Page 14 of Lily and her Mercenary (CHANGING OF THE GUARDS)

Lily

I wrapped my arms around Mabel, tears welling up as I kissed her furry head. “Be a good girl,” I whispered before putting her in her carrier.

Royal gently picked it up and mumbled, “Lily, I’ll take good care of her, guard her with my life.”

Unable to speak, I nodded as he left, the door closing with a gentle click.

She was gone.

I rushed to the window and looked out. True to his word, he gently placed her in the front passenger side of the van, then went around the hood and hopped in the driver’s seat. I watched until the taillights faded into the darkness.

With a shaky sigh, I turned and noticed Ryker standing at the end of the bed, his eyes fixed on his cell phone.

I approached quietly, placing my hands on his shoulders and feeling his tense muscles under my palms.

“I hated to send her away,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, almost like a child's.

“I know,” he replied.

Then I slid my hands down his arms, pressed my cheek into his back, and cried.

He turned, wrapping his arms around me as I sobbed into his chest. He didn’t say a word—just squeezed me so tight I thought my ribs might crack, and I didn’t want him to ever let go.

When the worst had passed, he tilted my chin up. “We’re gonna make it, you know,” he said.

I wanted to believe him, but my voice came out thick and battered.

“I’m not so sure.”

He thumbed away the tears on my cheek. “I am.”

The words hung in the air, ridiculous and impossible, and… exactly what I needed.

We wasted no more time. Ryker grabbed the duffle bag and led me to the bathroom. Shoving open the window, he pushed out the screen, then picked me up and pushed me through feet first, then joined me on the ground.

The Prius waited just outside the window, its trunk already loaded with supplies.

He had the car started before I even sat my butt down. “Buckle up,” he said as he backed it out. There was enough charge to coast away from the motel without a sound.

I clutched the duffel bag like it was a lifeline as we drove all night.

The further we got from the little town, the quieter it grew between us. When the sun cracked over the dashboard, I saw how tired he was—his face newly lined, eyes shadowed. “Switch?” I offered, voice scraping from lack of sleep. He shook his head. “I’ll keep us moving.”

I nodded and watched the light gather on the trees, turning every pine needle gold.

Sometime past noon, the Prius rolled to a stop on a gravel shoulder, deep in the woods.

Ryker turned off the engine and rested his forehead against the wheel. For a long while, he said nothing, so I reached over and traced a small crescent scar behind his ear. It was at that moment that I realized I was suddenly terrified I might lose him.

At last, he looked up, blinking into the daylight, a smile flirting with the corner of his mouth. “Let’s hike,” he said.

We got out and he popped the trunk. Everything was already set to go, but he did a quick inspection of the contents.

When he was satisfied, we shouldered the packs and headed up an abandoned trail, the silence between us now thick with anticipation instead of fear.

It was a good silence. A hopeful one, maybe.

After an hour, we crested a ridge, and beyond it was a black, glassy lake cupped by pines and snow-mottled peaks.

“I knew a guy who had a place up here,” Ryker said, gesturing with a tilt of his chin toward a battered A-frame, half-hidden in the trees.

“We did covert drills. Off-grid, unmarked.”

“Are you sure there are no bears?” I asked, scanning the trees.

“Let’s hope not. But if there are,” He patted his pack, “we have bear spray this time.”

We tromped through brambles and found it unlocked. Inside was bare—no running water, a single cot, shelves lined with canned beans, and a lonely box of red wine. There was a wood stove, a pile of logs, and a deck facing the water that made the whole world go still.

“Rustic,” I said, only half joking.

He laughed—a full-body sound I hadn’t heard in days. “Better than a motel, right?”

I dropped the pack on the floor and walked to the deck, breathing in the scent of the lake and pine.

The loons calling to one another over the crystal-clear lake soothed away my tension.

When he stepped up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, I was no longer on edge.

I leaned into him and let the hush of the wilderness settle over me.

We spent the rest of the day in each other’s arms on the cot, sleeping it away.

∞∞∞

Over the next few days, Ryker taught me how to start a fire with flint and dryer lint he’d stuffed in his bag from the motel laundry room.

He showed me how to catch catfish with a hook and a single kernel of corn.

We roasted the fish on sticks and ate with our fingers, and some primal part of me thrilled at the simplicity.

For the first time since the aquarium field trip, I wasn’t looking over my shoulder for enemies I couldn’t name.

As the sun dipped pink across the lake, I noticed Ryker sitting by the water’s edge, legs pulled up, staring out at the reflection of the sky.

I found a clean, empty bottle and filled it with wine from the wine box, then grabbed a sleeping bag, and I left the house behind as I padded through the pine needles to the deck and sat beside him.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I asked as I handed him the wine.

He took a swig, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and handed it back. “I’m thinking I like it here. With you.” He paused. “Even if the whole world is chasing us.”

