Defy (Brothers of Ink and Steel Book 3)(62)
Ryder’s body tenses as his gun fires. The bullet lodges between Miguel’s eyes; his body is thrust backwards and sprawls over the ground.
The crack of the shot startles me, and the sound echoes through the shipyard.
Soul-racking sobs of combined fear and relief quake through my chest. The fissure snakes through my defenses, rupturing my iron-clad will to act brave and tough and defiant.
Ryder brings his arms around me and holds me.
A moment later, our world erupts with sirens and blue and red flashing lights.
Ryder’s strong hand secures my head as he cradles me. “It’s over, Rachel. You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Epilogue
Several years later
Rachel
My day starts like every other: I run the two miles between Makakilo and Kapolei. When I get back to the apartment, I shower and eat a simple breakfast before swinging by and picking up Lemy to bring her to school.
“Have a great day, kiddo. I love you.”
“I . . .”—she slows the speed of her words and deliberately sounds each letter out—“L-ove you . . . Rachel.” Her smile, full of pride, nearly brings me to tears.
She’s come so far. She doesn’t care what the other kids think as she leans into the car for an extra hug and kiss—when you’ve lived through what we have, each touch is a precious gift. After she lets me go, she grasps the straps of her backpack and runs up the ramp to her classroom at the small private school for children with learning disabilities like her. She’s greeted by teachers and parents acting as security and she waves me on my way.
If he hadn’t rescued me from that basement years ago . . . A violent shudder chills my blood and causes my skin to pucker with goosebumps. I don’t want to think about how they would have ended my life.
We’re both alive and together because of Ryder.
As the mere suggestion of him sings like a haunting love song through my mind, my heart yearns sharply for him again. I don’t know where he is in the world, but I hope at this very moment, a memory of me takes his breath away.
Does he think of me every day?
Does he remember me like I do him?
Do the memories halt him in the middle of the day and overtake his every thought, as if he’s reliving it with me all over again?
That’s what they do to me.
I can still feel the sensation of his hand gliding over my exposed collarbone, tingles consuming me as the coarse skin of his fingers continues up under my hair, caressing my throat before he brings his grip around to the nape of my neck and compels me towards his hot, open mouth. His tongue swipes at the seam of my lips, demanding entry. Overcome, I open my mouth and allow him access. Every part of my body burns—on fire with need for his touch, for his perfection.
I lick my lips now at the memory and adjust my pleated summer skirt.
Memories are more than the experiences they’re created from—they are pieces and particles of living souls we carry with us.
And my remembrance of Ryder, I hope, will transcend and follow me even into the next life. I believe my bond to him will make us an everlasting love story . . . the kind where we will search restlessly until we find one another in each life to come.
Our shared recollection must connect us, because I swear I can still feel him.
I’ve memorized his every line, every curve of his muscles, every brush of ink—especially the addition of my name, Rachel, in the loveliest of scripts over his heart.
Joined, united.
I fix my inward gaze to the photo in my mind: Ryder’s crumpled jeans and belt thrown carelessly to the floor in my dorm room, his bulletproof vest on the table, his combat boots by the door.
When I swear I’m breathing his scent, I know this is going to be one of those days—difficult—and I’ll be watching the clock, waiting for the moment I can escape to cry alone.
Is he safe? Is he alive?
A bitter and sweet sensation tangles around me with the recollection of mine and Ryder’s last smoldering kiss, with the rising sun shimmering over the Pacific beside us. The sky was torn in two—one side suspended in the waning darkness dotted with insistent, stubborn stars and a thin sliver of pale moon that refused to say goodbye, while the other was infused with the light of the dawning day, promising to rend us apart and burning too brightly with the inevitable, awaiting reality.
“Promise you’ll think of me.”
“Promise,” my tough guy vowed through a shimmer of tears.
Parking the car in my designated space, I enter the occupational and speech rehab section of the medical facility I work at and am interrupted by a text from my mom—she’s at the store, and before she goes home, she wants to know if I need her to pick something up that she can drop off at my apartment.
I thumb into the keypad while I mumble out loud, “I don’t want anything, but thanks. Tough day starting.”
I set the cell to vibrate. I shouldn’t have pushed send—now she’s going to grill me after work. Maybe she’ll think of getting me a bottle of wine. That I could use.
When everything was said and done, I knew it would be best for the three of us if my mom and Lemy moved here to Oahu with me. My mom even remarried, which I never expected but had hoped for.
I love my job, I think, pushing through the glass door.