Chapter 24

Everlee

The first thing I notice is the smell. Apples and spices. Dad says my favorite food when I was a child was cinnamon applesauce. I'd always choose that over any other sweets. Even in adulthood, I still do. Instead of Ben Jerry's being my comfort food, I always grab a jar of applesauce. I love the smell of apples so much that every room in my house has at least two apple scented candles.

The next thing I notice is the silence. There are no birds chirping or insects buzzing or leaves rustling. The only sound I hear is a light hum of some sort. It's far too quiet, and I don't like it.

And why is the bed so soft? I've grown used to sleeping on a pallet on the ground. I feel like I'm lying on a pillowy cloud. The blanket lying atop me is too heavy, as well.

What I notice the most is the lack of warmth at my back and the muscular arm I've grown used to having around my waist. The hard length that's usually wedged between my buttcheeks is absent. Wild Man always wakes me up, demanding sex, before he gets out of bed. I never complain, because I love having him inside me. I don't remember him doing that this morning, and my body isn't deliciously sore like it normally is after he does, so why is he not in bed with me now?

I crack open my eyes and immediately regret my decision. Pain explodes in my head the moment my eyes encounter the bright light. Why in the hell is it so bright? The trees above us shade the tree hut, so where is the light coming from?

A moan leaves my lips, and I lift my hand to the side of my head where most of the pain is centered. My fingers encounter something soft right above my ear on my temple. I poke it with my pointer finger and wince at the sharp ache I get in return.

"Ever."

The muffled voice sounds like it's coming from far away, like through a long tunnel. The deep timbre sounds familiar, but it's not Wild Man, and I can't place it.

"The light," I croak. My mouth feels like cotton was shoved inside it.

"Ethan, close the shades." The voice sounds closer, and I'm still struggling to remember who it belongs to. "Ever, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me, honey."

Seconds pass before the light I see through my closed eyelids finally dims. The relief is instant. There's still pain in my head, but it's not as profound.

I slit open my eyes and a blurry picture tries to focus in front of me. I blink several times before it begins to clear enough for me to see the man hovering close to my face. Dark brown hair and hazel eyes. He has a shadow of hair on his cheeks and chin, which seems strange. Dad shaves every day, so to see that he obviously hasn't in a few days is out of the ordinary.

"Dad?" I rasp. Jesus, why does my throat feel so raw and dry?

I open my mouth to ask for some water, but a glass with a straw is presented in front of me before I can. A hand goes behind my head to lift it from the pillow and my greedy lips latch around the straw. I pull in several deep swallows. The water is good and cold and feels wonderful against my throat, but it tastes different.

"That's enough for now." Dad pulls the glass away before I'm finished. "I'll give you more in a few minutes. I don't want you to get sick."

Why would I get sick from drinking water?

"Wha—" I cough and clear my throat. "What happened? Where am I?"

I try to look around, but the movement sends a wave of dizziness through me. I close my eyes and breathe in deep through my nose and out through my mouth.

"What do you remember?" comes Dad's voice.

I open my eyelids, my brows pulling down. Another sharp pain pierces my skull when I try to think back to the last thing I remember. I come up blank. "I don't remember."

Dad frowns, his gaze moving across the bed to something on the other side. I turn my head, moving slow in fear of setting off my head again. My brother, Maddox, is there, looking down at me with a worried expression. It's then that I realize all of my brothers are here. Ethan is over by the window, Joe is sitting in a chair in the corner, his elbows resting on his knees, and Spencer is leaning against the wall by the door. They all look at me warily, like I'm on my deathbed or something and they don't know how to react to it.

I bring my gaze back to Dad, just now noticing the bruise on his jaw and the cut that splits his eyebrow in two. The area is slightly swollen. I swing my gaze back to my brothers, fight past the dizziness that follows, and note they aren't in much better shape. Maddox's bottom lip is swollen and there's a gash down the middle. Ethan has a black eye and a cut on his cheek. Spencer's nose appears to be broken, and even through the dim light, I can see the darkness that's developed just under his eyes. Joe's the only one who seems to be uninjured.

"What in the hell?" I demand, attempting to push my hands into the bed to sit up.

