Page 21 of Max

“I am,” I tried to assure her. I didn’t want my aunt to worry over me more than she already did.

“Do you need me to come to you?” She pressed.

“No,” I exclaimed. “I promise I’m okay. I just have a lot on my plate right now.”

“You need me, you phoned,” she demanded.

With no intention of doing so, no matter how good it felt to know they considered me theirs, I lied.

“I will.”

“Good, good,” she whispered. “We’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yes, tomorrow,” I said.

“I love you.” She whispered, and my eyes closed with the feeling that stole over me when I heard those words.

“I love you, too,” I whispered back.

By the time we got to the warehouse, I was a nervous wreck. I bit my nails so hard, the skin around them started to bleed. Something I hadn’t done since I was ten years old. I question if what we were doing was the right way to go about it, or I should just listen to what Melanie suggested, call 9-1-1, and hide in my hotel room until all is done.

“We’re here,” Melanie announced unnecessarily.

We agreed we would park a half a mile away from it so as not to be seen by bad guys if there really were any that used my warehouse as their personal storage. I exited the car without saying a word and started walking, not giving myself any chance to turn and run. We got to it, hid behind some bushes, and waited.

“I don’t think anyone’s here,” I whispered after crouching for a while.

How long we were huddled together listening to the tiniest sounds and jumping to the movement of every leaf, I had no idea. But my limbs were screaming in agony, my feet felt numb and my back hurt like hell, so I guessed we were at it for a while.

“Maybe we should go over and look inside,” I started to get up, but a hand came to my neck and forced me down.

I screeched.

“Shut the fuck up,” a voice growled at my right.

“M-M-Max,” I stuttered. The fear and relief were battling inside me so hard that my heartbeat triple timed, and my legs went out, and I ended up with my ass on the ground.

“Shut it and stay down,” he commanded.

I didn’t shut it. And I didn’t stay down. What I did was stupid. I got up, put my hands on my hips, and demanded to know.

“What are you doing here? And how did you find us?”

“What I’m doing here is saving your ass. Again,” he reached to the waistband of my jeans, his fingers touching my skin, my breath leaving me for a totally different reason, and he pulled me down. “You weren’t hard to spot, Bean. What with you two moving the branches every two seconds and pushing your faces almost all the way through.”

“Excuse me, we did no such thing,” I gasped.

“She was quiet and compliant the whole time she was with me, and now she thinks it’s the right time to give me sass,” he muttered to himself.

“I’m not giving you anything, I snapped. “I’m just pointing out that we didn’t do what you said we did.”

“Bean, saw you from the other side of the building,” his lips twitched. “You’re not exactly stealthy as you think you are.”

“Can you believe this guy?” I was outraged, and needed some backup.

But Melanie’s face was white, her mouth open and her eyes trained on something in front of her. I followed her line of sight and watched in horror as three big cars with blackout windows parked in a line in front of my doors. Five men walked out of them. One pointed to the flickering light overhead, said something to a man wearing a suit to which he shook his head, and looked around. Max pushed my head down, and I couldn’t see what happened but could hear the steel screaming. They were opening the doors. I really needed to buy some W-D40 and take care of that. I meant to do it for a while, but something always got in the way, and it was so down on my list of things to do that it was pushed back on a regular basis. I guess the time to take care of it was here. The sound pierced my ears. I never wanted to hear it again.

“Fuck,” Max muttered, let go of my head and reached to his back pocket.