“The question is, why have they not come after me?” How did they know where she would be?
Pulling up to the manor, he enters the code and while the gate opens, he replies, “It was you. They just hit when you weren’t looking.”
“Sara Jane isn’t a cheap shot. She’s their death wish. If they were looking for a fight, they found one.”
Checking the time, it’s been twenty minutes since I left her. Twenty minutes of her fighting for her life. I need to get back. I need to know how she’s doing. After he parks, my pulse races as I walk to the door, the blood in my veins still pumping. I can feel it. I can feel her inside me. She’s alive. Her pulse courses through me, giving me life. She surrounds me even when we’re not together. “Get an update from Jason. I’m going to shower.”
Not five minutes later, I’m standing under the shower spray, my head lowered, my eyes closed as the only tears I’ll allow fall to the basin.
My story.
My alibi.
My statement.
My Sara Jane.
My girl.
Her parents. They’re going to be an issue. They’ve watched her change, grow into the woman I knew she could be. She isn’t the sort of girl who would be content to just be some man’s wife, waiting on a man hand and foot. She wouldn’t feel content with a nine-to-five job. She would never be someone’s possession to own.
No, that’s not Sara Jane.
She was born to fly. To soar.
They think they know what is best for her, but I know she needs to live freely and have known that from the moment I first saw her. Her innocence cloaked the woman beneath, the bold and strong woman I knew she would become. They’ll say she ran away from me, but I know the truth. She only ran because she was scared of what she was feeling and experiencing. The change scared her, though she had nothing to fear. That was then.
This is now.
I will never be above her, always her equal or beneath.
She’s mine.
I’m hers.
My queen must live.
2
Alexander
Who is he?
Who is he really?
Where did he come from?
What is his story?
There’s more to Jason Koster than what we know, but he offers little detail. Chad found him as soon as he found where Sara Jane had disappeared to. The perfect operative in the perfect place at the perfect time. A little too perfect. Our fates aligned. He needed money, and I needed someone to watch over my Firefly.
Jason doesn’t flinch under pressure, and I’ve begun to wonder who we’ve let into our lives. What was he running from? How did he end up in a small town in the middle of nowhere? I watch how he has so purposefully gone through details of “handling the situation” as he and Cruise call it. He says, “New gravel’s already been poured.”
“The fucker’s car?” asks Cruise.
“Sold for parts. It will never operate as one vehicle again. The plates have already been melted down.”
Wondering at one point when life became so insignificant that it’s not even mentioned by them, I ask, “And Chad?” My throat is dry, the loss of one of my best friends beginning to take its toll. I hide my feelings when it comes to him, a skill I’ve perfected over the years. But one thought of Firefly fighting for her life and my shield cracks.
Jason looks at me. He sits too comfortably, too smug on the couch across from me. There’s something eerie about the way he can hold my stare as if he sees through me. He sees my weakness. He knows what brings me to my knees. We’ve not talked about his time with Sara Jane, but it’s there between us, waiting for one of us to broach the topic. I’m not afraid to go there with him, but now is not the time. He says, “His body was put in the river. We thought it only right that his parents have a body to bury.”
Cruise looks away, his fists clenching, but he says, “The police will find him by sunrise.”
My stomach twists as I stare at him, not sure I’m processing what has happened. If any of us deserved better, it was Chad. Shelly needs us. “I need to call Shelly.” Both of them look away from me. “What?”
“She called me.” Shaking his head, Cruise continues, “I know you wanted to contact her first, but I couldn’t ignore the call. She was looking for Chad and Sara Jane.”
Jason adds, “She already knew Sara Jane needed help.”
“That’s why she called me and told me where we could find them,” Cruise adds, standing.
“So she knew from Chad, but she stayed behind?”
“Yes. He told her to wait for us to return, but she called me as soon as he left. Worried.”
“That’s why you told me to follow you. Why didn’t you tell me what happened?”
“I didn’t know what we were walking into.”
He knew I’d be worried about Sara Jane. I want to be mad at him. I am deep down, but I get it. He’s right. I wouldn’t have been rational had I known prior, and if Nastas hadn’t already shot them, he would have when we showed up. “I reacted on instinct.”
Looking around, his eyes settle forward. “This place is huge.” I don’t bother justifying my life to him. He doesn’t say anything else about my quarters, and pulls my gun from the back of his jeans and sets it on the coffee table. It’s almost shining it’s so clean. “I brought your gun back,” Jason says. “It’s good to have a sense of right and wrong.”
“You’re saying it’s right that I killed that guy?”
“I’m saying he killed your friend and tried to kill your girlfriend. It’s not wrong in my book.”
“I know you wanted to wait and talk to Shelly, but it wouldn’t have eased her pain, so I told her Chad is missing and Sara Jane is at the hospital,” Cruise says.
Jason says, “She’s a good cover. She’ll tell the story she knows, which is nothing. Sara Jane called her, Chad went to help, and she called Cruise. There’s nothing more for her to tell.”
My eyes dart to his. “Why the fuck was she calling everyone, but me?”
Jason leans forward on his knees, his eyes steady on me with condemnation. “She tried to call you.”
“No. She didn’t call me.”
Standing, I feel around the outside of my pockets. “Where’s my phone?” I run into the bathroom and grab my phone from my jacket pocket. When I see the screen, it shows one missed call. Unknown. Shit. Firefly. “No. No, it didn’t fucking ring.”
I rush back into living room area of my quarters. “Where were we when it happened?” I ask Cruise. “Why didn’t I get the call? Where the fuck was I?”
“Down by the docks? There’s no reception there,” he replies.
I think back to hours ago. Shit. “Fucking nothing. No bars. I had no signal, so I left my phone on the bike.” I throw my phone on the bed and turn my back to them. With my hands over my face, I hold back the raging tears that want to surface. I could have saved her. I could have saved Chad. “Fucking hell, this is all my fault.” My breath becomes harsh, every exhale tainted with guilt and every inhale a sharp pain. I turn around and ask, “She called Chad for help because I didn’t fucking answer?”