Chapter Seven

 

I rushed Aly to the hospital. It was the first time since Sarah I could ever remember anger being a secondary emotion to anything, especially fear. Aly was unconscious in the backseat. They had done a number on her. She looked severely dehydrated. As an athlete, I could tell she hadn’t eaten, she had been repeatedly tased, sliced up with a knife, and because of me, probably had a broken tailbone too. I think the worst part was the absolute fear and hurt in her eyes when I found her. Her own family did this.

Her family. A family that claimed to be Christians. It sickened me.

I bit my lip and gripped the steering wheel. I was just thankful I got there in time. Fuck, I hated them.

When I arrived in Seattle, I went straight to Brandon’s place. He gave me weird vibes from the start but played the part of a worried best friend. I tried everything I could think of but got nothing out of him, so I went back to square one. Then I remembered her mom reported her missing. I showed up at her door, and Aly’s mom seemed terrified by me at first, but I think she saw in my eyes I desperately wanted to find her daughter, so she let me in. Thank God, her dad wasn’t there or I probably never would have found Aly.

I tried not to scare her mother, but it was hard with my anger boiling at the surface. I needed to find Aly. I eventually got the guts to ask her if there was any way Aly’s father or Brandon were involved. Gut reaction, I couldn’t explain it. The minute I asked the question, her mom burst out crying. She suspected it too, because her husband flipped when she posted the missing persons ad.

We went through every possible location where they’d keep Aly if they had her and she told me about a place a mile from their church in the middle of nowhere; it was a storage shed. I bolted and drove there as fast as possible. I walked into a scene of a horror movie. Brandon was hovering over her with a knife and she was telling him how scared she was, while her dad just watched. That broke me. If she hadn’t been so severely injured, begging me for help, I would have killed them.

When I arrived at the hospital, the nurses rushed Aly back. I sat in the waiting room for an hour and a half before a short, brunette nurse with suspicious brown eyes entered the waiting room.

“Sir, may we talk? Privately.”

I nodded and stood up. She walked me back into an office and locked the door behind her. I opened my mouth to speak, but she lifted a hand and looked out the window, checking for anyone passing by before closing the shutters. I cocked an eyebrow.

“How’s Aly?”

“Aly will be fine. We gave her fluids and quite a few stitches. She may suffer from headaches, vertigo, and nausea from the hazing. So for the next few months, keep your eye out. We will watch her for a few days, but she should make a full recovery. At least physically. What is your relationship with her?”

“I’m a friend.”

“You are that fighter, right? X?’”

“Yeah. You watch boxing? “I smirked at her, thoroughly amused that this little nurse would watch two guys pound each other’s faces in.

She nodded. “My boyfriend does.”

“Ah, that makes more sense. What’s with the curtains?”

Suddenly, the nurse appeared nervous and looked at the door again. “How much do you care about her? I’m asking for a reason. I need to know.”

I stood straighter and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business. Why?”

She started picking at her fingernails. “Have you ever been to a small town, sir?”

“Yes. I grew up in one.” I could tell my tone was cold, but I didn’t give a fuck. What did she want?

“Okay, good. Then you know how this works. Aly’s dad has a lot of influence here. A lot of influence,” she emphasized. “I’ve known Aly since she was little. We went to school together. I’m a few years older. We aren’t friends or anything, but my little brother was bullied and one day he was crying in the field, and she came over to pray for him. It meant the entire world to him. Changed the whole course of his life. I am returning the favor.”

I threw her a sideways glance. “That sounds like Aly.”

She looked at the door again. “I’ve watched Aly be belittled and hurt by that family for years. They’ll suck her back in, and her father will get away with whatever he did. I know he will. She needs to get out. The police will ask questions. Give them the truth, but don’t let Aly be involved in this anymore than she needs to be. She gives her statement and gets the hell out of here. The police won’t do anything about it anyway. They’ll pretend to, but her dad will give some story, and they will only take into account the evidence that affirms what he told them. If she wants justice or that shit, she needs to get it elsewhere. Is there anyone else that can take care of her? She can’t be alone. She just can’t. There’s no way she’s not going to be fucked up after this. I heard you say you found her in a storage closet when you brought her in.”

“I don’t think she has any other family. I don’t know her that well, but she hasn’t said anything about having any other family members.”

“You aren’t that close, yet somehow you randomly found her in a storage closet? You didn’t seek her out or anything? Seems like an awful lot of trouble for someone you don’t care too much about.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “Get to your point.”

“My point is, do you have family who cares about you enough to help her? She needs adults right now. Mature adults to give a shit about her for half a second.”

“No,” I snapped. “I have money. I’ll get her a place. A detective for her case. All that.”

“And if her dad comes after her?”

