“In the eyes of the law, we did.” The statement was enough in itself. It hadn’t been lawful whatever he’d done to make it possible, but he’d done that.
He had given her a home and a name, a place and a person to belong, space to learn who she was and what her individuality was, her likes and dislikes, her hopes and inhibitions. He had given her the ability to dream.
Without a word, she crashed her lips into his, thanking him the only way she could, by pouring everything she was feeling into that one kiss, letting him understand what it meant to her. He gripped her jaw like he always did, his tongue twining with hers, and accepted what she gave, demanding more, demanding everything, merging them so completely until she didn’t know where she ended and where he began.
After long, long minutes of kissing, she pulled back, her lips swollen, her eyes shining. “I think I’m in love with you.”
He brushed his nose against hers, his eyes soft on her. “I know that you are.”
And though he didn’t say he loved her back, though she didn’t know if he felt it, it was enough. Everything he had been for years, everything he had been for weeks, everything he had done to empower her, it was enough.
He had given her many gifts but his biggest, most beautiful had been freedom. What she’d thought of as a prison in the beginning had instead been a safe space for her to be, to explore herself, to live without fear.
She was free.
She was fearless.
She was flying.
And it was all because of him.
And that was more than enough.
***
The feel of his hand on her back brought her back to the present as he picked her up and put her in. She sat still as he strapped her in, her heart beating in happy rhythms as she watched him, his dark hair, his permanent scruff, his mismatched, hypnotic, devilish eyes. He gripped her jaw and gave her a hard, quick kiss.
“You love me,” he stated, as he had begun stating every day since she’d told him.
“I love you,” she confirmed, brushing her nose against his.
He kissed her again and pulled back, shutting the door at her side. She saw him walk lithely to the pilot’s side and climb in with an agility that belied how often he’d done this. He shut his door and strapped himself in, and she watched with absorption as he began to push some buttons that made no sense to her. He put on his headgear and indicated to hers, and she put it on, eager to see what happened next.
After he did some checks, he pushed a button that sent vibrations running through her body as the blades of the helicopter started to move. Gripping the edges of her seat, heart pounding, her stomach dropped as the ground slowly began to move lower. They dipped forward slightly before steadying, hovering, and she absorbed the entire vista of the mountains, the cliffs, the sea, the beach, the house, spread out below for her to feast her eyes upon.
“Wow,” she breathed out, still amazed that she could see something like this when a few months ago all she’d expected out of life had been a clean end. She had changed since then, evolved, grown. Like a tree that had been cut and ravaged and pulled until nothing remained for the eye to see. He hadn’t seen the ripped roots, the bleeding stump, the utter destruction. No, he had seen life. He had taken the single root, put it in a controlled, safe environment, and fed it sunlight and water and affection in his own way until a new shoot had emerged, new roots had planted, new flowers had bloomed.
Eyes glued to the vista below as they got higher and higher, she felt her stomach twist with every vibration and glide of the helicopter. She turned to see him, watching the little smile on his lips as he took them across the mountains inland toward the city—Gladestone.
He had told her about it one day when she’d asked about where she had been, where the complex had been. He’d told her about Gladestone, a city that emerged in the 1800s, known for its mining and textile industrial prowess. It was a fast-paced city, a place where people didn’t sleep and crime didn’t stop. It was one of the key locations for The Syndicate’s operations, something she’d learned from him later. That was what had brought him to Gladestone all those years ago in the first place. It was a dark, polluted settlement of mostly people who had something or the other to do with the underworld—be in humans, organs, animals, murderers, or more.
After about half an hour of flying, she got to see the first of the tall factory chimneys from a distance.
“That’s Gladestone’s outskirts,” he told her, his voice loud and crackling with static in her headphones. Factories after factories passed under her, the view so drastically different from the one she’d seen around home.