by Rye Hart
“I just did, bitch! By the end of this year, my Christmas present to myself will be signing the lease on the store for my own business.”
“Holy hell, Gwen, I’m so proud of you. Have you started looking at places? You need someone to look over rental contracts?”
“Girl, that law degree of yours does not relegate you to go reading over my legal paperwork,” she said. “I got this.”
“I just want to help,” I said. “Gwen, this is exciting. You’ve been talking about owning your own salon ever since we were in grade school.”
“Yep. I knew what I wanted then, and I know what I want now. The question is, do you?”
Her question hit me like a ton of bricks. We were sitting at our favorite restaurant in Memphis, waiting for the best barbecue while we sipped on the best sweet tea in the South, but all I could do was sigh. It felt like my best friend’s life was falling into all the right places. She graduated from high school and went straight to beauty school. She learned how to cut hair before jetting off to L.A. to learn all the new and funky coloring styles. Then, she kept getting certification after certification on how to do everything from neck massages to people’s toenails. She was a one-stop shop for everything spa-oriented, and it had all culminated to her opening up her own salon.
Me? I was a twenty-eight-year-old lawyer working in a corporate law firm that defended institutions from getting sued for shady practices they engaged in. We defended everything from sexual harassment lawsuits to companies that were skirting health regulations in their own damn factories. My firm defended embezzlement cases and even assisted one or two people into getting by with their Ponzi-scheme-like business setups.
It made me sick, and I was tired of defending the guilty just because it paid me a decent sum of money.
“No, Gwen, I don’t know what I want to do,” I said.
“What’s going on with work?” she asked. “Obviously, the paycheck isn’t worth it anymore.”
“No, it isn’t. Had I known what I was getting into from the beginning, I wouldn't have taken the job. I became a lawyer to defend those who need it; to prosecute and put away the very same men I’m defending every day. These men and these companies should have been thrown in jail and had everything stripped from them. I’ve watched them drag women who’ve been sexually harassed through the fucking mud for a measly settlement so they wouldn’t have to go to court. Work is hell, Gwen. This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“So fucking quit,” she said. “That’s absolute bullshit. Can you quit and go after those assholes?”
“Their cases are closed,” I said. “You can’t reopen them unless another woman comes forward. But I can’t just quit, can I? What in the world would I do?”
“Look, Whitney. That job pays you over six fucking figures a year, yet whenever I see you, you look like you make less than five. You’re cheap, so I know you’re stowing away that money. What are you doing? Investing it? Giving it away? Letting it sit in a raggedy show box for some rainy day?”
“I’m investing it,” I said. “I started hating my job so much that I figured I could invest in high-risk accounts and retire by the time I’m forty or some shit.”
“So, you’ve got money in the bank. You worked all through law school, even though you didn’t need to, and your full fucking ride paid for everything. You’ve got money for days, Whitney. Use a little of it.”
“To live without a job?” I asked.
“You could go wherever you want. You like the beach, right?”
“Not really,” I said. “Too crowded in the summer.”
“Then get yourself a little rented condo this winter. Get away. Remember when I went to the mountains last summer, after my breakup, and came back a new fucking woman? Clear your head. Getting away from all this bullshit will help you figure out what you want to do.”
Her words sat heavily in my head just as our food was set in front of us. The barbecue smelled delicious, and the hushpuppies were to die for. Gwen was already digging into her macaroni and cheese, but all I could think about was saving room for their blackberry cobbler.
Holy hell, this place had the best cobbler.
“Well, I still can’t just quit,” I said.
“Yes, you can,” Gwen said. “You’re just telling yourself you can’t.”
“No, I can’t,” I said. “I’ve already been given a new case by my boss.”
“So turn that shit down.”
“No, I can’t,” I said. “It’s me and another colleague of mine defending some asshole.”
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“I can’t go into specifics because of attorney-client privilege, but it’s absolutely insane. The client’s ready to win, ‘no matter what it takes.’”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Gwen said.
“It’s not,” I said. “This man should be stripped of his wealth and thrown into Guantanamo.”
“Whoa,” Gwen said. “Those are some harsh words. Has he killed someone or something?”
“He might as well have.”
The truth was, I had no business defending a man like this. He was the head of one of the most powerful pharmaceutical companies, and he ended up cutting corners like all asshole businesses do. He took his drug to trial before it was ready, and now, some of the patients in his trial were dying. And he wanted to cover it up and somehow make it the patients’ fault so he could take the damn drug to market to make millions.
But here was the kicker: by the time this man made his projected four hundred million dollars off this one drug, he’d have settlements to pay because more people would die. And if he could convince them all to settle out of court, that was maybe fifty million out of his pocket if he could keep the government out of it.
Which still meant he netted three hundred and fifty million dollars from this faulty fucking drug.
It was disgusting.
I finished up my lunch with Gwen and hugged her. I got myself a sweet tea to go, as well as another slice of their blackberry cobbler before I headed back to work. I knew my boss would be ready to update me on the latest toe-curling saga from Mr. Pharmaceutical.
