Edge Of Retaliation : Books 1-3

by Bella Jewel

  Then, he turns and faces the front.

  He’s wrong.

  Tanner doesn’t care.

  None of them do.

  I’m done.

  Done with all of them.

  12

  “I have to go and call Pat. Are you sure you’re okay?” Jo asks, staring at me. “I might be a while. He’s being a pain in my ass.”

  I nod, sitting on the edge of the bed in the cheap hotel room we booked for the night. Thankfully, Jo and I shared and are away from the men, because I can’t deal with them for a second longer. “Yeah,” I say, “I’m fine. I’m going to find something to eat and get some ice.”

  She glances down at my hand, which is throbbing and still not cleaned up from the trip. I just washed it, but I know I probably need to find a first-aid kit and get some antiseptic cream.

  “You should get that cleaned up,” she adds, as if reading my thoughts.

  “I was just planning on doing that,” I tell her. “Go, call Pat, I’m okay.”

  She nods and disappears out of the room. I stand, stretching my aching legs. I am hungry, and I could use a walk, too. I grab a coat and my purse and leave the room, walking down the long corridor to the front of the motel. I look left and right, and see a flashing Diner sign a few blocks down. I turn and start walking toward it, my stomach rumbling. I haven’t eaten all day, not since my little breakdown. Ethan tried, but I refused.

  I just want this to be over and done with so I can go home and finally get on with my life.

  I reach the diner and go inside, glancing around. It’s clean and smells great. There are quite a few people here, so I look around for an empty table. I notice Tanner sitting alone, staring down at a cup of coffee. His face is already bruised and battered from his fight with Tatum the other night, so I just added to that. It would have hurt; I know because my hand kills.

  I go the opposite way and find an empty table, my heart aching in ways I wish it wouldn’t. My brain needs to start doing some of the work and tell my heart to stop feeling so heavily over all this, but unfortunately my brain is currently having a little vacation.

  I sit down and a waitress comes right over. She’s bright, bubbly, and pretty. She smiles, flashing a row of perfect white teeth, and asks me, “What can I get you tonight, darl?”

  Ugh.

  Darl.

  I hate that word.

  She’s super friendly, though, so I’m not going to judge.

  “A coffee and a burger, please. Thanks so much.”

  “No problem, it won’t be long. While you wait, there is some pretty nice eye candy for you to feast on.” She grins, nodding in Tanner’s direction.

  Right.

  Sociopathic eye candy.

  “Oh, yes,” I say, staring at Tanner, who has now looked up and is glancing my way.

  “He’s looking over here.” She flushes. “This is a great night.”

  She disappears, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes. I don’t look at Tanner or give him any indication that I want him over here, but a few moments later, he’s standing at my table. He takes a chair and pulls it out, forcing me to have to look at him.

  “I didn’t invite you over here,” I say, my voice snippy.

  “I don’t care. We need to talk.”

  “We need to do no such thing,” I mutter. “I made it clear how I felt, all I ask is that you stay away from me. We find Chase, we deal with all of this, and we go on with our lives.”

  Ignoring my little statement, he says, “Your hand is sore.”

  “No shit, you have a hard face.”

  I stare at his face, trying to see if there are any fresh bruises, that might make me feel a little better.

  “It hurts like fuck, if that makes you feel better.”

  I give him a sarcastic smile. “It really does.”

  “I know you hate me, Callie ...”

  I cut him off, putting a hand up. “No, Tanner, I do not hate you. Well, at least I didn’t. Now I’m not so sure. You know, when I found out what you were doing, I honestly couldn’t believe it. I just ... didn’t see it coming. I believed that I had actually met good people, real people, but it turns out you’re not even close.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” he growls.

  “I know you’re a liar, you’re manipulative, you’re probably some sort of psycho, and you don’t care about other people’s feelings. That’s all I need to know.”

  His jaw tics, and I know I’ve made him angry.

