Page 14

Chapter fourteen

Raegan

The hum of the motor is the only sound on the long drive.

The city lights disappeared a while ago, giving way to intermittent house or porch lights and our headlights to guide us.

I’m sitting sideways on Jackson’s lap, my head tucked into his neck and chest while my ankles rest against Dane’s inner thigh.

His thumb idly strokes the inch of skin where my pant leg ends.

He leans against his bent arm on the window, his hood down for once, gazing outside with a pensive expression.

Now that we’re not hiding from GE anymore, he doesn’t have to care about being hidden or not.

He’s staying at the Tower, and they know it.

If they want him, they’ll attack him there.

Even though he’s lost in his thoughts, his thumb never stops moving over my skin.

Maybe he’s thinking of me.

Or maybe, even if his mind is elsewhere, I’m never far from his thoughts.

Jackson’s heartbeat draws me back to him.

To the slow, steady beat that encourages my own wild pulse to settle with his.

Kellan’s four-seater car isn’t the only reason I’m sitting on top of these two in the back.

I finger the thin, metal loop at the end of a knife within the hoodie I’m wearing.

At first, I was fascinated by the smooth, protective material lining the inside.

I keep finding myself playing with it, searching for another pocket for a knife to slip into, leaving only the smallest bit of handle exposed.

Jackson left three flat throwing knives in his hoodie for me, but by my count, he could fit at least thirty of those between the front and sides.

I can’t reach the back to count the rest.

It's an easy distraction and one that I cling to for the beginning portion of the drive. Once that task loses its enjoyment, I burrow myself deeper into Jack, breathing him in on a drawn-out inhale that he mimics when his mouth presses against the top of my head. I’ve wrapped myself in his hoodie, in him, with the small hope that I can somehow soak in his calm confidence. That I can bolster my courage for what’s coming next.

The guys didn’t tell me where we’re going to take care of my wishes, and I didn’t ask.

We turn off the road into the woods, the car bumping and bouncing as the terrain shifts to dirt and rock. A thud in the trunk grabs my attention in a chokehold, and my breathing stops.

Dane curses when he hears it, too, snapping at Kellan in the driver’s seat. “Turn something on the radio, for fuck’s sake.”

Jackson tightens his arms around me. He says nothing, knowing there’s nothing to be done for me right now more than what he’s already doing.

“What do you want to hear, beautiful?” Kell asks, his eyes reaching mine through the rearview mirror.

“We have another thirty minutes until we get there,” Aiden answers my unspoken question from the passenger seat.

What do you listen to when you’re on the verge of burning to ash the very man who ruined you? Is there a playlist for that?

“Anything. Whatever’s on the radio.”

Kellan pushes the button to turn the radio on, but it’s Aiden who begins scanning the stations for a song. He stops on one, then casts a glance over his shoulder. It’s an old song, one that brings up happy memories with them. I offer him a small nod and close my eyes.

The high-pitch sound of brakes and crunching tires on dirt wakes me.

“We’re here,” Jackson whispers.

Kellan drops his seat forward and helps me crawl out of the back, Jack following behind. It’s darker than expected when I step out on shaking legs from sitting as I had for so long. I can hardly see my hand in front of me. The cover from the trees is thick enough to block most of the moon’s glow, trapping us in its shadow. There’s a low background hum of some bug that fills the area, while a sporadic hoot can be heard in the distance.

We’re well and truly in the middle of nowhere.

It’s perfect.

If we’d done this close to the city or Old Red, where I’d feared they’d bring me, then I wouldn’t be able to pass by without thinking of Gordon. And what I want more than anything right now is to forget him. To make him so unworthy of my thoughts that I disintegrate them with his body tonight .

The doors slam, breaking the sound of the woods abruptly and taking away the small light that it had provided. Jackson’s standing at my back, his hand on my hip to keep me grounded and with him. Someone walks up to me, and then a soft white glow illuminates between us, revealing Dane. He holds his other hand out to me. I take it, allowing his fingers to split mine.

“I’ve got her,” he tells Jack, who nods and walks to the trunk. I turn away from it. I’ll look at him when it’s time, but not until then. We’re on the side of a dirt road in the middle of the woods, the road rising and winding up ahead of us and a cliff on the opposite side.

Aiden moves in front of us and pivots so he can see everyone. His gaze falls on mine, and I hate how vulnerable I feel right now. This isn’t me. I know I’m stronger than this. Better than this. But something about Gordon always breaks me down to the names he’d called me. His presence gives strength to the whispers, the self-doubt.

I look away, hating that he’s seeing me like this, but not having the strength to muster any snark or challenge his way.

