Do or Die (Fight or Flight #4)

by Jamie Canosa

  “You’re supposed to wait until your replacement gets here.” Mason handed the woman in line her change.

  “Yeah, well . . .” Kevin folded his arms and stared at him with a pointed glare.

  Mason knew he had no grounds to stand on. Kevin had covered the first couple hours on his own. It was only fair he get to be the first to leave.

  “Fine. Go.” Shaking his head in frustration, Mason turned back to the never-ending sea of chaos in front of him. Someday he would work in a nice quiet office with a big desk and a comfortable chair, and people who actually listened to him.

  It took another half-hour before both employees scheduled to cover the register for the following shift arrived and Mason could finally get the hell out of there. Grabbing his jacket, he yanked off his stupid clip on tie and headed to his truck. He’d made a pit-stop at the carwash on his way in and couldn’t decide if the faint red markings were really still there or figments of his imagination.

  Ashlyn’s house was another story entirely. Mason could make out the words still defiling her siding the minute he pulled into the drive, despite the setting sun. She’d been so damn insistent about getting rid of them earlier.

  His knock got no response.

  “Ash?” He twisted the knob and the door swung open. “Ashlyn? Are you home?” Never should have left her. “Ash—”

  Two steps in, he came to a sudden stop. There she was, curled up on the couch, wrapped in a fleece throw, sound asleep. A bucket of soapy water sat on the kitchen counter and a pair of rubber gloves was lying inside out on the floor. Obviously, she hadn’t made it as far as she’d wanted to, but there was something he could do about that.

  Spring was on its way. The sun was staying up past six o’clock and temperatures soared into the mid-forties during the day. Nightfall, however, brought with it a dip back into more winter-like weather. Even in the gloves, Mason’s fingers burned with the cold as he dunked the sponge and scrubbed away at the flaking paint. It was coming off, little by little, but it was damn stubborn. His shoulders ached and he was getting a little lightheaded from whatever the hell was in that bucket.

  “Mason?” Ashlyn appeared in the doorway with her blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Exhaustion weighed heavily on her features and she rubbed at her forehead. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I’m almost done. Go back inside. You’ll freeze.”

  Her gaze flicked from the wall, to the bucket, and back to Mason as she seemed to come a little more awake. “You don’t have to do that. I can—”

  “I know I don’t have to. I want to. And I’m almost done, so please go back inside and let me finish. I’ll be in in a minute.”

  Ashlyn frowned. “You’re stubborn.”

  She turned around and disappeared back into the house. Mason couldn’t deny he was a little surprised. He’d fully expected to have to shove her back in before she caught pneumonia standing out there in her bare feet.

  A few minutes—and the letter R—later, the door swung open again.

  “Ashlyn, seriously—”

  “If we’re doing this now, then we are doing it now.” She was dressed and bundled in her winter coat, scarf and had a second pair of blue rubber gloves on.

  “Who’s stubborn?” There really was no arguing with her, so instead of trying, he scooted over to grant her access to the nearly empty bucket.

  They worked side-by-side in silence and Mason had to admit, things moved along much quicker with two of them scrubbing away.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Mason dumped the bucket over the railing and turned toward Ashlyn. With the hood up on her long white puffy coat she looked a little like a snowman. “Starving.”

  “Alright. I guess the least I can do is feed you.”

  It was not his week for gracious invites, but Mason would take what he could get.

  “Feed me, Seymour.” He brushed past her where she was struggling out of her boots and heard her chuckle. She should. She’d made him watch that movie twenty freaking times. “What are we eating?”

  “Umm . . .” She followed him into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge while he rinsed the bucket in the sink. Then she rummaged through the pantry. And the cabinets. “Guessing pizza’s out of the question?”

  The girl wasn’t exactly known for her culinary expertise. “Do you ever eat anything that isn’t hand delivered to your front door?”

  “Occasionally . . .”

  “I’m talking about something that doesn’t come out of a box or a microwave.”

  “Look.” Ashlyn’s hands went to her hips. “If you’re going to be picky about it . . .”

