28

Jack

January 19th, 2020

She was still sitting in the center of our bed, her legs crossed, her hands resting on her knees, palms up, eyes closed.

Every once in a while she would twitch and then scribble something down, but it’s been an hour and I was starting to get impatient. She deserved however much time she needed to work through this, but I also wanted to speak to her about her father before I forgot any important details.

Even Zo was pacing. “She hasn’t trained in two days, Jack, we can’t let her falter now. She needs to work through this with her fists.”

“Mental fists are just as good as physical ones, you know that,” I commented, turning back to my own notebook. I was taking a page out of Rae’s book, writing down everything and anything I felt might be important.

Zo stopped and took me in. “When the fuck did you get reading glasses?”

I frowned, looking over them to meet her eyes. “I’m 30, Zo, I needed a prescription.”

Her lip curled. “You look like an idiot.”

I was going to kill her one day. I truly was. “I don’t want to hear anything from you about idiocy.”

She glared daggers at me. “You never checked either,” she justified. “I’ve been carrying every assignment on my back while you’ve been here training and fucking her. Something was bound to slip through the cracks.”

“It shouldn’t have been that.”

“Well maybe you should have gone down there yourself,” she bit. “Nobody is perfect, not even you.”

Without gracing her with a reply, I glanced back at my phone to see Rae finally getting up. She grabbed my jacket, pulled it on, and picked up the notebook she had been working on. Seconds later, she was walking with a purpose out the door.

I turned back to my notebook, scribbling down a few more notes when another notebook appeared in my line of sight.

My eyes lifted.

Her amber eyes were fierce, lined in black so sharp, they could kill a man.

I didn’t let her beauty affect me. Not this time. “What is this?” I knew exactly what it was, but I needed to make sure her mind was still working properly before I decided whether or not I needed to see Azrael about how to unshatter a mind.

She took in my face, her cheeks filling with a slight hint of red.

She liked the glasses, so they would remain.

“Information,” she stated as I took it from her. “What they told me, everything they told me, and what I can remember of that time.”

I flicked through the pages. There were at least 10 of them, front and back. I set it on mine and took my glasses off, taking in how small she looked in my jacket. God, she looked good. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” she stated coldly. “They did what they did and it’s over.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Hunt them down and kill them all. Whoever the fuck they are.”

I smiled softly. “Good girl. How long ago did it happen?” I needed to know her timeline before I gave her any information on her father. I couldn’t have that altering her train of thought right now. I didn’t need her second guessing herself in the middle of this.

“February is when she disappeared, that’s when everything feels more solid, so that’s when I ‘woke up’,” she explained, using air quotes. “From what I can decipher, they got me in November, early, possibly the end of October.”

I nodded. She told me four months last night, so now I had more belief that even in her manic state, she was able to keep things straight, truthful. “Do you remember any truth as to where or who you were before then?”

Her jaw feathered, her hands flexing at her side.

“That,” I pointed out, angling my chin. “What’s happening right now?”

“It’s a physical pain,” she said through her teeth, rolling her head. “It’s uncomfortable, like a headache behind the eyes but burning.” She gripped her hands into fists, her knuckles turning white. “The Bennett’s were dead,” she finally said, a sweat breaking out across her brow. “It was good enough for a temporary place before I moved on.”

Created a new identity.

She snarled under her breath, her fists shaking. “I stayed longer than I was supposed to, something came up.” She released a breath, her shoulders falling. “I don’t know what happened.”

I studied her carefully before setting her notebook aside to reveal mine. “Your family burned the Bennett’s. They were supposed to be in Ireland,” I explained, handing it to her. “Your parents didn’t expect you to reclaim the name.”

“Parents?” she asked, something in her eyes flickering. “You found him.”

I nodded towards the notebook.

She fell into the couch beside me, quickly skimming over my notes. “Beth Dorsey?” she asked, which surprised me. I assumed she would have asked about her mother first, but perhaps a part of her had always known Marla wasn’t dead. Maybe just the information I got from her dad was enough to jog a bit of her memory.

“Dorsey,” she said again, her eyes finding Zo’s. “I know that name.” She tensed beside me, grabbing my thigh, her nails digging into my pants. “Fuck,” she snarled, her breathing picking up. “How do I fix this?” she asked, looking between us. “How do I remember my life? You guys must know, right? Malachi? How do I deprogram myself?”

I felt a shiver run through me as I lifted my finger and tapped her head. “We break you,” I explained, seeing the rage fill her eyes at the small gesture. “Every time I exhausted you, the walls they built around your mind grew weaker.”

She laughed. “I know you have such confidence in your cock, but you can’t fuck me into deprogramming four months of torture.”

I saw the fear there, flashing in her eyes. The knowledge that she had been tortured was enough to terrify her. If we ever found that tape, I didn’t think I would let her watch it even if she begged.

“No, Princess, but I can fuck you into a coma and then keep you awake. Mimicking some of the things they might have done is the best way to break the walls they put in your mind. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

“You’re going to torture me?” she breathed out. “What the fuck, Jack?”

“If you want to remember, you have to take the risk.”

“My mind isn’t strong enough for that.”

“Your mind was strong enough to last four months,” Zo reminded her. “If you would have cracked sooner, they would have released you sooner. You lasted four months. I don’t think Jack could do that.”

I frowned. “A year.”

“Willingly,” she bit back. “You did that program willingly. Rae,” Zo went on, walking up to her, “if you want to remember, this is the only way. You have to let Jack do this. I’ll keep searching for Blanchard,” she told me. “You work on her.”

She turned to me, that flash of fear back.

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

I nodded and took her chin, grazing my thumb over her bottom lip. “Then we should get started.” I shoved myself to a stand and held out a hand. “The cathedral is clean, that’s where I’ll take you.” I had to admit, I wasn’t looking forward to this. With Rae, the pain always led to pleasure. It always ended in mind-numbing orgasms, but this time the only benefit would be remembering a life she might not want to remember. But the answers were important. We needed them.

She slid her hand in mine, the trust in her eyes nearly bringing me to my knees.

I pulled her into me and leaned in, pressing my lips to her ear. “Don’t worry, Princess, I won’t let you stay dead.” My eyes lifted to Zo’s and I nodded.

She came up behind Rae as I grabbed her chin and found her eyes. “I love you,” I told her just before Zo slammed the butt of her gun on her head, knocking her out.

I caught her with ease. Love. It wasn’t something I thought I was capable of feeling, but Rae? She wasn’t someone I thought could exist. She needed to know how I felt before I did this because what I was about to do to her would hold no love, no lust, no anything. Just pain.

She needed to know how I felt about her before she felt nothing but hatred for me.

This was for her own good.

It had to be.