Darkness Sheds into Light {Watty 2012}

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Ariana was nursing a cup of coffee that following morning when it happened. Suddenly it was like someone had knocked the wind out from her lungs.

            Jax laid his fingers across her jaw and turned her head so their eyes met. “What do you want me to do? I could come up with a great lie to convince you I only see you as a friend, one of the guys and we go on like we have all this week or we could stop lying.” With each word he moved a bit closer.

          Ariana’s heart had raced so fast that it just stopped now as she stared into his eyes, her body betraying her as she moved closer until their foreheads touched. She inhaled deeply; he smelled so damn good. “We can’t.”

Jax…she suddenly knew he was the man she had been dreaming of, remembering through the screwed up empty spaces inside her damaged brain. She closed her eyes tight and tried to pick the memory back up, tried to fill in the last of the spaces only for it to remain black.

Tears of a forgotten life, a forgotten love, burned behind her eyes. She grabbed the near empty coffee mug and tossed it at the wall, watching as it shattered into small little pieces. She hadn’t wanted to remember but now as the memories swam so close to the edge of grasp she wanted to know them all.

Crying was something she avoided, she’d rather embrace the pain and hold it down than let the tears show and give away her true ache. She couldn’t hide from these tears as they ran freely down her cheeks.

She cried for the man she knew she had loved and couldn’t remember, for the past life that had to have been better than this one. She wondered if there was anyone out there worried for her and filled with as many questions as she carried.

Curled up silently crying on the floor and remembered there was someone out there that knew her, someone who could have all the answers she craved for. She reached for the picture off the table and studied it again. His blue eyes told the story of a warrior who had seen some traumas during his life; he had to have been fiercely loyal and strong to make the ranking of alpha. Marcus Reed, Marc as he had introduced himself.

She ran her index fingers across the photo tracing his eyebrows down to his mouth….it wasn’t a memory but an intuition that made her confidant she had kissed those lips. If they were true mates she probably had done a lot more than simply kiss him.

Her head began to throb as she pushed herself too far trying to remember. She wanted to know if there was a man named Jax she loved so deeply how did Marc fit into the picture?

She closed her eyes and laid the picture down on her chest. Taking long deep breathes sometimes helped with the headaches that came from withdraw of those pills she used to be fed daily or came when she tried too hard to remember her old life. Her brain was a fragile thing thanks to the doctors Hal and Bradley had let torture her, but in spite of that she kept going.

Sometime later she was able to scrape herself off the floor and get on with the rest of her day. The first order of business was paying Dylan a visit. She tucked the picture of Marc in her back pocket, grabbed her jacket meant more to conceal weapons than it was for keeping her warm, and left the motel.

Dylan Kinston called Kid by nearly everyone who knew him. Ariana called him Boy Wonder. He was a genius and still very much a boy at barely fifteen. With just a name he’d be able to dig up all the dirt out there on Marcus Reed and anyone connected to him.

Boy Wonder was a street kid living on his own in a downtown complex that had seen better days where you had to keep your eyes open at all times just in case. Having a savage panther inside of her soul Ariana didn’t fear much anymore but she did sometimes worry for Kid.