  Mason laughed. She was a mess, but she was Ashlyn and he wouldn’t want her any other way.

  “This right here,” he patted the front of the stove, “is called an oven. I’ll call the Chinese place tonight, but next weekend, we’re going shopping and I’m going to teach you how to use it.”

  The shift in Ashlyn’s mood was so fast and so drastic that it threw him. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Hey.” He nudged her elbow, but her gaze remained fixed on the floor. Ash never avoided eye contact. Was she chewing her lip? “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Her sigh deflated her entire body. “You shouldn’t be here, Mason. You shouldn’t have come.”

  “I wanted to make sure you were alright after—”

  “I’m fine. But you should just go.”

  What the hell had happened in the last ten seconds? “What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  “No, Mason. Everything is not okay! I’m . . .” She cut off as sharply as she’d spoken and took a deep breath. “I’m tired.”

  “I can see that.” Dark circles shadowed bloodshot eyes. Had she been crying? In the years he’d known her, he’d never once seen Ashlyn Mills cry. And they’d been through some scary shit together.

  He approached slowly, the way he did with the skittish stray dog that sometimes hung around the Pizza Palace after hours, hand outstretched, slow enough that she could retreat if she felt threatened, ready to pull back should she decide to bite. When Ash did neither, he brushed his fingers over her cheek, threading them deep into her thick hair.

  Straight white teeth worried her lower lip. “I can’t—”

  “Can’t what, Ash? Talk to me.”

  She opened and closed her mouth twice before a series of sounds all poured out one on top of the next. “I’mnottestifyinginJay’sfather’strial.”

  Her verbal vomit took a moment for Mason to process. When it registered, his hand dropped away and he immediately missed the soft silkiness entwined around his fingers. “W . . . why?”

  “I can’t.” Eyes downcast, voice quiet . . . she was ashamed. This wasn’t what she wanted. This was someone else’s doing.

  Fury churned like lava in his chest. “Did something happen? Did someone threaten you again? Ashlyn, if someone—”

  “No.” Finally her eyes lifted to his. “No, it’s nothing like that. I just . . . I can’t, Mason. You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” He lifted his hands only to let them fall back to his sides. “Em’s your best friend. She’s counting on you. How can you—?”

  “Right.” Ashlyn’s eyes flashed with unexpected anger. “Of course it’s Em you’re worried about. It’s always Em. She’s all you care about.”

  Well, that was some next level bullshit.

  “Ash.” He’d have been pissed if she’d said it to hurt him, but she hadn’t. In fact, it looked like it hurt her to say. “I’m lost here. You gotta help me out. What the hell is going on with you?”

  “I . . .” Her gaze locked on the tile floor once more. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “I think you did, actually.” The question was, why? “What would make you think that?”

  “I don’t know.” Ashlyn pinched the bridge of her nose and sank into a chair at the table, her cheeks taking on a pink glow. “You did date her.”<
br />
  That was . . . true. And entirely out of context.

  “Not because I liked her.” Grabbing the chair next to Ashlyn, he yanked it out and flopped down. “I mean I like her, but not like that.”

  Ashlyn chipped away at the polish on her thumb nail, leaving tiny pink flakes scattered across the tabletop. “Then, why?”

  “I only ever wanted to be Em’s friend. To protect her.”

  “Protect her from what?”

  Really, what did that girl not need protection from? Her life was one disaster on top of the next. But the truth was his answer wouldn’t make a damn bit of sense without some backstory. A particular piece of history he worked hard not to think about.

  “Back in high school I had a friend named . . . Lucy.” He hadn’t said her name out loud in years. It brought with it a wave of nausea he had to choke back. “We went way back—playdates in diapers back—but we were never anything more than friends.”

  It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty. Long, dark hair, dark eyes, dark complexion. Over the years she’d developed curves that had guys lining up to date her and she had a sense of humor that could leave you in stitches. But maybe they’d known each other too well. Mason couldn’t think of her as anything other than a sister.

