PLAYED - A BRITISH BAD BOY ROMANCE (40 page)

Chapter 32

Angel

The medicine hit me
like a sack of bricks, dulling my senses within minutes. Just like before, the
pills pushed their digging, constricting fingers into my head, forcing up a
wall between the world and me.

I hated it.

My speech slurred and
my vision shook. Even my mind had started to drift. I’d planted myself on the
couch and was content to count the dirty spots on the carpet, at least for as
long as I could.

Mother means best.
 
She just
wants me to feel better.

An hour later, as I
was absentmindedly running my fingers through my hair, I heard something
outside. Quietly and gradually, I peeled myself up from my seat and stumbled
over to the window. The old Ford pickup, rusted halfway to hell with a
brutishly cracked windshield, was as unmistakable as the day I saw it last.

Oh God, no.

Roger had come for
me.

“Mom?
MOM?
”

Her exasperated voice
came from deeper in the house, somewhere towards her bedroom. “What is it,
dear? I can’t understand you.”

“Roooooger... Rooger…”
I could barely utter the warning. My tongue was tying itself in knots,
rebelling against that blackened name.

“Oh, don’t be
alarmed,” she called out cheerily. My mother came into the room, a smile
slathered across her face. “He’s a good man, Angel. He cleaned up his act!
Joined the church and everything. When he heard you’re back in town, he just
wanted to pay you a little visit.”

“NO!” I shouted,
stumbling away from the window.

Standing above me,
Mom’s small smile soured. She suddenly looked at me like I was disgusting to
her. “The Devil’s in you, girl. Has been ever since the accident. Always making
you say evil, wicked things…”

I watched as she
opened the door, my mouth hanging open. I had to calm down. Losing control of
myself was only going to make things harder. I needed to get the hell out of
here. My feet struggled to gain purchase on the floor, the medicine dulling my
senses with a drunken, crippling high.

The door opened,
Roger’s smiling face peering in.

The sight of him
burned terror into my mind.

“Sally!” Roger
grinned. “And you brought our little one…”

“I’m gonna head down
to the store and let you two get reacquainted,” Mom smiled, glancing from him
to me. I felt something inside me struggle to scream; it was caged up,
struggling to penetrate this damning haze. “Roger, be a dear and teach this
girl some proper manners.”

No. You CAN’T leave. Don’t do this to me!

I bitterly tried to
say something – anything – but the words came out sideways. Mother just smiled
and gave Roger a pat on the arm, thanking him for coming before stepping out
the door.

I sat there in
stunned silence, my vision pulling into a tunnel. Time seemed to stretch
forever. Roger found himself a seat on mother’s recliner and waited patiently.

Five minutes passed,
then ten. The medicine had taken hold. I was slipping away, just like I always
did…

“I see you’re
scared,” he said, his voice full of malice. “You never should have run away, my
little Angel…”

My mouth was moving,
but no sounds were coming out.

“I’ve missed you,
babygirl,” Roger grinned. “It’s been too long. I thought I’d never see you
again… but here you are. We’re back where we should be… together.”

A memory flashed into
my head.

It was the night that
Trent took me away from Riverton. I the early hours of the morning, with the
sun rising ahead of us, he was driving so quickly. I’d almost blacked out from
the anxiety of being brought back to the accident… but I’d focused on the logo
on his dashboard.

I had made it my
stone.

It had kept me
hanging on.

Roger was the demon
from my past, threatening to engulf me again. If I was a fallen, burning Angel,
casting myself down into the dirt from the life Trent tried to show me, then he
was Satan himself.

The words came back,
whispered into my soul.

I will be no burning Angel.

My eyes focused onto
his, unwilling to lose to him. I could barely form the thoughts, but they came,
pushing through the darkness. No matter what he might do to me – what he might
take from me – he was not going to have my soul.

Maybe Trent would
have deserved it. He’d pulled me up from the shattered, meaningless life I’d
been living. Maybe he would have changed. He had the capacity for kindness and
generosity, deep inside that arrogant mind of his.

But I’d fled the
safety of his arms, because I thought I was bringing him down… but also because
I knew I didn’t deserve it. Because I didn’t want him to have that kind of
power over me, neither him nor
anyone
else.

What had that gotten
me?

I’d been trapped
here, with my mortal enemy. But now, even though my body’s sluggishness was
going to betray me, I knew more than ever that I would never give in.

I will be no burning Angel.

“How much do you
remember, sweetheart?” Roger asked, carefully watching me and grinning ear to
ear.

“Stay… Stay away…” I
managed to barely murmur, the words sounding far less coherent as they left my
throat. “You can’t… I won’t let you…”

He laughed heartily.

Of course I didn’t
have any control here.

That didn’t mean that
I’d go down without a fight. Even if I didn’t have an ounce of strength in my
veins, I’d resist whatever vile things my stepfather had in mind… I would
never
give in.

