by Brook Wilder
He unlocked the front door and stepped in. He expected to be met with a flurry of anger, with her yelling at him, screaming that he’d left and it was unacceptable and all sorts of other things. But instead he was met with silence. That was odd. Not even the coffee maker was on and boiling a pot despite this being the time Hannah usually was into her second pot of decaf, trying to pretend it was real coffee. What the hell was going on?
He walked into the bedroom to find her closet missing a fair amount of her own clothes. He saw that her duffel bag was also gone. He moved into the bathroom and the toiletries were gone too. The more he walked through the house and found things missing, the angrier and angrier he became. She was nowhere in sight, he things were gone, there was no note, there were no phone calls. She’d up and left. She’d quit and run off because things got tough. They hadn’t taken marriage vows yet but he’d expected better of her than that. She’d been the strong one, the level headed one, the smart one.
Now she was gone. There was no trace of her anywhere in the house and no clues to where she’d run off to or why. She had simply vanished without a trace and he felt his blood begin to simmer once again. He walked over to the coffee mug she’d used just days ago, the smear from her Chapstick still evident. He threw it on the floor in a glorious shatter and listened to the sounds of the breaking ceramic. He looked at the pile of shards on the floor and took several deep breaths.
So that was that then. She was the love of his life, or so he thought. And now she was gone after one fight. He’d admit it was a doozy but they had a child together, they were going to get married. How could she just leave all that behind because h asked her to take some time off school for her own safety? It wasn’t right. Maybe she wasn’t who he thought she was, maybe she was just some illusion of his dream girl, a woman to call his wife and the mother of his child.
The dream they were building was in so many pieces, not unlike the broken pile of a mug now sitting on the kitchen floor. That was that then. Ben had won at that as well. He’d taken the most precious thing in the world away from him and now he was left to stare at the broken pieces and replay it all, wondering where he could go back and fix things if he was able.
Chapter 29
Chance was left alone in the house for another day. That made four days since last he had seen Hannah and four days since he had last seen their child. Not that he’d ever actually been able to see the baby. But knowing that it was there, knowing that she carried him beneath her clothes, waiting to grow within her stomach, had been a comfort to him. He hadn’t realized how much he craved her presence alone until it was gone. He’d take her sitting in the kitchen and giving him the silent treatment if that’s what it took to get her to be back in his life.
His anger had gone from him several hours after it had arrived. He was so distraught when he smelled her shampoo on her pillow that he’d been unable to hold onto that rage anymore. He went from being angry that she’d left him to being completely heartbroken. He’d lost the greatest thing in his world because he couldn’t control himself or control his temper. He had to control his need to do just that: control things.
And now she was gone. He felt like shit and if it wasn’t for the massive hangover looming on his head he would have just kept on drinking that pain away but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Besides, Hannah wouldn’t approve of him using bottles of Jack Daniels to soothe his pain.
So he sat there, alone and pathetic, making himself some kind of microwave something for dinner because it was all that was in the freezer at the moment. They’d planned to go grocery shopping this weekend but that plan had fallen through and now he was left there with nothing but to stare at the wall and already mourn whatever he never truly had in the first place. He’d gotten close to being in reach of a happy ending, but he’d managed to mess it up, just like he always did.
That’s when there was a knock on the door. He was still wary of everything that had happened, still jumpy, and agitated from the hangover and the drinks still swimming around in his stomach, threatening to come up with the processed, high sodium food he’d just eaten. But he got up, grabbing the closest thing he could find to defend himself with (it turned out to be a stapler) and walked slowly to the front door. He got there and peaked out the window just enough to see two people standing there and neither one was tall enough to be Ben.
“Open up man, it’s urgent,” a voice called through the curtains and Chance instantly recognized Moose’s voice.
He put the stapler down and opened the door. “What’s going on?”
“You tell us,” Moose said, grimly, coming into the house with Cindy on his tail.
They walked right into the living room and dropped down into seats at the table. Moose pulled out his phone and set it out on the table like he presenting it as a gift. “And what’s this for?”
“It’s Hannah. I think she’s been kidnapped.”
Chance felt his entire body go cold as the blood underneath his skin turned to ice. Hannah was kidnapped. Hannahe could be hurt. Hannah could already be dead. And he was sitting there wallowing around in self-pity about how lonely and desperate he was to make things right. He’d stormed out of the house and she’d gone missing. He was an idiot.
“She called me,” he said. “She said she tried calling you but your phone kept going right to voicemail.”
Another blow. Chance felt his stomach turn. He was going to be sick.
“Gabe and Ben took her,” he said. “Apparently they’d been staking out the house for some time and were waiting for a moment to separate you two. They nabbed her and wouldn’t let her write any kind of note. I guess a couple hours in she convinced her brother to let her call me and arrange for some kind of meeting.”