  “Sophomore year she started dating this guy. He was from a different school and older, so I didn’t know him very well, but I didn’t like him. It wasn’t jealousy, I just . . . I didn’t like him.” Mason shrugged, but his shoulders felt tight. Everything felt tight. “I couldn’t explain it and Luce wouldn’t have listened anyway. She fell head-over-heels for the guy and for a few months she was really, really happy. I was beginning to think I’d been wrong about him, but . . . things started changing. She changed. Lucy always had this outgoing, down-for-anything type of personality as long as I’d known her, but she got quiet. Withdrawn. Anxious. She’d startle at every little sound. Any touch. She started spending more and more time with him. Stopped returning my calls. I . . . I saw the bruises.”

  Mason became aware of Ashlyn’s hand on his and shifted so that their fingers intertwined giving him something to hang on to.

  “I noticed the way she’d limp sometimes or the marks on her skin. She always had an excuse. Fender bender, falls, sports. She didn’t even play sports. But I was hurt, pissed that she kept blowing me off for this guy she’d just met. I was sick of it . . . so I let it slide. By midterms we were barely speaking.

  “March twelfth, I got a call from her mother.” Mason knew he must have been crushing Ashlyn’s hand, but she didn’t make a sound, didn’t pull away. Everything faded and all that was left was the past . . . and Ash. “The night before she’d come home from her boyfriend’s house in tears with a black eye. She’d locked herself in her room. Wouldn’t talk to her parents. What hurt the most was that she d-didn’t call me. I don’t know why she would have. I was a shitty friend. She must have felt like she couldn’t talk to anyone. She . . .” Guilt threatened to strangle him. It closed off his throat and made his next words little more than a rasp. “Her dad found her the next morning when he finally busted down her door. She’d slit her wrists.”

  Ashlyn drew closer until her chest was pressed against his arm. He couldn’t bear to look at her, but he felt her warm breath against his chin. “Christ, Mason, I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. He was sorry, too, but sorry wasn’t going to bring his friend back. “Luce was long gone before anyone found her.”

  “I don’t—” Ashlyn’s voice choked off and he glanced over to see her eyes had turned glassy.

  His vision blurred, but he shut it down. He didn’t deserve to cry for Lucy. He’d failed her.

  “It’s in the past, Ash.” Even if Lucy’s face still haunted his nightmares more often than not. Ashlyn’s eyelids fluttered as he ran his thumb over them. “I didn’t tell you that to make you sad. But think about Em, when we first met her. She was quiet, skittish, no friends, no family, living alone with an older guy . . .”

  Ashlyn nodded. “You thought Jay was abusing her.”

  “The thought crossed my mind. And his brilliant personality didn’t do much to dissuade my thinking.”

  Ash huffed a laugh. “He’d probably kick your ass just for thinking that.”

  “I’m aware, but at the time I didn’t know the whole story. All I knew was what I saw right in front of me and the whole thing looked painfully familiar. I didn’t ask Em out because I wanted to date her. I asked her out because I wanted to get her away from him.”

  One of Ashlyn’s eyebrows crept upward. “If I remember correctly, Jay beat the crap out of you for making out with her in the parking lot.”

  Was that jealousy he heard? “Not my finest moment, I admit. She was still obviously into him. I thought . . . I don’t know. I thought maybe she was just afraid to let go, ya know? Maybe if things . . . progressed between us, she’d feel like she had someone else she could count on. Someone she could trust.”

  “And you thought making out with her was the way to go about that?”

  He shrugged, a grin tugging at his lips in response to hers. “I’m a guy, what do you want from me?”

  “At the moment? Some Chinese food would be good.”

  Somehow Ashlyn had managed to drag him out of a dark hole he’d avoided for years because he’d always feared that if he’d gone there it would be too deep to escape. Unfortunately, the sharing portion of the evening was only half over.

  “Then I’ll order double because you still need to explain why it is you think you need to drop out of the trial.”

  Chapter Eight

  Ashlyn

  “So, I fed you.”