“Don’t worry,” Roger
said, reaching out to the little table next to the recliner. He lifted up the
bottle of pills mother had given me, glancing at it and giving it a little
shake. “When I’m done tonight, you won’t remember anything
ever
again.”

Something snapped
inside me. I couldn’t move… I couldn’t fight him… but I channeled every last
drop of resistance I had into my final act of defiance.

I did the only thing
I could… I
screamed
.

Chapter 33

Trent

Without a second of
hesitation, I threw my weight into the door, tearing it free from its rotten
hinges in a burst of splinters and debris.

There she was. Angel
was looking up at me from the floor with wide, glazed eyes full of surprise and
sudden recognition. Her scream had been cut short by my sudden arrival, but a
new sound had risen up in its place.

“Who the fuck are
you
?”

The voice was cold and
fierce, but as I turned, the man who spoke them looked neither of those things.
He was older and frail, but Old Greg had been wise enough to give me a physical
description of Angel’s monster. Without another word, I knew what a piece of
shit I was staring at.

“Hello, Roger,” I
grit my teeth.

Confused and furious,
he tried to clamor to his feet from the recliner. I was faster, knocking his
ass straight back into the chair. With his filthy, oily head slumped to the
side, Roger was out like a goddamned light.

He deserved worse. It
took every last ounce of self-control to resist snapping his thin little neck
in front of her.

“Get up, Angel. We’re
getting out of here,” I said, looking back to my girl against the floor. She
didn’t respond or make any move to climb to her feet.

“…Angel?”

Something was very,
very wrong.

Angel was mumbling to
herself as I kneeled down next to her. I could already see that she was a pale
reflection of her former self… as if the life had been sucked out of her.

“What the hell did
they do to you?” I questioned, hauling her up into my arms. Her limp, dead
weight brought my rising worry to new, horrified levels.

Angel’s head rolled
to the side, but she weakly shrugged her shoulder to the side. When she did it
again, moving her head with the motion, I followed the direction to the bottle
of pills.

They fucking drugged her.

“Stay with me. I’m
getting you out of here.”

I thought quickly,
deciding I’d need to show this bottle to someone. Maybe I could get her a counteracting
agent if she didn’t pull back from this soon… and it would certainly give us
ammunition against her parents.

We can cross that bridge when we come to it.

She smiled weakly as
I snatched up the pills, then walked her out to the bike and secured her on the
back of the seat. My suspicions were confirmed as I held her steady – there was
no way in hell
that she’d be able to
hang on. Improvising, I pulled my belt off and used it to strap her tighter
against the backrest. Climbing on, I fired up the machine and felt her grip me
weakly.

We have to get out of here.

Out of this town, out of this goddamned state…

As I twisted the
throttle and started down the road, the blast of a shotgun went off behind us.
Frail bastard that he was, Roger must have managed to get up out of his
goddamned chair.

“Hang on!”

I gunned it around
the first turn and blasted down the nearly abandoned roadways. Angel’s arms
tightened around my chest just enough to let me know she was there. I sure as
hell wasn’t going to waste my time looking for police in this Podunk little
town. I needed to get Angel somewhere safe, then we could figure out what
happened back there.

The biting wind seemed
to bring Angel back, miles ticking by as she pressed herself against my back,
her strength ever so slowly returning.

That’s my girl…

I rode long and hard,
putting as much distance behind us as I could. My destination was well in mind.
Angel and I were leaving Alabama behind… tonight. But there was no way I could
do that without giving Old Greg another chance to see his granddaughter, safe
and sound.

“You came for me…”
Angel whispered softly as we came to a stop outside the old Riverton Bar. Her legs
shook lightly as she stepped off the bike, but she quickly gained her footing.
She didn’t even need to lean on me that much.

Sure, the motorcycle
had presented a logistical problem at first… but the wind had done wonders to
snap her back out of that drug-fueled cloud.

“What the hell did
they do to you, Angel?” I asked, looking her over. “Are you hurt? Did he harm
you?”

“I think I’m okay
now. Mom gave me some of my anxiety pills…” She sounded weak still, but at
least she could hold a conversation. It was progress that I was willing to
take. “She said she just wanted to calm me down. I didn’t really have any
withdrawal symptoms before, but I guess my body forgot how to hold them like I
used to…”

“And that sick fuck,
Roger?”

“I think he was going
to kill me,” she replied, her voice quiet and fearful.

“That will
never
happen,” I snarled. “There’s no
statute of limitations on the things he’s done. Soon as we get back, you’re
reporting that bastard. I don’t care what it costs, I don’t care how long it
takes, we’re taking him down.”

Angel glanced up at
me, strands of her hair falling in front of her eyes. I was afraid that she was
going to resist me on this, but the night had sapped her strength. Instead, she
surprised me: “Do you really mean that, Trent?”

