Chapter 34

Alyssa hefts another box into the backseat of her car, wiping sweat from her brow as I throw mine inside.

"Last ones? Please say yes!" she says, half-jokingly.

She's been helping me empty my small apartment for two days, and while I'm grateful, I didn't know she was going to complain so much when she offered the help.

"Yeah, for now. I only have my bag for tonight and then the movers come for the furniture tomorrow."

She laughs. "Your mom is going to let you put your furniture in her house?"

I roll my eyes and shut the door of her car. "Absolutely not. She'd rather die. They're going into storage. Of course!"

"Of course," Alyssa echoes, sitting on the hood of the car and looking at my apartment that stands open. The door is letting precious air-conditioning slip out into the Florida heat, but both of us are far too tired to care. I sit next to her, seeing the bare state of my apartment firsthand through the door.

"You sure you want to do this? I know you and your mom are good now, but it hasn't always been the case."

In recent weeks, the heat had returned, warning that spring was on the horizon. I wipe my brow before looking over towards Alyssa.

Her eyes are full of honest feelings and worry for me, and I smile at her. She's been a loyal friend since I got back from New York, and I don't know what I'd have done without her.

"Yeah, I'm certain. I need something new. And while I might not stay with her for long, it'll be good for me. A reset."

"A reset," she repeats, "I like that. You deserve it. I'm sure going to miss you at work, though."

Closing my eyes to fight off the tears that want to fall, I nod again. "I know. Me too."

I'd quit my job at my mother's behest. She assured me I should take my time and search for the job that was going to not only make me happy but sustain me and use the degrees I'd worked so hard for.

She and I still have days we struggle, but the best thing out of this entire experience is that I don't feel alone anymore. She's present and she's my mom again.

"Who will I roll silverware with?" she asks, sniffling.

Once I realize it's genuine, I lose control of my own emotions. "The new girl?" I sob.

She cries harder, pulling me into her. "Don't you dare say that."

We break into choked cries and awkward laughs as we hold on to one another. "You know I'm only just down the street, right?"

She nods in my arms. My mom lives in the same prominent neighborhood where Alyssa lives with her parents.

"Why are you staying the night here again?" she asks.

I pull back from her hug, looking over at my last piece of freedom. "It's just something I want to do."

"Well, if you want me to come back over with wine, you let me know. I'll drop these things into your mom's garage."

I nod, stepping away from the front of her car. "You need the code?"

She shakes her head. "I think I know it after how many years?"

I laugh, and for once, it feels genuine. "I'd rather not count them. It'll make us both feel old."

She winks as she slips into her car and turns the engine over.

I head back inside and look around at the bare bones. At least we'd left the television and the router hooked up. I can watch the new episodes of Stranded and eat the last of the ice cream, which is coincidentally the only food I've been consuming since I left New York.

There's the occasional break for something of more substance, but ice cream has been trying to heal my broken heart, though it's not doing a great job of it.

Plopping down in front of the television, I turn on the show and open the ice cream, sighing as I try to focus on what's before me instead of what's in the past. But it's hard.

Especially with more change on the horizon.

* * *

A loud thumpstartles me awake. The television is paused; the screen wants to know if I'm still watching.

Obviously not.

I reach for the remote on the coffee table and shut it off. The neighbors have been known for being loud, and I'm certain that's what has woken me, so I stretch and yawn.

Turning over on the couch, I decide the bedroom is too far to walk away and close my eyes again.

When a shuffling sound moves through the dining room, towards the end of the couch, my eyes fly open. My breathing picks up as my blood pounds past my ears.

Someone's in the apartment.

Fear is rippling under my skin, and I don't know what to do. I don't have a weapon on me; I don't need them in this life. The life that's a stark contrast to the life I led in the wilderness with Slate or the one in New York. Both his lives require to be locked and loaded. Mine doesn't.

That was before.

I steel my nerves and pop up, jumping behind the couch.

A man's laugh filters through the room, and I peek up over the back of the couch.

He's but a shadow moving against the darkness, and not one I recognize.

"He said you'd be a squirrel of a mark to catch," the man says, chuckling darkly.

Everything, and I mean every single thing Slate used to say to me, always edged on a dark place, but none of it ever made me feel as I do now in this man's presence.

His aura is death, and I have to work to swallow against the fear building in my throat.

"Who said that?" I manage.

"You'll meet him soon, pet," he says, moving toward where I'm still perched behind the couch.

I back toward the door, hating that I locked the deadbolt because it's a bitch to open. Especially while facing an intruder,my back pinned to the door.

