Chapter 14 Emily
Emily
The shelter smelled of dog piss and the last dregs of my patience.
Closing shift was always a drag, but tonight my hands moved like they were pulling wire from my own skin, methodical and a little bit numb.
I swept the runs, signed off on the med logs, and started flicking off lights in every room except the lobby—half a superstition, half a way to put off the moment when I’d have to go back to the apartment and wait for the world to implode.
Sergeant’s nails clicked behind me as she limped along, nose to the ground.
The other dogs had wound down to a low thrum of anxiety, some already curled in their beds, some howling at ghosts.
I paused by the old collie’s kennel to double-check the water bowl, and that’s when I saw the corner of paper, not white but a cheap, muddy gray, folded twice and slid under the gate.
My heart didn’t just skip. It tripped over itself, then tried to claw its way up my throat.
I stared at the paper for a full ten-count, the way you look at a spider you know is poisonous but might not move if you just stay still. Then I knelt—cold seeping through the knees of my jeans—and picked it up. It felt like nothing, like the note might disintegrate if I breathed on it too hard.
The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed and flickered as I unfolded the note. My hands shook so badly the words blurred, but the blocky, all-caps printing was hard to mistake:
YOU’RE IN OVER YOUR HEAD.
GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN.
NOBODY WANTS TO SEE AN INNOCENT GIRL CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE.
The letters were inked so hard the paper was dented, and I could smell the sharp edge of the marker, fresh and chemical. There was no signature. The creases in the paper suggested someone with big hands, the kind that didn’t mind breaking fingers.
I stared at the words until they ghosted on my retinas. Sergeant whined behind me, pacing from one end of the run to the other, and I realized she was picking up on the charge in the air, the way animals always do when something’s about to go bad.
The logical thing would have been to lock the doors, set the note aside, and forget it ever existed. Instead, I pulled out my phone and dialed Dean, thumb punching the number before I could talk myself out of it.
He picked up on the third ring, but he didn’t speak right away. I heard the background first, a hum of angry voices, the rattle of a bottle on wood, the bone-dry echo of a meeting room that was never meant for peace.
“Em?” he finally said, voice low.
“Are you safe?” My words tumbled out, high and thin. I heard my own desperation and hated it.
A pause, then, “What happened?” No pleasantries, no jokes. Just the immediate snap-to of a man who’d been trained to expect trouble every time his phone rang.
I could hear the tension in the way he said it—the way his vowels clipped short, his consonants landed with more certainty than they usually did when we were alone.
I swallowed, realizing my mouth had gone dry as shredded cotton. “I got a note at the shelter. Under a kennel door. No name, but it’s—”
“Read it to me,” he said, interrupting. I could picture him, eyes already scanning the exits, pen in hand, minute book pushed aside. His focus would be total, surgical.
I unfolded the note with both hands, trying to keep the paper steady. “It says, ‘YOU’RE IN OVER YOUR HEAD. GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN. NOBODY WANTS TO SEE AN INNOCENT GIRL CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE.’ That’s it. Nothing else.”
I heard the collective roar of voices dim in the background as Dean must have stood and walked away from the table, shutting the door on the chaos inside. Now it was just the sound of his boots on linoleum and the distant, ever-present rumble of the club. “Any idea who left it?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, tried to conjure an image. “Could have been anyone. We had volunteers in and out all day. The handwriting is—it looks like someone tried to disguise it. But the phrasing is familiar.”
A new pause. This one longer. “Don’t move,” he said, and his voice had gone so soft and cold I shivered. “I’m coming to you. Don’t talk to anyone. Lock the doors and turn on every light you can.”
I heard the scrape of his chair, the clatter of a bottle knocked over, the sudden spike of male voices as he re-entered the main room. Then a muffled exchange, his voice not raised but edged with such authority that even through the phone, it cut through.
“Stay on the line,” he said, back in my ear.
I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. My knees hurt from kneeling on the tile, but I stayed there, Sergeant nosing at my wrist. I fished a treat from my pocket and gave it to her with a trembling hand. She took it, then sat, tail sweeping slow arcs on the floor.
On the other end, I heard Dean moving—door, hallway, the metallic jangle of keys. The voices from the meeting room bled through, blurred now with concern or curiosity.
