Page 38 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

Paige

I n the end, the storm was the best accomplice we could've had.

We weren’t the only people to go missing amid the violence of the winds, which raided the island better than the police that swarmed it that night ever could.

Most of the other missing persons, drunk clubgoers there for Bunker night, were found alive.

An unfortunate few fell from clifftops or drowned in the sudden swells.

They merely assumed the same had become of us.

And so, for the second time, The Needler was presumed dead by the state.

And for the second time, I was forgotten by the powers that be—the first time being as an orphaned child, this time, being as a woman, more free than I’d ever been before; free of fear, responsibility, hate.

As Dr Goodry said, I could very well have a long, healthy life ahead of me.

I fully intend to make it count.

For the first year, we didn’t stay in one place too long.

We didn’t sell any jewels and heirlooms, spent little of the cash—having ditched the boat in wetlands far from White Rock.

We didn’t commit any crimes. One exception being that I broke into a doctor’s clinic to steal a shot of penicillin for Tristan’s leg when, two weeks from the day we escaped, the bullet graze still wasn’t closing, and his brow had grown feverish.

He was better the next day. I’d woken up and held my hand to his brow to find the fever gone, and never felt more relieved.

We were sleeping under a bridge at that stage, on a pile of newspapers.

Our precious bags were our future, and they never left our sides.

We, if we could, never left each other’s sides.

We moved around, eventually buying a small boat with a cabin just big enough to sleep in. We left everything we’d known behind. Changed our names, took to calling each other honey, darling, munchkin , and whatever else wouldn’t inadvertently give away our true identities.

We took that boat far, far away, to the shores of places warm and rich with all the colours of life.

Needler and the Wraith disappeared from the papers.

The reports we watched from afar moved onto other things.

Articles were aplenty on Eternal Light. The deaths, the ‘curse’, some said, that befell everyone involved.

As the story unravelled, the women from the home who still worked in those clubs received compensation, enough that they could choose another life.

The women still in Eternal Light stayed there, though they were interviewed where it was possible; the ones that could tell their stories, told them.

When they went to Charlotte's home, they found evidence I hadn’t even known of.

She knew she wasn’t coming back, knew what they’d find.

Though she still wasn’t blameless, at least she’d gone some way to righting things.

Of Dr Goodry, I never heard a word. But they interviewed his son.

I found I didn’t care what’d become of the man who’d tortured me for so long.

I know how I left him, and that's enough.

Only then, we dared to spend a little more.

Jewels turned into a house by the ocean, a bright azure sea beyond a dazzling white beach, where there was never snow and never anything grey.

One day we might miss the snow, so we’d move again.

We could do whatever we wanted. We made friends, unusual, artistic types who might not even mind if they knew the truth—but they knew enough not to pry too deeply.

With our new identities, we invested, since our loot couldn’t last forever.

When it was time, a puppy with paws seemingly the size of dinner plates joined our little family.

Little Toast was going to be big. But for now, as I plant a kiss between his eyes, one grey and one green, he’s just a sweet puppy that has quickly stolen my heart.

We named him Toast as that was the first meal I made for Tristan after we stepped back onto land.

Stolen, stale bread that I held over a struggling fire with a forked stick.

I burned it. But nothing ever tasted so sweet to two people with new lives ahead.

I’ll never forget that day. I’ll never forget many days.

Curled up on his dog mat, Toast now lets out a little huff, resting his muzzle on the edge of his bed, and I back out, closing the door to the laundry where he sleeps.

It's dark out. The nights are short this time of year, and warm enough that I can wear only my pale blue babydoll nighty. Our living room is wide, open, with bay windows all around and colourful prints draped over the soft furniture. It’s a home. Our home.

I walk through it, gooseflesh rising on my arms, so I know he’s watching me. I smile, pretending to be none the wiser as I turn out the lights.

That’s the queue. I pass by the kitchen bench, seeing if I can sense him, spot him. I never can. Sometimes I wonder if we play these games to stay sharp. But as the hair on the back of my neck rises, and an answering awareness settles low in my belly, I know the real reason.

