Page 8

Chapter

Eight

GRACE

“ G race! We’re going to be late!” Amorette threw a sock at me. “You look fine.”

“But I want to look better than fine!” It was an old argument, and I was doing it more to yank her chain than anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Am deadpanned.

I paused and twisted to look at her while I tied my hair up into a ponytail with a scrunchy. “For what?”

“You’re stuck looking like me.” Not even a twitch of her lips betrayed her even if merriment danced in her eyes.

A laugh snorted out of me before I could stop it and Am grinned. Still, I couldn’t resist tweaking her just a little. I glanced at the mirror and affected a sigh… “What do you think of a nose job?”

I barely dodged the decorative pillow she grabbed from the chair by the door and flung at me. Laughing, Am shook her head. “Let’s go, brat.”

She pivoted on her heel and strode out of my room. I was still laughing as I grabbed my purse and strung it over my chest before I snagged my backpack. I was only four steps behind her, but Am was already outside.

“Are you trying out for track?” I called as I hurried after her. I rushed through the front door and then stumbled to a halt. This wasn’t…

Turning in a slow circle, I stared at the cemetery. We didn’t come here often and we never came alone. At least, I never did. When I would have shifted my backpack, I couldn’t find the straps.

It was gone.

So was my purse.

My shoes were absent too.

Instead of being dressed for school, I was in simple sundress. The air was warm and the grass was soft beneath my feet. There was a bee buzzing lazily around some fresh flowers that had been delivered to a grave. More than a few of them had similar bouquets. A lot of families made their way out here over the holiday weekend.

We’d come for her birthday and for Mother’s Day. It wasn’t either, so why had I headed out here again? I walked over the hill and then down past where the dogwoods stood to the stone we’d erected for Maman. A smaller one sat to the left of Mom’s—it was the gravestone for Louis. The stone to the right was new. No one should be that close to them…

Dread ballooned in my gut and I flexed my toes against the grass, digging my heels in to stop moving. It failed, though, I kept moving as though someone dragged me toward the graves. I couldn’t turn away, or stop, and when the force finally released me, I landed on my knees.

The third headstone was right there. I could see part of it above where my hands were planted against the earth. I didn’t want to look up. I couldn’t.

No.

But like my feet that wouldn’t obey me before, I couldn’t stop my chin from lifting or my eyes from raising.

Amorette Monet Black .

No. No. No. No.

Beloved daughter and sister.

Agony robbed me of any breath.

Always together, never apart, joined as one heart.

No. No…

“No!” I jerked upright, one arm outstretched. Loss dug its jagged fingers into my heart and threatened to rip it right out of my chest. The room seemed to swim in shadows around me illuminated only by the faintest of glows from around the edge of the blinds and the heavy curtains.

Reality swam around me. This wasn’t a cemetery. It was a bedroom—the one at Base. The one Bones had dumped me in that first day. I swallowed. Or I tried to, but it was hard to dry swallow the lump in my throat. I couldn’t get my breath back. Jerking my gaze around, I barely resisted a scream at the suggestion of movement to my left.

The rabbiting of my pulse added to the thunder behind my eyes. With care, Voodoo sat forward. His expression gradually grew more visible as my eyes adjusted to the dusk in the room.

“You with me?” The quiet question grounded me in the present.

“Is this real?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. I’d just been in a cemetery. The heat from the sun. The grass under my feet. The air—it had been so real. None of that was present in the room we were in, but was the room we were in real?

Or was this another nightmare?

“Need me to pinch you?” The question held not one ounce of judgment or teasing. “I can stand up and go open those blinds too—give you more light. Or we can just turn the lamp on.” At the last he motioned to the lamp on the nightstand closest to me. “Whatever you need.”

A harsh laugh exploded out of me. “Whatever I need.” Those words really didn’t mean anything anymore. Especially if I had no idea what I needed. How could I? I raised a hand to my face. The trembling, though, gave me pause. It was like my heart was going too fast and I couldn’t control the shaking,

“Whatever you need,” Voodoo repeated, the stress he put on the syllables demanded that I believe him. Closing my eyes, I tried to regulate my breathing but it wasn’t happening. The panic was right there, an acrid taste on my tongue and an untamed wildness under my skin.

“Not sure that would help, if I even knew what it was.”

“Okay,” Voodoo said, as though he accepted me at my word. “Tell me what you can then.”

What I could? That had me opening my eyes again. He hadn’t moved from where he sat. He leaned forward still, hands spread but everything else about him was still. His?—

“What happened to your face?” I didn’t think it had been that bruised when we joined up with them the day before. Had it? It had been hard to focus on any of them after seeing those vehicles explode. But I didn’t remember serious injuries.

“Therapy,” he answered easily.

“What kind of therapy gives you a black eye?”

A flicker of a grin graced his face and it stretched the cut on his bottom lip, distorting his smile.

“The passive-aggressive kind.”

“The—” I blinked.

“How is it passive and aggressive?” He canted his head as though offering me an invitation to play.

