’s going on, but truly, thank you for bringing me to him. And patching him up.”
“No problem,” he said and it looked as if he wanted to say more. A long moment went by in silence. “He’s been looking for you for a long time. Longer than I’ve known him and that’s saying something. I don’t have a lot of people in my life, but he means something to me. Despite what you might have seen, he’s a good man.”
“Oh,” I said because I wasn’t really sure how to respond. My brain was still currently trying to let his words sink in.
“Tell him I said until next time,” he said then made his way out of the cabin.
I wanted to call out and tell him to wait.
He was just going to leave me here?
I didn’t even know where the hell I was.
In the middle of nowhere. Which should have scared the shit out of me but it didn’t.
I knew Silas once upon a time, but I also knew better than anyone that people changed.
He had obviously become someone I probably wouldn’t have recognized. Never in a million years would I see him holding a gun like it was an extension of his body. The man I once knew, wouldn’t have harmed a soul.
Silas was a killer.
No way around it.
He pulled that trigger like he was tossing a fast-food wrapper in the trash at a truck stop. Like it was nothing. Like he’d done it before so many times before that it came naturally.
The look in his eyes… that was something I wouldn’t ever forget. Nor would I forget the way it all changed the moment he saw it was me. The recognition was there instantly. But there was also shock and relief.
I didn’t know what the fuck to make of it all.
I set the soup down low and walked to the little table in the kitchen. My body seemed to collapse the moment I went to sit. I slept most of the drive to get here but I still felt drained. Maybe if I just slept for a few days I’d wake up with some kind of
clear answer.
I knew that was silly but I still liked the idea.
I had promised myself that I’d start making smarter decisions. And while I’d messed up big time with the whole Ray thing, that didn’t mean that I had to give up.
I just had to lay it all out.
Ray was a killer.
Silas was a killer.
But were they the same?
While my mind wanted to say maybe, my heart was telling me to find a way to justify it. Which I knew was messed up. Still, it didn’t stop my brain from catching onto the idea.
Silas killed Ray.
Ray was a very evil man.
The kind of man that only cared about himself and would stop at nothing to remain at the top of his empire. That meant killing people no matter what. Ending lives without any kind of thought or care.
I had no clue about Silas, but the fact that he’d killed Ray told me that maybe he wasn’t so bad.
Yeah, okay, or he could have been trying to off Ray to take over his empire. There was that.
Even though it seemed to be something that could be an option I couldn’t let myself believe it.
Not the Silas I knew.
But he’s not the boy you knew. You have no idea what’s happened to him in the last twenty years.
Well, that was very true too.
What would make a kindhearted, good boy turn into a monster of a man?
A man like him.
His family.
My gut clenched at the thought.
God, what if something happened to his mom or his sister? Or both?!
I imagined that would be the thing to send him over the edge.
I was itching to march into his room and wake him up. To demand answers to all the questions zipping around my brain. I just had to know. I loved them all so much. I had left to keep them safe. What if that had been the reason that something had happened? All I had wanted was to protect them along with myself.
That night flashed in my mind.
I’d tried so hard not to think about it all these years.
I had been having such a good time. We were just being kids making the best of the situation we were handed. I clung to that windowsill, my head practically hanging outside just so I could hear the words of the TV. I couldn’t even tell you what we were watching. It was our thing. Silas would set the TV up on a bunch of plastic milk crates in the middle of his room. I’d sit on my bed which was right under the window. Irenna would sit on Silas’ bed and we’d watch TV together, in a sense. It was as good as it got for me.
God, I missed those days.
Even if I had to stay quiet so my parents wouldn’t find out. The thing was, we weren’t doing anything wrong.
I turned off the burner for the soup and left the pot sitting there. I was suddenly bone-tired and afraid I’d fall asleep if I sat for too long.
My eyes danced over the walls of the cabin as I moved from one room to the next. It wasn’t some big, fancy place, but it wasn’t exactly a shack in the woods either. And the decor didn’t scream ‘I like to hunt’ even a little bit. There were beautiful, peaceful paintings hung on the walls. While the leather couch gave a hint to the man-den this place was, the leather looked new and soft instead of cheap.
I felt this calm feeling wash over me as I made my way up the stairs. There were only two bedrooms. There was also one bathroom off of the hall. I knew there was another bathroom in the master bedroom. And since Silas was in that bedroom, I made my way into the smaller one after checking on him and seeing he was still out, but at least he was breathing.
The mattress seemed to suck me in the moment I tested it out.
I meant to blink but my eyes just stayed closed.
-20-
Silas
“Fuck,” I groaned as I tried to roll over.
I barely remembered seeing Jessica before I lost consciousness. My body finally decided to give the fuck up. I was amazed that I made it as long as I had. The drive, it had not been fun. I was in so much pain that I stopped more times than I should have needed to, my tank only down halfway nearly every time. Somehow I’d just barely beaten Hunt and Jessica.
