by Kylie Walker
That afternoon, Chloe spent some time visiting with Lexi before she had to leave for work. They hadn’t had much time to talk lately and the first question Lexi asked her was, “So what’s up with you and Mr. Dreamy pants?” Chloe laughed, Lexi always had some new, silly nickname for Derek.
“Nothing’s up,” she said. “We’ve just been taking things slow.”
“Hmm…”
“What do you mean, “Hmm???”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time away at night…I don’t want to assume those nights were spent in Mr. Dreamy’s arms but since it’s the first time in the two years that I’ve known you it’s happened…”
“I don’t kiss and tell,” Chloe told her with a grin.
Lexi rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun. I, on the other hand would love to tell someone…Brock is amazing in bed!”
“Lexi!”
“What?” she giggled. “We’re all adults here.”
“Besides bed, is he good everywhere else too?” Chloe asked her.
“Where else matters?” Lexi said with another grin.
“Pervert!”
“Yes, I am,” she said. They talked a little more about Brock and then Chloe finally turned serious and said, “Jesse’s been out of prison for a little over a week now. I haven’t heard from him…yet…”
“I’m being careful,” Lexi said. “I don’t leave the house any longer without Brock. So see, careful and well taken care of.”
“Good, I don’t know what I would do if I was the reason for anything bad happening to you.”
“Hey, nothing’s going to happen. But if it did and it was at Jesse’s hand…that still wouldn’t be your fault. You can’t control what that animal does.”
“Unfortunately,” Chloe said.
Lexi gave her a hug and said, “Pretty soon you’ll be Mrs. Mc. Dreamy Pants and you won’t have to worry about another thing as long as you live.”
Laughing, Chloe told her, “Get out of here, and go to work.”
“Okay, but for the record, I’m awfully jealous that you don’t have to go and I do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You can make it up to me with breakfast when I get home. I’m off at two a.m.”
Chloe laughed again and said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
After Lexi left, Chloe showered and dressed for her evening kick-boxing class. She took out her journal before she left and wrote:
July 7th
I’ve been lax in my writing lately, so much has been going on. I met Trevor and Samantha Whitemore…more than likely my biological parents. It sounds so weird to say that. I always knew I was adopted, but I never imagined that one day I’d actually find my parents…much less that they would be such wonderful people…or that I’d be falling in love with my dead twin-sister’s husband. It all sounds really twisted and like a soap-opera sweeps week. But it’s my reality and the funny part is all of that is the best part of my reality.
The other part of my reality that is ever present of course is Jesse. I haven’t forgotten for even a fraction of a second that he’s still out there, waiting for his opportunity to get me. I live and breathe it every second of the day. I’m trying not to let it get to me too badly so that it consumes my life…but it’s hard. I check my messages every day. So far, I haven’t heard from Chantelle since right after she told me he was out. I find that a little strange since I would think she’d want to check in with me. She’s probably just busy with her own life, but I know as soon as I finish here I will check the message and I’ll once again be worried if I don’t hear from her.
For now, I will try and bask in the glow of finally trusting a man enough to feel the beginnings of falling in love flutter in my belly and the glorious fact that I have a set of parents who are actually real, warm, sweet, flesh and blood people. I will try hard to focus on that.
Chloe put the journal away and slipped on her tennis shoes. Then she took out her phone and signed onto the Facebook page where she got her messages from Chantelle. She felt a tickle in her belly at the sight of the message icon. She wasn’t sure if it was good or bad. She clicked on it and her fragile world shattered as she read the words:
Chloe:
I’m sorry I couldn’t write sooner. As it is, someone else is taking this down for me. I’m in the hospital and I hate so badly to have to be the one to tell you this, but Jesse put me here. He beat me and cut me with a knife. He left me in the bushes…he thought I was dead. A man walking his dog found me the next day. I was unconscious and they had me listed as a Jane Doe for almost a week. I’m on the mend now, but it’s required several surgeries and probably more to go. I am not telling you this so you will feel bad. I’m telling you so that you will run…far and fast honey. He is coming for you and from what he told me, what I got was minor compared to what he intends to do to you. I’m so sorry. The police are looking for him too, so hopefully that helps.
Love to you!
Chantelle
Chloe stood staring at the phone in the grip of a silent panic. If anyone had been there to see her, they would have seen a pair of wild eyes with dilated pupils. Her heart was racing and her brain was on fire. The synapses were firing like she had just done a monster line of cocaine and sending conflicting messages to every part of her body. Her hands were trembling and her legs felt so weak they were about to give way underneath her. She headed for the chair in front of the desk when her stomach got in on the panic and began to lurch and roll. She ran for the bathroom, stumbling twice before she got there and she began to heave into the toilet. When she finished, she sat down where she was and she cried. She cried giant, gulping sobs for her friend.
