On Solid Ground

by Melissa Collins

  “And what else is there for me to do? Huh?” Moving to the dresser, I shoot her a look. As I close the drawer, putting away the rest of my clothes, a wave of anger hits me. “He changed his cell number and his house number. He moved. I know for a fact he’d never give up the shop, so that’s where I’m headed.”

  “What if he’s not there?” She walks into the room, her voice softening. “Or worse, sweetie. What if he’s there and doesn’t want to see you? I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  Folding my arms across my chest, I puff out a frustrated breath. “I’ve thought of all those things and I’ve played out a million scenarios in my head. The one constant in all of them is that I need to see him. No matter what he says, or how he feels, he needs to know how I feel. We’ll just have to figure out how to move forward.”

  “You sound pretty certain about all this.”

  Tonka follows beside me as I walk over to the bed. He jumps up next to me as I flop on to the soft mattress. “I’ve never been more certain of anything else.” Chloe sits next to me, holding my hand in hers. “I love him. And he deserves to know it. Even if he doesn’t love me back . . .” I can’t finish the sentence because I can’t think about a world in which Beck doesn’t have a place.

  “He will.” There’s certainty in her words. “He has to. Everything about you warrants love.”

  Smiling, I nod, but can’t actually verbalize my agreement. My deepest fear is that I’ve screwed things up beyond repair at this point, but the best I can do is try.

  Tonka joins me, walking proudly at my side through the busy California sidewalks. The cool, misty sea air surrounds both of us. The familiar sounds of chaos, of the beach, of life fill my ears. When Beck’s tattoo shop appears as I round a corner, I feel truly at home. In that moment, I know this is where I belong. Even if Beck turns me down, this is where I’m most comfortable. This is where I’ve come into my own, flaws and all.

  Pushing through the front door of the shop, my heart lurches in my chest. A male voice, Ty’s, not Beck’s, calls out from the back room in response to the bell jingling above the door. “Be right there.”

  Stumbling out of the back room, Ty’s face is covered by a stack of boxes. He’s having trouble balancing it and walking at the same time. Not wanting to see him fall flat on his face, or the boxes for that matter, I walk over to him and grab a few of the more precariously placed boxes from the pile.

  “Thanks- Oh, it’s you.” Dropping the rest of the boxes behind the front desk, he shoots me an ugly sneer.

  “Wow, talk about customer service.” Laughing, I put the boxes I took from him with the rest of the pile. “Is he here?”

  Resting his elbows on the counter behind him, Ty’s body language screams, I’m not telling you a single thing and if I knew any better, I’d say Beck told him to keep his mouth shut. Which of course makes me think if Beck has been telling Ty how to deal with me, he must be thinking about me.

  Tightlipped, Ty simply shakes his head without so much as looking at me.

  “I know I fucked up and that’s all I want to tell him. I need to apologize and say some other things, things he deserves to hear. I know you’re his friend and I know you want to see him happy. Don’t you think he has a right to hear what I have to say, especially if it’s an apology?”

  Roughly scrubbing a hand over his face, he puffs out a loud sigh, “I don’t know exactly what went on with you two, but he’s really pissed. Actually, in all the years I’ve known him, he’s never been this hurt.” Moving so that only the glass case holding the piercings stands between us, Ty stands before me, concern shining in his eyes.

  “Please,” I beg once more.

  A resigned look softens his face. “He’s been dealing with a lot of shit and you shoving him to the side is the last thing he needed.” When I think he’s about to lay into me even more, he slides open a drawer from behind the counter, quickly scribbling something down on a sheet of paper. “Here.” He slides the paper over to me. “Just don’t tell him I gave it to you. He’ll kill me. Blame it on Lexie or something. She’s always in trouble anyway.”

  “Thanks.” With a hopeful step, I walk away from the counter.

  Ty’s stern voice falls on my back, demanding my attention. “Just don’t fuck it up anymore. I don’t think he could deal with that.”

  “I won’t.” Pushing the door open, a renewed sense of peace settles over me.

  Not entirely certain of where his new apartment is, I punch the address into the GPS app on my phone. Luckily for me, it’s only a few blocks away in the other direction in a much nicer apartment complex.

