“What’s up?” he asks, crunching down on his chips. His lips are stained orange. How many bags has he eaten? “Is this about the girl? It is, isn’t it?” he says, spewing orange dust in my face.
I close my eyes and sit there, debating if I want to kill him or not.
“Oh, you have a little something,” he mumbles, spitting more crumbs from his mouth. His hand dusts across my shoulders, and then he lifts his shoulder and wipes my face off.
Everything, I mean everything, about what just happened pisses me off.
“There. All better,” Heaven says with an orange smile.
Deep.
Fucking.
Breaths.
“Owen, focus. Everyone is here, and the girls and Dillon will be back soon. You can hit Heaven later. Tell me what the hell happened in those woods. That was your time. If you need more—”
“No,” I cut him off before he says more. “I think… I think this might be the last year that I take off those days.” I pour another shot as Heaven pats his nasty orange crusted fingers on me. I curl my lip, ready to attack when the high arch of Jaxon’s brow warning me makes me shoot the whiskey down my throat instead. Heaven washes his hands before grabbing a Coke from the fridge and leaning against the counter. Sebastian takes the stool to my left and dusts my shoulder off again.
“Thanks,” I tell him, and he gives me a nod. I feel everyone’s eyes on me, urging me to get on with the story, and Annabeth’s face has my tongue twisting into a knot. “I was hunting, like I usually do this time of year. The deer was cooking over the fire, so I decided to take a dip in the river. I used the bunker, loved it,” I add and Jaxon grins. He knew I would. “Anyway,” I say to get back on track. “I looked around, taking in the beauty of my environment, when I saw a figure on the other side of the riverbank. I saw her. She’s skin and bone, abused. God, Jaxon…” I lift my eyes to his so he can see the seriousness of the situation. “I swam over and picked her up. She was naked, so I gave her some extra clothes, fed her, let her sleep, and then the man that she ran away from showed up looking for her.”
“No!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“You’re kidding,” Jaxon says with astonishment. “Ex-lover? Husband?”
I shake my head. “No. A man who kidnapped her a year and a half ago, and she finally got away. She ran from him, and he combed the woods for her. She was in my tent when he came to my campsite, and he wanted to look inside. I said my wife was in there—”
Jaxon gasps when he hears that. To call someone my wife when they aren’t is a big deal. My wife is … was…
Was.
That’s something I need to keep in mind.
“He attacked me. I killed him, dragged him to the river and let it take him. So … that might cause some trouble.” I look down at my coffee cup and swallow. “Guys, he beat her, starved her, raped her. Over and over again. She told me she’d have sex with him just to get food. She got pregnant. Lost the baby.”
“Holy shit,” Heaven says, rubbing a hand over his mouth.
“I brought her here where she can be safe. She needs help. She’s been gone for a year and a half. She says no one is looking for her, but there has to be someone. She’s… I mean, I know you guys saw her afraid, but she’s a sweetheart. She hasn’t been with other people except that asshole I killed.” A voice in the back of my head tells me killing an enemy is never that easy, and that’s when I scold myself for not double-tapping again.
He’s dead. He has to be.
“Of course she’s going to be scared around people she doesn’t know.”
“She isn’t afraid of you, Owen,” Jaxon points out.
“She was,” I correct him. “She was terrified of me. She didn’t have much of an option. I had food, water, shelter; she did the best she could.”
“You think highly of her for only being with her a day,” Jaxon inserts.
“Well, I’m not completely heartless. I care about her wellbeing. What happened to her was fucked up.”
“You killed for her,” Sebastian points out.
I pour myself another shot, hoping to feel a buzz at some point, and shake my head in disagreement. “I killed for me too. He attacked me, and she didn’t deserve his wrath. She deserves a proper shower, for fuck’s sake. She hasn’t bathed in ages. She… I just fucking hate when men do that to women.” I slam my mug too hard on the counter, and it shatters, whiskey dripping off the broken pieces.
“Sounds personal to you,” Heaven states, shoving a cupcake in his mouth. How a man can stay in shape and eat such crap is beyond me.