Page 30 of Redemption (Devil Dogs of the Apocalypse #4)

Hawk

“Do you ever miss airplanes?”

Her sweet voice drifts to my ears, a soft balm to my overactive mind. Sun-baked sand warms my back as we look up at the sky, the last minutes of daylight sinking beneath the horizon as we watch the sunset together. “What do you mean?”

“They were everywhere... before. A ticket could take you anywhere. To see anything. An escape, even for just a little while.”

She squints her eyes at the waning light, almost like she’s imagining them still flying over us, oblivious to the fact that, instead of staring at the sunset as she is, I’m basking in her, imagining that it’s me taking her wherever she wanted to go. It didn’t matter where; I’d always follow her.

I turn on my side, lifting my hand to her hip, and then trailing my fingertips higher along her stomach, taking pleasure in the fact that not only does she allow my touch, but that she’s mine. Ours.

What would life have looked like if the virus never happened?

If she didn’t make the trek all the way down the east coast on the slight chance there would be something at the end of the road waiting for her?

My life certainly wasn’t all sunshine and daisies beforehand.

I had a job. A career. A house. Friends.

Family. Even had a few lovers. But fulfillment was never on the table.

I was content but never truly satisfied. Never truly happy... until Aly.

I can’t imagine my life without her. The warmth and excitement she brings to our group every single day with just her smile—you can’t find that just anywhere.

It’s rare. An extraordinary circumstance to find—who I consider to be—my soulmate at the end of the world.

One who also loves my best friends. The odds are astronomical.

“Where would you go? If we were still able to, that is.”

She sighs, bringing her arms up over her head and arching her back into the stretch, accentuating her curves beautifully while drawing my eyes to her hips, her chest, and her fingers as they dig themselves into the sand above her.

Her head tilts whimsically as she thinks for a moment on the many possibilities, while all I want to do is pull her into my arms and try to make all her dreams come true.

“It wouldn’t matter...,” she replies with a dismissive shrug.

My eyebrows furrow. “There’s no place in the world you’ve always wanted to see?”

She shakes her head opposingly, but a tiny grin lifts the side of her mouth.

Curiosity takes hold, and I poke a finger at her shoulder. “Come on. Humor me. It’s just a game, after all. Where’s the one place on Earth you’d love to visit if you could?”

Her shoulders lift again, only now her smile’s grown, illuminating her entire face as she turns her gaze to mine. “It wouldn’t matter... because I’d be with you.”

Unable to hold myself back any longer, I reach for her, my palm to her jaw, turning her towards me.

Our lips meet, electricity sparking between us with the overflowing passion I have for this woman.

My hand follows the curves of her body, the physical map of my obsession.

The woman of my dreams and my waking hours.

My end and my beginning. My everything. “You’re so fucking perfect, sweetheart. ”

My fingers sink into her hair, pulling her closer and allowing me to show just how much love I have for her.

She melts into the kiss while pulling at my shoulders, demanding even more.

My tongue traces the seam of her lips, begging for entry, needing to taste her, to feel her everywhere.

Her mouth opens on a gasp of ecstasy, and I press my tongue to hers, feeling her entire body tremble as we explore the expanse of one another, lost to our love and devotion.

The sand shifts, and a moment later a solid body conforms to my back, a heavy arm draping over both of us as lips connect with my shoulder.

The soft pressure traces up to my neck, leaving goosebumps behind, before hovering with bated anticipation and soft, confident declarations.

“We will always be with you.” Angling his body over mine, his mouth collides with ours, mingling so seamlessly with our kiss I can’t tell where one person ends and another begins.

The slight scrape of his stubble scratches at my jaw and cheek, creating the perfect friction just before he bites my lip, drawing back enough for me to see his face.

Cole.

“Always,” he repeats, a promise in the words that shakes my soul with the realization that it’s all I’ve ever wanted.

A new shadow stalks just beside us, bending down and coming closer before settling on the other side of Aly.

Our kiss pauses as a large hand reaches over her, squeezing my shoulder as he nods and vehemently agrees, “Forever.” He leans down and looks deeply into Aly’s eyes before capturing her lips just as passionately as I had a moment ago.

Together we form a single unit. One family. One life. One future.

