Counterfeit Love

Nightmares ended right before the worst came, right?

I was supposed to wake up.

But I couldn't wake up.

Because this wasn't a dream.

This was my life.

Day in and day out.

For more months than I cared to remember.

I didn't wake up.

No matter how much I wished I would.Chapter OneChrisThe gasp caught in my throat as I knifed up in bed, a cold sweat soaking the neckline of my t-shirt.

"It's alright," a voice said, making my stomach clench with knee-jerk fear.

Even though I was safe here.

Even though I had worked so hard to make sure no one could hurt me again.

"I still get the nightmares too," the voice said as the owner's arm moved out to flick on the light, casting the windowless space into stark brightness, making me wince.

Ferryn would have nightmares still.

Even if she had been luckier than I had.

Or maybe she wasn't luckier.

Just better prepared.

Stronger.

A fighter.

It didn't matter how many years of therapy I had gone through after I got out of that hellhole, there were still times I would victim-blame myself.

That sounded ridiculous. Who victim-blamed others, let alone themselves?

The short answer was: most victims of any sort of violence.

What could I have done to make sure it didn't happen to me?

Could I have been more aware?

Could I have fought harder?

Could I have made myself less tempting?

Could I have been harder to break?

It didn't matter that I knew there was nothing I could have done, no amount of preparedness that would have made it so I wouldn't get taken. Even if I had fought harder, I was outnumbered. And it wasn't that I was tempting. The men got off on the power, not on my looks.

And as for the breaking, well, none of us got away with all our pieces intact.

Not even Ferryn.

Ferryn, who became the epitome of badass in damn near every way.

Ferryn with her short crop of dark hair, her long, lean, toned body, honed from years and years of relentless training to make her into someone who could never be hurt again.

Even she had cracks, bits that never got glued back together quite right.

Somehow, in a way that made me feel really bad, really small, I found a bit of comfort in that.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, reaching up to swipe my wavy hair out of my face, trying to take a few deep breaths, something that usually managed to push back the clinging edges of the nightmares. "And I have to remind you that normal people knock instead of picking locks and trespassing."

"Yes, well, no one would consider me normal people," she said, giving me a small smirk.

That was fair enough.

Not even in Navesink Bank, this town of ours overrun with outlaw bikers, loan sharks, the mob, and dozens of other criminals, would someone like Ferryn--a vigilante bent on taking down human traffickers, for what were obvious reasons to the two of us who had spent time in a basement because of those very sorts of people--be considered normal.

She'd just come back to town a short time before, after eight years away from her friends and family.

I hadn't seen her in all that time, either.

But I had been in touch.

In fact, I had become a sort of benefactor to her. Sending money, phones, anything she might need to continue on with her mission. And when she didn't need anything from me financially, I sent her the other pieces she needed

The locations of human traffickers.

Since I had access to that information when she didn't.

Then she could hunt them down, take them out, continue a mission that we both held near and dear to our hearts.

A mission I was looking into ways to fund as we moved forward, as we expanded.

"Why are you here at all? Shouldn't you be playing footsie with Vance?" I asked

A girlhood crush turned love-of-her-life even after eight years apart, they were the kind of story that made most women--and maybe even a fair number of men--swoon.

I had no romantic sensibilities to speak of, but I was happy for her regardless.

Even if a selfish part of me worried about what would happen to this little life mission of ours if she settled down, if she became the wife and mother many women eventually wanted to have be a part of who they were.

Which was why my plan was to expand, add more people to the team. It also explained the need for funds.

"Couldn't sleep," she admitted, shrugging her narrow shoulders, reaching down into her boot, pulling out a double-bladed karambit, using the razor-sharp tip to carelessly clean under her nails. "Those couple minutes before sleep. That's when the ugly tends to sneak in," she admitted.

See, I had been in therapy for the eight years since I left that basement. Ferryn, on the other hand, had not. She'd been in the woods with a reclusive former dark ops guy, learning how to be an even bigger badass than she had once been.