Chains (10 page)

Alex started circling. “Good boy,” I told him.

A car pulled into the lot and stopped beside the edge of the grass. It was the dealer’s friend—the guy who drove us back here last night. “Nice dog,” he said. “I got your money.”

I walked over to his car, keeping an eye on Alex. The guy handed me an envelope through his open window. “Some man came by looking for your girl,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “I told him she was with you—wouldn’t leave until I told him where she went.”

He exhaled and the smoke rose up around my face. “You don’t know me,” I said. It was too damn bad for whoever was looking for her. Probably Jose.

“I know who you are, Grave Digger,” he said, giving me the side-eye. “I follow the MMA circuits that come through here. Saw you lose your shit in the ring against Jose the other night. You think my friend didn’t know who you were? He needed a fighter.”

The dealer finding me seemed a bit too coincidental. “How’d he happen to have Danny?”

He smirked. “Call it luck.” He took the last drag of his cigarette and flicked it out the window toward my dog.

It wasn’t luck. It was my fucked up life. “Did you tell him where we are?”

He shrugged. “The general direction.”

“Right. Thanks for the cash.” Pushing back the anger threatening to explode out of me, I scooped up the dog and tracked back across the lot to our motel room. Inside, I locked the door and crawled in bed beside Danny.

“Hey,” I said, running the tip of my nose along her jawline. “I know I said you could sleep, but we have to go. Someone’s looking for you.”

Her eyes fluttered open and went wide. “Who?”

“I don’t know. Some guy.”

She jolted up and shoved her hair back from her face, eyes darting around the room, panicked.

“Who is it?” I asked. “Jose?”

She shook her head. Her body shuddered. “You should’ve left me there.”

I got up on my knees in front of her and took her by her shoulders. Her hair cascaded over my hands. “I’m not leaving you ever again. Tell me who’s looking for you.”

She swallowed hard, but wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Nobody.”

I squeezed her shoulders, gently. “Danny, you have to talk to me. Now’s the time. We have to figure out what to do.”

Her eyelids dropped shut and her shoulders slumped under my hands. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“Fine,” I said, standing up and pulling her with me. “I’ll make the decisions. Get dressed. We’re going to the airport.”

I shoved last night’s dirty clothes in my suitcase, doing my best to not get frustrated with her, but why the hell wouldn’t she talk to me? I wasn’t a fucking stranger. I was someone she could trust.

“He’ll find me,” she said. “He always does.”

I whipped around to face her. “Who? Tell me who the fuck wants to find you!”

Danny stepped back and fisted her hands.
“Who do you think?”
she yelled. “
Striker!
He won’t let me get away! Did you think he would?”

A pulse of disbelief rocked me. I bent forward and held myself steady with my hands on the bed. My head spun and couldn’t wrap around this.
He
was looking for her? “But you’re nineteen,” I said, looking up at her. “You left a year ago, didn’t you?”

She blinked rapidly and wiped at her cheeks. “I ran away four years ago, after you left. He keeps finding me. He won’t leave me alone.”

I sank onto the bed. Wrung out. She ran away four years ago… “Have you called the cops on him?”

“No,” she said, her voice high pitched, on the verge of breaking. “I stole from him when I left, Ty. Cleaned him out. Took credit cards, his expensive watch, everything. He says he’ll press charges if I go to the cops, if I don’t come home to him and make up for what I’ve done.”

“Fucking bastard.” I reached out, took her hand and pulled her down next to me. She had one more year of him bribing her. The statute of limitations for theft in Michigan was five years.

I ran my hand up and down her warm back, over the bumps of her spine. Inside me, angry heat rose like wind off the desert. He took everything from her. Every fucking thing that mattered. And he still wasn’t done. “I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”

“No,” she said, leaning her head on my shoulder.

“I said I’d protect you.” My head throbbed with white-hot fury. “I failed. That motherfucker is still—
still
—fucking after you.”

I gripped the bedspread, holding myself back from tearing down the fucking walls. My mind raced. It wasn’t too late. He was here. I was here. I could end this like I should’ve four years ago.

He’s been hunting her.

I’ll start hunting him.

