Page 36 of Axel

I’m his Daddy.

And I’m going to look after him Forever…

With the adrenalin pumping around his body, Axel suddenly had a moment of clarity. He knew where Arlo was, he was sure of it. And best of all, it wasn’t too far away either…

Chapter 15

Arlo

The wheels were still spinning on the bicycle that Arlo had taken from some unsuspecting poor soul as he pushed it into the undergrowth.

‘Urgh. I feel terrible,’ Arlo said, out of breath and feeling guilty for having stolen the cycle. ‘I’ll make sure they get it back. Or I’ll try. If I ever come back to Eagle Ridge…’

Arlo looked at the tall trees that were all around him. The sunlight was seeping through the cracks between the leaf-covered branches, and the birds were chirping in their nests. But this was far from the happy scene it should have been – or would be, in normal circumstances.

Having taken the bicycle in a blind panic and cycled out of town, Arlo had used his somewhat shaky knowledge of Eagle Ridge’s backstreets, roads, and dirt tracks to take him out toward the forest – Sunset Forest specifically.

‘Back where it all started,’ Arlo said, sighing as he recalled justhow much he had fallen for Eagle Ridge in the time that he had spent there.

Of course, it was far more than the lush outdoor spaces that had captured Arlo’s heart. There was the not so small factor of Axel too. But right now, Arlo couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around what would happen between him and Axel. All Arlo knew was that he was effectively on the run from the military…

‘Sass, I’m not being dramatic,’ Arlo said, taking his backpack off his achy shoulders and removing his stuffy from his side compartment. ‘Harper and Kray are bad people. Theworst. And I know that they’ve hurt people in the past. There were always rumors. They were here for me, I know they were.’

Arlo felt a tear trickle down his left cheek.

The tear moved over Arlo’s cheek, and he tasted its salty flavor as it ran over his lips. For Arlo to be this close to breaking down in floods of tears showed just how stressful and horrible a situation this was for him. Arlo was tough, full of character, and hated backing down to anyone or anything. But the very real threat of his former military bullies was taking him to a place that made him feel vulnerable in all the worst ways.

‘Come on, be a big boy,’ Arlo said, his bottom lip trembling a little as he spoke. ‘Be brave. Don’t back down. Never let the bad guys win.’

Arlo steeled himself and felt a renewed sense of hope. He knew that he was in a tough spot, but Arlo had been in difficult places before. If there was a chance of getting out ofthis situation in one piece, then Arlo was determined to take it.

Think fast.

Think smart.

Think… different.

Arlo then smiled the biggest smile as he saw a tree across from him that just so happened to look extremely climbable. While he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hide up there forever, Arlo did think that by climbing up as far as he was able to, he would be able to at least rest easy and know that he was safe…

‘I’ll climb, make a plan of action, and go from there,’ Arlo said, his voice suddenly full of excitement. ‘That’s a good idea, isn’t it Sass?’

Arlo giggled as he put his backpack underneath a nearby bush and stuffed Sass into the waistline of his jeans. And as nimbly as a monkey, Arlo began scaling the tree.

Even before his military training, Arlo had always loved tree climbing for as far back as he could recall. But with the added skillset of professional climbing training in the armed forces, Arlo was bordering on being a competition standard climber.

‘Woo-hoo!’ Arlo called out, easily maneuvering himself up to a perfect plateau made of the thickest, sturdiest branch he could have wished for. ‘Perfecto. I’m like a Little Tarzan!’

Arlo looked in awe as he was able to take in a wide ranging view. He might not have been in the mood for sightseeing as such, but there was something undeniably breathtaking aboutseeing the forest and then the town in the distance from this vantage point.

As he sat on his perch, Arlo thought about how difficult it would be if he wasn’t able to see Axel again. It would hurt. It would hurta lot. But Arlo knew that he had to be realistic. If Harper and Kray were after him, then they most likely weren’t going to stop until they found him, and this meant that sticking around in such a small place as Eagle Ridge just wasn’t an option.

‘I just wish I knew what they wanted from me…’ Arlo said, letting out a long sigh.

It was possible that the pair of buttholes had simply come to make Arlo’s life miserable once more – after all, they could have been on leave and had nothing better to do than come and cause him all kinds of crap. Arlo wouldn’t have put that past them.

But far more likely was that Harper and Kray were trying to influence Arlo’s unfair dismissal case. This could have been because they could potentially see their careers in tatters because of it. Or even scarier, they might have been sent by the sergeant to simply take Arlo out of the equation completely.

Whatever the reason, Arlo couldn’t see a way where he could remain in Eagle Ridge. He knew that Axel would want to protect him, but Arlo didn’t think it was fair to drag his Daddy into a potentially deadly world.

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