Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

ASHER

I look over at her sitting in my car, lost in her thoughts, as she looks out the window at the landscape as it zooms past. Watching as the rain leaves droplets on the window, making everything look distorted.

What she said earlier about being the one to make them pay, I understand that feeling. There’s still one more out there that was responsible for Ellie. I thought once I got him, it would be over, but now—now, there’s more I need to get. I’m starting to think this will never be over and if I’m honest with myself, I find comfort in that. I don’t know who or what I’ll be when this is finished. All I know is that I got a second chance with my girl and I’m not going to fuck that up. She’s not ready to hear everything, not ready for me to confess how I really feel about her. Not yet, but for the first time, I feel hope.

I don’t have to hide this part of me anymore. I don’t have to push her away. I hate how it happened, and I’ll never forgive myself for it. She’s broken—it’s not the ribs or the bruises. It’s the scars inside that none of us can see. I know it will take time, but I’m gonna find a way to help her heal. I never got a chance to help Ellie, but maybe this time, I can try to help Harper heal.

I was honest with her earlier. The only thing stopping me from bolting and going after them is her. Last night, I nearly did—I nearly went to the Twisted Brothers to gear up and leave. And then I heard her whisper my name in her sleep. I immediately got up, laid on the bed beside her and she curled up into my arm, almost like she sensed me and kept me close. The rest of the night, she didn’t cry in her sleep, she didn’t scream or call out. I know she needs me there. I need to put all of my feelings aside for her and just be there for her. I’ll help her find them and if, in that moment, she really wants to be the one that ends them, then I’ll hand her my gun and watch her empty the chamber out.

“Ash?”

Her voice breaks me through my thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“How much longer?”

I look over at her, giving her a half smile. “About thirty minutes, why?”

“I kinda need to just get out of this car and stretch my legs. We’ve been driving for hours, but I can wait.”

I look at my GPS. We’re one hundred and thirty miles away from home. We should be safe. I tap on the map, trying to find a place to pull over. “There’s not really anything around here, just woods, but I think we should be able to pull into like a camping ground or something. How about I stop, and we can go for a walk? The trees should shield us from the rain a little.”

She nods, smiling, “Yes, please.”

I divert my GPS to find a camping ground and ten minutes later, I see a small parking lot. I pull in, but now it’s basically a torrential downpour.

I look at her, smiling sheepishly, “Still wanna go for a walk?”

She laughs lightly. “Did you forget I like the rain?”

I shake my head, “I don’t think I could ever forget that.”

I grab my hoodie from the back seat and give it to her. I can deal with being in just a T-shirt and jeans, and I don’t want her getting sick. She gratefully accepts, pulling it over her awkwardly in the car.

“How about we make a run for it? To the tree line there?”

She nods, smiling wickedly at me and even though her face is still bruised, she looks like herself. It’s the first spark I’ve seen since yesterday.

She throws the car door open, and I follow suit, both of us racing to the tree line, but even as we get there, I realize just how soaked we are. The water is running from her face, I lean in, swiping the droplets from her cheek and she smiles up at me, pushing the soaking hair from my face and laughing. Fuck, her touch does things to me that no one could understand. I take her hand in mine, pulling it from my hair.

“Ash,” she whispers, and for a second, I feel like she wants something more but then it’s gone as she lightly pulls her hand away. She wraps her arms around her as she pulls her gaze from mine.

I clear my throat, “So, it doesn’t look too dense. We should be able to walk around for a bit.”

She nods, keeping her body shielded by her arms as she takes a step forward. We walk in silence, the sound of the twigs snapping underneath our feet before I hear her sigh.

“Doing okay there, Harps?”

“I didn’t mean to pull away earlier.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I just…it’s hard for me to not associate certain things with them.”

“What do you mean? Like me?”

She shakes her head. “No, like touching…they, erm, held my hands down. So, you taking my hand like that…it’s hard.”

“Oh, well, I can make sure I don’t do that. I don’t want to frighten you or anything.”

“You don’t frighten me, Asher. You never did. I don’t want to shy away from intimacy. I know that I’m going to need to move on. It’s just…difficult.”

“Well, even so, I can make sure I’m careful. That’s on me, I should have asked.”

She stops looking at me. “I need you to do something for me…”

I look at her curiously. “What?”

“This is gonna sound weird and I promise there’s nothing in it, but can you…” She trails off, looking at me. “Never mind, it was stupid.”

“Harper, if there’s something important to you, then it’s important to me.”

“Kiss me,” she says quietly.

“You want…you want me to kiss you?”

She nods, “It doesn’t have to mean anything. I just—I need to not be scared of being touched or having a guy in my space. I don’t wanna be that girl forever.”

“Angel, it’s been less than twenty-four hours since we got you out. That’s not gonna change in that space of time.”

“I know, but maybe I can force it.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Fine. It was a stupid idea, you were right,” she says awkwardly as she starts to wander off again.

“It’s not stupid. It’s just I move too fast, and you flinch, I touch your hand, and you pull away and I get that, I do. But what you’re asking me to do is more intense than that. It’s not just a small thing,”

“I know, Ash, it’s fine.”

“No, I wanna help, I do. It’s just Harper…if I kiss you and I move too fast or touch you in the wrong way, I don’t want you to bolt or think this is the way it’s going to be like forever.” She stays quiet and I sigh, feeling torn. “Okay, I have an idea.”

She stops looking at me. I walk over to a fallen tree and sit on top of it. “You take the lead.”