  If only I cared.

  “That’s the man you see, because you’re choosing to look at your side of this and nobody else’s. It’s all about you, isn’t it, Callie? How you feel? How this affected you? You ever stop and fuckin’ think of how it affected us? How we feel? Of course not, because you’re as fuckin’ selfish as I am.”

  My mouth drops open, and his words hit me like a slap to the face. Selfish? Me? Is he kidding? Is ... Wait ... am I selfish?

  I shake my head.

  I didn’t ask to be tormented, I didn’t ask to hit Celia, I didn’t ask for any of this.

  But neither did he to be fair.

  Maybe I haven’t considered just how it truly felt for them to lose Celia. He’s right about that. I don’t know his story, I don’t know anything about him, or Celia, or their family. I mean, I know the basics, but I don’t know the bones of it. I don’t know what their life was like growing up, the things they experienced together. I don’t even know how many girlfriends Tanner has had. I don’t know any of it.

  Dammit.

  Now I’m second guessing myself.

  “You’re right,” I say, my voice still angry. “I don’t know about how it feels for you. I don’t know how much losing Celia hurts but I can guess. I don’t know what you’re going through. I do know that you made a choice, though, to hurt another human being. You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to do those things to me, so, maybe I am selfish, but so are you, Tanner Yates.”

  His eyes flash, but he says nothing more because the waitress appears with two orders. She glances at Tanner and says, “Are you sitting here now?”

  “Yes,” Tanner says, at the same time I say, “No.”

  She glances between us, and then giggles awkwardly and places our coffee down in front of us, and then proceeds to collect the burgers and place them down, too. Tanner grabs the coffee, holding my eyes, almost like a challenge, and pours a mug of it. I know what he’s doing, he’s challenging me, daring me to fight him, to make a scene. He’s as hot-headed as I am, but he forgets that I’m smart.

  I look down at my food and start eating. My hand throbs, but I try to use it as normally as I possibly can. I don’t want to draw attention to it, hell, I don’t want to relive that moment today when I lost it. I’ve never broken so hard in my life, and I’ve been through a lot, but today, it just got to be too much. Everything just became far too overwhelming.

  Once we’ve finished our meals, I throw some money and a tip on the table and stand, ignoring Tanner completely and walking out of the diner. I’m halfway back to the motel when I hear him behind me, his footsteps heavy, but keeping their distance. I keep my head down, my heart racing, and head toward my room.

  “Wait,” Tanner says, before I reach the door. “Let me fix your hand.”

  I turn to him, hand still on the doorknob, key in the other. “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

  “Do you want to get an infection? Because it’s lookin’ pretty bad.”

  I don’t glance at my hand, even though my automatic instinct is to look at it. He’s right, though, I know it’s not looking the greatest. It needs a good clean, probably some ice and a bandage. Still, I can get those things on my own. I think. I look toward the office but see the closed sign on the door. Dammit, I should have gone and asked for a first-aid kit before I went and had dinner.

  “I have one in the car,” Tanner says, reading my mind.

  “I said no thanks,” I mutter.

  “Do you want to keep goi
ng on this trip? Get to face up to Chase? Or do you want to get an infection and end up in the hospital? I’ll let you decide what’s more important.”

  He walks to his room, which is right next to ours, and opens the door.

  Then he steps inside and closes it.

  Dammit.

  He’s right.

  Fuck.

  I exhale and walk over to the door, knocking.

  Damn you, fate.

  You’re playing games with me now.

  I STARE, TRYING TO ignore my fluttering heart, as Tanner cleans my hand with some warm salty water. He washes off the dirt that it has caught during the day and then cleans the split in my knuckles from hitting him so many times. When he’s done that, he starts dabbing it with something that has a strong smell and stings like hell, so no doubt it’s good for me.

  “She was funny,” he says suddenly, his head dipped as he continues to wipe my hand.

  My heart feels like it gets stuck in my throat.