What I didn’t expect was for him to be waiting for me at my door.
“Miss Hollis, I assume you have a good reason for being late?” he said.
“I’m not late,” I said. “I’m actually two minutes early. Would you like to come in?”
“No, we can talk right out here. You need to mount your defense forty-eight hours early. Our client is trying to settle out of court.”
“Of course, he is,” I said, sighing. “I’ll get right on it. But I’ve gotta ask you: can you really get behind this man?”
“What does that mean?” my boss asked.
“I mean, from what I’ve already read up on him in the documents, his drug is killing these patients in these trials. Why in the world are we defending someone like that?”
My boss’s stare hardened, and I could tell I was treading on thin ice. The last thing I needed was to be fired, but the more I looked at my boss’s stoic, angry face, the more I wanted to punch him in it.
“Miss Hollis, if you believe the client is at fault, it doesn’t matter. You work for me, and I’ve told you what I need from you. Now, do what you are paid to do, or I will find someone else who will. Someone I can pay a little less money for, mind you.”
“I just wanted your honest opinion,” I said. “Your honest, human opinion.”
“Tried and true lesson number one, Miss Hollis. As a lawyer, you don’t get to be human.”
His words were like a slap on my face. All my life, I’d wanted to be a lawyer. To help those that couldn’t defend themselves. I wanted to gather up the women and men who felt they couldn’t go after their perpetrators and run those assholes down. It was the human side of me, the empathetic side of me that pushed me to become a lawyer.
And now, I was working with a man who told me that was exactly what I couldn’t be.
&nbs
p; “Sir, that simply isn’t true,” I said.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“This client is killing people, and he knows it,” I said. “He’s a murderer, and he knows it. He’s come to you because you’ve sold your soul to some devil, and that means you’re willing to defend a mass murderer. There are five people dead because of him right now, and if this drug goes to market, who knows how many more will die? This man deserves everything that’s coming to him from the families he’s devastated. I will not help a murderer go free.”
“You will if you want this job,” he said.
“I quit.”
Once those two words left my mouth, I felt like a boulder had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like, for the first time in two years, I could take my first deep breath. I felt like my head had just come above water, and I was coughing up the burning salt from my lungs from an ocean of darkness that had tried to suck me down in its depths.
My boss’s eyes were on fire as I turned my back to him and threw open my office door.
“If you aren’t out of here within the next four hours, I’m having security escort you out,” he said.
“Actually, I have to pack up and then head down to HR,” I said. “I’ll have to update them on my status and then discuss my severance plan.”
“You will have no severance plan,” he said.
“Would you like me to challenge that in court? Because I’m more than willing to.”
I turned around, caught his glare, and I felt powerful. In control. Alive. I watched my boss waver for a split second before he turned around and stormed away. I sat down in my office chair and looked around, eyeing the few things I’d decorated it with. I didn’t have books or anything that needed to come with me. Hell, I could probably fit everything in the massive purse I lugged around with me. But even though this job caused me more heartache and pain than I could’ve ever imagined, I’d called it home for two years. I spent more hours here than I did at my own apartment, and now, I didn’t have anything to occupy my time.
I had no plans, and that was when my fear began to set in. What the hell had I just done?
I packed up my laptop and the rest of my things before I turned off the light in my office. People were poking their heads out and watching me all the way to the elevator. I smiled and nodded before I headed down to HR. I wanted to make sure I talked with them face-to-face and got paperwork signed before my boss could get to it because now, I was going to need all the money I could muster. I still had an entire paycheck coming in a couple of days, and I could automatically invest my severance package, so that was a start. I signed all the paperwork and made copies for myself, then stayed and watched the HR clerk file them electronically before I left.
I walked out of the office with my overloaded purse, my cobbler, and my tea, and for the first time in my life, I had no idea where to go. I spent so little time at my apartment, that it was practically like a hotel room. My fridge had nothing more than creamer for coffee and bottles of water. Gwen was right. I was cheap because of the way I was raised by my father, and I was scared of spending money because of the turn my life took in high school.
When I was fifteen, my father lost his job. We weren’t wealthy by any means, but with state assistance, we got by. My mother worked whatever jobs she could until her back gave out, and she had to quit. My escape from my world was always going over to Gwen’s. Her parents had wonderful jobs, and food overflowing their fridge at any given moment. I was mesmerized by the way they lived. I’d always looked forward to sleepovers, when I would eat until I couldn’t see straight. Then her parents would always give me plates of food to take back to my parents.
However, when my father lost his job and couldn’t find work, we were evicted and living on the streets.
My father always taught me how to rub two quarters together to get a dollar, but those couple of weeks on the streets until Gwen’s family found out and took us in had done their damage. My mother had begged for money on the corner while my father applied for any and every job he could find. It wasn’t until I broke down to Gwen one day in the library that she finally knew what was going on.
Gwen’s family took us in for a time, but I knew they couldn’t keep us in their home forever.