I sipped from the bottle “Do you think they’ll come?”

“These men aren’t the type to give up,” Ryker said, his eyes steady on the horizon. “But we’ll outlast them.”

I set down the bottle and pressed my shoulder into his. “I can’t shoot worth shit,” I admitted, “but if you give me a pair of scissors, I might be able to take out a kneecap or two.”

He laughed, and the sound was pure sunlight.

“Duly noted,” he said, and then he turned and kissed me, soft and slow, like we had all the time in the world.

My heart raced when I realized that maybe I hadn’t been running from danger, not exactly.

Maybe I was running toward something I’d never let myself have.

We made love on the rough deck, his hands careful and worshipful. His lips were traveling every inch over my skin like he was memorising it with all his senses. After, we curled up in the sleeping bag, and I trailed my finger along his chest. “Do you ever regret it? Regret meeting me?”

He closed his hand over mine and held it to his heart.

“Never,” he whispered. And in the morning, we were still there, still together, with nothing but the crash of wind in the trees and the lap of water against the shore.

I sensed that the world was still hunting us.

But for now, in this little pocket of borrowed time, it didn’t matter.

We made pancakes on a campfire and ate on the little stoop. And when he spotted a rabbit in the brush, he pointed it out to me, grinning with such pride you'd think he'd discovered electricity.

It was past noon when the clouds rolled in, and Ryker started a fire in the wood stove.

Rain came down in sheets as I sat across from him, knees drawn to my chest, wrapped in his faded flannel shirt.

There were questions I carried like splinters in my heart, but the thought of asking them always felt like betraying some fragile peace between us.

Still, after supper—a meal made of rice, the last of a can of black beans, and a fistful of jerky—I watched him as he meticulously rinsed out the bowls, his hands steady and sure, and felt the urge to know the truth.

“Can I ask you something?” My voice barely rose above the pop of pine resin in the stove.

Ryker stilled bowl in mid-air. He didn’t look up, just kept his attention on the water. “You can ask me anything your heart desires, darlin’”

I hugged my knees tighter. “Why do you do it? The mercenary stuff. Was it—was it just about the money?”

He finished rinsing and set the bowl in the rack, then braced his arms against the counter and leaned forward, his head down, like he was listening to some faraway sound only he could hear. The pause stretched until I worried, he might not answer.

Then, without turning, he said, “You ever spend a night hiding under your bed because the person who’s supposed to love you, can’t decide if she wants to hug you or break your arm?”

The question stunned me.

“No,” I admitted softly.

He nodded, half to himself. “I did.” He paused as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to continue, but then he took a shaky breath and said, “Our mother was fond of gin and full of rage. Never laid off the stuff, not even after Dad left, which is why he left. For some reason, she always went after me and not Royal. I figured out early that nobody was coming, not even to check the bruises.”

A hush settled over us. I wanted to cross the space, to take his hand, but I sensed he needed to tell the whole story before I interrupted. He kept going, his voice flat but not bitter, as though he’d rehearsed it a million times.

“By the time I hit sixteen, I was sleeping on park benches and fighting anyone dumb enough to give me a reason. Met a recruiter in juvie who said the army would pay for my GED. I figured getting shot at for a living sounded better than waiting to get murdered in my sleep.”

He sank into the chair across from me, elbows on his knees. “I was good at it. Too good. They put me on special teams because I could disappear into any crowd and pick up a skill by watching it once. It felt like magic the way I could change shape, forget who I was.”

He cleared his throat as if the words were raw inside his mouth. “After the service, there’s not a lot left. Royal signed up with a crew that did black ops for whoever had the cash. I followed, because…” He trailed off.

I finished for him. “Because of family.”

Ryker looked at me then, really looked. “It’s the only thing I ever wanted.”

We sat in silence. The only sound was the wood stove crackling and the wind outside rattling the windows. I reached across the table and took his hand in both of mine, holding on tight. “Thank you for telling me.”

He squeezed back, voice rough. “I want to be better for you, Lily. Not just the guy who knows a thousand ways to kill a man, or who can live off a can of beans for a month. Just… better.”

I shook my head, a trembling smile on my lips. “You’re already more than enough,” I said. “And for what it’s worth, I never had a real family either. My dad left before I was born, and my mom passed away when I was three, and we ended up in foster care.”

He sat in silence watching me as I continued.

“As I grew up, I got lost in every book I could find. Every day after school, I’d hide in the city library and pretend I lived in one of those big, happy families in the stories.”

“They’re overrated,” Ryker said, a hint of laughter breaking through.

“I know that now,” I replied. “But I do know what it feels like to want to belong to someone. Or somewhere.” I stopped then, not trusting myself to keep talking.

He grinned as he looked up at me, a warm and dangerous look was in his eyes as he said, “You belong to me now. Even if you run, I’m coming after you.”

I laughed, and said, “I won’t run.”

And I meant it.