He was going to learn it all. Every inch of her too.

Jaxon

“Do I have to worry about you?”

Since when has the asshole ever worried about him? Nice fucking try. Donning his fake concern, Finley was a master manipulator and people drew into his web of charm without objection. Jaxon never bought it for a second.

He looked into the man’s eyes and, without hesitancy, said, “No.”

Finley leaned back in his chair with his hands folded over his chest as he continued to watch Jaxon pretend that all was fucking dandy in the world. He enjoyed the discomfort people felt under his penetrating gaze, but Jaxon was one of the very few undeterred by it. He just stared right on back.

“If that’s the case,” replied Finley, “then why the fuck was there a shooting at their compound?”

“I needed answers.”

“Are you trying to fuck up the peace?”

“No.”

“Then let the fucking girl go.”

Jaxon gritted his teeth and made no response.

“It’s a fucking girl, Jaxon. You can find ten thousand others walking around this town her age. You fucked up big time. You killed Reaper’s brother, for fuck’s sake. Do you know what that could have meant for us? That could have been a fucking bloodbath with your name written all over it. At this rate, you’re the best man I have around here. I’ve put a lot of power in your hands, and if you keep on fucking it up, Jaxon, I’m going to have look elsewhere for someone like you who isn’t fucked up over a piece of pussy. Is that understood?”

Jaxon stiffened a nod. “Understood.”

“Good. Now get the fuck out.”

Jaxon stood up and, without a glance back, walked out, slamming the door shut behind him. Anger and hatred flowed in his veins. He wanted to fucking explode!

“Hey Jaxon,” said a few of the ladies as he waded through the bar.

Fuck off, he screamed internally.

Hands wrapped around his neck suddenly and he stared daggers at the nameless girl. “Get away from me,” he demanded. He really didn’t want to have to take his anger out on a goddamn woman he would have otherwise fucked any other night at this piece of shit place. He wanted one woman – one fucking woman and she was gone!

He grabbed her hands and whipped them off of him. Then he continued out of the bar and into the icy air.

*****

Jaxon sat behind the wheel of the car and stared at the apartment building. He’d been gone three hours. They were three miserable hours of contemplating all the bullshit she had put him through the last six months.

He knew he deserved better. He knew he should have walked out on her a long time ago. And while she’d pushed him before and sometimes slapped him, never had she left him the marks he had on now.

He ran his fingers along the scratches. They were crusted with old blood and pained him at the touch. He stared at the flakes of his blood on his fingers in disbelief. She had hurt him so fucking much. He should go right in there, pack his shit and walk the fuck out. Everything rational in his brain was telling him to do this. It said, Sara is one fucked up bitch and she will only get worse, and you will only get hurt. Walk the fuck away.

But love isn’t rational. It’s a fucking mess, that’s what love is. You can’t control the way you feel. If that was the case, he would have never wanted her in the first place. He’d have gladly sister-zoned her the day he rescued her from Jade Smith’s bullying hands. He’d have kept her at a safe distance and never have opened his heart to her.

Love was a different entity altogether. It picked and chose what it wanted. It disregarded logic – hell, it shat on logic – and then it buried away the pain and embraced the heart with feelings so euphoric, you’d forget all the bad just to feel it, even for a minute.

Sure, he deserved better. But he didn’t want anyone better. He wanted Sara in all her flaws and all her anger. That was a part of her that could be healed. After all, she had never been this way.

She was his one weakness, stripping him of all his strength until he was nothing but a fucking puddle in the palm of her hands. Whether she wanted that puddle to slip through her fingers didn’t matter. He would fight with all of him and get his Sara back – the real her.

He stepped out of the car and hurried inside. Just a few moments and she’d be in his arms again. Just a few…

Two

I told him everything.

Everything.

Like he promised, he kept to his word. Didn’t touch me, didn’t even swear. His passive eyes watched my mouth until the last words fell. Then the silence filled the room, and it took everything in me not to ask him what he was thinking. He possessed the kind of patience I’d never seen before. It’d taken me forever to get the words out, and now all I wanted was for him to say something.