Poor Chantelle. God, what did she do by getting her involved in all of this? Once Jesse found out she lived, would he go after her again? He’s here in Rhode Island now, she was sure of it. If the police can’t find him he must have left New York right after he left Chantelle for dead.
Chloe wrapped her arms around herself and sat there on the floor of the bathroom rocking back and forth. What should she do? Should she call Derek? Should she put him at risk like that? Her answer to both of those questions was no. She should do what Chantelle told her…she should run…further this time. But what then? Be a pole dancer the rest of her life? Never get close to anyone? Never get to know her parents or explore what falling in love with Derek felt like?
No, he wasn’t doing that to her again. Never again would she give up her life for this monster. Never again. She used the side of the toilet to push herself up off the floor. On noodle legs, she stumbled over to the sink and turned on the cold water. The first catch in her hands, she threw on her face. The second and third she drank like a woman who had been lost in the desert for days…she couldn’t get enough.
When her thirst was finally sated, she dried her face and went back into the bedroom. She fished her smokes out of her bag and went through the house out to the back patio. The sun was just going down and she could see the big, bald guy that Derek’s father hired to watch her standing a few feet from the side of the house. She lit her cigarette and brought it to her lips with a hand shaking so badly, she could hardly hold it. She inhaled a deep drag and held it in her lungs, letting the calming nicotine find its way into her veins. It gave her a head rush and she had to lower her head until it passed. She took another drag and looked out across the ocean. This was her home now and she loved everything about it. Jesse was not going to take that away from her.
Jesse sat on the rocks with his binoculars and watched her. She was dressed in some kind of work-out gear and every one of her supple curves was visible. He wondered why she’d gotten all dressed for a work-out and instead of going, she was standing on the porch smoking like a freight train. She used to smoke when they were together too. She said she only did it when she needed to calm her nerves. He wondered what she was nervous about.
Jesse had gotten rid of his phone and the debit card and then he’d borrowed a phone from a guy on the pier and h
e’d called his mother. She told him about Chantelle being found and telling the police he’d tried to kill her. He worked himself up into a frenzy of tears and swore to her up and down that he was being set-up. It must be someone who was trying to sabotage his dad’s career…or even a criminal that Vince had put away, trying to get even. He wasn’t a murderer. He’d pleaded with her, “Mom, please tell me you know that.”
“I know it, Jesse. But they think you did it, honey. They’re tearing our houses apart looking for you.”
“I need to get out of town, Mom. Will you send me money? I can’t use the card. I need you to wire me some money. Please Mom,” he’d sobbed. “I’m so scared. I’m all alone and I don’t want to go back to prison. Please help me.”
She had agreed to wire the money. Jesse thanked her profusely and told her he loved her so much and he would call her as soon as he got somewhere safe. An hour later he was picking up his one thousand dollars from the little run down pharmacy on the far end of town in a neighborhood where no one noticed anyone…unless you had a hook-up of some kind for them. He bought a disposable cell phone and filled the Prius with gas. Then he drove back up the coast, parked the car and now here he sat, looking at Kelly.
He adjusted the lenses on the binoculars so he could get a closer look at her face. It looked like she’d been crying. She must have gotten word about that slut, Chantelle. He hoped that she knew it was her fault. He hoped that she was sick about it and he hoped that she was very, very afraid.
PART FOUR
CHAPTER ONE
Maximus Parker…Max for short, is a forty-six year old half Caucasian half Asian man. He stands six foot four inches tall and weighs close to three hundred pounds. His body mass index is less than eighteen. There is literally no visible fat on him. Besides being built like a killing machine, Max is also highly trained in hand to hand combat, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Krav Maga and he holds a black belt in martial arts. He was an Army Ranger and he spent two years of his time in the service fighting in Operation Desert Storm. He was handed multiple accommodations for his service and bravery. Thankfully for the American public, Max chose to use his powers for good, rather than evil. He could have gone very far the other direction.
When he was five years old, he witnessed the murder of his mother. The trauma in that alone could have sent him careening over the edge into insanity. The fact that the murder took place literally at the hands of his father should have pushed him over. Instead, Max allowed the final image of his three hundred pound Caucasian father throwing his ninety-nine pound Asian mother with one hand like a rag doll through the wall of their apartment. Max found out later that at the moment she crashed through into the neighbor’s living room, she was still alive. She died sometime between then and when the police that Max himself had dialed from the neighbor’s house twenty minutes prior had arrived.
With that image firmly planted in his psyche still after he got out of the army, Max obtained a degree in psychology. He attended countless seminars on domestic violence, he took an entire years’ worth of women’s studies classes to learn how they think. He also took criminology classes to learn how the monster that killed her thought and then when he was thirty-two years old, he opened the doors on a self-defense and martial arts studio that had been twenty-seven years in the making.
When Chloe met him he was forty-five and he had been teaching for thirteen years. He had been practicing for over thirty and no one…not one single person had a bad thing to say about Max.
