Plainfield started to poke into view. The little town was just coming to life, and Dawn saw a woman walking a terrier mix as the gate went up on Harper’s Bakery. The scent of bagels and Danish drifted to her nose. A different time in the same place and she would have whispered for Cade to stop so that they could grab a bite to eat. The thought of feeding him and feeling his fingers doing the same brought a smile to her lips. However, for right now, they had to keep moving, and Dawn tightened her grip around his waist as she moaned into his neck.
“You remember the way to my place?” she asked.
“I remember everything about you, Dawn,” he assured her. “Still hope that we can get in and out before time.”
“I know,” she muttered. “Sorry I got you mixed up in this.”
“Not on you,” he said. “Soon enough it’ll all be in the past.”
Wanting to believe that, she held her breath as he pushed his bike into park. He helped her to ground, his fingers just touching her bandaged cheek.
“And when this heals, no more,” he said. “I’ll kill anyone who tries to cut you again.”
“Think I want it to happen again?” she tried to tease. “We’re on the same page with that.”
“Sure you’ll find a way to spin it.”
Dawn pursed her lips, and she started to tug at his collar when his fingers enveloped her hand. He brought his kiss to her wrist, and Dawn sighed into him as she managed a small laugh.
“At least where no one else can find it, right?” he asked.
The Alpha arched his eyebrow, and she started to tell him that there was still their story to tell when her mind moved back to the task at hand. Find the notes. Get back to base and keep moving forward.
“Let’s do this.”
Holding his hand, Dawn’s soul curdled in her chest when she found the door already unlocked. They exchanged a quick glance, and Cade pushed her behind his back as he drew his knife and slowly stepped into her apartment.
“Oh no!” Dawn gasped. “Shit!”
The place was in shambles, every piece of furniture overturned and papers littering the floor. Even in the state of complete disarray, Dawn knew what she was after, what she needed to find most, and she fell to her knees, crawling through the refuse when she reached the drawer overturned from her desk. A few things here and there. Junk mail that she had never bothered to open. Her last few paper bills that would be righted come the next payday. But beyond that, nothing. Especially not the thing that she… that they wanted and needed most, and Dawn pounded a furious fist into the floor.
“We’re too late,” she said. “He already has them.” Tears started to fill her eyes, and she struggled to her feet, her pain back in full force when Cade took her into his arms and turned her around to face him.
“And what?” he asked. “That it?”
“Cade, he has the leverage now,” Dawn said. “So we should go back and run and—”
“Are you really saying that?” he asked. “Since when did you go down without a fight?”
Dawn’s chin drooped to her chest, and Cade made her look at him, sighing as he smiled.
“This was you’re thing,” he reminded her. “Looks to me like to me that this is recent.”
“How do you—?”
“Room doesn’t feel cold enough,” he said. “And that window there is wide open.”
Dawn stepped into the breeze, and she brought the glass down to the sill as she smoothed her hands down the sides of the sweatpants and slowly nodded her head.
“Maybe you should be the reporter,” Dawn said. “You’re highly observant.”
“But only you know all the facts,” Cade said. “Now where do we go?”
Sure she knew the facts. Dawn wrapped her arms around her chest.
“Hey?” he crooned. “Come on now.”
Cade took her into his arms, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Michael did this,” she said. “Hurt me. Let them do what they did to me. And I don’t know what…”
Cade held her closer and let her cry for a few long moments. She grew calmer in his arms, and Dawn offered no resistance when he made her meet his eyes as he fondled her face.
“Sure you do,” he said. “Lead the way, and we can still take him down.”
Dawn wiped her eyes and sniffled, as she felt the room growing warmer
“How fast can you ride?” she asked.
“As fast as you need me to,” he said. “Don’t you know that by now?”
“Cade, I…”
She wound her arms around her waist, as he trailed his kiss into her hair, and Dawn only looked up as he touched her bandage.
“There might be a scar,” he said.
“I don’t want that.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “But you earned the mark. So let’s see what you can do with it.”
