Shatter

by Lola Taylor

  Ghost took a seat in the leather chair. “Please, sit.”

  They both reluctantly sat down across from Ghost, though Scott remained near the edge of his seat. “How did you convince the owners to let you fight here?” Scott said evenly.

  Ghost raised an amused brow. “Probably because the owner is sitting right in front of you.”

  “What did you do to get this place? Threaten to break the owners’ kneecaps? Have their children and their grandchildren strangled in their sleep?”

  Ghost laughed. “Nothing so dramatic as that, I assure you. I simply offered them enough money and then some to retire with. They didn’t have much in terms of savings, and were looking to sell. They just never found the right deal.” He flashed those sparkling white teeth. “Until now. Even you have to admit it’s the perfect venue.”

  “I see.” Scott’s jaw ticked. He sat back and crossed his arms. “All right, we’re here. What do you want?”

  Ghost chuckled and smiled as he leaned back in his chair and steepled his long fingers. “You never were one to beat around the bush. Very well. I need the rest of the money owed me by the end of the month.”

  “The end of the month?” Scott spat. “You know I won’t have it.”

  “Oh, I think you will,” Ghost said pleasantly, casting a pointed glance in Amy’s direction.

  Scott’s lips pressed together in a thin line. “We had an agreement.”

  Ghost shrugged. “I changed my mind. We’ve suffered a few…setbacks recently, a few bad investments, if you will, that didn’t pan out. So, I need the cash sooner. Besides, you’ve had over a year.”

  “I’ve made all my payments on time,” Scott fumed.

  “And I appreciate that,” Ghost said with another oily smile. “Which is why I’m giving you ’til the end of the month instead of demanding it now.” His eyes sparkled with cunning. “There is, of course, another way you can repay me.”

  “Forget it. I already know what you’re going to ask.”

  “You haven’t even heard the deal yet,” Ghost said mockingly. “Fight for me. Just for a month, and I’ll forgive all your debt.”

  “So you can get me back in the ring? So you can own me?”

  “Oh, Scott. You poor, naive boy. You really thought you were free from me this whole time? I still own you. Just because I loosened the leash a little doesn’t mean I removed the collar.”

  The two men came behind Amy and Scott. Amy tensed and shifted her weight to the balls of her feet, ready to run.

  Ghost held up his hand. “Easy, boys. No violence tonight. The Lion is, after all, on a date, and I would hate to be the asshole who ruined it for him.”

  The Lion? Amy made a what-the-hell face at Scott, but he minutely shook his head.

  Ghost waved his hand. “You may go. Oh, but first, here’s my card.”

  “I won’t be needing it. And I’m not giving you my number,” Scott said.

  Ghost simply grinned. “No need. I’ll find you if you try to go back on our agreement. And I insist you take my card,” he added with a hint of steel.

  Scott stared at it for a long while before he finally snatched it from Ghost’s hand.

  “One month,” Ghost said. “Or I may have to look into other means of persuasion.” His eyes roved Amy from head to toe, and she trembled.

  Scott pulled her to him. “Go to hell!” he barked, spitting on Ghost’s desk.

  Ghost laughed as Scott yanked Amy out the door and into the crowd.

  “What was that all about? Who are these people?” Amy yelled over the noise as Scott dragged her back toward the tunnel.

  “I’ll explain later.” His face was covered in worry, and her stomach flipped.

  What had she gotten into now?

  About ten feet away from the door, people began to scream. Flashlights and people dressed in black body armor raided the room.

  “Shit!” Scott swerved back around, running in the opposite direction as people began to stampede.

  “What? What is it?” Amy frantically tried to look over her shoulder.

  “Pigs.”

  Cops? Why the hell were the cops here?

  Her heart skipped a beat as ice-cold fear washed over her.

  Cops. Media. Michael. Blood. Oh God, so much blood…

  A brief shake broke the memory that had been about to suck her in whole. “Amy! Stay with me! Come on, baby, run!”

  They rounded a corner, and Amy could see where Scott was headed. It looked like a storage room, with a window up high.