This was too much at once. Chance had screwed up majorly and didn’t know how to fix it. Hannah was gone. She hadn’t left him. Knowing that was a bit of a blessing but it hurt even more to know that she’d been stolen away from him. He’d left her by herself because he was angry and his pride was hurt and now she was in danger from something far worse than a lover’s quarrel and someone sleeping on the couch.
They’d taken her. What were they going to do with her? Were they already trying to sell her out to the highest bidder? She was carrying his child and she was in danger. He needed to do something. He needed to get up and go after them.
“Where is this meeting?” Chance said.
“By the warehouse where they kept all the other kidnapping victims,” Moose said. “They said they would meet all of us. I don’t necessarily think this is a sign of anything good but at least we can get eyes on her and maybe come up with some kind of plan.”
“Let’s do it,” Chance said. Link would berate him for acting without thinking, for using his heart over his head. He could get a lot of people, himself included, killed if he did this. But he didn’t care. He’d let half the town get burnt to the ground if it meant he saved Hannah and their child. Maybe Ben didn’t know about the baby, maybe he had no idea the lengths that Chance would go to get her back. He had to try. And he’d be damned if anyone got in his way this time.
***
When they met at the warehouse, it was not Ben waiting for them with a posse of sneering Black Death members but instead it was Gabe and Hannah by themselves. They were sitting there rather nonchalantly, nothing about the scene seemed overtly like a kidnap victim and her kidnapper. In fact they appeared to be talking almost amicably. That wasn’t going to stop Chance from rushing forward and pounding Gabe’s head into the ground for everything he’d done.
“Chance, stop,” Hannah said, sensing his anger and reading his mind. She stood up and stepped between him and her brother, placing a hand firmly on Chance’s chest to hold him back. He would not do a thing to hurt Gabe if she stood in the way. “We need to explain some things before you go all violence crazed.”
He was deprived of sleep and more than a little hungover. He wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk things out with the
man who was responsible for all of this happening. But, to be fair, he was also responsible for her coming into his life in the first place, however terrible the circumstances had been, so he had to give the boy that much credit.
“Talk,” he said to Gabe, getting as close to him as Hannah’s proximity would let him.
“Ben isn’t part of this,” Gabe said. “At least right now he’s not. He thinks I’m going to be delivering you to her but I got her out of the house so we could get her somewhere safe. He wanted to take her and I convinced him to let me get her first—”
“How were you in contact with Ben?”
“He found me up north,” he said. “My head is clear now. I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially not my sister. So I made sure I got to her first and then never reported to the check point. We’ve been trying to get in contact with you for a while but Hannah said you two had a fight and you might be out of communication for a while.”
Great. Now he looked like a grade-A asshole. It was probably true. He’d left the house, left her unattended, and she’d nearly been snatched up by Ben. Her brother, her idiot junkie brother with the gambling problem, had been the one smart enough and level headed enough to get her out of that situation in time. That made Chance feel like even more of an asshole. The screw up could be a better man than him. He was supposed to be a father to this child growing inside of Hannah and instead he’d put both mother and child in danger. He was a nightmare.
“Now that that’s all settled, we should probably get out of the open,” Gabe said. “We’re a little too vulnerable here and Ben has spies all over the place.”
“We can’t go back to the house, the place was bugged,” Chance said.
“Where else can we go? The usual places are all known to Ben: your mom’s house, the club house,” Moose said.
“We’ll think of something,” Chance said with conviction.
They all turned and walked off. Hannah, to the side, was watching Chance but he didn’t say a word to her, not yet anyway.
Chapter 30
They decided to spend the night in some ratty motel. Chance didn’t really want to put Hannah in the position of being surrounded by bed bugs and stains from God-knows-what kind of activities but he also didn’t want to put her anywhere she might not be 100% safe. The motel was gross and a little uncomfortable, but it was better than going back to the house or going somewhere that Ben could find them.
“The bathroom is free of cockroaches,” Chance said. “It’s not clean of much else, but there’s no roaches or nests to be found in there.”
It reminded Chance of how they first met. He’d once hidden her away before in a motel and now they were doing it again under much different circumstances. She was his fiancée—still his fiancée if the ring still affixed to her finger was any indication of her feelings. She was carrying his child. It was fascinating how much could change in so many short months of knowing each other.
Things were more dire now as well, however. Not just for their situation but for them as a couple. Chance needed to fix that before they did anything else.
“I’m sorry,” he said, plainly, coming to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. “I acted like a child and it nearly put you in danger.”
