“I don’t know. The last time I saw him, he didn’t say and I forgot to ask. I was a little preoccupied, fielding his parental anger regarding my near-death experiences.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“In fairness, I think he took it about as well as any father who’s in prison and can’t keep his daughter safe would.”
“You have to understand why.”
I exhaled hard. “I do.”
“The way you operate under the motto ‘do first, think later,’ Danners—it’s not working out so well.” I had no snappy comeback for that one. It hit too close to home. “Tell me more about the hospital room with Luke,” he said gently.
“I’m sure you read the report,” I replied, looking away from his assessing gaze.
“I know he attacked you and you got away after stabbing him with a needle full of potassium chlorate—a needle he’d planned to murder you with to tie up loose ends, I assume. What I can’t understand is how a girl much smaller than Luke, wounded badly enough to be hospitalized, was able to fight him off and incapacitate him long enough to stab him with his own weapon.”
Silence.
“I waited until he made a mistake,” I explained, pinning heated blue eyes on him. “Men get cocky when they only see you as prey.”
“True, but that’s not it. Something else happened in that room.”
“No—”
“I think you’re covering for someone.”
“No—”
“And I want to know who.”
“I should go,” I said, stuffing my books into my bag. Dawson’s gentle hold on my arm stopped me.
“You have to trust me, Kylene.” I looked over at him to find earnest eyes staring back. “It’s the only way this arrangement will work.”
I took a deep breath. “Sheriff Higgins found us. He’s the reason I’m alive, but he didn’t kill Luke. That was me. I sent him out of the room and told him to come back only once I started screaming for help. I need whoever has him under his thumb to think that he’s not involved.”
“You did it to cover for him?” he asked. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard a hint of awe in his voice.
“He knows my father is innocent, Dawson. I need him, like it or not.”
He released my arm. “Thank you,” he said. I nodded as I looked away, unable to meet his gaze. “Now, I think you should stay here and finish our homework. Maybe once you’re done, you can help me follow up on the leads I found.”
My eyes darted to him. “I’m willing to fail if you are.”
He smiled at me. It was full of mischief.
“Then let’s get back to work.”
FIFTEEN
After I left Dawson’s, I went home only to find it dark and empty. Instead of sticking around, I grabbed my duffel bag of sparring gear and drove into town. The silence in my car allowed my thoughts to take center stage—something I tried not to let happen since the night of the attack. The school psychologist said that I needed to find a healthy outlet for my emotions to help alleviate any anxiety I was having. My current strategy, intentional or otherwise, was to hurl myself into whatever distraction I could, a convenient plan given my life was riddled with investigations to occupy my mind. But it was the quiet moments I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard I tried.
They threatened to break me.
To drown it out, I sang to myself, wishing I had the money to put a stereo in my ailing Honda. Heidi was really letting me down when it counted most.
I pulled up to Kru Tyson’s Muay Thai gym, hoping that my workout could drown my raging thoughts. In truth, I was willing to bet that kicking things would prove to be better therapy than my counseling session. Maybe sitting around talking about things worked for some, but for me—not so much. I was a physical girl. I needed a physical outlet.
Mark Sinclair and some other guys were all jumping rope to warm up, so I quickly changed in the bathroom and joined in. My ribs tweaked a bit with my deep breathing but not enough to pose a problem. The pros of being there outweighed the cons, big-time.
“How you feelin’, Danners?” Tyson asked as he stepped out of the ring, headed for me.
“Not one hundred percent, but better.”
“Anybody givin’ you shit at school?”
“A couple kids, but nothing major. Coach Blackthorn, on the other hand…”
“What did that hillbilly do?”
“Ran his mouth about me being trash … said I was lying about my injuries to get sympathy.”
Tyson’s expression turned murderous. “Did you shove your foot up his ass?”
“Tempting, but no. I just told him off until he kicked me out of class.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You didn’t back down.”
“I didn’t back down.”
“Because fuck him, right?”
I nodded. “Because fuck him.”
“You be sure to let me know if I need to go pay the coach a little visit. Maybe set him straight.”
“I will totally do that.”
A few of the guys laughed at our exchange, then Tyson told us to hang up the ropes and started assigning people to various activities. Once he was done, he motioned for me to follow him over to the far side of the gym.
“You wanna tell me how you’re really doin’?” he asked, his voice gentler than I’d ever heard it.
“I mean … it’s a lot, I won’t lie about that. I don’t know how you handled two tours overseas.”
“I was highly trained, Danners. Combat was second nature to me. You’re not military.” He eyed me closely and I tried not to squirm. “You talkin’ to someone about this?”
“I had to see a counselor last week. They wouldn’t let me come back to school until I did.”
“The fallout from something like this—you can’t mess around with it. I mean it. That shit will send you into a spiral if you let it. I got buddies who never got over what they went through in the Middle East. Don’t let that be you.” I nodded, unsure what to say. If Tyson was worried about me—and he didn’t worry about anything—then maybe I should have been far more worried about myself. “Training will help settle your mind. I started boxing in the military for that reason. Muay Thai basically saved my life. So, injured or not, you need to be in here, got it?”
