The Rise of Ferryn

  Contents

  Rights

  Title

  Dedication

  Title

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Ferryn- present

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Don't Forget!

  Also by Jessica Gadziala

  About the Author

  Stalk Her!

  Copyright © 2020 Jessica Gadziala

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author's intellectual property. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.

  "This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental."

  Cover image credit: Shutterstock .com/ Tissen

  The Rise of Ferryn

  __

  Jessica Gadziala

  Dedication

  This one goes out to every reader and blogger

  who spread the word and helped me get to where I am now.

  You're my heroes.

  You have my eternal gratitude.

  The Rise of Ferryn

  One

  Ferryn - Present Day

  I could feel the little bones cracking in my hand.

  Distal phalanx.

  Middle phalanx.

  Proximal phalanx.

  There should have been pain.

  Once upon a time, there had been. The searing, throbbing pain telling me one part of me was no longer attached to what it once had been connected to.

  I remembered that sensation all too well. The way I would cradle my hand to my chest, my uninjured hand holding the wrist, trying to keep it still to prevent hurting it more.

  Leaving my face open, unprotected. Inviting more pain.

  The zygomatic.

  Mandible.

  Temporal.

  I quickly learned to fight through it, to keep my guards up.

  And my body slowly did what bodies do.

  Hardened.

  Strengthened.

  Built a tolerance.

  So that, eventually, the telltale crunch of my distal phalanx—fingertip—was met only with a twinge followed by welcome numbness.

  I was going to be cripplingly arthritic by the time I hit forty. But there were some things in life worth doing, regardless of the consequence.

  "Stop worrying about your goddamn manicure, and fight back."

  Those were familiar words, old taunts, meant to strip away the girl I had once been. They no longer had the bite they once did. For years, my nails had been kept military short, prone to splitting, breaking, haloed over by often bloody cuticles thanks to a newfound bad habit of chewing them in tense moments alone.

  Well, let's face it, all moments alone were tense moments. Silence was filled with the swirling abyss inside my head.

  Nothing, nothing could drown out the screaming.

  Or the memories.

  I shook my hand once, throwing off the sting, before curling my fingers into a fist and lunging once again.

  Manicures were something I left in the past.

  In another time.

  Another life.

  Along with family, friends, a comfortable bed, bones that didn't crack, and muscles that didn't scream first thing in the morning.

  Birthdays.

  Christmases.

  Love.

  Light.

  Warmth.

  This world was one of inky darkness, an atmospheric gloom reminiscent of gothic fiction, something you would never think could exist in modern times.

  Exist it did, though. And it was the place I had learned to call, if not home, then some sort of headquarters. A place I could find a small bit of comfort in, where I could rest my head, train my body, steel my mind, and slough off all the layers of the girl I used to be—someone I no longer recognized, a too-soft soul that could never survive in this environment.

  That said, not much could or did.

  Survive here.

  The two of us did, but just barely.

  Hidden away deep in the woods under trees half-heartedly holding onto their lives, gray bark and leafless limbs, maybe losing their will to grow where there was no sun to feel warming their appendages, no wind to feel blowing through them.

  Everything was dark. The sun dared not shine here for too long, always chased away by storm clouds and violent rains. The kind that made small lakes all around, that sank in through your layers of clothes if you had to walk out in it for more than a moment or two, that made the walls and floors and fabrics inside constantly feel damp. I swear I hadn't felt utterly dry in eight years. I was sure I no longer fully grasped the concept.

  It wasn't even all that far from where I had grown up—just an eight-hour drive—one state away, really.

  It may as well have been on another planet.

  This land was foreign to me, so different than the populated area I had been raised in, full of familiar places, comforting sights, bright sun, oppressively cheerful summers, and moody only for a few weeks in the fall.

  But it was okay.

  I only missed it in a nostalgic sort of way, knowing it was a place for the old Ferryn—young and rebellious, a little self-centered, a little vain, a lot more naive than she really should have been. Made that way, thanks to being raised in the protective embrace of a biker gang and all the badass men and women who flocked around it.

  It wasn't, though, a place where I could picture this newer version of myself. Many times, I tried. There were more nights than I cared to think of where grief and defeat and hopelessness wrapped me up in their spindly arms, squeezing a bit too tight, making almost everything within me beg to flee, to get away from it all, to say fuck it to my plans, to my mission. To run, go back to that old life, those old people, fall at their feet, beg them to forgive me for what I had done to them. All for nothing.

  It would be for nothing if I gave up.

