Page 24 of Trapped Truth

My tongue darts out to wet my suddenly dry lips. “Peace. Did you find it?”

Understanding filters through her gaze, turning shades of hazel into molten caramel. For a pregnant pause, she’s silent. Her hesitation seems to stretch infinitely until she finds the words to answer.

“For the longest time, I didn’t think a happy future was in the cards for me. Not after all I’d seen and survived, after the way Arianna grew up, the sacrifices made to protect her from the truth of our life.”

I can’t begin to imagine. How she raised a daughter in that situation, I’ll never know.

“Then I found my way home.” Willow smiles to herself. “I met my family—not the ones bound by blood, but my forever family. The people I chose to rebuild my life around, one painstaking step at a time. The ones who walked beside me through hell.”

“Your… husbands?” I hazard a guess.

“A little unconventional, I know. Though it seems like you’re more familiar with the arrangement than some. I see the way those boys all look at you, Ember.”

“They’re my team. My… family.”

“And they make you happy? They support you?”

“Yes. Without a doubt.”

“Then you’re halfway there.”

“I don’t know,” I admit in a hushed voice. “All we’ve faced is upheaval. What does that leave us on the other side of this?”

“With unconditional love like that on your side, it doesn’t matter what this life will throw at you. All that counts is who sticks around when things get ugly.”

My index finger absently traces the old scars across my knuckles. “There’s already been plenty of ugly.”

“I still see four men following you to the ends of the earth to make sure you’re safe and well.”

Unfolding her legs, Willow moves across the room, taking a seat on the sofa next to me. She doesn’t go as far as touching me, yet it’s a clear show of support.

“Why are you really here, Ember?”

In my throat, my erratic heartbeat bruises my oesophagus. She sees straight through me to all the insecurity I keep stuffed into a dark corner.

“What if it isn’t enough?” I whisper through a thick throat. “You know what they did to us out there. I’m worried I’ll always be this way, that a time will come when I’ll be too hard to love.”

She contemplates me for a moment, seeming to chew over what to say next.

“You’re right, it isn’t enough. And it took me a very long time to confront everything I’d seen and endured so that sickness couldn’t poison me anymore.”

“I’ve dealt with all that,” I quickly say. “Sabre mandates therapy for all its agents.”

“Have you truly dealt with it? Because I’m still wrestling with a decade of bad memories, and I’m not even close to tackling some of those motherfuckers. You’re allowed to not be okay.”

Intuition tells me my favourite therapist, Doctor Richards, and even his ugly-ass shirts would agree with her.

“I want to move on,” I explain slowly, deliberately. “Forget about the person they made me into. But until this case is over… I can’t let go of her. Not fully. No matter how much I want to.”

“She’s you, Ember. You can’t alienate a part of yourself, and those men love all of you. If not, they wouldn’t be here.”

“What if it’s a part that makes me sick? A part I don’t want them to see, let alone love or accept?”

She twists a little, granting me the full intensity of her tawny stare.

“Who you became to survive isn’t some infected limb to be removed and tossed aside. That woman endured horrors most can’t imagine. She deserves a little more respect than that, don’t you think?”

“Willow…”