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

The nurse glared at me and her eyes narrowed. “Look, I need to know if you are going to do what it takes to help her. That girl in there has been through hell, and if you aren’t going to do what it takes, I’m going to find someone who will. I know secrets about that family. Secrets that would make your skin crawl.”

I groaned pathetically and ran my hands over my face. “I have parents down in northern California. I don’t fucking want to pursue that option, but do you think that will be best for her? Random adults she doesn’t know?”

“It’s far from here. It keeps three or more people around her to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid, and no one comes after her to try and drag her back here. Plus, if your parents are halfwaydecent, they’ll feed her, give her some company, some normalcy. Plus,” she mumbled, “it will give you two a chance to figure shit out.”

I shot her a warning glare but pretended to ignore her last comment. “Fine, I’ll take her there. I can’t promise I’ll stay. I can’t promise anything. I swore I’d never fucking go there again.”

“How about this? Don’t decide now. Think of what I said when you see her. I have a feeling once you see her, you’ll know I’m right. You’ll know you can’t buy your way out of this…and remember, trust no one.”

She turned to leave. “Wait, what’s your name?” I called after her.

“Sarah,” she said abruptly before walking out.

The air whooshed out of my lungs, and I stood frozen in the doorway before finally gathering the strength to leave.

Once I had the news Aly was stable, I immediately drove over and picked up her mom. Thank fuck, her husband didn’t return to the house to try and hurt her. He was probably scared of me. Thank God, for the mom’s sake. Her mom was crying and thanked me profusely as we drove down the highway. Aly looked a lot like her mother: short, blonde, and sweet-looking, although Aly had a strength and independence her mother didn’t have.

“I failed her, “her mother kept saying on the drive. “She begged me to let her go and find herself, and I trapped her and now this…”

She cried. I didn’t say a word. To be fucking honest, I was angry at her too. Aly should never have been put in that position.

We both waited in the waiting room together until we were allowed to go back. When the nurse came out, her mom gave me a tight-lipped smile. “You should go first. She probably wants to see you way more than me right now.”

I nodded and headed back. I walked into the room and saw her before she saw me. She was attached to wires and machines, her skin was pale, and she had dark circles under her eyes, yet she still looked sweet, beautiful, and innocent.

An incredible fucking woman.

“Hey,” I said softly, immediately getting her attention.

She gave me a genuine but tired smile. “X?”

“The one and only,” I said before sitting down on her bed, grabbing her hand, and stroking it with my thumb.

She didn’t pull away. I looked down at her face, into a pair of eyes that were now truly and deeply haunted.

“You know, I thought all Christians were good, but they are not. You were right, you know? When we met, you said the world was bigger and meaner than I thought. You were right.”

“No! Don’t you do that,” I said, grabbing her face and forcing her to look at me. “You see good in people, the world. Don’t ever let them take that from you. Do you hear me?”

“You don’t understand. A lot of this was about jealousy and sex. Stupid, average, sinful things. As a Christian family, we were supposed to be understanding, abstaining, and forgiving.”

“What the fuck? What do you mean a lot of this was about sex?” I swear to God if someone laid a hand on her, I was going to lose my fucking mind.

Her eyes stared straight ahead like she was no longer there with me. I recognized that look. It was the same look Sarah had when she—

“Aly!” I snapped, leaning over to use the button to push her bed up to seated. “You come back to me, you hear? Get angry, vent, cry, sleep, I don’t care, but don’t zone out on me. Okay? I need you here. I need you present. Please.”

She looked at me and squeezed my hand.

“Then I’m here.”

Of course, because she was the type to always look out for people. I thought she was in Seattle already when she texted me to meet up, but she wasn’t. She was going to come all the way back to Seattle to make sure I was okay. That made this all even worse.

“Explain to me how this had to do with sex?” I asked again. She hesitated but eventually her body went limp and she pulled away from me, staring straight ahead at the wall across from her.

“When I was fifteen,” she began, “I was lonely and wanted to be normal. I was just starting to turn into a woman, and I felt I wanted sex. I was confused and didn’t understand, but I wanted it, and you know me, stubborn with footin mouth syndrome, so I asked Brandon if he’d…you know, sleep with me. He said no and scolded me. Told me what a whore I was, a slut. I felt horrible and swore off sex. I did everything I could to be a good Christian girl and redeem myself, but then when I turned sixteen, I started to become a woman physically and Brandon started to become a man. He approached me after a night out and started touching me and stuff. He told me to have sex with him. I said no and pulled away. He hit me. Called me a slut and said I only do it when I want it and he was going to tell my father what I had said when I was fifteen. He didn’t. Until I threatened to leave for Seattle this time. He knew it was the ammo he needed to get my dad to go along with his plan to keep me here. I guess punishing me was just extra or something.”

