Page 155 of Unexpected

It was so eerily quiet that even my soft steps and heavy breathing seemed loud in the dense silence. The entire second floor was nearly pitch black. The only light came from the gaps between the boarded-up windows around the entire space. Boxes and boxes of liquor and beer and bar supplies were piled in every corner. Up there, it was easier to recognize that the bar was a renovated house based on the layout of the space. There was the main room right off the stairs, with a hallway leading to several smaller rooms immediately to my right.

I thought maybe I’d been wrong, and the man downstairs was just a decoy based on the silence and lack of movement until I heard a laugh from the end of the hallway.

It was a laugh I knew all too well, but it wasn’t Hazel’s. That laugh was dark and filled with cruelty few would likely ever know, so I walked toward it.

My heart thundered in my chest, and I tightened my grip on my gun. I battled with myself, both hoping Hazel was there and praying she wasn’t.

Another laugh erupted from the last room on the right, and I let my gun lead me through the doorway. It took everything in me, all of the control I could muster, to not shoot Valerie on sight.

She was poised behind Hazel, who was slumped back in a chair in the middle of the room. Seeing the state she was in felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. Her hair was tangled and falling behind the metal chair that was screwed into the ground. Her hands and legs were bound to the chair and the duct tape was still over her mouth. Her nose was likely broken based on the amount of blood running down her face.

What I wouldn’t have done to take all her pain away, to trade places with her or go back even a few hours before and stop her from leaving me at all.

“I’m so glad you could join us,” Valerie said as she moved slightly to the left so I could clearly see the gun I figured she had. It was pressed against Hazel’s head.

I opened my mouth, about to tell her to put down the gun when she raised her hand in warning. “No, don’t start, Bear. This is how this is going to go: I’m going to talk, and you’re going to listen. You will only speak when I ask you a direct question, otherwise, I will shoot your little Angel. Got it?”

I seethed and I could feel my pulse quickening.

“That was a question, Bear. You should answer it.”

“Got it,” I said through clenched teeth. I didn’t want to take my eyes off Valerie, but I did a quick scan of the room. It was practically empty save for a few boxes stacked in the far-left corner and a few more in the opposite corner against a door that led to the room next to us.

But there was no one else there.

“Great,” she said, the tone of her voice rising a bit with her approval that I was listening. “Now, gently place your gun on the floor and kick it to me.”

“You can’t be fucking serious,” I said. There was no fucking way I was dropping my gun when she had one pointed at Hazel’s head.

“Oh, but I am, Bear. What part of all of this makes you think that I’m not fucking serious? Now, I’ll give you a pass for talking out of turn just this once, but next time, I’m going to hurt Hazel. So, kick the gun to me, otherwise, I will ensure she is in a significant amount of pain.”

I wanted to just shoot Valerie right then and there, but that meant gambling with Hazel’s safety. I’d figure out another way to get us both out of it; there had to be another way.

Without another viable option, I flicked the safety on and placed my gun on the floor before kicking it until it came to rest directly under the chair Hazel was bound to.

“Good job. I knew you’d make the right decision. Now, we can talk without the pesky issue of pointing guns at one another getting in the way.” She smiled a saccharine smile, and I bit my tongue.

Hazel’s head fell from one side to the other, and a pained groan forced its way through the silver tape. Every muscle in my body tensed. The red marks on her wrists where the rope had rubbed and burned were raw and looked painful. Her ankles were partially covered by her jeans, but the rope was flush with her skin there and was sure to look the same as her wrists. Her hair, in its tangled mess, fell behind her shoulder as she rolled her head to the opposite side, exposing her neck and another irritated mark right below her jawline.

And those, along with her nose, were only the injuries I could see. There was no telling what else Valerie had subjected her to.

“Don’t worry about her, Bear,” Valerie said, noticing my thoughtful examination of Hazel. “She’ll be with us shortly. I couldn’t leave her out of all the fun completely, but for now, I want just you and I to talk. It’s been too long since we’ve had a real conversation, and if you actually participate—when prompted, of course—then this will end up a whole hell of a lot better for your Angel.”

MyAngel. The way she said it was repulsive, and for once, I didn’t think of the scared yet incredible magnetic woman with the halo headband. No, I remembered the photograph Valerie had taken of Hazel with angel wings, a halo.

“It appears,” she said, glancing out the window over her shoulder. “That you enjoyed the little gift I left you.”

If it weren’t for her peeking over her shoulder and the man who likely still lay on the ground outside, I wouldn’t have known what she was referring to. Her eyes flitted down to my hands fisted at my side like she was looking to see how bloody and bruised they already were.

“That was honestly a twofold gift. On the one hand, I really wanted to watch you beat the shit out of someone again and then come up here extra pissed and worked up. But it was really a gift for you, too. I know how much you like to let out all that aggression that’s likely pent up. Don’t you feel better now?”

My fingers twitched and nervous energy pulsed through me. It used to work—making someone submit, hearing their bones fracture under my fists or anything in between. But it was also the pain I was subjected to that kept me grounded. And at least in the few minutes I was in the makeshift ring, I feltsomethinginstead of the nothing I had become used to.

I craved that release like it was a high. I was angry at my father for killing my mother; I was angry at my mother for not seeking help, and I was mad at myself for letting it happen. I was mad at the entire fucking world.

Fighting was easy and convenient—that’s all there was to it. It was a convenient and easy crutch, and one that I had to learn wasn’t necessary. But just because I didn’t fight anymore—didn’t need to—didn’t mean I wasn’t going to fight forher.

I would never stop fighting for her.

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