“I love you,” Aly says to the three of us surrounding her.

“And I will always love you.”

Pain shoots up and down my back, a blazing trail of agony carving its path along my nerve endings, jarring me back to reality.

Ooooh. Fuuuuuuccccck.

I can confidently say I haven’t felt this awful in fucking... ever. Everything hurts. My head. My neck. My back. Even my eyes hurt like a sonofabitch. It’s like I’m waking up with the world’s worst hangover after also having the shit kicked out of me.

And then getting run over by a bus.

Filled with elephants.

Big, bulky, woolly mammoth ones.

I go to swallow, but it’s like glass shards scraping their way down my throat, and my head is pounding so hard it could probably give an HBCU college drumline a run for its money.

Can I get a redo? Hit the home button and restart the level? No one should ever have to wake up like this. Fucking horrible. Do not recommend. Zero stars.

It’s difficult, but I force myself to open my eyelids and try to figure out what the hell happened.

While I can proudly say that one of my eyes is at least functioning properly, the other is on vacation, choosing not to work when I really need him in the office today.

Everything is black on that side, and my eyelid simply won’t budge at all.

Crusted closed or swollen, I have no idea. It’s just fucked. Absolutely FUBARed.

That’s just lovely.

Instinctively, I go to lift my hand to get a better feel of the damage, but instead, I’m met with debilitating numbness and the metallic clank of chains.

It’s an unexpected sound to hear when you first wake up but is annoyingly confirmed when I look over and—with barely any help from the waning light peeking through the tiny, barred egress window—see just how far up Shit’s Creek I am.

Both my wrists and ankles are secured by the heavy links. My arms spread out above my head, while my splayed legs complete the picture, forming my body into a crude X; a sadist’s wet dream.

Well, that’s inconvenient, to say the least. And it brings up a few more pressing questions I’d like answers to sooner rather than later. Like why my nuts are currently emulating CoverGirl makeup models.

Easy, breezy, and beautiful, bitches.

Fucking chained to a damn wall. And naked, to boot. Completely exposed to the wandering masses. Anyone curious enough to look into the dark and dank room might wonder how I ended up in this position.

Myself included. Especially since I’m almost positive I wore a pair of Jockeys to bed last night....

Shit.

The memory of this morning hits me like a sack of potatoes, which just adds to the pain of what I'm already dealing with. We were infiltrated. Snuck up on by some rats in our sleep. How the hell did that even happen? The amount of perimeter checks and room clearing we did should have kept us safe from everything. Zombies and douchebags alike. There wasn’t even anyone in that godforsaken town to know we took over the place.

“A two-for-one special.” That’s what those guys said before they knocked me on my ass. The thought causes my heartbeat to race.

Cole. I saw him get hit by something. A bullet, maybe? He went down before I did. Before I fought those guys with every waning beat in my pulse and inevitably wound up on the floor right with him.

Fuck, I hope he’s ok. But, then again, I was shot too. A couple of times, in fact.

I look down at my torso—where I know I was hit—and see only a small bruise where a decent-sized bullet wound should be.

If I don’t have a bullet wound... what the hell did they shoot us with?

Must have been some sort of tranquilizer or drugs. Nothing else would have knocked me on my ass like that if it wasn’t.

Aly’s beautiful face floods my mind along with Jax. Fuck, where were they? Did they get taken as well?

I pull on the chains overhead, grunting, groaning, and growling in the growing darkness as I strain my muscles in a feeble attempt to loosen the bolts buried in the wall.

“Come on, you useless motherfucker!” Planting my feet at the base, I twist my torso, nearly dislocating my shoulders as I try over and over again to dislodge the metal from the concrete.

I need to get to her. To them. My mind spins at not knowing where they are or if they’re even safe.

Times aren’t like they used to be. Being a woman has always been treacherous—never being able to go out at night without some sort of protection, always covering your drinks at bars—but nowadays? It’s fucking worse.

She’d already been abducted once that I know of.

Earl and his little fuckboy crew managed to snatch her right off the road last year.

Jax took care of him and his gaggle of degenerates, though, leaving pieces of every one of them scattered all over the property like little flecks of celebratory confetti.

Don’t you love it when vengeance is reaped and you end up redecorating at the same time? Multi-tasking, am I right?