“I guess I’m good at finding trouble.” She let her gaze fall on him meaningfully.
“Aw, come on, that was too easy.”
“You walked into it,” she pointed out. “Can you tell me a little more about this Landon guy you’re all discussing? What he does for a living?”
“He’s a smuggler. He helps criminals leave the country, but he also stops human traffickers. Lots of shades of gray,” Jem explained. “We’d have no problem with him if he didn’t keep trying to kill us.”
“He’s the one who hurt Avery?”
“Yes. Now can you understand why I don’t want you anywhere near him?”
She nodded. “But Grace can’t do it. And you don’t have anyone else.”
“We’ll find another way. There’s always another way.” Only this time, there really wasn’t, and Drea knew that as much as he did. As much as they all did.
Avery dreaded reading Adele’s missing journals, but once she’d forced herself to start, she was angry she hadn’t done so earlier.
She was a survivor.
“It’s a shame she never had kids,” she’d told Grace after she’d finished the first journal. “She would’ve been the best mom.”
“She was,” Grace said, hugging her arms around herself.
It was then Avery remembered how much they’d all lost. If they hadn’t been broken by now, she had to assume they never would. “I forgot how long you spent with her.”
“I didn’t read these journals until she’d left. But then I understood why she got me—didn’t yell at me about being promiscuous. She understood it was my way of taking back my power,” Grace said.
The planning was happening around her. Gunner briefed her at night, and sometimes she fell asleep while he was talking. That was all right—it was as if what he said was solidifying in her brain, adding fuel to the fire. And every day, the need for strict vengeance wore a little thinner. The need for justice grew stronger. It was a much better balance.
After a month, they moved locations. A different state, a better safe house that Jem and Key vetted for a week before they allowed the others to move here.
It was all temporary, Avery knew. Her ultimate goal was to get Gunner back to his tattoo shop. Back to at least drawing, which she hadn’t seen him do once.
She’d forced herself to look in the full-length mirror daily since Drea took the bandages off. Wanted to know exactly what Landon had done, wanted to watch the black stitches dissolve and the bright red scars fade to pink and then eventually white, knowing her anger wouldn’t fade as quickly. Not until Landon paid, and paid dearly.
He didn’t have family. No one close to him that she could hurt him with, beyond Gunner. Even if there were, she didn’t think she could do that.
But not having anyone to care about was how the man stayed on top for so long. You couldn’t care about anyone or anything that could be used against you. And that was S8’s fatal flaw. She couldn’t see that changing any time soon. It was the only way to keep their consciences in check, the only way they’d ever be able to love.
“We could retire to an island. Work enough to live and then just hang out,” Jem had suggested yesterday.
“You? Hanging out? Doing what, lying in the sun? I give it less than an hour,” she’d scoffed.
“Maybe I’d love it.”
She knew she wouldn’t.
She traced the scars now, her fingers trailing as her eyes never left the mirror.
Every night, she curled up next to Gunner, fully clothed. And every night, he’d held her through nightmares that went from multiple ones nightly to one per night and then a few times a week. Body and mind seemed to heal at the same time. Having Grace and Dare and Key there helped. She could concentrate on healing, without worrying that everyone was in danger.
There were thirteen scars in all. Different sizes, some vertical, some horizontal, done purposely to scar. The biggest one bisected her tattoo and she traced the X that marked her beautiful flowers.
Gunner would work miracles on this. She knew that. But she hadn’t wanted him to see her naked yet, because she was more worried about how these scars would affect him than anything.
She drew a bath, sank into the bubbles and tried to relax. Time was passing. Plans were being made. Soon, it would be time to put up or shut up.
She would make Landon pay for everything he’d ever done to her family.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It had been seven days since they’d moved to this house, and the closer they got to firming up plans to take Landon down, the harder Avery had been pulling away from him.
She’d been in planning mode. She was healing. Stronger. Sharp too, but that didn’t mean she was totally ready for this. None of them were.
Gunner glanced into the kitchen and found the others there, except for Avery.
“Thought she was with you,” Jem said.
“She’s taking a bath,” Grace told him. “I just checked on her.”
And now he was going to. She’d been avoiding him and he wouldn’t let that happen. He burst into the bathroom and found her soaking in the tub, up to her neck in bubbles.
“Can’t a girl have any privacy?” she asked.
“No. None. You’re not leaving my side.” Jesus, he might as well have simply said,
She blinked, stared down at the bubbles. “Can you at least wait outside the door?”
“I won’t leave you alone inside a room with a window.”
“I’m below the window.”
He wanted to tell her that a sniper wasn’t the only way Landon could try to get to her, but instead he told her, “You need to get out.”
“Is it me or Landon you’re worried about?”
“Both. Now up,” he said firmly, held up a towel.
“I’m all soapy. I have to rinse off.”
He sighed, moved to the window and said, “Go ahead.”
“Can’t you at least look away?”
“No.” Why was she being so stubborn? He’d seen her naked, made love to her. Now wasn’t the time for false modesty. “And if you don’t move soon, I’m hauling you out of there myself.”
“Fine.” With a determined set to her jaw, she let the water out of the tub and stayed seated and used the handheld showerhead to wash off for a while. And then she finally stood, her taut body naked and dripping wet.
He stared as something caught his eye. She stilled, because she knew.
She’d hidden the scars from him. Jem had helped her. He’d assumed the bandages she’d worn for weeks had been because of broken ribs.
He’d been so very wrong. There were deep cuts through her beautiful tattoo. And the initials DL carved into a heart. Slashes on her breasts that were on their way to healing still looked angry. They’d never fully fade.
“Not as pretty as tattoos,” she said tightly.
“You’ll always be beautiful to me, Avery.”