“What?” I couldn’t process this. I just couldn’t. This was… God, this was awful.

“Yeah,” she said, pursing her lips. There was a long pause. “X?”

“Yeah?” I was blank faced and still trying to process all this.

“The elephant in the room.”

“Huh?”

“You came for me. How? How did you know where I was? Why in the world would you go through the trouble? You barely know me. You made it clear I didn’t belong in your world when you never came to me after that day. I never expected…”

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “For starters, I do barely know you, but somehow I do. In twenty-four hours, you managed to make me reconsider my whole life. You reminded me of a good friend. A friend who would have been so disappointed in who I became. My behaviors didn’t stop, but finally, I hated myself for them. I was no longer apathetic. The sex, the power I felt I had, meant nothing. You woke me the fuck up. I never came after you because you scared me. I lost the only friend I ever had. The only girl I ever loved. I knew I could feel that way about you too, so I let you leave. I came for you because when you reached out to me, I knew I made a mistake in letting you leave. I was excited to see you. When I saw that missing persons ad, I knew I had to find you. It was my only goal, the only thing I could think about. How I found you is a complicated and long story that I don’t think we should discuss right now, but what I will tell you is there is a woman in the lobby who, if she hadn’t been brave and spoken up, you’d still be trapped in that room.”

“My mom?” she asked, perking up. For the first time, she had a bit of hope in her voice.

“Yep, kid, your mom,” I said, rubbing her hair. “How about I go get her?” I turned to go.

“But, X?”

I turned back to her.

“Please don’t leave…don’t leave me,” she whispered.

I walked to her bed and grabbed both of her hands.

“Never again, Aly. You hear me? Never again.”

 

Somehow, seeing my mom made a little of the pain and hurt go away. Even though my body felt like it had been run over with a Macktruck six times, that wasn’t the part that hurt. What hurt was the fact that my dad and best friend locked me in a storage closet and tortured me for five days. I felt alone and unloved. Although X saving my life was a complete miracle, he wasn’t family. I wasn’t even sure he’d stay.

I talked to the police and told them my side of the story. My dad had already told his. It was my word against Dad and Brandon’s story. My injuries, I was told, aligned with both of our stories and I wondered what they told the police. What could they have possibly said that could explain what happened to me without incriminating them? Apparently, all my mom said was she didn’t know where I was and did feel her husband was capable of doing what I accused him of. She never really agreed with my story, so she wasn’t all that helpful. It was about collecting evidence now. The evidence I had a feeling they would twist to align with the person in close cahoots with the church and giving generous donations to the police department.

Mom felt so guilty. She apologized a hundred times, and I kept trying to tell her she had nothing to be sorry for. She saved my life by being brave and speaking against my father, but Mom was lost and scared. I hurt for her. I understood her pain. She felt alone and conflicted about her faith. She felt that she had failed me as a mother. I told her she hadn’t and that none of this was her fault. She needed to take care of herself. Not to mention she was going to have to be on the run from my father now. He wouldn’t be arrested and we weren’t sure what he was capable of. Both of us had thought he had a limit, but recent events proved otherwise.

That was the worst part. Mom’s life was now ruined too. After my talk with Mom, X walked in again. Mom went to get us all food, and I told her to be careful. I was worried what my father might do, and seeing as I had no way of knowing where he was, I wished my mom would just stay at the hospital. The minute X walked into my room, he sensed I was feeling troubled.

“You look more hurt now than you did when I first walked in. What’s happened?” He took a seat beside me.

I bit my lower lip and shook my head. I couldn’t trouble him with this.

“You can tell me, Aly,” he encouraged.

I looked over at him. His eyes were slightly lighter. Still dark as the night sky but not pitch black anymore.

“I can’t trouble you anymore than I already have,” I sighed.

“Aly, why did you agree to come back to Seattle?”

I looked at him. “I saw the headline. I was worried about you. I…”

He raised his eyebrows, and I got the point. I was going to be there for him because I cared. It was no trouble. There were no lengths I wouldn’t go. He was trying to do the same for me.

“Stubborn jerk,” I muttered.

He let out a deep laugh. “Wow, you’re getting salty.”

“I feel salty.”

“Talk to me. Come on. Maybe I can help.”

“Only if you agree to tell me how you are dealing with everything—the headline, I mean?”

“Done,” he said.

“And?” I emphasized.

“And?”

I bit my lip hard and looked down at my hands, trying to collect my strength. “Your real name. I want to know your name.”

He flung back like I’d shot him instead of simply asking for his name. He began to pace the room. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because, Aly. You’re poking the tiger here.”

“I’m just asking your name!”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“But, why?”

