Page 55 of Unnatural (Men and Monsters #2)

And it made her wonder about Sam. He’d said he was cured with a medication that harmed him.

That the medication made the surgeries he’d endured necessary.

But he’d also been trained as a sort of super soldier to fight and to kill.

But what had that training consisted of?

Had Sam been tortured in ways he didn’t speak about?

What had he experienced that Autumn still didn’t understand?

Another chill went through her, this one born of fear at what she might not know.

Knowledge she’d be faced with that would hurt.

But Sam will have been the one who experienced it. It’s not about you. Still, she felt herself bracing for what might be to come.

Harper had paused, but now she went on. “The loneliness was the worst, I think. And knowing that others could have helped him but didn’t.”

Autumn nodded. She understood that, even if she didn’t yet have all the pieces of her own puzzle.

But to know that hospital staff possibly stood by as she was lied to and hurt made her heart crack under the weight of the betrayal.

To know that others might not have considered her worth saving, even strangers, hurt in a way that was difficult to articulate.

Someone had decided her life meant nothing.

It had to take someone so viciously soulless to be able to watch a child endure horrific circumstances and not step in.

“Did those people come to justice?” she asked.

Harper paused. “Yes. I’d say so. Except for the man who heads the program,” she murmured, her brow furrowing as she pulled her coat more tightly around her.

“Dr. Swift,” Autumn said.

“Yes, that’s him,” Harper said. “If any human being deserves to burn in the fiery pits of hell, it’s that man. And until he’s caught, this network will continue.”

“He’s the head of the snake,” Autumn murmured.

“Exactly.”

“Does Jak have a role in this task force that Agent Gallagher runs?”

“He consults with Mark, yes. We’re also able to provide part of the funding in the form of private donations when necessary.

Jak’s grandfather left him a rather large inheritance when he died.

” They rounded a bend in the river and walked in silence for a moment before Harper stopped. “Should we turn around?”

Autumn halted too. “Oh, yes, I’m sorry. You’re probably tired.” They turned and began heading back to the house that was a mere speck now. Autumn could barely make out the two figures standing at the deck, talking about who knew what.

Harper smiled. “I’m fine, but Sam will be looking for you, and I don’t want to walk out of sight. He’ll want to see where you are, even if you’re not right next to him.” She gave Autumn a smile that was both teasing and knowing. “You’re obviously very close.”

Autumn felt Harper’s questioning gaze on her but felt warmed by her curiosity. She had an ally, someone who understood something few others would.

“Yes,” Autumn said. She gave her a brief description of how they’d met, glossing over most of the details the way Harper had with Jak’s story.

She knew they both understood the magnitude of what was beneath the surface.

Autumn had a feeling she and this woman were going to be friends, not only because of their shared experience but because she seemed like a lovely person and was already easy to talk to.

There was a relatively short stone wall separating the property they were staying on and the one next to it, and Harper gestured to it and then hoisted herself up, letting out a small laugh at what Autumn assumed she saw as a lack of grace.

Autumn took a seat next to her, glancing up at the deck where both Sam and Jak were still conversing, both men leaning on the rail, their gazes fixed on the spot where Autumn and Harper sat.

Autumn moved her gaze to the water where Harper was also looking, and for a moment, they sat in companionable silence.

After a minute, Harper said, “You love him.”

Was it that obvious? “Yes,” Autumn admitted, and something about admitting it to another person made it feel all the more real.

She picked at a thread on the hem of her wool coat.

There were so many issues, so many questions to resolve, healing that had to happen.

But it seemed to Autumn that all that would come much more easily if she could help Sam through it.

With love. The same way that Bill and the town had helped her.

Day by day. But while the town and Bill loved her, she was in love with Sam, and that, perhaps, added a level of complication. “How do I love him right?”

“Accept him,” Harper said immediately. “Honor his choices. Don’t presume what’s right for him. He’s had a lifetime of that.”

A leaf floated by on the water, caught in an eddy, swirling in front of where they sat and then moving on. “Don’t treat him like a child,” Autumn clarified.

“Right. And that can be tempting because men who have grown up the way Jak and Sam have didn’t get a childhood. In some respects, they’re incredibly innocent. And in others, they’re very, very jaded.”

Yes, that was an apt way to describe Sam. He was very literal too, which Autumn found charming yet frustrating. That innocence Harper spoke of.

“Even more than that, Autumn, you have to love all of him. You have to let him know you love and accept every part of who he is. Not everything he’s done—others choreographed that, manipulated, and coerced in horrific ways.

But he’s forever changed because of it. And you have to assure him you love him—you want him—for every aspect of himself.

He can’t fear you secretly hate a part of who he is, no matter how small, no matter if he’d rid himself of it if he could.

It’s there, and you have to love him for it. ”

Wow. Autumn took a moment to let Harper’s words penetrate.

She sensed deeply the truth in what she’d said.

And she could only imagine the things Jak had struggled to accept about how he’d lived, perhaps what he’d done to survive, and how important Harper’s acceptance was to him.

