by Coralee June
“Did I break my arm in the crash?” I asked. My voice slurred, and I wasn’t sure if I was high on pain meds or poisoned from the venom in this strange man’s presence.
Once again the man didn’t answer me. Instead, he slipped his hand under the blanket with slow precision. I immediately shied away from the contact, my sluggish body responding the best it could. But he persisted, digging his fingers into my body until his gruff touch landed on my stomach. I sucked in another breath at the intrusive movement. His large hand nearly completely covered the expanse of my tight abdomen, his fingers stretching low enough to make my fears spike and the vulnerability I felt grow tenfold. I could feel the calluses on his palm and each groove of his rough skin. His forearm had brushed against my breasts, but all of his movement was hidden beneath the blanket covering me. I could only feel his perusal. It was a terrifying violation of my personal space, but I was still curious about what his intentions were.
He’d touched every injury I’d ever had. How could he possibly know about this one?
“Your mother kicked you in the stomach when you were six,” he whispered to himself before lightly tracing the exact spot where she had pummeled me. “It was because you fell, remember? You were playing and nearly hit your head on the corner of your nightstand. She wanted to punish you for getting hurt. It was the only time she didn’t take you to the hospital.”
Tears filled my eyes at his words. He was right, and how he knew my painful past, I didn’t know. She only did it once, but it was a memory that had stuck with me. It was like a cut that wouldn’t scab. My eyes widened, and I peered up at his shadowed face. I couldn’t see much of anything, just the slight frown, and his dark, scruffy facial hair. He had pillowy lips, which were currently stretched thin into a hard line of annoyance.
When he pulled away, relief flooded me as a wave of cool distance breezed along my pebbled skin. I could still feel the heat of his touch and the threat in his movements, though.
A million questions fluttered through my brain. I wanted to understand who he was, where I’d woken up, and what he planned to do with me.
“Where is Uncle Mack?” I insisted. Uncle Mack was the only family I had left. He was the only person I let stick around in my fleeting heart. What if he was dead? What if I was truly alone now? I needed to know if this man had killed him.
“He didn’t do his job, Roe. We all have jobs to do.”
My brow furrowed in confusion. His job? Was he mixed up in some shady gang activity? “I don’t understand,” I replied while shaking my head.
“He was supposed to protect you. He failed,” the strange man whispered. Memories of my overprotective uncle flashed across my sluggish mind. Every time he pulled me from my dates. How he drove me to school because he couldn’t trust me to drive myself. “He understood the consequences of failing. Once you’re better, I’ll let you see him again.”
I brushed my hair behind my ear, shaking my head as I looked down at my lap. “Please don’t hurt him.” I started to cry, though my eyes were so dry the tears seemed to evaporate the moment they pooled in my tear ducts.
The strange man seemed to hold his breath, going impossibly still. Hovering on the edge of saying something, I watched him then sway on the spot. My lip trembled as shocking awareness flooded my system. I needed to get better and get the fuck out of here.
He pulled a syringe from the pocket of his hoodie, and I flinched away, willing my heavy body to move as he tapped at the needle. “You need to rest. The doctor will be back soon.”
I stared at the threatening needle. “No, no, no. Please,” I begged as his hand wrapped around my uninjured wrist, squeezing with a viselike grip. My feeble attempts to get away were almost laughable. “Please,” I cried out as he plunged the sharp instrument into my arm. I focused on the thick, warm liquid that filled my veins. He grunted in satisfaction as I whimpered.
“You always get hurt,” he whispered in tense reverence as I slowly gave in to the darkness that clouded my vision. Those haunting words sounded too familiar.
I could have sworn I heard him say something else, but I wasn’t sure if it was my nightmares talking or him. Maybe they were the same. “You always get hurt,” he said again. “But not anymore.”
ROE
The next time I woke, I didn’t let feeble confusion guide my movements. My eyes popped open like a bullet escaping a gun. I angled my head up and searched around the room, somewhat expecting that odd man to be observing me again, but there was no one there.
