Savage: a Fighter Erotic Romance Novella

by Elliott, Christine

  “Every day,” he said in a soft voice. “Every single day of my life.”

  There was such pain in his voice I couldn’t handle it. I reached over to touch his hand, and he took my hand in his, squeezing it like it was a lifesaver.

  “But that was what I was doing,” he said, forcing himself to go on through the pain. “That is, before I met you. Before I took you in, before we ….”

  “Fucked each other?” I said helpfully.

  He looked at me. Then he laughed, a deep rough sound that made my heart flutter.

  “Yes, that, darlin’. But then those things happened, and that leaves me with a hell of a problem.” He frowned deeply, looking me over again. “And we’ve got to sort that out.”

  “Go on.”

  “What I was doing,” he said, “was planning to run off. But then I met you, and they saw me with you. I don’t want to cause you trouble. I don’t want them to come after you as a way of tracking down me.”

  I snorted. “As if they could find me.”

  “That’s true,” he said thoughtfully. “You are awful clever. I could trust you with that.”

  “You’re so quick to get rid of me,” I teased. “You pull this on all the girls?”

  His expression shifted as fast as a lightning strike.

  “I want to stay with you, Anna,” he said tenderly, reaching over to touch my cheek. “I really do. But God, this is my first chance—and maybe my last one—to save myself. To live the rest of my life knowing that I may have given up the one chance I had at freedom … at a normal life … at escaping this hell….”

  I nodded as I looked into his eyes, feeling his pain myself. It was too much to bear, the idea that freedom could be so close but so far away. Or that he would have to give up so much and risk so much just to live a normal life. I hated it for him.

  “You need to go,” I said.

  He just frowned, as if he wanted to argue with me but knew I was right.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just don’t know anything anymore.”

  “You’re still planning to run?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you think you’ll make it out alive?”

  “No, of course not.” He gazed into my eyes, pained. “But I have to try.”

  I nodded as I thought about it.

  “I’m coming with you,” I said simply.

  He was silent as he stared at me like I was a crazy person. His mouth opened for a moment, then closed, as he struggled to think of something to say. His expression settled in a pursed frown and a disapproving glare.

  “No, Anna.”

  “Yes, Luke.”

  “You cannot be serious.”

  “And yet I am.” I crossed my arms and gave him an even look.

  “Anna, you are not coming, and I’m not hearing any more about this.” He glared at me and got up, marching away from me to the bed where a suitcase was already opened. “It’s hard enough for me to decide to leave and risk everything—everything—to do it. I am not putting your life in that same danger.”

  “As if that’s your decision,” I snorted.

  “It is my decision.”

  “I’m a big girl. I can handle myself. And I can make decisions for myself.”

  “Really? How old are you?” he asked. “Twenty two? Three, at the most?”

  “None of your business,” I mumbled, looking the other way and twirling my hair.

  “Anna,” he said sternly.

  I gave an overdramatic stage sigh. “I’m nineteen. And seven months, so it shouldn’t even be counted as nineteen because you can round up to twenty.”

  He stared at me. “What?”

  “Look, it’s not even that big of a deal—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Anna, you’re nineteen! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you and you want to throw it all away to be with a man you just met? You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re young. You’ve got every chance possible to make something of yourself. Don’t throw it all away like it means nothing. You have no idea how much I would give up to allow myself to be in your position. To have a life.”

  I crossed my arms.

  “Look,” I said, making my voice as hard and immovable as possible. “Before I met you, I had no life. I’m a teenage runaway, Luke. I was abused at home, I had terrible grades in school, and it’s not like I could get a job without a college degree. I had nothing.”

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “And then I met you,” I said, steamrolling over him. “And I finally found a place to belong, even if we’ve just met. And so what if we’ve just met? That doesn’t mean we can’t help each other. I mean, Jesus. You’re a slave who wants to escape a life of pain and fighting for a mob boss. I’m a teenage runaway who eats out of garbage bins and sleeps in empty warehouses during the night. We’re both total fuckups. I think we need all the help we can get.”

  He gave me that disapproving-father look again.

  “You’re really not going to give this up, are you?” he groaned.

  “Nope,” I said, popping my lips on the p.

  He stared at me a little more, then threw his hands up. “I swear to God, darlin’, if you weren’t four foot nothing and about as heavy as a paper bag, I’d think you were a fighter too. Damn do you never give up.”

  “Thank you,” I said overly sweetly.

  He rolled his eyes at me.

  “Wait here,” he said, fishing in his pocket for the motel room’s key. He turned his back to me and began walking to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Oh please,” I scoffed. “Do you really think I’m going to fall for that? You’re just going to leave the second I’m out of eyesight.”

  He cracked a smile. “You’re clever, darlin’, don’t let anybody tell you any different. But I’m not going to run. Cross my heart, hope to die.”

  “And you really think I believe that?”

  “Listen, darlin’,” he sighed. “If we’re really going to do this, we’re going to have to learn to trust each other. I’m trusting you with the secret that I’m running away from my slaver, and you’re going to have to trust me on this. If you can’t trust me now, how are we going to trust each other later when our lives are in danger?”

