Chelsea woke from a deep slumber. It felt like climbing out of a cave. Hand over foot she pulled herself from sleep to waking and opened her eyes. The room around was bathed in muted blues and reds and whites from the towels and blankets Blue had hung to cover the windows. Still half asleep, she stretched out her muscles.
She felt a painful ache in her arm and glanced down to see a ring of bruises on her pale arm. They were the imprints Jimmy’s fingers had left when he had tried to take her. She shuddered as she thought about where she would be right now if Blue hadn’t saved her. Had the same thing happened to Jamie? Had she been pulled from safety so roughly?
Chelsea turned over in bed, expecting Blue to be lying there next to her, but she was met with disappointment. Blue was gone. His side of the bed was empty and cold and Chelsea couldn’t help but frown. And then she heard soft music playing. It had a quiet country lilt to it, a guitar and a man singing, nothing more, nothing less. Then the smell of toast of bacon wafted toward her and she sat up in bed.
She ran her hands through her messy hair as she pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. She walked out of the bedroom and padded into the kitchen. In the bright morning sunlight, Blue was standing by the stove nudging at bacon that was frying in the pan.
“Good morning,” she said kissing him lightly on the cheek before pouring herself a nice cup of coffee. “This is an excellent way to wake up,” Chelsea sat down at the table and watched him cook.
“You were out when I woke up this morning, I thought I’d let you sleep,” Blue said.
He put two fried eggs, three strips of bacon and buttered toast on plates for himself and Chelsea and then sat down. The food looked and smelled delicious and Chelsea couldn’t even wait for it to cool down before digging in. She never ate like this in LA. In California it was all detox teas and chia seeds and very little actual eating.
It was perfect, but the horrible thoughts she had been forced to endure still haunted her. The fight was tomorrow. Hopefully she could get Jamie back and then she could get out of this town and never, ever come back. No more fighting pits, no more mobsters. Chelsea never even wanted to hear the word Snowbird again. She looked over at Blue who was eating quickly and glancing at his phone.
She wanted to ask him how he was. She wanted to talk about the millions of things that were left in the air between them. But Blue was not the kind of guy who was big on talking.
“You know I would never leach off of you, right?” Blue asked. His question came from nowhere, but Chelsea guessed that his father’s words from the other day had made more of an impact that either had suspected.
“I know,” Chelsea said and she meant it; she knew that Blue would never take advantage of her or use her in any way.
“I’ve had that happen to me. My whole childhood my dad was constantly reminding me that nothing was free. Once I started winning the fights he started charging me for rent and utilities and food. He back charged me, too. I started off with a debt of twenty-thousand dollars. It was, in his words, an estimate on how much he had spent raising me. And no matter how many fights I won or how hard I worked the number never really went anywhere. He would even charge me the gas it took to get to the fights. When I walked out at eighteen I had a bill with him totaling about thirteen thousand dollars.”
“I’m so sorry,” Chelsea said. “Parents aren’t supposed to profit from their children.”
“But I know what it’s like to have someone live off you. I would never do that to you, Chelsea. I’m not looking for a hand out; I can take care of myself.” He glanced up at her as he said this and Chelsea had to fight to hold back tears.
“I know, Blue. And you need to know that when it comes to your dad I don’t ever believe a word that comes out of his mouth. Always and forever I’m on your side. His words don’t mean anything to me and they never will. It’s just these complications with my record contract and I can work through those. You just need to give me some time.”
Chelsea hadn’t been thinking about her record contract at all in the last few days. Her sister was missing and that was all she could think about. But, at the same time, Snowbird was so different from LA that it hadn’t been hard to forget about the life she had over there. But she knew her manager wasn’t going to go away and the longer Chelsea spent away, the worse it would get. She just needed to get Jamie and then get the hell out.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door and she couldn’t help but jump. Her house didn’t feel safe anymore. Shadows loomed in the corners and the furnace in the basement rumbled and cracked and each noise sounded like the footfalls from an intruder.
“It’s just Paul,” Blue said standing up and walking over to the door. He checked the peephole, but still Chelsea could feel as fear pumped adrenaline through her veins.
Her heart was pounding and she was ready to jump out of her seat in a second if she needed to. Blue opened the door and, true to his word, it was just Paul who walked quickly into the house. He didn’t look like the Paul from high school anymore, though. He was wearing a well-made suit that fit easily over his large frame with a bright blue tie and a briefcase in one hand.
“Hey Chelsea, how you doing? I heard about last night,” Paul said as he sat down at the table with them.
“I’m all right,” Chelsea said with a nod. But the truth was, she only felt all right because Blue was with her. She didn’t know what she would do if he was suddenly gone.
“So, I went down to the police station and did some digging,” Paul said as he opened up a black file and began laying papers out on the table. “The only thing I had to go on was guys from Detroit and that wasn’t a lot. So I did a search on people who had been arrested in the last few years and had a Detroit address. There were nineteen men. Five of them were arrested for meth possessions, eight for petty theft, three for outstanding child support, and three for inciting violence. I think the last three are our best bets. But, I gotta warn you, these are low level guys. The bosses never get arrested for stuff like this.”
“We’ll take anything,” Chelsea said.
“First guy’s name is Mitch Reiser. He was arrested about two years ago for inciting violence; he did three months and then got out. The second guy was named Matthew Thomas, same charge, but he had a bunch of priors, so he got five years and is still serving them. The third guy was named Billy Rudd; this was his first offense and he just got probation. I think Mitch is our best bet. He’s living in a tenement house on the other side of town. No employment to speak of, but he’s riding around in a pretty decent car, so he’s got money coming in from somewhere.”
“So his bosses came here from Detroit and they brought him along?” Blue asked.
“A muscle to do all the dirty work,” Paul agreed with a nod. He looked between Chelsea and Blue and said, “I don’t feel good about telling you this. I don’t want you guys mixed up in whatever horror show the boys from Detroit have cooked up. If something is up, you need to go to the police. You don’t want to end up down the rabbit hole on this one. These are dangerous people who don’t mind hurting others.”
“Yeah,” Chelsea said. “We know.”
Paul looked between Blue and Chelsea, “You know, I always hoped the two of you would get together. I just never imagined it would be like this.”
“Neither did I,” Chelsea said, “but we’re doing the best we can.” She smiled up at Blue, but she couldn’t help but wonder what the rest of their lives would look like. The foundation of their relationship was the friendship they shared in high school; it had been sweet and innocent, but now it was tainted by something dark. The fighting pits, Jamie’s kidnapping, Chelsea’s own attack, they would forever be linked to this time with Blue. It was the beginning of their real relationship. She should have felt giddy and lightheaded and, most of all, joyously, overwhelmingly happy. But Terrance and his fights had ruined it. He had turned what should’ve been a happy time into something dark and twisted. They had spent the first days of their relationship not wrapped up in each other, but searching for her missing sister and following false leads to dead ends.
Every time Chelsea thought of Terrance her heart pounded and her blood boiled. She hated him. She had never hated anyone as much as she hated him. She wanted to hit him and shake him and ask him how he could so casually do all of these terrible things. If her mother did insist on marrying Terrance than Chelsea was done with her. As long as Colleen was with Terrance, Chelsea didn’t have a mother.