Hell, I have friends who I’d get my ass kicked for. I can respect loyalty. But there’s a point at which loyalty becomes letting people leech off of you.
The parking lot is about half full. Lots of middle-class cars, Dodges and Subarus and Fords. Nothing too fancy. Nothing too run down. As I scan the cars, I notice that on an old Cadillac is parked about fifty feet away, a small object on top of it.
It’s something I can varely make out, but it’s all I’ve got, so I proceed with caution. First, I maneuver laterally so I can come at it from an angle of cars. I need the cover.
Maybe I’m being overly paranoid. But that feeling in my stomach right now won’t let me be anything but uber careful.
Crouching down, I approach the white Cadillac as fast as possible, then pop my head up again for another look, glancing through the windows of a van that gives me cover.
Huh. It’s a pen.
Who leaves a pen on the hood of a car?
I approach quietly, until finally I reach the Caddy. There’s no one in it. I spin around, the rain spitting on me.
No one in sight.
I look one more time through the tinted windows of the car, and that’s when I feel a blow against my head. I grunt in pain, and turn, catching a glimpse of Nick out of the corner of my eye as I fall to the ground.
“Fuck are you doing here?” he bellows.
“Where’s Krista?” I grunt, my head throbbing with pain.
He’s got a bat in his hand, holding it close to me.
“Don’t fucking worry about it,” he screeches back.
I spin around around, my back to the car. Woozy, I try to stand, but my head pulsing with pain, I hit the concrete and sit on my ass.
Nick laughs maniacally, straddling me with the bat still in his hand.
“I knew you’d be a huge pussy,” he says in that same crazy voice.
“Where is she?” I growl again, putting my hand over my head.
I check and my hypothesis is correct: he drew blood.
“Don’t fucking worry about it. She’s in my world now.” He laughs again, the high-pitched, disgusting vibrations of his voice rolling through me. “Fuck you, you piece of shit,” he adds, and then spits on me.
Glancing up at him, I have a flashback to my time overseas:
The face of pure evil.
The face of a man over the edge, who doesn’t adhere to the same code as the rest of the world. The type of evil that you don’t run into often, but when you do, you must vanquish it.
Adrenaline rushes into my veins. I’m dizzy but I call on the gods to give me strength just once more.
Nick raises the bat over his head to strike, and comes down on me as hard as he can.
I let out a primal yell as I jump to my feet, and I don’t just catch the bat, I attack the thing. Using my momentum and the element of surprise, I push him back several steps until I slam him into a van, denting the side of it.
“Where. Is she?” I scream into his face, holding the bat over his head.
“Fuck you!” Nick yells again.
I knee him in the ribs and he hunches over. I knee him again and his grip on the bat loosens, so I kick him in the face and he lets go, falling away from me. An elbow to the stomach and he falls to the ground.
I pounce on him, and straddle his chest, pushing the barrel of the bat to his neck as I breath hard.
“Tell me or I’ll fucking kill you,” I mutter, pressing the cold steel into his windpipe.
“I’ll never…” he trails off, his voice weakening as he tries to grab me with his arms.
I toss the bat aside and he takes a deep breath right as my fist connects with his face. The cartilage of his nose feels damn good against my hand.
“Tell me,” I order.
“Car,” he finally utters, raising his hand weakly in the direction of the same van I knocked him into.
“This car?” I punch him again, harder this time.
He doesn’t say much.
I stumble to my feet, then glance inside the van. Holy shit.
Krista’s face is pressed against the tinted van window. Her mouth is covered with tape, her hands look to be tied behind her, and her feet are bound in some way as she kneels on the back seat. I try to open the door, but it’s locked.
Nick’s still groaning on the ground, and I jump back on top of him, shaking his shoulders.
“Where’s fucking key to the van? Where is it?”
He’s silent.
I sink my hand onto his windpipe and squeeze.
“Goddamn it!” I pat down his pants pocket, until I find it in his front jacket pocket. I pull it out and frantically try all of the keys until I slide the van door open.
I rip the tape off her mouth and and she takes a deep inhale. Just the sound of her breath is like music to my ears.
“Baby,” I grunt, hugging her hard. I frantically unbind her hands.
Relief oozes through me. “I’m okay,” she says, but the red marks on her face tell me otherwise.
“He do this to you?” Rage pours through me.
Nick rolls on the ground, still groaning in agony.
I step out of the van and I take it all out on Nick. The beast has been unleashed. The last thing I remember before she pulls me off him how bloodied my hands are.
And Krista yelling something like ‘you’re going to kill him.’
15
Krista
The police office is crowded, but the room they take me into is pristine, and I wonder who is listening to me on the other side of the double-sided mirror.
“I’m sorry, miss,” the officer says in his gruff detective voice. “I’ve just gota few more questions and we can let you go. I know you ‘ve gone through a lot just now. But we need to make sure we have all of the facts straight as soon as possible.”
“I’ve already told you everything as I remember it,” I say calmly. “From the van, I could see Nick blindside Damien with a bat. That’s when Damien went after him. It was clear self defense.”
