“Yeah,” he answered, conviction thick in his voice. “She is.”

If anything, he got the best end of the stick. Brett would have raped her. Would have probably killed her too just so it wouldn’t get back to the Scorpions. He’d pulled a knife on her. Had his hand wrapped around her neck. Sara told Remy everything. He’d have killed him too. But Jaxon doing it had presented the opportunity for a deal like this, and fate had grabbed Remy by the balls and screamed, take it!

Now that’s a story that should be made into a romance movie if ever he heard one.

On his way to the bunker, he picked up breakfast and ordered all kinds of varieties of foods his Birdy might like. He would learn all about her: her favourite breakfast, the music she listened to, her favourite genre of movies, whether she liked decorative shit in her hair, if her periods warranted pads with fucking wings on them...

He was going to learn it all. Every inch of her too.

Jaxon

“Do I have to worry about you?”

Since when has the asshole ever worried about him? Nice fucking try. Donning his fake concern, Finley was a master manipulator and people drew into his web of charm without objection. Jaxon never bought it for a second.

He looked into the man’s eyes and, without hesitancy, said, “No.”

Finley leaned back in his chair with his hands folded over his chest as he continued to watch Jaxon pretend that all was fucking dandy in the world. He enjoyed the discomfort people felt under his penetrating gaze, but Jaxon was one of the very few undeterred by it. He just stared right on back.

“If that’s the case,” replied Finley, “then why the fuck was there a shooting at their compound?”

“I needed answers.”

“Are you trying to fuck up the peace?”

“No.”

“Then let the fucking girl go.”

Jaxon gritted his teeth and made no response.

“It’s a fucking girl, Jaxon. You can find ten thousand others walking around this town her age. You fucked up big time. You killed Reaper’s brother, for fuck’s sake. Do you know what that could have meant for us? That could have been a fucking bloodbath with your name written all over it. At this rate, you’re the best man I have around here. I’ve put a lot of power in your hands, and if you keep on fucking it up, Jaxon, I’m going to have look elsewhere for someone like you who isn’t fucked up over a piece of pussy. Is that understood?”

Jaxon stiffened a nod. “Understood.”

“Good. Now get the fuck out.”

Jaxon stood up and, without a glance back, walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. Anger and hatred flowed in his veins. He wanted to fucking explode!

“Hey Jaxon,” said a few of the ladies as he waded through the bar.

Fuck off, he screamed internally.

Hands wrapped around his neck suddenly and he stared daggers at the nameless girl. “Get away from me,” he demanded. He really didn’t want to have to take his anger out on a goddamn woman he would have otherwise fucked any other night at this piece of shit place. He wanted one woman – one fucking woman and she was gone!

He grabbed her hands and whipped them off of him. Then he continued out of the bar and into the icy air.

*****

Jaxon sat behind the wheel of the car and stared at the apartment building. He’d been gone three hours. They were three miserable hours of contemplating all the bullshit she had put him through the last six months.

He knew he deserved better. He knew he should have walked out on her a long time ago. And while she’d pushed him before and sometimes slapped him, never had she left him the marks he had on now.

He ran his fingers along the scratches. They were crusted with old blood and pained him at the touch. He stared at the flakes of his blood on his fingers in disbelief. She had hurt him so fucking much. He should go right in there, pack his shit and walk the fuck out. Everything rational in his brain was telling him to do this. It said, Sara is one fucked up bitch and she will only get worse, and you will only get hurt. Walk the fuck away.

But love isn’t rational. It’s a fucking mess, that’s what love is. You can’t control the way you feel. If that was the case, he would have never wanted her in the first place. He’d have gladly sister-zoned her the day he rescued her from Jade Smith’s bullying hands. He’d have kept her at a safe distance and never have opened his heart to her.

Love was a different entity altogether. It picked and chose what it wanted. It disregarded logic – hell, it shat on logic – and then it buried away the pain and embraced the heart with feelings so euphoric, you’d forget all the bad just to feel it, even for a minute.

Sure, he deserved better. But he didn’t want anyone better. He wanted Sara in all her flaws and all her anger. That was a part of her that could be healed. After all, she had never been this way.

She was his one weakness, stripping him of all his strength until he was nothing but a fucking puddle in the palm of her hands. Whether she wanted that puddle to slip through her fingers didn’t matter. He would fight with all of him and get his Sara back – the real her.

He stepped out of the car and hurried inside. Just a few moments and she’d be in his arms again. Just a few…

Two

I told him everything.

Everything.

Like he promised, he kept to his word. Didn’t touch me, didn’t even swear. His passive eyes watched my mouth until the last words fell. Then the silence filled the room, and it took everything in me not to ask him what he was thinking. He possessed the kind of patience I’d never seen before. It’d taken me forever to get the words out, and now all I wanted was for him to say something.

Anything.

Finally, he rose up from the bed and quietly said, “I need to go. I’ll be back in the morning with some stuff for you. Try and get some sleep.”

Then just like that, he was gone.

I felt a stab of pain in my chest as I tried to decipher Remy’s lifeless face. I learned from Jaxon that a man with a stone face like that was hiding emotions even from himself. Was Remy hurting? Of course he’s hurting! He just found out his brother is dead!

For the first time in hours, I climbed out of bed. My legs wobbled on my way to the steel door. I put my hand against the cold surface, held my breath and rested my ear against it. I could hear nothing from the other side. Where the hell was I? Wherever it was, I felt completely isolated.