Marlin's Faith: The Virtues Book II
A novel of The Kraken MC
MARLIN’S FAITH
The Virtues Book II
AJ Downey
Second Circle Press
Faith. She’d managed to keep her namesake while in captivity, but now that she was free? The daunting task of rejoining society was in front of her and it seemed that Marlin had to keep it for her.
Marlin can’t help how he feels about Faith, she was remarkably easy to like. The only thing he could do for her was be there, and keep his damn hands to himself, which was the real challenge. Neither one of them knew if she would make it out of the darkness intact; only time would tell about that.
During trying times, all you can do is hold on and have a little faith…
Author’s Note
Being a spin-off, the events of this trilogy take place
after
the events of Damaged & Dangerous, The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI. If you have not read the SHMC series, references and events that are talked about in this book may not make sense to you. I highly suggest reading the SHMC series first, followed by Cutter’s Hope, the first book in this trilogy.
Table of Contents
Dedication
A special thanks to Carian Cole and Bibi Rizer for giving me permission to pull our worlds together, thus giving our readers who are fans of all of our series some fun Easter eggs to discover in this trilogy. I think it’s fantastic as a group of indie authors that we can do this. Much love and keep on keepin’ on, the both of you. I’m dying to see what you come up with next.
The Virtues Books In Order
1. Cutter’s Hope
2. Marlin’s Faith
3. Charity for Nothing
Chapter 1
Marlin
I stared out of the floor to ceiling windows of the safe house’s master bedroom and asked, “That you bobbing out there, Captain?” The running lights were just that, indistinct lights, rising and falling gently with the swell of the sea. No telling if it were the Captain or not, but with Hope as feisty and insistent on remaining with her sister, I had to guess it was.
“Yep,” Cutter grated into my ear. I smiled to myself.
“Oh, cool; night then.” I lowered the phone and ended the call with a heavy sigh.
I looked back over my shoulder; she was asleep… for now. Her pale skin was washed out and made nearly translucent by the moonlight. Her long blonde hair, so brittle, crackled around her face like spider silk. Deep, dark, circles were etched under her eyes, a combination of the drug, fatigue, stress, and the cherry on top? Malnourishment. Her body was so frail, her bones standing out in high relief, her cheek bones standing out so sharply, they could cut.
Still, she was beautiful. One of the prettiest girls I’d ever seen. She made Hope look ugly by comparison and Hope was a fucking knock out.
Twice over,
when you stopped to think about it.
Faith’s brows were drawn down, her lovely face pinched with pain and sorrow, even in sleep, and I was afraid it was only going to get worse. We’d had quite the candid conversation downstairs after Cutter and her sister had left. I’d taken her into the living room and sat her down and talked to her about what she could expect if she did this the way she wanted to.
“How do I do this?” she’d asked me, licking her lush lips and biting them together.
“A day at a time, Darlin’.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
That had been hard to tell her, the truth of it, that she was gonna be sick for
days
with how bad her body wanted what she was on. There was no real way to gauge how long she’d be sick; not with no tellin’ how long she’d been on the shit they’d been pumping into her veins. She was looking at a good couple of weeks of the physical stuff. A couple of weeks of pure hell, livin’ with something aping the worst case of the flu she’d ever had, times a hundred or more.
“I can’t remember the last time I had the flu,” she’d said, drawing her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them. She’d pleaded with me, with her eyes, before her voice had caught up to her.
“Please, just tell me what to expect. I can’t stop it and not knowing…”
“I get you,” I’d told her softly. She was gonna be brave. Sometimes it’s almost better not knowing, but she’d wanted to know, so I’d told her the truth. The pain, the aches, and fatigue. That’s how it would start. She’d be irritated, agitated beyond measure for no reason at all. Then, the tears would start. Like she’d sprung a leak. Pouring down her face, til she was sick of ‘em, but it wasn’t crying; not really, near as I could tell. Her eyes would just be watering, tearing up something terrible. Then, the sweating and the not being able to sleep when all she would want would be
to
sleep to get away from the symptoms. Except she wouldn’t and that was just the beginning.
