Dying to Run

by Cami Checketts

  Jesse opened his eyes and looked at me sadly. He lifted me next to him on the bed then pulled his shirt over his head. I gasped. I shouldn’t have, but I wasn’t prepared. The strength and perfect muscle mass wasn’t what shocked me. I’d become so used to the tattoos on his forearms and biceps, they were just a part of Jesse. I hadn’t given much thought lately to where else he might have tattoos. His chest, back, and shoulders were plastered with ink.

  Jesse handed me his shirt, not meeting my gaze.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, pulling the soft cotton over my head. It was warm and smelled like the outdoors and a wonderful trace of Jesse’s cologne. The sleeves covered my entire upper arm and the T-shirt draped to my thighs. It was bliss being covered again.

  An awkward silence stretched on as Jesse studied the carpet and I snuck peeks at his chest. Finally, I got brave and trailed my fingers across his chest and to his shoulder. Bending down, my lips grazed his collarbone. He released a long breath and wrapped his arms around me. “Don’t do that, Cassidy.”

  “You look perfect to me,” I whispered.

  Jesse cupped my chin in his hand and took control of my mouth for several wonderful seconds, but released me like I was on fire when I touched the bare skin of his chest. “Don’t, please.” He inhaled quickly. “I’m on the verge as it is.”

  He wasn’t lying, I’d seen it in his eyes earlier, but now the desire was clouded with sadness. “You’re innocent,” he said. “You’re perfect. I won’t ruin you.”

  I guffawed. “I’m not perfect.”

  He trailed his fingertips down my jaw line. “You are to me. I love your innocence, I don’t want to take advantage of you.” He took another ragged breath. “I’m so close.”

  A warm shiver raced through me. He was right. I was innocent in the never-been-with-a-man kind of innocence, and I definitely planned to stay that way until I got married. But this was Jesse. He was like this exotic superman I couldn’t get close enough to. Learning I had this kind of control over him was thrilling, exciting, and scary. I nodded and clasped my hands together, but couldn’t resist glancing over his muscled pecs again. My eyes stopped on a name emblazoned above his heart.

  “Elle?” As warm as I’d been a minute ago, I was suddenly horribly cold. “Who is Elle?”

  Jesse sighed, folding his arms across his chest as if the thickness of his biceps could hide what he didn’t want me to see. “You just have to push too hard, Cassidy.”

  I raised my eyes to his. “It’s somehow my fault you have ‘Elle’ tattooed over your heart?”

  He looked away, studying the door as if it would magically open. Jumping to his feet, he hurried to the door and begged Carlos to let us out.

  “No,” Carlos said simply and then refused to answer when the begging turned to blatant bribes.

  After a few minutes, Jesse gave up and walked back to me.

  “Are we going to talk about it?”

  He shook his head.

  I grabbed his arm. “We’re probably going to die in a few minutes. You asked me to trust you that we won’t get blown up, but you don’t trust me enough to tell me who Elle is?”

  “Why do you even care?”

  My mouth dropped open. “Because, you jerk, I care about you. I want a relationship with you. And you can’t even answer my questions?”

  “I will.” He hung his head. “I will. Just not right now.”

  “When?”

  “If I had my choice?” He shook his head and sank onto the bed next to me. “Never.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  He tugged me into his arms. I resisted for a few seconds, but I really didn’t want to fight with him.

  “I trust you,” Jesse said, “but I can’t stand the thought of you running from me when you find out about my past.”

  I shivered. “You have some deep, dark past?”

  “Darker than you can imagine.”

  I’d guessed as much, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Jesse. I’m not going to run away from you.” How could that even be a concern as smitten as I was with him? “Please tell me. Who is Elle? Why did you do this to yourself?” I traced the pattern of a dragon on his arm, wondering about the story behind each tattoo, wondering how he really ticked inside.

  He sighed and started talking, still staring at the door. “When I was in college, we had a party at my dorm. I drank. Way too much. There was this girl there. Elle.” He said her name like a prayer. “She was beautiful and smart and innocent.” Jesse focused on me, his eyes darkened to a dangerous glint. “I killed her.”

