by Bry Ann
“I didn’t want to involve you in this,” Gunner said simply.
He tried to help me to my feet, but I jerked my arm away. He let out a huff of annoyance, and then planted his ass on the ground next to me.
“In what?” I said looking up at him through my tear stained eyes. “What am I now involved in? All I wanted was…. it doesn’t matter.”
Gunner looked guarded.
“I just wanted to give us a chance,” I mumbled sort of embarrassed about the whole idea of it now.
Gunner was a criminal. His presence felt criminal. His tattoos and muscles were there to tell people he’d never care. He’d never attach himself, yet here I was pretending none of that was true.
“It’d never work between us Dana,” Gunner said softly.
I could tell he was trying to be sympathetic and conscious of my feelings. He’d known me inside and out for six years. He knew when his words could break me. This was one of those moments and he knew it.
“Why?” I said through my sobs. “Why? Do you just not like me that way or…. “then I once again asked the real thing that was tugging at my heart. “Why did you leave me? Is it really that easy for you to walk away? I know you are you but still… six years You could just leave after six years and never see me again.”
I stole a glance at him from under my eyelashes. I was completely vulnerable in this moment, but he needed to know. He needed to stop messing with my feelings. This was why I came after him in the first place. I knew nothing about any kind of danger when I came here.
Gunner sighed and put his hand under my armpit, helping me up. I let him this time. I was so weak from the intensity of my emotions, Gunner really had to support my weight as he brought me over to the couch and set me down.
“It wasn’t easy for me to walk away. Not at all. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I did feel it had to be done.”
“But why?”
“Dana, do you really need to ask me that? We hid our friendship from the world, the entire time Dana. That was the only reason it worked. The whole kidnapping thing was bound to bring it out into the light. We couldn’t keep it up. You’d just be in danger again and Sam wouldn’t be there to save you from the hurt the next time it happened. If what happened to Sam happened to you I don’t think I could live with myself. You’ve seen too much already.”
He was right, but that didn’t change how I felt so I stayed quiet. We both did until I felt the cold metal of my cell phone hit my hand. Gunner gave me a sympathetic purse of his lips before strolling off to his room and quietly shutting the door.
I’d never claimed to not be an emotional person. I’m not like Sam or Alexa. I don’t know how to shut my feelings off like that. I feel too much. Hence the decade I’d spent in treatment trying to learn how to manage my feelings. So once Gunner left the room I balled like a baby, silently so Gunner wouldn’t hear. Although I am sure he did, because he was trained to hear everything going on around him, which just made my cry fest all the more embarrassing. At a certain point in my emotional breakdown I began to lose track of what it was exactly I was so upset about. Was it Gunner rejecting me? Gunner leaving me? Being in danger? Past issues? Being alone? Sam? The kidnapping? Feeling like Logan had this new life without me? My phone buzzed in my hand again, but I ignored it. I couldn’t talk to Sam in this state. I just had to hope she wouldn’t tell Logan until we’ve talked. I cried myself to sleep with my phone in my hand. I don’t remember when I fell asleep. One second, I was crying and ignoring my buzzing cell phone, the next the world was black.
I woke up when I felt the cold metal of my cell phone being taken from my hand. I instantly shot up and instinctively threw my arms in front of me. Habit.
“It’s me,” said a low rumbly voice. I instantly dropped my hands.
“Right, I knew that,” I mumbled as I stood up, again reminding myself not to stretch in this t-shirt. Gunner set a cup of coffee on the table in front of me.
“For you, if you want it.”
He gave brief lift of his chin and set my phone on the table. I raised my eyebrow at him and thanked him quietly. For a few minutes we sat in silence and then my phone rang again, and I remembered Sam.
“Shoot!” I whispered as I reached for my phone.