I could still feel him, though. My skin broke out in bumps like it could sense his stare. I might’ve been alone in that unfamiliar room, but his presence dominated the air. When I inhaled, the smell of rosewood slapped at my throat.
It took a few moments to stand. My body felt weakened but still better than before. With each step, my joints seemed to crunch with soreness. Once at the door, I rattled the knob and busted my bruised body against the wood. I screamed a lot. I urinated in a nearby bucket and guzzled down the glass of water on the nightstand. Rabid and scared, I freaked out for what felt like days, though it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.
Every passing second had me feeling more and more on edge, and all the while, I felt his eyes on me.
Visions of the hooded man and his enigmatic words circulated throughout my mind. I scrutinized every sentence, every connotation of his tone and tried to come up with his motives for keeping me here. He said Uncle Mack didn’t protect me. He knew about my injuries, some of them very private. He couldn’t have known about them unless he was watching me.
How long had he been watching me?
Why?
I stank of salt, vomit, and body odor. My wavy, caramel hair was a snarled, tangled mess, knotted and drenched with my nervous sweat. How long would this psycho hold me here?
Thankfully, I was clothed now. Black sweats covered my scraped legs, and an oversized gray sweatshirt covered my torso, though my wounded arm wasn’t threaded through the sleeve. Instead, I woke to it cradled to my chest. I was thankful for the comfort of clothes but didn’t like the idea of someone putting them on me while I was vulnerable and passed out. The thought of the strange man touching me sent a shudder of fear throughout my body.
I examined the furniture in my room, trying to see if I could break it apart and use something as a weapon. Maybe if I found a blunt object, I could slam it against his skull. I wanted to see his face.
Just when I’d finally resolved to use the lamp on my nightstand as a bat, the door to my narrow room opened. I braced myself for the intense stare of my stranger.
My stranger?
My stranger?
What the fuck was wrong with me?
But instead of the hooded man with secrets and heat, I was greeted with the bruised face of my uncle. Relief and apprehension filled me. I would have shot up from my spot on the bed if my entire body wasn’t a bundle of aches. Instead, I slowly shifted, gaping at his slumped form as he entered my small room. “Uncle Mack? What happened to you?”
He wore an identical cast to mine on his left arm and had a fresh cut along his neck. He moved with a limp like his right leg was bothering him. His face was peppered with bruises, and his strong jaw bloomed a dark purple.
“Get up, Roe. We’re leaving,” he gruffly replied before sitting on the bed, like walking into the room took too much effort for him.
My skin horripilated and shivers racked my spine. We’re leaving? After days of confusion, and that’s the first thing he wanted to say to me? “Leaving? Where are we? Why did we run? And who was that man that came in here to see me?” My questions escaped my lips in quick procession. I couldn’t get my worries out fast enough. I sought understanding and answers. I didn’t feel safe, and I knew the only thing that would give me control over the situation would be knowledge.
Uncle Mack blanched like he was nervous about my questions. “He’s no one, Roe.”
I frowned at that dull answer. The strange man didn’t feel
like no one. He knew me, knew intimate details about my childhood that I’d revealed to no one. His voice was familiar and his touch even more so. There was something about him that felt inevitable. I couldn’t escape the unspoken idea that he knew me. Intimately. Dangerously. It was so odd, and yet the puzzle of his intimacy was addicting. In our brief but intense moment together, I felt like he held me gently in his palm, but I couldn’t tell if he was stroking me like I was precious gemstones or an atom bomb.
Whoever he was, Uncle Mack obviously knew him; I could discern that by the way he planted a half-hearted excuse in the soil of my curiosity, then glowered when a flower didn’t bloom.