  My heart was in my throat. I leaned back, praying I’d heard wrong. “You . . . what?”

  “I, um, I drove her home,” he coughed and looked down, “We got in a wreck. It was . . . awful. I was in the hospital for weeks after and Elle . . .” his voice trailed off, his gaze was tortured as he stared at me.

  I swallowed, the dryness of my throat making it impossible to say anything. Maybe he thought I would reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, that his mistake stemmed from drinking too much, but the words of comfort didn’t come. Jesse had no way of knowing. It wasn’t something I talked about. My Grandma and Grandpa Farr had been killed by a drunk driver when I was a young teen. They’d been wonderful, warm and kind, just like my mom. It had taken me years to forgive the driver.

  Jesse gave me a few more seconds to respond, then looked at his clenched hands and continued his story like it was a relief to be confessing, “My dad hired the best lawyers. I have no proof, but I think he also paid the judge to give me a lighter sentence. I got community service and a fine, which my dad paid.” He shook his head in disgust.

  His handsome face twisted into a scowl of self-loathing and sadness. “I can still see Elle lying on the road. I couldn’t do anything to save her.” He paused, cleared his throat and continued, “After that I got these.” He gestured to his chest and arms. “Elle’s name was this huge reminder. The other tattoos numbed the pain of feeling like I was a murderer, and they made my dad nuts. He wanted me to be like him: fine, upstanding surgeon by day; nasty trafficker by weekend.” He barked a harsh laugh.

  “I started drinking more, doing drugs, anything I could to torque my dad off. But then I grew up, realized I didn’t want to hurt someone else. I quit drinking and put myself through medical school, without any help from my dad. I didn’t have any of the tattoos removed as a kind of penance. I won’t make the same mistakes again.” He ran his hand over the couple day’s growth on his cheeks.

  As I hadn’t said anything throughout his monologue, I wondered what would be appropriate now. I was feeling decidedly sick. He’d killed a girl driving drunk and then he went crazy drinking and tatting up his body? I felt myself inching away from him.

  We sat in awkward silence for a minute.

  “What are you thinking?” Jesse asked, dragging out each word as if he was in pain.

  “I, um . . .” I hated myself for what I was thinking. I’d just reassured Jesse that nothing would scare me away from him, yet now I was wondering if I should take Carlos up on his offer to rescue me. I straightened. Carlos rescuing me. That was it. “I just had an idea to get out of here. Play along okay.”

  He opened and then closed his mouth, his eyes dark and stormy. I knew he needed me to respond, to tell him I understood about his past, but I needed time to think about that and a bomb was ticking. Finally he nodded. “We can talk about the rest later.”

  I squeezed his hand and agreed, “Right, later.”

  I rushed to the door to avoid his searching gaze and pounded on the wood. “Carlos, you were right. Jesse’s using me. Let me out, please.”

  Jesse jumped to his feet, slamming his fist against the door. “I have never used you.”

  I took a step back, unable to meet his gaze. “He’s a liar and a murderer, Carlos. You said you could protect me. I-I’m scared. Please let me out.”

  Jesse stared me down. “You don’t mean that,” he whispered.

&
nbsp; I said nothing, waiting for Carlos to do something and not sure if I was lying. I was a bit scared at the moment of the look on Jesse’s face.

  The door popped open and slammed into Jesse. He fell against the wall. Carlos burst into the room with his gun drawn. He saw Jesse slumped on the floor and turned to me with a smile. “Carlos take care of you?”

  I smiled. “Thank you.” Jesse had better be faking, if he had really been knocked unconscious I was going to have to somehow beat up Carlos and drag Jesse out of here before this place blew. What a mess.

  Carlos took a step my direction, focused on me, his grip on the gun relaxing. I had a hard time keeping my gaze from wavering as Jesse rose unsteadily from the ground, at least he was conscious. Carlos touched my face. “So pretty.” If Jesse didn’t hurry up and grab him I was going to have to try out my own kung fu moves to protect my virtue from this slimeball.

  Carlos pulled me into his arms, his breath knocking me backwards.

