Page 59 of The Eleventh Hour

I cock my head. Dane huffs and slams his hand on the counter.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I saw.”

“She has reasons to lie, Dane. I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt.”

Dane’s face softens minutely, just enough for me to realise that he is as conflicted as I am.

“All right, so we trust her?”

“Yes. Until she proves we can’t, and I don’t think that will happen, we trust her.”

Dane shakes his head. I sit there and finish my coffee long after he’s gone to bed.

I wonder if she will trust us when she discovers our secret. Just imagining that conversation makes my stomach turn.

I open the door and flick on the light quickly. My body freezes as I try to make sense of the image burned on my retinas. I shake my head, turn on a lamp beside the bed, and then turn off the big light again. I climb into bed and wrap myself around her and glare into the dark corners of my room because, for a moment, in the dark, I thought there was a man wrapped around her.

Jax

Iwake up in the bed alone, and when I put my hand on the spot where Rafael had slept, it’s cold to the touch. Yesterday flashes behind my eyelids, and the hole inside me that seems to get bigger all the time tries to swallow me. Cherise smiles in my memory, her blonde hair fanning out around her. I feel her arms around me, and it’s too much; I shove myself up and scramble out of the bed.

I clench my hands and look around in a panic. There’s got to be something I can do! I have to find her. Maybe there’s a chance, maybe if I’m smart enough, if I’m fast enough…I shake my head. Who am I fooling? Six years trying to find a weakness, and nothing, what makes me think I’m going to find it today, even to save her. I stumble to the second door in the bedroom, relieved to see a bathroom.

It’s a long bathroom that maintains the same industrial modern look as the rest of the house. I note body spray and a toothbrush on the counter. It smells like Rafe.

I turn the tap on the cold and bend down to hold my face under it, choking and gasping on the water, but the icy pain brings me back. With a groan, I lift my head and stare at the woman in the mirror. I don’t even recognise her anymore. Too many secrets in her eyes, too much pain in the lines of her face. Who is this woman who fails? I hate her so much. My fingers bite into the basin, gripping hard enough to make the joints ache.

“You have to finish this,” I whisper to the woman in the mirror. “Finish it for them.”

I just don’t know how to do that.

“Break it down, get dressed, and go see Keylore.” I look around the bathroom and pause when I see the pile sitting on the counter at the other end. There’s a second door I hadn’t seen. There’s a towel, toothbrush, hairbrush, and a clean set of clothes. I pick up the black lace underwear, and my eyebrows rise at the sheer fabric.

I take my time getting clean, almost rubbing my skin raw, using the time to plan. I emerge from the room to see Dane standing in the kitchen, shaking a frying pan, and Rafael sitting on the couch with a coffee. It’s so domestic and normal that I feel strangely like I’m out of place, looking in on something from the outside.

“Good morning.”

Dane glances at me and grunts.

“Use your words, Dane. I know I taught them to you,” Rafael says without turning his head. “Morning, Jax. Come sit with me. Dane, despite his inability to step out of his cave-dweller persona, is making you breakfast.”

I glance quickly at Dane and see him scowling at the frying pan like he’s contemplating homicide.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“He does. He’s sorry for being an ass.” Rafael grabs my hand and kisses the inside of the palm. An image of him doing the same thing last night storms into my mind and brings a furious blush to my cheeks and an uncomfortable dampness to the sheer underwear.

I allow him to pull me down and lean into him.

“So, last night you said Keylore was the pastor?”

I nod my head. “Yes. We should be able to see him today.”

Rafael nods and reaches up to brush my hair back from my face. I finally put my finger on what it is about him that unnerves me. He is so comfortable with touch, it’s natural. And he uses it as a balm whenever I start getting uncomfortable.

I’ve gone months, sometimes, without a single person shaking my hand. The people that do touch me, I’m wondering what they want, what they are trying to get. Touch has been a weapon in the past, but Rafael uses it simply because it’s who he is, and somehow, my subconscious knows it. He is not a threat to me.

Dane puts a bacon and egg sandwich on the coffee table, turns, and walks away. I twist to watch him go.

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