Anything.

Finally, he rose up from the bed and quietly said, “I need to go. I’ll be back in the morning with some stuff for you. Try and get some sleep.”

Then just like that, he was gone.

I felt a stab of pain in my chest as I tried to decipher Remy’s lifeless face. I learned from Jaxon that a man with a stone face like that was hiding emotions even from himself. Was Remy hurting? Of course he’s hurting! He just found out his brother is dead!

For the first time in hours, I climbed out of bed. My legs wobbled on my way to the steel door. I put my hand against the cold surface, held my breath and rested my ear against it. I could hear nothing from the other side. Where the hell was I? Wherever it was, I felt completely isolated.

I knew before I tried that the door would be locked, but I checked anyway.

Yep, locked.

I dropped my hand from the handle and turned back around, staring at the room with much more clarity. Now that I was alone, coherent, and able to rationally put two thoughts together, I could really take a look around and see all there was before me.

The room was bare. The cement walls gave me an entrapment-like feeling, as if I was standing in the centre of an inescapable void. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but I wasn’t a fan of being so alone. I’d always had my phone attached to my hip because even a voice can chase away the forlorn thoughts that I’d have otherwise drowned in.

The room wasn’t scary in any shape of form. The blue bed sheets had smelled clean and unused. If this was Remy’s room, he didn’t use it often. Was it a guest room? There was only a bed and a dresser on either side… My eyes widened and my heart skipped a beat at a door in the corner against the same wall of the bed that I had overlooked.

I rushed to it and turned the handle. It opened freely and I was hit with a septic smell that sometimes accompanied a bathroom. Thank fuck for that! My bladder was a dam that was about to explode.

It was a tiny bathroom with a shower stall on one side, toilet and a small sink on the other. There was a white brick looking thing that I assumed was a bar of soap that hadn’t been used in about a century. No shampoos or towels. Please God, if you’re there, give me some toilet paper at least! Yes, there was a god. A stack of toilet paper rolls sat beside the toilet.

I gladly went about my business, splashed water on my face and rinsed my mouth. The taste of dried blood had me feeling around the inside of it for a moment until I hissed at a pain in my right gum. It had stopped bleeding at least, so it mustn’t have been serious. I’d have given anything for a mirror to see what I looked like.

Alas, exhaustion prevailed, and I meandered back to the bed, tripping over the same thing I’d tripped out of on my way out of it earlier. I looked down at a pair of black boots. I bent down and shoved them under the bed, cursing under my breath that even in guestrooms men had to find a place to dump their shit.

I paused just then, kneeling down to take a proper look under the bed. There was a small, brown box against one of the bed legs. I grabbed it and set it on the night table, and then I lifted the lid and peeked inside.

Uneasiness gripped me at the revolver and switch blade that sat within.

I hesitantly picked up the revolver and inspected it, turning it over in my hands. Was it loaded? Mesmerised by the simplicity of such a deadly weapon, I studied it for some time. It was a six cylinder, this much I did know. I’d watched enough Western movies as a kid with Jaxon to also know that to shoot you needed to pull the lever back and squeeze the trigger.

I quickly put it away before my sleep induced thoughts tried to convince me to meddle around with it. I didn’t want to know if it was loaded. Who the fuck cared? I wasn’t intending on shooting anyone, much less Remy.

I inspected the switch blade next. It looked rustic with a brown, worn out handle and a silver button. I pressed the button on the end of the handle and the blade jerked out. Huh. Its blade was only a few inches long, enough to do damage if you stuck it in the right spot. I folded it back and set it within the box, and then I slid the box back under the bed where I’d found it.

I climbed into the bed and wrapped the ultra-warm doona around myself.

It took me forever to fall asleep.

All I thought about was Jaxon.

