Jaded Warriors book 2 (Jade Series)

Chapter 9

Chapter 9


“Jade! You can't hide from me!” The sounds of Damian’s voice bellowed from the gut of the massive wolf before me. The head warped and twisted until it was Damian’s face I saw. “Your life is with me...”


I woke suddenly to the sound of my screams, confused about where I was. The cold dark night wrapped around me like icy fingers, frigid like my jail cell.  I felt Damian grab me and tried to free myself as I screamed for him to let go. With a tightened fist, I swung and hit him. He grabbed my arms as I tried to fight free, reminded once again of how weak I was, powerless against him and I couldn’t get away.


“Damian stop!  Please!” I screamed, as fear cursed through me.  “Gage…” I cried out helplessly. More just an empty need than knowing he would come.


“Jade!  I’ve got you, wake up!    I’m right here.    You’re dreaming,” Gage said repeatedly, until I woke from my stupor. The feel of gentle hands caressed my cheeks and calmed me. “Jade, look at me… Damian isn’t here.”


A small amount of light shone through the pitch of night from the glow of the candle. Gage’s face, not Damian’s, finally registered in my mind. His eyes, vexed with concern, drew my attention. A strangled sob escaped me as I tried to swallow it down. I curled up in a ball on my side as I realized it was another nightmare.


“Damian’s not here. It was just a bad dream, okay. I’m right here… I’m not going anywhere,” Gage said as he tried to reassure me.


“I’m sorry,” I said, through my tears.


“It’s okay… You’re okay now.”


“I don’t think I will ever be okay, Gage,” I said, the surge of terror dulled.


His thumb softly brushed the tears off my cheek. I resisted the panic from his touch that wrestled with my heart. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and sighed.


“You will... It will take time, but you will.”


“I don’t know what is worse. Feeling numb and emotionless or seeing his face constantly.”


“Numb and emotionless is worse. It’s okay to feel bad… Eventually you’ll see him less, and then you won’t see him anymore.”


My breathing slowed and I relaxed as Gage sat with me. I felt tired, but I fought sleep. I didn’t want to wake up like that again.


“I’ll stay right here if you want. You can go back to sleep, no pressure Jade, just me being your friend… That’s all,” Gage said. He repositioned himself against the headboard and held out his arm. I hesitated. He gave me a knowing glance as he saw my hesitation. “Come here,” he said, unwavering with gentle command. I fought the urge to roll away from him and rested against his chest with his arms around me. His heart beat firmly against my cheek with the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.


“Thank you…”  I dosed off to sleep.





I woke in the morning to the bright sun that shone through the curtains with Gage’s arms still around me. He woke when I moved and I felt the strength in his arms as he squeezed me. I hadn’t been that close to Gage since last summer.  I dozed in and out of sleep, wrapped in his arms most of the morning.


“Did you sleep okay?” Gage asked me.


“Better than I have in a long time,” I said, “thank you.”


“Are you feeling uncomfortable?”


“No, I feel okay,” I answered, and gave him a weak smile as he smiled back. For some reason I felt calm and it didn’t bother me at the moment to have him close. I reached up and touched a purplish red mark just above his cheek and under his eye that I hadn’t noticed before. “What happened?”


“Do I have a mark?” He asked, as he scrunched his brows. “You have a pretty solid right hook.”


Dread surfaced as I remembered that I thought Damian was here last night, when actually, it was Gage. I wrinkled my brows and gasped. “Gage…  I hit you? I’m… So sorry!” I sat up and moved back.


His smile instantly faded. “Don’t back away, please. It’s okay… Don’t leave.” Gage held out his arm and I slowly returned.


“How can you stand to be around me?” I asked. “All I do is hurt you.”


“You aren’t hurting me. It hurts me to be away from you. I’m fine. I know that punch was meant for Damian and was glad to see you give him a hard time.”


I was still bothered by what I’d done. “Gage…”


“Okay, forget about what I said about you having a solid right hook. Would it make you feel better if I said you hit like a girl and it didn’t hurt at all?”


I laughed unexpectedly at his crude attempts to make me feel better. “I don’t know… a little.”


My smile slowly faded. I looked tenderly into his soft blue eyes that gazed down at me as they had so many times before. Those same blue eyes that left me feeling intoxicated, that pulled at my soul before we had ever dared to speak to each other. Before I knew, he loved me.