  “Gah!”

  Amy was nearly jerked backward and would have been if Scott hadn’t let go when he did.

  He spun on his heel, driving a fist into the face of the cop who held him. The man swore, grabbing his walkie-talkie and shouting something into it.

  Backup.

  Scott started forward again. Amy was frozen in place, having no clue what to do, when two more cops came up from behind Scott and grabbed him before he got two feet.

  “Run, Amy!” Scott bellowed.

  She shook her head, inching toward the storage room.

  “Run!” Scott shouted. He fought against the cops, a deadly, practiced dance only a pro fighter would know.

  She stood mesmerized, watching him fight, when a cop slipped through and stalked toward her. Amy gasped and backed away clumsily from the cop’s outstretched hand. Something tackled him from behind, and he went down to the ground hard, Scott on top of him.

  “Get your pretty little ass out of here, now!” Scott said. “I’ll be right behind you!”

  Amy blinked and snapped back to her senses. “Promise?”

  “Promise!” he yelled, grappling with the cop.

  Amy’s heart lurched. After one last glance at Scott, she turned and ran as hard as she could for the window.

  The breaths coming in and out of her lungs seemed sharper, making it harder to breathe. It probably had something to do with the fact her heart was about to beat out of her chest as she entered the room and slammed the door shut behind her, locking it. For good measure, she pushed an empty filing cabinet in front of it, having to dig her heels in and grit her teeth to do so.

  The whole room appeared to be filled with discarded furniture. Moonlight shone through the window, providing just enough light to see by. The chain of an overhead light slapped her in the face, making her shriek, but she didn’t dare pull it. No way was she going to risk giving away her location, just in case the gathering cops outside hadn’t noticed the ground-level window yet.

  A dresser stood in front of the window, just high enough she should be able to pull herself up, open it, and get the hell out of here. Finding a nightstand to climb up on, she hoisted herself up onto the dresser and found the latch for the window. It was rusty, refusing to open at first.

  Come on, come on.

  A large crash threatened to nearly splinter the door behind her, and she clamped down a scream. From the sounds of the grunts and cries of pain that followed, Scott was still fighting.

  Tears pricked her eyes. What the hell was she doing? She should be helping him.

  By doing what? Screaming at them? She knew self-defense, but she’d be useless with more than one guy. Besides, the cops were probably all trained for this sort of scenario. They would take her down no matter what.

  Frantic, she jiggled and pressed against the window until the latch finally screeched loose and the window fell open a few inches. She managed to cram her arms through and then used her body weight to pry it open the rest of the way before she squeezed her body through.

  The smell of damp soil met her nose as she crawled through the mud, scraping her legs against the metal frame of the window. In the front of the cottage, just beyond the wall to the right, she could hear policemen yelling orders and the squeal of tires as more cop cars pulled into the driveway.

  She scrambled into some bushes as a pair of cops ran by, yelling into their walkie-talkies about a crazy man taking on ten cops downstairs.

  S
he knew that crazy man had to be Scott.

  Please, please be okay.

  Reining in her growing panic, she forced down a few deep breaths before she poked her head out of the bushes. The woods lay to the left, about fifty feet away. If she stuck to the shadows and bolted as quickly as she could…

  Gravel crunched beneath boots to her right as more cops approached.

  Realizing her opportunity to escape was slipping away, she said a prayer and darted from the shadows of the bushes.

  “Hey!” called out a voice behind her. “Freeze!”

  She didn’t. “Freeze” meant possibly going to prison and revealing her true name to more policemen. From past experiences, she knew someone would eventually tip a reporter for a quick buck, and her new start in life would be compromised completely.

  And she wasn’t ready to back down yet, to give in to that fate. She wanted her old life back.

  But in order to get it, she needed to run right now, to get as far away as she possibly could.

  Which was why she didn’t stop long enough to look over her shoulder until she was well into the woods.

  AMY’S FISTS PUMPED, the cool late-night air chapping her throat and making her lungs hurt.

