Page 12 of Truths

“I just need to know you're really here. Here with me, and that you're alive and safe now.”

Dani looks at the ground as her hands wrap around herself. “Do I have a choice?”

Hands fall to his sides, and pain fills him. “You always have a choice.”

“I didn’t before,” she says, her eyes not looking at him. “I can't... I can't stand to be touched. At least, not right now. I'm sorry.”

“What did they do to you, Dani?”

When she shakes her head, it takes everything in him not to turn and run out to find every man in a Kingsmen kutte and brutally murder them. “I don't want to talk about it. Can I... Can I have a pillow?”

“What?”

“To sleep on. Can I take a pillow from the bed?”

“Where do you think you're sleeping, Dani?” Her bony finger points to the corner of the room on the hardwood floor. “You're not sleeping on floors anymore, baby. You'll sleep in the bed.”

“Dax, I can't-”

“I'll take the couch until you're comfortable with me being around. After what you've been through, you deserve to sleep in a comfortable bed.”

“It's your bed. I-I can't take your bed.”

Shaking his head, he walks towards the door. “It'sourbed. And until you're ready to share it with me, just to sleep, it's your bed. Goodnight, Dani.”

“Goodnight.”

Dax shuts the door behind him and walks outside for air to find Mac, Finnegan, and Chance waiting. The anger at Chancehasn't subsided, and he just shakes his head as he pulls out his phone.

“Hey,” Colt answers. “Everything okay?”

“Griffin's Beach still here?”

“Some of them, yeah. What's up?”

Swallowing, he clenches his free hand into a fist. “Undertaker there? And Venom?”

“Yep.”

“I need you three to come with me somewhere. Can you meet me at my house?”

“Be there in a few.”

Looking at Mac and Finnegan, he nods towards the house. “I need at least one of you inside with her. She's in the bedroom and really skittish, so I don't think she'll come out at any point. But just in case she needs something, I want someone there to hear her.”

“What about me?” Chance asks.

“I need you to get the fuck away from me for a while. If I look at you for too long, I'm going to kill you. Right now, it's taking everything in me not to slit your fucking throat.”

“Dax-”

Again, Dax's fist cuts Chance off as he falls to the ground. “You knew. You knew Kara saw her, and you did nothing. I can't even look at you.”

“Dax, it's not Chance's fault,” Mac tries to argue.

“Kara fucking saw her!” he shouts at his Sergeant at Arms. “She left to try and find her when this asshole should have come to me and told me.”

Motorcycles interrupt them, and Colt, Venom, and Undertaker pull into the driveway. Seeing Undertaker on a trike oddly fits because all Dax can imagine is a gorilla on a mini bike otherwise.

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