Avenged

by Jay Crownover

  He looked over his shoulder at me and the corners of his mouth pulled down in a frown. He brought me the second glass of water, wandered back over to the kitchen and started rustling his way through one of two rickety-looking cabinets that I assumed stored his provisions. “You want something to eat? It’s mostly frozen garbage and a lot of meat but I think there is some soup stashed somewhere in here.”

  I didn’t feel hungry but it had been a long time since I’d put anything in my stomach. “I could probably keep some soup down, if you make it. What I really need is something for the pain in my shoulder. Do you have any Tylenol or Advil?” I really wanted morphine but with my history of addiction and overindulgence, I never hit the hard stuff.

  “Let me check the first aid kit. I think I saw some in there when I was digging around for bandages to patch you up. If all else fails, I have a bottle of bourbon that’ll do the trick.”

  I cleared my throat and pushed a wild curl out of my face. I usually wore my unruly locks pulled back, but after everything they’d been through the last couple of days, they were more than likely a wild riot of tangles curls, spinning and spiraling in a million directions all over my head. “I…ugh…I don’t actually drink. I won’t take anything stronger than Tylenol.”

  Soup can in hand, he turned to look at me. He blinked slowly and cocked his head to the side. “Is there a story there?”

  I wanted to shrug but knew it would feel like a thousand angry bee stings if I did. “There is. One that’s not particularly new or original.” I lifted my eyebrows at him. “How about you? Are you purposely avoiding telling me where you were before you were here?”

  His beard twitched as a grin tugged at his attractively curved mouth. “You’re sharp for a chick that just rolled down a mountain.” That made me snort out a surprised laugh. “Where I’m from is a shithole of the worst kind, but it was my shithole and I miss it.” He turned back to the counter, where there was a single electric burner resting. “It’s a bad place, a dangerous place, and I did my fair share making it that way while I was there. That’s about all I can say about it.”

  Well, that was the opposite of reassuring.

  I’d always been a girl that liked herself a bad kind of boy. Part of it was because those were the kind of guys that gravitated to my lifestyle choices. I liked to party. I liked to have a good time, and I liked not being questioned about it. Now, as a much more self-aware woman, I knew that I always drifted toward those types of men because it was what was expected of me. My parents never had any faith in me, and somewhere along the line, I’d lost faith in myself. I stopped having expectations and was okay being a user, who in turn was used. But after my best friend died simply because she picked a guy that wasn’t all that different than the type I normally picked, I realized I needed to start being the person I really was, rather than the person everyone expected me to be.

  I got clean.

  There was no more using, of substances or people. I quit cold turkey, took my happy ass to rehab and therapy. I had made great strides toward becoming a better person. I didn’t look twice at boys that were going to be trouble and I avoided men that were going to disrupt my self-improvement at all costs.

  Until I literally fell into Ben’s arms. He was on an entirely different level than any of the guys I’d messed around with before crashing into his life.

  He wasn’t a bad boy…he was a man that just admitted to being bad. He was dangerous. He was quietly threatening and menacing…even though none of it was directed toward me. I had no problem imagining him doing really bad things in a place he wouldn’t give a name to. It made the fact I was alone with him and at a severe disadvantage because of my injury crawl uneasily across my skin.

  “How can you miss a place where someone tried to kill you? How can you miss a place so violent?” My voice shook a little bit but he didn’t turn around from his task.

  “It’s all I know.” He said it without a hint of remorse or regret. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’?”

  He finally glanced over his shoulder at me and frowned at the expression on my face. I knew I was watching him like he might pounce any second but I couldn’t help it. I felt like prey with its paw caught in a trap. “Yeah. I think I’ve heard something along those lines before.”

