Chapter Two
Paige
Four Years and Seven Months Later
Breathe. Punch. Breathe. Kick. Breathe. Uppercut. Breathe. High knee. Breathe. Head kick. Breathe. Superman punch. Breathe—
“Wells!” Graham’s voice was a meek echo behind the blaring rock music.
I turned my head from the two-hundred-fifty-pound dummy to Graham, the owner of the gym. He was in his fifties with a full head of dark hair, dusted by a few grays. He was the mastermind behind what we called the Dungeon. The small back room in the gym with mats, kickboxing equipment, and a cage. Exclusive members trained here, but mostly after hours.
Removing my boxing gloves, I ran over to the sound system and nixed the music. “Yeah?”
“It’s nine thirty,” Graham said.
“Oh, no problem, Ham. I’ll have it ready.”
“Ham?” Roxie stood at the door with her bright pink gym bag slung over one shoulder. It was the only thing girlie about her muscular five-foot-seven physique.
“Yeah, because, you know, he goeshamon the bag,” I said, doing a little punching motion.
“What? I’ve been training here for two years, and I’m just now hearing about this Ham nickname?”
“Are you trying nott o get paid tonight, Wells?”
“What? No way.” I turned to Roxie. “I meant, he likes ham, like bacon or when I say ham and cheese sandwich—”
“Wells—”
“Working.” I smiled, running up to the container of disinfecting wipes. The dummy was the last thing I needed to wipe down, and I had started to earlier, but then it’d looked at me the wrong way. Okay, so it hadn’t looked at me the wrong way.
“I need a sparring partner tonight, Ham—Graham,” Roxie said.
Graham threw his hands up in defeat. “Fine, just make sure the gym’s ready for the 5:00 a.m. crew.”
My heart swelled, and a smile stretched across my face. “Will do.”
Roxie winked at me, catching her long black hair up into a ponytail and winding it around into a tight bun. She knew how much I enjoyed training with her group at night.
This was my safe house, and these were my family. They just didn’t know it.
“Hell yeah,” Andy said, marching into the room. “Just the motivation I need tonight. You know, Paige, it would really help me to know when to ask you out if you worked a less flexible schedule. Are you free Friday night?”
Andy was a six-foot UFC middleweight champion. All his fights ended with a knockout. Lethal.
So, I wasn’t joking when I said, “Sorry, but maybe if you were a ballet dancer, things could work out between us, but seeing that you aren’t . . .”
“Ballet dancer? Over this?” Andy flexed his tattooed biceps, and Popeye the Sailor Man looked like he’d swallowed a can of spinach as he enlarged.
“She doesn’t date clients,” Graham said, sitting at a small desk in the corner.
My boss was right. I didn’t date clients or anyone. Period. Dating meant I would have to talk about myself—my past, my family, my life, why I took three metros to get home when I only needed one.
Shit. Breathe, Paige. Breathe.
“And don’t even ask because the pretty blonde is sparring with me,” Roxie announced, walking toward me.
Three more members had arrived and were stuffing their gym bags onto the wooden shelves.
“You good?” Roxie asked.
“Yeah, I just remembered I didn’t do a class assignment I’d thought I did.” My go-to answer. I’d been using that excuse for years since my anxiety began happening. It was the easiest explanation to remember when I pulled myself out of it.
A little after midnight, I closed the gym and headed home. And, like a thief in the night, I entered the old brick building, watching either end of the corridor as I pushed the key into my lock. A menacing doom crawled over my spine, and I hurried inside. My apartment leases were kept at six months or less so I could contain this feeling because any longer than six months, and I knew they would find me.
The men. The killers.
Pulling the handgun from my backpack, I closed one of the locks on my door. My backpack was my lifeline; it always held a change of clothes and my toiletries. Some nights my anxiety—it—would be so bad, I would opt not to return home. But when I did return, I would investigate. I turned. The coat closet first. Then the kitchen cupboards. The bathroom cupboards. I left the shower curtain open for this reason; a figure standing in my bath behind a curtain was almost too scary to bear. Next, it was under the bed and then the closet, which I also left opened. The window, the fire escape, and back to the front door. Close one, two, three, and four latches. Reentering apartment routine completed.
I almost felt safe.
But knowing they weren’t here, inside my studio apartment, was something. I switched on the pipe in my bath and caught the first whiff of lavender. After a few minutes of soaking and reading, a car honked, making me jump. Crazy because, in the city of Boston, honking horns were standard. But that was how I knew it was going to be one of those nights. The nights where just the sound of the AC switching on would make my heart race.
In slow motion, I exited the bathtub, dried myself, and slipped into shorts and a tank. My body remained on high alert as I went to my door to listen to the other side. After two minutes of listening and not hearing anything, I went to lay down.
As I was about to drift off, I could feel them. Climbing the fire escape, dressed in all black, moving with precision from years of practice, years of patience, waiting for the right moment to come back and finish what they’d started. At the sound of a door closing, I reached for the compact 9mm under my extra pillow and scrambled out of bed. Whatever happened, I needed to see them coming. Needed to stay vigilant.
Normal people called it paranoia. I called it advantage. Because I could feel it in my gut. They’d found me. They were coming. I used to pray that the men who had killed my family would get caught. Some days, I wished I could kill them myself. I hadn’t had the heart to do it back then, and I still didn’t know if I had the heart. The one thing I knew was that it was safer to keep running, even with the constant battle in my head.
The sane voice encouraged, It’s time to pack up and go, while the revenge-centered voice crooned, Stay this time. You are ready. They did this to you. Take back what they took from you.
Inhaling, I pushed my curtains aside. Nothing in the darkened alley. Walking to my front door, I lifted the paper covering the peephole. No one I could see in the empty hallway. I turned my back to the corner between the coat closet and front door and slid down to the floor, gun still in my hand and knees to my chest.
I could run as fast as I could and never escape the fear.
Fear would always find me because it was threaded deep inside me.