  Even when what was left of my soul cried desperately to head back there, I simply couldn't picture it. This version of me—older, harder, colder—walking down the streets of Navesink Bank, a black cloud following me around.. yeah, no. I couldn't see it. Even though I always knew it was going to happen.

  How could someone even do it? I wouldn't be the first person to have to go back to my old life as a new person, who would need to reintroduce myself to people who had once known me so well, have to watch the confusion—and, let's face it, disappointment—at this new version of me, so wholly different from the image of me they had in their minds.

  A sharp whack to the backs of my legs jarred me back to the present just in time to brace my fall, prevent me from whacking my face against the merciless concrete. There was a laughably thin mat covering it, deep charcoal stained deeper in spots by old blood. Mostly my own. Though I did occasionally manage to get a lucky shot or two in.

  Sucking in a breath, I threw my weight, rolling onto my back, and staring up at my attacker.

  "You're not focusing. Stop daydreaming about makeup and party dresses, and fucking fight back."

  His voice was one that boome
d even if he didn't necessarily raise it, the kind that managed to bounce off the walls and reverberate into your chest, vibrating through your ribcage. Even after all these years, it didn't lose the edge it always had for me. I still often had to fight the urge to do his bidding the instant he spoke to me simply because everything about his voice demanded compliance. Immediate compliance.

  A snort bubbled up and burst out—a low, sarcastic sound.

  Makeup and party dresses.

  I hadn't even seen a tube of lipstick in the better part of a decade. The thought of a party dress made my lip curl.

  "I think you know more about makeup than I do at this point," I told him, curling upward, hugging my knees to my chest for a moment, finger poking through a hole in the knee of my black yoga pants, running a fingertip over a crisscross of scars found on the skin peeking through. I didn't even remember what caused them. Or when I had gotten them. Though, judging by the amount of color fade, they were old ones. Hell, they may have even been from my old life, from my reckless days of climbing and falling out of trees, giving my mother a mild heart attack.

  "We've only been at this an hour, kid. You have only landed two punches," he reminded me, turning on his heel, stalking over to the side of the room, grabbing a bottle of water, leaving his broad back to me.

  Once upon a time, that would be all that I would see. A man's back. A tall, wide, strong man's back.

  Now, though, I saw the half a dozen ways I could attack from behind. I saw the slight lean to the right that said he favored his left knee when it was cold and wet. Which meant most of the time. I saw the rise and fall of his breath, annoyingly not winded while my chest rose and fell much more dramatically, despite being slimmer.

  Though that was likely because this beast of a man took a two and a half hour run every single morning while I grumbled at my pillow, asking it to be softer and more supportive, and all the while it rolled its eyes at my neediness.

  What can I say, cardio had never been my favorite thing. Even if I understood how important stamina was in a fight. I cursed through the run he dragged me on with him twice a week. At half his speed. For half the time.

  "You're leaving," he said, turning back, dark eyes pinning me, daring me to try to lie to him. I'd never even tried. But everything about him said that you shouldn't even think about doing so.

  "What?" I asked, head jerking back, brows drawing together.

  "You're leaving."

  He was not a man of many words. To him, the fewer the better. Luckily, I was raised around someone else much like him. I was used to short, clipped sentences and long looks that often said more than words could.

  "I never said I was leaving."

  "You're growing your hair out," he observed, jerking his chin toward my head.

  My hand rose instinctively, feeling the still somewhat foreign feel of short-cropped hair up the sides of my head to where it grew longer on top.

  When I had shown up here, it had been with a newly buzzed head. Gone were the long, shiny, midnight locks I had all my life. I wanted to look like a woman on a mission. Because that was exactly what I was. Over the years, it made the most sense to simply keep buzzing it. Long hair got in the way. It was a hindrance in a fight. It could be used against you.

  I wasn't even sure how long ago it was that I stopped buzzing the whole head, leaving it long on top, raising the blade a bit down the sides and back.

  It hadn't been a conscious decision as far as I could tell. It was something I did on autopilot. Like brushing my teeth. Like taking inventory of my new cuts and bruises when I got changed for the day.

  For a while, I had started to inwardly praise my powerful observation abilities. Clearly, that had been premature if I missed something so big in my own daily life.

  He noticed.

  Of course he did.

  He noticed everything.

  It was part of what made him so dangerous.

  "Don't look like a prepubescent boy anymore," he added, making me shoot small eyes at him.

  "Gee, thanks."

  Sixteen-year-old me would have been very disappointed in how I turned out. She'd always been secretly—or not so secretly—hoping her boobs would show up one day. They never did. I was almost board-flat. Actually, probably even smaller than I had been eight years before. Constant workouts could do that to a woman. And, well, being utterly devoid of womanly softness worked in my favor in more ways than one.

