In His Keeping (Slow Burn #2)

He walked around as Ari began to scramble from where she was seemingly rooted to the seat. She couldn’t contain her wince and instantly closed her eyes when agony shot straight down her spine and ricocheted back up to the base of her skull, causing her neck to spasm.

She slid her feet down to the paved carport and her knees instantly buckled. Beau and Zack both made a grab for her and caught her just before she face-planted on the cement.

Zack simply hooked his arm underneath her knees and hoisted her up, cradling her against his chest. Beau looked as though he were going to protest, but Zack leveled a hard stare at him.

“You both look like shit,” he said bluntly. “You’ll be lucky to get yourself inside much less her.”

“I’m fine,” Beau bit out.

But he didn’t argue further, and heat crowded Ari’s cheeks as Zack strode purposefully into the house. It humiliated her that she had to be carried like an invalid. She hadn’t been prepared for her body’s reaction when she’d tried to move.

Even now the dull throb that had persisted the entire ride home had blown into jagged pain, like shards of glass scraping the inside of her skull. Thankfully Zack had picked her up so that the injured side of her faced outward and wasn’t pressed against his body. But he’d probably been cognizant of that. He didn’t seem like a man who missed the smallest details.

The wash of cool air raised chill bumps over her skin as soon as Zack carried her through the door. She began to shake in his arms and she had to clamp her jaw shut to prevent her teeth from chattering.

Zack looked down at her and then at Beau, frowning.

“She’s in shock. You need to get a doctor here to see to the both of you.”

“I said I’m fine,” Beau snapped. “Ari is the one who needs medical attention. She bled from her nose and ears and then she was shot. All I got was a few bruises from being knocked around in the accident.”

Zack shrugged, his expression indifferent.

“Where you want me to put her?” Zack asked.

She hadn’t thought it possible to be more embarrassed than she was already, but having the two men blithely discuss where to “put” her, like she was some inanimate object, just made her feel even more helpless and damn it, she was tired of feeling that way. She was tired of being so dependent on others. She wanted to be self-sufficient. But the fates were obviously working against her, because if she had any hope of seeing her parents alive and well and safe she had to depend on Beau’s promise that he’d find them. Because she certainly didn’t possess the skills to track down an unknown enemy or even find out why her parents had been taken and why someone wanted her badly enough to use her parents as leverage.

Was it her powers? It was the only plausible explanation. Before that damn video had gone viral, her existence had been peaceful. Sheltered, yes, but she’d finally spread her wings.

Her father had not been pleased when she’d refused his infusion of cash into her bank account. She’d gently but firmly told him that it was important to her to make her own way. To live as most other young women lived. A job, modest housing and an economical car. To her, those had all been signs of her achieving independence. It was a need that burned inside her, one that had bloomed and grown until it was all she could think about. It had become her sole focus and her goal. Not to run to her parents for every little thing. To do what most other adults did. Live within their means and make it work. Make life work. Meet normal people. Flirt, date, have a relationship without her father running a background check on any guy who so much as looked her way.

And now everything she’d worked to achieve had vanished because of one moment of panic when her survival instincts had taken over and all rational thought had fled. Not only was she paying the price, but her parents were paying dearly for her lapse in judgment. If they died because of what she’d done, she could never live with herself, could never forgive herself for doing the only thing her parents had ever asked of her. Never tell. Never use. Never reveal.

She closed her eyes against the sting of tears that had nothing to do with physical pain. Zack gently set her down on a plush sofa, propping pillows around her so she didn’t fall sideways. And she would have, because she was utterly boneless and sagged into the softness of the couch, keeping her eyes closed and inhaling through her nose so she didn’t give in to the urge to cry.

Crying did nothing to help her parents. They needed her to be strong. To have a level head and come through for them. Just as they’d come through for her time and time again. Always there when she needed them. Now they needed her and she’d be damned if she failed them.

“Ari, you’re bleeding again.”