  He nodded and turned back to the pot he was methodically stirring. “It’s true. Whatever you’ve had, whatever you’ve tried…none of that compares to how instantly and wholly addictive power is. All you need is a little taste, just a hint of it on your tongue, and you’re a goner. Soon it’s all you can think about. All you want is more and more. Before you know it, you’re doing anything, even things that turn your stomach and make your mother disown you to get your hands on more of it.” He looked over his shoulder at me once again and I sucked in a breath because his eyes had shifted from the color of clouds to something sharp and deadly. “I don’t think your story and mine are so different, Pop-Tart.”

  I swore under my breath and pushed back my wayward hair. “Mine doesn’t have someone angry enough at me to slit my throat, Ben.”

  I watched as he lifted a hand to that raised and still-healing scar. It was almost like he had to touch it in order to remember that it was there.

  He let his hand drop and his eyes practically sliced into me as he emotionlessly told me, “Made a lot of really nasty people mad during my fall from grace and I managed to take a solid handful of them down with me. It was only a matter of time before one of them found a way to make sure I knew just how mad they were. Like I said, par for the course, which is why that new leaf is looking pretty good. I just had to get my head out of my ass and realize it. I’ve been spending a lot of time feeling sorry for myself lately.”

  “You have to be accountable for the choices you’ve made, even the wrong ones.” That was something that had been made startlingly clear when I tried to get custody of Hyde and was turned down flat because of my past mistakes. No one else had done those things, only me, but I wasn’t suffering from those choices alone.

  He turned from the burner and sauntered over with a chipped bowl in his big hands to where I was still taking up the entire bed. The plume of steam coming off the top was very inviting and he suddenly didn’t seem as scary tasked with something so domestic and mundane.

  He handed me the soup and leaned back to loom over me with his arms crossed over his chest. I blamed the lingering effects of the concussion for the way my gaze drank in the sight of his shirt straining against thick muscle. My mouth watered and it had nothing to do with the yawning emptiness in my stomach.

  He was really too attractive to be sequestered out here in the wilderness alone. That seemed like a crime against womankind.

  “Being accountable for your actions, that mandate include your sister too?”

  I almost dropped the soup all over the bed. The spoon hit the side with a clink as I glared up at him. “What are you talking about?” Other than telling him Xanthe had passed away I was sure I hadn’t mentioned anything else about her. That was a wound that wasn’t going to heal and talking about her was like poking at it with a stick.

  His frosty gaze narrowed on me and his chin lifted, giving him an air of superiority that grated. “You messed up. I more than messed up. But your sister…she did something she can’t ever take back and it hurt a lot of people. You risked your pretty neck to drive all the way up here, in horrible conditions, to put the blame for her actions on a stranger. Where is her accountability? Where is the knowledge that she was the one responsible for the choice she made? Not you, and definitely not whichever MacKenzie she fixated on.” He shrugged. “Denver is usually where you connect when you fly into Montana, so it could have been any one of the brothers. All of whom are happily married and never would have looked at your sister that way as it is.”

  I sucked in a breath through my teeth and squeezed my eyes shut. He knew too much. Saw too much. I felt like he was peeling back my skin and looking directly at
my soul.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” It came out on a whisper that sounded like it had been shredded by razorblades.

  He ran his thumb along the edge of his lower lip and watched me without blinking. This was not a man you messed with, and every second spent in his company drove that fact home.

  “You talked a lot when you were out. Mumbled about finding your sister in the bathtub. You seemed pretty stuck on the fact that if whichever man your sister was infatuated with had paid her some kind of attention, she wouldn’t have taken her own life, but you’re sharp, Pop-Tart. You know if it wasn’t one of the MacKenzie boys, it would have been someone else. You can’t blame anyone for the choice your sister made.” He took a step closer to the bed and leaned down so that he could put his palms flat on the mattress. His eyes bored into mine and I could feel the heat of his breath as he quietly stated, “That includes yourself. When your head isn’t rattled and your heart isn’t hurting, you’ll be able to look back and realize you’re so fired up to blame one of those boys because it takes the blame you’re feeling for not being able to save her off your shoulders.” I gasped and scrambled to keep the soup from spilling as he pushed up and off the bed. “Some people are beyond saving. It sucks, but it’s true.”