The statement hangs in the air for a few moments before I carry on. “You initiate, you touch, and I’ll let you take control and lead us. If at any point you wanna stop, you can pull away.”

She walks over to me, leaning against the tree next to me, nodding. “Um, I’ve never… I mean, I’ve never initiated anything before.”

Fuck me. My girl puts on this air of confidence, but standing here now and her being honest with me I realize she’s probably less confident than she seems.

I jump off the tree, standing in front of her. “Okay, I’ll do it. But Harps, if it’s too much, just squeeze my hand, okay?” I take her fingers in mine. She doesn’t flinch, so I raise my other hand slowly, pushing a stray hair from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear.

Fuck this is probably the worst mistake I’m ever gonna make. Being near her makes it hard for me to put my feelings aside for her as it is but the thought of her asking anyone else to do this tears me up inside.

“Is this okay?” I whisper, and she nods. My thumb lightly caresses her cheek as I look into her eyes. I lean in slowly, not wanting to startle her. It’s like everything is in slow motion and then my lips briefly touch hers. She doesn’t squeeze my hand, and she seems okay. So I do it again, only this time I part my lips, she responds and fuck this is almost agonizing.

My tongue slips out to find hers and she falls into a rhythm as she does the same. My fingers slip behind her neck as I tilt her back, just slightly deepening the kiss. Our tongues slowly play and caress each other. Her eyes are closed and then I feel her tense, fighting the urge to run. But then she surprises me and relaxes again, her free hand reaching up over my shoulder, keeping me there. I hear her moan softly into my mouth and it’s like crack—I want more. My body presses her against the tree as the lust and desire I have for her want to take over. Slowly, I think, not wanting to frighten her, but it’s taking everything in me not to push this further and I know I have to end this for both of our sakes.

I pull back and open my eyes, watching hers flutter open. “You okay?” I ask her quietly as I watch her tongue wet her lips.

She nods. “Yeah…”

I drop my hand from her face but keep the other one in her hand.

“You, erm, wanna talk?”

She shakes her head. “Not really. I…uh…fuck.”

“Harps, you just asked me to kiss you after everything. I’m gonna need more than ‘uh fuck’!”

“No, I’m okay, really. It was just a little intense, that’s all, and I’m just trying to sort through it in my head.”

“But you’re not gonna run or anything?”

She smiles, “I’m not gonna run, Ash.”

“You wanna go back to the car?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet. I feel like I can breathe out here. It helps.”

I lean against the tree beside her. “Harper, I…” I trail off, not really knowing what to say.

“Ash, I just asked you to kiss me after everything. I’m gonna need more than ‘Harper, I…’”

I crack a smile at her teasing me. Despite everything that happened to her she’s still standing and not just that but actually teasing me. Maybe the fire she has isn’t extinguished after all.

“I’m sorry, that’s what I was going to say. For the way I treated you before, for the way I treated you that morning. I’ve never really been good with making lasting relationships. Ever since my sister I find it hard to let people in. Chase and Jax, well, they kinda forced themselves in—made me understand I’m not alone. I know they can take care of themselves and with you. I didn’t want you to be close to this, any of this, I was worried what would happen.”

She sighs. “It happened anyway, Ash. It happened because you and everyone didn’t let me in. I didn’t know and I wasn’t prepared for it. I was taken because you guys all pushed me away and left me vulnerable. Because of that decision, I’ve spent the last few days in hell.”

She’s right, and I don’t have words that would express how truly sorry I am.

“It’s always just been the three of us. We always agreed we wouldn’t let anyone else in, wouldn’t let anyone get close so they didn’t get hurt, and then Brooke changed that. You know Chase loved her since he was a kid?”

She half smiles. “Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“Every day it got harder on him to not let her in, he got… I dunno…lost or something, and it got to a point he couldn’t do this without her. To be honest, Harps, I got lost a long time ago, before I met them, before I met you, I don’t know how to let people in.”

“What are you afraid of Ash?”

“That everyone will see how fucked up I really am, that you’ll see my darkness.”

And that once you see it, you’ll run.

“Ash, we all have trauma, we’re all a little fucked up inside. It’s called being human. Your darkness as you call it, it’s a part of you, the same way it’s a part of me now.”

“Harper, do you remember when you came to my house after the party when you had been drugged?”

She nods, “How could I not?”

“Do you remember how scared you were that you thought I had killed him? How terrified you were.”

“I…”

“Don’t lie to me, Harps, and don’t lie to yourself. Imagine if, in that moment, I had told you that not only had I killed him, but I had killed someone else. I tortured him for hours and then burned his body in a hole in the ground because he hurt my sister. Would you have said it’s okay? We all have darkness inside of us?”

She goes quiet.

“That’s what I thought. I am sorry for the way I treated you. I am sorry for everything that’s happened; I thought I was doing the right thing, and I know that it wasn’t now. I was afraid you would get hurt by knowing it all, but I know you’re strong and a fighter, something my sister never was.” My fingers lightly play with her hair, but then I drop them. “I told you I would help you and I’ll do that, but you need to know something. When you’re in that room with me and one of the men that hurt you, I’m not the guy standing here with you; I’m something else and that darkness takes over. It’s the thing I selfishly tried to keep you away from because I didn’t ever want you to see me like that.”

“I get it.”

“No, you don’t, but you will, and I wouldn’t blame you if you ran and never looked back. Maybe then you’ll understand why.”

I let go of her hand and turn away. “We should go. We still have another few miles to drive.”