The man nods, and strokes his goatee. Tapping a pencil against his notepad, he asks another question. “And why, exactly, was Damien there?”
I take a deep breath, because I don’t know how many times I can tell the same story over and over. “Again, Sir. He came to bring me chili.”
The officer purses his lips, and cocks his head at me. “Right. The chili.”
My gut clenches. Does he not believe me? “Sir, with due respect, I just went through a very traumatic event. I don’t understand why you’re doubting me. I’ve shown you the texts.”
He holds a hand out. “I’ve seen the texts. No need to show me again. It’s just…” he trails off, and leans in across the table. “Do you know how many cases I come across like this every year?”
“You mean cases where a girl is kidnapped, then mercifully saved by the guy she’s seeing?”
“No. I mean cases where a girl and a guy plan to eliminate…”
There’s a knock at the door, interrupting the officer. “Excuse me.”
He gets up, and the woman at the door whispers something into the officer’s ear. He nods.
He sits back down across from me, and his forearms land with a thud on the table. “So there’s nothing else you’d like to tell me about what you saw.”
I mentally cycle back through the events. “Nick’s my ex. He’s been acting weird lately. I never thought he’d take it this far though. I don’t think he’s right. Something’s the matter with him. When I was with him, he wasn’t this bad…”
“Nick’s fighting for his life right now. He’s on life support. Damien could have killed him. And if he does die, Damien will be on trial.”
“But it was so clearly self defense!”
“Unfortunately, the only evidence we have of that is your testimony, which is obviously biased.”
My heart rate speeds to about one hundred. “How can you say that?!” I plead.
“I’m sorry. Rules are rules.”
&
nbsp; “What about Damien?” I demand, standing up. “Is he okay after Nick blindsided him in the head with a bat?!”
“Please calm down, miss.”
“I’m not going to calm down! You’re not even listening to me. Let me out of here. I want a lawyer. Now.”
The officer stares at me, and we’re in a deadlock. Until a voice comes on the intercom. “That’s enough, Fred.”
He nods, and leads me to the door, then opens it.
“Thanks for the questioning, Officer Fred,” I add.
He gives me a fleeting, plastic smile. I walk out the door, flush with emotion. Outside, Amelia is waiting for me in her car. The rain from earlier has let up, but it’s colder than when I started my shift, and the sun is barely visible anymore.
She pops the door of her car open for me and I slide in the passenger’s side.
“Oh my God, are you okay?” She gives me a big, tight hug, and a tear streams down my cheek.
“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just had a really weird experience though.”
“Weird how?”
“Like with the interrogator. I feel like I was just through a very traumatic experience, and he acted like my story is suspect.”
“Why would he do that?” Amelia asks as she starts to drive, turning left on Division so she can take me to the hospital.
“I don’t know. But like he asked me why Damien was at the hospital, and when I told him he was bringing me chili, they thought that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.”
Amelia giggles a little, and I shoot her a look of death. “You think it’s funny too?!”
“I mean, you have to admit. Damien is a pretty scary-looking guy. And to think the whole reason he happened to be in that parking lot was to bring you chili—well there’s something funny about that visual. The bad boy who just wanted to bring chili to his girl...what are you now anyways? Are you at girlfriend and boyfriend status yet?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. It’s moved so fast. It’s barely been a week since we first got together.”
She narrows her eyes and glances over at me as we approach a red light.
“He saved you that first night too, didn’t he?”
“Come to think of it, he did.”
“Huh. That’s interesting.”
I shrug. “I guess I’m just the kind of girl who needs saving.”
Her phone buzzes. “Can you get that?”
I pick it up, and the message is from Axel. I read it. “Hey babe, I’m with Damien in room 502 in the intensive care wing.”
“Uh, you are already on ‘hey babe’ status with Axel?”
She shoots me a devious grin. “When you left us alone that night at Midnight Ride, let’s just say we kept each other great company.”
We pull into the parking lot of the hospital, and my mind turns back to Damien.
I’ve never felt such a rush of relief in my entire life as I did when he opened the door of the van and ripped the tape off me, and unbound my arms. The look on his face was pure concern.
But when he turned back to Nick, he changed.
It was like I wasn’t even watching the same man anymore. Seeing Damien lay into Nick’s face like that—punching him over and over again even as he was unconscious. It scared me a little to know he has that monster inside him, too.
If I’m being honest, it also turned me on to know the lengths he’d go to defend me.
After I pulled him off Nick, begged and pleaded not to kill him, he shot me a grizzled, empty look, and I wonder if Damien wanted to kill him.
Amelia parks. We get out of the car and head toward the intensive care wing. I feel odd, still in my scrubs but not on the clock.
We take the elevator up to Damien’s room, and when we arrive Axel is there.
“Thanks for coming, ladies,” he says in his gruff voice. He gives Amelia a big hug, then hugs me too. “Let me take your jackets.” We take ours off and he hangs them up.
“How’s he doing?” Amelia asks, nodding toward Damien, who’s passed out in the bed.