"Please, don't hurt me."

"The boss wants you alive, pretty pet," he says, coming to a halt in front of me. His meaty hand lifts and skims down my face. "Too bad, too. You'd have been fun to play with."

Nausea rolls right before he covers my mouth and nose with a sickeningly sweet-scented rag.

The world tumbles as I go limp in my captor's arms.

The last thought before darkness sweeps in is that maybe this is it, maybe Slate's come for me.

The reaper wants his girl back…

* * *

I wokeup with a severe headache. I'm disoriented, and the musty smell of the room has my nose wrinkling against it.

I groan, sitting up on a metal cot with a thin mattress as my mind tries to work out where the hell I am.

A tray of food sits on the small metal table near the door. There's a metal toilet and sink, with no mirror above it. I'm caged in by bars.

"What the hell?" I whisper, tears forming in my eyes.

It's cold and wet, almost as if I'm underground.

There are no noises around me other than my choked sobs of fear.

"Hello?" I call, running for the bars and gripping them tightly in both hands. "Someone help!"

I truly thought it was Slate who'd come for me. That I'd wake up, him having taken my choice in being with him away. I thought his deranged eyes were going to be the ones that glared at me when I roused.

"Shh, don't call them down here," a female voice chokes out, and my eyes swing to the cell next to me, where a woman lifts off her cot.

She's battered beyond belief, her face black and blue. She lifts her blanket and covers herself the best she can when she notices me staring.

"Who? Don't call who down here? Who has us?" I ask.

She laughs, and then it turns to a cough. One that sounds as if she has pneumonia. "Oh, come on, girl. Don't be daft. One doesn't just fall into this world and fuck with someone like the Bianchis and not know about it?"

My blood runs cold in my veins. I've heard that name only once before, and it was when Slate was relaying to me just who had come for us in the woods.

He had been trying to find out the why of it when I'd run home six weeks ago, but there'd be no reason they'd want me…

I close my eyes, remembering how I'd killed two of their men, wiping their blood on my face in shame and honor of the lives I'd taken.

I breathe heavily through the memory.

"See, everyone knows how they've fucked up. You must've done something awful. I heard one of them saying you were being saved for the boss."

Shudders of fear whistle through me like the wind of a winter storm through the branches of a tree.

"I didn't… I saved someone," I say aloud as if she knows what war is waging in my head.

She chuckles. "By killing someone else?"

My heart pumps in fear.

How does she know?

My brain knows she's just guessing, but I nod anyhow, confirming her accusation. What can it harm? I'm in a fucking cell, waiting for their boss to kill me.

"How did you know that?" I ask.

She coughs again, blood on her hand when she pulls it back. "Because I did the same thing."

I break, crouching and pulling into myself as my emotions overwhelm me to a level I can't handle.

"Don't worry," she says roughly as she lays back down, "if you're going to the boss, you won't suffer like me."

Men come and go every few hours and give me and the other prisoner food and drink, but none will speak to me.

I've not been able to eat a thing because my stomach is too wound into knots. Whenever I hear boots on concrete, I think they're coming for me.

Then they leave without me, and I go through a roller coaster of emotions. I'm grateful, but then again, I am more on edge. I want it to be over. I need it to be over.

When they finally come for me, I'm asleep. Having exhausted myself over the last two days of waiting. My body is drained. Too drained for any kind of reaction. I go willingly, two men with guns trained on me tugging me up steps that lead into a mansion of a building.

It looks to be a home, which is even more unsettling. This man they're taking me to sleeps just fine at night while prisoners are in his dungeon, dying.

The more they lead me through the house, the more the need to beg for my life is building. I can't run, they'd catch me.

They lead me outside, near a pool, where a man is reclining on a lounger, sipping a drink as he scrolls through his phone.

I can't get a good look at him. The soldier leading me halts as the other steps in front of the lounger, nodding in my direction.

"You found the girl?" the man asks.

The soldier nods. "Yeah, Boss."

"And you're sure she's the right one? The one who shot the reaper?"

Fear reaches a new level in my chest.

My camera footage!

"Yup, she's the right one. Got her right here for you."

The man sighs and sets his drink and phone down. "Because if she's the wrong one again, you know what's going to happen, right? Wait, what do you mean she's here? I told you to watch her…"

The massive soldier swallows, his throat constricting with worry, looking at me like I'm going to help his sorry ass.

Tears flow down my face as the boss swings his leg over the lounger, turning to look at me.

Our eyes connect, and I forget myself, pulling away from the man holding me. "Dad?"

"Hey there, Brynnie Bear."