She took a deep breath and let out a sigh. She reached out and took his hand in hers. “I’m capable of protecting myself. I know you spent your life keeping your family safe but I’ve spent my life keeping my family safe too. I know how to take care of myself and I know how and when to protect myself. I’m not going to stop living my life because some psycho decided he’s going to come after us. He wins if we stop living just to hide ourselves away from him.”
She was right, as she often was. He sighed. He was just happy she was touching him, that she was willing to touch him, that they weren’t so far gone that she was repulsed by his presence and forcing him to sleep in a separate room or a separate bed. They’d gotten to the point where they could fix this, they weren’t so far gone yet. And for that Chance was grateful.
“I love you,” she said, softly, quietly, but completely seriously. “And I always will. No matter what arguments we get in or how much you piss me off.”
“Or how much you piss me off.”
She narrowed her eyes at him but couldn’t fight the smile when she saw his.
“Fair enough.”
They didn’t say much more than night, deciding instead to show their feelings through soft kisses and a night spent sleeping in each other’s arms and waking up to each other’s smiling faces in the morning. Things weren’t 100% fixed but they were getting better and that was all Chance could ask for.
Chapter 31
Hannah woke up to the sight of Chance once again and she didn’t know how she managed to go the past few days without him there. She spent the first few hours of his flight in mood swings of anger and despair. She both wanted to throttle him and blamed herself for his running off. She tried to consider things from his point of view, thought of a version of herself that hid away in a corner while everyone else went around to deal with Ben and she found that wasn’t her.
She wasn’t helpless and whether she loved Chance or not, she wasn’t going to let him walk over her because he was scared. He needed to learn to trust her. Maybe that’s what this whole thing was about. It was some kind of massive pre-marriage couples counseling where they could get their kinks out now so they didn’t have to worry about it being a problem in a few years when they were surrounded by kids and their white picket fence life.
Hannah got up and went to make coffee in the tiny, dirty motel coffee maker before thinking better of it and deciding to put on some clothes to go out and get some from the gas station. Sketchy gas station coffee was far better than whatever mold spores were growing inside the small coffee pot on the counter of the hotel living room.
Gabe was already in the gas station when they got there and it looked like he hadn’t slept a wink.
“Hey,” he said with a weak greeting and a small wave. He was holding a massive travel cup of coffee.
“How are you feeling?” Hannah asked, stepping over to the station with all the coffee pots and getting herself and Chance two medium sized cups.
“I’ve certainly felt worse,” he said with sad, far off eyes and she didn’t doubt that was true.
She couldn’t image what withdraw was like. The vindictive part of her thought that he deserved it since he got himself hooked on drugs. But the part of her, the louder, bigger part that was his sister ached for the pain he had to endure but was proud to see the person he’d become on the other side of things.
“Listen, I want to help,” Gabe said. “I want to talk to Chance about trying to do some good with all this. I’ve been given an opportunity that I’ve never had before and I want to make the most of it.”
Hannah poured out the coffee into the two cups and turned to look at Gabe. He’d grown up quite a bit. He was no longer that scared young man who hid behind their mother’s legs and then eventually used her as a shield as well. He was a grown man, not just in physicality but also in the way he looked with such devotion and reverence at her. He was a man who was mature enough to be sorry, to want forgiveness, to be thankful for where he was now and the fact that he was standing at all.
It almost hurt to not recognize the man in front of her but this was another version of her brother, the one he was always meant to become and she wasn’t going to fault him for that. She smiled and pulled him into a hug after she set the pot of coffee down.
“I’m proud of you,” she said. “Talk to Chance. I’ll vouch for you. I think he’s in a better mood now that the hangover has passed and we’ve all gotten a good night’s sleep.”
“Well, some of us,” Gabe shrugged.
“Fair enough.”
Chapter 32
Chance called a meeting of them all as soon as Hannah returned with the cup of coffee in her hand and her brother in tow. She watched him give Gabe a bit of a side eye but he held in wha
tever remark he was going to make and took the coffee with nothing but a thank you and a nod to Gabe who looked like he was ready to swallow his own tongue at any moment.
“We need to call the others here,” Chance said, taking a sip of the cup. “We need a plan and we need it fast. By now Ben knows that Gabe isn’t giving you up and he’ll have people out looking for you. That means we have to act quick but it also means there’s good news in Ben finally putting himself out in the open. The longer it takes to find you, the more desperate and reckless he’ll become. I’ve seen him get that way before.”
Hannah nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed. Chance shot a text to Moose and Cindy telling them to meet in the room and offered for Gabe to sit in the chair in the corner. Hannah hoped it was the beginning of some kind of uneasy friendship for the two of them. Chance was trusting Gabe. He was only doing it because Hannah was there and watching and wanted it. But maybe this was the beginning of a bigger trust between the two of them. He respected her judgement for her brother. That was worth something.