  "So, you're leaving."

  "I..." I couldn't seem to find the words to deny it. Or confirm. For the first time in a long time, there was no certainty to be found, no clearly defined routine, no endless schedule of grueling workouts, and snatches of uneasy sleep. "I don't know," I admitted.

  "What is there to go back to?"

  On the surface, that was a stupid question. While he and I, well, we had spent many years side-by-side, we had never sat around and had heart-to-hearts. Neither of us were even entirely sure we had such things anymore. We didn't bare our souls, knowing they were full of ghosts and demons and the kind of rage that boiled, threatened to sear straight through vein, tendon, muscle, fat, and bone, that could burn you up entirely.

  We weren't the sharing sort.

  But he knew me before I even showed up.

  He was aware of where I came from.

  What I left behind.

  An outlaw biker dad, the best mom in the world, two little brothers who likely weren't so little anymore, aunts, uncles, friends, my crush, a life.

  He knew they were there to go back to.

  But I knew him well enough to understand that he wasn't asking about that. He was asking me if there was enough of me, of the daughter, the sister, the niece, the friend left. If they would even recognize me. If they would want to.

  Because, many many years ago, he had stood where I was standing; he needed to ask himself the same thing.

  The answer, for him, was no.

  No.

  There was not enough of the old him left anymore. And, what's more, what was left was something he knew they could never accept, that he would not be so selfish as to expect them to even try, to pretend, to lie to his face.

  He'd walked away.

  And when he had walked away, he stayed away.

  Maybe he had expected me to do the same.

  Maybe a part of me wondered if I would follow in his footsteps.

  It had been easy in those first few, hard years to picture myself going back, throwing my arms around all of them, apologizing, asking them to understand, to take me back.

  But as things changed, as I changed, as this mission of mine became bigger than myself, it got harder to imagine them wanting to embrace me. And that I could even accept that from them anymore.

  I cut people when they got too close.

  That's what I did.

  And the thought of cutting any of them, well, that was the kind of shit that kept me awake at night, staring at the cracks on the ceiling, feeling the spider web effect of them in my soul as well.

  No matter which way you looked at it, the decision would be selfish, wouldn't it?

  To stay away, to keep them wondering, to leave them always feeling like something was missing.

  Or to go back, and to prove to them that something was missing. The girl they had loved and raised. She was gone. Long, long gone. I wore her shell, but had been hollowed out, filled with things I never wanted them to know existed, never wanted them to see. And then, what? Ask them to try to accept this person?

  It was selfish to stay gone.

  But it was just as selfish to go back.

  In the end, it came down to one truth.

  "I promised my mother I would be back one day," I confessed.

  I wrote her letters. Every single week, I sat down, found something to write about, took a trip out of our little wooded compound, traveled far and wide to mail it out because I knew that my family had the power of tracking me down if I simply dropped it in the closest mailbox. Once, in a really low moment
, in a really sad place in my heart and mind, I had signed off promising that I would be home one day.

  Long before that girl broke and shattered and had to be rebuilt.

  But if there was one thing my father drilled into me as a kid, it was to be impeccable with my word, to stand behind my promises, to be trustworthy.

  I had to go back.

  No matter what I went back to.

  No matter the anger, the grief, the resentment, the confusion.

  I had to go back.

  The question was simply when.

  A week, a year, five? I had no idea.

  "What about the mission?" he asked, making my head snap up.

  "The mission is the mission. It has nothing to do with my family."

  "You go back, they become your focus."

  "No," I told him, gaining my feet, rolling my neck, feeling the satisfying crack. "Nothing will ever change the mission," I told him.

  Then I lunged.

  If he was looking for a fight, if he wanted to get me to focus, he knew my trigger, and he knew it was set to hair.

  The mission.

  It was all there was for me.

  Eight years.

  Eight years of my life dedicated to it.

  I ripped the girl I had been apart at the seams, rebuilt her with stronger materials, set fire to her burning rage, showed her that as ugly as she may have once thought it was, it was infinitely worse. That demons wore the faces of men in this world. And that someone needed to send them on back to hell.

  I killed myself to be reborn into the body and mind and soul of someone who could do what needed to be done.

  I didn't do all of that just to shrug it off like a sweater that no longer fit right, to go back to my old life, and be that old person.

  It wasn't possible.

  I was too far gone.

  Even if I wanted to, it wasn't an option anymore.

  This was who I was.

  As ugly as it was.

  And this was what I did.

  Righteous, but wicked in its own way.

  I had finally succeeded in becoming what I told myself I needed to be over eight years before.