What He Bargains (What He Wants, Book Nineteen) (112 page)

“So they do know we’re in here,” she said.

She realized that idiot from the convenience store must have ratted them out to the media. He’d been filming them just as she’d suspected, and he had probably tweeted it out to everyone who would listen.

Chase stood there in the center of the room, his jaw twitching, hands clenched. “They’re going to just get more and more dangerous,” he said. “A crowd that big.”

Now she could hear a chant starting.

WINTERS! WINTERS! COME OUTSIDE
!

And then, another chant started, and it was even louder.

GO BACK TO DE-TROIT! GO BACK TO DE-TROIT!

They were practically singing the chant, and it sounded like dozens if not a hundred people.

A succession of knocks on the window and then a loud pounding on the door made her jump and scream.

“Goddamn it,” Chase said, his cheeks turning purple and a vein pulsing in his forehead. “I’m going out there.”

“No!” she cried, frightened. “Don’t do it, Chase. I’m scared. There’s too many of them and they sound wild.”

“I’m not scared. Bunch of knuckleheads that will run as soon as I go outside.”

“Please,” she begged. “Please don’t go.”

And then he was throwing open the door and walking outside, and she got off the bed and followed him. She couldn’t risk being separated right then.

When she stepped outside behind Chase, Faith was shocked by the sheer size of the crowd that had gathered in front of the motel. There must’ve close to one hundred people, including plenty of reporters and media people with cameras.

As soon as Chase came into view, a huge chorus of boos erupted from the crowd.

A police car pulled up with flashing lights, followed by another and another. The cops got out of the cars and started to try and push the crowd back.

Chase began pointing and yelling at various hecklers. “Come here,” Chase said to one large guy who was screaming profanities at him. “Come here and say that a little closer to my face.”

Faith grabbed Chase by his hard bicep, which felt like iron right now. “Don’t let them bait you into a fight. You’ll get arrested.”

One of the officers walked over to him. The police officer was short and skinny, and he looked fresh out of the academy. “Sir, we’re trying to get this crowd under control and you yelling and stirring them up isn’t helping.”

As more people gathered, Chase only grew more tense. “Do you think you and these other cops are going to control a rowdy mob of two hundred?”

“Just let us do our job,” the officer said. “You’re Chase Winters. Correct?”

“Look at me and look at them,” Chase said. “What do you think?”

The cop stared up at him. “You should go back inside the motel now. Your presence is only encouraging them.”

“We’re leaving immediately. But I need to get to my car.”

“I’ll escort you,” the officer said. “Follow me closely.”

As the officer moved slowly forward, he pointed at the crowd and yelled for people to disperse.

The mob was getting louder and more aggressive now. Most of them were shouting terrible things in Chase’s direction. Calling him a liar, a loser, a coward.

People had begun throwing trash from a nearby barrel on the curb.

“Stay behind me,” Chase told her. “Keep close. Hold onto my shirt.”

She grabbed hold of his shirt from behind and hung on for dear life as the angry mob closed in around them.

The cop tried pushing people back, but the crowd would quickly collapse in around them again once he got rid of any individual troublemaker.

“Fuck you!” someone shouted and then spit on Chase’s neck. Chase turned and tried to grab the person, who retreated.

Soon, it was a giant melee. People had begun tossing cans and bottles at Chase, and things were smashing on the concrete.

Faith screamed.

Chase grabbed her and pulled her into the crook of his arm. He whispered in her ear. “I’ve got you, baby. It’s okay.”

She clutched him, flinching as the sound of bottles breaking nearby greeted her ears. People in the crowd had even begun fighting one another.

The police were totally overwhelmed.

As they got to Chase’s car, the people were now trying to attack him and grab him. They were even trying to grab Faith.

But Chase was so much stronger than any of them.

The moment someone actually put their hands on Chase, he would literally take them and throw them so hard that they would fly comically to the ground. Sometimes they’d knock other people over like bowling pins.

