“You’d do well to remember who signs your paychecks,” Beau snapped.
“Last time I checked, Dane hired us, Dane trained us and Dane signs our checks,” Dex drawled. “As far as I’m concerned if he doesn’t have a problem, and he hasn’t voiced one yet, then my only job is to report to him and take orders from him and Isaac since Isaac is lead on this.”
Three of the four women Jenna had been looking curiously at rolled their eyes and made faces at the men before turning and hurrying over to where Jenna stood. The other woman remained where she was and Jenna noted that she looked sad—and frightened. Did she resent Jenna for causing so much upheaval to all their lives?
“We’re so happy to meet you, Jenna,” Ari said warmly, after she’d introduced herself as well as the other two, Ramie and Gracie and explaining who their husbands were. “I think after hearing about the three of us, you’ll find you aren’t as alone as you think and you’re most definitelynota freak.”
Jenna lifted both eyebrows in question and then Ari launched into what power each of the women possessed, how different they all were and yet how helpful they were when they came together to save their men’s asses.
Jenna’s mouth fell open, and Ramie and Gracie laughed. “Now, don’t go tellingthemthat even if it’s the God’s honest truth. They like to think they keep us wrapped in bubble wrap and at home where nothing can ever touch us.” She rolled her eyes again. “Never mind that we’ve gotten them out of more than one scrape by combining our talents and using them to bring down the bad guys.”
Jenna looked beyond the group of women to the lone woman who was still standing alone across the room, her arms wrapped protectively around herself, her head down so that no one could catch her gaze.
“Who is she?” Jenna asked quietly. “She looks so ... vulnerable.” Much like Jenna felt, but in this moment, something about the other woman called to her, making her forget the danger to her. She was more concerned about exposing the other woman to the fanatics who were after Jenna.
Ramie’s eyes darkened and she sighed. “That’s Tori. She’s Caleb and Beau’s baby sister. She’s been through so much. She also has a gift, but it frustrates and hurts her more than it helps her.”
Jenna’s brow furrowed with confusion.
“She was abducted a few years ago by a sadistic serial killer who did unspeakable things to her before she was rescued. Just hours before he was going to kill her,” Ari said in a low voice. “She dreams of the future. Of things that will happen, but she often can’t make sense of the dream. Either she won’t know who the people are in her dream which prevents her from warning them, or if she dreams of people she does know, the dreams aren’t clear and succinct. She sees images and situations but not the events leading up to whatever happened. It makes her feel helpless. Between her dreams of the future and her nightmares of the past, she is never at peace, never feels safe, and who can blame her? I can’t imagine having to deal with what she does. Just one of those things is enough to break a person, but the two combined? She thinks she’s weak and unfixable, but what she doesn’t realize is how much strength a person has to have to endure what she did and still does and hold up under the strain. She’s far stronger than she gives herself credit for.”
Jenna glanced at Tori again, her heart filling with sorrow. She agreed with Ari’s assessment. This was no weak or irrevocably damaged woman. If she was, she wouldn’t still be holding strong and making it through each day.
Even as she thought it, Isaac’s impassioned words came back to her, so similar to her thoughts about Tori. Him telling her that she wasn’t broken, that she wasn’t weak. That a weaker person would have never endured as long as Jenna had and wouldn’t have been able to escape.
It was a stunning revelation and it provided a view of herself she’d never imagined before. Could he be right? If it was true about Tori, could it be true about herself? She didn’t like to think of herself as a weak, helpless and broken woman. She wanted to be strong. Wanted to be worthy of the way Isaac and the rest of his team seemed to view her. Perhaps she needed to reevaluate her assessment of herself and stop wallowing in self-pity and acting like a helpless twit. If she wasn’t even capable of helping herself, then how could she expect anyone else to be able to help her?
“You look like you’re about to collapse,” Gracie said in her quiet, sweet voice. “Why don’t you sit down. This will likely take a while and I promise and cross my heart that if Isaac withholds anything from you, the girls and I will fill you in on everything.”
Jenna smiled and stifled a yawn. “Now that you mention it, I am pretty tired.”
But when the women turned away to return to their husbands, Jenna retreated to the far side of the room and sank down the wall with her back against it, grasping her knees and pulling them to her chin.