  Scott’s command echoed in her head, fueling her heavy strides.

  Run, Amy.

  When she reached the woods, she’d immediately hid until she was certain the cop who’d yelled at her wasn’t going to give chase.

  He hadn’t, thinking she was probably just a partygoer and not worth the trouble. Besides, they had a whole basement full of fighters to contain. She caught the name Ghost being shouted between them more than once, too. Whatever he was, he wasn’t very popular with the police.

  Ducking behind some shrubs, she crouched and watched the chaos unfold, trying to catch her breath. Gravel spewed beneath tires as more cops pulled into the parking lot, surrounding the building and corralling people as they rushed out.

  It was déjà vu. People cussed as they were slammed up against cars, and shouts filled the air; the red-and-blue glow of the police lights reflected off all the handcuffs being whipped out.

  Amy watched the events unfold from the safety of the forest, so tired she could barely think of what she needed to do. She bit her lip to keep from gasping when Scott appeared from the front of the building, escorted by two police officers. They had his hands behind his back as they walked him to one of the waiting cars. His eyes searched the wildflower field and trees.

  Looking for me.

  Her muscles tensed and strained, desperate to go to him, but she rooted herself to the spot. Her breath caught as they shoved him down into the car, and the siren started up before they wheeled out of the lot.

  She watched the car disappear down the driveway. Once it was gone, she crept away from the noise and into the forest.

  Stepping over branches and holes, she dug her cell phone out of her purse until she found some reception. The second she had two bars, she speed-dialed Becca. The phone was pressed so closely to her ear that her cartilage started to hurt.

  “Come on, Becca,” she prayed. “Come on, pick up. Pick up.”

  The rings cut in and out with dead air, eventually giving her chunks of Becca’s voice mail greeting.

  “Dammit.” Amy walked around some more, holding the phone up while her eyes were glued to the bars.

  She gasped as three bars lit up for a split second, only to die back to nothing when she took the next step. “Shit. Fuck. Damn.” A slew of curse words flew out of her mouth as she pranced around, trying to retrace her steps. “Shit, son of a—ah! Stay! STAY!”

  Immediately, she dialed Becca’s number.

  This time it didn’t break up so badly.

  “Come on,” Amy breathed into the phone. “Come on, come on, come on, come—”

  “Hello?”

  “Becca!” Amy shrieked, gripping the phone.

  Becca yawned. “Ames? What’s going on? What’s happened?”

  Amy couldn’t hold it together anymore. She started to cry.

  Becca was silent. “Amy, what the hell happened?”

  Amy spewed out the basics in barely intelligible sobs. “Scott wanted to surprise me with a dinner date after the gala, and…and…we met someone from his past. Someone not very nice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I don’t know, some kind of mobster!”

  “Shit,” Becca hissed.

  “Anyway, some cops showed up.” She swallowed as her voice caught. The dry night air seemed to have absorbed all the moisture from her mouth, making it hard to talk. “I think they took Scott to jail, with everybody else they caught,” Amy finished. “I need to get there, please. He got me out of there before I got caught. I have to try to help him.”

  “But, Amy, won’t that mean…your identity…the press—”

  “I don’t care! I have to help him! I can’t hide if it means Scott gets in trouble!”

  “Please, what kind of trouble is he going to get into?”

  Amy froze. “Why aren’t you supporting me on this?”

  Becca sighed dramatically, an edge to her voice. “I’m just saying, they’ll probably post his bail, he’ll pay it, and be fine. That’ll be that.”

  A thought occurred to Amy, and she pressed her lips together. “He…might not be able to afford bail.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean”—Amy sighed—“he works three jobs to pay off this mountain of debt his bitch of an ex-girlfriend left him.” How much had he dished out for this hotel? The prices on the menu hadn’t been cheap. And judging from their encounter downstairs, it sounded like every dollar Scott had belonged to Ghost.

  “Oh, come on, Amy,” Becca drawled. “That sounds like a load of bullshit if I ever heard it.”

  “What are you talking about? He’s my friend!”

