Born to Fight

Chapter 6

Celeste

The next few days blurred together.

I slept.

I ate when I remembered to.

I showered.

I tried to pretend I was adjusting to my new life.

But the truth was, I was terrified.

Every unfamiliar sound made me freeze.

Every car that slowed outside the house caught my attention.

Every shadow beyond the windows made my stomach twist.

I was constantly waiting for the men who had murdered my mother to find me.

So I stayed inside.

The beautiful countryside surrounding Jamie and Josh’s property might as well have been a prison yard because I couldn’t bring myself to step beyond the front door.

Even taking Loki outside had become a carefully planned operation.

I’d open the back door, let him into the yard, then lock it behind him.

And I’d stand there watching.

Waiting.

Watching the tree line.

Listening for footsteps.

Looking for movement.

It was ridiculous.

I knew that.

Loki was a German Shepherd. There was no way those men could identify him from every other German Shepherd in the world.

But knowing that didn’t make me feel any better.

Fear didn’t care about logic.

Whenever Jamie and Josh weren’t home, I made sure every door and window was locked.

Then I checked them again.

And sometimes a third time.

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

I’d spent years training to be strong.

My mother had taught me how to fight.

How to shoot.

How to track.

How to defend myself.

My grandfather had taught me discipline and resilience.

I’d been raised to believe that fear was something you acknowledged, then pushed through.

Yet here I was, afraid to walk outside.

Afraid to be seen.

Afraid to breathe too loudly.

I’d become a prisoner.

Not of a locked door.

Of my own mind.

And I hated it.

I hated the weakness more than I hated the fear.

Jamie had done everything he could to protect me from what was happening outside these walls.

There were no news reports playing on the television.

No newspapers lying around.

He hadn’t shown me anything online.

It was almost as though he had deliberately built a wall between me and the outside world.

I knew why.

He thought knowing too much might make things worse.

And maybe he was right.

I wasn’t exactly an expert on trauma.

But there was something else that bothered me.

The questions I couldn’t answer.

Why had those men been looking for Billy?

Why had they killed Mom?

And why had they left without searching the entire house?

That last question haunted me.

If they knew I existed…

If they knew I was her daughter…

Why hadn’t they killed me too?

The answer I kept coming back to was the only one that gave me even a tiny bit of hope.

Maybe they didn’t know about me.

Maybe they had come looking for Billy, found Mom instead, and never realized she had a daughter.

Maybe they had assumed I was still at school.

It was possible.

But I couldn’t know for certain.

And until I did, I couldn’t take the risk.

So I stayed hidden.

Every time Jamie and Josh announced they had to go to the base, the panic would start.

I’d feel it in my chest first.

A tightening.

Then my stomach would twist.

Then the little voice in my head would start whispering all the things that could happen while they were gone.

What if the men came back?

What if they found me?

What if I couldn’t protect myself?

What if—

I’d force myself to stop.

But the fear remained.

And every time it happened, I felt a little more ashamed.

My mother hadn’t raised a daughter who hid from the world.

My grandfather hadn’t spent years teaching me strength so I could crumble the moment things became difficult.

They had raised me to be independent.

Strong.

Self-reliant.

Yet now I was depending on two men I’d barely known for a few weeks to keep me alive.

The thought made me feel like I’d failed them.

Especially Mom.

I could almost hear her voice in my head.

Stand tall, Celeste.

Don’t let fear control you.

But fear had already taken control.

And I didn’t know how to take it back.

Jamie noticed.

Of course he did.

He seemed to notice everything.

Every time he caught me staring at the locked doors.

Every time I flinched at a strange noise.

Every time he saw me watching the windows.

He never pushed.

He simply reminded me that if I wanted to talk, he was there.

“You know you can talk to me, right?”

I’d smile.

“Yeah. I know.”

But I never did.

Part of me wanted to.

More than I wanted to admit.

There was something about Jamie that made me feel safe.

Maybe it was because he’d answered the phone when I had nowhere else to turn.

Maybe it was because he’d shown up.

Maybe it was because, despite everything that had happened, he hadn’t once made me feel like a burden.

But that was exactly why I couldn’t tell him what was going on inside my head.

He’d already done so much for me.

We hadn’t known each other long enough for me to dump all of this on him.

He had given me somewhere to sleep when I had nowhere else to go.

He had opened his home to me.

He had protected me.

And now I was supposed to sit him down and tell him that I was terrified every time he left the house?

That I was scared to walk outside?

That I was convinced the men who murdered my mother could be watching me?

No.

I couldn’t do that to him.

Besides, where would I even start?

Jamie hadn’t known Mom.

He didn’t know my grandfather.

He didn’t know Billy.

He didn’t know the history of my family or the complicated mess that had led us here.

Explaining everything would mean talking about Mom.

About my childhood.

About the father I’d never met.

About the night everything changed.

And I wasn’t ready for that.

Not yet.

The wound was still too fresh.

Every time I thought about Mom, it felt like someone was ripping the stitches out of something that hadn’t even begun to heal.

So instead, I smiled.

I told Jamie I was fine.

And I kept everything locked inside.

Because if I started talking, I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to stop.

And somewhere deep inside me, I knew there was something else.

Something I hadn’t yet figured out.

The men who killed my mother hadn’t come looking for me.

They’d come looking for Billy.

And until I understood why…

I couldn’t shake the feeling that my mother’s death was only the beginning.