Bodyguard by Melanie Shawn

14

Savannah

We weresilent as we drove away. I was bursting with questions. What it meant that they’d found us so fast, how that affected our future plans...hell, what our future plans even were.

I kept my mouth shut, though. As difficult as it was. Gage had just watched his parents drive away. He’d possibly just seen them for the last time. I didn’t like to think of that as a possibility, but it definitely was.

I figured he must be coming to terms with that, as well as formulating a plan for what we were going to do next. Neither of those things would be easy on their own, let alone doing them both at the same time.

And the really shitty part was...it was all because of me. The only reason he was in this situation...that his family was in this situation...was that he was protecting me.

If I’d stayed gone, he’d be living his life like normal. So would his parents, and his grandmother.

I teared up a little again, remembering what Gage’s mom had whispered in my ear when she’d hugged me goodbye. “You take good care of him, sweetie. And you let him take good care of you, too. That’s all he’s ever wanted to do.”

I had promised his mother that I would. And I planned on keeping both of those promises. And right now, an important part of taking care of him—not to mention letting him take care of me—was just sitting quietly and letting him think.

But it wasn’t easy. Hell, no. It wasn’t easy.

Finally, he spoke. “I think we both need rest. We need fuel, we need rest. Any plan we formulated now would be reactionary. And no war was ever won by being reactionary.”

I nodded. “Good call.”

I had a lot more to say. But he’d given me a lot to chew on even with those few words. First of all, there wasn’t a plan. Yet. But there would be.

And secondly, he viewed this as a war. He wasn’t just keeping me safe. He was going to war.

That should probably have scared me, but it had the opposite effect. After all, I’d already felt like I was in a war.

In truth, I’d felt that way since the night the Marshals had driven me away. The years in WITSEC before the explosion of violence a few nights before had never felt like peace. They’d only felt like an uneasy truce.

I would never feel true peace until this was all over. I’d never let myself realize that before, because what was the point? It would never be over.

But, now...could it be? Was there a way?

I couldn’t think of one. But I did know one thing: I trusted Gage. I trusted him with my entire heart, my soul. My being.

I always had, from the moment we’d met. Sitting in homeroom on the first day of freshman year.

I’d been terrified. Looking back, I now realized that every kid in that room must have been terrified. The first day of high school was a universally terrifying experience.

But I couldn’t see that, then. To my eyes, every single kid in that room had been cool and self-assured. Only I, the lone weirdo, had been shaking in my boots.

The last bell had rung and the teacher stepped up to the front of the class. He started passing out papers. Personal questionnaires for us to fill out. Typical first day stuff.

I’d reached into my bag to pull out a pen and...nothing. My eyes widened. Oh, God. Had I, in all of my careful backpack preparations, really forgotten something as basic as pens or pencils?

Trying not to show the frantic panic building inside me so as not to out myself on the very first day—hell, the very first period of the very first day—as the class nerd, I forced myself to move my hand calmly through my backpack. As opposed to tipping it over and shaking out all the contents onto the floor of the classroom, which was what I really wanted to do.

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a gift from heaven appeared. A pen. Floating in midair, right in front of my eyes.

Nope. Not floating. Attached to a hand, I saw, as my eyes traveled down.

Then, I heard a whisper in my ear. “Looking for one of these? Take mine.”

I was so grateful that I wasn’t going to be publicly humiliated that I didn’t even stop to wonder who my benefactor was. I just snatched the pen and whispered, “Thanks.”

The next words had been whispered closer to my ear. So close I could feel the heat of the whisperer’s breath on my neck. And they had definitely started me down the path of wondering who it was who had given me his pen. And how I could get him to give me more. To give me everything. Just like I’d be willing to give him.

“No problem,” he’d breathed. “I’m Gage.”

Those four words. No problem. I’m Gage. They’d changed my life. They’d sent the first butterflies through my belly, of the millions he would ultimately launch.

That simple action when we’d met, of giving me that pen when I’d needed it—it had set the stage for our entire relationship. He was always there to help, to bail me out, to protect me. To save me.

And now, he was doing that again.

He’d always been the person I felt safest with. The most capable person I’d ever met.

I didn’t know if this war I’d been living in for nearly half my life was winnable or not. But I did know that if anyone could win it, it was him.