Not tonight.

I miss his expression after that, but it’s probably for the best. I just need to get through this night, and then I hope to seal away this weakness forever.

“It’s a bit of a hike to the spot. Are you ready?” Aiden asks.

Ready to be rid of Gordon, once and for all?

“I’m ready.”

The walk is just as quiet as the first hour of the car ride. Aiden leads us, his flashlight turned on and the GPS open on his phone to guide us to whatever spot he’d picked out .

Finally, he stops, and Kellan drives a shovel into the dirt where Aiden’s indicated.

I let go of Dane’s hand and grab the only free shovel since Kellan’s already started digging with his.

“Put the shovel down,” Aiden starts.

“You don’t need to do that,” Dane adds, moving up to my side.

I stab the shovel into the ground again, burying it deeper with one foot, then angling it back. “No, and yes. I do,” I say without stopping. “I can’t just stand around waiting. I need to do something.”

Dane makes a frustrated noise and moves out of my way.

“Why are there only two shovels?” he demands of Aiden.

“We’re only making a hole wide enough for the body. Any more than two people, and we’d be bumping into each other or causing unnecessary injuries.”

I don’t know where Jackson’s gone, although I assume it has something to do with the body. Kellan and I keep digging, and the physical labor helps take the edge off for a little bit.

Until it doesn’t.

Until I keep losing myself to memories of my time with Gordon.

Memories when he’d threatened me.

Threatened the others.

Called me worthless. Useless. Dangerous. A monster.

How he’d always drag me back up after I’d collapsed, demanding more from me than I ever thought I could give. And somehow, I’d do it. I’d manage to accomplish what he wanted, and he’d let me sleep.

The words he’d slip into my head like venom, seeping into my mind and taking root. Words that cut me down. Words that offered me hope with him. Words of backhanded praise. Words and words and words. Over and over again.

Who needs a weapon or a gift when words can be so powerful to destroy a person?

“That’s enough.” The shovel jerks to a stop as my chest heaves gasping breaths. Now that it’s still, I feel my arms tremble. It’s from digging, I’m sure, until I feel something tickle my jaw. A drop of water falls to the dirt. The hole is four feet wide and probably three feet deep. There’s still more to be done.

Kellan has paused his efforts to watch our exchange. I look up at Aiden, who has taken my shovel captive. “I can keep going.”

“Maybe you can, but we can’t.” He tugs one of my hands free and scrutinizes it in the dim light of a fire someone built while I’d been working. His thumb trails over my palm, and a sharp pinch of pain makes me flinch. He frowns. “None of us can stand still and watch you hurt yourself any longer. I’ve let it go on long enough, if not too long. It looks like that will blister.”

I yank my hand back, then scrub any weakness from my face with the back of my arm. “Good. It’ll be proof that I was here. That this happened, and it wasn’t just a dream.”

His dark eyes soften. Soften. “Give me the shovel, Raegan.” I hesitate, unwilling to give up the work to have one of the others take over for me. I can finish this. I can. “Now.”

“Rae…” Dane chimes in softly, and I know I’m outnumbered. Rather than fight them when I’m already feeling brittle, I release the shovel.

Dane helps me step out of the small hole, and then we sit on the ground.

Aiden sticks the shovel into the dirt, then strips off his suit jacket and tosses it to the side. He removes his tie next, then rolls up his white sleeves to his elbows. Here we are, digging holes in dirt and preparing to burn a body, and he’s still dressed to the nines like this is any ordinary business task.

He and Kellan get to work, focusing on depth and only a bit more width when they keep bumping into one another despite their best efforts. Finally, when all I can see are the tops of their heads—and Kellan’s forehead—they emerge, tossing their shovels out of the hole and then climbing out.

Jackson appears from the darkness, the firelight casting a soft glow to one side of his face while the rest is dressed in shadow. He lifts a hand, and several dark shapes fall into the hole too fast for me to see.

Dane helps me to my feet, then moves to peek over the hole first, using his gift to bring light to it so he can see. His face twists with disgust, and he swears. “Fuck, that’s ripe.” He looks over his shoulder at me. “You don’t have to look.”

“I do.” I may not want to, but I need to. To see with absolute certainty that it’s him down there. That there was no mistake. It’s him. And he’s dead.

The others are standing at the edge, peering down.

“The freezer kept him from decaying too much, but it appears that rapidly changed during the drive,” Aiden comments.

“What’s in his mouth?” Kellan asks Jack, who smirks wickedly.

“His tiny dick.”

Fuck. I don’t want to see that .