  He’s talking about Celia.

  He’s ... telling me.

  I clench my eyes shut, because a huge part of me wants to say no, I can’t talk about this, we can’t even bond over this because of what you’ve done, and the other part remembers his words, about not knowing how it was for him, for his family, and I feel like I at least deserve to hear him out for that.

  So, I say nothing, I just let him talk.

  “She was the light, always making things easier. When things got hard with our parents, she still made every day seem a little lighter. I remember the day she was born,” he goes on, his voice thick and husky. “I didn’t want a sister, I already had one. But when I saw her, something changed. There was this protection I’d never felt with Andrea, and in that moment, I knew that she was special.”

  Oh, god.

  My heart.

  My poor heart.

  “I continued to protect her when she was growing up. Hell, she scraped a knee and I’d be there. Someone picked on her and I’d have them on their ass in five seconds flat. Nobody hurt my sister, she had this fragile, sensitive side which made my protective side even stronger. She looked up to me. She came to me for advice. She trusted me.”

  I swallow, fighting back the tears as he starts wrapping my hand with a bandage.

  “Except I didn’t know she was suffering at the end. I didn’t fuckin’ know my sister was in pain. I’d spent my life protecting her, and when she needed me the most, I wasn’t there. I let her down. I was goin’ through my own shit, bad shit, and I was so focused on that, that I stopped focusing on her. She was alone, scared, and I wasn’t there.”

  I close my eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath.

  “She was the fuckin’ world to me. My life has never been the same without her. Andrea is right, I do feel guilt. So much fuckin’ guilt. She’s gone and I can’t bring her back, I can’t relive it again, I can’t change anything. I have zero fuckin’ control. She’s gone because I wasn’t there for her.”

  He’s wrong, though.

  She’s gone because Chase wasn’t there for her.

  “You’re wrong,” I say, my voice full of broken emotion. “It isn’t your fault that she felt like she couldn’t go on, that’s on Chase. It’s on him because he didn’t protect her, and instead of facing up to it, he ran. He is the one who has to answer for Celia’s death, not you.”

  He looks up at me, and his eyes are glassy.

  Oh, god.

  My heart.

  I can see the unshed tears behind his tough exterior, and it makes it very, very hard to hate him. So fucking hard.

  I can’t stand it.

  I want to pull him into my arms and tell him it’s okay. I hate seeing people feeling that level of pain. I hate it and it’s my weakness. It’s why I went after him the night he found out, because it’s not in me to watch someone suffer. I might think I’m tough, but I’m not that cruel. Seeing Tanner so upset, it hurts me. It really does.

  “I should have known something was wrong.”

  “People are good at hiding things when they don’t want somebody to know, you should know that better than anyone.”

  He jerks back a little, like I’ve slapped him.

  I feel bad for the words the moment they’ve left my mouth.

  “You’re never going to get over what I did, are you?”

  I look away, my eyes burning with unshed tears, too.

  “You were the first person I trusted after getting out of that place. I honestly believed in you, and to know ... all along that it was a lie ...”

  I stand.

  I can’t be here.

  I can’t be doing this.

  Not with him.

  Not after everything.

  “I have to go,” I say, rushing to the door before he can say another word. “Thanks.”

  I step out and close it behind me, my hands trembling, my knees weak. I quickly go to my room and hurry inside, closing and locking the door. Only then do I press my back to it and take a deep, staggering breath. My lungs burning.

  “Are you okay, honey?” Jo asks, walking out of the shower with a towel wrapped around her.

  “I’m so confused, Jo. So damned confused.”

  “Sit,” she tells me, pointing to the bed. “I’ll get dressed and we’ll talk.”

  I sit and wait for her to get dressed. When she’s done, she comes out and sits on the bed beside me. Her eyes go to my hand, “You had your hand fixed.”

  “Tanner did it,” I say, looking at her, feeling stupid and idiotic.

