PowerLess_Anti-Hero Game

by Chelsea Camaron

  “I killed him, Aspen.” Dane said it so frankly it caught me off guard, and I didn’t know how to feel about that. This man, Freeman, killed my mother and put a hit out on me. How could I have an ounce of anything for him?

  Fuck him.

  “Good,” I told him with finality. “Can we go home now?”

  Dane looked taken aback, but answered, “Yeah, let’s get you home.”

  I couldn’t take anymore. I just wanted to pretend like the last few months hadn’t happened. I wanted to go back to my life, my home. I wanted to see my gramma, hug her, smell her, and remember that there was a time when my life wasn’t perfect, but it was far from bad.

  This house was the bane of my existence. Once I loved it with everything inside of me. Now, it was a reminder of what happened in Royal’s bedroom and what led me to go off and restart a life I’d already established.

  Therefore, now being in it for a week, I hated it. All it did was hold memories that I wanted to forget.

  Not even the items Royal and I painstakingly refurbished to make the place ours held any appeal.

  Between that and the ‘job’ I used to love, but now couldn’t stand, coming back from all of it was harder than hell. The spa gave me my job back and yesterday was my first day. The first client that came in, I didn’t want to touch and pop the pimples out of her skin.

  I didn’t want to massage her or bring her peace. Why? So I could go home and not have a lick of that peace.

  Pottery. I missed it, and I missed Cora. She was so upset when I told her I was leaving, and I hated doing that to her. I told her to keep the pieces I’d made and sell them for her profit. She didn’t like that idea, but relented.

  She didn’t know my real name or where I was going when I left. Maybe one day I’d go to Colorado again and visit. Then I’d have time to explain to Cora all the fucked up shit that surrounded my life.

  Maybe.

  The ceiling above me had a popcorn effect, and I tried to count the dots. It wasn’t successful, but it was something. My bed was lonely. My heart hurt.

  Dane.

  Love was so finicky. It had to come at a time when my life was so fucked up that I really couldn’t enjoy it. Then to know he was supposed to kill me, shattered me in so many places that everything inside me hurt.

  He was going to take my life.

  All the while I was falling in love.

  I was devastated, and he left a huge hole in my soul that would never be able to be replaced. I loved him, and he played me.

  Played me in so many ways. All of it hurting more than the next.

  I hated him.

  I loved him.

  I despised him.

  I missed him.

  I was one fucked up mess of a woman.

  He hadn’t come to me once since he dropped Royal and I off here. Of course, me telling him to drop dead and never to see me again, probably had a lot to with his retreat.

  The sad thing was, I didn’t even know if I wanted him to fight. Part of me just wanted it all to be over with. Scrape it all off and forget.

  Except the mind didn’t work that way.

  It twisted every action you made and made you second guess yourself at every turn.

  Now alone in my bed, my body ached for Dane. My heart did as well. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about either because there was no coming back from what we had.

  Ever.

  And that was the worst part.

  24

  Dane

  “You should call her,” Ellen Sue told me from her place in the kitchen.

  “I think that would be a mistake. She’s fine. She’s got her life. I have mine.”

  Ellen Sue let out a heavy sigh.

  Drama.

  Ellen Sue wasn’t one for the dramatics, but she was trying to get her point across. I heard her. I just didn’t agree with her.

  “You know falling isn’t the worst thing ever, Dane.”

  “Never said it was a bad thing.”

  She turned to the oven, pulling out the apple pie. “This was my Paul’s favorite,” she explained to me with her far off day dreaming voice. “I always sprinkle a little cinnamon in the pie crust dough.”

  “Do you ever wonder how Paul was related to Amos but so different from him?” I asked her, trying to keep her mind on her love from the past instead of my fucked up mess.

  “Paul saw the good in everyone, even Amos. He knew his brother’s secrets. While he didn’t agree, he understood Amos better than anyone. While I wish things had been different for you boys, we have to keep in mind if things weren’t how they were, I wouldn’t have you boys.”

  “Funny how Paul knew Amos’ secrets and you know all of ours. Maybe you should be the one with the keeper tattoo,” I joked with her.

  That was the thing about Ellen Sue and Paul. They always found the good in every bad situation. And they both knew how bad my situation once was. Ellen Sue was never able to have kids of her own. She came to the orphanage every day to cook all our meals. Over time, she got to know each of us, and we had this special bond. I don’t know if I would have made it this far in life without her.

  “Dane, honey, you know I love you.”

  I sat back on the stool at my kitchen bar. “I love you, Ellen Sue.”

  “You’re messin’ this up.”

  “She told me to drop dead.”

  Ellen Sue studied me. “You know you’ve always been my favorite.”

  I laughed. I was sure she told each of us this, but I had to admit she always spent a little extra time with me. However, I didn’t think it had anything to do with having a favorite more so than I think she felt I needed her more.

  Truth was, for me, killing was easy. Living was hard.

  “You aren’t winnin’ this one.”

  “When are we goin’ to see Anne?” She changed the subject.

  “Tomorrow. You do realize she won’t know us.”