  “So am I! I’ve known you longer! I know when I smell a rat! How long have you known this guy, huh? He’s probably trying to take advantage of you!”

  Doubt seeped into her heart. “He’s not. I know he’s telling the truth.”

  Becca snorted. “Right, because you’re obviously great at judging when a guy is lying to you.”

  That felt like a slap across the face.

  Becca growled a sigh. “I’m sorry, Amy. I don’t mean to be a bitch. I’ve just barely had any sleep this week, and my head is pounding.”

  Amy forced herself to take a deep breath and count to ten. “I know,” she said calmly. Being Becca’s friend also meant dealing with her mood swings. She was irritable a lot due to chronic migraines. Amy honestly felt sorry for her; Becca had had them since she was a kid.

  Becca took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Amy heard the creak of a mattress in the background. “I’m coming over to your apartment right now, don’t worry.”

  “Actually,” Amy bit her lip, “I’m not at my apartment.”

  Becca went silent. “Then where are you?”

  Half an hour and a mile hike later, Becca pulled up to mile marker 51 along the highway, and Amy wearily climbed inside her car. Thank God for GPS and 4G; otherwise, Amy might have stumbled around in the woods all night searching for the nearest busy road.

  “Thanks,” Amy breathed, shutting the door. “I would have been royally screwed if—”

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Becca screamed.

  Amy startled and stared.

  “Nathan just attacked you in public, he’s still at large and could attack again, and you frickin’ run off with your boyfriend to some secluded cabin in the woods bullshit? Frick, Amy!”

  Years of anger and frustration surged through her. “I just wanted to move on past all this shit and live a normal, happy life!”

  “I’m not saying you can’t do that, but you can’t be stupid about it!”

  Amy blinked.

  Becca rubbed her eyes, her shoulders deflating. Her eyes were bloodshot, as if she’d been crying. Then again, they usually were after she’d had
a migraine, because it meant she hadn’t slept much.

  Becca leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Charged silence filled the car. “I’m sorry, Ames. I’m being a total bitch, but I can’t help it. I worry about you. A lot. You know you’re family to me.” She reached out and squeezed Amy’s hand, hard.

  “I know,” Amy said cautiously, trying to pull her hand back, but Becca wouldn’t let go. If anything, her grip got tighter.

  Amy looked down. “Becca, you’re hurting me,” she said quietly.

  Becca blinked a few times. “What? Oh, sorry,” she mumbled, quickly withdrawing her hand.

  “It’s okay.” Amy studied her friend with confusion. “You all right? You seem exhausted.”

  Becca shrugged. “Zach ran away from home again. I’ve been out half the night looking for him.”

  “Oh Jesus.” Amy’s voice softened. “Did you ever find him?”

  Becca nodded. “He was over at a friend’s, getting high.” Tears formed in her eyes, and she sniffled. “I don’t know why I try sometimes.”

  “Oh, come here.” Amy hugged her, letting Becca rest her head on her shoulder as she shuddered. Amy rubbed her back. “It’ll be okay. I swear it will be.”

  Becca took a few calming breaths and nodded before she sat up. She wiped at her eyes and smiled. “I’m sorry. Wow, I’m a mess.”

  “S’kay. Both of us are.”

  “Which is why we’re perfect for each other.” Becca smiled.

  Amy smiled back. “Two peas in a pod,” she said lamely.

  A beat of silence passed before Becca said, “What do you say we get out of here and go grab some breakfast?”

  Amy searched for a response. “But I have to go help Scott.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, not this shit again.” Becca gripped the wheel, scowling. “He’s just using you, Amy. You should let whatever is going to happen to him happen, and dump him.”

  “What the hell? What is wrong with you?”

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re going to let him use you the same way Michael did? You’re going to let that asshole treat you that way?”

  “Stop calling him that!”

  Becca shook her head and looked forward. “Fine.” She jerked the key, and the engine revved. Snapping the gearshift into drive, she floored it, and they shot off down the road; the back tires spun for a few seconds. “Go help him. See if you get your heart broken again.”