In the Garden of Discontent

by Lily White

  She grinned as tears leaked from her eyes.

  “Hell, maybe next time I’ll let you stick it up my ass. But that will cost you. I’ve raised my price.”

  Slamming the window closed, Ensley ran off. I folded over myself on the edge of the bed, fucking angry at the world but also horribly confused.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Noah

  Present

  Four states in eighteen hours.

  It was a grueling drive, one that could have been split up if there wasn’t a need to constantly keep moving, to add as many miles as possible, to get away from another mistake I’d tossed onto the pile because I would pay for them in the end the same way, no matter how many were stacked up.

  There were so many now, I imagined they would tip over eventually, a deluge of truth sliding and spreading out to catch Ensley and me by surprise and sweep our feet out from under us, but everything I did was done for her. So, none of it could matter.

  I had blood on my hands. Always have, but more now that forced me to lie to her. She wouldn’t be held responsible, I knew that. She was the woman abducted by an escaped convict and all my sins would flow down the drain on the day they shot me dead.

  After what happened at the gas station, Ensley had ridden beside me quietly, the gears grinding in her head because she had returned to that dark place inside her. I could hear that slick beast rattling its tail and snapping at her insides just begging to be freed. And I knew I would have to battle it back down because that was what I always did for her.

  She abused herself, and she abused me, but I was strong enough to take the blows.

  Every one of them.

  Over and over.

  It was late when we reached a large two-story house in Colorado. Out in the boonies, this place sat on a sprawl of land that stretched out for miles. I knew the Rocky Mountains would reach for the sky in the distance, but we couldn’t see them now due to the darkness. Maybe tomorrow we could take a few minutes to enjoy the scenery around us.

  Just a few, though.

  I had no idea what we were walking into with this woman. From what Sadie told me, Mrs. Marks had been a neighbor to Ensley and me, a woman who remembered watching us grow up together, who was familiar with how Ensley had carted those kids around and how I’d chased after Ensley like a puppy. She’d lived on the other side of Ensley’s house and was familiar with Tammy’s screaming.

  At first, I didn’t want to come out here. I was an escaped prisoner, a wanted man, and I was lugging around a questionably cooperative woman, but Sadie had assured me that the people who lived at this house understood my situation and wouldn’t dare call the authorities.

  Still, I was worried.

  I had no idea what these people knew and what they would say to Ensley. The only thing I knew was that Mrs. Marks had been the person to call Ensley’s father the night before he died. She’d been the woman who told him he needed to rush home to check up on his children.

  I’d always wondered why he’d been there that night. Apparently, this woman was the person with the answer.

  Rolling up to the house, I noticed one light on downstairs, immediately feeling guilty for waking this poor woman up. Ensley was still silent as a church mouse, and I worried what that could mean.

  I killed the engine, and we both stared at the house in front of us.

  “You ready to go in?”

  She nodded. Didn’t say a word.

  My jaw clenched because I knew if she retreated again, there was only one way to bring her out. Thankfully I’d thought to grab some things at a store we’d stopped at in Indiana.

  “Let’s go.”

  Climbing out of the car, my shoes crunched against the gravel lot. Ensley was out before I could open her door for her, but her face was still blank, a complete lack of life or emotion. Nobody would understand when we walked in that house, and I hoped we could save the conversation for after I fixed Ens.

  Running up the steps, I knocked on the door while Ensley crept up behind me. While I’d expected an older woman’s face, I was surprised when a younger man answered, a kid that couldn’t be older than twenty.

  “Hello,” he said, his eyes bouncing between Ensley and me. “Grandma’s asleep for the night, but she asked that I stay up to let you both in when you arrived.”

  He offered a hand. “My name’s Henry.”

  Our palms collided and I was impressed with his firm grip. “I’m Noah and this is Ensley. Sorry for the late hour.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I was up gaming anyway.”

  My brows tugged together, but I let the comment go.

  A lot had changed in the world, in the years I’d been in prison, and I didn’t expect I’d know all the lingo. Hell, when they shoved me in my first cell when I was eighteen, the Internet was barely a thing and not everybody used it. Now they had little phones they carried around everywhere, their eyes glued to the screens with information at their fingertips.

  Henry led us into the house and back out again, pointed to a smaller building at the end of a cement path leading through a greenhouse.

  “Grandma said you all could use the mother-in-law apartment. It’s unlocked, so walk right in. She’ll be up and ready to speak with you in the morning.”

  Thanking him, I took Ensley’s hand and led her to the apartment. The doors to the greenhouse were open, the plants inside sparse as if they hadn’t planted anything in a while or had already harvested whatever they grew. I recognized a few vegetable plants that had browned and wilted and some flower bushes in the far back.

  We entered the separate apartment and a sigh rolled over my lips. I was pleasantly surprised by the size of it and the privacy it would give us.

  “You should take a shower or something after the long drive.”

  I was hoping the hot water would snap her out of whatever nightmare she was reliving. But Ens didn’t even respond to what I said, she merely sat down on a couch in the front room and buried her face in her hands.

  Damn it.

