I walked through the doors of the hotel and put a big smile on my face. I had my main bag on one shoulder and my laptop case and camera bag on my other shoulder. I walked to the front counter and the man behind the counter recognized me and greeted me with an extra big smile.

“Traveling late tonight?” he asked.

“A little,” I said.

“Lots of work?”

“Always,” I said.

“Let’s see what we have for you, Miss…White.”

His name was Robert, and he winked at me.

I was able to get the room under a fake name, but I used real cash to pay for it. He knew that my name was Hazel. But he thought I was Miss Hazel.

This was what my life had become. My ability to run and hide.

The hotel was just outside of Hundred Falls Valley.

I told Robert that I was a traveling photographer. And I would sometimes need a room at weird hours, usually only for a day or two. To him, my life was fascinating. I got to travel the country—the world—taking pictures. But it was all a lie. I hated myself for lying, too. Robert was such a nice guy. But he didn’t need to know why I was at the hotel. He didn’t need to know that I was running, hiding, scared for my life.

Robert got me a room, I paid in cash, and he gave me the keycard.

Then he looked at his watch. “Well, sweetie, here’s the deal. The kitchen is closed. If you’ve been traveling, I’m sure you’re starving. There’s a pizza place…”

“No pizza,” I said. It made my stomach turn. Pizza. Mitch. Him at my door. “Maybe just a sandwich or something.”

“You’re in luck,” Robert said. “Stan is in the kitchen tonight. I’m sure I could wrangle something up for you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said. “I can find a way…”

“No. You go rest. I’m sure you have plenty of pictures to sort through. What were you shooting today? Some landscapes? The mountains? I heard they still get snow all the way up at the peaks, even though it’s so warm down here. Amazing.”

“Yeah, it is amazing,” I said. I patted my camera bag. “I have a lot to sort through.”

“How exciting. Can I carry your bags, Miss Hazel.” Robert winked.

“I can carry these,” I said. “Thanks.”

“I’ll be right up with something to eat.”

I walked away, and my head hanging as I went to the elevators.

The first time the idea had come to me was after a really bad night. I’d fled to the hotel and slept there for two nights. When Mitch came back a few weeks later, I didn’t mess around. I went to the hotel. It became something of a sad routine for me. If I got away from Mitch long enough he seemed to just disappear. He’d get mad, threaten me, and he’d go away. Things would get quiet for a while, and I’d have the faintest glimmer of hope that he would be gone for good only to have him return. And when he returned…

I shut my eyes and stuck the keycard into the slot. When I heard the lock disengage, it was a comforting sound. The sound of safety. It was like going from one prison to another, though. My apartment was home. The hotel room was a hideout.

The heavy door shut behind me.

I dropped my bags.

Then I dropped down.

To my knees.

And I cried.

* * *

I put the plate on the bathroom counter. I looked at myself in the big mirror.

I was on my third glass of wine and finally feeling a little relaxed. My laptop was open on the bed, my camera next to it. I had gone through a crap ton of pictures from St. Skin and sorted them out. The picture I took of the front of St. Skin was perfect. I had already started working on cropping out just the building, then started looking for images to put on each side of the tattoo shop.

It was time-consuming, but it kept my mind busy.

That was key.

When my mind got tired and my eyes grew weary, I looked at the clock.

It was now after midnight.

Mitch had long since come and gone from my apartment. I had no idea what he had done to the place, though. I doubted he would have broken into it. Mitch was only a tough guy in certain situations, but when it came to the police, he was a big wimp. So, knowing him, he would have stood there and pounded on the door a few times. If he actually did get a pizza, he probably smeared a slice on the door. Eventually, he’d just go away. Slip into oblivion until he decided to torture me again at a different point in time.

Was it a way to live? No. But the other options weren’t much better. There had been one time when my mother decided to live a different way. And it was very different. It was very dark. Scarier than being home and enduring what I called foot thunder.

I went back to the bed and filled what would be my last glass of wine for one night. That last glass was just enough to put me over the edge so that I slept comfortably but wouldn’t wake up with a hangover.

I sat on the bed, legs cross, and opened the file labeled MADDOX.

Every picture of him told me a story. I felt a little creepy, sitting there and staring at pictures of him. At least the pictures he knew I took. Nothing secret. A bunch he wished I didn’t take, though. But the man was made for pictures. The honesty in his eyes. The stone-cut jawline and facial features. The hair on his face, messy yet somehow in order. His black hair was messy too, but in its own way, a way that worked with him. He was the kind of man that could roll out of bed, grab a dirty pair of jeans, a shirt from a two week old hamper, run his hand through his hair, and just like that—poof!—he was sexy as anything.

Even the smoking thing. Which I hated. I grew up in a world where cigarettes were always blamed as the ‘gateway’ to trying other things. I never touched one or the other things. And I hated those who did.

But not Maddox.

He made me contradict everything I knew and wanted to believe in.

The last picture I took of him.

Standing against the building, one foot up, taking a drag of his cigarette. The sunset to his left, burning against the horizon, throwing shade across his body and to the other side of the picture. It was so powerful. His tattoos may have told stories, but my pictures did the same thing too. They told stories. Stories that could jump off the screen at you. Stories that followed you as you walked by the pictures.

Maddox knew that. And he didn’t want his story told.

Neither did I.

And that was the basis of our connection. Whatever connection that was.

A connection that I wanted to explore…no matter what road it took me down.