Travis’s parting words ring in my ears as I sit in bed icing my foot.

“It’s a reminder. And a warning.”

Beast.

Somehow, the warning suddenly seems like the universe is directing it at me.

As much as I wish I could lie to myself — as much as I wish I could pretend otherwise — my unexpected encounter with Travis just now has gotten under my skin much more than I wanted it to.

Yesterday, seeing him after all these years was unpleasant. More than unpleasant: it was excruciating. The anger and hostility radiating off him when he realized it was me was terrible. I wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. It took a supreme effort just to put on a shell of indifference and wait for him to leave the diner.

But as awful as yesterday was? Today was almost worse.

At least yesterday, I knew Travis hated me. I knew he’d do anything he could to avoid me while I was in town. And as bad as it was to have to see him again, at least it ripped the Band-Aid off and got it over with. There was almost a comfort in having the whole ugly episode in my rearview mirror.

Now?

Well, now, I have absolutely no idea how he feels about me anymore. Beyond probably thinking that I’m an incredible klutz who’s too dumb to figure out a safe place to run. I mean, he definitely seems to still have some anger toward me. But if he totally hated me, he never would have stopped to help me in the first place.

Or insisted on driving me back here. Or helping me upstairs. He even got me ice for my ankle.

Why would he do that?

Don’t be ridiculous, Brooke. He was just being nice.

Yeah, maybe. But a guy who has more tattoos than God and is a member of what looks to be an outlaw motorcycle club isn’t likely to do things just to be nice.

Groaning, I fling myself onto my side on the mattress in frustration. I actually wish I could go back to being sure he hated me. Because that way, my traitorous brain wouldn’t start thinking ridiculous, impossible things.

Things like imagining what would have happened between us if I’d never left Tanner Springs.

Things like imagining what might have happened just now if Travis had never left my hotel room.

I remember the first time I ever saw him. I was twelve years old, and he was riding around on a dirt bike on the gravel roads of our mobile home park. I’d never seen him around before, and I’d lived there all my life, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t from the neighborhood. I watched him silently from the safety of my front yard, in awe of this boy who seemed to embody everything that was effortlessly cool to a girl my age. He was handsome, and athletic, and just seemed imbued with a confidence I was sure I would never possess. He never once looked in my direction that day as he rode around and around. I probably would have died of embarrassment if he had. He seemed like the kind of kid who led a charmed life. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.

How I envied him.

My home life wasn’t exactly ideal, which is probably why I was given to fantasizing about how other kids lived. It wasn’t so much that we were poor, although I took my share of being made fun of by the richer kids for the second-hand clothes I wore. I could deal with that, though. What made my home a rough place to be that summer was that my mom had recently taken up with a man who drank. And when he drank, he sometimes hit her. Stephen — who my mom encouraged me to call my stepdad — would often stay out until all hours of the night with his buddies at the bar. When he came home, sometimes he was angry and spoiling for a fight. On those nights, the noise of him yelling at my mom would wake me up — and sometimes the neighbors, too.

A lot of the time, though, when he came home he was quiet. And when he was quiet, every once in a while, he would come into my room. At first, he’d just come in and stand by the door, and I’d pretend to be asleep. But eventually, he’d start coming further in. One night, he sat down on my bed, my thin mattress sinking under his weight. He reached under the covers. His rough hand brushed against my leg. When he touched me, I froze. Paralyzed, I lay there in terror as he slid his hand forward and touched me in a place no one had ever touched me before. I was still pretending to be asleep, but he whispered to me that I could never tell my mom about it. That she’d never believe me anyway.

That night, after he finally left my room, I lay awake, scrunched up in a little ball, and wished I was a boy. A boy who could fight, and defend myself. A boy like the one with the dirt bike, strong and confident.

But then, I’d realize that if I was a boy, I might grow up to be a man like my stepfather. A man who would touch little girls in their sleep.