  “You were with Tanner?” she asks, confused.

  “Please, don’t judge me. I’m already judging myself enough.”

  “I’m not judging you, honey. Tell me what happened.”

  I tell her everything, from the diner to what just happened in his room. Once I’m done, she sits in silence for a few moments, her expression that of deep thought.

  “He’s opening up to you, and he’s helping you, which seems to go completely against his little comment about everything being a lie. I think Tanner is scared, and he’s confused, and he’s hurt. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing right now.”

  “I know that,” I tell her, “but why can’t he just leave me alone? Why can’t he just go the hell away because he’s making me equally as confused.”

  “Have you told him that?”

  I nod. “Of course I have. I’ve told him to let me be.”

  “You could have stood up at the diner, moved away, you could have gotten the first-aid kit out of his car and done it yourself. I don’t think you’re being honest with yourself, Callie.”

  I put my head in my hands and groan. “Why do you always have to point out the horribly obvious?”

  She laughs. “Because I’m your best friend, it’s my job. Do you have feelings for Tanner?”

  I glance at her. “I’m confused, that’s the truth. Before I found out what he was doing, yes, I had feelings. Strong feelings. I thought ...”

  “You thought you could love him?”

  I nod. “But then I found out what he did, and everything became clouded. Since then, it has just been this mix of feeling sorry for him, and anger, and then guilt that I feel sorry for him, and so many things that I can’t make sense of my own head. Tonight, when he opened up about Celia, I almost could justify him doing what he did. Then I felt stupid for thinking that because it’s not okay what he did.”

  “No,” Jo agrees. “No, it’s not okay, but for what it’s worth, I truly think Tanner believed what he was doing was right at the time. He thought you took something from him. Right now, he’s having to live with the fact that what he has believed for so long is wrong. He’s now having to face his own guilt, not to mention the nightmare of knowing what happened to his sister. He’s holding up well, but he’s in a bad place, Callie. It’s only human to feel for him. You’re not a monster.”

  “No,” I whisper. “But he was a monster to me. I can’t just overlook that.”

  “No, you can�
��t. You’re right about that, but it doesn’t mean you should be angry at the feelings you’re having.”

  “He called me selfish tonight,” I tell her. “He said I’ve been so focused on me, and what happened to me, that I haven’t once stopped and thought about how they’re feeling, and what they went through. Do you think that’s true? Do you think I’m selfish?”

  “No,” Jo tells me. “I think you’ve been to hell and back and you went away for a crime that wasn’t entirely your fault and you missed out on your best years because of it. Then you came out, trusted someone, and that someone hurt you in the worst way. I think you’re cautious. Not selfish.”

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice a low whisper. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Look, you’ve had a long day, get some rest. Try not to think too much about what happened in there tonight. The truth is, both you and Tanner are going through something right now, let yourselves process that.”

  I smile at her, and stand. “I’m going to take a shower. Thanks, lovely.”

  She nods, and I disappear into the bathroom. I close the door and exhale, leaning against it.

  Is she right?

  Is he right?

  Am I right?

  Or are we all right, in our own way?

  I just don’t know anymore.

  13

  “He’s not answerin’,” Tatum says over breakfast the next day, with all of us sitting at a booth in the diner. “I know he’s freakin’ out.”

  “How can you be so sure he’s still where you sent him?” Jo asks. “He might have moved on by now. Gone into hiding?”

  “He might have, but I doubt it. As far as he knows I’m still the only one who knows where he is. I think he’s just panicking and has gone off the radar. Possibly changed his number. We’ll find him. I have other contacts. He isn’t the only one.”

  Tanner stares down at his clenched fists.

  He’s still hurt, still so deeply hurt, that his best friend in the whole world let him down. I know how that feels—it’s a god damned shitty feeling for anyone to experience.

  “Don’t you fuckin’ worry,” Tanner growls. “We’ll find him.”