by Piper Lawson
My phone rings in my pocket. It’s eleven and the first wave of traffic’s been processed. I don’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Chase? It’s Tess. Ariel’s roommate.” I’m about to brush her off when I notice the tension in her voice. “She didn’t come home from class and I wanted to see if she’s with you.”
“No. Why?”
“Her computer’s on the kitchen table. There’s an email from a really weird address.”
My hand grips the bar and I look at Amos. He finishes pouring a drink, pockets a bill absently before crossing to me.
“What does it say?” I ask tightly, the phone pressed hard against my ear.
“It says ‘he can’t protect you if he’s in jail’. Those are the actual words. And there’s a picture of you two. In your room. It looks like…well, it’s just really creepy.”
Panic washes over me. “Don’t go anywhere, Tess.” I hang up. “Amos, come with me.”
He runs to the back to tell Tor, then gets up on the bar and shouts. “No drinks for the next hour. But a round on me when I get back.” The usual clients cheer.
I hand Amos my phone as I swing the truck out of Tor’s. “Ariel’s missing.”
Amos doesn’t need instructions. He grabs my phone, finds her number. “Ariel, It’s Amos. I’m with Chase. We’re worried about you. Call us back.”
I fill Amos in on the back story. Then we blaze into the visitor lot of her apartment. I don’t bother to park straight. Then pound on the door.
“Where would she be?” I demand as a worried-looking Tess ushers us in.
“She had class until nine.”
“Show me the email.” Tess motions to the computer and I look at it. The address isn’t anything I recognize. Attached is a grainy picture but clearly me and Ariel in my room. Not Ash, I can tell by the body and the hair. Which means it was taken today.
If the guy knew I was with her, was getting pictures, I was willing to be he knew her schedule.
Ice runs through my veins.
We check her classroom. Nothing.
“Where else would she go? Her friend Ben’s? Home?”
Tess shakes her head. “I tried Ben, she’s not with him. She wouldn’t have gone home. I don’t want to worry her dad, he’ll freak out.”
“What about the library?” Amos asks.
“She has a study room,” Tess offers.
The acned student on duty at the front desk looks at me like I’m a jealous boyfriend and insists he can’t tell us which room is Ariel’s.
I resist the urge to put the guy’s head through the book return slot. “Listen. She’s in trouble. And unless you want me to drag you down these halls until you point out which one’s hers, you might as well tell us.”
Tess steps in front of me, holding up a hand. “I’m her roommate. It’s an emergency. Please.”
“Alright,” he says suspicious. “It’s eleven twenty-one.”
We make our way up to where all the study rooms are located on the third floor. The doors are all shut and the library is eerily quiet. I think it closes at one am and it’s twelve now. It’s impossible to tell who’s using their rooms and who’s not.
I try the door to hers. It’s locked.
“She’s not in there,” Amos infers.
I start kicking at the door but Tess stops me. “The rooms are small. She could be right behind the door.”
“Not unless she’s—” I shake my head to clear it. “Fuck, I can risk it. We need to know she’s not here,” I hear myself say.
I kick the door in.
We’re greeted by a paralyzing sight.
Ariel’s in the corner, sitting passed out with her hands behind her back. She’s wearing a bra and panties, different than the ones she was in this morning. Her shirt and jeans are on the floor in one corner.
Bile rises in my throat, competing with the panic.
But we’re not alone.
The man watching us pushes up from the desk he was leaning against. He’s as tall as me but thin, older. Forty. Dark, greasy hair. Eyes that make me wonder if he’s on drugs.
I don’t see a weapon, besides a length of rope on the desk. But the guy lifts a wood chair, the only other furniture in the room, holding it between us.
“Chase,” Amos warns from behind me. “You’re on parole.”
The man swings at me with the chair. I dodge it, mostly, then kick at the man’s knee, and he doubles over. I grab his hand and twist it behind his back and he hisses out a breath.
“See if she’s breathing,” I tell Tess, who’s standing frozen by Amos.
She rushes over. Looks back at me. “She is.”
Relief. “Good. Get her dressed. See if you can wake her up. I need to look after something.”
I drag the guy down the hall and into the stairwell. I’m grateful no one else is around.
Amos follows a few paces behind. “Calm down, Chase.” He’s one of the only people who’d look at me, as calm as I am on the outside, and know I’m murderous on the inside.
I pat the guy down as best I can. I’m confident he’s not carrying a gun or a knife. I let go of him in the stairwell landing, both of us between him and the door. He’s got only stairs in both directions, and the way I just broke his kneecap he’s probably not going anywhere fast.
Despite his disadvantage, the man leers at us.
I’m not afraid. Not even close. The adrenaline pumping through my veins inoculates me.
“Listen, fuckhead. There are two ways this can go down,” I mutter to him. “You’re already going to be arrested for kidnapping and God knows what else. On top of that, you took a swing at me.”
“I didn’t touch you, kid,” he sneers.