Bile rises in my throat, and I force it down with a thick swallow.

I take a step. And another. Each step feels heavier than the last. As if the weight of the world is sinking down on me the closer I am. At last, I reach the hole, standing in the space equally between Dane and Jackson.

I look down.

I’m not sure what I’m looking at initially. It takes a few moments for my brain to register that I’m staring at pieces of Gordon at the bottom of the hole. The skin is sloughing from the muscle, making each part look… wrong . Nearly unrecognizable. The only thing in one whole piece is his head, which stares up with a haunting pale gaze and something wrapped between his lips and around his head.

I don’t focus on that, now that I know what’s there, and instead force myself to acknowledge the face that I’d still know, even though the decay has started.

It’s him.

Gordon.

I’m free .

That should be it, right?

There’s no magical change in me. No shift in my mood. No internal assurance or relief.

I stare at the pieces of the man who broke me, and I feel no more whole than I had an hour ago. A day ago.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dane snaps. “Why do you always have your dick out?”

I blink back to myself, looking at the guys around me to see what’s going on. Kellan has his dick in hand, pointed downward. He looks to me. “Do you mind, beautiful?”

“Uh…sure.”

Grinning, he pisses all over Gordon, wagging his hips around to make sure he gets all of him.

“You’re disgusting,” Dane gripes, then checks in with me.

I shrug. He’s dead already, so what happens to him doesn’t matter now. Whether he’s cut to pieces or peed on, he doesn’t feel any of it. But I can agree with that level of contempt for him. I’d probably join him if I could aim as well as they can.

More liquid pours down the hole, and I turn to Jackson. He squeezes a bottle of lighter fluid over it. The bottle squirts empty, and he drops it in the hole, too. Jack pulls a box of matches from his pocket, makes eye contact with me, then tosses it.

I catch it on reflex.

“Light him up, little one.”

Right.

Thumbing the box, I pick a match from the pile and strike it along the edge. The spark instantly catches, changing to a bright and then steady flame. Its heat warms my fingertips as the tiny blaze flickers and dances in the mild nighttime air. I take a deep breath, and the smell of sulfur fills my nose.

I drop the match over the hole.

The tiny light falls down the dark pit, then bursts into a full flame the second it meets the lighter fluid. It gobbles Gordon up, hungrily spreading over his remains and flaring brighter, higher, until I can see nothing but the fire.

I stare at it, mesmerized. Hoping it will melt and seal the cracks in my soul if I stand close enough.

“We’re going to defeat Gifted Enterprise.” Aiden’s voice draws my gaze to him. His eyes are locked on mine, his expression serious. Dirt powders his white dress shirt, streaks smeared across his face and exposed forearms from sweat. “No matter what happens, the five of us will prevail. I swear this to you, Raegan, on Gordon’s corpse. He’s the first of many. We’ll do the same with Thorne. Royce. Holt. Charles. And anyone else from GE who tries to stop us.”

His words hang in the night with so much power that I can almost feel it resonate in my chest. Maybe it’s these woods, or the time of night, or the ritualistic burning of our enemy at our feet. But it feels like his words hold weight that fills the air around us, suspended in time like the air in my lungs.

The others are watching me with a similar intensity, and I wonder if there was something to the calls for witchcraft hundreds of years ago. If there isn’t some truth to what was said about what happened, if magical oaths like this are possible, or if it had been a single gifted user with that ability, and people assumed all others with magic could do the same.

My body heats beneath their stares, and I’m suddenly filled with the urge to touch each of them. To feel their skin on mine. My clothing feels tight and restrictive, and I want to rip it off. I want to stand at their center and offer myself to them, give in to them while they equally give in to me. My heart hammers in my chest, and electricity buzzes under my skin as I’m consumed by those thoughts. By the nagging need to press myself against each and every one of them. I crave their hands on me more than oxygen, my body pulsating with that insatiable ache.

I lick my parted lips, staring at each of them and all of them at once, ready to make that demand, when a loud POP from the fire behind us makes my heart stutter out of rhythm and my breath expels in a rush.

Fuck. What was I about to do?

I take another draw of air, realizing then that they’re all waiting for me to say something. Focusing back on the fiery pit, I steel myself to speak to Gordon one last time.

“You are nothing to me. When the last flame leaves you with nothing but bones, I’m going to destroy those, too. There will be no remnants left of you in this world or the next. Because one day, I’m going to forget you completely. It may not be today or tomorrow, but I promise that day will come when I’ll be free of you.”

Kellan tosses another log on the fire—the one without the body in it—and the fire crackles and spurts a slew of sparks into the air.