He looked at me. “Because he’s dead. That guy no longer exists.”

I looked at him and gestured for him to sit down and stop pacing. After a moment, he did.

“You don’t have to tell me your name,” I finally said. “But as long as you let me be in your life, I am going to work to prove to you your soul isn’t dead.” X went to argue, but I held up my hand. “By rejecting your name and associating every part of yourself with a persona, you are denying who you really are. I think X is cool, and I get why you go by it, but someone should know who you are. In here,” I said, putting my hand over his heart.

“Someone did… and she’s dead.”

I blinked. Dead? Who was dead? I knew I wouldn’t get that answer.

X never left my side. My fourth day in the hospital was the last time I saw Mom. X pulled strings and had her placed in protective custody. No one would tell me where Mom was going, and everyone said that it was for my protection that I didn’t know where Mom was. They said that if Dad ever found me, it would better if I didn’t know Mom’s whereabouts. Did they think I would care about the risk if it meant knowing where my mother was? However, I had an underlying suspicion that the reason no one would tell me anything wasbecause Mom didn’t want me to know where she was going. I wanted to go with her. She was the only family left, and I had nowhere else to go. When I asked if I could come, she said “no” in the most delicate way possible, as if that took any of the hurt away. She wanted to figure things out, and she said she couldn’t do that with me reminding her of how guilty she felt. I understood all too well what she meant, but it didn’t hurt any less, and it didn’t make me feel any less sure of what I was going to do next.

I spent a few more days in the hospital, and on the sixth day, the doctors told me I could leave in twenty-four hours. It took a while to get motion back in my limbs because of some nerve damage from the constant tasing. However, my range of motion was coming back now. It was just delayed. My cuts were healing, and I had received a lot of IV’s to rehydrate. My tailbone still hurt really bad, but that would heal in time. There wasn’t much else I could do there. The day of my departure had come and X walked in wearing a blue shirt and some black basketball shorts. Even in my body’s impaired physical state, I was attracted to him. Not fair. He looked really good.

“Hey,” he said with a smile, “I heard you get out tomorrow and they recommend counseling.”

“Yeah,” I frowned.

“Whoa,” he said, coming to face me. “What’s the frown for?”

I tried to hold back and give some politically correct answer, but all the feelings bubbling inside of me rose to the surface faster than I could stop them. Holding my tongue was not my specialty anyway, and the word vomit arose once more. I broke out in tears and sat at the edge of my bed with my face in my hands.

“I have nowhere to go. Mom didn’t want me. She loves me, but she doesn’t want me. Dad is crazy. My best friend is crazy. I know it doesn’t make sense that Brandon is, was, my best friend, but we’ve known each other since we were kids. He was fun when I was little, and he’s like the only person my parents approved of me hanging out with. I’ve known him forever. He was like a brother or something; I just accepted the good and the bad. Even when the good never really came anymore. Neither of them will get convicted, meaning my mom and I will always be on the run. I don’t feel safe. I’m alone. I have no money. I don’t know what to do.”

I felt guilty because X had his own problems. He told me about the headline, why he agreed, and how relieved he was to leave the boxing world, but still, it couldn’t have been easy for him.

X sat down and pulled me toward him. I laid my head on his shoulder for a second and then pulled away.

“I mean, I don’t even know where we stand. You’re here now, but you could leave at anytime. I don’t even know your name.”

“Axel,” he said gruffly. “My name… is Axel.”

My head shot up, and he looked at me so intensely, I almost felt like my soul was being drilledinto. He told me his name.

Before I could respond, he put his finger under my chin and tilted my head up.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I felt like I could cry all over again, but I didn’t. I smiled.

“I love your smile,” he said.

My smile widened. “I love your name so much. X is cool, really cool, but Axel...is you,” I whispered. “X is who you are in public, but Axel is who you are in here,” I said with my hand on his heart.

He closed his eyes when I touched him, and an unfamiliar feeling of lust shot through my body. I pulled away, instantly unsure. I squeezed my legs together to try and ease some of the discomfort.

“By the way, I’d never tell anyone. Never. Ever.”

“I know,” he said. “Now let’s change the subject. I need time to adjust to that name being back in my orbit. Real quick, though, Aly, never call me Axel in public. Understood?”

“I wouldn’t want to,” I said. “Because you aren’t Axel in public.”

He smiled smugly and nodded. “Now there is another reason I told you my name. This reason will also solve most of the above problems you listed.”

“What?”

“I know a place you will be safe and allow me the resources I need to get your father and Brandon convicted.”

“Where? Where in the world does a place like this exist?”

X stared off into the distance with a haunted look on his face. His hands bundled into fists by his sides, and then he turned back towards me, guarded.

“My parents’ house.