Chapter 11

Pierce

She's on the couch in front of the fire. She's got hot cocoa in her mug, blowing it absently as I string strand after strand of lights onto the tree. It's clear she doesn't want it here, and that I fucked up by bringing it inside. I hadn't known. Part of me thinks I should have abandoned the plan once I saw her face at my question of whether she liked Christmas. Something awful in her past is tied to the day, and it's becoming clearer the more she draws into herself.

It"s leaving me feeling quite defeated.

After another backward glance at her, I sigh and drop the lights to the ground abruptly. Stepping over the box of decorations, I sit on the plush ottoman in front of her.

She rouses from wherever she'd been in her mind. "What, are you done already?" A quick glance over my shoulder shows her the barely decorated tree.

"I'll get rid of it first thing in the morning," I tell her, and her mouth drops open. "I didn't know that there was something nagging you about Christmas, but the more that I watch you, the more I know there is."

She looks at the tree again. "No. You're stuck here, too. It's your Christmas, too. You should have a tree if you want it."

She nods at herself, confident in her decision.

She's never been put first, and it shows. She's never had someone see her—see her soul and all its darkness—and want to protect her.

"It was a foolish idea. I thought it would bring something into the house... I don't know where it came from, honestly." I turn and look at the tree. The living room is a fucking mess of decorations that were broken and lights that hadn't worked thrown askew.

"It was a touching notion, Pierce. It's just... I'm too fucked up for whimsy and magic."

"You don't have to tell me. But you can't let anyone ruin the things you love because it gives them too much of your power, Hazel."

She looks up, setting her cocoa down on a small, thin-legged table next to the chair. It had been my mom's favorite chair to read in. She'd often fall asleep here. Dad would wake her and lead her to bed. That was before they decided that twenty years wasn't worth fighting for any longer and split up.

It changed them both. Divorce does ugly things to everyone it touches. But it's a way of life for me.

"You know, I've never looked at it that way?" she mumbles.

"I try my hardest not to give things any more power than they deserve over me. Some days, it's hard. I'll be honest with you," I admit, sighing and wiping my sweaty palms down my jeans.

"I would say you seem well-adjusted, but you've been lurking through the walls, and you're still wearing a mask, so..."

A laugh bursts out of me before I can over think it, and she smiles. It's the second genuine smile she's given me, and I'm thankful for it.

"I've never told anyone," she starts, eyes back on the tree, as if it's too hard to go on with me in her direct line of vision.

"And you don't have to. Your past is yours, Hazel. You don't have to share it with anyone. And how you deal with it is up to you. I was just suggesting you not hand your power over. Take it back."

She closes her eyes. "Take it back."

I nod as I watch her eyes moving behind her lids. She's remembering something, and I want more than anything to be there with her. To hold her hand through whatever it is. I don't even know her, but I'm drawn to her like the tide to the moon.

"My mother's boyfriend took a liking to me the first time he saw me. And every Christmas when I'd come home, he'd say things that were less than appropriate. He was always coming on to me when she wasn't around, touching me when she wasn't looking. I tried to tell her. Tried to warn her what kind of man he was. But she said I was trying to steal him from her."

Fucking bitch!

I keep the thought to myself. If I'm the first person she's confided in, this admittance will be cathartic for her. Part of me feels pride that she's comfortable enough with me to do so, but the other part of me knows it's only because I'm a nobody in her life. I'm the masked man who's been stalking her, so how can I judge?

"Last Christmas, after dinner, I felt off. Something wasn't right. I turned in early, but sleep was strange, and my body felt heavy. In hindsight, I know he drugged me. Slipped something in my wine, likely, because he'd poured for all of us. I only have bits and pieces of that night. Him over me, forcing himself inside me, taking from me without asking."

She stops to swipe a tear from her face, and my heart nearly shatters. My hands clench, murder and mayhem rising to an all-time high within my veins.

"She didn't believe me," she sobs, and without thinking, I remove my mask, clanking it to the floor before getting on my knees in front of her and tugging her slight body into my arms.

Her tears wet my shoulder as she gives them freely.

I'm stunned to silence as she lets her emotions out. Speaking a memory out loud gives it life. Makes it more real than it was before. I know firsthand how fucking hard that is. So I give her the time she needs to process this moment.

"I'm so sorry, Hazel. I know you've thought that you might have deserved it, or that you brought it upon yourself somehow, but it's bullshit. You didn't. And that fucker will get what's coming to him. I promise you that."

She pulls back, eyes raking over my face as her tears dry.