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain to me what happened and why you look like someone took a sledgehammer to your body,” I began, anger infusing my blood with newfound energy as I sat up straighter and used my index finger on my good hand to poke at his chest. “One second we were relaxing and watching a baseball game, and the next we’re racing for our lives. Then, I wake up here, beat and bruised, to a strange man. He knew me, Uncle Mack. He knew…” My voice faltered. I hadn’t even told him about the terrible things his sister had done to me, though I had a feeling I didn’t have to. Uncle Mack might be a basic man, but he was intuitive. He could see the damage from my childhood written across my face. “He knew things…things I’ve never told anyone. None of this makes any sense, and if you think I’ll just blindly follow you, then you don’t know me at all.”
Uncle Mack groaned and mumbled something under his breath that sounded like I told him this would happen.
“Told who?” I snapped while poking him again. This time, when my index finger connected with the soft muscle of his chest, he winced. I briefly wondered how many injuries were hidden under his clothes.
Uncle Mack rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth. He could be annoyed all he wanted, but I wasn’t just going to let him be cryptic and settle for blissful ignorance. “The people chasing us have been taken care of, Roe. The man you met was a friend of mine. We can go home now.”
I scoffed. As if I’d accept that bullshit explanation. Uncle Mack didn’t have friends. He had coworkers and me. “A friend of yours?” I replied sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. “Why was he even chasing us to begin with?”
Uncle Mack pulled his bulky body back up to a standing position, his spine twisted to the side like he was compensating for a flare of pain in his abdomen. “Roe. He wasn’t the one chasing us, okay? He saved us.”
I blinked twice at that explanation. I’d hoped it would create a chasm of relief to flood me, but it didn’t. I just felt more bogged down by confusion. “Listen,” Uncle Mack began again. “You’re going to get up and get in the car. We’re going to go home and pretend none of this ever happened. Don’t ask questions. Stop prying. I know you’re shaken up, but I promise you it’s better if you don’t know. I’m trying to keep you safe, okay?”
Keep me safe? What was he even keeping me safe from?
“No.” My single word response filled the small, quiet room. It landed like a heavy rock in the deep ocean of distrust growing between us. I crossed my arms over my chest in defiance while staring him down. I took in the dried blood on his thin lips and the rust-colored stains on his white shirt. I noted the tear in his jeans and the darkened blue-black color of a bruise on his eye. Uncle Mack was beaten to hell, and if I needed to, I could outrun him. Between the two of us, he looked the worse for wear.
I wanted to trust my uncle. I wanted to believe that he had my best intentions at heart. He was the only family I had. I knew this man—or at least I thought I did. But something in my gut was telling me to run. There was an innate wrongness about everything that had happened, everything he was saying. I wasn’t about to lie down and accept his excuses.
“Yes,” a deep voice said from the doorway. I snapped my attention there and stared at the phantom leering at me. He was still wearing his hooded jacket, concealing his face from my vision, but I recognized his commanding presence. It was like the room had dropped ten degrees from his chilling energy. I felt the gloom shadowing his soul.
He’d unzipped his hooded jacket but wore nothing beneath it. My eyes wandered along the hard hills of his body, noting each defined dip in his abdomen and the firm lines pointed in the shape of a V at his hips. I noticed deep gashes along his chest, old scars that had long ago healed but still seemed to define him. I thought the scars would make him look more dangerous, but instead, it just confirmed that he was actually human. On his hip, there was the distinct edge of a tattoo, but I couldn’t fully make it out. “I got this,” Uncle Mack retorted through gritted teeth while staring at the stranger.
My heart rate picked up, and I shuffled a little to create more space between us, though he hadn’t moved past the threshold of the door. I wasn’t sure there was even much room for the three of us, considering this room was a glorified closet.
“I thought you had it handled last time, but look where we are,” the man growled in response, turning his attention away from me and to my battered uncle. I could feel the hostility rolling off of him, see the way his lips thinned in disapproval.