One man grabbed Faith’s hair and Chase snatched the man by his fingers and quickly bent them backwards. The man let out a high-pitched shriek and then fell to the ground, screeching like a child.

Chase opened the car door. “Get in. Hurry.” A small rock hit him in the back of the head.

He didn’t even flinch.

She was frozen, but Chase quickly got her moving, helping her into the car, and then sliding in next to her. He shut the door as people began pounding on the car, grabbing it and rocking it as Chase inserted the keys in the ignition.

A moment later, the engine revved to life.

The crowd was going insane.

People were jumping onto the hood and dancing. Someone kicked out his headlights.

Chase gunned the engine and the crowd dispersed a little, giving him just enough room to begin driving.

As he surged forward, people darted out of the way. But others were still spitting, throwing food and drinks, hitting and kicking the vehicle.

Just before they were able to get out of the parking lot, someone snapped off the side mirror on the driver’s side.

And then they were finally free of the crowd, which surged after them, but couldn’t keep up.

After a minute, the crowd was already being left in the distance.

Faith sighed. “I thought we might die out there,” she said.

Chase looked at her. “Are you okay? Did anyone hurt you?”

She shook her head. “I’m okay. Just a little rattled is all.”

They continued driving in silence for a bit. Chase pulled into a lot with an ATM. There was nobody else in the lot.

“Going to try and withdraw some cash,” he said. “I’m running low.”

Faith smiled, trying to appear brave. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be right here, waiting.”

He gave her hand a quick squeeze and then left the car running, as he ran to the ATM. She watched him, her heart still pounding.

Faith was still taken aback by the ferocity of the people that had gathered outside the motel.

It truly had been an unruly mob. All they’d needed was torches and pitchforks to complete the picture.

How could they hate all him so much? Had his interview gone so poorly as that? Shouldn’t they have been sympathetic to what he’d gone through?

And then it hit her.

They don’t believe him at all. Nobody believes him.

They think he’s a liar.

It was a difficult moment for her when she realized that. Not only had Chase taken a huge risk in going on television and telling the whole truth about his past, but he’d also blown the whistle on the team trying to cover up Velcro Jones’s actions.

The man’s blatant assault of Monique.

And yet, in the end, nobody even believed Chase’s story. They just hated him more than ever.

She was still pondering this frightening idea when Chase came back to the car and got inside.

He looked at her with serious eyes. “My accounts are locked,” he said. “I’m broke.”

“Let me try,” Faith said. “I have a little money in my accounts.” She went into the ATM while Chase waited in the car.

Even as she put her card in and her pin number, she had a terrible feeling.

When she opened her account, she found everything had been taken out. She had no idea who’d done it, but someone had somehow gotten into her checking and savings and withdrawn all her funds.

She went back to the car and told Chase what had happened with her accounts. “Maybe we need to try and sneak into your house,” she said. “We can get the cash you have in the painting up in your bedroom.”

Chase was silent for too long. “I didn’t want to scare you, so I decided not to mention it before. But I got a text from my lawyer a few hours ago, informing me that my house was broken into and completely ransacked today. I texted back and asked him about the painting in the bedroom and he told me that it was found ripped open. So someone got that money and is long gone with it.”

Faith felt her entire body beginning to tremble. “Who’s doing this to us? Why won’t they stop?”

Chase didn’t seem to know what to say to that.

Instead, he put the car in gear and started driving.

F
aith was
on her phone’s Internet browser as Chase drove in the direction of her apartment.

They didn’t have enough money for a hotel or even a motel, and Chase figured that anywhere they went now would be similarly overrun with hostile crowds and the media within minutes of their arrival.

As they drove, Faith searched for news about the public reaction to Chase’s interview.

It was worse than she feared.

Some of the headlines she browsed through were downright horrifying.