“Are you alone?” he asked, and I could tell he was already outside, the wind cutting in sharp and clear.
“Just me and the dogs. I’m in the back. The front doors are locked.”
“Good. Leave them that way. Do you see anyone outside?”
I crept to the edge of the kennel, peered through the dirty wire mesh to the window. The parking lot was empty except for my car and a battered work truck, probably left by one of the maintenance guys. Streetlights threw sickly halos over the gravel.
“No. Nothing weird. But it feels wrong, Dean. Like someone’s watching.”
He grunted. Not at me, but at the situation itself. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t hang up.”
The next sound was the guttural churn of his Harley’s ignition. I listened as it built to a roar, then faded into the white noise of evening traffic.
I let the phone drop to speaker, placed it on the desk, and moved to the front, checking locks again and again. I flicked on every light, bathing the shelter in the kind of glare that made shadows impossible to hide in. The walls looked sickly, and the floor reflected every flaw.
Sergeant trailed behind, hackles barely up. She never barked, but she stood between me and every open space, as if she could soak up the danger by osmosis.
I watched through the glass as a single headlight carved the dark, splitting the night in half.
Dean pulled up, cut the engine, and scanned the lot before even dismounting.
He peeled off his cut, tossed it into the saddlebag, and stalked to the door with a look that would have sent lesser men running.
He didn’t knock. Just pounded once, the echo rattling down the hallway. I buzzed him in, hands shaking, and unlocked the main door.
When he stepped inside, I saw the line of tension running from his neck to his fists. His eyes swept the lobby, then fixed on me, then on Sergeant. He didn’t smile. He didn’t even try.
He closed the door behind him, locked it, then took a slow, deliberate inventory of the space. His voice, when it came, was softer, meant only for me: “Show me the note.”
I handed it over, and he turned it in his fingers, reading each word with a focus that bordered on obsessive. Then he set it on the desk, smoothed it flat, and took a photo with his phone.
“I’ve seen this before,” he said, voice now all business. “Sultans use this trick. They send a warning before they try to hurt someone. It’s a test—see if you scare, see if you run. See if they can control the outcome.”
I felt my stomach clench. “So what do we do?”
He took a breath, rolled his shoulders to shake off the edge. “You’re not staying here tonight. Pack what you need for the dogs. I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
The panic hit harder this time—because the world had shifted, not just for me, but for every animal in the building, for every future day I’d thought I could live outside the blast radius of men like him.
I nodded, then reached for the leash. Sergeant licked my hand, sensing the change. I grabbed my bag, stuffed it with meds and a spare shirt, and left everything else.
Dean stood by the door, body angled just enough to keep me behind him as he scanned the parking lot again. He opened the door and let me step out first, but only by a pace. Sergeant stayed glued to my left thigh, eyes locked on the darkness.
The ride to my apartment was a blur. Dean rode behind in the Harley, keeping just enough distance to watch for a tail, eyes everywhere. I drove with both hands locked at ten and two, heart hammering, every car that passed a potential enemy.
We parked in the back, under the broken security light. Dean walked me to my door, his presence so large it felt like an extra layer of body armor.
Inside, he swept the apartment in seconds—checked the windows, the bedroom, even the tiny bathroom. He wedged a kitchen chair under the doorknob, then turned to me, every inch of him still wound tight.
Sergeant sniffed the room, then circled and collapsed on the rug, as if the worst had already passed.
I set the bag down, looked at Dean, and for the first time since he walked in, I saw how tired he was. The blue in his eyes was ringed with red, the tension in his jaw so strong I thought it might snap.
He didn’t say anything. Just sat on the edge of the couch, hands loose between his knees, waiting for me to decide if I wanted to speak.
I looked at the note, then at him. “Are you scared?” I asked, not sure if I wanted the truth.
He considered it, then nodded. “Yeah. But not for me.”
That was the thing about men like Dean. They didn’t care if the world ate them alive. But the thought of collateral damage? That kept them up at night.
I sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, and let the silence do the rest.
I wanted to tell him I wasn’t, that I’d never be good again, that every shadow now had teeth. Instead, I nodded, then knelt to unclip Sergeant’s leash. The dog collapsed in a heap by the door, but her eyes stayed open, tracking Dean’s every move.