Fighting Shadows

by Aly Martinez

  “That’s my girl!” He snatched the wallet and business card carrier from my hands. “Where’s his car keys?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged, awkwardly looking out the window. “Maybe he carpools.”

  “God damn it, Ash!” he boomed.

  “He was nice! I took his wallet. He wouldn’t have been able to pay for a cab!”

  “Oh, yeah? Poor guy. Maybe you can write a letter apologizing to him?”

  It wasn’t a completely bad idea, but I was relatively sure he was going somewhere else with that statement.

  “While you’re in jail!” he finished. “Your prints were on those keys. The first time you get caught, they will have you for every asshole you’ve ever turned.”

  “Nuh uh! I wiped ’em.”

  “Well, for your sake, I hope you were thorough! Stop leaving the fucking keys!” He banged the heel of his palm against the steering wheel.

  “It’s rude. We don’t do anything with them anyway. They just go in the trash.”

  “I’m gonna need you to listen to me very carefully.” He pulled off to the side of the road just as we got out of the city. “Your job is to take everything you can get from their pockets. That’s it. If your fingers touch something, it comes home with us. You got it?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  And he narrowed his. “You know what? Maybe Minneapolis would be a good change for you.”

  That got my attention. “No!”

  “You’re getting sloppy, Ash.” He sucked on his teeth with a slurping sound that made me want to vomit. “A change might be exactly what you need.” He pulled back onto the road, cool as a fucking cucumber.

  I, however, was livid. “Fine! I’ll take the keys!”

  “Nah. You’ve gotten too comfortable down here in the South. Everyone’s an easy target. You need the challenge of a bigger city.”

  “Dad! No. You swore that we could stay here for a full year. It’s only been three months!”

  “I can’t take that risk with you leaving your prints all over the goddamn city. Besides, I’ve got a lead in Minnesota. It could set us up for a while.”

  “School starts next week! You promised me I could enroll after Christmas.”

  “Well, you know what? Sometimes, shit doesn’t work out the way we’ve planned.” He reached over and opened the glove compartment, pulling a toothpick out and shoving it in his mouth. I had an overwhelming urge to stab it in his eye. “Especially when you bring back five hundred bucks and a fucking case of business cards.”

  What he didn’t know was that the nice guy I’d just worked over also had his social security card in his wallet along with that five hundred bucks—or that I’d snuck it out while he’d checked the watch. I’d probably saved that poor schmuck three years of his life trying to get his identity back after my father got done with it. But . . . he was nice.

  “Asshole,” I mumbled under my breath. Although it wasn’t nearly quiet enough.

  “Just forget it, Ash. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think school is going to be a good fit for you. Besides, what the hell do you know about algebra?”

  “Nothing!” I yelled. “I know nothing about algebra, English, or history as far as you’re concerned. It’s a goddamn miracle I can even read and write.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that shit. You always have your nose stuck in some book. Plus, I got you that computer so you could take classes online. Stop being so dramatic.” He went back to staring out the window.

  “You did not get me a computer. I stole a computer! From a ninety-year-old man whose grandkids bought it for him so they could video chat with him every day because they missed him so much.”

  “What the fucking hell are you talking about?” He laughed. “He was sixty-five and loaded. His grandkids hated him.”

  “You don’t know that! It could have happened my way.” I crossed my arms over my chest, full-on pouting.

  “Yes, I do. How the hell do you think you got a key to his house? His crooked son paid me to get that computer. There was quite a bit of information stored on that bad boy before you decorated it with puppy stickers.”

  Whatever. I liked my version better.

  I changed the subject back. “I’m not moving.”

  “Debbie’s packing your shit as we speak.”

  “No,” I gasped.

  “We don’t have the money to stay. If you had actually brought me something of use, I could have squeaked us by a few more weeks, but business cards aren’t going to pay the rent.”

