Long Way Home. Katie McGarry

I hear more than what she’s saying. Hear her fear, hear there’s more to what happened in the backseat of that car, hear that she needs me.

      I straighten my legs and Violet eases into me. Her shoulder, leg and arm pressed to me as she attempts to cover both of us with my jacket. I wrap my arm around her and briefly close my eyes at how soft she feels. It’s been a long time since I held her, and each night without her has been torture.

      Violet rests her head on my shoulder, and she reaches up to try to make my jacket stay on my other shoulder, but it falls. “You’re not covered all the way.”

      She’s covered and that’s all I care about. “I’m okay.”

      “No, you aren’t,” she whispers. “You should be home. I should be home. We should be nowhere near here.”

      She’s right, but instead of replying, I lean forward, slip my arm under Violet’s knees and gather her onto my lap. Violet stares at me, eyes blinking, a bit bewildered, and I shake my head slightly to let her know I’m not fighting with her. I’m not claiming some stake in our future. I just need her, maybe more than she needs me.

      She exhales. It’s a long one and then she lifts her hand. I stop breathing when she brushes her fingers along my cheek. “They hit you. You’re bruising. Everywhere.”

      And I’d go through each and every hit again to protect her. My only regret is that we ended up here.

      “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t know how else to protect Brandon.”

      “We did what we had to.”

      Violet rests her head into the crook of my neck, and when she raises my jacket to my shoulder again, it stays. I weave my arms around her and rub my hands up and down her cold arms, almost like I’m trying to convince a dying fire to stay burning.

      “Why is this happening?” Her breath tickles my neck, and I wish we were anywhere but this damp, cold prison.

      “I don’t know.” Yeah, Cyrus had warned us off the road, but I don’t know why they would target Violet. Why they would target me. Odds are it’s me. My grandfather’s the president of the Terror and my uncle is the man the Riot hates the most. The Riot feels Eli stole their daughter and their granddaughter even though Meg and Emily left Eli, too.

      Maybe the Riot decided to play out an eye for an eye, and I’m the closest Eli has to a blood child in the state. “Guess it was me they were after and you were caught up in it.”

      “The Riot hasn’t kidnapped anyone before.”

      Beat the hell out of members of our club? Yeah. Killed people belonging to our club? That, too. But I agree, at least from my limited knowledge, kidnapping wasn’t their style. “If they wanted us dead, we would be.”

      She snorts. “You need to work on your comforting skills.”

      My lips slightly turn up. “Noted.”

      She settles further into me, her arm curving around my body. “What do we do now?”

      Not much. We stay alive and... “We wait.”

      “For?”

      She’s not going to like my answer. “The club will figure this out. Eli and Cyrus will get us.”

      The way her body tenses under mine is a confirmation of her disbelief that the club will make the situation better. I want her to have faith in them. I want Violet to be part of our family again.

      “Waiting is its own form of torture, isn’t it?” she says. “I’m not sure if waiting and thinking of all the horrible things that can happen is worse than what will actually be done.”

      I cling tighter to her as my own demons and nightmares awaken. The what-if’s messing with my mind are the torture she speaks of. Anything happening to me isn’t the problem. I’m plagued with thoughts of what will happen to her.

      Fear.

      I’ve never been scared by much. Never believed in bogeymen living under the bed. Magic and sorcery belong to people like me who have fast hands and can deceive the human eye. It’s hard to believe in evil locked in closets when you realize at an early age it’s all made-up stories to explain what people think is unexplainable.

      It’s not unexplainable—only mere men manipulating shadows and mirrors.

      But there’s a bitterness in my mouth now. A metallic taste I don’t like much. A coldness in my blood and a freezing in my bones at the thought of what the men outside that door could do to Violet.

      “I’m scared,” she whispers.

      Me, too.

      I strain to hear anything beyond her breaths and my heartbeat in my ears. Occasionally there are footsteps overhead. Muffled voices. The sound of the ascending and descending of the old wooden staircase. Violet curls closer into me whenever there is movement outside the door, and I keep up a steady caress up and down her arm.

      My gut tells me we’re in here for a while. Tells me that they want us to be tormented by our own thoughts before the next round.

      “Do you think Brandon’s okay?” she eventually asks.

      I pray he is. I pray harder he kept his courage and called Eli for help. Faster the club gets involved, the faster we’ll be out of this mess. “Yeah. Your brother is a fighter.”

      “No, he’s not. He’s scared of the world and most everything in it.”

      I know, and Violet loves him more than she loves anyone or anything else in the world. Family first is a priority I understand. “He’s all right. You saved him tonight.”

      “We saved him.”

      We. It’s not a word Violet has used in a long time for us. It’s a soft kiss and a ripping of a Band-Aid at the same time.

      “They took my bracelets and my necklaces. They also took Dad’s watch.”

      I hug her tighter. The bracelets and necklaces—it’s not their worth that means something to her, it’s who gave them to her, the sentiment behind the gift. Some from me, some from Cyrus, most of them from her father. Losing them and her father’s watch would be like losing a part of her soul.

      “We’ll get them back.”

      She doesn’t argue, but doesn’t agree either. “You think it’s after midnight?”

      After midnight. Damn. This isn’t right. None of this is right. “Happy birthday, Violet.”

      “Eighteen,” she whispers.

      We had so many plans. “Eighteen.”

      “I want to go home.”

      “We will.” I’ll walk through hell to make sure it happens. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

      “I’m not sure I can.”

      “Try anyhow. At least doze. We both know you can be awake and asleep at the same time. Do that. There’s no telling how long we’re in this for and we have to keep sharp.”

      Violet nestles into me like she might try to sleep and I move my hand from caressing her arm to rubbing her head. That always made her sleepy, always made her fall asleep in my arms.

      “Thank you for sacrificing yourself for Brandon,” she murmurs. “He loves you.”

      “I know.” A lot like he loves her. A lot like I love her, too.

      Violet begins to sing. Not loudly, softly, under her breath. She has a beautiful voice. When I was a kid, I used to think that’s what angels would sound like. Violet used to sing all the time when we were younger, but less and less as we got older.

      Last time I heard her sing was the night her dad died. I held her that night, too. We lay in her bed, her head on my chest, and she sang in a soft tone until she fell asleep.