Axel shrugs. “They had to put a few stitches in his head. He demanded to be let out immediately, but they managed to calm him with a sedative and knocked him out. He’s been good and passed out for about an hour now. How about you, you okay Krista?”
“I’m fine,” I nod. “Just a few scratches.”
Axel runs his eyes over my face and arms. “This doesn’t look like just a few scratches,” he says, tipping my chin up toward him.
I lower my eyes, ashamed. “Nick slapped me a couple of times.”
Axel sneers. “Fuck that guy! I hope he’s dead.”
“Axel!” Amelia protests.
“No, it’s true. He tried to kill my best friend. And if Damien were two ounces less tough, he might have been killed by that blow to the head. Not many guys can withstand a blindside hit with a metal bat and live to talk about it. That’s attempted murder—and I don’t give a shit what anyone says about that. So if you think I’m an asshole—fine. But I wish Nick were dead.”
An awkward silence sets in between the three of us, and my gaze turns to Damien. I walk to his side, listen to him breathing. He’s shirtless in bed, and his muscular chest rises and falls.
Axel, Amelia, and I stay in the room together for a half hour, and it feels good to have them consoling me. I tell Axel about the fishy interrogator, too.
“That’s fucked. I don’t even understand why they brought you to interrogation after you’d almost been kidnapped. And God knows what he was planning on doing with you.”
I exhale, blowing out a deep breath. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“You don’t have to,” Amelia says. “Because of him.”
As I watch Damien sleeping peacefully, I still have a hard time comprehending how he came into my life so fast and furious. It’s like the world sent me a damn guardian angel just when I needed it.
“Hey,” Axel asks, furrowing his brow. “Why was Damien even here, anyway? Like how did he end up in the parking lot?”
I roll my eyes internally, and muster the slightest smile. “It’s been four times that I’ve told this story, and no one seems to believe it. Today we were making chili for the week, but I forgot to bring a portion for work tonight. So he was bringing me some.”
Axel’s jaw drops.
“He was doing...the chili drop-off? Like he was your Dad or something, bringing you your lunchbox that you forgot?”
I nod. “Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Well,” Axel says, “Damien just isn’t really the chili-bringing type. In fact, He and I have had explicit conversations about how we never pay for girls’ drinks or take them out for food.”
Amelia shoots him a dirty look, but he shrugs. “Look, when you’re a male stripper...girls tend to buy you things, and not the other way around. But my point is—congratulations. You’re the chili girl.”
I chuckle out loud at that one, and so does Amelia. “The ‘chili girl.’ Why does that sound...dirty?” I add.
Axel winks. “It definitely can be dirty. Only if you make dirty though. By the way, how did you forget to bring the chili? Damien is usually very detail oriented—with his military training and all. Did he get distracted or something?”
My heart warms thinking about the beautiful distraction that caused the whole chili debacle as I toss Damien’s words over in my mind’s eye. Fuck the chili.
“Yeah. You could say he got a little...distracted,” I wink.
Axel and Amelia both cock their heads at me. “I’m not sure why you’re being so weird,” Amelia says, but I think we should get out of here. You’ll be okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m going to stay here with Damien.”
“Take my number,” Axel says. “In case you have any updates—or you need anything. I’m sure Damien will be back at full strength soon. But if you ever can’t get a hold of him, you call me. You text me. You’re one of us now. You understand?”
“One of...us?”<
br />
“Yeah. One of the crew,” Axel says. “Anyone Damien would put his life on the line for—I would too. And everything you’ve said about the interrogation—something feels weird.”
I hand him my phone and he plugs his number in, saves it, and sends himself a text.
We hug goodbye, and I’m left in the room with the one night stand who has saved me—twice now.
Sorry, ten-night stand. Although we still have eight more dates to go.
I put on some mindless reality TV, hoping Damien will wake up soon so I can talk with him. I just want to hear his voice and thank him.
16
Damien
She’s still there.
“Rose,” I whisper. “Are you busy?”
My sister turns, her hair bouncing as she spins around in her desk chair.
“I’m just working on some homework,” she says with a smile.
“I’ll be back in a bit,” I say. “I’m just going to get some stuff at the grocery store. You need anything?”
“Maybe like...a Red Bull? I’ve got so much to memorize tonight.”
I look over her shoulder.
“Biology,” Rose adds. “This is one of those nights being pre-med is not fun. Thanks for letting me study at your place, though. The dorms are so noisy, and even in the library everyone tries to come up and talk to me.”
“I didn’t know you were so popular,” I wink.
She rolls her eyes. “I think you’re the popular one. After we had that party here all of my friends keep asking when my big brother is going to invite us over again.”
I smile, and warmth spreads through my body. There’s nothing quite like the pride a man has in helping his sister succeed—socially, academically, or in anything really.
“I’m heading out the back. I’ll be back in like fifteen.”
“Sounds good. Oh, and Damien. Can you keep the door open? The breeze helps me think.”
“Of course I can.”
That’s the image seared into my brain forever.
Rose, sweetly hunched over my desk in the front room, tapping her pen against her notebook with a look of concentration directed at her biology textbook as I walk out, leaving only the screen door closed.
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