I sat up with another groan. Checking my shirtless torso, I could tell that someone had patched me up. Hunt was my guess. I owed him one, that was for sure.
I knew he was gone even before I put my feet on the floor. There was no reason for him to stick around. He’d done his job and delivered the package. It felt weird calling her that. To him she was, but to me she was the sign that changed everything in my life.
It was like I had been holding my breath all these years.
I prayed she’d stayed but I wouldn’t have been surprised if she fled. I had no idea how long I’d been out and I was sure she’d had the opportunity to run.
It couldn’t have been easy for her, she’d seen me kill a man after all. Right there, in front of her eyes. A man that she was close to, that much was obvious. Imagining her in a relationship with him made something sour in my empty stomach.
Did she know?
How could she not?
Did she care that she was with not only a married man, but a man that didn’t hesitate to kill someone?
You’re a man that doesn’t hesitate to kill someone.
Reminding myself of that didn’t make it better.
My head-voice was a little bit wrong though. I did hesitate. I didn’t take a job without good reason. I never killed someone that didn’t deserve it.
Still trying to justify it, I see.
Okay, fine. The inner me was right.
I was really no better.
Hopefully, she’d stay around long enough to fill in the gaps, assure me that she was living a good life or something.
But deep down, I knew this wasn’t about setting my mind at ease. It was about saving her. Protecting her. Caring for that little nine-year-old girl that had never been given a chance from day one.
Only she wasn’t that nine-year-old girl anymore.
And if I wasn’t careful, I would find myself in trouble.
I tried to remind myself that I checked her out before I even knew it was her. But it wasn’t just her body that kept flashing through my mind.
It was her plump mouth, hung open in shock as she looked at me. Maybe it was from her thinking that she recognized me. Or it could have been that because of the whole I’d just killed someone right in front of her thing. But something inside told me it wasn’t the latter.
And those eyes. Deep blue, like I’d always remembered them. But now they held wisdom and a deeper sense of sadness.
It was wrong to have the feelings I did as I pictured them now.
And I couldn’t forget the way she’d rushed into my body when she got here. She held me like she couldn’t believe it was really me. I might have been pretty fucking out of it, but there was something about the way her hands felt on me. I wanted that feeling back even if I couldn’t explain what it did to me.
It felt all wrong but so right at the same time.
I groaned again as I pushed up to stand.
“Silas?” her voice called from the other side of the door.
Thank God, she stayed.
“I’m coming in,” she said before I could reply.
The door opened and there she stood in a new outfit and I briefly wondered how she’d gotten new clothes. It definitely wasn’t anything like the short, tight cocktail dress I’d seen her in. The opposite actually, looking more like workout clothes.
Yeah, she still did something to me.
It wasn’t fucking right.
“What are you doing?!” she screeched as she ran to my side. “You shouldn’t be out of bed. What do you need? Let me get it, please.”
One sentence blended into the next as she pushed all the words out of her mouth.
“I’m fine,” I assured her as she wrapped her arm around me to help steady my shaky legs. “Really, I just need to walk it off.”
She looked up at me with wid
e eyes as if she couldn’t believe I’d said that.
Then she smiled, her lips slowly spreading across her face before she let out a laugh.
“You are insane.” She shook her head. “And you haven’t changed.”
That one statement seemed to get to her more than it should have. Whatever was going on in her head had her eyes swirling with sadness. I wished I knew what it was. Though if I really thought about it, I had an idea what she was thinking.
I had changed.
I probably didn’t grow into the man she thought I’d be. But there were parts of me that were still very much the same.
“Have you eaten?” I asked as a way to change the subject.
“Oh, no. I made soup… but I left it out.” She seemed disappointed at that and I wondered how long it’d had been.
“Given that I don’t have much here, I’m sure whatever you put in it will be fine if not eaten right away.”
“We could try it, I guess.”
“Lead the way,” I told her jokingly.
She eyed me for a long moment.
“How about I go heat it up and you get back in bed,” she said in a tone that left no room for argument. “The last thing we need right now is for your shaky legs not to make it down the stairs and you end up falling and breaking your neck.”
She had a point there.
“I could always scoot down them on my ass.”
“Oh, my God, you are…” her words trailed off as she shook her head. Hey, she was laughing and that was all that mattered. “In the bed!”
“I’m going to shower first. Think I’ve got enough energy in me to do that.”
“Fine, I’ll clean up the blood if you fall and crack your head open, but I draw the line at giving you stitches.” Her hand went to her hips as she smiled.
“So you’ll just let me keep bleeding? Doesn’t that make more work for you in the long run? Seems like it would make sense to close the wound, you know, for your sake.”
In a blink, her arms were wrapped around my neck. My body twitched with pain but I ignored it as I let my arms snake around her waist. She held me in the tightest hug that I’d had in a long time. I craved for it to never end. Something about her was familiar and comforting. Another part was something else, but it wasn’t something I wanted to let go of either.