Cade said nothing else as he ushered her out of her wrecked apartment, and they were nearly back at his bike when she paused before him and just held his hand.
“I think I know where he is,” Dawn said. “Don’t know if I can take him down.”
“Then I will,” he said as he flashed his knife. “You do the talking, and I’ll be your muscle.”
“You’re much more than that.”
Cade helped her onto the bike. Pushing the pedal and revving up his motor, more and more of Plainfield came to life. She smelled flowers hitting the sidewalks and saw yellow busses starting their rounds to take the little ones to school. They had to make this right before the kids were kicking to the sky on their swings, and she whispered for Cade to move faster when he spun into the turn.
Cade leapt away from the sloped seat and gathered her into his arms as they moved to the main door.
“Sure he’s here?” Cade asked as she punched in the code on the keypad, dragging Cade behind her as she felt stronger with each step.
“Only place he would be,” Dawn said. “Especially if he thinks he has a scoop.”
Her office rivalled her apartment. Drawers overturned. A variety of pages everywhere. So he had to have started there, and then he kept moving forward to get the goods. Dawn knew that he had her notes in his hands, and she stomped towards his office and kicked the door open to find him smirking against the space of his fax machine when he made contact with her eyes.
“Dawn,” he said, trying to play her presence off like it was nothing but expected. He let the pages, the notes that Dawn saw clearly down near the fax, as his brow furrowed into what he had to hope would look like total concern.
“You’re hurt,” he continued. “Should really get that looked at.”
He tried to touch her when she batted him back, and Cade hung closer to her back as he curled his fingers around her arm.
“She’s been seen,” Cade seethed. “But you wanted the damage to be far more permanent, right?”
Michael stepped back, laughing through a smirk as he tapped his hand to his hair. He had told her that the best stories were always written in blood, but she had never thought that her crimson was bound to be his preferred brand of ink, and she held Cade back as she took a step closer.
“Listening to the grease monkey now, Dawn?” Michael said. “I…I mean I know that you’ve been off on a lost weekend or whatever. But this is not how you tell the—”
“Then give me back my notes,” Dawn challenged. “It’s my story. I’ll tell it best.”
Michael laughed in her face, and Cade started to charge forward when Dawn held her hand up and pressed him back.
“Your story that you sent me to snatch and grab,” Dawn said.
“You came out okay,” Michael said. “Bet there won’t even be a mark.”
“So sure, Michael?”
Ripping the gauze from her cheek, wincing as she tore the tape from her skin, Dawn flung the bloodied bandage aside and let her wound fill the room as she stared him down. Michael winced as her skin dripped and narrowed her eyes.
“Should I lower my pants?” she asked. “Because I have other marks that will never go away.”
Michael gulped, and he tried to take her hand when Dawn drew her fingers back and felt stronger as she stared him down.
“Dawn, I told them not to touch you like that,” he said. “Never wanted you raped or—”
“They did it to me without one dick!” Dawn said. “But I’m still going to pay for it.”
Michael sniffled as her words hit his ears, and she saw him trying to wrap his mind around what had been done to her.
“I…I’m sorry, Dawn,” he said. “But…but the story still needs to be…”
He rushed away, and Dawn’s heart caught in her throat. Who was he trying to send her notes to? What would they do with the story? Probably worse than anything that Michael might have in mind, and Dawn charged to his side. Tearing the pages out of his hands, she held him to the floor and slapped his face.
“Your story!” she hissed. “Boys might have worked it all out if you hadn’t set me in their sights.”
“Because I believed in you!” Michael cried. “Thought that you could get to—”
“And I did!” Dawn screamed. “Why do you think that I’m still here now?”
Michael had no words, and Cade was at her side. He stayed a few inches back as he touched her arms, and Dawn shot a quick glance into his eyes before moving her gaze back to Michael’s trembling face.
“It’s because of him,” Dawn said. “He saved me. And he said I should I come and hunt you down.”
Dawn felt strong until Michael wriggled to the other side of the room. He lifted his fists to his face, and she felt that he was crying as Cade helped her back to his feet.
