Chapter 48 ALEX #2
I need to get to my phone and tell Theo what’s happening. He’s going to freak the fuck out, but he’ll get home in a few hours, and then I’ll be safe. Everyone is at the office today, so I’ll let them know what’s happening, and they’ll keep me safe until Theo gets back from Salem.
They won’t let anything bad happen to me, and Theo sure as hell won’t let anything bad happen to me. He loves me, he’s protective, he has enough money that I’m sure he can do something to keep Danny the fuck away from me, and if worse comes to worst, he can be pretty fucking violent.
Danny won’t be able to get to me if Theo’s around.
I’m two blocks away from the office when someone steps right out in front of me, and I’m sprinting so fast that I can’t stop myself from slamming right into him.
He stumbles back from the impact, and I lose my balance and start to fall, my feet slipping on the wet concrete, but he wraps his arms around me tightly and sets me back on my feet.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” I don’t look at him as I start to push away from him, but I freeze when his arms tighten around me, and I go cold when I smell cigarette smoke and Old Spice.
Oh, no.
“Where are you running to, Alice?” Panic rushes through me as I look up into Danny’s concerned, angry face. I start shaking my head quickly. There’s no fucking way this is happening to me.
I was so close.
“You’ve gotten yourself into a bad situation, but I’m here now, babe. It’s time for you to come home.” I can tell he’s trying to be calm and sweet, using that patronizing voice he uses when he thinks he can talk me into doing something without yelling first.
Usually, that voice makes me acquiesce immediately, but not this time.
“No.” He looks surprised as I start struggling against him, trying to kick and hit him. “Get the fuck off me!” I’m screaming loudly, hoping someone can hear me. Danny claps a hand over my mouth and starts pulling me up a driveway towards a car, growling into my ear furiously.
“Jesus Christ, Alice, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I start screaming behind his hand, shaking my head and trying to bite him. He swears and releases my body for just a second before he pushes a gun against the back of my head, and I freeze.
“Hands behind your back. Don’t make a sound.” I don’t know what to do, but I hear him cock the gun, so I put my arms back. He releases my mouth and ratchets handcuffs around my wrists so tightly they bite into my skin.
“I hate that you’re making me do this. We both know I’m not this guy,” he says as he grabs a fistful of my hair roughly and yanks me towards the car. He opens the back door and shoves me in like I’m being arrested, hitting my head against the car on the way down.
Fucking bastard.
He gets in and starts driving, heading out of town on a road I’m not familiar with. I look out the car window, trying to figure out where we’re going, but I have no idea where he’s taking me. We’re quiet for a while, and I can tell he’s working himself up.
Fuck, I shouldn’t have fought back. Fighting back is only going to make this worse for me.
“I don’t understand why you did this to me,” Danny says, his voice hurt.
Great – he’s kidnapped me and he’s playing the victim.
“I was scared, Daniel,” I say slowly, using his full name the way I do when I’m trying to make him listen to me. “You pointed a gun at me and threatened to kill me.”
“It’s your fault I even got that angry,” he says petulantly, and I roll my eyes because I know he can’t see me. I keep my voice low and soothing when I talk to him.
“I was telling you how I felt. I’m allowed to have feelings.”
“Bullshit,” he spits. “You were drunk, and you were saying insane things to me.” I grimace. I said a lot of things to him that I shouldn’t have. “I’m a good guy, Alice. I didn’t ruin your life, and I didn’t fucking take advantage of you, I took care of you.”
He’s more delusional than Theo ever was.
“You took care of yourself,” I mutter before I can stop myself.
“What the fuck did you just say?” Shit, I can’t talk back like this with Danny.
“Nothing.” Danny’s quiet for a few minutes, and I can tell he’s trying to calm down, but the air in the car is tense, and I start curling in on myself, making myself smaller.
I remember this. I hate this.
“You know, I’m surprised you could disappear like this. You’re not that smart.” Because I play dumb to placate you, you fucking prick, I think bitterly.
“I saw something like it in a movie.” He shakes his head, exhaling hard.
“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have done it,” he says, and I can hear how furious he is. “You should have just let me apologize to you, and everything could have gone back to normal.” That’s exactly what I was running from, but I can’t tell him that.
“You’re right,” I say quietly, trying to appease him.