Gunner lifted his gaze from his coffee and then looked down when he realized why I was cursing. I picked up my phone and threw it on my ear as I started to pace the really small room. Other than the bedroom, the living space was the only other room and it felt so small with Gunner. Not only was he a giant man, but his presence was even larger. I couldn’t escape him in here.
“Sam, I’m sorry... I was tired, and I should have called you. I hope….”
“It’s Alexa,” my psycho rocker best friend said abruptly, cutting off my nervous rambling.
“Alexa?”
“Yeah, Sam told me to try calling you. Are you a fucking idiot? If she tells Logan, your little love quest is fucked.”
“I know! I know,” I grumbled. “And that’s not what this is!”
“Isn’t it?” she asked amused.
“Well it was,” I mumbled.
I could feel her tone change. Alexa is not an emotional person. In fact, she makes Sam seem like a freaking open book, but Alexa has little fluctuations in her voice where you could feel her concern despite her tough words. “Fuck. What happened?”
“Not now,” I mumbled. I heard Gunner sip his coffee purposely loud. Asshole.
“Okay. Are you safe and all that shit? Sam’s cool and hasn’t said anything to Logan, but Sam’s in mommy mode over you and in a full-on panic over here. Logan’s been extremely perceptive of her feelings and keeps questioning her and she is trying to put him off but… anyway, are you good? Other than heartbreak,” she added quickly.
“Yeah, think so.”
“Think so?”
“No, we’re good.”
“So, you are with Gunner right now?”
“Obviously. I feel like that’s already been implied!”
“Haha yeah well, I’ll let you go. I’ll tell Sam you’re fine and to stop throwing a tizzy. But Dana…” I froze at the sudden change in Alexa’s usually light tone. “Call me. Like if something's up. I'm here and I don’t have a life so just… you know, give me a fucking call.”
“I will. Promise.”
“Okay.”
With that she hung up and I set the phone back down on the table relieved. I let out a deep sigh and sat back on the couch with my coffee now in hand.
“I take it she didn’t tell Logan.”
“No, she didn’t.” Then I turned to him seriously and raised an eyebrow. “Should she?”
With that Gunner sighed and set his coffee mug down. He came to sit down next to me. Instantly my body became aware of his nearness. My heart rate picked up, my breath quickened, and a dull aching need spread throughout my body. I hated it. A huge issue in therapy I had been trying to work on is my hatred for feeling any sort of sexual feelings. I hadn’t so much as been touched in a sexual way since my rape, and the idea of it still made my stomach whirl with nausea.
“I owe you an explanation now. Don’t I?” Gunner said when he was seated next to me.
I turned to meet his gaze and nodded, briefly letting my eyes flicker to the intricately designed tattoo on his shoulder. Gunner sighed again.
“You know of my parents’ murder? You remember, right?”
I immediately lifted my eyes to his, more intrigued now.
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. “Of course.”
“The people who did it have never been caught, and they are aware of the fact that I exist. They are aware of who I am and what I do.”
My eyes went wide.
“How do you know that?”
I felt my hands shaking. I could feel the rage emanating off of him. Gunner was trying to control it for me. He always did. In fact, this is the angriest he had ever really been around me. It was like an energy that took up the entire room
making it hard to breath.
“They’ve been sending me letters since I was a boy. Taunting me. Fucking with my head. I went to the cops about it and nothing came of it. That’s why I sort of went down the lawless path, because fuck them for not finding out who killed my family and fuck them for not being able to stop these letters. Fuck it all.”
I stood there stunned. I had always been able to deal with Gunner’s revelations. Always. When he told me about Tim and what he was doing to girls, when he told me about his parents’ death, when he threatened everyone after he found out about my rape … and then my suicide attempt … and then again when I told him about the press it all received, but this was so different. I felt like every piece to Gunner’s complicated puzzle came together in one horrifying masterpiece.
“Gunner I…” I stuttered as a tear slipped down my cheek for him. I wiped it quickly. He turned to me and gave me a resigned expression.
