It made no sense.
“What doesn't?” Dillon flinched at Nasa's question, not having realized she'd voiced her thoughts.
Her heart skipped a beat as she glanced at Damon and Raid, neither of them giving her weird looks to say she'd been talking out loud for an extended period.
Nasa's face was lit by the glow of his tablet, casting shadows and highlights across his jaw and cheeks, giving his eyes an eerie shine.
“Nothing” she murmured evasively, but Nasa didn't go back to staring at his tablet. He waited patiently for her to explain, giving her his undivided attention.
He looked prepared to sit there and stare at her the whole ride back if she didn't say something to assuage his curiosity.
“I was thinking about why Ghost would care one way or the other if I lived.”
“Psychopaths rarely make sense to anyone but themselves,” Damon commented reasonably.
Dillon shook her head, setting her chin in her hand as she looked back out the window at the lights passing them by.
“I was paralyzed, vulnerable, he had a knife and plenty of time to hurt me to make me comply. All he did was scare the shit out of me.”
Raid gave a dark sound of humorless mirth. “That wasn't enough?”
Dillon lifted her shoulder as her brain started to process the facts. To analyze and categorize. “Considering everything you've all told me about him? No. He did what he did for a very specific reason, and I want to know what it is.”
“You don't have to worry about it, Dillon. I will find out the truth,” Nasa promised, his voice tight and vibrating with anger.
She snorted softly, wondering how he could possibly expect someone like her to not worry about having a target on her back.
“Do you have a picture of him?” she asked, surprised her voice didn't wobble.
“Of Ghost?” Dillon nodded, and Nasa made a short sound of frustration. “A few, but none of them are his real face. Damon and Raid saw him without the disguises and sat down with a sketch artist for a composite. Why?”
Dillon had a moment of indecision, where she could say she simply wanted to put a face to the name, or tell him the truth. The whole, ugly truth, and not worry about his ability to deal with it.
“The nightmares will be easier to process if my subconscious has details to work through versus shadows and terror.”
“Word to that,” Damon grunted. “My woman wanted to know what he looked like too. Wanted to know what he sounded like, what he'd said to me when he had me and Raid strung up like meat.
“I told her no way, no how would I bring that bastard into our home or make her remember how scared she'd been when I went missing, but that fucker snuck in anyway and the nightmares she had?
"Obviously, not knowing was even worse, because her imagination went wild.
“It took all of one nightmare, one bad dream that woke her up screaming and crying, before we sat down and looked at the sketch together. You know what she said?”
Honestly intrigued, Dillon met Damon's gaze in the rearview mirror.
“What?”
His grin was broad and more than a little mean.
“She said, 'He's not a ghost. He's just a man, and men can die.' Picturing him dead someday made her feel better, which was alright with me.”
Dillon managed a faint smile, glad to hear Damon's woman had a strong head on her shoulders. She was right, too.
Dillon felt Ghost's very real, calloused hands on her body. She'd felt his hip settle against hers where he'd sat beside her, and felt the warmth of his body when he leaned in closer.
He's not a ghost. He's just a man, and men can die.
Dillon's psychologist would likely have an opinion on the choice of mantra, but Dillon hugged it close and repeated it over and over in her mind the whole drive back to Austin.
CHAPTER NINE
Being away from the safety of the compound and not being the one behind the wheel, in complete control of the vehicle, had Nasa riding the edge.
The muscles in his shoulders were torqued with tension, his jaw clenched tight to keep from telling Damon what to do if anyone pulled up behind them or beside them.
Damon knew how to drive all sorts of vehicles in combat situations, he could handle I-35 in his sleep, but even knowing these facts didn't keep Nasa from running through all the possible scenarios of danger.
Nasa had chosen to sit in the back with Dillon so he'd be able to give her his absolute attention should anything set her off, but she seemed perfectly calm.
Deep in thought even as she hugged her knee to her chest, which wasn't safe at all. If they crashed, she'd be pinned, her knee might get driven up into her jaw...
Nasa heard his own molars squeak with how hard he tried to keep quiet, but when Damon swerved slightly to avoid running over a sunk carcass, Nasa's heart ratespiked. Damon might as well have swerved into the other lane into oncoming traffic.
“Don't sit like that, Dillon,” Nasa snapped, his voice harsher than he'd intended. “It's not safe.”
Dillon turned to look at him with a narrow-eyed scowl, but whatever remark she'd been about to make died once she got a good look at his face.
She still gave him a dirty look, but there was a flicker of understanding to her expression. With a short nod, she put her foot down on the floorboard and wrapped her arms around her waist.
Realizing she needed something to hold onto—and Elka couldn't fit between her knees or up on the seat beside her—Nasa twisted around to grab one of the pillows he'd grabbedfrom her place.
“You owe me fifty,” Damon announced, holding a hand out to Raid as Nasa wordlessly offered Dillon the pillow.
It made him feel a little better when she accepted it without a word of protest, wanting to know what Damon and Raid had bet on.
“How long it would take