  “Knowing us,” she tapped her chin, “isn’t making friendships about getting to know someone anyway?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She gave me her trademark smile that always solved every problem any of us had. “I’m just trying to remind you why it’s important to see her. Even if she doesn’t know us.”

  “You’re gonna have me going and visiting strangers, aren’t you?”

  She finished plating the pie and slid the warm sweet treat to me. “It’s not a bad idea, honey.”

  “I love spending my free time with you, Ellen Sue.”

  “It’s okay, I like sharin’,” she laughed.

  Ellen Sue and I always spent time together when I got home from a job. She knew what I did for a living. She knew every hit I ever made. There wasn’t a secret between us. To me, I thought we might even be closer than most blood mother-sons. Because to me, she was my mom. She was the one to clean my scrapes and put band-aids on my boo-boos. She was the one to get me medicine and take me to the doctor when I had appendicitis at ten-years-old. She held my hand when I broke my leg and had to get it reset. She stood up for me when I graduated high school. There wasn’t a moment in my life that Ellen Sue wasn’t part of other than my birth.

  She took me as I was. When I was afraid of the dark and Amos refused to give us nightlights, Ellen Sue and Paul got me a flashlight for my bed. They kept me stocked up on batteries. When I had my first crush, Ellen Sue taught me about respect. While I can say I never gave anyone the title of girlfriend, Ellen Sue was the one who always reminded me not to lead a girl on. She even gave all of us the talk about sex.

  When I was in town Ellen Sue stayed with me and when I was out of town, she tended to stay at my house too. We all had a room just for her at each of our homes.

  “So what’s next for you now, Dane? Can you really get out of your work?”

  I nodded. “The calls have been made. I owe no one. So I’m out. The others on my team will take the jobs. I have money and I can give my attention to the business so Onyx won’t have all the mo
thers care alone anymore.”

  “Maybe he can work on making Torryn a mother then,” she said happily with a wink.

  “They let you spoil Ellie as a grandbaby and you have Keaton. How many more babies do you need, woman?”

  “I need all my boys happy. If that also gives me more babies to spoil, well so be it.”

  I didn’t reply. Instead, I enjoyed my apple pie. I knew better than to try to talk Ellen Sue out of more grandbabies. There wasn’t much in life she loved more than her four boys, but having grandbabies… well, she loved little Keaton more than she loved any of us.

  Harborview Home was a gorgeous place. We made the hour-long drive to the country-side in relative silence. Ellen Sue gave me her opinion last night. What I loved most about her, she wasn’t going to push me.

  Sure, calling Aspen crossed my mind pretty much every second of every passing day. Only, I wasn’t going to do it.

  I promised her a life.

  She had that.

  It happened to be without me.

  Nerves hit me in a way I had never had before.

  Funny, I could walk into a room full of killers and not break a sweat. Visiting the grandmother of the woman I loved made me on edge.

  The woman I loved.

  I shook my head trying to shake off the feelings.

  From the moment I first laid eyes on her, she called to me on a deeper level. The first time my lips touched hers, I was gone.

  Acknowledging just how deep my feelings went, well that was foreign territory.

  Ellen Sue led the way as we signed in to visit Anne. She filled out the papers for us both, and we got our identification cards scanned before getting our stickers to enter the facility. I didn’t pay attention to the logs or the woman behind the counter. My mind was elsewhere.

  I made a quick detour to the office to ensure Anne did indeed have the funds correctly appropriated to her account. She would want for nothing for the rest of her life. That burden would not be on Aspen no matter what the future held for us.

  Rounding the corner to Anne’s private room, I heard this melodic laughter.

  Instantly, my pace quickened.

  I stood in the doorway where Ellen Sue was by Anne’s bed talking and Aspen sat on the couch smiling and happily catching up with her grandmother.

  She was beautiful.

  She was perfect.

  She was mine and I didn’t have the strength to walk away again.

  25

  Aspen

  The air changed, and I knew it was him before looking. My smile fell and heart began to pulsate. Why did it have to be him? Why did it have to be a killer I was in love with?

  Rubbing my hands down my legs did nothing to take the stickiness off of them. The ball of nerves inside of me flared to life. There was no fear when there probably should’ve been.

  But I had many nights lying there thinking about this man and replaying everything that happened. He could’ve killed me at any moment. He didn’t and part of me really wanted to know why. I wanted to cut through all the bullshit and get down to the bones of what happened between us, because I couldn’t move on until I did.

  Everything we shared couldn’t have been fake, and if it was I was a bigger moron than I ever thought.

  The older woman introduced herself as Ellen Sue when she came in the room. Her wide smile drew me in. She was kind and respectful and talked to my gramma like she knew her for years instead of moments.

  For a brief moment, when she arrived, I’d thought Dane would be there, but as the seconds ticked by, he didn’t show and I couldn’t tell if it was relief or disappointment.

  Now, seeing him standing in front of me, it took everything in my power to stay in my seat and not run into his arms.

  I missed him. So damn much.

  It made me wonder if he missed me too or if I was just something he could scrape off.

  Why did life and love have to be so damn complicated? Gramma always said that nothing in life that was worth anything was easy. You just had to put your mind to it and go for it. It was what got me to where I was in my life.