L
EAGUE CALLS WINTERS
INTERVIEW A SHAM

OWNER OF NATIONALS VOWS LAWSUIT

“VELCRO” JONES’ FIANCE DENIES ABUSE

WINTERS A MARKED MAN, SAYS BLOGOSPHERE

#QBCRAPFEST IS TRENDING ON TWITTER

NATIONALS RELEASE WINTERS AFTER VOX 60 SPECIAL

EPIC RISE AND FALL OF THE MILLION DOLLAR QB

FAN POLL: 93% THINK WINTERS LIED

WINTERS GO HOME: STATE OF MASS REJECTS FORMER STAR

“HOTEL INCIDENT” NEVER HAPPENED, SAYS NATIONALS COACH

S
he didn’t even read
the articles themselves, although she scanned one or two of them. It was just too painful, though, to see how everyone had turned against him.

Wasn’t there one reporter, one fan, anyone who believed his story?

Wasn’t there anyone who realized that what he’d done was an act of immense courage?

No, there wasn’t. And the reason for that was hideously simple.

Chase wasn’t considered a winner. If he’d still been winning football games and throwing tons of touch down passes, then people would have believed his story.

But the fans had decided that he was just a whining loser trying to throw his poor teammate under the bus.

It made her sick.

The fact that she had tons of missed calls and texts from a million different people didn’t even phase her. She was worried only for Chase, not herself.

She shut off her phone.

Meanwhile, they were getting closer and closer to her apartment. “Looks clear,” Chase said, sounding relieved. “Maybe you should go in first and I’ll follow in a minute. If we go in together, it might be too obvious.”

“Okay,” she agreed, as he pulled the car into a spot next to the curb.

Both of them were on high alert, looking in every direction as he turned the car off. So far, the coast was clear.

Faith couldn’t wait to get inside her apartment—just the two of them, and nobody yelling or shouting or saying horrible things.

Peace and quiet, if only for a short time.

She got out of the car and started walking toward her building. The front entrance was in sight, and she was getting closer.

When she got within a few feet of the front stoop, Faith heard Chase yelling out. “Get back to the car!” he yelled. “Come back now!”

Faith turned to see a group of photographers coming towards her, taking pictures and shouting. And people across the street were staring, a crowd forming already.

She ran as fast as she could, while Chase had started the car and drove to meet her in the street. She hopped into the car just as the first paparazzi ran up, sticking his arm out and taking dozens of shots, the flashbulb popping rapidly as the photographer attempted to get a picture of them driving away together.

Chase gunned the engine and got them out of there as fast as he could.

“They must’ve been camped out, waiting for me to come home,” Faith said. “How do they even know who I am and where I live?”

“These people know everything about me, now,” he replied, shifting gears and driving faster as if someone might still somehow be following them. “And that means they know everything about you.”

“Now what?” she asked. She was still breathing heavy, and sweating from all the running and anxiety.

“I have no fucking idea,” Chase mumbled.

They drove for a long time before Chase pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot. The lot was less than a third full, and he parked far away from any other cars.

“What are we doing?”

“I just need a second,” Chase said. He pulled out his phone and scanned through his contacts list. “Hope I have his number,” he muttered. And then the phone was to his ear and he was talking. “Hey, it’s Chase Winters.”

There was a long pause. And then Faith heard the response from the other end. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious. I know it’s late but I’m having major problems,” Chase said.

“I should think so,” came the reply piping from the phone.

Chase rolled his eyes. “My accounts are frozen. I can’t take any money out.”

“Yeah…well…I tried to call you,” said the man.

“Why? What did you want to tell me?”

“I was trying to let you know that the league and the Nationals have already filed lawsuits and injunctions against you. They’re disputing the payments they’ve already made and the money you’re supposed to receive in the future. A judge put a temporary hold on the account until a hearing in three days.”

“Three days with no money?” Chase said. “I’m dead fucking broke right now.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. My hands are tied. Do you have someone who could give you a loan for a few days?”

Chase looked at the phone like he wanted to reach into it and throttle the man on the other end of it. “In case you didn’t notice, I’ve sort of become public enemy number one around these parts. And everywhere I go, angry mobs form.”