  Figuring that the fifteen minute walk will help me clear my head, I decide not to go back to Chloe’s and borrow her car. Tonka could use the exercise anyway, seeing as he spent the majority of the morning cramped in a kennel on the plane.

  As I approach the complex, I see a gate at the front entrance and a guard’s booth to the side. A blip of nervousness bubbles in my gut. Ty gave me Beck’s apartment and phone number, but I’m certainly not going to be on any pre-approved list. And if the guard has to call Beck, I can’t say for sure that Beck will let me in. That’s if he’s even home. Suddenly, my fool-proof plan of finding Beck doesn’t seem so fool-proof after all.

  But when I walk up to the booth, there’s no one in it. Leaning my head into the small structure, I don’t see anyone and there’s no sign that they’re on break or anything. Tonka yelps at my side, tugging his leash in the other direction. “Come on, boy.” Pulling him through the gate, we quickly find our way to Beck’s building.

  The buildings are organized more like town houses than his old apartment buildings. It’s like a little cookie-cutter community. The exact opposite of where you’d expect a man who looks like Beck to live, but there’s also something very obvious about his choice. It screams of home and belonging—things for which he’s always longed. Counting off the numbers, I see that Beck’s unit is at the end of his block, on the far end from a small road leading away from the main gate.

  Tonka’s pace quickens, drawing me toward Beck’s building. For as anxious as he is, it’s odd that he’s not barking. For some reason that sets me on edge. When we approach the front door, I notice that the frame is cracked.

  Running my hand along the wood, I feel where it’s been splintered. “What the hell?” Keeping my voice to a whisper, I mutter a curse. It doesn’t take longer than a second to recognize that something very wrong is going on here.

  “No!” A piercing cry rings out from inside the apartment. “Please, just no!” The female voice fills the room with sheer terror.

  The loud blast of gunfire follows the pleas for mercy. My ears ring. Panic surrounds me and I’m thrown back in time, back to the battlefield.

  The tank flipped instantly, throwing our world upside down. Shrapnel and limbs rained down on me. Somehow, a piece of the hind quarter of the tank wrapped itself around me, protected me from the flying shards of metal that killed my comrades. “Delaney!” Thin and raspy, I couldn’t tell if my voice was real or if it was some ethereal part of the torrid nightmare playing out before me.

  Crawling on my hands and knees, my skin sliced open. Rocks and gravel lodged in my skin, but none of that mattered. Guns fired overhead, forcing me to flatten myself out on the ground. “Delaney! Where are you?”

  The silence was deafening. If he could, he would have answered me. “Please, Delaney . . .” his name stuck in my throat as I stumbled over his outstretched arm. Sickeningly, I felt relieved when I saw that it was still attached to the rest of his body. His face, contorted in anguish, locked on mine as I moved next to him. “Hey, you’re okay. Just keep breathing.”

  He gurgled, sputtered blood, choked, and then calmed. His fingers laced through mine, pressing the rocks further into my skin. “Love you,” he whispered and then he was gone.

  Cradling his lifeless body in my arms, I cried, sobbing his name. “You can’t die. I loved you.” Even though he’d never heard those wor
ds while he was alive, it didn’t make them any less true.

  He took his last breath in my arms, right there. The bomb may have missed me, but to say I survived the attack would have been a lie. Because when Delaney died, he took a part of me with him.

  The second shot rings out, shaking me from my impending attack. Tonka is clearly torn between keeping me from falling into my black pit of anxiety and keeping me safe from whoever is on the other side of the wall.

  “Mommy!” Her sweet, innocent voice propels me into action.

  Motivated by a force I’ve never felt, I barrel through the entry way, moving around the wall that divides it from the family room. “Get down, Violet!”

  Tonka launches at the man before us, locking the guy’s arm between his teeth. Tonka’s weight twists his arm back.

  A stray shot is fired, piercing my shoulder. The pain is nothing compared to the fear of Violet being next. The luxuries of time and preparation are not on my side. Tonka changes tactics at the last second, sinking his teeth deep into the man’s calf.