I couldn’t blame them. One family taking in another family skyrocketed bills and grocery runs. Even with trying to ration my food, I knew the toll we were taking on the Maxwell household. My father used their computer to apply for jobs all around the country, and after two months of straining an entire household, he found a job.
A factory job in the middle of South Dakota.
Gwen’s family offered to keep me with them so I could stay in school and graduate in my hometown, and at first, my parents were against it. We fought, and we yelled. We screamed, and we cried. I called them every single name under the sun, and they continuously called me selfish. The stress and the pain and the fear that I’d kept shoved down boiled over the top, and it drove such a rift between my parents and me that we couldn’t even stand to be around one another.
Eventually, however, they caved to the notion and left me with Gwen.
What I didn’t realize was that I’d barely hear from them again.
To this day, we barely spoke. They barely called after they got to South Dakota, but I was so scarred by the upheaval that I didn’t reach out much. I didn’t care that I didn’t hear from them, except on certain occasions like birthdays. I didn’t care that they didn’t want me. Maybe they were ashamed that they couldn’t give me the life Gwen’s parents could, so they were doing what they thought was best for me.
But as I stood on the edge of the corner outside of the place I used to call work, I sipped my tea and held back my tears.
I felt like that lost little girl again, sleeping on the street, and I didn’t know where in the hell I could go from there.
CHAPTER 3
LIAM
I could taste the sweat on my brow. I could feel the blood trickling down my arms. I could hear the screams of the innocent while the chains from my bondage wrapped around my wrists. They bound me to a floor that simply kept sinking, sinking into the effortlessness of giving up. I screamed and shouted. I saw Paxton’s face while he sat at his shoddy desk. I heard the cries of those gurgling on their own blood and, as the floor kept eating me whole, I felt it all wash over me.
Pain. Guilt. Anguish. Anger.
I shot up from my bed, leaving behind a pool of sweat while my brow continued to drip. Throwing the covers off my body, I swung my legs around the bed. The bed in the cabin. In Gatlinburg.
I’m in Gatlinburg. I’m in Gatlinburg.
That had become my mantra over the past month. The nightmares and terrors that seemed to follow me all the way from the Navy had found me in my self-inflicted deep, dark hole. I dragged myself to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. I needed to get this sweat off my body. I needed to change my sheets.
I needed to have another reel to play in my head.
I got to the sink and opened up the tap, splashing water on my face with my shaking hands. I couldn’t breathe. I placed my lips underneath the faucet, avoiding the one thing I knew was waiting for me when I picked up my face. I guzzled down the crystal-clear well water, trying my best to wash away the metallic taste of blood. So many innocent lives spared to save the wretched and all of it fell onto my back.
All of it was my responsibility.
I drank until I sputtered and then I drank down some more. I drank until I knew my stores had been replenished. I felt the water running through my beard. The beard the Navy would never have allowed me to have. I didn’t want to look at myself. I couldn’t stand the sight of the traitor I felt I had become.
But when I lifted my head up to dry myself off, there I was. Right there in the mirror.
I studied the sunken-in look of my eyes and how pallid my skin had become. I took in the thickness of my beard and how I could no longer see my face underneath. My lips were bar
ely there and my eyes were bloodshot. The water was trickling down my lackluster skin and, even though I recognized the eyes staring back at me, I still felt like a stranger.
A stranger in a cabin in the middle of the damn mountains. Who was this man?
I couldn’t roll back into bed. Not after the things my mind had conjured up. I could smell the sweat that permeated my bed all the way from the bathroom, so I went out and ripped the sheets off. I threw them into the washing machine before gathering up my dirty flannel, chuckling at the memory of that conversation I’d had with Paxton.
It seemed the mountains had finally inducted me into their family.
By the time I started the washing machine, the birds were chirping outside. Despite winter setting in, there were still a few birds who chose to hang on until the very last minute. I had to check the storage shed and make sure I had enough dry wood chopped up for the next few weeks of winter. Then, I needed to run into town to stock up on some supplies.
I needed gas for the generator in case the power went out, matches to make sure I could always keep a fire going, canned foods and meats I could deep freeze and vegetables I could vacuum seal to get me through until spring if I got stuck up here in heavy snows. The city of Gatlinburg didn’t snowplow the roads all the way back here. There just weren’t enough people for them to justify the expense.
But that didn’t matter to me. I was completely fine with being snowed-in.
I went out to the storage shed and opened the door. I’d have to chop up a little more wood to get me through the cold months but, other than that, I was all right. It wasn’t urgent like the need for food and gasoline was, so I hopped into my truck and ran on into town. It took me a good forty minutes to get to the store I knew would have everything I needed.
“Hey, Liam!”
“Hey there, Moose,” I said, walking into the general store.
“Coming into town for some stuff, I see,” he said. “Need anything in particular?”
“Just as much gasoline as you can load me up with,” I said.
“How does twelve gallons sound?” he asked.
