Page 122 of The Freedom in Captivity

She shrugs a single shoulder, right as one of the children, Amy, approaches. “Consider it a lengthy nap. No harm. Honestly, I think Rosen and my brothers were more affected by the ordeal than I was.”

Amy rushes at me, wrapping her tiny arms around my thighs. “Roz, I missed you so much! Can I show you the rose bush I’ve been growing?” Then she clutches my hand and with all the strength in her tiny form, pulls my arm, urging me to follow.

After a final smile toward Aurora, I do. Aurora meets my look before turning toward another child.

We’ll be all right. In time.

* * *

Once everyone’s piled into the SUV again, I take the second helmet from Flynn’s bike and prepare to lower it over my head. He reaches over to help adjust the straps.

“Thought you were gonna take the car?”

“If I survived that,” I tip my head to the garden, “then I can survive this death trap.”

Instead of laughing, I get a serious, blistering look. “Good. Because I fuckin’ love your legs around me, knowing you’re onmybike.”

“Possessive.”

With a growl, he lifts me and places me on the back of his bike, fixing my legs for me. “Because I now have something to be possessive about.”

Flynn climbs on and quickly gets himself ready. He lifts the kickstand with a foot, which I find incredibly hot, and reaches behind me, placing my hands around his centre, telling me how he wants me to hold him. I shuffle as close as I can as he twists the handle and the bike takes off down the road behind the SUV.

The speed blows my long hair behind me, whipping through the strands, and as terrifying as the pace we’re driving at is, I’m coming to appreciate the weightless sensation.

At one point, Flynn leans to the right and I do too, as he’s instructed me to, and turns onto a road away from where the SUV with everyone else is headed.

“Where are we going?” I yell, but the winds are too strong for him to probably hear me over, so I’m stuck waiting until we arrive—whenever and wherever that’ll be.

He turns into a neighbourhood that I’m struck with an insane amount of familiarity over. But it can’t be…even when he takes the same corner my driver once took countless times. The rowhouses I always studied before turning out of view. The short block before approaching the single, huge building surrounded by grass.

“Oh my god,” I breathe as Flynn comes to a stop in front of our old high school. The bike’s rumble ends and for once, I’m not numb from the ride but rather the onslaught of memories that bombard me all at once.

The largest one, the bench he parks in front.

Thebench.

Flynn swings himself from the bike and reaches for me, undoing the helmet, and lifts me from the bike. He has to, since no part of my body is functioning any longer.

“Flynn…”

The school looks so much the same, but signs of age are apparent. The mural on the side, more faded than the fresh paint it had when we attended. Even the grass field around it could use a trim, but since it’s summertime and school is out, maintenance standards are less than normal.

“What are we doing here?”

Flynn answers my question by leading me to the bench. With his hands on my shoulders, he pushes me down into the seat but doesn’t join me. Not before positioning my hair like a curtain around me, and I know what he’s doing. He’s recreating our first moment.

Then he stands back to study me. “As beautiful as you looked the first time I saw you.”

So I study him back, right down to his ripped jeans and scuffed boots. “As dangerous as the first time I saw you.”

Chuckling, he takes the seat beside me, his arm stretching over the back. He fingers my hair as his legs fall open, identical to that first meeting.

“If there’s one thing, I never regret, it’s that day.”

“Me neither.”

“Because,” he continues like I hadn’t spoken, “I now get to call you mine.”

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