  Tennessee seriously sucked. I had no friends and I slept on the couch in a one-bedroom apartment that had an ant problem. Yet I would’ve given absolutely anything to stay there. It was the first place my father had actually considered letting me attend school. I hated his wife, but thankfully, the feeling was mutual. She was so desperate to get rid of me that she’d actually convinced my father that school would be good for me. I wasn’t exactly bi-curious or anything, but when he’d finally said yes, I’d wanted to throw her down and hump her.

  I’d been begging my father for as long as I could remember to let me go to school. But he’d always answered with a resounding no. He had given me a ton of bullshit excuses over the years, but I knew the truth. It all boiled down to the paper trail. Ray Mabie used a hundred different identities. Very rarely were they actually his own. However, if Ash Victoria Mabie enrolled in a public school, he would have to provide some sort of documentation. God, I would’ve killed to go to an actual school, with actual kids my age. I’d heard that teenage girls were bitches, but I was willing to take the chance. They couldn’t be all that bad. I was pretty freaking awesome. Surely there were others like me.

  I sucked in a deep breath and reached into my pocket, palming the social security card that I knew would buy me more than just a few weeks. I began to pull it out, but I stilled as I remembered the soft smile of the man who’d offered me—a stranger in need—his coat. He hadn’t had to do that. He could have walked the other way, like so many others had that day.

  Damn it. Why’d he have to be so nice?

  “I hate you,” I mumbled as I rolled the window down and tossed the social security card to the side of the highway.

  “What the hell was that?” my father asked.

  “Gum wrapper. You want some?” I flipped the pack I had hidden in my hand.

  He eyed me warily. “Gum, huh?”

  “Yep,” I responded before blowing a bubble and popping it loudly.

  “Don’t litter,” he scolded.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. The man had sent me out on the streets alone with zero protection, but a gum wrapper on the side of a road bothered him. To hell with his daughter, but let’s not tamper with the fragile environment.

  Fuck my life.

  Eight months later . . .

  “I HAVE TO GET OUT of here,” I declared as if I were being held prisoner in the pits of hell. And in my mind, I really was.

  I prided myself on being logical and levelheaded. I was a planner who thought out every detail, sometimes to the point of obsession. But right then, as the words flew from my mouth, it was a completely rash decision made in haste when I caught my brother innocently kissing his wife while holding his child. He had every right to do it, and I had every right to leave so I didn’t have to witness it anymore.

  Till and Eliza had gone to great lengths to make me comfortable in their new house. And by anyone’s standards, they had done an amazing job. It was a far cry from the shithole we had grown up in. By all means, I should have been ecstatic. But I was suffocating in that one-point-four-million-dollar mansion. Sure, I had a bedroom that had been built especially for me—complete with an adjoining gym that was a physical therapist’s wet dream and a bathroom that was fully handicap accessible. I had the freedom most people in my situation dreamed about.

  I, however, felt like a caged animal.

  “Okay,” Till said, surprised. “Where do you want to go?” He crossed his arms over his chest and s
tudied me carefully.

  Any place where you aren’t fucking the woman I’m in love with.

  “College,” I answered instead. “I’m feeling better, and I’m already a full semester behind. I’m ready to start.”

  Eliza smiled tightly, shifting six-month-old baby Blakely to her other hip. “You can live here and go to college. It’s only a fifteen-minute commute.”

  Fuck. That.

  “They have wheelchair-accessible dorms,” I told her without making eye contact.

  Yeah. And a yearlong wait list.

  “I’m not sure that’s the best idea, Flint. I’m all for you starting school, but we just hired that new physical therapist.” Till lifted his eyebrows and tossed me a teasing, one-sided smirk. “I thought you liked Miranda?”

  Oh, he knew I liked her, all right. He’d caught me fucking her a few weeks earlier. But what he didn’t know was that she was a hard-core gold digger who had taken one look around that house and all but dropped to her knees the second I’d rolled into the room. She didn’t want me though. She wanted the money she assumed lined my pockets. Those weekly physical therapy sessions were usually only beneficial to my cock. Till had essentially hired me a hooker with a college degree.