I turn to Amos, deadly calm. He shoots me a businesslike look and I nod incrementally. Then he slugs me in the cheek. I wince at the blinding pain, resisting the urge to hold my face as I turn back to the other man.
“Your word against ours, asshole. And when Ariel says you drugged her, who’re the police gonna believe?”
The whites of his eyes show now. The tinge of fear.
“You have no fucking clue who you’re dealing with,” I breathe on him. “I’ve done some serious shit.”
“What about him?” He shoots a look at Amos.
Amos flashes teeth, a humourless smile. “I’ve helped him do it, friend.”
“What did you do with Ariel.”
“The girl? Just slipped her something to make her sleep. I didn’t touch her, I swear. Me and her mom, we were gonna be together. High school sweethearts. That stupid girl killed her. She doesn’t deserve to live, skulking around ungrateful, shacking up with—”
I kick him in the stomach, where it won’t show. He groans.
“Let’s go, Chase. The police can deal with him.”
He’s right. Amos pushes the man in front of us and we march him to the front of the building where the cops are pulling up.
“We’re going to need your statements,” one of them says as two others take the man from us.
“Yes. I just need to get—“ I turn back to the library. “Ariel.”
Tess is walking toward us, Ariel leaning on her. Ariel’s dressed but looks seriously out of it.
I run to her, pull her into my arms. “Are you OK? Did he hurt you?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“I’ve got her,” I tell a worried-looking Tess, who nods.
They’re pushing the man into the car and I watch his face, Ariel leaning on my side. The man’s expression transforms from nervous to intense. He calls something out at me and I struggle to hear it, his eyes boring holes in me.
The police take statements. We try to send Tess home but she insists on coming with us to the hospital. The doctors corroborate that Ariel’s had some kind of drug. Probably placed in her water bottle when she stood up at the library.
It’s after three am when we drop Tess off, then Amos.
“You sure you don’t want me to come over?”
Amos asks.
I grab his arm. “We’re fine. Thanks.”
I finally take her back to my place to sleep.
Upstairs, Ariel crashes.
I lie awake, watching her sleep and stroking her hair. I don’t even bother getting undressed, because I’m not going to sleep.
Instead I watch her. And the street.
~
“Hey you.”
I blink into the light. Ariel’s leaning over me, a smile playing on her lips.
“Ariel. How are you?” I try to sit up but she rests a hand on my chest.
“I’m fine. Thanks to you.”
“What time is it? I can’t believe I fell asleep.”
“I think you’re allowed to.” She ducks her head. “Chase, I shouldn’t have chewed you out for wanting to protect me.”
“No. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have told you what to do.”
She crosses her arms on my chest and looks down at me with those depthless eyes. “I can’t do this, Chase. I don’t want to fight with you. You’ve told me you don’t want casual and you don’t want intense. Tell me what you do want.”
I’ve been asking myself the same damn question for more than a week. Here, wrapped up in her, my heart still pounding from feeling like I was going to lose her.
“I want whatever we can have together. You’re the last thing I think about at night. The first thing in the morning.”
“Good.” She presses a kiss to my mouth and I deepen it, my hand weaving through her blond hair. But gently.
Even though she swears she doesn’t remember anything between drinking tea in the library with the door to her study room ajar and waking up in the hospital hours later, she’s had a rough couple of days.
When she pulls back I study her. The heart shaped face. The straight hair. Perfect bow lips. I think of all the reasons I’d resisted this. How powerless I am to resist her. But I have to be honest. “I can’t promise you a future Ariel. But I want to.”
“The future isn’t ours to promise.” She looks at me earnestly and I believe her.
I’d gotten used to not having things I wanted. But it’s worse because I’ve let myself think I can have her. The hope is killing me in a way the defeat never could.
“I want all of you, Ariel. For as long as we’re allowed to have.” I can’t hold back the words as much as I want to. Even though I know it’ll end up hurting her in the end.
This girl’s taken my heart when I didn’t know it was mine to give.
She curls back into my chest and I feel her heartbeat next to mine.
~
Friday morning I’m pacing in the bleachers like a nervous parent.
Coach Varis didn’t want me there. Of course, I didn’t listen. So I snuck in to watch from the far end of the stadium.
I drove her here, gave her the best kiss of my life and wished her luck. This is for both of us, but I want it for her most of all.
The drill’s a 10k. She needs to take a full minute off the time she ran in practice.
She can do it. I know she can.
She’s standing on the start line, putting her headphones in. I can practically hear Eminem blasting from her phone, and a smile tugs at my lips despite the nerves.
I think of all the things we’ve rehearsed. Keep focused, keep steady. Keep strong.
Flutter, flutter.
She breaks from the start and I watch, holding my breath.
One lap.
Two.
She’s not settling, I realize. She doesn’t look nervous, just tight.
I watch her round the end of the track closest to me and farthest from Varis for the fourth time.
Her expression clouds and she reaches up to touch her headphones.
“Chase? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“I see that,” I say into my phone.
She looks up and I swear her face lights up when she sees where I am.
“Who’s in your head, Hastings?” I say into my phone, teasing.