*****

The noise of the door opening woke me up. I knew before I opened my eyes that it was Remy, and after a lonely night, I was thankful for some company.

Wearing the same clothes, he strode in looking worse for wear than yesterday: jeans and a black long sleeve shirt with his patched vest on. His face was paler, his eyes dimmed out by exhaustion, and his movements were slower. I watched him set some things down. The smell of food wafted into my nose and my stomach tightened in hunger.

“Morning,” he said, setting a large brown bag on the bed beside me. “Grabbed some breakfast.”

I sat up and rested my back against the headboard. “Thanks,” I said.

He nodded in return and began unloading the bag. Unloading… and unloading. Christ, there had to be a bottom to that bag eventually. My eyes bulged out of my head as I took in the containers of pancakes, bacon strips, hash browns, scrambled eggs, bagels and sausages.

“You really went all out,” I remarked dryly.

He nodded again without a word and handed me a paper plate and a plastic spork. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed, and his tired eyes watched me unwaveringly, taking in my every movement.

I won’t pretend that this wasn’t awkward. It was insanely fucking awkward. Why was he watching me like I was some lab experiment? I cleared my throat and looked on at all the food, trying my hardest not to feel the heat of his stare as I reached over for the pancakes. I placed two on my plate and then shovelled on some eggs and some sausages and… well, I managed to put everything on that damn plate. I was starving, my eyes bigger than my stomach, and the smell of it all had been too much to resist.

“You should eat, too,” I said, motioning to the food.

No spork and plate needed, he grabbed a sausage and devoured it in two bites, and then he went for some more. We ate in silence, and the awkwardness no longer bothered me because I was feeding my face with the greasiest of foods. Greasy foods and me meshed well. A happy woman is a full woman, right?

“What’s your favourite out of all this?” he randomly inquired, chewing quietly as he regarded me.

“The food?”

“Yeah.”

“Right now I’m loving the hash browns.”

“What do you usually have in the mornings?”

“Cereal.”

He stilled for a moment and his jaw tensed. “I didn’t get you cereal. How the fuck did I miss that?”

Was he seriously hating on himself for that? I pressed my lips down hard to fight my smile. “It’s no big deal at all. This is actually a nice change. I’ve barely found time in the last week to even have breakfast.”

He continued eating, and his eyes continued to roam me head to toe. Though he was impossible to read normally, I knew I saw the look of fascination in those dark irises of his. What he could possibly be fascinated about, I had no idea.

“You look shattered,” I commented, trying to inject some conversation between us.

He nodded. I wish he’d stop with the damn nods and just speak! He’d been attentive and talkative last night. Now he was silent and flat. Did he hate me after I’d come clean about his brother? Was this fascination really just abhorrence? Shit, did he blame me for his brother’s death?

I looked down at my food nervously and said, “You know, about last night… The things I told you... I understand if there’s animosity. I don’t expect you to be nice or understanding after what I told you happened–”

“No animosity whatsoever,” he interrupted firmly. “You did nothing wrong. What happened was Brett’s fault. Not yours. Understand?”

“Yeah.”

He leaned over and pushed my plate further into me. “Go on. Keep eatin’, Birdy. You look just as exhausted.”

My nerves died down immediately. I looked at him curiously, a certain repeated word of his getting the most attention in my thoughts.

“Birdy. Why do you call me that?”

He smirked like the question was amusing to him and stopped picking at the food. Giving me his undivided attention, he replied, “I’ve been calling you that since you were three. When the folks were busy and you were bein’ an annoying little shit, I was thrown in your play-pen to calm you down.”

I couldn’t resist my ear to ear grin.

“Toys did nothing for you,” he continued, face softening with his words. “You used to throw them out of your pen and scream like a chimp on fire, bangin’ the bars and shit ‘til you were purple in the face. The only thing that’d shut you up was a book, and the only reason I learned that was because you stole my favourite comic out of my hands once and tore it to pieces. But you did it quietly, so that was a fucking breakthrough.”