  However, I was such a miserable bastard that, knowing my brother, he wouldn’t have given a single damn that his money was being spent getting me off. Although I bet he would have cared if he knew that, not two minutes after he’d walked into the room and found Miranda riding my cock, I’d been forced to call her Eliza in order to come. Some things never changed.

  Whoever said that time heals all wounds was an ignorant asshole. In my experience, time made everything worse. While I had been making great strides in my recovery, I was still stuck with useless legs and a suffocating obsession for my brother’s wife. Visiting Eliza in the hospital the day Blakely was born had almost killed me. So, after that, I’d checked out from the whole family thing. The day Till had received his cochlear implant, which allowed him to hear again for the first time in over two years, I’d refused to go. I’d told my brother that I was in pain, and he’d quickly dropped the subject. Eliza knew I’d lied, and I knew that it’d broken her heart. Till deserved to have his hearing back, but I hadn’t been able to sit there and watch him have it all.

  Every day that had passed, I’d become more and more bitter toward him.

  It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t right.

  Yet I wanted to make him pay for every single strand of happiness he’d worked his ass off to get.

  Somehow, in my warped mind, I’d learned to hate the only person who’d ever given a damn about me. And it wasn’t all about Eliza, either. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what it was about. I just knew that Till Page had a life I would have killed for, but because of one fucking bullet, it was a life I would never even be allowed to fight for.

  Living with them made it that much worse, too. It was exhausting. Every time I exited the sanctuary of my room, I was forced to paint on a fake-ass smile and pretend that I didn’t want to punch Till in his throat each time I so much as ran into him while making a fucking sandwich in the kitchen.

  His kitchen.

  I needed my own goddamned kitchen. And, while I was at it, my own woman.

  My cock worked; I at least had that on my side. But women didn’t exactly get off on the idea of being with half a man. Fuck ’em though, because there was only one woman I really wanted, and with her, I had far bigger barriers than my wheelchair—a six-foot-two, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound barrier, to be exact.

  For everyone’s sake, I needed to move out, but as I stared at Till’s concerned eyes from across the room, I knew he needed me to stay. Responsibility will do that to people. And that was exactly what I had become.

  “Flint, just stay here a little while longer. You can do the college thing, but I think it’s safest if you lived here with us,” Till said.

  “No!” I yelled. “You can’t fucking stop me!” I propelled my wheelchair forward, stopping inches in front of him. Only months ago, I was a full two inches taller than he was, but right then, I stared up like the pleading child he apparently thought I still was. “I’m leaving. I’m not asking permission. I’m just letting you know.”

  He leveled me with an angry glare, which I fearlessly returned. I had lost so much weight since I’d stopped working out at On The Ropes that he was at least fifty pounds heavier than I was, but he was no match for me in the anger department. I had more of that than Till could ever dream of mustering.

  “I’m nineteen. You. Can. Not. Stop. Me,” I gritted out through my teeth.

  “Flint, stop,” Eliza pleaded from beside him.

  I never dragged my eyes away from my brother, but I was positive there were tears streaming down her face. I couldn’t care anymore though. That was Till’s job. Not mine.

  Not. Mine.

  “You’re right.” Till began rolling his bottom lip between his index finger and his thumb. It was his nervous habit and also the sign that I’d won. “College will be good. When do you move in?” He wrapped his arm around Eliza’s shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

  Yep. There it is.

  Looking away from their embrace, I replied, “Tonight.”

  “What?” Eliza gasped.

  “I’m gonna stay with a friend for a couple of nights. Then I’ll see if Slate can come over and help me move my stuff.”

  “Flint, what the hell is going on here? College, I get. What’s the sudden rush to leave?” Till asked.

  And before I could stop them, my eyes jumped to Eliza. Just as quickly, I flashed them away in an attempt to cover my accidental confession, but before I had the chance, her shoulders fell. She might not have been mine, but the way her chin quivered as she looked down at the ground absolutely belonged to me. And I hated myself for it.