“Train through the pain, right?” I asked, forcing a smile.
“Life doesn’t wait for you to feel better before it comes at you again. It’ll knock you down and stomp on you, but you can’t give up. You keep fighting until the fight’s over, you feel me?”
I nodded again, the macabre thought of me fighting Donovan flashing through my mind. That had almost been the end, and though I didn’t want to tell Tyson the gory details, he would have loved to know that it was his voice in my ear that kept me alive that night—that drove me forward when I wanted to quit. I planned to use that voice to help get me through the fallout of that night, too.
“Will it always be like this?” I asked him. “Will I always view life through this filter?”
“I wish I knew the answer to that,” he said. “I’ve still got mine.”
Before I could press the issue, he told Mark to come hold pads for me. I watched as Mark sauntered over, his lean but muscled frame stopping in front of me. He looked at me with sympathetic eyes as Tyson told him what would happen to him if he pushed me too hard. None of it sounded pleasant.
Mark looked honest-to-God nervous.
“It’ll be fine,” I said, taking my stance. “He won’t actually bury his hand in your face.”
“Yeah … I’m not so sure about that.” He held the pads at waist height and I landed a body kick. My ribs tweaked with the rotation, but I breathed through it, allowing the muscles to calm down rather than spasm. “You okay?” he asked.
What a loaded question that was.
“I will be.”
I hoped that was true.
The next thirty minutes was spent trading blows and kicking the
heavy bag. Not once did the dread creep in. Not once did I think of Donovan or Luke or everything that happened that night. It was then that I really started to believe that things could one day be normal again. That maybe, just maybe, Tyson was right.
Muay Thai could save me, too.
* * *
About ten minutes before training was done for the night, the squealing of car tires cut through the loud music in the gym. The screech of breaks just outside the building got our collective attention—as did the slamming door and car peeling out down the street.
Tyson and I were the first out the door. I looked down the road to see taillights disappear around a corner. Then I turned to find what had been dumped out.
A young dark-haired girl was scrambling to collect her belongings and stuff them back into her purse. Some of the guys were already headed her way. I watched her recoil from their approach.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Give her some space.” I ran over to ward off their good intentions that were undoubtedly scaring her more. That’s when I saw the freshly split lip on her face and swollen red mark on her cheek. It would be a deep shade of purple when she woke up.
“What happened?” Tyson asked her. She said nothing in response.
“Let me handle this,” I told him. “You guys head in. I’ll be right there.” He eyed me like he wanted to argue, but I flashed him a look that said I meant it. He nodded, then barked orders at the others to do as I said. I turned to face the girl, who’d headed off around the building. “Wait!”
“I can’t talk to you,” she said, never looking back.
“Can I take you somewhere? Home? The sheriff’s department?”
She wheeled on me, her features twisted into a nasty snarl. “Back off!”
I took a step in retreat, hands up. “Just trying to help.”
At that, she scoffed. “You can’t help me. No one can.…”
She took off in a run, the shadows of the alley swallowing her up.
If I’d been a betting girl, I’d have put a lot of money on her being caught up in Jane’s world. Hell, maybe she was Jane. Either way, it gave a face to the situation. A boost of reality that I needed. These girls’ lives were in danger.
Dawson and I had to help them.
SIXTEEN
Friday afternoon proved torturous. We got out of final period early so we could file into the gym and show our school spirit at yet another pep rally. Because I had no spirit to speak of, I thought it was a great time to make a break for it. I headed toward the door nearest the parking lot. Unfortunately for me, Mr. Callahan had positioned himself there in case students like myself got any wild notions of skipping out early.
“Miss Danners…”
“I was just going to go put my bag in my car so I didn’t have to haul it into the gym,” I said without skipping a beat. If he’d thought he was going to sweat the truth out of me, he was sorely mistaken. I’d faced death square in the face before. Mr. Callahan didn’t stand a chance.
“Let’s go,” he said, putting his arm out to block my way and usher me back the way I’d come.
“It’ll take two seconds. I promise.”
“To the gym, Ms. Danners.” He put a little heat in his tone that time. It wasn’t too shabby an effort. I had to give him credit for that.
“Fine,” I said, turning back around to head down the hall. Along the way, I tried stopping off at the girls’ bathroom, but Mr. Callahan saw right through me.
“I don’t think so,” he said, closing the door before I could enter. “There’s a bathroom right by the gym.”
“But I have to go now!”
“If you’d had to go that badly, you wouldn’t have made it to your car and back without peeing your pants. Keep walking.”
I huffed and turned toward the gym again, walking as slowly as possible.
“You know, I thought you would have learned something after what happened to you and Garrett—that when you go looking for trouble, you’ll eventually find it. I’m sorry to see that you didn’t. Hopefully I can say more for Garrett when he returns.”
I bristled at his words, wishing I could whip around and bury my shin into the side of his face, but that wouldn’t have panned out well for me for multiple reasons.
“And here I thought we were turning a new leaf,” I said, scowling at him.
