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I pray to God I’ve prepared her enough to emotionally be able to withstand the aftermath from the act of killing another. The magnitude of the effects from such a psychological trauma can be so damn debilitating. I need to be the one to help her pick up the pieces, and make sure she’s good with it. I lean forward and press my lips against her forehead, leaving them there against her warm skin. I close my eyes and catch the brief lingering scent of her strawberry shampoo.
“You were so brave today, sweetheart. So…so brave.” Before I pull away, I kiss her cheek reverently, wishing she were awake right now so I could tell her so. I continue talking softly to her as the back of my knuckles tenderly stroke her cheek. “I’ve been dying to say this to you, but I could never seem to find the right time. I love you, Jules. I love you so damn much I can’t stand it, and I don’t know when I can tell you this and have you believe it.”
My gut clenches at the thought of her never believing anything I tell her from here on out. “It’s going to take a while for you to trust me again, but I’m not going anywhere. I will prove myself to you, and I might not be able to tell you the words for a time, but I’ll sure as shit show you how much you mean to me.”
I stay with her a few more minutes, wanting to make sure she’s okay. I cradle her face as my thumb strokes over her lower lip. Her breathing pattern has smoothed out and it’s steady now.
I know Quinn is waiting on me to help him formulate a new plan, but all I want to do is stay holed-up here with her for however many days it will take to make this right between us. I lean down and tenderly kiss her soft lips, murmuring solemnly over her lips, “I was serious when I asked you to be my wife.” Before I pull away from her sleeping form, I give her one more chaste kiss. I have a feeling it will be a cold day in hell before she lets me get this close to her again.
I let out a sigh and begrudgingly leave her side. Out of habit, I shut the bedroom door on my way out, and then make my way to the large dining room table where Quinn sits, patiently waiting for me. His elbows rest heavily on the wood table, and his fingers are threaded together. He looks deep in thought, as he seems to stare right through me.
I pull out a chair from the table and sit down directly across from him. I have crazy adrenaline running through my veins right now, and I can't seem to sit still. My right leg begins to bounce up and down underneath the table as the aftermath of the most fucked-up morning of my life begins to sink in. I look up into my friend’s eyes to see worry etched across his face.
“Travis, I need to look at the back of your neck,” Quinn states with concern. Shit, I had forgotten all about it. I swipe the palm of my hand over the abrasion at the back of my neck, and then look at my hand. “There’s no fresh blood; I’m good right now. I can clean it up later.”
Quinn scoffs at me and shakes his head. “Do you even feel pain?” he asks with wonder. I’ve always had a high tolerance for pain, but right now, my adrenaline is going a hundred miles an hour, so I don’t even feel the wound.
“There’s too much other shit to settle first. I don’t have time to feel pain. The first thing we need to figure out, being that we’re in Hyde County, is how the fuck they found us.”
Quinn shakes his head. “I don't know, but it did take them a good while, didn’t it? All of our signals are meant to be boosted for output only. We’re out in the middle of bum-fuck Egypt, so there's no way in hell they could've spotted us with incoming signals.” Quinn then leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, and then asks me a point-blank question. “What about Mitchell? Could he have known about this place?”
I shake my head with earnest conviction. “No. I’m positive, but at least now I know where his loyalties lie. The motherfucker tried to kill me, Quinn.” The very thought that I could’ve died today out in the woods just pisses me off. “I want blood. When this is ironed out, I want to be the one to deliver due justice to him.”
Now I know for certain it was either Mitchell or one of his men who T-boned me in Charleston. I couldn’t be any more pleased that it was Quinn who took him down. The way he was spraying bullets overhead, I knew then Mitchell had his own agenda. He couldn’t have cared less about sparing Jules’ life, and that infuriates me. She’s an innocent in all of this. She didn’t deserve that.