Chloe started her classes almost immediately upon relocating. In her first class, Max talked about himself and his background. Once he’d told them where he came from, he told them what he thought were the most important things they would learn in his classes were. Chloe wrote them down. She took them home and posted them on a corkboard in her room. She read them in the morning and she read them again at night. Max said, “Your number one priority when it comes to being stalked or attacked by a predator is as follows: Avoid, Escape and Survive.” He’d gone on to say, “If avoidance is not an option then that is where self-defense training comes in. That training is not necessarily to kill or maim your predator. It is to allow you to escape as unharmed as possible which in turn will allow you to survive.” The next thing she wrote down and posted on his board was what he called his motto: “Hit first-fast-hard and run away, but if there’s no-where to run, and you choose to fight, be prepared to kill.”
He told them to remember that no matter what they heard, they read or they watched on television, size did matter. A hundred pound woman was never going to defeat a three hundred pound man in simple hand to hand combat. The key was going to be more on her footwork, her speed and her stamina. “Attack retreat, attack retreat, attack retreat…wear your opponent down.” was another of her favorite quotes that she used as a mantra when she was training. “If he’s not trained in martial arts or hand to hand combat, he will eventually tire, leaving you to survive.” The final thing he told them was that at all costs: “Do not let the fight go to the floor.”
He said, “In a wrestling match where there is a huge size and weight difference, barring a miracle, you’re going to lose. In a real fight in the ring with real rules, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a perfect tool. I’ll teach it to you, but remember this: In real life, there are no rules to keep your opponent from using a weapon, gouging out your eyes, or repeatedly kicking you in the head once you hit the floor. Remain standing, remain mobile and get out of the way.”
For the next year, Chloe ate, drank and slept everything Max taught her, using those words of wisdom she’d written down that first day as a mantra in her head when she worked out. She was strong and fast and even in spite of the occasional stress smoke, her stamina was incredible. Over time, Max taught her how important it was to end the fight as quickly as possible, to go for the most vulnerable spots on the body and those most easily damaged: the eyes, nose, ears, neck, groin, knee and legs. He taught her how to use the body weight that she did have to produce force and cause the most damage. “Striking to save your life is not about the form of your punching or kicking. It's about throwing your body weight strategically at someone. Take them down as quickly as possible and get out of the way. The longer you let it go on, the more likely you are to end up dead.”
Chloe had two private lessons with Max a week and she still took the public classes that Tom, his almost equally qualified assistant taught twice a week as well. Three days after she got the message from Chantelle, she knew she needed more. That morning she had waited for Max after her class with Tom and when he came out of his private lesson room and saw her standing there, he greeted her in his usual enthusiastic way, “Hey there Chloe! How’s it going?”
“Hi Max, it’s not so good. I wondered if you had a few minutes, so we could talk.”
“Of course,” he said with a worried frown, “Let’s go to my office.”
Chloe followed him through the gym and back to his office. Max’s walls were lined with the certificates he’d been given in each one of the courses that he’d taken and passed over the years. The trophies and citations he’d earned were too multiple to fit in one small office. They lined the walls of the long hallway that led them back. Max sat down behind his desk and she took the chair opposite from him. He knew her well enough by now to know that whatever she was here to talk about was serious.
“So what’s up, Chloe?”
With a deep breath in and out she said, “I want you…or Tom…or both of you, to simulate an advanced attack on me…in the dark.”
She could tell that Max was trying to get his thoughts together before he spoke. He never said anything, unless he’d thought it through first. Finally he said, “You’ve resisted this for a long time. Why now?”
“I need to know that I can do this and not freeze up. I also want it to be in the dark. That part is important…I think.”
“Okay, but you know the rules. I can’t do this the way it needs to be done without your story.”
�
�I’m aware of that,” she said. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. When it happens, I need to be ready. I believe that I am, but I need to know for sure. The simulations we’ve done in the past are fine…but they’re missing that element of reality. I need to be afraid and still be able to focus.”
As usual, Max didn’t miss a thing. “You said when it happens, not if.”
“Yes.”
“You’re anticipating it.”
“Yes.”
He raised an eyebrow and said, “Is someone threatening you?”
“Not directly at the moment,” she said. She took in a deep breath and breathed it out slowly. Max had been offering her an advanced simulation for months now, but she had resisted. Part of the simulation was giving them her back story and giving them information they could use to make it real for her. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that. Maybe it was telling her story to her friends and Derek over the past month and a half, or maybe it was because of what Jesse had done to Chantelle…maybe it was just knowing he was out there…waiting. Whatever it was, she knew that she needed to do this, and she started talking. She started at the very beginning with her father and she ended with what Jesse had done to Chantelle. She felt completely drained when she finished. Max didn’t say a word as she talked. He maintained that intense eye contact of his that used to unnerve her a bit and occasionally, he would nod.