I told myself that not all men could be like that. It wasn’t possible. Some of them had to be the kind who would never do what Stephan had just done.

But the problem was, I didn’t know if it was true.

I didn’t see Travis again until almost four years later, when I was a sophomore in high school and he was a junior. I noticed him one day outside the front doors to the school, before first bell. He looked so familiar, but it took me a few seconds to realize why. He’d grown, of course — he’d gone from a still-gangly thirteen year-old to a tall, handsome seventeen. He towered over the other kids in his grade, and seemed older than even the seniors. His voice had deepened, too. I remember being struck, again, by how at ease he seemed. How his peers deferred to him, out of respect and maybe a little fear. I found myself staring, just as I had the first time in the mobile home park. Only this time, somehow Travis must have felt my gaze. Because suddenly he turned in my direction and locked eyes with me.

And winked.

Oh, God, I was humiliated. I was convinced he was winking at me like an adult winks at a child. He seemed years and years older than I was, and so… manly. By comparison I felt small, and impossibly young. I fled inside the school building seconds later, feeling silly and ridiculous. I avoided him like the plague after that.

That’s not to say I didn’t think about him. I definitely did. Travis was the first boy I ever fantasized about. I would construct elaborate daydreams about him being secretly in love with me. I imagined him kissing me — closing my eyes and pretending by touching my lips to the skin of my forearm. He was the boy whose heart I wanted to capture, more than anything.

And, miracle of miracles, I did.

But by that time, it was too late.

By that time, I had discovered the hard way that underneath every man’s harmless exterior, there lies a beast.

And now, the universe is back, with a reminder that Travis is no exception.

* * *

An hour later, my foot is feeling better. Which is a relief, because I am already sick to death of flipping through cable channels trying to keep my mind off Travis.

Tossing the remote onto the bed, I stand up and test putting weight on my right ankle. There’s a little twinge, but nothing major. I take a few experimental steps. I’m still limping a bit, but I think it will probably be fine by morning.

My stomach is rumbling, so food is going to be an issue soon. I decide to break my normal rule about fast food and go through a drive-through. And after that, I’ll head over to the mini-mall and see whether the laundromat is open today.

Since I’m still covered in dry sweat after my run, I take a shower, wash my hair, and do a quick blow-dry with the hair dryer the hotel has provided. I almost get dressed in the suit I was wearing yesterday, but at the last second I decide that if the laundromat is open, I want to do a little recon before I pay them an official visit. So instead, I throw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from my bag. Then, because I don’t have any dirty laundry to wash except the running clothes I was wearing earlier, I pull the comforter off the bed and strip the sheets.

Tossing my running clothes into the middle of the pile, I wind the sheets into a ball and tie the ends together to make it easy to carry. I go to the safe in the closet and pull out my pistol and holster, strapping them on. Finally, I root around in my bag for a zip-up hoodie and throw that on to cover up the gun.

I take the stairs down to the first floor. It’s slow going since I’m still limping, but I don’t want one of the hotel staff to see me and think I’m trying to steal their linens. I go out one of the lesser-used side entrances of the hotel and toss my bundle in the back of my car. When I get to the mini-mall, instead of stopping right away, I do a first pass by the laundromat. I see that it looks open today. I make a right at the next street and turn around, then enter the parking lot from the other direction. Parking my car a few doors down, I get my laundry from the trunk and go inside.

The place looks like a functioning laundromat, at least. There are rows of washers in the middle of the room, and some high capacity machines along the wall to one side. On the other side is a bank of dryers. The appliances look to be on the older side. I wonder if this place has been here since I was a kid. I have no memory of it, but that’s not too surprising. The mobile home park I lived in was over on the far north edge of town. I wouldn’t have come here to do laundry even if it was open back then.