I walk towards the bedroom, humming, and stop by the mantle where I gently turn the picture of me and Molly down. I whisper conspiratorially to it, “You don’t need to see this.” It’s framed now, and I’ve got about a million back-up copies just in case anything happens to it.

I give her a last wink and walk into the bedroom, illuminated only by moonlight. The bed’s made, but rumpled. We didn’t make love this morning, though his hands roamed my waist, my thigh. Only building anticipation for tonight. Now that the sun is down…

The door taps shut behind me. I still, excitement thrilling through my nerves.

I know he’s behind me before I feel his breath on the back of my neck.

Letting out a slow breath, heat unspools between my thighs.

His breath traces the side of my neck, and the cold I feel against my ear tells me that if I were to turn my head, I’d see he’s wearing a mask.

Not his Needler mask—having never replaced that after losing it during our last night on White Rock—but whatever mask I left lying around at the start of the month, bought from costume shops or local sellers.

He mixes them up sometimes, so I don’t always see what I’m expecting.

I go to turn my head now, but his arms clamp around me so suddenly that I gasp, pinned back against his hard body, the material of his pants against my bare legs, the skin of his chest to my back telling me he’s already shirtless, all hardness and muscle.

“Uh-uh,” he coos, hot against the shell of my ear.

I bite my lip, breath trembling out. I’m ready for him already, but I know this won’t be it.

“No looking tonight.” He presses something silken and soft into my hand. A wide ribbon. “Over your eyes, Cutthroat.”

I do as he says, tying it over my loose hair.

“Good, now, take off your panties.”

My voice small, I tell him, “I’m not wearing any.”

His breath grumbles out against my back. His hands trace up my arms, sliding the thin straps of my nighty down. Fingers follow the path of the silk as it slides off my breasts, down my ribs, before closing on me, grazing my nipples so that my breath hitches.

“You like that?” he murmurs, lips hot on the side of my throat.

I tremble under his touch as he grazes the skin above the top of my nighty where it makes a line above my pelvis. “No,” I say, my tone clearly conveying the opposite.

“Too bad.” He bites me, his hand splaying over my stomach to pull my back against the rock-hard bulge in the front of his pants.

He reaches under and down, cupping me, finding me wet. He responds to that with a growl against my nape. I’m gasping, clutching his arm, my knees already weak as he slides a finger against my slickness. “Liar,” he coos, slipping two fingers inside me, the heel of his hand pressing on my apex.

Blind, I can only writhe in his grasp, happily helpless.

Until he removes his hand. I nearly lurch, losing that sensation.

But his words immediately spark what I’d lost. “I want you on your knees.” Hand weighing on my shoulder, he guides me down to the soft rug, following, nudging my knees apart.

He pushes between my shoulder blades, the nighty bunched around my waist, exposing my ass as my face comes down against the rug.

He kneels close behind me. I burn with need for him, bumping backwards, needing and inviting.

I feel him undoing his pants, but before he enters me, he braces a hand on the floor in front of my shoulder, the other curling under by waist to cup my breast as it points to the floor.

“Please…” I whimper, his tough sending shivers through me.

“Mm, because you asked so nicely…”

He nudges where I’m open, ready for him, sliding in an inch.

My mouth opens, and I don’t care if I’m drooling into the carpet as he dives that bit further, than further, further, until he’s flush inside me, and I can’t seem to catch my breath despite my panting.

A few thrusts, and I’m crying out, fuelled by his own grunts, pressing back hard to meet him.

“Touch yourself,” he orders.

I do, finding myself slick. I stretch my fingers to feel where he enters me, sliding slowing out, then thrusting back in.

Near screaming just from that, I find my own point of pleasure, and my free hand winds into the fur of the rug, clutching on as though I’ll lift straight off if I don’t.

But he grounds me too, pressing my chest down, stroking that primitive part of me as I crash, spiralling upward in ecstasy.

A second to catch my breath is all I get before he leans over me, murmuring in my ear. “We’re not done. You’re mine all night.”

I can only whimper, feeling my longing swoop back up as he pulls me to my feet, spinning me around and then shoving backwards so that I sprawl out on the bed. Then the ribbon’s whipped from my eyes, and I gasp.