My resolve hardened.
Even if I hadn’t just walked in on a complete atrocity, the forlorn, hopeful
look in her eyes only made me more infuriated.
How can someone hurt somebody like this?
“I’ve never been more
serious about anything in my entire fucking life.”

Quietly, a small
smile crossed her lips.

I took Angel by the
hand and walked her away from the bike, my other arm around her shoulder. Her
footing only slipped slightly twice as we crossed the gravel towards the front
door of the old, decrepit saloon.

Old Greg was tending
at the Riverton Bar when we stepped in from the darkness. Angel was still a bit
shaky on her feet, and he faltered at the sight of her, instantly abandoning
his patrons. A silence fell over everyone as they turned and recognized their
usual, plucky bartender – trembling and clutching onto me in the doorway for
support.

“Angel!” He held back
tears, hobbling around to greet us. “You’re back!”

She looked at him
strangely for a moment, then back to me. “Old Greg, I’m so sorry… I shouldn’t
have left without saying goodbye. I just couldn’t look you in the eye.”

“You look like hell,”
he muttered huffily.

“Thanks a ton,” Angel
grumbled in return.

I glanced between
them, confused and only growing angrier by the second… until I realized that
the two of them were softly smiling.

“Tell me what those
people did to you, girl.”

Angel looked away,
unwilling to speak.

Old Greg peered at me
curiously, instead.

“There was trouble,”
I answered carefully.

“You saw what was
happening to her,” he stated bitterly. Not as a question, but a recognition. I
wasn’t sure if he really wanted to have this conversation, particularly in
front of his patrons, but I nodded sternly.

“First time something
out of the ordinary happens, I always write that up as a fluke,” Old Greg told
me, “but when it happens again, there’s a pattern. You are no fluke. You’ve
saved my Angel again.”

“If happens a third
time, I definitely don’t want a shotgun involved.” I allowed the corner of my
lip to curl up, watching his reaction harden with realization. “It was cute
when she did it the first time, but I’m getting
real
sick of that.”

Before Old Greg could
open his mouth to retort, Angel chuckled weakly. “I think it’s your turn next
time, Trent.”

“I’ll just rely on my
fists, thank you,” I grinned.

Old Greg’s lungs
heaved with a deep, reflective sigh. “The last time we spoke, I sent you from
this place a different man than the one who entered. Tell me, Trent… have you
decided what kind of man you are?”

“I have,” I nodded.

“And what kind of man
is that?”

For the first time
since meeting, I looked at him for who he really was. He wasn’t an obstacle to
a sexual conquest. Nor was he a crotchety, elderly fool in a rundown bar, or a
hurdle in my quest to find her.

Old Greg was a
mentor…and a friend.

“The kind that will
keep Angel safe and protected for as long as she’ll have me, and even past
that,” I told him. “I give you my word that, no matter who I was before…Angel
will
always
be safe with me.”

He stared me in the
eyes, searching for any chink in my resolve. After a moment, he finally nodded.
Angel seemed confused, but she hadn’t said a word.

“I don’t expect
miracles, son… but I see how she looks at you, and how you look at her… and it
makes me believe.”

He extended his hand.

I thought back to
when I made that gesture to him. He’d seen me for what I really was, back then.
I’d been an idiot, fueled by the erection in my jeans, eager to take and use
whoever came crawling my way. Angel hadn’t mattered to me. She had just been my
latest sexual conquest, ripped away from me before I could claim her. Old Greg
had me rightfully pinned as a lecherous snake from the start, and had ignored
my grasp before.

With these thoughts
in my head, I gratefully, appreciatively shook his hand.

I was a changed man…

No longer the king of
the filth.

And it had only been
because of them.

“Thank you for
bringing her to me,” Old Greg smiled, the first sincere expression of joy he’d
had towards me, “and for giving me one last time with my Angel...”

He pulled me in
close, whispering in my ear.

“And promise me, son,
that you will
never
let her step foot
in this state ever again.”

“You have my word,” I
solemnly agreed.

I saw unmistakable
sadness flood his expression. It was only there for a brief moment, before
cold, hardened resolution replaced it. It was the only sliver of weakness I
ever saw penetrate this old, hardy man.

Old Greg nodded
curtly, gave Angel a quick but emotional hug. This time, when he and Angel
parted, I knew that it had happened the proper way – no stealing away in the
middle of the night with a hastily scribbled note.

I knew that they
could both live with this.

We parted ways for
the final time, before he turned back towards his patrons. As I held the door
open for her, proud that she didn’t need my support now, I glanced across at
him for one last moment. With a grave expression on his face, Old Greg never
once looked our way again.

It wasn’t until I got
outside that I realized he hadn’t come clean. He never told her who he was, or
the history they had together before the bar.

Maybe he just wanted
to stay forgotten.