Chapter 6

I woke up warm. That was the first shocking thing. Warm, comfortable, and not alone. Something solid and unmoving lay beside me, pressed against my side. For a second, I thought the Force base had rolled a training dummy into my bed as a prank. Then my brain finished rebooting, and last night’s memory made the situation make sense.

Lying beside me was my dream come true, Jessica. The redhead girl did not move at all. Not even a twitch. For a moment, I wondered if I should poke her to confirm she was alive, but that seemed like a good way to get launched into a wall.

Then her eyelids fluttered. A tiny breath escaped her, warmer this time. Jess woke slowly, like sunlight rising. She blinked up at me once, confused, then her expression softened into a cute smile.

“Morning,” she whispered.

“Morning,” I replied, watching her adorable morning face.

She shifted her head a little against me, her voice carrying a nervous wobble. “It was a great night. Maybe we should spend the night together more often.”

“I’d love that, Jess,” I said with a smile. “Although you seem to love my bed a little too much. Just so you know, you stole the entire thing last night.”

Jess blinked up at me. “I did not.”

“You absolutely did,” I said, tilting my head toward our positions. “Even now, I am clinging to the edge of the mattress. Look at the other side of the bed next to you. I think we can play football over there.”

Jess turned her head slightly, her red hair rustling against the pillow, and glanced at the vast empty expanse beside her. “Oops.” Then her face tightened with worry. “And did you sleep okay?”

“Yes. Very well,” I said. Then I added, “Too well, actually. It was unnaturally peaceful. Like I slept for the first time in years. I think it is because you were here beside me.”

Jess smiled and stretched slowly, the sheet slipping down her torso. I noticed the faint freckles scattered across her shoulders, the soft swell of her breasts, tipped with pink piercings. I’d seen them last night, felt them under my hands and mouth. Her grin sharpened. “Or maybe it’s just last night’s sex marathon, plus all the jeez I drained out of you, that turned you into a dead log.”

“Dead log?” I snorted, running a hand through my messy hair. “Speaking of which, you were the one who slept like a corpse after you blacked out from your, I don’t even know how many, orgasms. I’m pretty sure I saw your soul leave your body at one point.”

“So, you noticed that I ... sleep like a dead person?” she asked.

“Yeah, actually. You did not move at all,” I shrugged. “In the middle of the night, I tried to reclaim my territory, so I nudged you, poked you, even pushed a little to make you move. But you did not budge. Your limbs were heavy, like a log.”

The tips of Jess’s ears turned red, but she did not deny anything. Instead, she rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin on her folded arms and studying me with those impossible green eyes.

Jess took a deep, shaky breath, her chin still resting on her folded arms. I could see her wrestling with whether to speak. “Jake ... there’s a reason I sleep like that,” she began quietly. “It’s not just heaviness ... It’s tied to the way powers awaken. Sometimes ... powers answer a desperate need. Like a contract you never signed but can’t break. A devil’s contract, almost. They react to what the owner wants most, what they need to survive or continue their life.”

I frowned, even more confused. “A devil’s contract?”

She nodded slowly, biting her lip. “Yeah. You’ll understand eventually. I need to tell you something from my past. Something that changed everything ... for me, and for Jordan.”

I swallowed hard. My chest tightened. “Okay...” I said softly. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for more history of her and Jordan.

“When we were kids,” she began, voice trembling slightly, “Jordan and I lived next door. We grew up together, playing in the yards. We were inseparable. But as I left childhood behind and began to bloom into a young woman, that’s when it happened. I went missing for days. My parents were desperate. The police couldn’t find me.”

I clenched my teeth.

“Only Jordan ... he never stopped looking, and eventually he found me,” she said, her voice dropping. “I had been kidnapped. That psycho ... he brutally tortured me and raped me for three days. Jordan went insane when he found out. He jumped at that sick bastard, even though he was already badly beaten. The bastard stabbed him with a knife, but Jordan somehow managed to twist it and strike back with a deadly blow, purely by luck. In the end, Jordan was injured almost as badly as I was. We both ended up in the hospital for weeks.”

I was silent for a moment, my chest heavy with the weight of everything she’d just shared. Had she been kidnapped to be tortured and raped for days? I couldn’t even imagine the kind of pain she’d been through.

Finally, I spoke, my voice rough. “Jess ... I’m so sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine what that was like for you. What happened to you after everything?”

She shrugged, “Well, that psycho broke my body and left me paralyzed. I could not move anything below my neck. I could feel everything, the pain, the touch, every little thing, but I had no control. I became like a vegetable. Broken. Hopeless. He shattered my mind when he took my virginity and raped me again and again. I had to keep living with the memory of what he did. I hated myself. I hated my body.

“I was depressed and terrified. I kept thinking I might be pregnant, that his child might be growing inside me. And there were nights when I just wanted everything to end. I wanted to die. But I could not even lift my own hand. I could not escape. All I could do was lie there with everything he had taken from me.

“And Jordan stayed with me. He fed me, held me, listened to every breakdown. He reminded me again and again that my life still meant something even when I could not believe it. He kept telling me not to think less of myself. He said that I could heal. He brought therapists to me, pushed the doctors for every option, and sat beside me through every session. He supported me when no one else could. He fought my despair with me, and because of him, I survived the darkest moments of my life.”

I sat there, frozen, the blood draining from my face as everything she said settled into place. I finally understood why the two of them were here together.