The atmosphere around us turns cold and his jaw ticks, the ice blue of his eyes is hard as something angry and unforgiving stares at me. The hair on my nape stands up and I wonder if he is angry with me.
The palm next to my face lightly cups my jaw and his thumb slides across my cheek. “No one will ever hurt you again. I won’t allow it, ubic´u svakog ko pokuša.” [I’ll kill anyone who tries]
Clapping and laughing from outside pulls my attention to the large window over the breakfast nook. Mason and Sloane are opening their gifts. Looking back up at him, I say, “I want to go back.”
His eyes don’t leave mine as he takes a step back and slides his hands in his pockets, the space between us now bigger, our joined heat dissipating like a cloud. Reluctantly, I step around him and go outside to watch my brother and Sloane open their gifts.
CHAPTER SEVEN
TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO
Bela Palanka, Serbia
Twelve Years Old
Jax
“Branislav! Branislav!” My uncle’s firm voice sounds far away, and I claw through the darkness to bring his face into focus.
His fingers dig painfully into my shoulders. He is shaking me, concern etched across his face. The silence in the room seems to suffocate me, and I look around to see the two men who walked into the room earlier, dead on the stone floor.
There is blood everywhere, on their bodies and on the damp floor around them. Panic slices through me as I look around for my little sister, Nikifor, but then the weight of denial and grief overtakes me as I fall to my knees next to her.
Her little body lies limp on the floor, her eyes unseeing, but I cup my hands around her cheeks, anyway. The same cheeks that just two weeks ago were full of laughter and mischief.
At least I think it’s been two weeks. Vasilei and I started keeping track of days based on the meals they brought us.
“I’m sorry, Niki.” Letting my head fall to her shoulder, I cry. “I’m so sorry.”
I broke my promise to her and mama. When mama asked me to take care of my sister, the promise slid from my lips so easily, riding on the back of the confidence of a twelve-year-old boy.
My uncle looks at my cousin, Vasilei. “What happened?”
Vasilei stands on the other side of my sister’s body, anger mixed with fear on his face. “I don’t know, papa, he went berserk, he grabbed they guy’s knife from his waist and then they were dead. He killed them when they attacked Niki.”
It was then I notice my hands and arms covered in blood. But I don’t remember what happened. I struggle to remember, but my memory only goes back to watching the two men walk through the door.
They were looking at my sister.
They slowly killed my mama in front of us and then turned their attentions to my little sister.
My uncle grabs my shoulders again, pulling me to my feet and turning me around. “Is any of the blood yours?”
Pain is radiating all over my body from the last two weeks in this cell, the timeline of my wounds are all blurred together, all I can do was stare at my uncle. “Where have you been? Where’s papa?”
The concern in his eyes shutters and turns to anger before he grips my upper arm and starts pulling me to the door that had been shut to us for two weeks. As he pulls me through the door with Vasilei on my heels, I look over my shoulder one more time at my sister’s limp body that, just earlier, was curled into my side.
I purposely don’t look at my mother’s rotting body they left on the floor when they were done torturing her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MARLEY
STANDING STILLoutside of the round pen, I keep my distance as the bay gelding stares at me from the other side. The question in his eyes might as well be in a big thought bubble over his head, ‘Will this person hurt me?’.
Testing his reactions, I slide my fingers into the pockets of my shorts. He reacts just the way I thought he would. His head pulls up some as his attention is sharp on every move I make, ears back, and the fur across his back twitches.
He arrived this morning just after sunrise. They had to back the trailer up to the pen because he wouldn’t let anyone close to him. There was no chance in hell he was going to be led, he gave a good kick of the trailer door for good measure.