  “Fuck!” As he crashes to the floor, the asshole makes sure to fire off one more shot at Nikki who’s already spread across the hardwood, blood pooling at her side.

  Despite my blind rage, I can see that, even though the last shot lands right in her upper thigh, she doesn’t move an inch. “You fucking asshole!” Crushing my knee into his back, I grapple with him to gain control of the gun.

  “Get the fuck off me!” His elbow lands in my ribs, knocking the wind out of me. Without hesitation, Tonka leaps on him, driving his teeth into the lower part of his neck, just missing the jugular.

  One more shot goes off.

  Tonka yelps, flying backward off the man.

  The gun skitters across the floor.

  We both scramble toward it.

  His hand touches it first, mine coming in a close second.

  In the frenzied scuffle, we fight for the control over the gun.

  One more shot.

  Pain lances through my side.

  I fall back to the ground.

  Black fades in, threatening to claim me.

  The man stands over me, chuckling coldly.

  He turns to face Violet as she cries in the corner, her tears spilling onto her dead mother’s face.

  “You’re mine now.” His evil voice breathes life into me for one final move.

  With all of the strength I can gather, I kick out his right knee from behind, knocking him down onto the floor. The shock of my final attack loosens his grip on the gun and it drops to the floor right next to me.

  I pull the trigger and watch him fall to the ground.

  One clear shot, straight through the chest.

  Silence.

  No crying.

  No screaming.

  No barking.

  Nothing.

  “Please wake up.” The quiet monotonous humming of the machines does nothing to calm me. Resting my hand on his warm arm does nothing to reassure me that he’ll be okay, that he’ll survive. “Dax,” his name is a plea falling from my lips. As I close my eyes, the tears fall freely. The last two weeks play out in a hazy, surreal sort of replay in my brain. If I could go back in time, I would have fought Dax to let me go with him back to Colorado. Violet would have been with me. Carson never would have found me at the shop.

  Nikki would still be alive.

  Shaking away thoughts of what could have been, I bury them deep down. There’s no point in musing about the past. The present is here—real and raw. As much as I want to wipe away what I walked into yesterday afternoon, I know it’s become a permanent part of my existence, etched into my brain as deeply as the ink on my skin.

  “Hello?” My legs shaking, I stepped into the front door, completely unaware of what I would see. There was a cold chill in the air, arctic and numb, waiting to paralyze me on the spot.

  The door was kicked open. Walking to the end of the hallway, I saw legs sticking out. Soft cries bled out from the far corner and a sickening sense of dread crushed me to the floor. “No!” The blood pounded so loudly in my ears the sound of my own scream barely registered.

  Two bodies spread out on the floor. Frozen to the spot, I didn’t know which to race to first. “Get her.” A muffled sound of pain floated from Dax’s mouth. Lifting a frail arm, he pointed to Violet over in the corner. She was curled into an impossibly tiny ball, her knees tucked up under her quivering chin.

  Trying my best not to startle her, I raced over to her side. Falling down in front of her, I ran my hands over her shaking arms, praying she wasn’t hurt in any way. Frightened by my touch, she pulled away from me before she recognized who was sitting before her. “Uncle Beck,” she cried, throwing her blood-covered arms around my neck.

  With one arm holding her up, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. Relaying the information to the 9–1-1 dispatch seemed to take forever. With Violet wrapped around me, crying into my chest, I sank to the floor next to Dax. Our fingers laced together instinctually. Breathing a deep sigh of relief, I relished the feel of his warm skin touching mine. “Hey,” I whispered. “You’re going to be okay.” Words, thick like quicksand, stuck in my throat, competed with the bile rising there as well.

  Though in reality it was no more than a few minutes before the sirens of the ambulances wailed in the background, I felt like I spent a lifetime sprawled on the floor waiting for death to claim the man I loved.

  Twenty-four hours. That’s all it’s been. It feels like a lifetime ago that I watched the coroner’s bag up my sister’s body and wheel it out of what should have been our new home.

