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“I believe you,” she said.
Appeased by my words, Raine placed her head on my shoulder and squeezed my arms again. She still didn’t like it, but I couldn’t blame her for that.
“I hate this,” she said quietly against my skin.
“I know.” I held her closer. “Just focus on Alex. If you can deal with me, you’ll be able to deal with a kid. I’m practically a child myself.”
I finally got a genuine smile out of her with that one. She relaxed against me, and I kissed the top of her head. She turned to meet my mouth, and we kissed gently as I cupped her face with my hand.
“I love you,” I whispered as I stroked her cheek. “You’re my life. I won’t let anything happen to us. I swear.”
She accepted my words this time even if she didn’t like how her safety would be secured. We lay back down with her head on my chest. I leaned against the pillow and closed my eyes for a while longer. I was tempted to doze off again, but the sun coming through the blinds made it impossible. I couldn’t sleep during the day even if I hadn’t slept at all the night before. It didn’t matter, though—I still felt at peace with her in my arms, and that was rest enough.
As much as we both might have preferred to stay in bed, we eventually got ourselves up. Raine headed to the kitchen while I pulled on my jogging shorts and a T-shirt. I laced up my shoes, took a piss, and then went out into the main room.
Though it was Saturday and Raine usually took the day off from homework, she had her school stuff spread out in neat piles on the couch and coffee table. I had to hand it to her. In spite of her apprehension, she kept her priorities straight. She had set a goal and was sticking to it. So had I.
She looked up as I came in the room.
“Running?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I need to keep building up my endurance.”
She cringed a little.
Fuck me. I’d just given her another reminder of what I was going to do, which wasn’t my intent. I didn’t know how I was supposed to avoid it outside of lying to her about what I was doing, and she would see through that immediately.
Huffing a little breath through my nose, I went over to her and crouched down. I touched her face with my hand and looked closely at her for a moment. The need to reassure her kept my focus where it should be—right inside of her heart. If I could keep that in my head at all times, I’d be able to do this.
“Love you,” I said as I brushed my lips against hers. “Everything is going to be fine.”
She nodded, resigned to accept my words even if she didn’t completely believe them.
“Love you, too,” she said.
The power of her mental strength impressed me, as it always did. Tiny thing that she was physically, when it came to dealing with shit way out of her control, she was a beast. She took everything in stride, even when she hated every moment of it.
I was reminded of how she cared for me on the raft when I went through alcohol withdrawal. I’d been in such bad shape, she didn’t know if I was going to make it. If I had died, she would have been left alone on that raft and probably would have perished shortly afterward. She’d suffered starvation and dehydration, not to mention putting up with my obnoxious tendencies, but she’d dealt with everything that came at her. She’d persevered through it all, and usually with a smile on her face and some kind word about how I was better than I thought.
In my own fucked up way, this was how I would thank her for everything she’d done and everything she meant to me. I’d get us through this the only way I knew how—with brute force and violence. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it was a task I was uniquely qualified to do.
I gave her a brief hug and a kiss on the temple before I headed off.
If I had known then, I would have held her longer.
No, if I had known, I never would have let go.
But ignorance is bliss, so I tromped down the stairs in my running shoes and headed off to the beach even though it was late in the morning and the whole place was already filled with people. Even so, I ditched my shoes in the sand and ran barefoot.
Two little red-headed girls in pink bikinis bounced up and down in the waves, screeching like seagulls every time a whitecap splashed over them. Sunbathers worked on their already ridiculously dark tans, and numerous tourists splashed in the morning surf.
I felt odd the entire time I ran through the sand, but I couldn’t put my finger on why, just that I felt strange. I tried to shake it off as nothing, but something in the back of my head kept telling me I was being watched. I needed to keep my head focused on training and the upcoming tournament, but something kept nagging at me.
Maybe my paranoia was going to drive me right into the loony bin before I ever had a chance to fight. Then again, maybe Evan Arden was up on a rooftop somewhere with a sniper rifle aimed at my skull, deciding that he didn’t need to play by the rules after all.
His threat against Alex was still echoing through my head. I’d gone up to him with the intention of mind-fucking him, and he’d turned it around on me faster than I could process. It pissed me off, and I wasn’t sure if I was mad at him for doing it, myself for letting it happen, or Landon for making the damn suggestion I try to screw with Arden in the first place.
If he had me this much on edge before the tournament actually began, what was the fight itself going to be like?
