Inked Babies: Epilogue to Inked Brotherhood

by Jo Raven

  And the worry that keeps twisting my stomach is normal.

  You can’t just turn off stress, I tell myself. That’s all it is. I don’t believe in premonitions and foreboding. That’s Kayla’s domain.

  So when Kayla finally arrives and coos over the babies, then takes out Tessa’s gown from its garment bag and has her try it on, I let myself be swept up in the delirium of the upcoming party, this celebration of love and joy and friendship that will bind our family more tightly together.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Zane

  “Going somewhere?” Rafe is leaning against the opening to my booth, arms folded over his chest, eyes narrow. “I thought you were booked out today.”

  “Nah, just two appointments.”

  “Feeling okay?”

  And fuck, now he’s staring at my hands that are shaking like an old guy’s. I shove them in my pockets. “I’m fine.”

  “Doesn’t look that way to me. What the hell happened now?”

  “Fuck off, Rafe.”

  “Fuck you,” he says and beams as if I gave him a puppy.

  He’s fucking weird sometimes.

  “Okay, now that the niceties are out of the way, tell me why you canceled two appointments.” Rafe’s jaw clenches. “Did you have a flashback? Are you feeling sick?”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  “You should visit a psychologist, man.”

  “I will.”

  His brows lift. “That where you’re going now? Let me ask again, more slowly: did something happen?”

  “Nothing happened.” Fuck, now he won’t let go.

  “Don’t tell me you’re to the same therapist you used to visit.”

  “None of your business.”

  “What’s going on, Z-man?” Rafe walks into the booth, gets right in my face. “You stopped going to your therapist because you thought you saw Kenneth Shaw in his car outside. You had the mother of all flashbacks and ended up in a back alley not knowing how you got there. And now, out of the blue, you wanna go back? Why?”

  “Christ, Rafe. Back off.” I shove at him, manage to move him less than an inch. Fuck, I need to get my strength back. “I said, it’s none of your business.”

  “I’d punch your lights out for saying that, but that would be too easy. Talk.”

  Dammit, I should’ve left earlier.

  “Kenneth Shaw ditched his old car,” I say. “The police won’t find him. I figured… the only way to catch him is to use a bait.”

  “A bait.” He takes a step back. “No.”

  “If he wants me, then he’ll be there.”

  “Dammit, Zane.” He rubs a hand over his face. “You won’t be okay until he’s behind bars, will you?”

  I don’t bother answering. He knows me.

  “First of all, are you even sure you saw him that time outside the therapist’s office? That he followed you?”

  “Fuck no,” I mutter. “I’m not sure about anything. But I think I saw him. I think he followed me. I lose nothing by trying, right?”

  Sweat is rolling down my face. My hands shake harder at the thought of facing him again, of playing hide and seek with that son of a bitch.

  “Then I’m going with you.” Rafe turns around, not waiting for my reply. “I’ll be waiting for you at your truck. Hurry up.”

  He sure is a bossy boss, but relief swamps me at the realization I’m not doing this alone. “Coming.”

  ***

  “Does Koko know?” he asks me as I drive through the town, clenching my hands on the steering wheel. “About you going to look for Kenneth?”

  “No,” I bite out.

  “Why not?”

  “Lay off it, Rafe.”

  I can’t tell Dakota. She loves me. I’ve worried her enough.

  He stares at me, then looks away. “We probably won’t find our guy anyway.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of. And it annoys me that I cling to the thought like it’s a good thing. Rafe was right. I won’t be able to rest while he’s out there, and no matter how nice the officers I met were, I’m with Rafe on this: I don’t trust the police to catch him.

  We don’t talk after that, and I switch on the stereo. I have a song list and I plug it in, letting the music wash over us. None of the DeathMoth songs, none with Dakota’s voice.

  Not telling her bothers me enough as it is without hearing her sing.

  I drive to the Walmart Supercenter first, cruise the parking lot. I don’t see the white sedan, and then I remember that’s not what we’re looking for. In fact, we don’t know what we’re looking for, or if he’s there at all. He could be in any of those cars, staring right at us as we drive by.