"Lay down," Dad orders as he pushes on my shoulders. "That knock on your head has had you out for two days. The doc said you'll be feeling the effects from it for a few more, so I know you're still in pain."

As if my head agrees with Dad's words, the pounding comes back with force, and I slump back down. Nausea churns in my stomach, so I take in a deep breath, praying that I don't get sick. I'm sure the pressure of throwing up would feel fantastic for my head.

"Doc?" I ask. The blanket I'm under is down to my waist and I'm wearing a lavender t-shirt. Below the blanket, I have on a pair of cotton shorts. The material against my skin feels annoying. "Dr. Neilson was here?"

"Yes," Dad answers. He sits forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. He clasps his hands together and lays them on the bed. It kind of looks like he's praying, but Dad isn't the praying type. "I figured it was better he treat you here since your injuries weren't life threatening. Just a nasty bump on your head. Once the word gets out that you were found, which we all know wouldn't take long, everybody and their cousin would swarm the hospital."

One bad thing about living in a small town is everyone is in everyone's business. There's no such thing as privacy or keeping secrets here.

My mind catches and sticks on one word.

"Found? What do you mean?" My brows pucker, and even that small move has a small niggle of pain radiating through my head.

Dad licks his lips and his eyes drop to his clasped hands. The muscle in his jaw twitches when he lifts them back to me.

"You've been missing for six weeks, Ever. Your brothers and I just found you two days ago."

"Gone?" I choke out.

All of a sudden, a searing pain stabs at my skull, and I slam my eyes shut. The pain is so great that I clutch my head, expecting to feel blood seeping from my ears.

Behind my closed eyelids, visions flash. They come so fast and are so brilliantly vivid that I can't comprehend them before they're gone and another takes its place. They repeat over and over again. But then they start to slow, and I get a better understanding of what they are.

Memories.

Of my time in the forest with Wild Man.

My fascination the first time I saw him while he bathed in the water.

Him confronting me afterward.

Sitting in front of the fire and eating.

Trying to leave afterward.

The first time Wild Man fucked me, claiming me as his, and the pain I felt during that experience.

Wild Man standing above me as I peed and him masking my scent with his own.

The first time he took me, and I didn't fight back.

Hunting with him and the sickening worry I felt when I thought he was going to die from a snake bite.

Meeting Teeja and his family.

Wild Man teaching me how to fish.

The way he always gave me the bigger pieces of fruit.

Falling in love and realizing I didn't want to live in a world if Wild Man wasn't in it.

The night I was taken from him.

His roars piercing the night as my dad and brothers beat him.

My eyes flash open. My hands are covering my face and when I pull them back, my gaze is caught by my wrists. The woven bracelets. They're gone.

"Where are they?"

Tears prick my eyes when I look at Dad. He looks haggard, like he's aged twenty years since I saw him before I left to find Wild Man.

"What?" he asks, his voice hoarse.

"My bracelets." I rub the skin around my wrist. "Where are they?"

I hear a scraping and look over at Mad as he opens my bedside drawer. He pulls out three familiar bracelets and holds them up with a finger. "These?"

I lean over, uncaring that the move brings on another wave of dizziness and pain, and snatch them from him. Some of the weight that's gathered on my chest eases when I slip them over my wrist.

My throat closes, and I turn my eyes to Dad. I'm so fucking scared to voice the question that's pounding through my head. The answer is either going to kill me or save me. Tears prick my eyes, and I let them fall.

"Is he dead?" My voice is raw and filled with so much profound heartache.

"God fucking willing," Ethan mutters from across the room.

I ignore him and keep my gaze trained on Dad, waiting for his response with my heart firmly lodged in my throat.

The line of his jaw twitches and something that looks like hatred enters his expression. "He wasn't when we left him, but he probably is now. If not from his injuries then the wild animals probably got to him. Either way works fine for me."

A sob escapes before I can stop it and tears flood down my cheeks. My lungs feel like they're being constricted by an imaginary fist and if it weren't for the pounding in my ears, I'd swear my heart actually stopped beating.

"No," I moan, refusing to believe even the possibility that Wild Man is dead. He can't be. He promised me that he would always protect me. That nothing would ever hurt me. But I'm hurting now. I'm hurting so much that I know I'll never recover. My heart, my life, my very soul will never be the same. I need him to take away that hurt.