  I hated him. In that moment, all I wanted was for this man who admitted to doing bad things and being a bad person to be in the ground, and for my sweet, simple sister to still be breathing. It wasn’t fair. Even if he’d saved my life.

  I handed him the soup bowl, wincing as my shoulder throbbed. “Some people don’t deserve to be saved. There is a difference.”

  Those sinful lips twitched within that forest of dark facial hair again. “There’s the fight I was talking about. Now that you’re awake, I’m gonna call the doc and the sheriff and see if I can get an ETA on when they can get up here and rescue you.”

  “Aren’t you the one that rescued me?” It was biting and lacking any kind of calm.

  He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. “No, I kept you alive, Pop-Tart. There’s a difference.”

  The devil was always in the details, wasn’t it?

  Chapter 4

  Ben

  “You sure she’s safe up there with you until the roads clear enough to get to her?”

  Cooper MacKenzie’s voice was gruff and full of suspicion in my ear. I couldn’t blame him for being skeptical about my intentions. The Marshals had given him a rundown about all my misdeeds before plunking me down in his backyard. He knew all about the man I used to work for and all about the other men I ratted out to the feds in order to win this sweet spot in WITSEC. He wasn’t thrilled to have someone like me in his neck of the woods and he kept his eyes on me. All the MacKenzies did. This was their town and they weren’t about to let a dangerous outsider fuck things up.

  They were smart.

  “She’s good. I cleaned her up the best I could, but she’s got a gash on her head that needs more medical care than I can give. She dislocated her shoulder and bruised some ribs but that seems to be the worst of it. Obviously, I can’t tell if she’s got anything internal jacked up but she’s responsive and awake, so I’m thinking most of her injuries are superficial.”

  There was a grunt on the other end of the line. “The car is totaled? Did she say why she was up on the pass in those conditions in the first place? Damn tourists. Always making more work during the winter.”

  I rubbed my thumb along the side of my mouth and lifted my eyebrows at my bristly patient. She was watching me with narrowed eyes and a tight mouth. She hadn’t said a word since I laid out the truth for her. They said it hurt, but I could see in her eyes that in this case the truth killed.

  “She was coming up to meet a friend. She thought she could handle the roads because she’s from Denver. You might want to have the town tourism board put the fact that Surrender is pretty much Antarctica in the winters on your website and brochures.” I kept my voice light but the stern sheriff was in no way amused.

  “What friend was she coming to meet? Do I need to get word to someone that she’s been located? No one has called in a missing person over the last few days.”

  I was a good liar, used to spinning words and telling stories to keep my ass out of the fire, but something made me uneasy lying to this cop. This new leaf I was under was starting to get really annoying. Having a conscience and empathy was a real bummer. I was used to being calculating and operating on the assumption that the only person that mattered in the world was me, myself, and I. Having consideration for others sucked and I didn’t like the way it scratched across my skin.

  “Uh…the friends already know she’s okay. She called them on my cell. They aren’t local so as soon as the roads clear, they have to head back home. They were just up here for a long weekend and she’s going to need to see your brother before she travels. The doc needs to check her head out.” Echo narrowed her eyes at me as the untrue words tripped over my tongue. I didn’t want any of the MacKenzies to know that they were her target. They would not respond well to having a bee…even one as attractive as she was…in their collective bonnet.

  Cooper grunted in my ear again. “I’ll tell Thomas. He might be able to get up to the cabin on an ATV before the roads open. There was an emergency here in town last night involving several cars and multiple injuries, so he’s had his hands full. I’ll tell him to give you a call if he can make it up sooner than expected, Benny.” A piece of my soul was soothed when I heard my real name, even though it was said with warning and a clear threat. “You take care of that girl. If she so much as looks at you sideways when I get up there, what the feds can do to you will look like child’s play by the time I’m done making your life a living hell. Understood?”