  Chills run down my spine, but I force myself to go slow, to linger, to see if any car follows us.

  But it’s a bust. Nothing happens, and after a while, I head out of the lot and drive toward the therapist’s office.

  “What makes you think,” Rafe says suddenly, “that he wouldn’t find out your name and your address if he wanted you?”

  I slam my foot on the brakes in reaction, then curse as I barely avoid a collision with the car behind us. “Christ, Rafe, give a man a heart attack.”

  “You’re too young for that.”

  I park at the side of the street. “Fuck. Didn’t think of him looking me up. Why didn’t I think of that? I need to go back home.”

  “Hold your horses. Call Koko first. Finding someone online is not always that simple. Maybe he couldn’t find you even if he looked for you.”

  Pulling my phone out, I hit call and wait, my heart about to beat its way out of my chest. Then I hear Dakota’s voice, and I slump in my seat.

  “Zane, hey! We’re here with Kayla. Tessa tried on her wedding gown. It’s really pretty.”

  The happiness in her voice makes me smile. I close my eyes, bask in it. “Good, that’s good. Are you at Erin’s?”

  “At Audrey’s actually. Why?”

  “Nothing. Will you be there for a while?”

  “Yeah, we’re planning on baking some cake. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. Stay there. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Okay,” she says, sounding mystified.

  Mystified is better than worried. I’ll take it.

  “Love you,” I tell her.

  “Love you right back.”

  Rafe is watching me sideways, an arm folded behind his head, as I disconnect. “I take it everything’s okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My whole point was, if he wanted you, would he wait at your therapist’s office for days and weeks, like a psycho in a B-movie? I hate it when the bad guys are stupid.”

  “But he is a psycho,” I remind him. I have a feeling in my gut about this. “He’s not stupid, but his brain isn’t normal. A guy who lurks around houses, grabbing random kids from empty lots and backyards… that’s who he is.”

  “The thrill of the hunt, huh?” Rafe frowns. “Fine. Look, we’re not far. Let’s swing by the therapist’s street and see if he’s there.”

  Like a stroll in the park.

  I release the parking brake and head back into traffic.

  ***

  The familiar street is quiet and lined with trees. I cruise slowly, ignoring the booming of my heart, the sweat slicking my palms. There is a number of cars parked on either side.

  Not sure what I think will happen.

  Rafe lowers the volume and the music drops to a whisper of a beat. His gaze is focused on the street ahead. Thank fuck he’s not making fun of me over this, though I bet the fucker is just biding his time and thinking how to tell the story to make me look like more of an idiot.

  “You can stop,” I tell him.

  “What?”

  “You can stop thinking up jokes about today already,” I clarify, scowling at the parked cars. “So I was wrong and—”

  “A car is following us.”

  My pulse spikes, blood rushing in my ears. “Are you sure?” I check the rearview mirror and
find a dusty black Ford Raptor. It’s a massive truck, bigger than mine, and it’s accelerating.

  Shit. I step on the gas a moment too late. The truck rear-ends us, and we lurch forward.

  “What the fuck?” Rafe is yelling, and I’m struggling to control the steering wheel while speeding up. “I’m calling the police before—”

  The truck slams into us again. The impact loosens the wheel from my hands, the belt cuts into my airways, and I lose the ability to breathe.

  Or control the pick-up.

  A car is coming toward us, on the opposite lane. I see it, time slowing down, as the pick-up starts to slide.

  I yank the wheel the other way in a desperate attempt to avoid the head-on collision.

  We crash into something else. A tree, I think, then my head slams on the wheel, and I see black.

  ***

  Someone is rattling my door.

  I’m pretty fucking sure about it, ’cuz it’s vibrating against my cheek and it hurts my brain. I also know I’m in my pick-up.

  Meanwhile, feeling is returning to my body, and with it, pain.

  Fucking ow.

  I groan pitifully as I lift my head and blink blood-soaked lashes. Blood is covering one side of my face, dripping from my chin.

  God, awesome.

