“There's no need to, not with us. Carter's fucking crazy for you already, Mila needs a girl like you around, and as for us? Friends.” I held out my hand, and she shook it, trying not to laugh.
For a moment we were silent, watching the view before us, the sun as it rose across the land and into the sky, the clouds disappearing to make way for bright blue.
She wrapped her arms around her naked body and sighed again. “Can I tell you something? Something personal.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
I slipped off my T-shirt and handed it to Amy before we sat down on the small table on the balcony. I let her drink the last of my water and waited for her to carry on.
The white material was far too big for her, and she tucked it snug around her thighs. “I'm not actually a bitch, you know?”
I raised my eyebrow and grinned.
She laughed, the first real laugh I'd heard since meeting her. “No, seriously. All bullshit aside right now. But I swear to God you tell anyone I said this, and I'll fucking cut you.” She made threatening snipping motion with her fingers.
“Okay, fine. You have my word.” I said, hands up as a truce.
She tightened and loosened the cap of the bottle methodically as she weighed up her words. “My daddy...he's not a nice guy. He used to be; he used to be my whole wide world. Until I turned nine."
I could sense where this was going, and my stomach churned. “Amy, you don't have to tell me this to prove you're not a bitch.”
She smiled, yet her eyes were sad. “I'm not, I just feel...drawn to you, like I can tell you shit without judged.” A pause. “I know what people see when they look at me. A confident, bright, take-no-prisoners bitch who could have any boy she wanted. And they're right for the most part. What they don't know is: why. Why I'm like this. Why I have this incessant need to go for what I want regardless of the consequences.” She scratched at her arms. “Fuck, you don't have a cigarette, do you?”
I nodded and pulled a carton from my pocket, taking two out and handing her one. I sparked up her smoke and then mine, quiet and waiting to hear this mysterious girls' story.
She blew smoke into the air as she spoke. “The first time it happened that I can remember, I was nine. A touch under the quilt here, a lingering kiss on the lips there. My mom was busy trying to take over the world one business at a time, putting money she didn't have into companies that had no potential, so my dad and I were often by ourselves.” More smoke swirled into the sky. “I was so fucking confused, you know? I'd seen television couples and the way they kissed, and I'd seen the way kids and their parents showed affection. That first time? I just assumed it was because I was getting older. Which is ridiculous, I know.” She rolled her eyes and took several long drags off her cigarette, the ember glowing bright orange.
“From then, it just got worse. I was powerless to stop it, my daddy's hands down pajama pants, his...” she looked at me, scared fucking shitless, “thing in my hand.”
“Amy...”
“No, let me finish.” She flicked ash on to the floor and stowed herself. “And then when I turned eleven, on the night of my birthday, that's when he went the whole way.”
“Jesus, Amy, I'm so sorry.” What else could I say?
“It happened every single fucking night,” she said through choked sobs, “until the night I left. I went and lived with my grandmother, no one asked any questions, and once I'd gone through several months of wanting to die, I promised myself that no man would ever make me feel like that again. That helpless, that weak and disposable. That...fucking disgusting.” She flicked the cigarette end to the ground and swiped the tears from her cheeks.
I got up and wrapped my arms around her. To this day, I don't remember deciding to hug her, but I had no clue what else to do.
She lay her chest on my head and laughed. “It's fine, I'm fine,” she said, pulling away from me with a wave of her hands.
I crouched down in front of her and took her hands. We looked at one another, a weird sort of pact, an unspoken promise, that I'd forever protect her. She would be a Murdoch in no time. “Want me to kill him?” I asked.
She didn't even flinch. “Can you do that?”
I nodded. “Carter wasn't kidding when he said my old man is a name in this town.”
She thought about my offer for a moment, stroking the back of my hand with a blood-red nail. “No,” she shook her head. “No. As long as he's alive, he suffers. That's all the punishment I could ever hope for.”
“Understood.”
She cupped my face and the look she gave me? I'll never fucking forget it. “You're something else, Jaxon Murdoch, you know that?” She kissed my cheek. “Mila is one lucky girl.”
Standing, I held out my hand for her to take, which she did. “Come on. Let's have a shower - separately...” I smiled. “Then we'll get some food for the other two, and the four of us can go out and do something. How does that sound?”
She stood, smoothing down my shirt. “That sounds like a mighty fine plan, Jax.”
And that was it.
One fucked up night. One fucked up father, and one fucked up conversation, and the four of us were inseparable. We never spent the night together again, Mila wanted us to become more serious. Plus, the more time Amy spent with Carter, the more I could see her falling for him. She lost her resting bitch face and the attitude, and before long, she was one of us. We spent four amazing summers together, partying, spending weekends at my pops' lodge, drinking, and then eventually working.
Mila had always been ambitious. She had the smarts, the brains that most of us in that town lacked, and, just after we'd all turned twenty, she broke my damn heart and left, leaving for a job she couldn't have refused. We tried to keep in contact, but she was never going to accept my lifestyle, especially as I'd gotten older, and I didn't blame her. More often than not, Carter and I were on runs across the country, coming home bloodied and bruised, particularly in the beginning, and while it had taken me a lot to get over her, I managed. I fucked and drank my sorrows away until she was nothing but a distant memory.
If I thought the secrets before finding the damn necklace had been a twist, I'd was sorely mistaken.
The storm was brewing.
The army were sharpening their weapons, and I was crazy fucking in love with Ella goddamn Chrobak.
Chapter Thirty
Ella.
There was a constant, steady drip coming from somewhere when I awoke once more, a torturous noise that teased my full bladder. My eyes were crusty, with what I don't know, and I couldn't move my arms or my legs. Locating a tiny amount of strength, I moved one extremity, which caused a loud clanking noise. I moved another, the same thing happened, and when I shook all four in unison, that's when I realized: I was chained to some huge contraption, upright, legs apart, arms high above my head.
I whimpered, that one simple action had my throat screaming in pain. I was naked, cold, and desperate to use the bathroom, but I couldn't panic. I couldn't risk using any energy I had left.
The room was pitch black, echoes as I moved, each bone in my body cried out for some relief, I could feel the tension in my joints and almost sobbed in frustration at not being able to crack them. My lungs wheezed, and my hips groaned. What on earth was happening to me? Where was I?