  “Thanks for saving me,” I said loudly to cover the sound of Jesse storming our direction. Carlos bent his head to kiss me as Jesse’s hands wrapped around his scrawny neck and squeezed. I pushed out of Carlos’s grasp, ripping the gun from his fingers. Jesse slammed Carlos’s head into the wall and tossed him on the bed. He took the gun from me, tucking it carefully through his belt before giving me a tortured glance. “You’re a good actress.”

  I curtsied, not sure how to respond and not sure if either of us believed everything I’d said was an act, but we could worry about our unraveling relationship later. “How much time do we have?”

  “Not much,” he muttered, grasping my hand and running down the dimly lit hallway. I sprinted to keep up, my other option being losing my limb. We turned and pounded up a set of stairs. It was a different set than I’d come down. This place was enormous. Sunshine glinted through a window next to the door at the top of the stairs. I could almost breathe freedom.

  A tall figure jumped in our path on the landing before the door. I screamed. Jesse pushed me against the wall and dodged the man, giving the unstable body an extra shove so he flew past us down the stairs. I recognized the face as his body bent at an unnatural angle halfway down the stairs from the impact and kept on rolling. “Damon!”

  Jesse pointed outside. “Get to the barns,” he ordered, changing course and starting back down the stairs. He was really going to kill Damon if that fall hadn’t already done it.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled. “Get back up here.”

  Jesse looked at me and then back at Damon crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. He finally nodded. “You’re right, the bombs will kill him.” He took the stairs two at a time, reached for my hand and pushed the door open. “I just didn’t want to leave it to chance.”

  I stared at him. “Are you serious?”

  Tugging on my hand, he started off at a run away from the house towards a huge barn. “You don’t want Damon dead?”

  I didn’t answer. Of course in theory I wanted Damon dead, but to do the actual deed? That was brutal. I kept sneaking glances at Jesse as we ran towards the barn. Maybe we should’ve discussed our views on the value of human life and the reasons behind his tattoos before I gave my heart to him. We had just rounded the corner of the barn when the roar of an engine came from the driveway. Jesse trapped me against the wall.

  “Police?” I asked.

  He shook his head, peering around the corner. “They’re receiving an anonymous phone call from someone I trust about now. I didn’t want them to show up until after it blew.”

  More and more brutal. He’d scheduled everything so there was no chance the police would show up before the bombs. He didn’t want anyone to survive this blast.

  I heard car doors slam and waited. Jesse’s face tightened. He swore loudly then glanced at me.

  “What?”

  I waited for an answer. He did nothing but stare at me like something had gone very wrong.

  Chapter Seven

  I dodged around Jesse. He grabbed me, but I managed to peek around the edge of the barn before Jesse hauled me back. I’d seen plenty—my Nana, gray hair poking crazily out of place, blouse untucked from the cute Grandma jeans I’d picked out for her at Macy’s, kicking and screaming as she was dragged between two men up the front stairs of the mansion. My heart stopped. Jesse clamped his hand over my mouth, guessing correctly that I wanted to scream for her.

  I gasped for breath and choked into his fingers, “Time?”

  “7:56.”

  “No!” I yelled into his hand. Jesse restrained me with his other arm. I kicked and squirmed, but was no match for his strength. I wasted precious seconds fighting with no progress. Finally, I stopped resisting and he released my mouth, “Jesse, please, please, if you care about me at all, please let me go.”

  He held me tighter. “What are you going to do? Run in there and either get shot or blown up? Nana would want you to be safe. You know she would.”

  “I-I can’t,” I gasped for air, the world spinning. “I can’t let her die.”

  Jesse pinned my shoulders against the wall, his face inches from mine. “You can’t die, Cassidy. You can’t. Your dad and Nana would never forgive me if I let you go and I can’t,” he shuddered, staring into my eyes, “I can’t lose you.”

  “B-but can’t we stop the bomb?”

  He shook his head. “It’s more than one bomb, Cassidy. There’s no way to stop all of them.”

  A guard strolled around the edge of the barn behind us. My eyes widened. My heart thumped against my chest. Jesse grinned and gestured to me. “Found a pretty one.”

