Warrior (First to Fight #1)(63)
“I always seem to ruin your shirts.”
“I don’t care about the damn shirt,” he says gruffly.
Then he embraces me, assuaging the hurt in one of the only ways he knows how. His touch is insistent, focused. He rubs his hands with a practiced precision that has my mind going fuzzy and blank, which is a welcome turn from the blind panic I’ve been in all day. I accept his comfort greedily, taking everything he has to offer.
We stay there, locked in each other’s arms, until someone knocks quietly at the door. Ben steadies me with a firm grip on my elbows, his eyes searching mine.
“We’ll find him. I promise you that on my life, Olivia.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I press a kiss against his chest and am reminded of all the terrible things he’s had to endure over the years. The loss of friends, men who were akin to brothers, innocent families he’s had to watch be tortured and ruthlessly murdered. The many times he’s had to fight for his life. He’s spent a lifetime training for atrocities like this. He hides his inner turmoil well, as he was taught to do. I look up, and he rubs a hand over my hair.
If there’s anyone I can trust now, I know it’s him. We’ll get through this together.
Logan and Ben pow-wow with the police while Sofie makes it her number one priority to get me home, fed, and keep me relatively sane as we do the only thing we can do: wait. She even allows Jack to tag along, though the tension between them is so thick, I still notice it even through my stupor.
As we pull in the drive to my cute two-story bungalow, I wonder if this little house I called home for so long, the place I’d hoped to raise Cole in, would ever feel safe again. An ominous weight settles over my chest as I unlock the front door and swing it open to an empty room.
The bouncer is still a mess of parts on my living room floor and the scent of the dinner I’d burnt lingers in the air. Hank winds around my legs, even more anxious than normal, so I let him out the back to work off the nervous energy.
Sofie and Jack busy themselves with straightening the mess in the living room while I plop down on the couch, unable to do more than watch listlessly as they clean. They make every effort not to pay any mind to one another, but even I can see they’re both forcing themselves not to watch each other.
Jack takes a load of toys upstairs to the nursery, and Sofie plops down beside me after grabbing my computer from the coffee table.
“What are you doing?” I ask from my curled position on the other end of the couch.
“The police chief said we should share this everywhere we can. I’m going to put a call-out to every friend, family member and classmate on all twenty-three of my friends’ lists. I’ll do the same on yours.” She looks at me, her face illuminated by the glow of the computer screen. “I’ll hack into Jack’s and do his, too. Maybe even spread it to some of my friends to do their thing to make sure the news coverage is spread far and wide.”
For as long as I’ve known her, Sofie has been brilliant, if not a little nerdy. She can do things with computers that make my already-limited skills look like child’s play. In fact, after high school graduation, she went on to university to study things I couldn't even begin to understand. Jack always used to say she could take over the world with the way she knew how to handle men and a computer.
Jack returns with a plate of sandwiches and a big glass of sweet tea. He sets them on the table beside me and says, “Eat.”
There’s nothing I want to do less than eat, but I know I haven’t had anything in twenty-four hours and I have to keep up my strength, so I do as he asks. I choke down bites of it with the refreshing glass of tea as Sofie clicks away on her computer and Jack scowls at her from his perch on the recliner.
With each hour that passes, the sucking hole in my stomach grows until I feel like I’m going to be swallowed by it. When darkness falls, Sofie has exhausted all of her resources and Jack has taken to pacing the length of the couch as we wait for word from Ben and Logan.
I almost jump out of my seat when I hear the lock clicking on the front door and Logan’s smooth voice trailing through. I immediately jump to my feet and race to the door, hope surging to my throat.
The look on Ben’s face tells me all I need to know, however, and my knees just go out, making me fall against him. I sense Logan heading to the living room, presumably to tell the others the news—or lack thereof, rather. Ben murmurs to Logan to let the others know they can head home until tomorrow.
Ben gathers me close to his chest like he did in the conference room, only this time, I’m too raw to cry out my pain. I feel like I have nothing left. I’m completely empty inside. As the others talk to Logan, Ben leads me up the stairs to my master bathroom.
His once light-hearted face is completely somber as he undresses me. When I am standing before him naked, he turns on the shower and adjusts the temperature. I watch listlessly as he sheds his own clothes, too numb to react in any way whatsoever.
He pulls me underneath the warm spray and I mold to him, drawing what strength I can from his embrace. The water sluices over us both, washing away the grime and sweat. We take turns lathering up a washcloth and rubbing it over each other.
Ben still hasn’t said a word, but I’m starting to learn that this new Ben doesn’t need to talk a lot to get his point across. Regardless, what little energy I had was completely sucked out of me when Cole wasn’t with him when he came home. I slip into one of his shirts that somehow showed up mixed in my laundry. The smell manages to calm my jangled nerves somewhat. I brush my teeth as he tugs on a pair of briefs.