“Dawn?”
She rested her head to his chest and savored the feel of his arms surrounding her body.
“I don’t want this for you,” he whispered. Stunned, she looked up into this eyes and started to shake her head when he kissed her wound and started to fold her deeper into his arms. “Get the notes. Let’s just go,” he said. “The others will be waiting.”
Her mind turned to Nicole readjusting Lenny’s sling and even Atticus trying to hold his own as the Alphas readied to take off. Enough of a mess to deal with, and Dawn scurried to collect her words stepping over Michael and back again when he grabbed her ankle and held her where she stood.
“Let go of me!”
“Listen!” Michael cried. She saw Cade’s knife racing through the air over her head, and Dawn caught the handle in her fingers. Cade blanched, but Dawn stayed strong as she started to press the blade closer to his ripe vein.
“You won’t do it,” he said. “You won’t kill me. Dawn?” Michael squirmed away from her hold as he started to speak. “You’re smart,” Michael said. “And even if…even if this one is rocking your world, you have to know that being with him will only end up being bad for you.”
Dawn pretended to agree, hoping that Cade was in on the joke when Michael summoned whatever strength he had left and turned her away from Cade’s arms.
“Stay with me,” Michael said, he as caressed her wound and whispered into her ear. “With what you know, we can make our mark. Every man, woman, and child will know Plainfield for what it is.”
“They will?” she asked. “They would know that is was place where gangs lurked behind trees and the
men and women meant to tell the story skimped on the details until it was too late to say anything else?”
And that held a kind of appeal in her eyes as she grabbed his neck and peered into his eyes.
“And you would make them scared?” Dawn asked. “Why not just let the gangs run off so this could be home again?”
When Michael had no answer, at least not one that wasn’t fast or slick enough, Dawn grabbed Cade’s knife again, and she pointed the blade to Michael’s heart.
“Hold up, Dawn!” Cade cried. “You don’t want to—”
“I want the Alphas to have a chance,” she started. “And I want you to bury the story because he engineered it.”
Michael started to wilt under the force of her stare, and Dawn wanted him to say the right thing when he growled and pushed her back into Cade’s arms. Cade stayed strong and held her before she could hit the ground. Cade kissed her injured cheek, and he held her closer to his side as he took the knife still in her hand.
“Dawn? Don’t do—”
“She won’t,” Michael managed. “I warned you once not to step into anything that you can’t handle. And, Dawn, there is no way in hell that you can handle—”
Before she knew what was happening, she pushed the knife close to his chest. Michael backed away, terrified that she was so close to making the move. Then Dawn passed the blade back to Cade and forced a smirk.
“Don’t think that I wouldn’t have,” she whispered. “You were the one who said that I was like a superhero or something. Well, mission accomplished, Boss. I was born to land the story, and the scoop is mine.”
Cade tilted his head to the side, his eyes flashing with awe, as she calmly collected the notes and stuffed them under her arms.
Michael charged forward as they started to leave, and Cade wheeled back around, bringing the tip of the knife close to Michael’s throat, drawing a slight stream of blood.
“I can still make it hard for you in these parts,” Michael threatened. “You make one wrong move and the Panthers will—”
“Three are no Panthers,” Dawn proudly said as the color drained from Michael’s face. “So you and your toy cops will have to play another game.”
With the notes in one hand, and Cade’s hand in the other, they started to leave the office when Michael recovered to the point to ask her what her next move was now.
“Go on the run with him?” he barked. “Give up any chance of a career to be his…his what? His fucking mole?”
Dawn turned on her heel, and Michael flinched as she took another step back to him. Any pain inflicted by Cade’s rivals became non-existent, and she almost hoped for a permanent mark on her cheek when her lips expanded into a smile.
“The proper term is old lady,” she told him. “And no worries, Boss. I got the Alphas watching my back now. And maybe one day you’ll see the byline and realize what a perfect story you had and lost.”
Dawn let Cade’s arm fall around her shoulders, and they left Michael in the dust as they headed back to his bike.