by Ivy Black
Outwardly, there isn’t anything out of place that I can see. Everything seems just as I left it when I went to work this morning. But as if there’s a strange current or pressure in the air, I can feel it. It presses down on me heavily like it has a tangible weight to it. I can’t explain it any better than that but I just know when somebody’s been in my place. It’s knowing that strikes deep down in my gut.
I take one more step in and look down the hallway. All of the doors—one for the guest bathroom and the two bedroom doors—have been closed. I know I left all of them open. Since the windows are closed and locked, I know it can’t be because of some random breeze. The hallway itself has been plunged into inky shadows. I peer hard at it but don’t see anybody lurking in its depths.
But they could be in the bedrooms. Whoever was in here could be crouched down behind one of those doors, waiting for me to open it and step inside. They could just be waiting to spring out at me like a jack-in-the-box from hell. I turn around and notice that one of the pictures I keep on the bookcase beside the door has been turned all the way around.
My blood turns to ice as I reach out with a trembling hand and turn the frame around. It’s a picture of me and Milo that I keep for nostalgia’s sake. That removes any doubt from my mind that somebody was in here. Maybe still is. I know for a fact that that picture frame wasn’t turned like that before.
It could be my imagination, I know, but I can almost feel them back there hiding in one of the bedrooms, leaning against the door, their ear pressed to it. Listening. Waiting. My heart is racing, the sound of it pounding filling my ears, and I’m shaking wildly.
Instantly, my mind starts to work as I try to figure out where I can go. Because I’m so focused on school and work, my social calendar’s gotten pretty empty. I don’t have a lot of friends anymore. I don’t really have many people I can count on to give me shelter in the best of times. I certainly have nowhere to run when some larger-than-life scary person wearing a hockey mask, toting around a chainsaw, comes after me.
I briefly consider calling Robin. I know she and Aaron will be more than happy to take me in. In fact, Robin will probably be upset if I don’t call and ask to stay with her. But I recall her comments about them all tripping over themselves and how cracker-box small her place is, and I don’t want to put them in that position. I’d feel like I’m imposing horribly upon them.
I consider going to a motel but I’d still have the problem of being alone and isolated. And if my mysterious visitor is watching me, that’s the last thing I want. I go through my small list of friends and start rejecting them simply because I don’t feel like I’m close enough with any of them—save for Robin—for an ask that big. I mean, I probably could, but I’d feel really weird about it.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know there’s no way I can stay here. Not until I have the place checked out to ensure the hockey mask-wearing murderer I’m sure is lurking in there is nowhere to be found. I’m not big on putting myself in a position where I can be chopped up into itty-bitty pieces and fed to a hungry dog. That’s not really my thing.
So where will I go?
The question fires through my mind for a long minute and that’s when it hits me. I know where to go. I can’t believe the idea even crossed my mind but desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess. I slowly back out of my apartment, leaving my murderous guest to his own devices. Maybe he’ll get bored sooner, rather than later, and just leave.
Either way, I’m not going to be here for it.
Chapter Seven
Nitro
With the hockey game playing in the background, I pace the length of my dining room, turn around, and walk back the other way. I’m still stuck on square one of this half-assed investigation I’m conducting. Well... square one and a half. I know the motivation is money. Whoever jacked our shipment stands to make a pretty penny off it when they sell it.
The question I’m currently contemplating is... who? I’m still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that somebody would be so disloyal to the club. To our brotherhood. My notions of loyalty and brotherhood are probably a little more intense than some other people’s. I get that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned or just plain naïve to think that when you swear an oath to others, when you give them your word, and pledge yourselves to them, and they to you, that it means something. That it’s a bond that can’t be shaken, let alone broken.
The thing is, I know others in the club feel the same way I do. I would never question the loyalties of the guys in Leadership. Ditto that for guys like Spyder, Monk, Domino, and most of the others. I think they take it every bit as seriously as I do. It means something to them. Every bit as much as it means to me. For most of us, the MC is the only family we have, and we take that seriously. I would give my life for most any of the guys, and I know they’d do the same for me.
But I obviously can’t say that for all of them. There’s at least one person wearing our patch who has no trouble breaking faith with us. Somebody who doesn’t take the bond we share as seriously, or believe in our family as much as the rest of us do, hiding among us. That’s disheartening to me but it also infuriates me. To know there’s somebody in our ranks who would kill us for their own personal gain sickens me. And when I find out who it is, I will take him apart limb by limb. Stripping him of his patch won’t be good enough. Not for me and not for most of us. He’s going to pay with blood for his treachery.
But the question remains... who is the wolf in sheep’s clothing who walks among us? Who professes to believe in the bond of our brotherhood while secretly plotting to stab us in the back?
I turn around and plant my hands on the back of the couch, watching a little bit of the game action. My eyes track the puck as the Canucks move it from deep in their own end, across the blue line, and into the attacking zone. I watch as the Vancouver forward moves in and fires a slap shot from the right circle that blows by our goalie and hits the back of the net. The air horn sounds and all I can do is shake my head.
