Objective (Bloodlines #2)(48)

“Jesus, Mags, all I’ve done is think about why for the last fourteen months! Tell me!” I growl at her. She hangs her head to the side in shame. It runs so deep and transparent that it consumes me. The memory of that night eats at me. It still doesn’t make sense. No matter what lines or lies or truths Ezra’s told me it doesn’t add up. I don’t care how this ends for me, I can't imagine living without her again. Not now. Not after touching her, smelling her, hearing her voice again.

“Cane…” she whispers and looks up at me through her lashes. God, those lashes. They should be illegal but all her eyes scream is broken. She is broken. Something is driving her now and it’s something I don’t understand. “Do what you have to do, take me back to Ezra, but please, please, baby, make these last days for me my best yet. Love me. Be mine, don’t hate me until we get back home,” she pleads. “If I’m going to die, let my last days be lived out the way I’d always dreamed my life would be. With you, Cane, in love.” She drops her head and stares as a single tear leaks out of her eye and rolls down her cheek at the thought of all we were supposed to have but didn’t. For all the dreams we had for us that came screeching to a halt. She’s prepared for me, or Ezra I guess. She’s prepared for her fate. I can see the confusion lingering in her expression, seeing me, threw her and she’s changing her game plan.

“Mags,” I croak before tilting her chin up so she’s forced to meet my gaze. The rough pad of my thumb swipes across her soft cheek, brushing the tear away. “I never could say no to you,” I mumble. My heart feels like it might burst with affection, hope and love. In a quick fluid motion that makes her flinch, I cut the ties at her wrists and then her ankles. There is no way I am going to be the one to take her down. She looks so beautiful, it’s always so damned hard not to kiss her. Even if the offer was on the table, I couldn't kiss her now. I’m sure we’d both combust if our lips collided. It’s been too long. There are too many charred remains haunting us both. She saved my life. She taught me everything. About life, hope and the long journey ahead. I'll always miss her. But our love is like the wind. I can't see it, but I can feel it. If nothing else, the last year has taught me that I don't need her physically around to survive.

“I love you, Cane Ash.” she sniffles sitting up, rubbing her wrists and seemingly unconcerned at her toplessness. “I’ve loved you since I slipped in milk when I was seventeen.” She breaks down in a mess of tears. Now that they have started she can’t seem to shut them off. I pull her into my chest and hold her tightly to me while she cries it all out. I shouldn’t but there isn’t anything else my body would let me do. Ever since the day we met it seemed my sole purpose was to keep her safe, untouched...pure.

“Me too, Mags, me too.” I say into her hair, “but how the f*ck are we going to pull this off?” I say more to myself than to her. She shakes her head in my chest because she has no better idea how we’re going to do this. We fall into silence punctuated by a radio playing softly in the background and my lips connecting with the soft spot just behind her ear. My senses catch fire at the feel of her skin. Just like before. My core trembles at the new feeling stirring inside me, not hate, not rage, something softer, something more tender. Something I haven’t felt in over a year.





“There are more than five hundred million firearms in worldwide distribution, Cane. That's one firearm for every eleven people on the planet.” he said. “Selling a gun for the first time is a lot like having sex for the first time. You remember that, yeah? You're excited but you don't really know what the hell you're doing. And some way, one way or another, it's over too fast.” I’d nodded my head, unsure how else to respond to him.

“The first and most important rule of gun-running is: Never get shot with your own product. The second rule of gun-running is: Always ensure you have a way of getting paid.” His words made me feel uneasy but ever since Dad died he was in charge. I didn’t really have a choice. “Bullets change governments as votes do, Cane, remember that. Of all the weapons available, nothing is more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947 or the AK-47. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A simple nine pound combination of steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It's so easy, even a kid can use it; and they do.” My Uncle Ezra’s crew imports and sells weapons to almost every street gang throughout the bible belt and he is set on grooming me to take over the family business someday. I know it’s not for me but I don’t have a choice, you don’t walk away from the family without consequences, like, death and at fifteen, I’m well aware that I’m too young to die. “Sometimes, we have to make deals with lowlifes because we’ve got our sights set on life forms even lower on the low life ladder than they are. Those men are dangerous. You need to remember that. They have nothing and therefore they give a shit about nothing. Adapt or die, Cane.”



Her face is pretty nasty looking. She needs stitches at the bridge of her nose and has two decent black eyes. It’s all puffy and black and blue and I’ve never felt like such a sick * in all my life. I watch as she lays still in my arms fast asleep. We must have dozed off at some point after the adrenaline waned, but I’m not complaining. I’ve dreamed of her in my arms for so long it’s surreal having it be true. She shivers slightly and I position myself around her a little more to keep her warm. Her lips form this perfect little heart shape when she sleeps, all pink and swollen with sleep. Short puffs of air move out from that perfect heart shape. I let my fingers drift over the exposed parts of her enormous tattoo. I’m in absolute shock that she has one. Even more so that she got a magnolia tree. That she permanently marked herself with me. The tattoo, the name change, it’s all confusing as shit. A woman who means to kill. To steal. To leave, doesn’t brand herself the ways she has for the person she left. I can’t sort it out in my head. Her breath sputters and wheezes a little, no doubt from her swollen face and I can’t help but cringe. I roll off the bed gently so I don’t wake her, pull the sleeping bag from the corner and spread it over her gently. I allow myself one last look at her sleeping form before I leave the room, shutting the door quietly behind me.