“I left to track them. I was done Dana. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t. Almost fifteen years of this now. This torture. They thrive off of it because they know who I am. The power I hold in their world, and yet I still can’t stop them, and I don’t know where or who they are.”
I cleared my throat hoping it would clear my thoughts too.
“What triggered it? What triggered you to finally come after them?”
He turned to me and looked so agonized I felt my own heart break.
“The letters started small. Just a ‘I know who you are’, ‘we see you’... that shit. Stupid stuff. Then it progressed to details about my parents’ murder before I arrived, and that was hard to take. Then it….” his voice caught, and he cleared it. “Then it was pictures of Iris’s murder. I didn’t love her anymore. She was a junkie through and through. It was bound to happen at some point. She never paid off her shit,” he added quickly in response my horrified expression, “but still she was the first … and last girl I ever loved.” Cool thanks.
“I felt like … well I didn’t want pictures of her body parts sent to me. Jesus! At that point my childhood was dead. Whoever I was or was supposed to be was gone. I didn’t change my name because I didn’t need to. I was so different. I was cold and ruthless in my pursuit to have power of my own… and I got it, but I’ve paid the ultimate price. Then you got taken and I saved you and Sam, effectively losing my slot in Tim’s crew and….” he eyed me suspiciously and I felt my heart rate increase, “and letting the men who killed my parents, also drug lords- remember the nature of the crime, know I had someone in my life who mattered.” I went pale.
“They didn’t, maybe don’t, know who you are, but I don’t know who they are or if they are following me here. All the spots I picked were safe for us to meet before. I was sure of it, but here... I don’t know. I’m not protected by my affiliation with Tim anymore. I told you, you shouldn’t have come.”
I wish I was brave. I wish I was more the girl Gunner should have in his life. Strong and ready for this type of situation, but this all scared me shitless. Back in Nashville I knew Gunner wouldn’t let anything happen to me, but he didn’t even know who these people were or what he was dealing with. I mean if he could stop them he would have done so at some point in the past fifteen years.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he tried to assure me. “Know that. I’m well trained Dana.”
“Should we tell Logan? He has security. A team. He can…”
Gunner’s jaw clenched. This was his parents murder and he wanted his own revenge. In a weird way I sort of got it. A very mild version of getting it. I wish I could have kicked Tanner’s nuts in before he was arrested. I was sure that Gunner wants to do a hell of a lot more than that to the people who killed his mom, dad and ex-girlfriend though.
“Dana, the cops couldn’t stop them before. Trust me. I have tried.”
I could see by his face he wasn’t lying, though if he wasn’t so serious I wouldn’t have believed him.
“We can still use Logan’s security and reach though,” Gunner added.
“How’s that?”
“I will take you back to his place. Tell him something to make him think you need to stay there for a while. I don’t even know if these people know who you are yet, if in the off chance they do, Logan’s house is a fortress after what happened to Sam. They aren’t gonna get you there. I’m sure of it. I helped Logan with the security myself.”
“You did?”
“Yeah,” Gunner smirked, “He wanted insight from a criminal. What I would do to get in, stuff a sane person wouldn’t see. It’s genius actually.”
I smiled at my brother. It was kind of was genius, and so like him to take advantage of a situation and use a connection to his benefit.
“And you agreed to help him?” I asked looking at him with wide eyes and a suspicious glare.
Gunner instantly frowned.
“I may hate Logan, but you are my friend and that’s your childhood home and the home of your brother and basically sister in law. Of course, I did. What kind of fucking question is that?”
He sounded genuinely upset that I would ask something like that, so I tried not to let my surprise show, so I didn’t upset him further.
“I wasn’t thinking,” I mumbled, but heart was still pounding in my chest.
“So, can I trust you to not say anything to Logan about this? Not yet. It won’t affect you in any way once you are back there. I need to get this done Dana, and I know from experience the law won’t give it the priority I need it to be.”
“You know you can trust me,” I said firmly.