  He couldn’t see me but that didn’t stop me from putting my fingers to my forehead and snapping out a sharp salute. “Aye, aye, captain. I shall remain on my best behavior.”

  Echo let out a startled-sounding laugh and lifted her fingers to her mouth like she could stem it. I didn’t know if she was surprised that she was laughing at me, or surprised she was laughing at all after everything she’d been through recently. Either way, the sound was lyrical, light, and sparked something warm and foreign in the center of my chest. I immediately wanted to do everything I could to make her laugh again.

  “Stop being an asshole, Ben, and just take care of the girl. I’ll be in touch.” The line went dead and I shook my head at his words. I couldn’t stop being an asshole. That’s what I was. I’d worked hard at it, been conditioned to be the best asshole I could be by the king of all assholes. Those instincts and automatic responses didn’t fade away overnight. They were far too ingrained into who I was.

  I held the phone out in Echo’s direction and asked her, “Do you actually have someone you need to let know you’re all right? You’re going to be trapped up here for a few days and I’m sure your family is worried about you.”

  She looked at the phone like it was a venomous snake ready to strike. “No one knows I’m here. I took two weeks off work, packed a bag, and left. My parents haven’t spoken to me since I found Xanthe and my little brother is dealing with his grief in his own way.” She sighed and shifted under the quilt that still covered her lap. “He lives in Arizona and is kind of a New Age spiritualist. Last I heard, he was on his way to Sedona to seek solace and commune with nature so that he could send Xanthe’s soul to the other side peacefully. He doesn’t even own a cellphone. The only person I keep in touch with regularly is my best friend’s five-year-old son, Hyde. After she died, I helped him find his father, who recently adopted him. He’s a good kid, sweet, and his dad is all right too. They both like to check up on me here and there but I didn’t tell them I was coming because one, or both, would have tried to talk me out of it.”

  I let my extended arm drop and blew out a low whistle. “You lost your best friend as well as your sister?”

  She blinked, long and slow, and when her eyes lifted to mine, they were glittering
with unshed tears. “I did. I buried them six months apart.”

  I’d never had anyone to lose other than my mother and I hadn’t lost her; she let me go when she realized the kind of man I had decided to become. I couldn’t say I blamed her, and at the time, I was so drunk on power and privilege that there was no way I could feel the pain of being forgotten and abandoned. Here, looking into this woman’s wounded eyes, I could suddenly feel all the sharp and jagged points of that loss tearing apart my soul.

  I gave my head a shake to clear it of the foggy memories and new regret. “Well, can I get you anything? It’s late and I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept since the sound of crunching metal and breaking glass woke me up. I want to make sure you’re good, then I’m going to crash.”

  I put the cell in my back pocket and ran a hand over my hair. There was only one bed in the cabin and she currently had control of it. There was an old army cot outside by the woodpile. It was going to be covered in snow and ungodly uncomfortable, but it would have to do. I’d never been one to sacrifice my own comfort for the needs of someone else, but the new me couldn’t imagine asking the poor girl to share the bed and there was no way in hell I was asking her to give it up for the cot.

  She lifted a nervous hand and moved some of her very curly hair off of her face. I liked her hair. It was a pretty, rich brown that had a life of its own. It was big, wild, and untamed. I’d liked the way it twisted around my fingers and coiled around my wrist when I was cleaning her up. It was also amazingly soft and silky. Women, where I came from, didn’t feel like that. Everything about them was hard, processed, shielded. Nothing was real. Everything about Echo was unvarnished and true.

  “I do need something actually.” I lifted an eyebrow as she fidgeted nervously, fingers picking at the material of the quilt. “I really have to go to the bathroom and I don’t know if I can make it there under my own steam. The room sort of tilts sideways when I move too fast.”