  “Z-man?” Rafe’s voice is a croak, and I wipe the blood from my eye to find him slumped back in the passenger seat, an arm wrapped around his middle. “Call the police.”

  I open my mouth to ask him why he’s not doing it, then my door rattles again and turning, I see the face outside the window.

  The darkness threatens to return, black seeping into the edges of my field of vision, as I stare back at Kenneth Shaw.

  Older than in my memory, with a scraggly beard and wild eyes.

  And a baseball bat or something like it in his hands. He swings it and smashes it into the window.

  Fuck. I jerk away, but the belt is still locked, cutting into my chest, sending a jolt of pain through my ribs.

  Cursing, I fumble with the lock, but it seems stuck.

  Holy shit.

  The bat swings again, and the window crumbles. “Miss me, boy?” he hisses, and I freeze.

  He reaches for me, wrapping a hand around my arm, and all I see is dirty sheets, blood and darkness as the pain runs me through.

  “Take it, boy. Shut up, and take it…”

  A voice in the back of my mind is yelling at me to move, to fight back. I promised someone I’d fight back.

  I promised Dakota.

  Move, dammit.

  It’s like trying to move inside a dream where your limbs are locked in place and you’re trying to scream but no sound emerges.

  Get free. Get out.

  A howl is building in the back of my throat as I force my hand to move, as I reach for a belt buckle. All I can see is the attic, the bloodied sheets, all I can smell is cigarette ash and burnt flesh and fear.

  You can do this.

  Space isn’t working right. I’m on my knees, but I’m also sitting in my truck. There’s a man behind me—Kenneth Shaw—but he’s also outside my truck, trying to kill me.

  I bite my lip, hard, and the pain gives me something to work with. I focus on it. Feeling blindly at my side, I struggle with the disorientation that’s turning my stomach. I’m inside a ship made of glass, and the ocean is lashing on every side. There is no up or down. There is no way to tell.

  Pain. I bite my lip harder, a sharp sting when I break through the skin, a counter point to the phantom pain in my back.

  I’m here. This is now.

  My fingers encounter the latch and I fumble with it, pressing desperately to release the belt, dimly wondering why I’m still alive.

  The latch gives this time, and the belt falls away. The first deep breath I take draws a gasp from me. The pain in my ribcage is definitely sharper than my bitten-through lip, and it grounds me more.

  The truck. Kenneth Shaw.

  Call the police.

  Wincing, I pull my cell phone out of my back pocket to call 9-1-1, and that’s when I realize Rafe isn’t in the truck with me anymore.

  I jerk around, phone in hand, searching for him and for fucking Kenneth Shaw who’d been there, grabbing my arm, what feels like a second ago.

  “Hello? Mr. Madden?” a male voice says in my ear, and that’s when I also realize I didn’t call 9-1-1 but Wesley Logan.

  Shit, there’s Rafe. I locate him down the sidewalk, circling Kenneth Shaw who’s wielding that baseball bat like a sword.

  “Mr. Madden?”

  “You have to come here right the fuck now. Bring reinforcements to arrest Kenneth Shaw. Hurry up.”

  “Shit. Address?”

  I frown, unable to remember the street for a long moment, then it comes to me and I rattle it off and throw the phone on the passenger seat as I push my door open.

  Now I know why Rafe told me to call the police.

  It was so he’d go after Kenneth Shaw himself.

  With a snarl, I climb out of the car and lurch toward them. This is my fight. I made it back from the memory. Now it’s time I faced the man who broke me.

  Rafe is facing me, and his eyes widen when he sees me. He has blood running down his chin from a split lip, and he’s limping.

  Kenneth Shaw begins to turn, swinging his bat, but I’m ready for him.

  “Hello, Ken,” I tell him as I kick at his legs, then drive my fist up in an uppercut, catching him on the chin.

  What do you know, I’m taller than he is now. And as he stumbles backward, and I advance on him, Rafe’s lessons and endless training at the gym from these past years echoing in my head, I’m sure I can take him down.

  I can fucking kill him.