“Son of a bitch,” I mutter.
As a lifelong Kings fan, there hasn’t been all that much to celebrate in quite a while. They’re two goals down in the third period so although I’m not expecting a miracle, I’m keeping my fingers crossed anyway. That’s me, ever the optimist.
As they get set up for the face-off, there’s a knocking at my door that’s quickly followed by the bell ringing and another almost frantic knocking. I’m not expecting anybody, so I’m immediately on alert. I grab my sidearm and hold it behind my back as I make my way to the door. There’s another round of knocking, ringing, and knocking again as I reach the entryway.
Standing slightly behind the door, I unlock it with my left hand then reach down and turn the knob. Cracking the door open slightly, I peer through the opening and feel my heart lurch. It feels like it stops dead in my chest as my throat grows dry and my stomach churns wildly inside of me. My thoughts are firing a thousand miles a minute as I try to comprehend what it is I’m seeing. Or rather, who I’m seeing.
I open it up all the way and stand in the doorway, looking down at my ex—Hadley. For a moment, we both just stand there, staring at one another. It’s been a long while since I’ve seen her, but she’s still a stunner. At five-foot-five, she’s got a petite but deliciously curvy frame. She’s athletic as hell and has a body that’s firm and yet soft in all the right places. Her skin is smooth and the color of cream, and she’s got big blue doe eyes. Her red hair is down, the ringlets spilling down just past her shoulders, framing her round face.
“Hadley,” I finally manage to croak. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
With the initial shock wearing off, I look at her a little closer and see that her cheeks are splotchy and her eyes are rimmed red as if she’s been crying. Her full lips are quivering, and she’s fidgeting nervously. She’s terrified. More scared than I think I’ve ever seen her before. Whatever questions I have, I think they can wait fo
r now.
I usher her inside quickly and take a look out at the street but see nothing unusual out there. There are no cars that are out of place, no dark and shadowy figures skulking about in the shadows either. I close the door and lock it then turn to Hadley who’s still standing in the entryway, looking at me in silence. But then a lone tear spills from the corner of her eye and I watch as it slides down her cheek. I have to physically restrain myself from reaching out and brushing it away, reminding myself that I no longer have the right to touch her.
“I-I had nowhere else to go,” she says with a tremor in her voice.
“Come on in,” I tell her. “Take a seat on the couch and let me fix you a drink.”
She still doesn’t speak. She just nods, trudges into the living room, and plops down on the sofa. She stares at the TV screen blankly, and I know she’s not even seeing it. If I were to ask her what’s playing, she probably wouldn’t be able to tell me it’s a hockey game. Hadley seems disoriented and wrung out.
I turn, walk into the kitchen, and pull out a couple of mugs. Since it’s a cold night, I decide to make us both a cup of grown-up hot chocolate. I know how much she loves it and she looks like she could use something familiar, something that brought her a bit of happiness. After setting the milk to warm, I pull a bottle of peppermint Schnapps out of the cupboard and look at it for a long moment.
A small nostalgic smile touches my lips as I recall the last time I held this bottle: it was when Hadley and I were together. I’ve never been a big fan of the Schnapps personally, but I know she loves them for whatever reason. I pour a bit into each mug then set the bottle down and pick up the pan of milk, carefully adding it in. I give both mugs a good stir before carrying them into the living room where Hadley is still staring at the TV screen but not seeing a damn thing.
She finally does look up at me though as I hand her a mug. She takes it with a grateful smile, and I take a seat on the love seat that sits perpendicular to the sofa. Neither of us speaks for a moment as we take a drink. Slowly, I can see the color returning to Hadley’s face as she turns to me.
“Thank you. It’s been a while since I’ve had grown-up cocoa,” she says with a small laugh.
“Same.”
She takes another drink and I can see her starting to physically relax. The tension starts to leave her shoulders and she doesn’t look so intensely rigid. Though she’s still far from totally relaxed, she’s already seeming better than she did when she first walked through the door.
“So are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?” I ask.
She bites her bottom lip and stares down into her mug as if searching for the answers in the bottom of it. But then she raises her eyes to mine again and I see a firm resolve descend over her. She clenches her jaw and seems to be doing her best to push her fear aside before she speaks.
“Somebody was in my apartment. Somebody broke in while I was at work,” she finally says. “I got scared and ran.”
“Wait, there’s somebody in your place right now?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know for sure. It felt like it.”
“Felt like it?”
She shrugs. “When I got home, I stepped inside, and I just felt like somebody was there. The doors to the bedrooms and all were closed, and I know I left them open before I left this morning.”
“Are you sure? I mean, you sometimes forget when you do small inconsequential stuff like that. I’ve seen it,” I remind her.
She shakes her head. “I didn’t forget. I know I closed the doors. And there was a picture frame that was turned completely around. I know for sure I didn’t do that.”
“Not when you were dusting or anything? You didn’t—”
“No. I didn’t. I’m positive,” she snaps. “I see that picture every single day. I would have noticed if I’d accidentally turned it around.”