I’m cuddled against Dane, his arm around my back as we lean against the boulder Jackson dropped by the fire for us.

“We need more wood,” Kellan murmurs to Aiden, who stands from one of the logs he’d cut to make bench seats around the fire. He draws out an axe made completely of metal and follows Kellan out of the small clearing into the denser woods to pick out another small tree to fell for firewood .

I didn’t expect burning a body to its bones to take so long.

Then again, I don’t think I did a whole lot of thinking about what would come after seeing his body. That pretty much occupied all my thoughts.

Jackson has been keeping the fire in the hole well-oxygenated and burning, but it’s been hours since it began.

I close my eyes, trying to let the quiet sounds of nature lull me to sleep, but it never comes. I can’t sleep here, knowing what’s happening a few yards behind me.

“How are you feeling?” Dane asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. “I feel…nothing…right now. Just…blank. No anger, no sadness, no relief. No sense of closure like I’d hoped.”

He hums softly. “I’m probably the last person to give advice on closure,” he teases gently. “When you told me Vera was dead…I don’t think I ever accepted it. I never saw her after that, so it didn’t feel real. I tried writing to her in my notebook to see if that would help, but I think it just made my denial worse.”

My chest squeezes tightly at the memory of when I’d told him she was dead. That I had done it. And how he must have felt, day after day, as he wrangled with whether or not to believe me. And then what it was like when each day passed, and he never saw her. Years later, when I saw him for the first time in that auto repair shop, he was still drowning in the pain of her loss, as fresh as if it had just happened.

“What I’m trying to say is…I don’t think there’s some perfect moment that gives us closure. I think it’s something we have to work on , on our own terms, about what that means to us. Whether that’s accepting it’s over, deep in our hearts, letting time create the distance we need to be able to leave it behind—and actually choosing to do it—or some other way.”

He pauses. Swallows. “It’s you who helped me move forward, Rae. As long as I’m with you, I’ve been able to live again. I can breathe again. Enjoy the little moments and have hope for the future. You mean everything to me.”

My eyes and throat burn with emotion, and I grip his hoodie, needing to feel the beat of his heart and his warmth.

“Whatever it takes for you to get closure on him, on this, I’m here for you.” He draws my face up to look at his, his eyes capturing mine in their golden depths that flicker and burn just as strongly as the fire reflected in them. “And I want you to know that I’ve forgiven you for what happened in the past. I’m not just saying it this time. I mean it with everything I am.”

Fuck.

I hook my hand around the back of his head, bringing us together in a crash of lips that taste like salt and sorrow. Of sweet solace that feels like a balm on my soul.

I don’t know if I’ll ever completely heal from my past, but I know that I’ll find happiness so long as I’m with these four men. They’ll fill in the cracks left behind and make me stronger.

I can feel Jackson’s presence before I hear the purposeful scuff of his boot on the dirt behind me. Dane and I break away slowly, not wanting the kiss to end but knowing the night isn’t over yet.

“It’s time.” Jack’s cool voice runs down my spine, inducing a shiver of desire. It’s ungodly how much I want all of them, all the time. Maybe it makes no sense to others in this world how my heart can want them all the same, but I can feel it in the very marrow of my bones that the five of us are meant to be together. I glance over my shoulder at him, and Jack’s smirk deepens at my expression, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

I know he would be on board with what I want, as well as Kellan. Maybe even Dane. But Aiden…

My gaze moves across the fire, finding Aiden and Kell standing at the edge of the fire ring and watching us. There’s a hardness to Aiden’s stare that tells me he watched enough of Dane and me to have triggered his jealous and possessive instincts. Only his care for his brothers and his role as leader is holding him back for now.

“Let’s finish this, then,” I reply nonchalantly. Like we’re taking care of a simple house chore rather than completing the murder and annihilation of Gordon. Dane and Jackson help me to my feet, and they keep me between them as we walk to the pile of bones lying in front of the pit, stopping as one.

Kellan and Aiden join us a second later while I ready my gift. It responds at once, snaking up from my gut to my hand, giving it a dark reddish glow. Kneeling, I don’t bother with words or promises this time. I touch the nearest piece of burned ivory, pushing my gift into it and every bone it touches. Bone cracks and shifts from the spiderweb of power that runs through it until, finally, I have them all, and I send a strong burst of my gift through it.

The bones instantly turn to ash, small piles lined along the ground at my feet. The particles lift as one, rising from the earth until they’re high enough to be caught on the small breeze. Jackson buffers it, strengthening the air moving around us so the dust scatters in the wind.

And just like that, he’s gone.