  He kinda had. Flat-out ignoring her protests that she could pay for her own damn dinner, Mason had pushed aside her money and paid the delivery guy. The poor kid looked like he didn’t know what to do and hightailed it back to the red four-door parked in her drive with the big ‘China WOW’ sign stuck to the side.

  “Are you ready to explain why it is you think you need to withdraw your testimony?”

  The word ‘no’ came to mind. Ashlyn sighed. Settled on the couch with his feet kicked up on the coffee table beside an empty take out container, Mason didn’t look like he was in a hurry to go much of anywhere. Waiting him out could take all night and they both knew she didn’t possess that kind of patience.

  “Do you know who my mother is?” Ashlyn dunked a piece of deep fried pork in the small, plastic container of sweet and sour sauce and popped it in her mouth.

  “Your mom?” Mason abandoned his half-eaten egg roll, prepared to give her his undivided attention, and shook his head. “Should I?”

  She took a deep breath. It wasn’t the type of information she went around handing out freely, but she’d known Mason long enough to know he wouldn’t treat her differently because of it.

  “Meredith Mills.” When he continued to stare at her as though that meant nothing to him, she blew out a frustrated breath. “Jeez, take a history class, Mas. Senator Meredith Mills?”

  “Your mom’s a senator? Like a U.S. senator?”

  A sarcastic reply pressed hard against her teeth, but she bit it back.

  “Wait.” Disbelief gave way to confusion. “Your mom’s a senator . . . and you work at Bart’s?”

  “Yeah, well, she’s not particularly thrilled about it either. Like you’re one to talk, though.” She didn’t know much about Mason’s family, but she knew they had money. Lots of it. Yet he’d worked at Bart’s with her for over a year before moving on to bigger and better things . . . at the freaking Pizza Palace of all places.

  “Touché.” Mason ducked his head in acknowledgment. “But what does that have to do with the trial?”

  “I . . .” Ashlyn sighed. “Everything I do reflects on my mother. It affects her career.”

  “And what? Helping to put away a scumbag is a bad reflection?” Mason sounded incredulous.

  “Being associated with a scumbag in any way is a bad reflection.”

&nb
sp; “That’s stupid.”

  “That’s politics. The how and why don’t matter. Only the who, where, when, and what. That’s what makes the headlines. It’s all anyone sees. All anyone cares about.”

  “Who’s ‘anyone’?” She had to give Mason credit. At least he was making an effort to understand where she was coming from.

  Dragging the throw blanket from the back of the couch, Ashlyn teased the frayed edges to give her fingers something to do. “Her campaign manager. The press. The voters. Anyone who matters.”

  A long moment passed in silence. She could feel Mason watching her. The maroon fabric flipped back-and-forth, back-and-forth.

  “You weren’t on that list.”

  He spoke so low, Ash wasn’t sure what she’d heard. “What?”

  “The ‘anyone who matters’ list; you weren’t on it.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Now he was getting the picture. “I don’t get a choice.”

  “You do get a choice. Of course you get a choice. You’re a twenty . . .”

  Ashlyn let him squirm at the end of his self-inserted hook for several painful moments before filling in his precarious blank. “One. I’m twenty-one.”

  “Right. You’re a twenty-one-year-old woman. What you do is no one’s choice but yours.”

  Technically speaking, but he didn’t understand. Making choices required good judgement, and the last time she’d trusted her own judgement . . . she’d proved it wasn’t something worth trusting.

  “Ash . . . if you want to drop out of the trial—”

  “I have to—” A warm, calloused finger pressed against her lips was an effective silencer.

  “Not have to. I’m asking if you want to withdraw. If you’re scared, if you can’t go through with this . . . it’s okay. Em and Jay will understand. No one’s going to hold that against you.”

  Fantastic, now he thought she was a coward. That bothered her more than it should have. “No. I don’t . . . I’m not . . .”

  Em and Jay. Two people she cared about very much. Two people she loved. Considered family. If Jay’s father was released . . . if something happened to either one of them . . . when she’d had the power to help prevent it . . . Was that something she could live with? There was a question that was easy to answer.