Page 4 of Beckett
“That’s good for today,” Lark finally said, stripping off work gloves. “You really helped me out. Can you come back tomorrow? Dawn would be great—that’s early, but that’s when they need feeding.”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
She pulled two twenties from her wallet. “For today. More tomorrow if you can work again like you did today. Sound good?”
Forty dollars. It would get me more gas. Food. I could get out of town. Keep going.
“Thank you.” The words came out thick with more than gratitude.
“Oh! I almost forgot.” Lark disappeared into a storage room and returned with a small red gas container. “There’s about a gallon in there—should be enough to get you to town to fill up properly.”
My eyes burned. “I—I can’t?—”
“Sure, you can. Bring the container back tomorrow.” She pressed it into my hands. “There’s a bathroom on the far side of the barn if you need it before you go. Has a shower if you wantto bring a towel and change of clothes tomorrow or whenever you’re working.”
I nodded, throat too tight for words. Kindness was dangerous. It made you soft, made you visible, made you want things you couldn’t have.
“Thanks,” I managed.
Lark’s smile was gentle. “I hope to see you tomorrow, Audra. You’re welcome here. This is a safe place, as long as you don’t have any dog treats in your pockets.”
She knew I wasn’t planning to come back. Knew I was going to keep running. She didn’t even judge me for it.
“Thanks.”
She smiled and headed for her house across the property, already pulling out her phone to check messages. Normal person with normal problems.
The gas container felt heavier than it should as I walked to the bathroom. Inside, fluorescent lights hummed like angry wasps. I set the container down and faced the mirror.
A stranger stared back. Hollow cheeks carved deep shadows beneath cheekbones sharp enough to cut. When had my face become all angles and edges? My collarbones jutted out like accusations above my worn T-shirt. Purple-black circles ringed my eyes—not just tired, but something worse. Something hunted.
My hair hung limp and dull, nothing like the thick curls Todd used to tease me about. Now it was split ends. Grease. The color seemed to have leached away along with everything else, leaving something the shade of old dishwater.
I leaned closer to the glass. Twenty-eight years old, but I could have been forty. Or fourteen. My eyes had gone ageless the way trauma makes you ageless—too old and too young all at once.
Who was this woman? When had Audra Cartland disappeared, leaving only this ghost wearing her name?
Chapter 2
Beckett Sinclair
Ryan Cooper’s fist caught me square in the ribs, driving the air from my lungs in a grunt that echoed off the gym walls. It hurt like a bitch, but it was a good hurt.
Pain meant focus. Focus meant not thinking about the dream that had ripped me from sleep at 0300, sheets soaked through, Rodriguez’s voice still screaming coordinates while his blood turned Afghan dirt to mud.
“That all you got?” I wheezed, bouncing on the balls of my feet, hands up. My shirt clung to my back, heavy with sweat that smelled like fear residue and exhaustion.
“Brother, you’re the one who looks like death warmed over.” Coop circled me, all loose limbs and easy grace despite the sweat darkening his T-shirt. “When’s the last time you slept? And I mean really slept, not that zombie impression you’ve been doing.”
I answered with a jab-cross combination that would have dropped most men. Coop slipped it like water, his counter-hookglancing off my shoulder. We’d been at this for forty minutes, trading punishment in the makeshift gym attached to Warrior Security’s main building. The space wasn’t much—concrete floors sticky with sweat, fluorescent lights that hummed like a mad beehive, a heavy bag patched with duct tape where someone had split the leather.
“Sleep’s overrated.” I pressed forward, working his body, each impact jarring up my arms into shoulders already tight with yesterday’s tension.
“So’s dying young from a heart attack.” He caught my wrist, using my momentum to spin me into a clinch. His breath came hot against my ear. “The dreams again?”
Dreamswas too gentle for what visited me at night. Dreams didn’t leave you tasting copper and cordite. Dreams didn’t make you check your hands for blood that had washed off years ago.
I broke free with an elbow that missed his temple by design, not accident. “Drop it.”
