Chains (2 page)

Out of the shower and dried off, I dressed, shoved my gear into my duffel bag and debated getting the hell out of there before Mike came back. I shouldn’t bail on him. He didn’t deserve me losing my shit in the ring, and he didn’t deserve a disappearing act, but I was never good at sticking around when shit got hard.

Before heading out, I tapped a message into my phone and sent him a text, telling him I went back to my room at the busted down Reno motel where we were staying. Out in the dim, deserted hallway, fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, background noise to distant murmurs and bangs from the crew tearing down the ring. The smack of sweat and antiseptic hit me right before I pushed through the heavy, metal back door and left it all behind.

It was dark, but not. Is it ever really dark in a town with a billion blinking lights? Music clashed out on the street—country from one bar, rock from another. A man on the corner handed me a flyer for free entry to a VIP strip club. I walked by him and tossed it on the ground.

Broken glass and grit crunched underfoot as I crossed the motel parking lot and stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of my door. I stuck the key in the lock and turned the knob. Stale air conditioning wafted out at me. It was blessedly cold inside and neat if only somewhat clean. I hadn’t bothered to unpack when Mike and I arrived yesterday, and my suitcase sat on the floor ready to vacate. All I had to do was pack my toothbrush and razor and I could jet with no sign I’d ever been here.

I dropped my gym bag on the floor and strode into the bathroom to look in the mirror. The damage wasn’t the worst I’d ever had done to me. A gash under my left eye, swelling, bruises. My ribs ached and my hands throbbed, but it was nothing that some pain meds and sleep wouldn’t cure.

My fighting record was another story.

I fell onto the bed and buried my head in the pillow. Danny’s face played across the backs of my eyelids.

Laughing.

Crying.

Begging me not to leave her and screaming at me to go.

She was the closest to family I ever had. My little Danny girl. Soft blond hair and innocent blue eyes. Then…not so innocent. I should’ve killed him, the sorry, sick son of a bitch.

I still could.

Alex was there first, living in the house with him. He was two years older than me, and by the time Danny and I were fostered into the house, Alex was a rock. He didn’t speak more than he had to. He didn’t come out of the bedroom he was forced to share with me, but Danny wiggled her way into his graces somehow. Alex played board games with her. Old, water-damaged games dug up from the basement shelves. Monopoly, Clue, Parcheesi. They’d play for hours. Alex wouldn’t speak the whole time, but Danny chattered endlessly, and he’d watch her, mesmerized. Even at nine, she had a charisma that people couldn’t resist.

After a bad, day-long beating, Alex limped back into our room holding a dislocated arm, and instead of being an emotionless rock, he had a look of determination on his face. “What?” I asked.

“Someday,” he said, “someday, he’ll pay.”

Danny and I were sitting on the floor. She’d been reading a book about King Arthur, and I had been drawing pictures in a notebook. She scooted over to sit at his feet and reached up to take his hand. “Once upon a time,” she said, tugging him down to sit between us on the floor, “there was a princess. She lived with two brave knights in the castle of an evil baron. Baron Striker.”

Alex wiped his blood crusted nose on his sleeve and sniffed. I picked up a crayon and started drawing a princess. Her stories became our escape.

When Alex was sixteen, he took off.

The sick son of a bitch looked for Alex.

The foster care people looked for Alex.

The cops looked for Alex, but nobody ever found him.

When Alex was no longer the one taking the brunt of the abuse in the house, it fell on the two of us left. Me and Danny. She was devastated when Alex took off. He was like a big brother—the real big brother who was tough and never let anything get to him. I was the middle brother, the one who was moody and pissed off all the time. The one Baron Striker hadn’t broken down yet. Alex leaving scared Danny. She didn’t know what to make of it. If Alex could leave, her entire world could turn upside down tomorrow and leave her grasping on by her fingertips.

I let Danny sneak into my room at night and curl up in bed next to me. I stroked her hair until she cried herself to sleep every night and set my alarm for four A.M. so she could tip-toe back to her own room before the baron woke up. But he found out when he came for her one night and found her not in her bedroom, but in mine.

He broke two of my ribs that night and locked me in the basement so I couldn’t save her.

But I heard what he did.

Heard Danny begging him not to—screaming and crying to stop. The whole time he told her it was my fault. “If Tyler wouldn’t have taken you into his bed, I wouldn’t have to do this,” he told her.

To this day, I could hear her pitiful cries. They haunted me no matter how far I got from Ferndale.

It was my fault.

I knew how he’d react if he caught us. I knew he’d punish me. I never could’ve imagined what he’d do to her. She was a little girl for fuck sake.

My stomach gripped, and I lurched off the bed into the bathroom, vomiting bile into the toilet.

My Danny.

She fucks like a whore.

I pounded my fists on the toilet seat, fighting the memories and the tears stinging my eyes.

I didn’t save her. I should’ve fucking saved her. I should’ve gone back for her.