I’m unsurprised to see that there aren’t any other customers here doing laundry, given the lack of cars in the lot. At first, I think I’m the only person in the place, but then the sound of something slamming in the back tells me I’m not alone. Realizing I need to start acting like a customer, I look around for a change machine, and am just feeding a five-dollar bill through the slot when a withered-looking woman with frizzy goldish-red hair and drawn-on eyebrows comes out of a door in the back. I don’t make eye contact, just get my change and go over to one of the washers. After a moment, she seems to lose interest in me and goes back out through the same door.

Now that I’ve been seen, I decide it’s probably best to actually do this load of laundry. I check the controls and select the shortest cycle. I put my sheets and running clothes in, then settle in to wait.

I spend the next half-hour fiddling with my phone and drinking a warmish diet Coke I bought from the machine next to the change dispenser. When I get bored with that, I flip through some ancient magazines I find on a folding table. No customers come in. The only person who enters from the front is a heavy-browed man in his early twenties, who scowls at me as he passes and goes straight through to the back.

My wash cycle ends, and I pull everything out and start the dryer cycle. The heavy-browed man comes out of the back and leaves, not looking at me at all this time. I walk around the place, scanning for anything unusual or unexpected. I notice the business license taped to the wall by the front desk. The owner is listed as M.L. Stephanos.

I wait until the dryer cycle is almost finished. There’s been no sound or movement from the back room in quite a while. Quietly, casually, I wander toward the back, past the closed door the woman went in. Beyond that, there’s a long hallway. The place is bigger than I thought from the outside. It seems to take up the entire L-shaped wing of this side of the building. There are other doors in the hallway, all closed, made of heavy wood. I try a few; all are locked.

I arrive at the end of the hallway, and see there’s a stairway leading down to a basement. Taking a quick look backwards, I silently descend the stairs.

It’s dark, but I don’t dare turn on a light switch. Instead, I get out my phone and find the flashlight app. When I turn it on, I see that the basement is massive, and empty. Strangely empty, in fact. There’s basically nothing in here at all. No old machines, no shelves for parts, no laundry orders. It seems weird that they’d have all this space available and not have anything in it.

I walk around the perimeter, stepping quietly and sweeping my phone flashlight around. As I do, I start to realize that the space, as well as being empty, seems oddly clean. There’s not really any dirt on the floor, or cobwebs, or anything like that. In a way, it looks less unused, and more… recently vacated. Maybe it’s my overactive imagination, but it just doesn’t feel right to me.

Then, as I’m passing the light across the floor, a small silver circle flashes in the darkness. I walk over and bend to look at an object stuck in the corner.

It’s a ring. A cheap one, costume jewelry. The bauble on the top is iridescent, a small round bubble with shimmery flakes inside it. It looks almost like a tiny snow globe, frozen in time.

As I reach down to pick it up, footsteps sound on the stairs. I grab the ring and shove it into the back pocket of my jeans.

Lights come on, illuminating the entire basement in a dull, yellow glare. “What the hell are you doing down here?” the old woman snaps.

“I’m so sorry,” I stammer, thinking fast. “I was looking for the bathroom.”

“Are you stupid?” she spits. “Bathroom is upstairs. First door on the right.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. Quickly, I walk to the stairs and start climbing. “I guess I must have missed it somehow.” I flash her a bright smile. “Weak bladder.”

I hurry past her before she can ask me any more questions. Once I’m back upstairs, I rush down the hallway and find the bathroom. I close myself in and lock the door, then make myself pee. After I flush, I make sure to make plenty of noise washing up and using the hand dryer. I go back out into the main room of the laundromat, where the woman is now standing at the front desk, glaring at me. I go to my dryer and open it. I still have five more minutes left in the cycle, but the sheets are dry enough. Grabbing them into a ball, I head for the front door, nodding a hasty goodbye to the woman.

I drive straight back to the hotel, going back in through the side entrance. Once I’m upstairs and in my room, I toss the laundry in a heap on the bed and take the ring out of my pocket.

Sitting down in the lone chair next to the window, I hold it up and stare at it, twirling it around in my fingers and watching the sun hit it as I think.