My heartbeat is all I can hear, slamming against my eardrums. I thought she'd leave here with no image to remember me by. That I'd keep that stupid mask on for the duration, because that way, I'd never become real to her.

But now, I'm bare before her. Raw and cut open for her to see.

Her hand lifts and bumps over the ridges of the scars marring my face. There's no judgment in her eyes. No pity, either. Just wonder.

"You're beautiful," she whispers.

A chuckle leaves me. "I don't think anyone has ever called me that before."

She smirks. "You didn't need to hide."

"Oh really? So, I could've just come to the door and said, ‘Hi, I own this house, and I stalked you online when I learned you were coming, and I can't get enough of you, so I'm staying.' That would've been the start of a really awkward vacation."

She grins. "Well, you popping out of the darkness and subduing me wasn't?"

I let my face drop as I laugh. "No, I guess you're right. This entire fucking situation is fucked."

Her fingers reach for my chin, and she lifts my face back up. "It is, but it feels..."

"Right," I finish for her.

She nods. "I've never told anyone what happened last Christmas, but my hatred of Christmas started with another man. My father left on Christmas. It seems men are intertwined with my Christmas experience and are determined to write a dark and horrible story. And I have no say."

This moment is one I know I'll remember for the rest of my life. No matter what becomes of her and me. No matter if she leaves and never looks back, I'm going to change her Christmas story.

"We all have demons, little ember." My earlier words reiterate.

She brushes her thumb over the portion of the scarring on my bottom lip. "It seems we do, stalker."

I smirk as she continues her torture.

Her skin upon mine feels like the worst imaginable sin a man can commit, and yet I'd burn in hell for her next touch. Gladly.

"Let's finish this tree, shall we?" she asks, and my eyes lift to hers.

"I told you; I'll get rid of it tomorrow. I didn't know..."

She silences me with a finger over my lips. "No. I'm taking back my power. I'm taking back Christmas."

Pride wells in my chest at her show of inner strength. Even though I know it's the first step of many in the right direction, at least she's moving.

"Yes. Let's get the tree finished."

* * *

"Should've stayed away, pretty boy," Mario's high-pitched voice tells me as the cool barrel of his gun presses to my temple. "On your fucking knees," he commands.

I drop to my knees as Cynthia whimpers. She's tied to a post near the boiler. Her skin is battered, her left eye so swollen she can't open it.

"You have me. I'm who you wanted. Let her go," I tell Mario. He rounds my body, nodding to one of his men to check me for weapons. They'll find two guns and a knife, of which I'll be relieved of.

I'd thought this would go differently. My intel told me they'd been keeping her in the industrial park, sure, but it also said at night they left her with only one guard.

Someone tipped him off. Someone told him I was coming.

Mario nods at another man, who kicks off the wall and pulls a gun and presses it to the side of my head, replacing Mario's. Then, Mario holsters his gun, crouching next to Cynthia and brushing her blonde hair off her shattered cheek.

She turns her face away from his touch, but he grips her jaw firmly in his hand.

"This one is a spitfire; did you know that? Oh, of course you know that. She's your partner, isn't she?"

"Let her go, Mario. She's got nothing to do with your beef with me."

Mario looks back at Cynthia. "Doesn't she? She's glued to your fucking side, after all. Where the great Agent Augustine goes, so goes his little pet."

A growl escapes me as he slaps her hard across the face. Her answering cry rattles through me, clamping down on me like a hot vice grip.

"Now, I want to know where you moved my shipment, Agent. And if you don't give me accurate information, you'll watch this one suffer."

We intercepted his massive shipping container of illegally trafficked woman only twenty-four hours ago. The women were moved to a secure location, where they're currently receiving nutritional and medical help. I'd been watching him and trying to catch him in the act for almost a year when a tip came in about when and where another drop was going to happen.

He'd been using one of his many businesses as a front to remove women from all over the world from their homes, selling them to the highest bidder here in the states as mail-order brides, sex slaves, and even worse.

"Don't tell him shit, Pierce," Cynthia manages, gaining herself another blow. This time, his fist was closed.

She hisses, but grits her teeth to stifle the cry.

We're trained for this; for the event, we get caught and interrogated. And I know I'm supposed to give up nothing. But for her, I'd give it all up. She's the reason I'm still alive. She's saved my ass ten times over in the field, and now that it's my turn, I'm grappling with what to do.

"I'm one woman," she reminds me. "He's hurt thousands. You need to save the many. Not the one."

