Page 1 of The Ones We Fight For

Prologue

Walker

Shards of glass tumbled over the asphalt, shattering into pieces of starlight under the glow of street lamps. It would have been an alluring sight to behold if not for the horrifying scene Walker knew awaited him once everything stilled. As if to affirm his impending doom, a chunk of metal sparked as it skidded to a stop in the middle of the road, a tiny firework in the darkness. The parade of beautiful and eerie destruction was swallowed up by the fog mere seconds later, like it hadn’t even happened.

And then, a cold, dead silence.

There should have been noise, the sound of screaming or the hiss of steam from an engine, but there was nothing. The hollow thrumming in his ears made his head throb as he kicked up his feet to sprint toward the accident. He moved like a slug, weightless limbs floating around him as he hit something hard and icy.

Water. He was underwater.

Confused, he turned to find that there were four sides to the tank, locking him away from outside, where they were waiting. All that resulted when he beat his fists and feet against the plexiglass was an echoing thud inside the chamber. His lungs finally caught on to his predicament and strained for air. No one looked up from the scene outside his enclosure as he watched the multicolored lights on top of a distant car speed toward the accident, reflecting off the glass and blinding him. He searched for a pocket of air, just enough to fill his lungs so he could continue trying to escape.

There was none.

A gurney rolled out toward the street, pushed by a dark figure as Walker continued to kick the pane in front of him furiously. Watching in horror, he slowly drowned, only caring that his lungs were giving out because he couldn’t get outside. Couldn’t get to them. Fighting against the pressure in his chest and the inability to breathe proved fruitless. The pounding in his head was almost audible when he finally shut his eyes to block out the disappointment.

Eventually, everyone would find out how helpless he truly was.

The alarm blared beside the bed.

Chapter 1

Walker

Jolting upright, Walker smacked the alarm clock so hard it clattered to the floor. The need to breathe roused him from sleep more than the actual alarm did, and he inhaled sharply to confirm he still could. Rolling out of bed, he placed his feet on the ground, still catching his breath. The freezing wood floor was a shock to his unsocked feet, expecting the warmth of the cheap carpet in his apartment. At first glance around the room, he was inclined to believe he’d had a one-night stand—which he wasn’t opposed to—until the disillusionment of his surroundings settled in.

Right. You’re at your brother’s house, which, I guess, is now your house.

The nightstand next to the bed did not contain any condoms for his supposed one-night stand. Given the five—yes, count them, five—children Walker's brother and sister-in-law had, contraception was probably off the roster. Two of the kids were adopted, but it didn’t change the fact that there would be no sex in Walker’s future.

After four months of basically taking over his brother’s life, Walker couldn’t quite shake the feeling of not knowing where he was in the morning. It wasn’t like he hadn’t woken up in some random woman’s bed before, but this was different. The air of familiarity was all the more confusing until his memories finally came flooding back to him, filling him with dread, like they always did.

Sighing loudly, Walker bent over to pick up the alarm clock, which read 5:30 a.m., setting it back on the nightstand that was nicer than any piece of furniture he had ever owned. He was now one of those responsible adults who woke at the buttcrack of dawn to get everything done and used a coaster to prevent water rings from damaging an end table. As if God had decided he needed to get his act together in the most fucked up way possible, his devil-may-care, casanova attitude had come to a grinding halt at the ripe age of twenty-six.

The motorcycle of Walker’s dreams was sitting in his brother’s—no, his—garage, untouched. The long hair he used to run his fingers through was chopped off because it was too greasy from his constant state of stress. His niece, Piper, who had an affinity for changing her own hair at the drop of a hat, had finally declared that he looked like the main character from a bad ‘90s movie and given him a new haircut. He had to admit, it wasn’t half bad. Piper herself was now sporting bleach blonde hair with the tips dyed black. It didn’t quite fit her normally sunny disposition, but it was fitting for the time being. She was old enough to dye her hair whatever color she wanted to, especially after all the shit she’d had to deal with recently. If she wanted to shave her head completely like 2007 Britney Spears, he would cheer her on. Who even needed hair?