  The man returned the smile. “Your shirt looks better on her.” He raised his gun in a kind of salute to Jesse and continued his walk.

  I shuddered and deflated against Jesse, tears streaming down my face. “My N-nana,” I whimpered.

  Jesse gently stroked my arms and back, loosening his hold on me and murmuring soft apologies. It was just the chance I needed. I rammed my heel down on his ankle and hit my head against his as hard as I could. He howled in pain and let go completely. I raced around the edge of the barn and towards the house. I had no idea how I was going to save Nana, but I would rather die trying than cowering behind a barn.

  “Cassidy,” Jesse yelled, racing after me. A man on the front porch jumped to his feet and pointed the barrel of his shotgun my direction. Jesse tackled me. We hit the ground as explosions rocked the earth. The man was thrown from the porch. He didn’t move after he hit the ground. Jesse covered me with his body, pushing my head into the ground as burning debris flew around us.

  “Nana,” I cried, my anguish drowned out by the roar of the blasts. There were no cries for help. Everyone had been blown to pieces. The house collapsed in on itself, the roof sitting where the main floor should’ve been. Everything was on fire.

  Acrid smoke filled my nostrils. Ash drifted into my hair. Pain exploded from my heart. Nana was dead.

  Jesse slowly lifted me into a seated position, cradling me in his arms and rocking me back and forth. “I’m sorry, Cassidy. I’m so sorry.”

  The tears flowed, but there were no words to tell Jesse how I blamed him for this. My Nana had survived so many things and now the man I thought I loved had killed her. It was too awful to wrap my mind around, so I just sat there as Jesse rocked me and apologized and I cried and cried. I glanced at his face and saw a tear rolling down his cheek as well.

  “It’s a little late to feel guilty.”

  “I know.” He shoved the wetness off his cheek. “My dad always . . . tried to protect me.” He shook his head as if clearing the thought.

  Suddenly, he pushed me back down into the dirt. “Stay down,” he commanded, rising into a crouched position as several guards cautiously approached from the barns. They pointed machine guns at the burning remains of the house, confused, almost scared expressions on their faces, like they didn’t know what to do or who to shoot. I clenched my hands together, unable to catch a full breath. When they noticed u
s they’d have a perfect target.

  Jesse slowly stood. What was he doing? I grabbed at his pant leg. He pulled away from me and shook his head, whispering, “Don’t move,” before striding several steps away from me and yelling at the guards in a terrifying voice, “Who did this?”

  They all shrank from him, eyes falling to the ground. I couldn’t hear their groveling replies as Jesse strutted to them. He was hollering and gesturing wildly at the house. I had no idea what his game plan was until I saw the swarm of people who appeared behind the guards; women and children, a few men. All were dressed in tattered clothing not warm enough for October with eyes trained on the guards.

  Jesse demanded something of one of the guards. The man obediently handed over his gun. Jesse pointed the dull metal barrel at the other two guards. The people were almost upon them, but the guards were completely focused on Jesse. One of the guards dropped his gun. The other lifted his chin obstinately and moved his finger to the trigger. Oh, no. He was going to shoot Jesse.

  I jumped to my feet and screamed, “Hey!”

  The guard spun my direction, depressing the trigger. I hit the ground as bullets whistled over my head and Jesse shouted, “Cassidy!” He slammed the gun into the guard’s head. The man went down. I covered my mouth with my hand, hardly stifling my own scream of terror.

  A young boy, maybe eight or nine, broke free from the group of people. He sprinted for the guards, ramming into one of their backsides at full tilt. The guard swung around and started pummeling the young boy. Jesse smashed his gun into the man’s shoulders, and then lifted the boy to safety as the group of people swarmed like ants converging on a mound of sugar. The men had no chance, suffocated by the masses.

  Jesse set the boy on the ground, affectionately ruffling his hair. A woman swept the child into her arms, kissing and scolding at the same time. A man broke away from the group. He angled towards Jesse. They spoke rapidly in Spanish. Jesse handed him the gun and then the man gestured to several others with machine guns and shotguns. They conferred briefly before splitting up, some heading back towards the barns, some running down the long driveway.