Page 11

11

Provisions

Morning arrived with unexpected gentleness, sunlight filtering through the cabin’s dusty windows in golden shafts that warmed the air. The storm had passed, leaving behind a world washed clean, deceptively peaceful. I woke to find Jace’s arm draped possessively across my waist, his breath steady against my neck, the heat of him seeping into my bones like poison I’d grown immune to.

For a disorienting moment, it felt like the past fifteen years had never happened. Like we were still those broken, beautiful creatures we’d been before that night in the bayou—damaged but not yet monstrous. Not yet transformed into these matched horrors wearing human skin.

Then reality reasserted itself in the form of pain. My body ached everywhere—bruises from his hands blooming purple and yellow like toxic flowers, scratches from forest branches, the tender spot on my shoulder where he’d marked me with his teeth. I traced the indentations with my fingers, disturbed by how the pain felt like a signature I’d been waiting for him to leave.

I slipped from beneath his arm, careful not to wake him. In sleep, his face lost some of its hardness, the predatory awareness that never fully left his eyes. I could almost see traces of the boy I’d known, the one who’d trace my collarbone with his thumb while we watched the sun rise over the bayou water. But that boy was buried beneath the horror he’d become.

When I emerged from the bathroom, Jace was awake, sitting on the edge of the bed with that preternatural stillness that had always unnerved and attracted me in equal measure. A snake coiled before the strike.

“You’re not running,” he observed, voice rough with sleep, eyes sharper than they had any right to be.

“Where would I go?” I replied, the question honest rather than rhetorical. After everything—the captivity, the torture, the storm, the revelations—where could I possibly run that would make sense? What part of me even wanted to anymore?

His smile was slow, knowing, a predator recognizing surrender without victory. “That’s not an answer, kitten.”

“No, I’m not running,” I confirmed, running a hand through tangled hair. “Not today, anyway.”

He nodded once, accepting this for the partial commitment it was. “We need supplies. Real food. My body can only process so many protein bars before shutting down completely.”

The normalcy of the complaint startled a laugh from me—the sound rusty, unfamiliar after days of nothing but rage and calculated cruelty. It reminded me of mornings at the clubhouse, when he’d complain about the coffee being cold. Before blood and betrayal rewrote our story.

“I can go. You can’t.”

Understanding darkened his expression. “Too recognizable.”

“Even this far from Louisiana, someone might know the President of Mayhem,” I agreed. “I’m nobody. Just another woman buying groceries.”

He stood, crossing to where I leaned against the bathroom doorframe. His movements were fluid despite the injuries I’d inflicted, a predator’s grace undiminished by pain. My body tensed, not in fear but in anticipation, and I hated myself for it.

“You’re not nobody,” he said quietly, one hand coming up to trace the line of my jaw with unexpected gentleness. His thumb pressed against my pulse point, a reminder that he knew exactly how to stop it if he chose. “Never were. Never will be.”

Something twisted in my chest—not quite pain, not quite pleasure. The ghost of what we might have been in another life, perhaps. Or the all too familiar greedy bitch I was becoming under his touch.

“I need cash,” I said, pulling away from his touch even as every cell in my body leaned toward him like a plant to poisoned light. “And a list.”

He smiled, the expression edged with danger even in this mundane moment. “Always practical.”

“One of us has to be.”

An hour later, I was behind the wheel of the car, heading toward the nearest town with a pocket full of cash and a mental list of necessities. Jace had wanted to come with me—had argued with a vehemence that bordered on possessive paranoia—but logic had prevailed. His face was too well-known in certain circles. Mine was just another damaged woman, forgettable to anyone who hadn’t spent fifteen years obsessively searching for me.

The further I drove from the cabin, the clearer my thoughts became, as if proximity to Jace clouded my judgment like a drug. The realization should have alarmed me more than it did.

The Ozark landscape unfurled around me in waves of green and gold, trees bending in the aftermath of the storm, sunlight glinting off puddles that dotted the winding road. The beauty of it hit me with unexpected force—a reminder that the world continued to exist outside the walls of our private hell. Indifferent to our particular brand of destruction.