  I wavered for a moment, stuck between the pull to trust him and the voice in the back of my head that was screaming I was an idiot. After a moment, I nodded.

  “Alright,” I said. “But I swear to God, if you don’t come back, I will hunt you down and kill you myself. Understand?”

  He chuckled again and nodded. Then he was out the door, leaving me alone in the room.

  I sat down on the bed, my head whirling with everything that had happened in the last few days. I could hardly believe half of it, but then again, I had to. I was about to take a leap of faith and run off with Luke, wasn’t I? That’s really what it was. I had to have faith in him, and he had to have faith in me. We couldn’t believe in anything except each other.

  As the minutes crept past on the digital alarm clock.

  “Where did you go?” I asked.

  “To turn in this room’s key, and to knock out the manager so he couldn’t warn Vera about what was happening.”

  “A little much, don’t you think?” I said gruffly.

  “Not now that we’re really doing this. Go get ready.”

  “For what?” I said, getting up. There was some new energy in Luke now. I didn’t recognize it before, but now I saw that it had been hiding in him the whole time. It lit me up to, making my nerves tingle and breath speed up. He looked like a bird that had been set free from his cage, and it was beautiful.

  He turned to me, his eyes vibrant and alive.

  “For this. Grab your things and meet me outside on the bike,” he said, pulling out a packed bag he had hidden under the bed. “You have five minutes, and then we’re leaving this shithole forever.”

  MEN IN HATS

  ☼ ☼ �
�� ☼ ☼ ☼

  The first thing I learned about Luke on the road was that he loved his bike like he loved his own mother. I swear I saw him groping it as we drove. If it was a woman, and if we were official, I would have been jealous as hell.

  The second thing I learned was that, when Luke said he was going to get the hell out of there, he meant it. No sooner had my feet left the ground than we were tearing out of the parking lot and toward the highway at what seemed to be faster than the speed of light. My heart took off just as fast, lea

  I clung to Luke’s chest for dear life, my backpack weighing me down and threatening to pull me back onto the highway and certain death. Every turn threw me like a ragdoll and ever hill made me sick to my stomach. I was sure we were going to die if he kept driving like that, though then again, we were going to die if he didn’t. I hated Catch-22s.

  “You okay, darlin’?” he asked, the hint of a chuckle in his voice.

  “I’m f-fine,” I said. I dug my fingers into his chest as we passed an oncoming tractor trailer, its massive cargo casting a shadow over us and threatening to crush us to bits.

  “Never had speed like this before, huh?” he asked, no longer bothering to hide how amused he was by my panic. I gritted my teeth.

  “Not the speed I’m worried about so much as your insistence on getting us killed.”

  “It’s alright if you can’t handle it. You’re so young after all. And inexperienced. Maybe we can stop and give you a rest? Maybe find you a nice juice box?”

  “Keep going and I swear to God I’ll puke on you.”

  We roared past the state lines faster than I thought was possible, traversing Mississippi and Alabama at a break neck speed. We only stopped once or twice, and then only for a few minutes at the most. Luke was insane. He seemed like he never tired, never got hungry, never even blinked for a bit too long through the hours and hours of driving. Even as I was just about to fall off the bike with how absolutely wiped out I was, he kept on like had had just woken up minutes ago.

  We stopped to get gas every once in a while, but only for a few moments.

  Unfortunately, that was just long enough for them to find us.

  The first time I saw one, I was stopping inside a gas station to buy us water. Luke had been driving for five straight hours without a moment of sleep or a bit of food, and I was sure he was going to collapse at any moment. As I handed the cashier my five dollars, I noticed him out of the corner of my eye, walking down one aisle that I was sure he had already walked down five times. I was unnerved, but when I walked outside and he didn’t follow, I thought I was just being paranoid.

  When I saw him again a hundred miles later in yet another gas station, seemingly having appeared there out of thin air and inspecting an aisle just as intensely as he had inspected the last one, I knew I wasn’t.

  It wasn’t until we stopped to eat at a dive bar in Tennessee that I really came to grips with what was happening.

  I tried to keep myself composed, ordering our food with as normal an expression as I could muster. I carried it back to our table where Luke was leaning back in his chair and finishing off a cigarette. He glanced up at me and puffed a smoke ring.

  I wrinkled my nose when I saw it, momentarily distracted.

  “Those things’ll kill you,” I said, trying to silence my racing heart.

  “Oh no,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “Don’t you get started on that. You start preaching at me and you’re kicked off this escape team. Anyway, this is the one pleasure I had in the world the whole time I was going through that hellish fight club. You let me have that, at least.”

  “You don’t care that you’re going to be hacking up black lung in thirty years?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m a fighter, darlin’. We don’t live that long. We don’t have much reason to plan for the next month, let alone thirty years from now.”

  “True.”

  I sat our food down. My heartbeat was thundering in my ears, and no amount of small talk was going to silence it. I sat down at the table, hoping to God I seemed normal.

  Luke didn’t seem to notice anything, diving into his burger like a starving man.

