Page 9 of Forever Zara

Being childlike, she stuck her tongue out and caught some fresh flakes. It was when she lowered her head her heart almost stopped in her chest.

It thumped hard, rolled over, and raced as a swell of sudden nausea gained momentum.

Across the street, through the sheets of snow, bustling people, and idling traffic, she saw a familiar leather jacket.

No, it couldn’t be.

She blinked, and the image disappeared behind a large school bus. When it moved by, the leather jacket was nowhere to be seen. And oh, Zara looked hard. Her feet carried her up and down the street until she was panting breathlessly.

Searching.Searching.

Old, yet familiar anxiety started to claw through her intestines.

No, it wasn’t, she told herself.

It wasn’t possible.

It was a trick of her eyes.

A horn honked, and she swerved to see Pretty-Boy stopped in the middle of the road with a trail of cars behind him. He didn’t give a fuck about stopping in traffic to pick her up.

She hurried across and climbed in.

Whatever he saw on her face made his brows bunch in the middle. “You okay, Z-girl? Saw you heading down the street.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” she replied, rushed, belting herself in.

She was cold all over, and it had nothing to do with the weather. It was down to the marrow, cold with fear.

Mace pulled away, the angrily blaring horns behind him stopping after he’d flipped the bird out of the window.

Her fun day melted away.

Trying to maintain a composed conversation on the ride home while Mace ate the sandwich, regaling her with a story of his nana and her current boyfriend.

She should have told him, so he could look around and put her rampant imagination to rest.

What could she say anyway?

It was not possible.

She knew this.

Rider and the boys killed them years ago.

But Zara, with her thumping heart and jangling nerves, would swear she saw a man wearing aRaging Rebelsjacket.

The men who tortured her for three years.

The men who theSoulsfirebombed on the night of her rescue.

It was so fleeting, and she hadn’t recognized the man’s face. But she’d worked hard to push every face from her mind.

It wasn’t conceivable.

It was her wedding brain trying to self-sabotage her happiness, as her therapist would tell her.

Wasn’t it?