“Girls like you never change, Ms. Danners. I know that all too well. You won’t stop until you end up in jail or dead.”
Wow. He wasn’t pulling any punches.
“Girls like me, huh?” I asked, wheeling around on him.
“Kids like you. Troubled homes. No stable parental figures. Nobody to keep track of your comings and goings.”
“You don’t know anything about me or my home life.”
He quirked a brow at me. “I think I know way more than you’d like. I’ve known many girls like you over the years. Their stories don’t end happily.”
“Well, sir, that’s what too many years in the public school system will get you. Maybe you should retire … no time like the present!”
While we stood in the middle of the dimly lit hallway (JHS’s nod to going green), staring one another down, I heard footsteps approaching from behind me. They were getting louder by the moment.
“I wondered where you went,” Dawson said, closing in to find Mr. Callahan and I embroiled in a silent battle.
“I just wanted to drop my bag off at my car before getting my pep on,” I explained, pulling my gaze away from Mr. Callahan long enough to force a smile at Dawson.
“I’ll take it,” he said, reaching out his arm. I let him lift the bag from my shoulder and tried not to notice him assessing Callahan and me in the process. He had such a calm, cool expression while he did it. I had to admire his skill.
It was clearly one I lacked.
“I’ll make sure she gets to the rally, sir,” he said, smiling at Mr. Callahan. “I know she’s trouble sometimes, but she’s totally worth it.”
He put his hand on the small of my back and directed me down the hall toward the gym. Callahan, not trusting either of us, followed behind until we reached the bleachers and started to climb the steps in search of a place to sit. Tabby stood and waved frantically at us from up near the top, so we headed that way. It wasn’t until we were committed to sliding past other students to join her that I saw who she was with. AJ Miller sat on the far side of her.
Not good. So not good.
“I was hoping I’d find you!” she shouted over the cries of the crowd.
“Yeah. Me too. This is way better than my planned escape.”
She looked at me curiously before realizing my meaning. “You tried to bail, didn’t you?”
“Yep. And got busted by Callahan.”
We sat down in between the two boys, AJ to her left and Dawson to my right. I prayed that if I just sat there still enough, maybe neither one would say anything. It seemed foolproof in my mind. Sadly, that was the only place it was.
“Callahan is all over you,” AJ said, leaning forward to look past Tabby. “I heard him talking about you to someone the other day. Neither one seemed to be a fan.”
“You don’t say.”
“You should probably lay low where he’s concerned.”
“Who was the other teacher?” Dawson asked, sitting on the edge of the bleacher to see past me to AJ.
AJ looked to me and then back again to Dawson. His expression was a mix of emotions I could barely decipher. Uncertainty, anger, and jealousy were just a few that I managed to catch.
“AJ, I don’t know if you’ve officially met Alex yet—my ex-boyfriend…”
“She means soon-to-be-boyfriend-again.”
AJ hesitated for a second, eyeing Dawson up. Dawson eventually reached his hand out toward AJ to shake his, showing he could be the better man. AJ looked irritated that Dawson had beaten him to it but took what he offered with a smile.
But I knew that smile—and it didn’t reach his eyes.
“It was Coac
h Blackthorn,” AJ said, pulling his hand away.
“Well, that’s not surprising,” I muttered under my breath. “I got him in trouble with Principal Thompson and basically ruined his championship run.” Coach and a long list of faithful JHS football boosters hated me. Them and about 90% of the entire town.
“What did they say?” Dawson asked, leaning closer to hear over the din in the gymnasium.
AJ looked at him suspiciously for a moment. “I don’t know how she came up in conversation—I’d been listening to a message on my phone—but when I finally heard them talking, Callahan was going off about Ky’s attitude, and how she’s a lost cause now that her dad’s in…”
The awkwardness that fell upon us was thick and heavy and suffocating.
“It’s fine, AJ. You can say it. We all know.”
He looked unsure.
“Now that your dad’s in prison and you’re living with Gramps, who he doesn’t think is fit to take care of you. Coach seems to think it would be best if you just disappeared from Jasperville—that the town would be better off.”
“Such gratitude for taking a psycho ’roid-rager off the streets. I’m really feeling the love.”
“How can they say things like that?” Tabby asked, her disbelief and disgust plain in her tone. “She’s a child!”
“I’m technically emancipated now, but they don’t know that, not that it matters.”
“If anything,” she continued, not at all derailed by my words, “they should have sympathy for her situation—not be assholes about it!”
I snapped my head to my left and stared at the ginger. She was pissed. Really pissed. Swearing, for God’s sake.
“Bring it down a notch, Tabs. I know they’re offending your naïve sense of right and wrong, but that’s how it is around here. You want sympathy for the victim, you’re in the wrong place—not if the victim doesn’t have the right last name or the right connections.”
“That’s such crap,” she said, her voice lower.
“How do grown men say things like that about a student?” Dawson asked. At first, I thought it was his way of fitting into the conversation. But at second glance, I could see he was assessing how callous they’d been. How kill or be killed it could be at JHS.
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