Free End of Day (Jack & Jill #1) by Jewel E. Ann Page B

because she was the one person Jillian could tell about her past without putting her safety in jeopardy and without judgement.
    “If I tell you how painfully hollow I feel inside because I miss Luke and Jones, then you’re going to rationalize everything, reminding me that we had no choice. If we wanted to live we had to leave. Then you’re going to pour on the guilt about how I have you and how our bond is stronger than anything.”
    Jillian came out of the closet with the posture of a rag doll as she sat on the edge of the bed to tie her running shoes. Truth—every breath was a silent whisper of gratitude to her brother. She knew she was alive because he saved her time and time again.
    “But right now I don’t want to be rational and, I don’t want to feel guilty. I just want to wallow in my misery of missing them.” She sighed with defeat etched in lines across her face. “Strength acknowledges weakness, it doesn’t ignore it.” She stood, looking up at her brother, no longer trying to hide the agony in her eyes. “For now I’m going to acknowledge it and later I will be stronger for it. Okay?”
    Jackson nodded then pulled her into his arms. “Fin de journée.”
    “I know—fin de journée.”
    *
    Jillian slipped in one earbud; she still couldn’t do both at night. Surrendering to the unknown wasn’t possible yet, maybe ever. The pulsing music opposite the quiet darkness of abandoned streets and sleeping dogs was a needed escape from the cacophony of morning chaos that Jackson preferred when he jogged.
    The cooler evening breeze, the grinding beat, her past, and the nagging fascination of a certain uniformed neighbor fed the surging energy inside her, propelling her legs to the point of exhaustion. Her lungs stretched to capacity, a simmering burn in her chest. The only thing that moved faster than Jillian’s legs was her mind. It was an endless loop of the last ten years of her life playing in a roller coaster highlight reel: the drizzle of mist from the fog rolling in over the bay, the doctor, the dog. She missed it all.
    After five miles of pure adrenaline-fed exertion, Jillian laced her fingers on top of her head and walked in slow circles on their driveway.
    “It’s probably not safe for you to be running by yourself at night.”
    Jillian mustered a small smirk with her back to AJ. She’d seen him in the shadows of his front stoop when she jogged the last few feet to her house. She was trained to notice everything and everyone, but she wasn’t in a hurry to acknowledge him. Her thoughts of Luke, Jones, and the normalcy she’d lost had left her feeling melancholy. As much as she loved playing cat and mouse with AJ, her inner fight was gone that night.
    “Yeah, well I think you have a scar on your lip and fresh branding on your back that says otherwise.” She turned as he stepped into view under the moonlight.
    It had only been hours since she’d seen him, but he looked different. It may have been the dark whiskers surfacing along his strong jaw or maybe his casual attire of shorts and a T-shirt, or the absence of his usual scowl, but something about him made Jillian’s guard slip.
    “This thing…” he motioned between them before shoving his hands in his pockets “…it’s not a good thing. Cage is coming home tomorrow and I don’t want him to think anything is going on between us.”
    Jillian gave careful consideration to her response because while AJ’s mouth said one thing, his eyes said the opposite. They lingered on her bare legs then her exposed abs below her sports bra. He must have swallowed after every third word. She craved intimacy, to the point of feeling a physical pain inside, from nothing more than the way his gaze traversed her body.
    You miss me  … She heard Luke’s voice in her head. More than my heart would miss its beat , she thought, closing her eyes for a brief moment before letting his image fade from her mind.

Chapter Ten
    L iving through the trauma was