Yet while Sam and Jak were similar, the difference was that Jak had grown up almost completely alone.

“How did Jak survive the loneliness?” she asked, because while hearing it earlier had broken her heart, she was still amazed that he’d come out of it emotionally intact.

“He found my mother’s teaching notes,” Harper said, shooting Autumn a smile.

“It’s a long story that I’ll happily tell you later, but when I was a child, we were in a car crash in the wilderness where Jak grew up.

The authorities never found the vehicle, but Jak did.

My mother’s notes were in it, and they sustained him in so many important ways.

” And though it’d obviously been many years since she’d discovered this fact, her expression still spoke of amazement. Her mother’s teaching notes.

“Sam found my journal when we were only teens,” Autumn murmured.

When Harper looked over at her curiously, Autumn explained, “It was just a book of poems and musings. Some drawings…” She shrugged.

“Thoughts and dreams. He memorized it though. Every word. It was taken from him, so he rewrote it for me,” she said, and even she could hear the awe in her voice.

Still. It still awed her that he’d read it so many times he’d committed it to memory.

“That was the thing,” Harper murmured, and there was awe in her tone as well.

“The thing?”

“The thing that saved. There has to be a thing , Mark says. Or a person. Just one. And he’s right.

A miracle.” She grabbed Autumn’s hand and squeezed it.

“Your journal kept him sane,” she said. “And it kept him human. It made him ask questions and showed him an alternative to what he was being taught. It opened his heart, and when the heart awakens, the mind will follow. They thought they caged his mind, Autumn, but your journal was an open window. The others didn’t have that.

In some ways, you are a god to him. You are the voice in the dark. You are his angel. You are hope. ”

“Oh…no, that can’t be true.” I’m so imperfect. Not nearly worthy of that. Not nearly able. “But if it is, I don’t know if I can be that for someone forever.”

“You can’t be,” Harper said. “He has to find his own voice, or he won’t survive.”

“How do I help him do that?”

“You already have. Now all you can do is be there for him as he navigates the rest. Jak did, and I’m placing my bets that Sam will as well.”

Autumn turned Harper’s words over in her mind. They simultaneously filled her with hope and apprehension. They brought insecurity too. “Do you think my journal…the words he used to sustain himself…well, that’s why he…”

“Is hungry for you?” Harper laughed. “Anyone can see it in a glance. Men like Jak and Sam are very…forthright in that way. They don’t hide it.

They can’t.” She shot Autumn a grin. “No. I’m sure he feels some gratitude and respect for what your mind created that was strong enough to hang on to through whatever suffering he endured.

But…you very obviously appeal to him for…

other reasons as well. Reasons I don’t think have anything to do with your poetry. ”

She grinned again, and Autumn couldn’t help her answering smile.

After a moment though, Harper’s smile dwindled. “He’s hungry for you. And that scares him.”

“Should it scare me too?”

Harper shrugged. “Maybe. You’ll have to decide that. But if you decide it does, you have to let him go.”

Autumn blew out a slow breath. Yes, that truth had been skating at the edge of her mind, and she hadn’t yet acknowledged it because she hadn’t wanted to. But she felt it in her bones. Yet even the thought of letting him go made her ache inside.

They were both quiet for another moment, Harper obviously letting her mull that over.

It felt like something Autumn needed to do in private though, somewhere she could listen closely to her own heart, so she changed the subject.

“You’re obviously close to Agent Gallagher,” she said. “Can we trust him?”

Harper smiled warmly. “Implicitly. We do. He proved himself to us many years ago when he helped rescue Jak and helped him find his place in the world. And he’s been a part of our lives ever since.

He’s a grandfather to our son, and”—she patted her stomach—“to this one. And he’s a father figure to us both.

He’s a good man, through and through. Trust him.

I promise. You will not find a better team member. ”

Team member. “Thank you. It’s been hard. Only us, facing so much uncertainty alone.” And it’d been wonderful too, in some ways, but Autumn was so incredibly grateful that they had a team to walk with into whatever might be coming next.

“You’re not alone anymore,” Harper said, resting her hand on her shoulder.

“We’re only here for a short time, helping you and Sam settle in, offering whatever we can.

And then we’ll head back to Montana. But I hope you’ll consider us family and call on us whenever you need to.

And if at any point, you want to stay with us, we have more than enough room. ”

Relief flowed through Autumn, a feeling of community that she’d felt when she’d first moved in with Bill and met the people of her town.

Only she’d been so young then, slower to trust, slower to listen to her gut, skittish in ways she wasn’t now.

She stood, reaching out her hand for Harper, who took it and stepped down from the wall, offering the same self-deprecating laugh she had when she’d climbed onto it.

“Thank you, Harper. You have no idea how much I needed a friend.”

Harper linked her arm with Autumn’s as they started to walk. “Oh, but I do. I know very well.”

Autumn conceded the point with a smile as they headed back up the stairs toward their men.