Page 66 of Nitro

“We figured it was safer to leave under cover of darkness, so we left at midnight. It was pitch black out. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Even the moon was hiding.”

“Then how did you find the lake?”

“We didn’t. Not until later. The night we left, we ran, and we kept running. We needed to put as much distance between us and Blackstone’s place as we could. Reaper didn’t want to stop. We had to make him slow down because Matrix couldn’t keep up anymore. He was weak from a recent beating.” His face clouds over as the ghosts of his past come back to haunt him.

“Where did you stay?”

“The first night, we slept in the woods. One person stayed awake to be the lookout while the others slept. Scar took first watch. He was the leader, always has been. That’s why he’s the president of the club.”

“I’m not surprised he was in charge. He radiates an air of authority.”

“He’s a good leader. Without him, we’d probably be dead. If he hadn’t been with us, we never would have escaped that place. I owe him my life.”

“I’m sure he feels the same way. You couldn’t have done it without each other.”

“True.” He slides down in the bed and rests his cheek on my belly. He traces small circles across my thighs with his fingertips.

“When did Nina come into the picture?” I ask.

“A few weeks after we escaped. The first snowstorms came, and we had to seek shelter. We spotted the barn in a clearing next to the forest. We watched it for three days before we dared to go near it. We didn’t want to risk being caught by anyone. My experience with other people was never good. I couldn’t trust anyone but my brothers.”

“Is that what you consider Scar and the others?”

“They’re more than family. You can’t choose which family you’re born into, but with the right people, you can forge a brotherhood. That’s what we are. We’ve had each other’s backs since day one. We met in Blackstone’s dungeon and became friends almost immediately. Not all the kids were like that. Some of them were rats, just waiting to pass on a juicy tidbit of information to the guards in exchange for an extra piece of bread. I understand why they did it. Half the time, we were starving, so I don’t blame them. But we knew who we could trust.”

“And who you couldn’t.”

“Exactly.”

“How many days did you live in the barn before Nina found you?”

“A week. She and her old man were out of town. When they got back, they noticed us sneaking out to hunt for food in the forest. Nina’s smart. She knew she couldn’t approach us directly, so she started leaving food outside the barn door. Loaves of bread. Hunks of hard cheese. Nuts. Dried fruit. God, when the fruit showed up, it was like Christmas. I thought maybe I’d actually died and gone to heaven. It seemed too good to be true, so we didn’t trust her at first.”

“But eventually, you did.”

“Yeah. She started waiting outside the door. She’d leave the food, then back up a few steps. I can’t imagine what we looked like to her. She’d talk to us and assure us that she wouldn’t tell anyone we were there. When temperatures dropped well below freezing, she told us she was worried about us. She didn’t want us dying during the night. She didn’t know that we slept in a pile to share body heat so we wouldn’t freeze to death. We’d started doing that when we were in the dungeon. The stone floor was cold in the summer, but it was like sleeping on a block of ice in the winter.”

I slide my fingers into his hair and slowly stroke his scalp. He groans and nuzzles my belly. I know it’s not much, but he needs to be comforted right now. Talking about this can’t be easy.

“One night, we almost froze to death. It had to be negative forty degrees. The wind howled all night. Although the barn was well-built, it couldn’t keep the draft out. The next morning, Scar decided to talk to her when she came with hot soup. He told her we would come inside as long as the man she lived with didn’t get near us. She agreed.”

“You’re talking about Winchester, right? Her husband.”

“Her old man.” Nitro nods. “We didn’t trust him at all because he was a man.”

“Understandable, considering what you went through.”

“But over time, we saw how he treated Nina. She was like a goddess to him. He loved her so fucking much. They were perfect together and happy, at least until the sheriff had Winchester killed.”

“That’s horrible.”

“The sheriff’s dead now. But that doesn’t seem like enough of a penance. Nina never remarried. Losing Winchester broke her heart.”

“He was the love of her life.”

“Exactly.”

“I hope she finds love again.”

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