“We’re not leaving Reno,” I said. “I’m finding him. He won’t come near you again.” Determination sat in the base of my throat like a rock, swelling and stretching. I could barely speak around it. Once my mind was set, there was no going back.

Austin, the fight, going pro, it drifted away. It could wait. This couldn’t. Getting revenge, settling the past
and
the present couldn’t wait one more second. There would be no moving on from here without putting him in the ground. I’d trip over the memory of him for the rest of my life and would never make good on my word to Danny.

It had to be done.

“It’s not worth it,” Danny said, taking my face in her small hands. I leaned into them. Her touch had been the only caring touch I had for so long, until I got older, found girlfriends. Still her touch was never matched in the depth of feeling it carried.

“You’re worth it.” I pulled her in close, burying my face in her hair. She tremored. “Don’t be afraid,” I said, spanning her back with my hands. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said.

“You’re shaking.”

“Not because I’m afraid.”

I almost called her out—told her I didn’t believe she wasn’t afraid—but then I realized what she was telling me. Holding her at arm’s length, I looked her in the eyes. The pain of addiction stared back at me. I’d recognize its sharp craving and pins-and-needles withdraw anywhere. Seeing it in her expression made me want to take it from her and suffer through it for her. I could beat it. I did before. I didn’t want her to go through that kind of torture. “How long have you been using?” I asked.

She licked her bottom lip and looked away from me. “I’ve been pretty much on the street since I ran away. I keep moving. It’s hard. I can’t do it without—I don’t want to remember—”

I squeezed her arms and gave her a gentle shake. “How long?”

Her eyes swung back to me and struck, hard-edged and accusing. “Four years. I shot up most of the money I got pawning all of his shit I stole.”

Myfuckingfault. Myfuckingfault. Myfuckingfault. I left her there.

I ran my hand across the top of my head. “God, Danny. I—”

She shoved my shoulders, pushing me away. “What else was I supposed to do? Stay with him? Alone?” A dark, incredulous laugh stuttered out of her. “You left me alone with him
knowing
what he was doing to me.”

I grabbed her shoulders again. “I was eighteen. I had to leave.”

She didn’t say a word just stared at me. She didn’t need to say what we both knew was true: I promised to come back for her and never did.

I closed my eyes and bowed my head, resting it against her chest. “I’m sorry,” I said, unable to manage more than a raspy whisper. There should’ve been more to say to her. A bigger apology. More than two words. But there wasn’t. I didn’t have an excuse. I loved her. I failed her. I couldn’t expect her to forgive me.

My emotions were shutting down. I couldn’t handle confrontation that wasn’t physical. I fell into a dark place and locked myself away. Or I took off.

I wasn’t good at staying when I couldn’t solve a problem with my fists. Lucky for me, Baron Striker was close and I could solve all of our problems with violence. This time I wouldn’t stop until he was dead. I might end up back in jail, but if Danny was free of him it would be worth it. It would make up for abandoning her. Maybe she’d even forgive me.

“I’ll find him,” I said. “I’ll fix this.”

Her fingernails traced up the back of my neck and along my scalp, leaving tingles of pleasure in their wake. I felt her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest and for the first time in all the years we we’d been apart, I was grounded. I was home and safe and warm. Danny was someone worth giving up everything for.

The phone rang, pulling me out of the otherworldliness of being in Danny’s arms and pushing me face-first back into another problem: Mike. He’d done so much for me over the years, and I was about to let him down.

“I have to get that,” I said, rising from the bed. I grabbed my phone, dread rising with each ring, and answered. “Mike.”

“Tell me you’re at the airport,” he said.

“We’re not,” I said. “I can’t leave here.”

His silence was deafening. Nobody had ever done as much for me as Mike. Hell, nobody but Mike had ever done
anything
for me. He was the first and only to see promise in a punk-ass right out of jail and take me under his wing. Disappointing him killed me.

“Gotta do what you gotta do,” he said, despondent. “I’ll forfeit the fight.”

Forfeit. The fight that was going to propel me into the pro’s. Jesus Christ.

I glanced over at Danny. If I kept my promise I made to her in the driveway of Striker’s house the day I left, I wouldn’t be in this position now. I’d be in Austin getting ready for the cage. “I have to make up for what I should’ve done a long time ago,” I said.