  Here’s the thing about Ensley and me: We know each other. Not in the way most people think they know somebody else. We were each other. Our secrets and our pain had blended us together over the years we grew up so that we couldn’t lie, we couldn’t pretend and we couldn’t brush shit off.

  She thought I killed those men, and she’d retreated into the dark place because of it. She’d returned to a night when her family was destroyed, when she was destroyed, when I was dragged down right along with her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said because there was nothing else that could be said. I didn’t want to hurt anybody, but I would if they kept me from making her see the truth.

  “You’ll do it again.”

  A bare whisper.

  A screaming truth.

  I would do anything it took to make her understand what happened that night. Her part in it. Mine. And somebody else’s I still wasn’t sure about.

  “If they get in my way of saving you, I will.”

  Her head snapped up, but still her eyes were dark voids empty of emotion.

  “Save me from what?”

  “Yourself.”

  She winced at the answer. That woman hadn’t lived a day since the night I was dragged off and thrown behind bars. She might as well have died in that house with the rest of her family. But I wouldn’t have it. Wouldn’t let her fester and rot any longer than she already had.

  “We can do this your way or mine, Ens. But you’re not sinking down into that place where I can’t reach you. I won’t let it happen.”

  “I hate you,” she hissed, pure venom in the words.

  I just grinned in response.

  “Yeah? Well, I hate you too, but here we are.”

  She lunged from the couch at me, her fist impacting my stomach before I struck out with my hand to grip her throat, my bicep flexing as I lifted her so high up, her toes could barely scrape the ground. Ensley kicked and thrashed, her feet slamming into my legs while her hands came u
p to my hands.

  Digging her fingernails into my skin, she drew blood, trails of it leaking down my arms as she continued fighting. I was fine with it. Enjoyed the pain. In many ways I deserved it. And if hurting me was the only way to exorcise that ugliness inside her, than she could add these wounds to the gashes on my back and the bite marks on my shoulders.

  She was a crazy bitch. There was no doubt about it. But she was my kind of crazy. Her insanity matching mine.

  Lip curling at the corner, I chuckled at her inability to talk.

  “Well, shit. If I’d known this was the way to shut you up, I would have done it a long time ago.”

  Ensley made a few choked sounds as I walked her to a wall and slammed her up against it, her feet still kicking, toes banging against my shins and heels banging back, her fingernails still digging into my skin.

  I never understood why Ens could never fight against the people who abused her, why she only felt comfortable attacking me. Maybe it was because she knew I wouldn’t kill her in the end. Maybe it was because she knew I loved her.

  Ensley’s mouth opened as if to catch her breath, and I took advantage of her unfortunate predicament because I was tired of this crap.

  Leaning down, I wrapped my mouth over hers and fought her tongue with mine, not giving much of a damn that she couldn’t breathe from the way I was holding her. If I was lucky, she’d pass out long enough to let me get a shower before waking her up to start again.

  I would conquer her fucking demons if it was the last thing I did before leaving this world. Her nightmare was strong, but I was stronger. Maybe not when we’d been kids, but prison had done wonders to shape who I was now.

  Relaxing my hand, I watched Ensley slide down the wall to crumble on the floor, her head angling up at me as she fought to breathe and rubbed her neck.

  I stabbed a finger at her face.

  “Don’t fuck with me. You won’t like the man I’ve become. Our petty childhood bullshit ended the day you sent me to prison. You want to fight. We’ll fight. But I’ll win in the end. Tears don’t fucking affect me.”

  They did. Her tears would always affect me. They would always destroy me. But she didn’t need that version of Noah right now; she needed the one that hated her.

  I should have known better than to turn my back on her. I’d taken one step before she struck out with her hand and grabbed my ankle, tripping me in the process. I fell down as heavy and hard as a large oak tree, my bloody hands slamming against the ground to break my fall before I just went with it and rested my forehead against the cool surface of the wood.

  She huffed behind me like she had won this round.

  It was too bad for her this fight was only getting started.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ensley

  Present

  I wasn’t lying when I told Noah I hated him. I’d hated him for a long time. Loved him too. Loved him more than I loved anything in this world, which is exactly why I hated him.

  It was impossible to look at him without remembering the night of our first fight. The way I’d stood outside his bedroom window that night just staring. The way his hand had curled over the headboard of his bed, his hips rocking back and forth, the muscles on his body long and lean, like steel beneath his skin.

  He was so beautiful. A work of art. I could close my eyes and see the sweat that beaded on his skin, hear the moans that weren’t rising up my throat from the way he was moving.

  I fucking hated him that night and every night since. And I knew I didn’t have the right.

  Noah deserved the world, and I’d treated him like shit, constantly tossing it in his face, and for what?

  Because I was mad?

  Because I couldn’t have him?

  Because I knew I didn’t deserve him.

  The asshole chased me anyway, and our friendship turned into a war. One that we still hadn’t stopped fighting despite the years we’ve been apart.

  That night was the first night we fought as we fucked. The first that I pushed him to the point where he would finally strike back for once.