“The aggressive part, I get,” I admitted before shoving the blankets back. I didn’t even remember getting in bed the night before. I’d been so damn tired when we got back here. Voodoo had gone to pick me up—maybe? I turned that mental image over in my head, it sounded right but maybe it wasn’t him? Had one of the other guys tried to carry me up here?

It was all a mess of tangled emotions and images. I was so damn tired. Rubbing a hand over my face, I grimaced at the bruise on my jaw. While not a huge one, it still stretched to my neck and added to my sore throat.

“Not sure where the passive comes in?” The question reminded me I’d already responded to him, partially.

“No, not really,” I admitted and then swung my legs out to stand. The t-shirt I was wearing hit me below mid-thigh. I liked big shirts. Folding my arms to chase away the sense of a chill, I headed for the bathroom. Every step seemed to identify a new bruise. Every muscle ached and I swore something felt pulled in my ass.

“I’m going to stand up, Firecracker,” Voodoo said. I paused in the doorway to the bathroom, then glanced at him over my shoulder. It meant half-twisting, cause the pull on my neck was really aggravating.

While looking at him, I flicked on the light and then studied his expression in the illumination. He waited until my gaze was on him again and I nodded before he stood. “So what is the passive part of it?”

“The other guy stands there and takes it until he figures out that if he doesn’t fight back, I am going to kick his ass. Then he can get out some aggression too.” Simple as pie his tone and manner declared, as though kicking the crap out of someone was “normal” behavior.

Honestly? Not what I expected. One hand braced on the doorframe, I considered asking him who. At least with the light on, I could see the damage he’d done to himself. A good solid half of his face was mottled and bruised. “That looks like it hurts.”

“I’ll live,” he told me with a wink. “Not going to ask me whose ass I kicked?”

“Haven’t decided,” I admitted. “If you said AB—I mean Alphabet, I might have to get mad at you.”

“So only for him?” He didn’t comment on me calling Alphabet A-B.

“Maybe. I really need to pee.” I pushed into the bathroom and started to nudge the door closed, but then paused to find him halfway to the bathroom but paused by the bed as though still giving me space. “I admit—I almost hope you say Boney Boy. So don’t tell me yet. I kind of want to savor that image.”

Petty?

Yes.

I pushed the door closed and headed for the toilet. The lights in the bathroom made the bruises on my throat really stand out. I tried to ignore them for now. I still had a cut on my back that was mostly healed. Bruises littered my arms and legs. Little ones. Big ones. But the one on my throat?

It had the look of a grotesque hand necklace. That sent a cascade of images shuddering through me. The man in the barn. The sudden charge. The grip of his fingers and the way he lifted my whole body. Suppressing another violent shiver, I made myself go to the toilet. If I was going to make myself sick…

Fortunately, I didn’t. I took the time to wash my hands and face after I pee’d, then I brushed my teeth. I was tempted to shower, but I had showered after we got in. It hadn’t been a long one, but it had been thorough. I’d braided my hair rather than wait for it to dry. Leaving it, I pulled the door open to find the bedroom much brighter.

Voodoo had opened the curtains and the blinds to let the sunlight in to warm the room. The bed had been made, and there were clothes laid out at the foot of the bed. I opened my mouth to say something when I saw the blanket now folded up on the hope chest at the foot of the bed and the two framed photos.

They were the only items I’d been able to grab from my apartment. I hadn’t seen them since we left the house in Pennsylvania or wherever that place was. The plummeting feeling held me captive as I headed over to pick up the photo of me and Amorette. It was like a talisman to remind me she was real, not some figment of my imagination.

“It was time you got those back,” Voodoo said, a hint of apology creeping through the words. “I’ve had them since we got here.”

“I thought I lost them,” I admitted. Sinking down to sit on the hope chest while tracing my fingers over Am’s expression. I missed her so damn much. “I didn’t have time to get anything else and then we had to leave the car…”

“I know,” he said, facing me. “It got overlooked because we were a little busy. We’re going to fix that, Firecracker. We’re going to fix a lot of things.”

Meeting his gaze, I raised my eyebrows. “Can you even make that promise?” He hadn’t been able to keep the last one.

“It’s not a promise,” he admitted. “It’s an oath.”

I guess that answered that. Still, I hugged the photo to my chest. “I want to believe you.”

“No you don’t,” he countered, calling me on it. “You want to want to believe me. But we need to re-earn some of that trust. That’s next on the list. So, when you’re ready, we’re going downstairs and we’re going to let Lunchbox feed you, then we’ll check on Alphabet and we’re going to do a real debrief. For you and for us.”

“What does a real debrief entail?” I really couldn’t shake the suspicion even if I would like to believe I could believe him.

“Get dressed, and I’ll show you. Easier to understand, and to trust, if you can experience it yourself.”

Meeting Am’s gaze in the picture, I turned the idea over in my head then lifted my attention back to Voodoo. Knowledge is power . I could practically hear her remind me. Truthfully? What choice did I have right now?

“Who did you have therapy with?”

Voodoo grinned. “Boney boy.”

I didn’t cheer.

Much.