  After a few painful minutes, I knew I couldn’t keep it in any longer. The danger was too great, and we had too much to lose. We had made it this far—we couldn’t give that up due to carelessness. If I didn’t speak now, I would surely regret it later.

  I took a deep breath.

  “I think we’re being followed,” I said grimly under my breath.

  He gave me a confused smile.

  “Why you think that, darlin’?”

  “There are two men sitting at the other side of the restaurant,” I said, keeping my head down and speaking quietly into my drink. “That man in the blue hat was in the truck stop back in Mississippi. And the man with the yellow bin on his suit? He was at that bar in Atchafalaya.”

  Luke’s smile faded. I could see the gears working in his brain, the thoughts forming as he realized what that meant. His expression turned grim

  “How sure are you?” he said, his voice suddenly low and serious.

  “Eighty-five, maybe ninety percent. Blue hat man has switched hats a few times, I’m pretty sure he’s intentionally trying to throw us off. They’ve looked over here three or four times in the last thirty minutes.”

  I leaned over to look at them again, but Luke shook his head.

  “No,” he whispered. “Don’t look at them. Don’t let them know we know.”

  I nodded and kept my eyes down.

  “So you’re definitely sure?” he said after a moment, tapping his fingers nervously against the tabletop. “You’ve definitely seen them before?”

  “You learn to watch out for sketchy men when you’re a teenage runaway,” I said. “I’m good at this. I haven’t been murdered yet, have I?”

  He smirked. “We’ve got that at least.” He took a sip of his beer, paused to look at it for a moment, then downed it all in one gulp.

  When he looked back at me, his eyes had a plan.

  “Pretend I’m drunk,” he ordered me. “Tell them I’m your boyfriend and you’re going to take me home. I’ll do the rest.”

  Before I had a chance to react, he stood up, slammed on the table, and yelled, “We need another beer over here.” His voice was slurred and his eyes were wild. He was a good actor; for a moment I almost believed it myself.

  But when a few men jumped up to subdue him, I jumped up faster. No way in hell was I going to let himself get murdered just when we were finally getting away.

  “No,” I cried, putting my hands up to stop them. Luke stumbled, and I leaned over to catch him, slinging one of his huge arms over my frail shoulders. The men hesitated.

  “You should keep your old man out of here,” one of them grumbled. “Last thing we need in this place is more of those motherfuckers.”

  “I know, I’m sorry. He gets like this sometimes, but he’s harmless. I’ll get him out of here and put him to bed.”

  Before anyone could land a punch on him, I dragged him out the door. Luke mumbled incoherently as we walked out, sometimes stumbling again and giving some of the men a nasty eye. I poked him in the ribs.

  “Overacting,” I hissed as the doors shut behind us.

  “Not following the plan,” he whispered back.

  “I don’t hear footsteps behind us,” I said quietly as we walked to the sidewalk. His bike was parked in the parking lot to the left, and I started leading us that way. “Have they stopped following us.”

  “No,” he said grimly. “And like I said, just follow my lead.”

  Instantly, he swerved to the right. His heavy footsteps began towing us there towards the back of the bar where the alley lay in darkness.

  “What are you doing? The bike is over there,” I whisper-shouted.

  “Trust me.”

  I bit my tongue but followed him as he stumbled back. Once we had made it past the wall, he straightened up, totally shedding
the drunk act. He peered over the corner for a moment and waited. I crossed my arms, worried.

  “What are we doing? Please, I’m starting to get worried.”

  “They haven’t stopped.”

  “What?”

  “They haven’t stopped following us. The two men you pointed out.”

  “But I didn’t hear them.”

  “Exactly. Because they’re hanging back. And they should be coming out right about….”

  Sure enough, the doors opened then, and two discretely dressed men walked out. They headed towards the parking lot, but when the saw the bike sitting there abandoned, they halted. One of them said something to the other, and the other clutched his hat.

  They span around, scoping out the area in front of the bar.

  “Now,” Luke said in a whisper. “Like I said. Just wait and trust me.”

  Before I could ask what he meant, the sound of footsteps approached us. I shut my mouth stood still, breathing as quietly as possible as Luke crept forward. The footsteps matched his pace, and just as the two men were about to turn the corner, Luke leapt out.

  I heard a sickening crunch as one man’s head hit the brick wall of the bar, propelled by Luke’s hand. I started to scream but slapped my hands over my mouth, desperately trying to avoid the attention of anybody nearby. The last thing I needed was the bar men coming out again.

  Luke seemed to think that too, because instead of hurting the other man, he covered his mouth and pushed him against the wall. Luke’s breaths came out in harsh, grunting pants.

  The man stared up at Luke with wide, terrified eyes.

  “Where is he?” Luke growled. “I know Vera sent you, so don’t try to deny it. I don’t care what he’s threatened you with—know that I can do worse. And know that every time you deny it, I’m going to rip off one of your fingers. If I run out of fingers, I’m going to kill you. Do you understand?”

  The man stared up at him, silent and petrified.

  “I said do you understand?” Luke roared, shoving him hard against the wall.

  The man began nodding furiously, his eyes even wider and more scared now.

  “Good. Now tell me where he is.”