  I needed him to hurt me like I had been hurting him just so I wouldn’t have to carry the weight of my guilt any longer. No matter what I did to him, he still kept that lamp turned on. He still forced me into the garden to write our secrets. He still held me beside him every single night, even when he knew I’d leave in the morning.

  Noah contributed to my monster, not because he hurt me like everybody else, but because he allowed me to hurt him. He had always been my outlet.

  And here we were again.

  Fighting.

  Tripping him had been a bad move if the expression on his face was any clue.

  After lying on the ground for a few seconds, Noah pushed himself up on his forearms, the muscles in his shoulders flexing beneath his T-shirt as he tipped his head to look back at me.

  I smiled and flipped him off because I wasn’t smart enough not to keep pushing him. The man had killed people, and there I was, poking the bear.

  I’d always had a death wish. Maybe what I saw in him was the threat that he would snap one day and accidentally end me.

  If you go, I go...

  Which meant he would end himself too.

  Without saying a word, Noah pushed to his feet, turned to me and grinned.

  Reaching back with one bloody hand, he pulled the shirt off his body and dropped it to the floor, his biceps flexing in time with his pectoral muscles. Rolling his broad shoulders back, he tilted his head from side to side to stretch out the sore muscles, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in a world of shit.

  My thighs clenched together at the sight of him, heat pooling between my legs, the flesh swollen and sensitive. I could feel my pulse down there and in the tightness of my breasts.

  He made my heart thunder, this man, he always had.

  Three long-legged steps and he was on me, his hand gripping the front of my shirt, blood staining the fabric as he pulled me up to my feet. Threads in the shirt popped and tore, but I didn’t care, not with the way he was glaring down at me like he would split me open and write his name over every organ and every bone, like he would erase the ugly words inside me and replace them with his own.

  Leaning down, Noah trapped my bottom lip between his teeth, the hold a punishment, the sting a balm. A part of that ugliness inside me fractured, that tiny amount of pain enough to knock something loose until its was rolling around and rattling.

  Opening my lips with his, he swept his tongue into my mouth, filling me with his taste.

  I was held up only by his grip on my shirt, balanced only by the strength of his arm and shoulder. My head fell back as he kissed along my jaw and down my neck, teeth scraping the skin, his bite sinking into my shoulder.

  Lifting his head, he pressed his mouth against mine and moved to shove me against the wall, trapping me in place.

  “I won’t fight you anymore, Ens.”

  Noah spoke against my mouth, his knee coming up between my legs, spreading them until he could bring it up further. I rubbed against him, desperate to soothe the throbbing pulse that beat for only him, but he grabbed my hip with his other hand and held me still.

  “Not anymore. You want to feel something? You need a release? I’ll give it to you, but not like this. I’m not a teenage boy whose hand can be forced. Not by you, and not by anyone.”

  Our pain had raised the boy, but prison had shaped the man.

  Tears welled in my eyes, the need so overpowering, that I slapped at him with my hands. He didn’t wince at my blows, he only pushed me tighter against the wall trapping my body with his own.

  “Please...” The word tumbled from my lips, my body crumpling against him.

  “No,” he answered, dragging me away from the wall, to turn me around and shove me against the back of a couch. Standing behind me, Noah wrapped the length of my hair around his hand, tugged my head back and whispered against my ear.

  “I love you, Ensley Bennett
.”

  My teeth slammed together, and I screamed, a noise tearing from my throat that had been stuck there since I was a kid.

  “Fuck off,” I demanded, kicking and fighting, but he wouldn’t let me go. I was pinned, the back of the couch digging into my stomach, his hips tight against my ass.

  “I’ve loved you since we were kids,” he continued, his hand pulling my hair tighter as he reached around me to unbutton my pants.

  “Stop saying that!” My voice was hoarse, my body shaking.

  “I fell in love with you in the middle of the woods.”

  Tears stung my eyes. I struggled against him as he shoved my jeans and panties off my hips, his knuckles brushing the cheeks of my ass when he moved to unbutton his jeans.

  “I loved you every night you slept in my bed.”

  The tears fell, heavy drops splashing on the cushions beneath me that soaked in and spread. I tried to shove away from where I was pinned, but Noah released my hair to grab my arms with both hands, pulling them behind my back to fold at the elbows and trap between our bodies.

  “Let go of me! That’s not what you’re supposed to be saying to me!”

  I could see everything now, like watching a movie on fast forward. The first time my mother beat me. The night she stole my hair. That dark fucking shed with just a single swaying light bulb. The secret places around school where I would sell myself to all those laughing boys. And then I could see their faces: the mother who hated me, the father that deserted me, the kids I couldn’t save.

  Mostly I saw Noah. Saw his pain. Saw what I did to him when I needed to take it all out on something other than me. Saw him standing in the center of my house with all those bodies on the floor around him.

  I saw everything.

  Noah’s mouth was next to my ear, a gritty whisper dragging me back, his erection rubbing between my legs.

  “I loved you every time you couldn’t love yourself. Every time you hurt me. Every time you ran away.”

  And then he filled me, stretched me out, made me feel something other than the torment my life had been. One smooth thrust that went so deep my entire body became tight and needy, the legs of the couch scraping forward from the force of the way he loved me.