Page 14 of Biker's Tribute: Property of Bear

“That’s where you’re wrong. Sometimes all it takes is one bad choice that snowballs out of control, and all the choices you have left are even more fucked up than the first thing you did wrong in the first place.”

She shakes her head.

“You’re wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter if I’m wrong. You’re here tonight and my responsibility. If you do exactly what I say, you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“Right,” she says. “If I listen to the bearded maniac client who kidnapped me, everything will be just fine…”

* * *

Five

Amanda

Ethan Shaw locks the door behind us and points to the bed.

“Sit. I need to make phone calls and think.”

I knew he was big when I first met him and he followed me to my office, but I didn’t get a good look at him until now. It’s like being in a broom closet with a horse.

Not only is he over a foot taller than me, he looks like he eats a whole cow every day to maintain that much muscle mass on him. He could squeeze the life out of me with two fingers. But in my office, he was vulnerable for a moment before all hell broke loose, and if any of that vulnerability remains in this patient whokidnappedmy ass, I can use that weakness against him and escape.

It’s not exactly an ethical use of what they taught me, but this man pulled out a firearm and emptied bullets into a stranger without hesitation.To protect me.Those bodies must still be on the floor.

We both look at the bed, but I haven’t moved.

“Sit,” he says, in a calmer, more reassuring voice.

I glare at him. I’m too scared to try anything that might work in a therapist’s office without more information, and I’m too much of a smart ass in real life to sit on the edge of the bed like a dog just because Ethan commanded me to do so. He kept me alive so far, which means he won’t kill me now. But that doesn’t mean he’s a suitable protector against whoever just broke into my office. And what about Mallory?

Everything hits me at once. My stomach knots and those uncomfortable physical sensations they teach us to identify in our patients swells up within me.

I need my own time and space to think, so not due to obedience, but lack of other options, I sit on the edge of the bed and watch him pace. This is his fault. He's acting like it's his fault, because he seemed to know exactly what to do.

The man brought a gun into my office. My head swims. Who thought shit like that could happen in Boston? We have an educated population and gun laws. Hooligans like Ethan and those men who broke into the office shouldn’t be in Cambridge. It’s not like Boston has mob activity… does it?

Now that I'm seated and gaining more mental clarity, relevant memories filter into my head. When you learn various therapeutic techniques during your training, you learn to consider problems from all sides. Not to see things in black and white. I steady my breathing and try to put my training over my instincts.

Most of us don’t get into mental health because we had a perfect childhood or a perfect past. I understand what it looks like on the outside to my cousins on my father’s side like Keyshawn or Myra on my mother’s side out west in Los Angeles.

What if they weren't after Ethan? What if they were after me? Still, that doesn’t make sense. Those phone calls were pranks because I’m not involved in any problematic activities. I’m a therapist. I have to report to a licensing board. I could get sued. I can’t think of a reason anyone would blackmail me. And I must be thinking too hard, because Ethan’s expression hardens and he turns his body towards me, ceasing his pacing to stare me down like an angry bison looking at a Yellowstone tourist.

My fascination with the darker parts of the human psyche have finally brought me here – trapped in a room with a dangerous man who has at least one hundred pounds on me. If our conflict turns physical, I don’t stand a chance. Maybe foolishly, I meet his gaze. Although, I never took my eyes off him in case he decided to pounce, so I don’t have to look far to meet those hardened green eyes. His thick black beard needs a comb.

"What are you staring at?" he growls, his big hand moving to that thick black beard. The hair on his head is a shade of brown almost as dark as the beard, but with streaks of grey. There’s a difference between looking and staring. It’s not ‘staring’ when you’re assessing the danger levels of the gigantic bearded man trapped in a motel room with you.

“Nothing,” I answer with a steady tone. “Lost in my thoughts.”

My answer arouses his attention despite my best efforts not to draw him closer to me or provoke him into a worse and even more unpredictable mood.

"Do you know something?" he snarls at me suspiciously. His stare sends a chill straight down my spine. The dynamic between us has been totally turned on its head and I didn't walk into my damn office today prepared to handle this.

And what about Mallory? How do I know that nothing happened to her? I don’t want to bring up my friend’s name in case he kidnaps her too, but I’m worried sick. More of a background worry considering my situation, but those worries count.

"I know what you know," I answer him -- as honestly as possible.

I never got answers about that mysterious, threatening phone call. He scrutinizes my face like he doesn't believe me. My gaze locks with his because I don’t want to give him an opportunity to leap again. Observing his emotions won’t give me control over them, but I still have a chance to get away from him if this doesn’t turn physical.

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