My body ached, my eyes burned, and my vision blurred. Music from somewhere close throbbed bass through the thin walls and drilled into my skull. I pushed myself up off the floor and leaned against the door until the bathroom stopped spinning.

Where the hell was that music coming from?

I stumbled out into the room rubbing my eyes and glanced at the clock. Two in the morning. Five hours until I needed to be at the airport.

There was no way I was getting any sleep tonight, and where there was music, there was a party. Where there was a party, there was beer, and I could use one or ten.

After brushing my teeth, smoothing my dark, close-cut hair with some water and changing into clean jeans and a worn black t-shirt, I left my room and walked in the direction of the music. It wasn’t far, four or five rooms down. The door stood open, and people flooded out onto the sidewalk. I nodded to a few on my way inside. The room was packed. The AC unit chugged under the window, but humidity hung over the crowd like a haze. Along with bottles of booze on the table and a keg in the corner, there was the unmistakable tang of sweet smoke from the bongs being passed on the bed.

I grabbed a plastic cup and filled it with vodka. Weaving through a group of women who were dancing, I found myself surrounded, trapped by hungry, grinding hips, fingers that snuck up my t-shirt and lips that whispered in my ear. I couldn’t hear her words, but had enough sense to know when I was being invited into a woman’s bed.

I tipped my cup back and opened my throat, letting ounce after ounce of burning vodka slide down. When it was gone, I tossed the cup aside and grabbed the waist of the girl in front of me. I pulled her ass against me and grinded into her. She threw her head back against my chest, lifted her arms over her head and swiveled as she bent her knees, lowering herself below my waist. She turned, hooked her fingers behind my belt and looked up at me with smoldering eyes. She licked her lips. My cock twitched in anticipation. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. “Outside,” I said. “Now.”

We pushed through the crowd and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Her hand squeezed my ass. I reached over and tweaked her nipple, hard through her tight, stretchy shirt.

We rounded the corner to the side of the motel. A few people stood down at the far end of the building, but it was dark enough she could blow me. She put her hands on my chest and groaned low in her throat. “God, I want this body,” she said.

“I want your mouth on me.” I squeezed her tits, and her hands ran down over my stomach. She squatted down, unbuttoning my jeans. The zipper followed, and her hand pulled me out. I leaned back against the brick wall as her lips closed around my head. Her mouth was hot, and she knew how to stroke a cock. After the day I had, coming in this chick’s mouth was about all I had the strength left in me to do.

I watched her as she sucked me in. Her hand disappeared up her skirt, getting herself off at the same time. That should’ve done it for me, but I was distracted. I wasn’t even enjoying it. I don’t know what the fuck my problem was.

“That’s enough,” I said, hauling her to her feet.

“What’s wrong?” She stumbled in her heels, and I held her up.

“Nothing. It was perfect. I’m just not into it tonight.”

She looked disappointed. And pissed. “Yeah. Well. Whatever. No big deal. Your dick’s not that big anyway.” It was a lie. We both knew it.

I tucked it back in my pants and watched her retreat around the corner of the building. I waited a few minutes until my cock settled down, then went back around to the sidewalk. I should’ve stayed in my room. I was in no mood for a party and all the fake bullshit that went along with it.

When I got to the door to the party, this one chick wouldn’t move to let me by. “Hey,” I said. “Excuse me. I need by you.”

She turned and locked her bloodshot blue eyes on me.

Time froze as we stared at each other.

Her blond hair was dull, her complexion sallow, her body too thin. Drugs. I’d know their effects anywhere.

“Danny,” I said, catching her by the elbows. “Do you know who I am?”

Her eyes trailed over my face. Jesus, she was rocked out of her mind. Her pupils were dilated and sweat dripped down her neck between her small breasts into her low-cut shirt.

“Danielle,” I said, leaning closer. “It’s me—Tyler.”

“Tyler,” she said, and threw her arms around my neck.

Guilt crushed against my sternum. I left her, and look what she became. “Let’s get out of here.” I turned her around and steered her down the sidewalk.

“Where you think you’re taking her?” Jose stepped in front of me and shoved me back against the wall. “She’s mine for the weekend. Paid and delivered.”

Paid and delivered?

I looked at Danny. She dropped her chin and cast her eyes down.

“She fucks like a whore for a reason, Graves,” Jose said and reached out and palmed Danny’s breast. “She is one.”

I dove at him, pinning him against the door jam. “Get your fucking hands off her!”

“The bitch does anything for meth,” Jose said, shoving me back against the door.

I came back at him, throwing a punch that connected with his jaw. Jose had friends—they jumped in.

I held my own, but there were too many. They got me to the ground and pelted me with a flurry of kicks and punches. I curled in on myself and covered my head, bracing against the pain firing through my entire body.

Numbness washed in on grunts and groans, and I felt my consciousness slipping away. “Danny,” I whispered and tried to open my eyes and find her, but was met with a fist to the face and the back of my head cracking against the sidewalk.

The world left me, taken away with the sound of sirens in the distance.

The Baron