  And he’d deserve it. He deserves to suffer a thousand deaths for his crimes.

  I lift my arm, deflecting a hit from his bat, and barely feel the pain. My arm can still move, and that’s all that matters.

  Curling my fist, I punch him in the stomach, following with a fist to his throat.

  He goes down, his bat rolling away.

  I kneel over him, press my knee to his throat and make my decision. “You’re fucking done, Ken. For good.”

  ***

  Watching the police handcuff Kenneth Shaw and push him into the back of a police car has to be the strangest out-of-body experience I’ve ever had. It’s like a flashback, only it’s good, and Rafe is there beside me.

  Fucking unreal.

  “You know,” Rafe mutters, leaning against the fence of the house behind us, an arm curled around his middle, “you have to be the bravest motherfucker I know, going after your own personal demon.”

  I’m not so sure about that, with my vision still going double between past and present and my knees feeling like rubber, but it’s done, it worked, and that’s all that matters.

  “Or the most stupid,” I say, and shake my head when he laughs, then grunts in pain. “Make that two of us, in fact. You’re here with me, ain’t you?”

  “Fuck yeah, I am. Always. But let’s not do this again, okay?”

  My ribs hurt. My knuckles are split. My head throbs like a bitch, and I keep having to wipe the blood running from the cut on my forehead.

  And Rafe looks just as bad.

  But we’re alive, and the EMTs who checked us over already said we’ll survive. They want us to go to the ER, but the police want to talk to us some more first.

  Then things get even weirder because several cars arrive, and our friends spill out. At least Megan and Asher and Tessa are here.

  And Dakota.

  She stops, stares at me, and suddenly I’m more scared than I’ve ever been in my whole damn life.

  I did this without telling her. Betrayed her trust.

  Have I lost her? Was it worth it?

  “Dakota.” I take a step toward her, but my chest is too fucking tight, and my balance uncertain, so I stumble.

  Rafe’s grab for my arm saves me from going down.

  And the
n she’s right there, throwing her arms around me, sobbing against my chest. “You bastard. I hate you right now.”

  I hold her against me, feeling like I’m about to be sick. “Really hate me?”

  “Really, really hate you.” She’s hugging me so tightly my ribs might crack, and I swallow a gasp of pain. “I love you.”

  I finally breathe again. I haul her even closer, pain be damned. “Love you, too.”

  “Don’t do this to me ever again.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Not for a million bucks. Not for all the money in the world.”

  “Good.” She sniffles. “Lee and I need you.”

  “God, I need you, too. So much.” I kiss the top of her head, and look down at her. “It’s over.”

  Chapter Thirty Five

  Dakota

  It’s a fact. I’m married to the craziest, stupidest bastard in history.

  Going off like that to face a killer, after a month or more of flashbacks and nightmares? After I almost lost him once already when his sister died and he drank himself half to death? After this psycho killer almost killed him as a child? How could he do this to me? It almost killed me when Audrey called to tell me what was going on.

  Of course by then I’d found two missed calls from him, and a message that he is okay, and to call him back.

  I’m married to the craziest, most damaged, bravest man in the world. I know why he did what he did. I understand. He had to make sure Kenneth Shaw was locked away. In Zane’s mind, that was the only way, and he got his closure.

  But I’m holding him to his promise. No more danger. No more pain. From now on, I’ll make sure there’s only laughter and good times in our lives. Enough of the past. Time to plan the future.

  Zane’s holding a gauze bandage to the cut on his forehead, given to us by the EMTs waiting nearby with an ambulance to take the guys to the ER to x-ray their chests, make sure there’s no damage from the accident.

  Oh, did I mention they crashed into a frigging tree?

  And that was before the psycho killer/child molester tried to bash their heads in with a baseball bat and they fought him. Like in the movies!

  Jesus. So I am a little hysterical at this point. Big surprise.

  The police come back to talk to him about the events that led to the capture of Kenneth Shaw. They keep it short, asking how they knew to find the man here. Then Wesley Logan joins us, announcing he’s taking over from here, and tells the boys to get their asses to the ER and then home to rest.