I had missed them when I was gone. Gone, in the jail, the compound, locked in this room, gone, lost in my head. It was Gage’s blue eyes that I filled my mind when I wanted to escape. When I needed to forget about where I was, when I needed to imagine myself with him. His blue eyes saved me many times, more times than I could remember. They took me to an unknown place, a place of safety, a place where Damian couldn’t reach me, a place where Gage could hold me without me being afraid. He probably had no idea how he helped me, and he held me now and comforted me as he did so many times in my mind.


“What?” Gage asked, as if he saw my mind churn.


“Thank you.”


Gage breathed a relieved sigh and pulled me closer. He rested his cheek against my head and I let my eyes close. Suddenly I jumped as a knock at the door startled me.


“Oh… I forgot,” he said as he looked at me. “I asked someone to come over today. Every time I see them they ask when they can see you.”


“I don’t really want to see anyone.”


“I think you’ll want to see them,” Gage said, as he sat up at the side of the bed. I didn’t move. He saw my hesitation. “Get dressed and come out, okay... Jade… Trust me.”


I gasped slightly at his words. My heart raced suddenly. He smiled gently and gave me a wink as I unknowingly to him sat dumbfounded and affected by him. He walked out and closed the door behind him.


Slowly, I pulled on my pants from yesterday and walked to the door. My hand grasped a hold the doorknob as I took a deep breath. Trust him. Gage had asked that of me so casually probably not realizing the profound effect he had over me. A twinge of sadness moved through me as his words replayed in my mind. I did trust Gage, more than I trusted anyone and I hoped he knew that. I opened the door.


“Jade!”


The little voice took me by surprise. Before I could make it out the door, little hands grabbed around my waist and just about knocked me over. I looked at Gage shocked and saw Olivia in the chair next to him. “Maya! Corby! You got out!” I fell to my knees and hugged them both as tears instantly streamed down my cheeks. They hugged me tight as if they ever let go I would disappear. I looked into their little faces, beaming and happy, and hugged them back, just as tight.


“Jade, you’re squishing me,” Corby said.


I looked at Corby and gasped. “Corby, you talked.”


“He talks a little bit now, Jade,” Maya beamed.


“Maya, your hair, it’s growing.” I smiled through the wetness of my eyes. She flipped her almost chin length hair the color of a golden wheat field with her hand to show it off. Her big round eyes were as bright as the stars in the sky and she scrunched her nose as she giggled.


I looked at Corby, his hair still cut short, but the freckled smile on his face made all the difference. He looked happy and healthy, they both did. I looked up at Olivia pleading for information of the others but afraid to ask for fear of what she would say.


“Hi Jade. I told you I would look into it. Gage contacted me and already had a team ready to look for them. With the information you gave me we found them not far from the compound. We seized an old farmhouse after we watched it for three weeks. Morrison had the house heavily guarded. Joel led the search, we found three women inside with thirty-eight kids and ten babies. We’ve placed most of them in homes.”


“Where does Corby and Maya live?”


“With me. I wasn’t going to let them stay with anyone else. Most of the kids got out Jade, and thanks to you we’ve found them.”


“Lainie and her sister?”


“We found an aunt, they are with her.”


“Was the baby,” I hesitated, then looked at Corby.


“April’s baby was fine. We are still searching for April. We raided two other homes when we were searching. They both were full of kids, boys and girls between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. There were at least a hundred between the two raids but she wasn’t among them.”


At that moment, the front door opened and Ivy ran inside. “Hi, Jade,” Ivy said, as she skipped through the room not waiting for an answer and sat down next to Maya. Her dark brown hair flowed down her back in gentle waves, bouncing as she moved.


“What! I don’t get a hello, Ivy?” Gage pretended to have a wounded heart as he grabbed his chest and Ivy rolled her eyes at him.


“Hi, Gage,” Ivy said, and then turned to Maya. “That’s my brother…  Oh, Maya, want to see my room?”


The two girls jumped off the floor and headed for the stairs. “Come on, Corby,” Ivy called after him. He gave me a smile then headed after them. Their little feet muffled against the carpet as they walked up to her room.


The quietness of the room settled around me as the kids disappeared to Ivy’s room. I realized I still stared at the empty stairs as I turned and saw Gage’s watchful eyes on me.