“You’re in my head a lot lately, Chase.”
“Listen. I don’t wanna distract you. Don’t talk. But your arms are tight. Take a big breath and let it go through your shoulders. You’re using too much energy.”
I watch her do it and she’s better already.
“Good girl. Just breathe.”
“Chase? Will you stay with me?”
Something squeezes in me that she wants me to. “Yeah. I’m here.”
I don’t say anything else but watch. Hear her breathe and it’s like I’m breathing with her. Hear her feet crunch the gravel and it’s like I’m running beside her.
Twenty minutes later she crosses the line and I know we’ve done everything we can.
I meet her at Varis’ office. “How’d we do?” Her face isn’t as happy as I’d hoped, and my enthusiasm dies.
“Five seconds short of our target time, Chase.” Varis frowns.
“Fuck.” I pull Ariel against my side, my eyes falling closed.
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs into my chest.
“It’s not your fault. You did great.” I press a kiss to the top of her head. She’d put everything she had into this. Maybe I let her down.
Varis is watching, silent. “You know, that’s damn good for two weeks of training. Not to mention the disruption at the end of last week.”
Ariel’s head lifts. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t think the team can afford to be down both of you for the rest of the season. Particularly given your dubious yet effective coaching methods.” He raises a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re back on. Both of you.”
We turn to each other and she beams at me. It’s the sweetest moment since the time she kissed me at the side of the road.
When we’re back outside, Ariel calls Tess to tell her the good news.
While she’s busy I make a call of my own. Hit a speed-dial entry, not bothering with an introduction.
“The guy who took Ariel. He said something before the police put him in the cruiser. I didn’t get it at the time.”
“Yeah.”
He said “This isn’t over, Daniel.”
Amos swears. “You think this wasn’t even about her.”
I watch Ariel talk animatedly into the phone, a smile on her lips and her blond ponytail bobbing in the sun.
“I think someone wanted to send a message, Amos. To me.”
Thank you for reading Chased, Part I! If you loved it, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
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Piper Lawson is the author of the Travesty series (Schooled, Stripped). Piper loves reading and writing stories about sassy, sexy, smart women and the guys who fall hard for them.
Piper’s main household expenditures include books, shoes, and chocolate, not necessarily in that order. Coffee = life (and she’ll defend it accordingly). Piper has two degrees from a pretty good business school and has been fortunate to spend the last several years working at a really good business school.
Home is Canada plus occasional sunny winter escapes.
She’d love to hear from you on Twitter @piperjlawson, on GoodReads, www.piperlawsonbooks.com, or Facebook (www.facebook.com/piperlawsonbooks)
Books by Piper Lawson
Schooled (Travesty #1)
Stripped (Travesty #2)
Chased (Chased #1)
Excerpt from Schooled (Travesty, Book #1)
June, Two Years Ago
Prologue
“You’ve lost your mind! It’ll never work.”
“It has to, Lex.” My best friend, Ava, set her beer down with a thunk on the table between our beach chairs. Mine was next to it, looking even emptier than hers.
Ava and I were indulging in a tradition we’d started years ago. Before leaving for college, we’d lie out at night on the deck of her parents’ pool at least once a week and talk about anything and everything. Looking out over the expanse
of water, tinted electric blue by the liner and the lighting, was oddly soothing. It was a weird tradition, but it was ours.
“My mom would flip,” I stated.
Ava shrugged a slim shoulder. “Well that’s just a bonus.”
“You think we can sell our own clothes and make money at it?”
“Come on. With my designs and your brain? We can’t fail.”
As crazy as it was, the idea sounded eminently more exciting than a finance career.
Ava and I had just finished our freshman year of college. She was in liberal arts but had been talking about transferring into fashion design. I was majoring in business, and the only time my mom bothered to talk to me was to see whether I’d read the investment banking internship pamphlets she kept sending. The mounting sense of feeling trapped plus our long-time love of fashion had combined in some kind of heady cloud to produce this evening’s idea.
Beer might have been a contributing factor.
The slamming of a car door interrupted our exchange. I sat up and glanced over the hedge that provided some privacy between the pool deck and the driveway beside the house.
“You were lucky not to get arrested.” Ava’s father’s voice thundered through the night. Ava and I exchanged startled looks. While I didn’t know the “what,” I was pretty sure I knew the “who.”
Dylan Cameron, Ava’s seventeen-year-old brother, was marching ahead of his father up the back walkway toward the porch.
There was a striking resemblance between them, though Dylan was taller and dressed in a button-down and jeans. Sunglasses were sticking out of the neck of his shirt even though it was past 11:00 p.m. With his dark good looks and lean figure, he could’ve been an actor in the latest network teen drama. Dylan’s profile looked mildly irritated but otherwise unconcerned.
“It’s not what you think. You’re taking it all out of context.” Dylan’s low voice carried on the night air.
“I get a call to come and pick you up from a party where there were drugs. What part of that is out of context?” Mr. Cameron clearly didn’t share his son’s laissez-faire attitude.