After taking a shower, brushing his teeth, and deciding he was too lazy to shave his short beard, Walker pulled out the one drawer in the dresser that he had emptied for his stuff and put on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. Considering his job mostly involved sitting in coffee shops and ghostwriting the latest crappy novel, the scruffy, tattooed look wasn’t going to hurt anyone. It was his one callback to his previously rebellious and carefree life. For the first time in months, he was all set for what he hoped would be a day spent with his laptop, coffee, and some goddamn peace and quiet.

Slipping his phone into his pocket—an Android, because at the time he’d purchased a phone, he thought Apple phones were for sheep—he made his way down the stairs. The thought seemed so stupid and insignificant now that it almost made him laugh. The luxury of thinking minuscule things mattered or that he could still have some semblance of normalcy was ridiculous. His nieces and nephews were the only things that mattered anymore.

When Walker reached the kitchen, he opened the fridge, already grimacing before he peered inside. Grocery shopping jumped the line on his to-do list. His fridge back at his apartment usually contained several takeout containers that he’d left in there for entirely too long, to the point that when he did eventually clean it out, the contents looked more like a science experiment than a recognizable meal. When his brother, Cole, mentioned his unhealthy eating habits, Walker would just shrug and go into a monologue about the discovery of penicillin in mold. It was a medical accomplishment of epic proportions; therefore, what were a few rotting chow meins in the grand scheme of things? Cole would roll his eyes, then invite Walker over for dinner, where his sister-in-law, Paisley, wouldn’t allow him to leave without taking all of the leftovers home with him. She wasn’t subtle about wanting Walker to eat a real meal. If he refused, she would just threaten to drop it off at his apartment or ask whatever girl he’d recently dated (and never called back) to take it to him.

If there was one thing Walker knew about Paisley, it was that she won just about every argument she was a part of. Paisley had her shit together. She was the reason Walker ate at all when he was in middle school and high school. Despite the eleven-year age difference between Walker and his brother, they had always been close. They had to stick together because their parents were the kind of people who never should have had children.

After their mom died of a drug overdose when Walker was two, their dad technically became his sole guardian. But, in all ways that did matter, Cole had raised Walker. Their father was too busy getting smashed in his favorite lounging chair to bother with the work of being a present parent.

Cole and Paisley’s love story was something straight out of a bad romantic comedy, and maybe that was why adapting cheesy movies and TV shows into novels never really bothered Walker. He liked to pretend that his job was ass, but deep down, he liked the idea of a happy ending. Until recently.

Paisley was a foster kid without a single family member to her name. She got straight A’s in school, and, despite having no support, forged her own path in life. No one was going to stop her. Walker had always assumed that Cole desperately wanted that for himself, and so, when he had met his future wife, it had been an immediate attraction. At least, on one end.

Back when his brother was vying for Paisley’s attention, she had shut him down, insisting that, despite liking him, she wouldn’t let him distract her from her goals. Cole picked wildflowers because they were broke, offered to hold her books on the way to class, and said repeatedly that he would wait, however long it took, for her to come to her senses. Eventually, Cole weaseled his way in by literally bribing his chemistry teacher to be Paisley’s lab partner, and the rest was well, chemistry.

From the moment she had married his brother, Paisley welcomed Walker into their tiny apartment with open arms. He was always grateful that she never once complained when he needed a place to go to get away from his alcoholic father. The tiny apartment they rented soon became a tiny house, and then, immediately after Cole and Paisley’s interior design business took off, the massive house Walker was now the temporary owner of. Never in a million years would he have guessed that Cole and Paisley wouldn’t be there for their own kids.

“I’m going to do my absolute best to return the favor, I promise,” Walker said in a hushed voice as he pulled out a few boxes of cereal and a jug of milk. “I’ll restock the fridge before work, after I make sure they all get to school.”

There was no one in the kitchen, but Walker often found himself talking out loud as if Cole and Paisley could hear him. It was possibly more for himself than anyone else—like if he said his tasks aloud, it would get him started on actually accomplishing them. Better late than never to stop procrastinating.

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