Olivia stood, walked over and knelt down next to me.  She knew a little about what I went through, she was there for some of it. I lived next to her for a month in the jail. She watched as I went through withdrawals and even talked me through some of them when Casey stopped the treatments. She watched Jasper harass me every day he was there, she watched again, helplessly as Damian crept into my cell while I slept to assault me, then she watched as Denny pulled Damian away only to never return. But Damian did return, and she watched once more as Damian took me from my cell as I begged for her and Charles to help me, knowing they couldn’t.


I didn’t realize my body trembled until I felt her steady arms around me. She brushed at a strand of hair that had fallen and pushed it off my face.


“That little Maya is something else, Jade. She hasn’t stopped talking about you since she got to my house a month ago. Every day, ‘when do I get to see Jade?’ Corby doesn’t talk much, apparently more than he used to though, but his face lights up when she says your name.”


“Thank you for bringing them, I needed to know,” I paused. My voice threatened to give out on me as it wavered under the sudden threat of tears.


“I know, Jade,” Olivia said, as she gave me a perceptive glance. “I wanted you to know, you made a difference for them. It wasn’t all for nothing like I’m sure it feels like to you. You’ve changed the course of their life. They’ve bounced back amazingly since I’ve had them and they’ve taught me so much in return. I never had kids. I didn’t stop and take time for them before, I was caught up in my job, but I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. Thank you.”


I sat unable to speak knowing that if I tried I would break out in tears.


“I better go... The council is meeting at my house in a half hour.”


“Does Maya and Corby have to go?”


“Actually, they are staying for a while to play with Ivy,” Olivia said. She looked at Gage for approval. “If you need to, you can send them back over to Deanna’s, she agreed to watch them, she has the baby.”


“No, they’re okay to stay,” Gage replied.


"The baby is at Deanna's?" I asked.


"Yeah, I need all the help I can get, I know nothing about babies." Olivia turned to look at me again as she stood. “I’m glad to see you are doing better, Jade… I’ll be back in a few hours.”


I watched Olivia as she walked out the door. I remained on the floor, unable to move, frozen in thought. I was surprised and happy at the same time to see Maya and Corby. I looked at Gage.


“Thank you… How did you know?”


“You asked me about them, remember.”


“Yeah, but… How did you know I was asking about them? Maya and Corby?”


“I didn’t until Maya asked me about you. I found the two of them, hiding in a closet during the raid. Corby was holding the baby, he was crying. That’s how I found them.”


“You went on the raid?” My mind drifted back to that night Gage left for two days and I knew now, where he had gone.


“Yeah… Maya wouldn’t let go of me after and the first thing she asked was if you sent me to find her.”


“What did you say?”


“I said yeah, I wouldn’t have known about them if you didn’t ask, so yeah, I told her you sent me.”


At that moment, Corby bounded down the stairs and Ivy and Maya followed after with arms full of things to do. The three of them moved next to me on the rug and I watched them as they played quietly by me while Gage built a fire. After, Gage sat next to me and helped Corby with an old racetrack he’d found and before long they had the racecars speeding around the track.


After a while, Maya moved onto my lap. She looked up at me as her fingers found my hair and started to twirl it as she used to, her eyes pleaded with me as if she needed to ask for permission. “You can sit with me as long as you want, Maya. That evil witch isn’t here sweet girl.”


Maya smiled, as I gave her a hug. She knew whom I was talking about, the thin woman that stood ahead of the class, the one that said they couldn’t be touched or hugged. The one who said I wasn’t allowed to give the kids the affection that they so desperately needed and craved. The same woman who dressed them all in the same gray clothes and shaved all their heads, robbing their identity.


“Maya!” Ivy exclaimed suddenly, like an alarm clock went off in her head. “We need to go make snow angels.”


The girls jumped up and raced to the door. Corby suddenly lost interest in the cars and followed them outside. I moved quickly to the couch as I kneeled in the soft cushions. I leaned against the back and watched them out the window. With arms held out, they fell back into the snow. Three pairs of arms and legs moved back and forth, swimming in the soft snow. I laughed softly at the sight of them. A smile grew at my cheeks as I watched in awe at them laughing and playing.


I turned to see Gage next to me and I caught his gaze. “It’s good to see you smile.”


“You have no idea how much this means to me.” My voice caught as a knot developed tight in my throat constricting my ability to breathe. “I’m glad it was you who found them… thank you.”


“You’re welcome…”