We’re quiet for the rest of the drive, but I can feel him getting angrier and angrier in the front seat. I breathe and tell myself it’ll all be okay. I can handle Danny. I did it for nine years, I can do it again until Theo shows up, or until I can run again.
We pull down a long dirt road and park in front of a tiny little red cabin along a small river, and I get a bad feeling. I need to be really fucking careful with him if we’re going to be so far away from other people.
“What is this place?” He parks the car and turns around to glare at me. I force myself to smile at him and I watch him relax a little. Good, okay, I can still handle him.
“I thought we should have some time together before going home, so I picked something nice for you.” I can hear how tight his voice is, but I know he likes to provide, so I lean in towards him to de-escalate.
“That sounds nice, Danny. Thank you,” I say, trying to sound sincere and smile at him more. It works, because he seems less angry when he gets out of the car.
He doesn’t uncuff me, but he pulls me out of the car more gently and leads me inside, sitting me down on a couch. He looks down at me, his thick arms folded across his chest, and it’s obvious he’s barely restraining his anger.
“We need to talk about something, Alice.”
Shit, he hasn’t called me Bunny once.
This is really fucking bad.
Danny sits down next to me, his hand gripping my knee hard. When I look up at him, his face is that same sort of anger tempered with concern from earlier. “You’ve been gone for a year. Why haven’t you come home?” I take a deep breath and nod, knowing I need to placate him.
“I wanted to come home, but I was scared you’d be mad.
It’s been so hard without you.” It should be the right thing to say, but it’s not.
I watch rage flash over his face, and I know it’s coming a second before he slaps the back of my head hard, causing me to pitch forward and my vision to swim for a second.
He launches off the couch and disappears for a second, placing a thick folder on the coffee table when he comes back, like he’s about to interrogate me.
When he flips open the folder to a photo of Theo and I tangled up together, I know I’m fucked. Theo’s face isn’t visible, but the overwhelming love is evident in my expression as I look at him.
My body goes ice cold.
“I know how hard it’s been for you,” Danny hisses, and I close my eyes and try not to panic. “Don’t you fucking lie to me and say you wanted to come home. You’ve been out here whoring around for a year.”
“Dan-”
“Shut up. You’re so fucking stupid, you know that?
You don’t know anything about the world, and you’ve put yourself in so much danger without me to protect you.
The guy you’ve been spreading your legs for is a dangerous fucking creep, and you couldn’t even tell.
” His face shifts into more concern than anger, and I know I’ve got a way out.
He figured out who Theo is, and I just need to play dumb and act grateful.
I stay quiet, trying to look confused, and Danny removes the photo of us to show a mugshot of a college-aged Theo with short hair, a black eye, and a cut lip. I gasp on purpose, but all I feel is a pang of pity as I look at how young and miserable Theo looks in the photo.
“He’s a fucking criminal, Alice. He almost killed his college roommate just because he wanted to fuck the guy’s girlfriend.
He stalked her and everything.” Danny pulls the mugshot away to reveal a close-up photo of someone from the shoulders up, their battered face peeking out between a neck brace and the slightly bloody bandages wrapped around their head.
It has to be Kevin, but you’d never be able to tell.
My eyes widen as I lean forward to look at the photo.
Seeing what Theo did is so different from just knowing about it.
Kevin’s face is covered in deep cuts and purple and black bruising, his eyes are swollen completely shut, his nose is obviously broken beneath a cast, and his lips are split so badly they need stitches.
Looking at this, I’m positive I saved Ben’s life.
“The poor kid has permanent brain damage, and that’s not even the worst part.
This fucking guy killed his dad when he was a kid!
Look at this shit,” Danny spits, pulling the photo of Kevin away to reveal a crime scene photo of Theo’s dad dead on a living room floor, blood pooling on the carpet beneath his head.
There’s a handgun next to his dad’s head, the handle coated in blood.
My gasp is involuntary this time.
I lean farther forward and stare at the photo for a minute, feeling nauseous.
Theo severely downplayed what happened. He might have shot his dad in the head, but I can’t even tell if it’s true.
His dad’s face is collapsed in on itself, brain matter splattered in the pool of blood and along the handle of the gun.
Theo said he lost it, but he was just a kid. I didn’t realize he could have done something like this.