The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(91)

“Can I move you? Or is your spine broken.”

“Not broken . . .” she whispered hoarsely. Because this had to be a dream.

Her grandfather couldn’t possibly be here, in the middle of nowhere, turning up just as the dawn claimed her body with its beautiful warmth.

“Is it you?” she said.

Her grandfather—or her mental manifestation of him—picked her up, one arm under her knees, the other behind her shoulders. As he carried her over muddy ground, his familiar scent—that blend of pipe tobacco and cedar boards—registered in her nose, bringing with it an awareness that this was real. He was real.

Forcing her eyes to focus, she took in his lined face, his white hair, his workman’s shoulders and workman’s shirt. Abruptly, she was overcome, tears flowing onto her cheeks.

“This is really you,” she choked out.

He, on the other hand, stayed completely calm, in the way he always was, his attention fixated on something ahead of them, something he was going toward.

So yup, he truly had found her, wherever she was.

“Can you stand?” he said.

“Yes.” She didn’t want to disappoint him or seem weak in any way. “I can stand.”

Old habits and all. She had always wanted to live up to his expectations. The trouble was going to be that limb and that boot full of blood, however. She’d been injured somehow, although she couldn’t remember when. During the explosion? Or when she’d landed with the Command on top of her as rocks had fallen everywhere.

Oh, God . . . Janelle was dead.

“Here’s the car,” her grandfather announced. “I have to put you down.”

“Okay.” Nyx sniffled and wiped her face on the sleeve of the prison tunic. “All right.”

When he lowered her to the ground, she wobbled and had to lift her bad foot. Prepared to be left to fend for herself in the balance department, she was surprised as he held on to her arm while he opened the rear door . . . to the Volvo.

The sight of the station wagon got her crying. It was about everything that had gone before . . . the way things had been and never would be again.

“Get in,” her grandfather said.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. She hopped a couple of times so she could face the front of the station wagon. The hood was uneven and held tight by bungee cords, but he’d obviously gotten the motor back to functioning.

How long had she been gone? She’d thought it was two days . . . three at the most.

“You can get in now,” her grandfather said.

“You fixed it.”

“Well, some of the damage is repaired. There’s still a ways to go before she looks good—”

Despite her cuffs, Nyx threw out a hand and squeezed his forearm. As she pegged him right in the eye, she wanted a hug from him, but knew that would not be coming—and not because of how things had been left.

There were other ways of connecting, though.

“You were right,” she said hoarsely. “Janelle was guilty. I am so sorry—”

Her grandfather shook his head and looked away, a ruddy flush turning his wrinkled face bright red. As if he might be, underneath the surface, every bit as emotional as she was. “Lie down across the seats if you can’t sit up. The sun is coming—”

“I was wrong. I’m so sorry—”

“Get in—”

“No,” Nyx said sharply. “We’re talking about this. Janelle was guilty. She killed that old male. She deserved . . . her sentence. I was wrong about what I thought happened with you turning her in, and I apologize. I thought . . . well, that doesn’t matter anymore.”

Her grandfather’s old eyes drifted to the horizon, which had a subtle, soon-to-be-deadly glow kindling. “Your sister has always been who she was.”

“I know that now.”

After a moment, he focused on her. “Did you see her, then?”

Nyx cleared her throat. “No. She’d died long before I got there.”



The trip back to the farmhouse took almost half an hour, and Nyx tried to ground herself in the familiar stretch of highway. In the low range of mountains. In the small town they passed through with its Sunoco station, and its garden center, and its diner.

But it was all a foreign country. She could barely read the signs around the gas pumps and understand what they were saying.

When her grandfather finally turned in to their farm’s long driveway, she sat up from her collapse against the back seats. In the milky headlights—one of which was blinking like it was about to short out— the house looked the same. There was the familiar front porch, and the rows of windows, and the roof, and the chimney . . .

She told herself this was her home. In her heart . . . she felt nothing. As much as she recognized all the details, this was a stranger’s house, her memories from inside and outside impossible to connect to.

The Volvo’s brakes squeaked, and her grandfather put the gearshift into park. When he got out, she fumbled with her door handle. Her fingers refused to grasp anything.

Her grandfather opened things up for her. And he reached inside, offering her his hand. “Let me help you.”

“I’m okay.” Yeah, the hell she was. Her voice was so thin, she could barely hear it herself.