Page 64 of Find Me

The lock clicks just as my hand grabs the handle, the metal cold and unmoving against my palm.

“Jax, let me the fuck out of here. You cannot do this!” I yell angrily.

“I’m keeping you safe, love. You can stay here until I feel you are not a danger to yourself anymore.” His voice is slightly muffled through the closed door.

“Stay here? I’m locked in a room. This is kidnapping!” I scream back at him.

“Semantics,” he says, the calm in his voice irritating me to my core as the door I’m pushing against doesn’t budge an inch.

“Let me know if you need anything, Evi.” Ryan’s voice floats calmly through the door.

What is it with these guys? How are they so calm despite everything going on, despite actually holding me hostage? I ask myself quietly.

I huff in response and hear Ryan chuckle through the door.

My mind and body are a mix of emotions, and surprisingly I realize not all of them are bad. My feet hurt, my body is sore, and the frustration of being locked in this room makes me clench my fists, opening and closing them slowly. But underneath that, underneath the outer turmoil, there’s a level of calm starting to flow within me, as if my body registers that I know I’m safe here, that I know Jax and Ryan will never let anything happen to me.

I turn around, taking in more of the room I’m stuck in. I have to give Jax some credit, his room is incredible. In terms of being stuck somewhere, this really isn’t the worst place to be. I venture into the bathroom to find a gray stone standalone tub in the middle of the room and a huge shower with floor-to-ceiling stonework. I walk over to the tub, turning on the faucet, the hot water slowly filling it up.

I remove my clothes gently, leaving them in a pile in the corner of the room, unsure of where to put them.

I rifle through his drawers, looking for something to put in the tub, and it doesn’t take me long to find bubble bath. One of the most feared crime lords has a bottle of bubble bath in his vanity. I shake my head and can’t help but smile at how unexpected Jax can be. How multifaceted he is, yet he only shows one very hard side of himself to most people.

I step gingerly into the tub, the hot water biting at my raw feet, and sink down slowly. The tub water quickly changes color as I scrub the grime off of me.

I stay in the tub for ages, draining it and refilling it until the water remains clear. I pick up the bottle I placed beside the tub, dumping a generous amount of bubble bath in with me, reclining as the soft bubbles grow steadily.

I close my eyes and let my head rest against the back of the tub. Despite everything that has happened, I’m finding it impossible not to relax right now, and I find myself in a sort of limbo, not quite asleep but definitely not awake.

A cough startles me from my thoughts, and I jump to see Ryan in the doorway.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” he says. “I knocked on the door a few times and you never answered me.”

“I am bathing, clearly.” I snip back at him, annoyance in my tone as my hands move quickly to cover any areas the bubbles might not. “You can leave now… or do you make it a habit to sneak up on women in tubs often?”

“Not usually, but this whole situation is very unusual,” he says gesturing vaguely, a sparkle in his eyes and humor in his tone. “I was worried you had tried to make another run for it, you seem to have a tendency to try and get yourself killed lately.”

“You’re hilarious,” I say drily.

“I thought you might try to sneak out the window again,” he continues.

I roll my eyes in response.

Ryan pretends to look offended. “What? I wouldn’t put it past you to try.” He smiles.

“What do you want anyway?” I ask. “Or are you just going to ogle me from afar while I try to relax?”

“I’m hardly ogling you. I was just checking in on you. After all, last time I let you out of my sight you kind of went AWOL and I ended up spending the better part of a morning searching the city for you in case you forgot.”

“Seeing as that was just this morning, I remember perfectly fine thank you.”

“Just checking,” he says with a wink.

“You’re annoying.”

“I’ve been called far worse.” He smiles at me, before continuing, “But seriously, how are you feeling?”

“I feel…” How do I feel? “I feel okay, I think,” I continue. “I think I’m still slowly coming down off of whatever it was I took—those pills—I don’t know what they were. They made me kind of euphoric so they mustn’t have been too bad.”

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