She stared in envy and also felt keenly bereft of something she couldn’t even put a name to when she saw how obvious it was that their husbands loved them. They didn’t go a minute without touching them. Pressing little kisses to their heads, noses, necks and even lifting their hands occasionally to nibble on their fingers. There was no discomfort. The unmarried men took it all good-naturedly and judging by the rosy glows on the women’s cheeks, they enjoyed their husbands’ touches very much. As much as their kisses.
It was like nothing she’d ever witnessed. None of the men in the cult had kissed their wives, acted affectionate toward them, held them simply for the sake of touching them or teased them with soft laughter. God, the love that blazed in the eyes of these men for their wives was enough to make Jenna run from the room in shame.
Would anyone ever look at her like that? She was a product of what the cult had created. Conditioned to believe that the things she’d been taught were the same everywhere in the world. Except ... Isaac had looked at her very much like these men looked at their wives, and when he kissed her, any previous notions about kissing being distasteful vanished and she became immersed, lost in a world she’d never known existed. What did it all mean? Surely Isaac couldn’t profess to feel deeply for her so soon. They barely knew one another. But he was so convincing. Or perhaps she saw and felt what she wanted to and reality was a far cry from the fantasy she’d created.
How was she supposed to know what to think? To believe? How was she, with her ignorance of life beyond the boundaries of the compound that had been her prison, supposed to know what was real and what wasn’t? Her mind was in absolute chaos and she couldn’t process the bombardment of behavior that was completely alien to her any more than she could possibly believe that any of it was normal. What if they were the freaks and she was the only normal one?
She nearly choked as a harsh laugh burned her throat and she swallowed it back. If anyone was the freak, it was her. She viewed the obvious love between these husbands and wives with skepticism because deep down it hurt her to know that these women had something she would give anything for.
And, well, she had to be honest with herself because it was the only thing left to her when everything else in her life was a lie. The truth of the matter was that she was bitterly envious of Ramie, Ari and Gracie. Her envy sliced deeper than any shame or any wound ever bestowed upon her by her captors ever had. The cut wasn’t smooth or shallow. It was ripped open, scarring her and bleeding all the way to her soul.
Was it a sin to covet what most other young girls who grew into women wished for? All she’d ever fantasized about was the outside world being nothing like the relationships of the people within the cult. She dreamed of a normal life with a man, a husband who loved her, who would give her children and who didn’t care about her powers nor was threatened by them. But she’d never known if the rest of the world was any different. Now that she knew the truth, it only made her yearning that much more pronounced. What if it was too late for her? She was too marked, the scars too deep and pronounced by her time with the cult to ever have anyone look at her with anything but pity or disgust. Or downright disbelief.
After what seemed an eternity, the women and even Isaac along with some of his men finally stopped glancing over at her in concern, and they began to make plans and discuss necessary precautions.
Jenna buried her face in her knees, rocking back and forth, making herself the smallest ball she could manage and as unnoticeable as she could so no attention was drawn to her. She simply couldn’t bear the pity or even anger in their eyes, their expressions. She knew that they’d been dragged into a problem that wasn’t theirs to solve, much less become involved in.
She needed to get away as fast as possible. She needed to run so that these people who represented everything good in the world weren’t tainted by her and never had to suffer because they interfered on her behalf.
As much as she wanted to believe that Isaac cared for her and as much as she wanted to be to him what the other women were to their husbands, she knew it wasn’t a realistic dream. She’d get him killed. Maybe even the husbands of the other women and then, God, how could she face any of them? How could she face herself or ever look in the mirror again knowing she was the reason for so much pain and death? She had to let go of her ridiculous dreams and embrace what was real. And what was real was the fact that she and anyone close to her would never be safe. No man could be expected to live his life having to look over his shoulder constantly and dodge death at every turn. And it would kill her to see Isaac walk away after having experienced, even for a little while, what life would be like with a man like him. It hurt her deeply to leave him now, but it would completely break her if he left after he’d been hers for even a short period of time.
It had to be this way. Not just for her own self-preservation but also for Isaac’s safety and the safety of everyone in this room. She closed her eyes and took a moment to harden her resolve, knowing in her heart that this was her only option. She had no other choice.
The second she lifted her head just enough to peek at the others from underneath her eyelashes she froze. She was a complete idiot, because if Gracie truly did have the ability to read minds, Jenna’s plan was likely already in shreds.
