Page 84 of Ruthless Rebel

I feel like the sun has set and it’s never going to rise again, not for me. His absence is like an ocean, deep and vast, and so fucking strong that I feel like it might wash me away. I was finally happy, for the first time in my life I let myself feel hope. I let him and Lincoln get under my skin, and into my heart, and now look at what happened.

Lincoln.

“Where is Lincoln?” I ask suddenly, pulling myself out of Elle’s embrace, forcing her own tear-filled eyes to meet mine.

“He rode in the ambulance with you tothe hospital, he watched as the doctors wheeled you off into surgery, and then he disappeared,” she sighs, slipping back off the bed. “Nobody has seen him since, and it’s not for lack of trying,” she adds, looking both exhausted, bereaved, and worried, and fuck it just makes me feel worse.

“No, Elle, no, we have to find him,” I start, pushing back the blankets and trying to move, but my body is going too slow.

“Asher, no,” Elle cries, trying to force me back down, but I can’t stop, I have to find him.

Zack bursts through the door, followed by Marcus, as if they were both just outside waiting, and when Zack sees me, I watch his entire body deflate in relief.

“Ash,” he sighs, storming right towards me, and surprising me by throwing his arms around me, nowhere near as gentle as Elle, and I grunt in pain, making him release me. “Sorry, god I’m sorry, but you have no idea how happy I am to see you awake.” But, his words only remind me of the agony in my heart. I lost a lover, but he lost a brother.

“It’s okay, it’s good to see you too,” I tell him firmly, pulling him in for another hug, as I cry, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.” The words taste sour on my tongue, and Zack tenses in my arms, before he pulls back and grips my uninjured shoulder.

“Ash, you were beaten so badly the doctors don’t know how you fucking survived, so don’t you apologise, you gave everything you had, this is not on you,” he tells me firmly, but I see the shadows in his eyes that this has left him with. They are similar to the ones he gained when he found out about Elle, but her presence, and Cassie’s, seemed to erase them. I don’t think anything will erase them this time though.

But he’s right, this isn’t on me, not this time.

“We have to find Lincoln,” I say again, and Zack nods.

“We have people looking all over town, but you know Linc, he knows how to stay hidden better than anyone,” my brother replies, but I’m already shaking my head.

“No, you don’t understand, you have to find him, he is the one she wants, she won’t stop until she has him?”

“She?” Zack asks, as Elle comes to stand next to him, with Marcus at her back, all of them giving me their full attention.

“You know who did this, Ash? You saw them?” Elle asks, her sad-filled eyes turning stern and ready for battle.

“I didn’t just see her, I worked with her,” I gasp out, adjusting myself in the bed and pretending I don’t feel like I am dying both inside and out. “Her name is Sierra Banks. She came to me as a client at the office, with a story about an abusive ex-husband.” I can feel my body begging to go back under, as exhaustion threatens to claim me, so I quickly add on, “Which doesn’t make any sense, because I looked into her the same way we always do, her story checked out.”

I wince as my head tries to remember everything about her past, and the meetings I took with her, but Zack is already pulling out his phone, his fingers flying across the screen, and my eyes are already closing.

When I wake up again, the room is much darker, but Zack, Elle, and Marcus are all still here, sitting in the corner now, with stacks of files in front of them, and a laptop each. When I shift in bed, their heads snap in my direction, and Elle once again rushes to give me some water.

“Did you find him?” I ask instantly, taking a gulp of the water, and noting my head feeling a little clearer than the last time I was awake.

Elle shakes her head, as Zack stands, moving towards me and bringing one of the files with him. “No, but we found this,” he says, handing it to me, and I open the file to find information on Sierra Banks, with a picture of her, the real her, not the one who came to my office. When I look back to Zack to tell him that, he goes on, “It took a hell of a lot of digging, and one or twobribes, but we managed to pull her file. Whoever you met with wasn’t Sierra Banks. In fact, no one has seen the real Sierra Banks for almost two years.”

My mind conjures up question after question, but all I can force out is, “Then who the hell is she, and what the fuck does she want with Lincoln?”

42

LINCOLN

There is nothing but grief and alcohol running through my veins. I can’t feel anything but complete numbness. There is no life, no love, no fucking sunshine, just a pit of pure darkness that I will remain in forever. It’s why I left, because how could I have stayed? How could I have looked my so-called family in the eye, when I am the reason that someone they loved is dead?

Dead.

Logan is dead.

It doesn’t matter how many times I say it, how many times I think it, it still hurts just as much as the moment I watched him go. He was right there, we had saved him, he was desperately searching for Asher, like the world would end if he didn’t find him, and then he was gone. The sound of his sister’s screams, his mother’s sobs, his father’s solemn face, will all be forever etched in my mind like a bad nightmare I can’t escape. The taste of his blood-stained lips, still like a phantom touch against my own I won’t ever forget, nor the words they spoke.

I love you, Lincoln Blackwell.

How could he say that? Feel that? He knew who I was, what I was, so why the fuck did he fall in love with me? And why did I let him? I knew better, I learned not to let myself love when I was eight years old, and I watched my mother die, so how did his perfect, sunshine smile make me forget?

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