  It was only yesterday I stumbled upon the scene that will haunt my days and nights for as long as I can remember. And as horrific as it was, and still is, one small speck of hope shines through the blood and chaos, the loss and destruction—Violet is alive.

  “She’s here because of you, Dax.” Pressing my lips up against his hand, I offer up a silent prayer that he’ll pull through. That the drowsiness of the surgery will wear off at any moment and he’ll open his eyes. “You have to wake up,” I beg. “I love you. I need you here with me.” My lips move against his skin.

  When his grip tightens on my hand, my heart beats again.

  His eyes blink open, adjusting to the harsh, bright hospital lights. “Hi,” he croaks, a heavy scratchiness distorting his voice. “Water, please.”

  Without letting go of his hand, I reach to the table at my side and pour him a small cup of water. Holding it up to his mouth, his breath tickles my skin. It’s the most sobering feeling in the world. After he finishes his sip, I put the cup down and pull his hand back into mine.

  His head shifts on the bed, turning to face me. “Is she okay?”

  “Nikki’s gone.” The words don’t come out easily. Accepting the reality of her death isn’t going to happen without monumental effort on my part.

  “Violet?” Even this simple conversation is exhausting him. Through all of his anxiety, I’ve never seen him this weak—this frail and broken.

  “She’s fine. Physically anyway.” Pulling his hand up to my mouth, I press a gentle kiss there. “Because of you. You saved her. You risked your life to protect her. How can I ever repay you?”

  Pain transforms his face as he shifts on the bed. He reaches over with his other hand, pulling my hands up to his mouth. “Say what you just said.”

  “Tell me anything. Whatever you want. Just let me know how I can repay you,” I repeat as he requests.

  “No. Not that part.” His lips move against my skin before pulling into the smallest hint of a playful smile.

  Confusion knots my brows. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “The part where you said you love me. Say it again.”

  My chest tightens in the best way possible. “I do.” My eyes search his face, making sure he doesn’t miss a single beat of what I’m about to say. “I love you more than I ever thought I’d love. When you were gone, I was damaged in some way. Without you, I’m
not whole. I love you, Dax. So much. And I loved you before you were a hero, risking your life, trying to save Nikki, and protecting Violet.”

  A single tear spills from his eye, slowly flowing down his swollen face. “I love you, too.” His face twists again, exhaustion pulling him away from me.

  “Shh, rest.” Adjusting the blanket over his body, I kiss the top of his head. “I’ll be here when you wake up. I’ll be here forever.”

  “Just sign right here on the bottom and she’ll be discharged.” Pointing down to the line at the bottom of the paper, the nurse holds out the pen with her other hand. Violet is sleeping peacefully in the bed. If only she could remain so blissfully unaware of everything when she wakes up. “Okay then, she’s all set.” The nurse closes the files and walks away from the bed, gently patting me on the shoulder as she walks past me. Stopping before the door, she turns back to speak to me. “I wish it could be different for her, for you, too.” A sad look passes over her face. Her words mirror my thoughts, but the only choice I have is to move forward.

  Somehow.

  Sitting on the bed next to her, the mattress dips, waking her up. “Uncle Beck,” her voice sounds so small, so frail. Her arms fly up around my neck, nearly choking me to death.

  “Sugar pop.” Crying into her hair, I lose myself to the pain of everything. She pulls back from my arms, searching my face.

  “I’m sad, too.” More tears fall from her puffy eyes as she brushes her hair out of her face.

  “And it’s okay to be sad. No matter how you feel, I need you to tell me. Okay?”

  She nods, sniffling. “You have to promise, too.” Holding out her pinky, she shoots me a serious look—one that demands my partnership, my vow to always be there for her. Not taking her pinky-swear lightly, I twist my finger around hers before pulling her back into my arms.

  “Where’s Dax?” Looking up at me with expectant eyes, all the weight of the world sits on her shoulders, waiting there for someone to take it away from her.

  “He’s still sleeping.”

  “Will he wake up or is he going to be asleep forever in heaven like Mommy?” My heart splits in two. No child should ever have to ask that question, but Violet does. If I could take away all her pain, remove it from her life entirely and take in on for myself, I would in an instant.