AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Two men lunge into the ring through the chain-link door and grab Daze by his shoulders. It seems to take their combined strength to finally draw him off from an opponent who is no longer moving.
He can’t, a voice in my head whispers. He won’t be moving ever again. His head is too misshapen. Too bloody. His neck shouldn’t be at such an odd angle…
Amid the shouting, screaming crowd, Daze pushes away from Silas’ men and stands, trembling, on his own two feet.
The emcee doesn’t even bother to announce him the winner. Instead, the man climbs into the ring through the makeshift door and raises Daze’s fist before he pushes away and storms from the ring entirely.
Silas moves to follow him, his shouts audible even from here. “What the fuck, Daze? You agreed to every term, remember? That you’d go down silently,” he snaps. “You think you can pull a stunt like that and walk away? What the hell is wrong with you—”
“I told you I was coming for you,” Daze shoots back before staggering to my end of the ring, covered in blood. “Try and stop me, and you’ll end up the same fucking way.”
He vanishes in the direction of the locker room, but I can’t follow. I can’t move at all. Finding Hale was the worst experience of my entire life, but this comes close.
I can’t wrap my head around it all. I’ve just watched him take a man’s life so easily… Without a shred of guilt. How could he be the same man who stopped me from jumping?
How can he be so brutal in one instant, yet so caring with me in another?
What does he want from me?
It’s just too much.
Dazed, I turn on my heel, barreling for the door. It feels like an eternity of pushing past heavy, unfamiliar bodies before I finally break free near the outskirts of the room. Only now can I register the shock and fear that leave me sick in their wake. I’m going to throw up soon. I know I will.
On the verge of gagging, I spy a metal door that I hope leads outside, and I lunge for it. I need fresh air. I need to leave. I need to pray for my soul and hope to never witness something like that again.
“Wait!” Apparently, the devil won’t let me go so easily. Someone grabs my arm from behind, and I know who it is from his smell alone.
“Please,” he grates against my ear. “Frey, hear me out. That wasn’t… Just talk to me—”
“No!” I wrench away from him as hard as I can, but he’s too strong—even though his hand is so wet. “Let go of me!”
“Let her go,” a rough voice calls out. Ben? I don’t see him in front of me, and I don’t have the strength to look behind. “Let her go, Day.”
He must listen because a second later, I break away and stagger blindly into a thinning group of people nowhere as thick as near the ring. I put all my focus into pushing past them. I barely hear the voice that calls out.
“Frances? Frances?”
It isn’t Daze, but my head whips around with chilling recognition. That voice doesn’t belong here. Not in a den of vice and violence.
A glance over my shoulder reveals just blurred, unfamiliar faces, and I turn back for the door, convinced I’m hallucinating. Panicking. Then I see him. A face blurred by movement but still recognizable enough to send a chill through me. Dark hair. Darker eyes. The hallmark traits of a man who rarely leaves my father’s side, if ever—one of his most trusted acolytes. Robby.
Fear drowns out any logical reason for why he could be here. Wherever Robby is, my father isn’t far behind. Panicked, I turn back for the exit, and at this stage, I don’t waste time being polite. I push and shove my way forward until I make headway.
Somehow, I wind up outside, running down the street without looking back. I don’t have my cell phone. Then a hysterically horrifying realization comes to mind—I left it at Daze’s apartment. Without it, I don’t even know where exactly I am.
Or why an agent of my father’s would be here as well. Robert O’Neil. Though I may have imagined him—or more simply, Father had me followed all this time. Somehow the prospect isn’t as terrifying as the thought of Daze finding me. Touching me with bloodstained hands. Convincing me that what I just saw hadn’t actually happened.
I can’t.
So I just run.
SIXTEEN
Father brokedown after a full year of pleading and let me move into my apartment. After Hale died, I barely slept there, staying in my old room instead, next to his.
He was the reason for the spare key I keep hidden under the welcome mat. Sometimes he’d visit before things got truly bad. When I fish it out now, the pain nearly desolates me. I wind up leaning against the door, fighting to unlock it through a haze of tears.
Once inside, I climb into the shower and sit with the water running as I try to process everything that’s happened.