As I drove, memories surfaced unbidden. Not the usual parade of horrors from my captivity, but older fragments, nearly forgotten beneath the weight of all that came after.

I was almost thirteen when the blizzard hit Kansas. I woke to find strange men in leather cuts in our house—the scariest one emerging from my mother’s bedroom. Then came the shouting outside, the chainsaw’s roar cutting through frozen air, gunshots in the snow. My mother’s hissed command: “We have to go with them. Don’t ask questions for once in your life.” No time to grab anything, just thrown into a van with strangers, a red-headed woman the only one showing any kindness. The clubhouse in Missouri was where I first saw Jace—eighteen, dangerous, beautiful—our eyes meeting across the room like something from a twisted fairy tale. The world stopped existing. Then Luke, my mother’s “savior,” forced us to be siblings, as if labels could stop what was already burning between us.

The small Ozark town appeared around a bend in the road, a collection of weather-beaten buildings clustered around a main street that had seen better days. I parked outside the general store, taking a moment to compose myself before venturing inside.

Normal. Act normal. You’re just a woman buying groceries. Not a kidnapper. Not a torturer. Not a survivor of horrors most could not fathom. Just a woman with a list.

The store’s bell jingled as I entered, the sound incongruously cheerful. An elderly man behind the counter nodded in greeting, then returned to his newspaper. Two women with shopping baskets whispered together by the canned goods. A teenager stocked shelves with mechanical precision.

Ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Did they know what walked among them? Could they smell the blood on my hands, the darkness that lived beneath my skin? Or was the most terrifying thing of all that they couldn’t tell the difference?

I grabbed a basket and began filling it methodically: coffee, eggs, bread, bacon, canned beans, pasta, tomato sauce, whiskey. The mundane activity felt surreal after the past week of violence and revelation, like sleepwalking through someone else’s life.

As I reached for a box of cereal, a prickling sensation crawled up my spine—the unmistakable feeling of being watched. I turned slowly, scanning the store with practiced casualness, my body falling into old defensive patterns that fifteen years of survival had etched into my muscles.

Nothing. Just the same people going about their business, no one paying me any particular attention.

Yet the sensation persisted, a phantom pressure between my shoulder blades that fifteen years of captivity had taught me never to ignore. The kind of instinct that kept you breathing when others stopped.

I moved to the refrigerated section, using the glass doors as mirrors to observe the store behind me. For a split second, I thought I caught a glimpse of someone familiar—a tall figure in a black jacket, face hidden beneath a baseball cap—but when I turned fully, there was no one there.

Paranoia. It’s just paranoia. No one knows you’re here. No one is following you.

But the words felt hollow, practiced lies I’d told myself in the asylum when I’d hear footsteps approaching my door at night.

I paid quickly, avoiding eye contact with the cashier, and loaded the bags into my car. As I slid behind the wheel, I checked the rearview mirror, half-expecting to see someone watching from the store’s entrance.

Empty sidewalk. Ordinary day. Except nothing about this day—or any day since I’d driven back to the clubhouse with vengeance in my heart—was ordinary.

Still, I took a circuitous route back to the cabin, doubling back several times to ensure I wasn’t followed. The precaution was probably unnecessary—a habit born of trauma rather than legitimate danger—but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right.

When I finally pulled up outside the cabin, relief washed over me with surprising intensity. I grabbed the bags from the passenger seat and hurried inside, irrationally eager to be back within those walls that had been my prison just days ago. Back to Jace, who should have been the last person to make me feel safe.

Jace looked up from cleaning a gun at the kitchen table—one I recognized as having been mounted above the fireplace. His eyes scanned me from head to toe, assessing for threats or injuries with predatory precision, and I felt my mind clouding again, judgment slipping away like water through spread fingers.

“Problem?” he asked, noting the tension I couldn’t quite hide.

I set the bags on the counter, shaking my head. “Just jumpy. Felt like someone was watching me in the store, but I’m probably being paranoid.”

He set the gun down, all attention focused on me now, eyes darkening with something that wasn’t quite concern. “Trust that instinct. Always.”

“I did a series of backtracking maneuvers on the way home,” I assured him, the word ‘home’ slipping out before I could catch it. A betrayal by my own tongue.