Her words settle through me before Mario stands, growling at her strength. Moving toward one of his men, he puts his hand out. "Give me your knife."

When I move to stand, the gun presses tighter against my temple, my instinct to live stills me on my knees. Making me feel like a fucking coward.

Mario crouches next to where Cynthia has her head held high. Against all odds, she's used her training well tonight. I'm grappling with the idea that no agency is worth dying for as I watch Mario skim the blade over her throat. But the needs of the many outweigh the few, don't they?

I got into this line of work to save people. To be the one people could count on when their back is against the wall, and they're down on their luck.

"Come on now, pretty boy. You don't want to watch me fillet her right in front of you, do you?"

One lone tear escapes Cynthia's eyes, and she blinks once at me. Our code for goodbye. One we'd worked out one day as we ate lunch in the park while on duty. It was the heaviest conversation we'd ever had. Usually, we're busting each other's chops. Or saving one another's ass.

But the conversation we'd never want to come in handy, just had.

I blink once in return, and Mario tsks three times. "Guess he has to learn the hard way. Sorry, Cynthia. I guess he just doesn't love you enough."

"Fuck you," she gets out before the blade sinks cleanly through her stomach, causing her to scream out in pain.

My shout of agony ricochets off the walls, and two men grab me from behind, keeping me on my knees. The gun to my head is forgotten as I watch Mario pull the blade from Cynthia's stomach, blood pooling through her dingy shirt as she grits against the pain.

"Let her go!" I shout over and over and over...

"Pierce! Wake up! For fuck's sake, wake up!"

I come to, sitting up and heaving in the air in massive breaths.

"Let her go," I mutter, trying to get my bearings as I look around the room.

I'm safe. I'm home.

When a touch lands on my shoulder, I turn stealthily, grabbing the intruder by the throat and slamming them back onto the bed. Straddling them, I press all my weight into their neck.

"Pierce," the woman murmurs. "It's me, Hazel."

It takes a moment before coherency returns to me, my grip loosening, and guilt washing through me like a storm during a stretch of drought.

"Fuck," I say, scrambling off her and tugging my hair as I pace. Balling my hand into a fist, I slam it against my temple, where images still play over and over inside my head. The taunting is something I'll never get used to. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry," I tell Hazel.

I can't stop pacing. I can't stop moving. There's an adrenaline racing my system that's dark and feverish. It makes me feel like crawling out of my fucking skin.

"Hey," she says, getting off the bed and moving towards me. "You're fine. I shouldn't have woken you. I know better than to wake someone in a nightmare. You just sounded so fucking miserable. It was selfish of me," she says, standing at a good enough distance as not to spook me.

Only someone as inky as me would know how to reach me right now.

"Selfish," I mutter, and she nods.

"I couldn't take the agony in your voice," she admits. "I'm sorry."

I look toward the stairs. "How'd you get up here?"

She quirks a brow, as if that shouldn't be what I'm concerned about right now. But she wasn't able to reach the ceiling fan cord, so I'd been sure I was safe up here because she wouldn't be able to get the stairs unfolded.

"I had to move the hall table and climb on top of it," she admits sheepishly.

"I'm sorry I woke you," I say, finally feeling myself come down from the terrible memory.

She moves closer, and I'm rooted to the floor. When she stops in front of me, she rubs her hands up and down my arms, and I close my eyes.

"The other night, when you came up behind me in the dark, you did something you probably didn't think about too much. You splayed your hand over my stomach, like this," her tiny hand splays over my bare stomach, middle fingertip falling just near my beating heart, "and something in me that I hadn't known was so coiled up, unraveled. It was as if that one touch grounded me in a second. It didn't matter that I didn't know you. I can't explain it, but..."

"I feel it," I tell her gruffly, my voice hoarse from how much I'd been shouting in my sleep. It's been a while since I've had a bad flashback. I'd hoped I wouldn't have one in her presence. But now, with her fingers on me, her skin on mine again, I don't know that it was a bad thing.

"Just breathe," she tells me, and I close my eyes and do so.

Before long, I'm back to myself. Back in reality, tethered to her touch and breathing in sync with her.

"You don't have to tell me, but you need to take back your power. What you can, anyhow, because some of it will always be out of our control," she tells me, echoing my earlier words to her.

I nod, not having any words to give her.

"Thank you," I manage, and she moves to the bed and pulls back my covers. I get back into bed, and she climbs in next to me.

"I'll stay until you're asleep," she says, and I revel in the feel of her head on my chest as I close my eyes.

Little ember, my ass. She's a fucking forest fire.