“Right. You don’t dust anyway, what was I thinking?” I say, flashing her a mischievous smirk.
“Shut up.”
“Okay. All right. Just trying to keep things light,” I say. “Was there anything missing or—”
“I don’t know. I didn’t make it past the doorway. The moment I stepped foot into my place, I knew somebody was there,” she says. “You know how it is. You can just feel when somebody’s been in your space. I remember you talking about it once.”
She’s right, of course. It’s impossible to explain, but I always knew when somebody was in my personal space. There’s just a disturbance in the air you can feel. But I do sometimes wonder how much of that is real and how much of it is just our paranoid minds making us think that.
I mean, the few times it’s happened to me, I’ve never ever found any physical evidence to support my claim. All I have is my feeling—the hair on my arms and the back of my neck standing on end. It’s hardly conclusive and could have a very mundane explanation.
But Hadley is terrified. And I’ve never known her to be an irrational person. She’s not the sort who jumps at shadows. Never has been. So to have her freaking out like this tells me that maybe there’s more than just smoke to her story. And having come to that conclusion, I automatically feel myself growing as protective of her as I always have. Whoever scared her this badly needs to have their bell rung. Hard.
“Okay, why don’t we go to your place and let me have a look around?” I offer. “If somebody’s there, we’ll make sure he never has the bright idea to break into your place again.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t want to go back there. Not tonight.”
“Okay. Then how about we call the cops? Let Sheriff Singer send one of his guys to check your place out to see if we can get an all clear?”
She, again, shakes her head. “His deputies hate me. They’d probably pay the guy hiding in my place to murder me.”
I chuckle softly. “They don’t hate you. I’m sure—”
“No, they all totally hate me.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I work for Brent Polaski,” she replies.
“Okay, yeah, they probably hate you,” I say.
She gives me a small smile. “I always could count on you for moral support.”
“Hey, I made you grown-up cocoa. How much more supportive could I be?”
Her smile grows a little wider and a little warmer. “Thank you for this, by the way. It’s just what the doctor ordered.”
“Glad I could help.”
Despite being broken up, I’m heartened to feel that familiar bond between us is still there. Deep down, I still love this woman. I’m always going to love her. And I don’t think it’s a lack of love that broke us up. It’s just the bullshit in my head that I am still having trouble coping with. I hate myself for letting it ruin something so special, but I’m powerless to stop it.
Seeing Hadley sitting there on my sofa, looking so small and fragile, sends a quiver through my heart. It makes me want to beat whoever scared her this badly to a bloody pulp but it also makes me want to go to her. To hold and comfort her. But I resist, knowing it likely won’t be welcome.
Truth be told though, seeing her is raising a lot of my conflicted, unresolved feelings. Just because she walked away from me doesn’t mean the emotions I felt for her went anywhere. It’s not like they evaporated or anything. I just stuffed them all down into a box deep within me and padlocked it. But the moment I saw Hadley standing on my porch, the lock on that box shattered, the top flew open, and everything inside came rushing out again. So now, I’m just trying to get a handle on them all so I can stuff them back into that box from whence they came. But it’s proving to be a lot like herding cats.
I take a drink and clear my throat. “So do you know who it was who broke into your place?”
She shakes her head miserably. “Not with any certainty.”
“You say that like you might have an idea.”
She shrugs. “There’s just been this guy who’s been creeping
me out lately. But I also think maybe I’ve made more of it than there was.”
“Okay, so who is this guy?”
“He’s nobody. Nobody important.”
An inscrutable expression crosses her face. I can tell she’s struggling with something in her mind, but I can’t tell what it is. Part of it is obviously her reluctance to tell me who this guy is. Maybe she’s afraid I’m going to go beat the shit out of him. Or worse. If that’s the case, she’s probably right to worry. When I find out who it is, I will beat him so hard, they’re going to need a closed casket funeral.
“Why won’t you tell me?” I ask.
“It’s not that. I just don’t know for sure it’s this guy,” she replies. “It’s just that he’s shown up a couple of places and he’s been really persistent about trying to get me to go out with him.”
“How persistent?” I ask, my protectiveness flaring up again.
“Persistent enough for me to think he’s being creepy.”
“Who is this guy, Hadley?”
She sighs. “I just... I need a place to lay low for a few days. Until this all blows over,” she says. “And I... you... were the first person I thought of. I just... you always made me feel safe, and I thought maybe you’d let me hide out here for a little bit.”
I have nothing to say to that in return. I’m too shocked to formulate a response, to be honest. That she’d come here, to me, is kind of mind-blowing. But there’s a lot to this story she’s not telling me, I can tell. I don’t want to press her too hard on it tonight though. She looks rattled enough as it is.
There’s a piece of me thrilled to have her back under my roof. Even though we weren’t living together back in the day, we might as well have been. She stayed here most every night. And I loved it. With her under this roof, there was always such a feeling of electricity and joy. But most of all, there was a feeling of love that’s been missing since she’s been gone. All of it has.