“I know.”
“When do I get to go to Logan’s?”
Aka, when can I stop feeling so freaking scared and emotionally confused Gunner!
“I need to check the area first. I need to know it’s safe to leave here. We will have to fly commercial or drive. I need to check all this shit out before I take you back. I’d send you alone, but if they know who you are because you came to my hometown and contacted me, then you are in danger on your own. You’re better off with me there. However, with me there who knows… I just need to be sure. I don’t trust anything I’m not familiar with even if things don’t seem dangerous. We may not be in any immediate danger at all. I’m just being cautious.”
“You always are.”
Gunner’s stare intensified.
“With you. I don’t take risks when it comes to your safety. Nothing’s gonna happen to you Dana.”
I looked at him and gave him a shy nod. “Can I use the room... to get dressed,” I quickly added in response to his frown. “Or you can stay in the room while I get dressed.”
“I’ll stay in the room and get ready too. Let me know when you’re done.”
“Won’t be long. I'm just changing into the same outfit as yesterday. All my clothes are at the hotel. I need to go get them.”
Gunner’s jaw clenched.
“I’m not gonna stay locked in here!”
“I know. I know,” he grumbled.
“Especially when we don’t even know if we have an immediate threat.”
“I know!” he snapped. “Get dressed. We will go get your clothes.”
With that he selfishly went back into the room and left me to change out in the living area.
I quickly threw on my clothes and then called out to let Gunner know I was ready. While he was still getting ready I walked in the kitchen, only to realize he had no food. I felt him enter the kitchen, so I turned around with a frown.
“Do you not eat? Why’s there no food?”
“I just got here,” he reminded me. “We’ll get food on the way.”
“Okay… um, can we stop by Ray’s?”
I ran my hands through my hair. I was totally unsure how Gunner would react to this since it held a lot of memories for him.
“I mean we don’t have to. I just like their food. The ladies there… they just… they make me happy. Sorry. I'm sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Gunner responded slowly. “What the
fuck? I’m in my childhood home. I might as well go to my fucking childhood diner too.”
His words said one thing but his gestures another. He slammed everything he touched, and his hands were clenched at his sides.
“Gunner,” I said walking over to him and putting my hand on his shoulder. “It’s fine. Let’s get my clothes and head to the store. Okay? I can eat something from there.”
He nodded, letting out the breath I could see he had been holding.
Dana- 15 Years Old:
The time after my suicide was chaotic to say the least. Despite not being my intention, I had caused huge issues in my family and I felt awful. After I got clearance to leave the hospital I was immediately thrust back into my normal life, thanks to my parents. The only thing that changed was I saw a therapist once a week. To say this pissed Logan off would be an understatement. Logan was furious with my parents. Furious. Hearing him so angry at them made me feel bad because they’d always gotten along. The other part of me, the evil part, was happy he was mad at them. Was happy that he stops living in his oblivious state of bliss where I somehow was okay when he was gone.
I kept my promise and didn’t try kill myself again. In fact, I hadn’t even cut myself since I got out of the hospital. I focused on my schoolwork, making necklaces and any other miscellaneous task I could think of to keep me busy and avoid feeling. Although Logan still worked a lot, I could see he was making a huge effort to not travel as much. Anytime he was home he would try to talk to me, sort of like old times except this time all he wanted to hear about was me and my feelings. I would have given anything for him to have been that way when I was 13 and normal but this version of me didn’t want to open up to Logan, to anyone. I wanted to keep everything locked away. Besides Logan sort of felt like a close stranger to me now. He’d been gone so much, and for such crucial points in my life, everything felt different. He was different, I was different. I just didn’t know how to talk to him anymore. I could see the pain and guilt in his eyes every time I pretended I was okay, but he always let it go. He’d pat my head, give me a kiss and strut out of the room back out to whoever else needed him. Logan never lacked for things to do or people to see. That was always a guarantee.