"Ever," Dad says, reaching for me. "Everything will?—"

I don't let him finish. I knock his hand away and start throwing back the covers. I don't hate Dad or my brothers for what they've done. They didn't know that I fell in love with my captor and essentially destroyed my heart when they beat him to death. Or beat him so badly he couldn't defend himself against the predators who roam the forest. All they knew was that I was missing. Had no clue what had happened to me. My family loves me and I love them for searching for me.

I don't hate them, but I can't look at them right now. I don't want to see their faces and the damage that Wild Man inflicted on them before they took him down. I can't look them in the eyes and not break down, knowing that, because of them, I'll never be whole again.

"What in the fuck are you doing, Everlee?" Dad asks when I slide my feet to the floor and try to get up from the bed. I'm forced to close my eyes when the room starts to sway.

"I'm going back out there," I say. I open my lids, grateful when the room stays where it's supposed to. "I have to find him."

If there's a slim chance he might still be alive, I have to go to him. Even if he's not—I press my lips together when they start to wobble—I need to find him before the animals get to him. He deserves to be buried and not eaten by wild animals.

"Like hell you are," Dad growls, getting up from the chair.

I press my hands against the mattress, intent on getting to my feet so I can dress. Before I can though, Dad is in front of me, pushing me down by my shoulders.

"You aren't going, Ever," he says, using his firm dad voice. "Your ass is staying in bed where it belongs. You have a fucking head injury for fuck's sake."

I tip my head back, straightening my spine, and meet his gaze. "I'm going."

"Why? Why in the hell would you want to go back out there? We just rescued you."

"Because I love him." I give him the truth.

Dad has a temper, but he doesn't show it often. You always know when he's about to lose it when the veins in his forehead start poking out. Like they are right now. I get his anger. For weeks he's worried about his daughter, not knowing what happened to her. If she were alive, dead, or suffering.

But he's not swaying me on this. He can rant and yell to his heart's content. It won't change my mind. Nothing short of death will keep me from finding Wild Man.

I start shoving at his chest, my moves becoming frantic. "Move!" I yell.

Desperation fills my mind when he doesn't move an inch.

"Ever, stop," he barks, reaching for my arm.

I pull away. I can't stop. I won't ever stop. Not until I get back to Wild Man.

I start kicking out at him, scratching the hands reaching for me, yelling at the top of my lungs to be let go. I know what I must look like. A crazy person on the verge of hysteria. But I don't care and they don't understand.

"Mad, Spencer," Dad grates between his teeth, capturing my wrist when I lash out toward his face. His eyes are hard as he stares down at me.

I watch in my peripheral vision as Mad and Spencer approach us. I don't like the look in Dad's eyes right now. He's in his alpha protective mode and there's no telling what he'll do.

"Hold her down," he tells my brothers in a firm tone.

I'm so shocked by what comes out of his mouth that it takes a second to register the words. And in that second, Mad and Spencer go for my arms, and I'm forced down on the mattress.

"Dad!" I yell, pulling on my brother's grips. "What in the hell are you doing?"

He walks to the nightstand and grabs something. He holds it up, and I realize it's a syringe. He snatches the cap off and tosses it on the nightstand.

"Dad?" I croak.

He comes to sit on the bed by my hip. I've stopped struggling because it hurts my head too much. Mad and Spencer's grips loosen, like they're afraid they'll leave marks on my wrists.

"I'm so sorry, honey," he says. The anger has drained from his eyes and a look of remorse replaces it. I know from that expression that he really is sorry. That this is eating him alive. "But I have to do this."

"Please don't," I beg, tears sliding down my cheeks.

"You'll see things more clearly when you wake up."

I shake my head. "I won't. I'll still love him."

He doesn't say anything else as he quickly flicks at the syringe and squeezes the plunger just a little to make sure there are no air bubbles, then sinks the needle into my arm, emptying the plunger. I move my eyes away from him and stare up at the ceiling, a steady stream of tears still sliding from my eyes.

"I'll always love him," I whisper, the last word falling from my lips right as everything goes dark.