Uncle Mack froze before shaking his head. Tilting his head back to me, the man then spoke. “You’re going to leave now, Roe. You’re going to listen to your uncle. You’re going to live a happy little life in your happy little house and forget everything that happened here. You’re going to be safe and obey. You’re going to not put yourself in harm’s way.”
I opened and closed my mouth, feeling indignant at the condescending way he spoke to me but also disturbed by his commands. I knew with complete certainty that I couldn’t go against him. He was too strong, too fatal. I also bristled at the words safe and obey. My mother drilled those words into me for a full decade. I associated safety with her compulsive fears about death, and even though Uncle Mack was a bit overprotective, it was nothing compared to her obsession with safety. I didn’t like feeling like I was being sucked back into a world where I was trained to fear everything.
My intuition was guided by self-preservation, and one look at this man had me shaking with the need to flee. “I just want answers,” I finally whispered. It echoed like a pathetic plea.
The strange man seemed to study my words for a fleeting moment. He lifted his hand up and rubbed at his chest, like the pounding thing pumping blood there was paining him. We teetered on the edge of a decision. I prayed he’d open up and give me an ounce of honesty, but he didn’t.
“I just want you to leave,” he finally replied.
His answer felt oddly disorienting. Why was there a longing in his tone?
Why did it sound like a lie?
He spun on his heels and walked away, carrying with him a truckload of confusion and suspicion. I observed his back until the darkness of the hallway consumed his tall, muscular frame. I squinted past the darkness for a single lingering peek, not sure why I was so invested in figuring out this dangerous man. I should want to leave, I should want to take this opportunity by the balls, escape and run with my tail between my legs. But there was something I was missing. I knew it.
But what?
The lights flickered overhead, jarring me out of my trance.
Uncle Mack exhaled before speaking again. “We have to go, Roe. Please don’t fight me on this. I promise you it’s better than staying here.” He was right. I wanted out of this small room and back into the mirage of safe familiarity. Better the devil you sort of know than the devil you don’t.
I flickered my gaze between the door and my uncle, considering my options. Nothing about this was right. Nothing about this made sense. “Please, Roe,” he begged while running a meaty hand through his hair. I noted scars on his knuckles. What did I really know about my uncle? I knew he cared about me. He learned how to braid my hair when I was a tween. He would special order my favorite pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. He listened. He cared. He painted my room pink when I first arrived at his house, then changed it to black when he rea
lized I wasn’t the sort of girl to revel in the frill of things. He worked hard for both of us and always made sure I was well taken care of.
Uncle Mack had a track record of caring for me, but it seemed convoluted now. Was I willing to throw all of that away for this?
Maybe.
My soul was begging me to flee. I’d always been so quick to let go of the people that had the power to hurt me. My mother let my father’s death completely warp her reality. She loved him so much she let her grief ruin her, and I never wanted to give someone that sort of power over me—even Uncle Mack, the man that had effectively raised me. I felt like he was about to reveal something painful, and not just the physical sort of bruising we already had endured. I felt like running because I knew that this was just the start of my world crumbling at my feet, and I didn’t want to stick around to pick up the pieces.
“Okay,” I whispered, though it felt like a lie. I wasn’t completely on board with trusting him, but I realized I didn’t have much of a choice. Staying here with the strange man wasn’t an option, and if my aching muscles had anything to say about it, going off on my own wasn’t really viable just yet either.
Uncle Mack’s face lit up like I’d taken a massive burden off his shoulders. His happiness created a dark pit of sadness to boil over in my chest. It felt like my throat was constricting.
I’d go with him, for now. But the moment I had the chance to flee, I would.
After all, running from my feelings and from people was what I did best.
HUNTER
I observed Mack and Roe as they drove across the long stretch of road leading away from my cabin in the woods until their tail lights disappeared into the distance. Every inch of space between us seemed like miles, and an odd mixture of relief and misery swelled in my chest. I planted my hand against the cool glass to ground myself, letting the chill seep into my blistered palms. I felt like a fucking pussy.