Something softened in his expression—not quite a smile, but close. “Good girl.”

The praise sent an involuntary shiver down my spine, my body responding to his approval in ways my mind wanted to reject but couldn’t quite manage to. I turned away, busying myself with unpacking groceries to hide the flush creeping up my neck.

“I got the basics,” I said, nodding toward the bags. “Enough for a few days at least.”

He rose, moving to stand beside me at the counter, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body. My pulse quickened traitorously, muscle memory responding to his proximity like a bell to a hammer.

“Look at us,” he murmured, voice tinged with dark amusement. “Playing house.”

“This isn’t a home, Jace,” I reminded him, even as I handed him items to put away, falling into a domestic rhythm that felt both foreign and disturbingly natural. “It’s just a stopping point.”

“Everywhere is just a stopping point, kitten,” he replied, reaching around me to place coffee in a cabinet, his chest brushing my back in a way that couldn’t be accidental. His breath warm against my ear, counting heartbeats neither of us had earned. “Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the pause.”

I stilled, hyperaware of his proximity, of the way my body instinctively leaned toward his despite everything. Despite the blood, despite the pain, despite the beast I knew lived behind those honey-colored eyes. Despite knowing exactly how this would end.

“What are we doing here, really?” The question emerged softer than I intended, weighted with all the things we’d never say.

His hands settled on my hips, light enough that I could easily step away if I chose. We both knew I wouldn’t.

“Right now? I think we’re making breakfast for dinner.”

The normalcy of the statement, the mundane domesticity of it, startled a laugh from me—the kind of laugh that felt too close to surrender. “Breakfast for dinner? Are we twelve?”

“I’ve spent fifteen years imagining what I’d eat first when I found you again,” he said, voice dropping to something lower, more intimate. His fingers found the strip of skin exposed between my shirt and jeans, tracing patterns that felt like ownership. “Turns out, it’s your scrambled eggs at sunset.”

The double meaning wasn’t lost on me, sending heat pooling low in my belly despite my best intentions. A heat I should run from but found myself chasing instead. “My scrambled eggs are nothing special.”

“They were to me,” he replied simply, and I knew he was remembering those rare mornings at the clubhouse, before everything went to hell, when I’d cook for him and Honey after everyone else had passed out from the previous night’s excesses. How he’d watch me from the doorway, eyes tracking every movement like I was something feral he’d managed to temporarily tame.

Memories I’d locked away because they hurt too much to examine. Because they reminded me of when he wore a more convincing mask.

“Fine,” I conceded, turning to face him, knowing I was signing something away with each moment I stayed. “Breakfast for dinner. But you’re helping.”

His smile was slow, predatory even in this domestic moment. A wolf putting on sheep’s clothing without bothering to hide the fangs. “Yes, ma’am.”

We moved around the kitchen with surprising synchronicity—my body remembering the dance of cooking with him even after fifteen years apart. I cracked eggs while he sliced bread. He measured coffee while I arranged bacon in a pan. The normalcy of it was almost more jarring than the violence that had preceded it—this glimpse of what might have been in another life. This temporary peace that felt more dangerous than any knife or gun.

As I stirred the eggs, Jace came up behind me, arms circling my waist, chin resting on my shoulder. His body caged mine against the counter, a possession disguised as an embrace.

“You look good like this,” he murmured, lips brushing the shell of my ear. “In my kitchen. Making my food.”

“Your kitchen?” I challenged, though I didn’t pull away. Couldn’t pull away. No more than a moth could resist the flame that would consume it. “Pretty sure this cabin belongs to the club, not you personally.”

His laugh vibrated against my back, the sound moving through me like a current. “Everything that’s the club’s is mine, kitten. And everything that’s mine…” His teeth grazed my earlobe, sending shivers cascading down my spine. “Well, that’s mine too.”

And as his hands tightened possessively at my waist, I realized with sickening clarity that I was more at home in this twisted facsimile of domesticity than I had been anywhere in fifteen years. That somehow, this dangerous dance with a psycho who matched my darkness felt more right than any attempt at normalcy ever could.

That was the true horror waiting for me at the end of this road—not death, but belonging. Finding peace in the very poison that should kill me.

And God help me, I wanted it.