  My heart was shattered and I wanted to move on, so we needed to talk and get out.

  It wouldn’t fix anything between us, but maybe it would give us the closure that would help us to move on with our lives. Even if I hated everything about my life now.

  I rose and walked over to Gramma and grabbed her hand. She looked up at me with the same loving eyes that she always had, but behind them was a void that would never be filled again. She would never remember teaching me to cook or laying with me at night.

  “Be right back,” I told her, and her eyes squinted like she was trying to remember me and that killed. “Gramma, it’s Aspen. I’ll be right back.” Even telling her my name didn’t do any good.

  “Go ahead, dear. I’ll sit with her,” Ellen Sue said with a wide smile on her face as she sat in the chair closest to Gramma’s recliner, settling in for whatever she had to talk about.

  Dane had yet to say a word as I walked up to him. One look into his eyes and my heart bled. Bled for the love that I had for this man. Bled for the life I so wanted to have with him. Bled with dreams being shattered.

  Sucking it up, I asked, “Can we talk?”

  “Absolutely.” He stepped out from the doorway for me to go first. There was a small garden off of the side door that was secluded. I’d found it once coming here when I needed some private time after being with Gramma. Hopefully it would be vacant.

  What needed to be said, no one could hear.

  He followed me, holding the door open as we stepped through. The garden gleamed with greenery and a wide bench sat in the center of it. It was where I moved to and sat down scooting over to the edge.

  I wanted nothing more than to bridge that space between us after he sat down, but knew it wouldn’t happen. We could never happen.

  “I miss you,” Dane said quietly as I stared straight ahead. I could see him out of my peripheral vision, his gaze directed at me.

  I felt a tear threatening to escape, but pushed it back. “Were you really going to kill me?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation, and that tear clogged in my throat. “It was the goal. I had one more job for Freeman to do and then I’d be out from under his thumb. It was a means to an end.”

  “And that’s what you do? Just go out and kill people?”

  “It had been my job for a long time. I’m not proud of what I did, but my brothers and I needed to survive. It was the only skill I had, so I went with it.”

  I turned to him propping my knee up on the bench and turning to him. “That’s not true. You have more to you. I’ve seen it.”

  A small smirk played on his lip. “You were different, Aspen. From the first moment I sat inside your studio my world changed. As I got to know you better, you grew inside me.”

  “But you were sent to kill me? How am I supposed to deal with that?”

  He turned on the bench so he faced me. “I don’t know. This shit isn’t easy for me. I have no clue what I’m doing. What I know is I’ve fallen in love with you. I miss you, and I want to be part of your life.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  His head fell as did my gut. He loved me. Again, why did this shit have to be so complicated?

  “Anything is possible, Aspen. I never lied to you. You knew more about me than anyone else ever got out of me. Nothing between us was a lie or a farce. Everything you felt—that I felt—was true down to my soul.”

  Tears spilled over falling down my cheeks. I let them. He knew it hurt me. It didn’t matter if I showed it as well.

  “Baby,” he cooed, and I loved that. He lifted his hand and swiped some of the tears away. I didn’t stop him or say a word. His hands felt nice, warm, safe. “I’ve never had a home, Aspen. I grew up in a shit life, but survived it. I have a house, but it’s only some place to crash. Not once have I ever felt like I was at home. Except with you. You’re my home. You’re my world.”<
br />
  “Why did you have to be this guy?”

  He kept swiping my tears. “Never said I was a good man. But I’m good for you.”

  “I can’t be with someone who goes out and kills people for a living, Dane. That’s just not in me. I’m not okay with that.”

  His soft smile came out. “Good thing I put an end to that part of my life.”

  Hope blossomed just a bit, and I had to tap it down.

  “I’m not saying I won’t do it again, Aspen. If someone fucks with you or my family, I won’t hesitate to take them out. But as far as the rest of it, I’m out.”

  My strength was waning. “I love you so much, but …”

  His finger came to my lips shushing my words. “And I love you. Let’s start slow. Let me take you out where we can talk and really get to know each other.”

  I wanted that. So very much wanted that.

  Dane kept me safe from Jolin and my supposed father, Freeman. Him, I hadn’t thought much about; just happy I never had to deal with him. Dane gave me information to be set for life if he didn’t come back from the meeting with them.

  Every touch and caress. The way he moved inside of me. The way he held the door for me and laughed at my stupid jokes.

  Everything. He was my everything.

  But how could I trust it? How could I trust him?

  “Aspen, let’s give this a chance and just see where it goes.” His hands dropped only to grab mine and hold on to them for dear life. “I love you, and I’ll bust my ass to show you.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “I know. It’s one of the things I’ll bust my ass to make it so again.”

  It all sounded great, but I was still scared. Gramma’s words came back to me, and he was worth the risk because deep inside in the corners of my heart, I knew he would make good on everything. It would take time, but time heals.

  We needed to heal.

  “Okay.”

  He blinked and his head twitched like he couldn’t believe what I said. Then a smile graced his face. “Okay,” he repeated.