Next would come the
real
sick. The cramping that would be so bad she would beg to be killed. Then the throwing up and the runs. She’d be sick to her stomach, sweating and shivering as the poison gave up its hold and her body fought to hang onto it. By the time I finished talking the tears had run silently down her face and she’d looked more afraid not less.
“I won’t go anywhere, I promise. You won’t have to do it alone.”
“Did you?” she’d asked then.
“Did I what?”
“Go through it alone?”
“No, Darlin’. I never went through it at all…”
“Then how do you know about this? About what’s going to happen?”
“I’ve helped someone through it before,” I’d told her honestly.
“Who?” she asked.
“My little brother, Danny was his name.”
“Oh… what happened to him?”
“He died.”
I’d failed him. Couldn’t keep him off it. He’d gone back to it after I’d cleaned him up and took too damn big a dose and killed himself. Faith had looked so solemn then. She’d raised those startling aquamarine eyes to meet mine and we’d sat in silence for a long time. That’s when the Captain had shown up with my shit.
I’d watched her carefully as they’d had their little exchange of words and he’d left to go back to his woman, Faith’s sister… which damn but those two didn’t look nothin’ alike.
“Am I going to die? I mean is there a chance..?” she asked softly.
“No, Darlin’. You aren’t going to die,” I’d said, and it fuckin’ killed me that she looked almost
disappointed
by that. It was a fleeting look, twisting into a grim resolve, but it was hard to banish that flicker of misery from the deep dark part of my brain. That part where the ghosts of bad memories liked to live.
Faith moaned, more like groaned, into the silvery dark of the room and I snapped out of it, turning from the window and going to her. I knelt beside the bed and using two fingertips, took her pulse the way Nothing had shown me when it was Danny, my little brother, three years gone. It was speeding against my fingers and sort of a bitch to take.
She had on this leather cuff, some kind of bracelet that laced up on the underside. The leather black and broad with an old fashioned key plate set into it. A newer, shinier, thin metal filigree behind it to make the key plate pop. She’d thrown a goddamn fit in her highest, most traumatized state when me and her sister had tried to toss it, and everything else she’d been wearing. The shit was so filthy it needed to be burned; the wristband was in good enough shape though, so we didn’t figure there was any harm in her having it. Was a bitch and a half convincing her to let me take it off just to get her bathed and
that shit?
That had busted my heart six ways to Sunday...
That first night had been fucking awful while she’d been in the throes of that poison. I’d had to put the skills that Danny had shown me to use, and fuck if that hadn’t made me feel both guilty and sick. Nothing had helped me out there, too. Being the ex-medic, he knew how to find and tap a vein. I didn’t have the first fucking clue what I was doing other than to cook the shit up. I’d seen my brother do it enough to at least get that part done.
I wrestled myself back to the here and now in time to see Faith’s eyes snap open as she inhaled sharply. There was this brief, shining moment where our eyes connected and something passed between us. Couldn’t tell you what, but it was something. Trust maybe? Though I didn’t know why she would trust me or any of the other boys,
any man
for that matter, not after…
“I’m going to be sick…” she gasped, voice tinged with fear and I knew what was next. I shoved the little bedside trashcan into her too thin arms, she doubled over and heaved. Shit. It was bad. It was like throwing up in and of itself scared the bejesus out of her. She jumped and shook and cried as her poor stomach rebelled. The sour smell that came from the can didn’t help me none either. I gritted my teeth and held the can steady for her with one hand, smoothing her hair back with the other, but it was already too late. She’d nailed that too. It’d gone into the trashcan as she’d heaved.
“Easy, Girl,” I murmured as she broke down in sobs.
“I’m sorry!” she warbled brokenly and I shook my head.
“It ain’t your fault. Steady though, gotta get you cleaned up. This ain’t gonna be the last time either. Just you hang on, put your arms around me… that’s it.”
I lifted her easily; she was just so fuckin’ frail, and carried her into the master bathroom. I contemplated shower or bath and settled on shower. The tub would take too damn long to fill. I set her on the counter and she gripped its edge, shaking like a little leaf caught in hurricane force winds.