“Put it to rest so you can move on.”

Move on? Now that I had Danny again, there was no moving on from her. It was a falling into place, not a step back. I could pick up my fighting career with her by my side, but I’d never move on from her. “I’ll call you in a few days,” I said.

“Tyler?” he said. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

I hung up knowing I’d never have anyone like Mike in my corner again, and disappointing him felt like shit.

Danny still sat on the bed hugging a pillow to her chest. Her eyes were ringed black and a sheen covered her pale skin. She trembled and looked like death. “Lay down,” I said, taking her by the arm and leading her to the head of the bed. “I’m going to run out and get you some things—toothbrush, comb, clothes—when I get back, we can talk about what you’re doing in Reno and where you’ve been crashing.

She closed her eyes and lay perfectly still under the blanket. I got a glass of water and sat it on the nightstand beside her. “I’ll be back soon,” I said, cringing at my words that were lies the last time I said them to her.

“Can you bring me my bag?” she asked, pointing to her small, worn, leather handbag she had hanging around her body by its strap last night. “I think I lost my phone.”

I wondered how she could afford a phone with seemingly no job or permanent place to live, but instinct told me I didn’t want to know. Not right now—maybe later I could handle the details.

I picked up her bag and held it out, but was struck by the nervous desperation in her eyes as she reached for it. I jerked it back. “I’m sorry,” I said, unzipping it and rifling through its contents. “I have to.”

In a small inside pocket, I found a stash of little blue pills. “Oxycodone,” I said. “Not gonna happen, Danny.”

I stalked toward the bathroom with the pills. She jumped up and was right on my heels. “I need those! I can’t just quit, Ty!” She grabbed me from behind as I reached the toilet to drop them in. “No! Please!”

“You can’t do this anymore,” I said, tossing them in and flushing. We stood and watched them swirl and disappear in a rush of water.

Danny dropped her chin to her chest and started sobbing. Her arms hung loose at her sides, defeated. “It hurts me to see you like this,” I said, holding her and stroking her hair, “but there’s no other way. In a few days, you’ll feel a lot better.”

She shook her head back and forth, hard. “I won’t make it that long.”

“You’ll make it. I’ll be beside you the whole time.” I lifted her head so I could see her face. Her lips were contorted into a grimace, her eyes were puffy and red. I dried her tears with my thumbs and kissed her forehead. “I’ll take care of you.”

I scooped her up and carried her back to bed. She was light as a feather and compliant, but the worst was on its way. In the days to come, she would rage and fight, hallucinate, and beg me to kill her and end it.

That’s what I did, and Mike was by my side while I battled through it.

I’d be by Danny’s. It would be a test for both of us, but we’d been through worse. Much worse.

I tucked her under the blanket and grabbed my wallet off the dresser. “I’ll hurry.”

She didn’t say anything. I had so many questions to ask her. I wanted all of her stories. It seemed impossible that she had four years’ worth of life lived without me knowing anything about it.

I took a step toward the door and stopped, seeing a figure pass by the window through the filmy curtains. It slowed as it approached the door and stepped out of sight.

Then there was pounding. Loud banging against the door. Alex lifted his head from this folded paws where he lay, sleeping beside the dresser.

I darted a look at Danny and held my finger up to my lips, signaling for her to stay quiet. We froze, not moving a muscle. In my scenario, I ambushed Striker, not the other way around.

The pounding sounded again, quick, sharp raps of a fist.

Alex barked and whined, loping to the door.

I was being irrational. It was probably the housekeeping service. The little voice in my head told me otherwise. So did my gut. If I’d learned anything in my life, it was to trust my instincts.

The doorknob rattled, but the deadbolt held.

“It’s him,” she whispered, slipping out of bed.

“What are you doing?” Even our whispered words seemed to echo too loudly. She padded toward the door. “No,” I said, grabbing her around the waist.

“He knows where I am.” She squirmed to get free. I held her tighter. “If I don’t go with him, he’ll call the cops.”

“Be quiet,” I said, pressing my lips to her ear. “There’s no fucking way I’m letting you get near him.”

“He knows I’m here,” she whispered. “He knows. He won’t just give up.”