  “Nothing. I’m just sick of sitting at home all the time.”

  He tilted his head to the side, not completely convinced. “When do classes start?”

  “Monday,” I guessed. Fuck if I knew when classes started, but I was willing to tell him whatever bullshit it took to get me out of there ASAP.

  “And you’re sure about this?” he asked.

  “Positive.”

  Sighing, he grabbed the back of his neck. “Okay, but if you change your mind, you can come back anytime. Let me get you a check. Prepay for the first full year of tuition and your room. Put the rest away for books. I’ll set you up on a monthly stipend for food and shit.” He released Eliza and started to walk from the room.

  “Are you insane? I’m not taking your money!”

  He stopped in his tracks and spun to face me. “Excuse me?”

  “There is no way I’m taking your money.”

  “Yes, you fucking are!”

  “That’s your money. Not mine. Use it to take care of your wife and daughter. I can figure out college on my own.”

  “You’re absolutely right. It is my money, and I busted my ass to earn it so I could take care of my family. You are my family,” he bit out.

  “Unfortunately, that’s true,” I mumbled.

  It was childish and a lie, but they were the only words I could think of to hurt him. However, since he was standing across the room, Eliza was the only one who heard them.

  “Flint!” she scolded, wiping her tears away and squaring her shoulders.

  Fuck. I knew that look, and it didn’t bode well for me at all.

  “Till, take Blakely and go get that check. I’m gonna help Flint pack a few things.” She smiled sweetly, and it quite honestly scared the piss out of me.

  Till must have recognized the look too, because as he took the baby from her arms, he bit his lip to conceal a laugh.

  Not even a second after he walked from the room, Eliza started in on me.

  “Are you done?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Yep.” Unwilling to listen to her lecture, I spun myself away. But before I could get turned all the way around, sh
e lifted her foot and slammed down on the brake of my wheelchair, thrusting me forward from the sudden halt.

  “You’re not done.”

  “Oh, I’m not?” I laughed humorlessly, rolling my eyes. After releasing the brake, I began to leave again, but Eliza had other ideas.

  Moving in front of my chair, she leveled me with a menacing glare. Bending over, she rested her hands on my thighs. “Kiss me.”

  “What?” I questioned, leaning away.

  “You love me, right? You’re leaving because of that, right? Then kiss me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll like it.” She shrugged and moved in even closer.

  I had envisioned kissing Eliza no fewer than a million times. Never once had it been out of pity or desperation. Those two things were enough to ruin even my wildest dreams.

  “Wow, Eliza. I didn’t take you for a cheater.”

  “It’s not cheating, because I would feel nothing.”

  I laughed again, trying to hide the hole her words had carved in my soul. “Well, when you put it that way.”

  “Then tell me why you’re leaving,” she demanded, never moving away.

  “I told you. College. Besides, I’m sick of you guys taking care of me. I need to do this on my own.”

  Oh, and because I want to rip the arms off my brother every time he touches you.

  “Bullshit. You’re leaving because of me.”

  “Wow. Aren’t you full of yourself today? Not everything is about you.”

  “I’m well aware of that, but this is,” she hissed. “I love you, Flint Page. And I know you love me, but not like this. If finally kissing me will make you see that this thing you have for me is nothing more than an infatuation, then I’ll take the hit.”

  “The hit? Christ, now I’m in the mood,” I said sarcastically, but my eyes dropped to her mouth.

  Fuck it.

  Suddenly, I grabbed the back of her neck, hauling her impossibly close. Her eyes went wide and her chin quivered, but she didn’t back away.

  I’d spent years pining over Eliza, but with her lips less than an inch from mine, I was hit by the overwhelming reality that it was never going to happen for me with her. I could steal a single kiss, but I’d never have more than that. I should have realized that about the time she’d married my brother, but it wasn’t until right then—as fear and anxiety covered her gorgeous face—that the truth sank in.