Chapter 46 Aedan
AEDAN
Lowell was staying in a motel while he was on parole—the sort with chicken wire over the windows. I figured that the place probably saw enough trouble that someone might actually be watching the security cameras in the parking lot.
So, when he pulled up, I forced myself to wait. Charlie had given me his license plate so I knew I had the right guy. I tailed him to the door of his motel room, palms itching with the need to hit him. I waited until he’d opened the lock...and then I shoulder-charged him into the room.
I kicked the door shut and then it was just us, alone, with no one to interfere. No one to save him. I stripped off my jacket. I didn’t want to get blood on it.
He was studying me carefully. A fighter can recognize another fighter. Meanwhile, I was getting the measure of him. Smaller than me, but not by much. A good amount of muscle, but probably faster than me. A dangerous combination.
I didn’t give a shit.
He figured it out pretty quickly. “You’re with the girl,” he said. “The one who’s training her. You fucking her? What’s she like? Nice and tight?”
I knew he was trying to goad me into making a mistake and I didn’t care. I ran at him, raining punches at his midsection. He grabbed hold of me, swinging me around and into a table. A lamp smashed on the floor and we were plunged into darkness.
I staggered, off balance. He’d been living here for weeks—he knew the room a lot better than I did.
Before I could find him again in the shadows, he was on me, kicking my feet out from under me.
I went down hard against the table and it crumpled under me like matchwood.
His fist caught me across the face once, twice. I tasted blood.
“She’s a hot little piece,” he grunted. “All that time inside, I was thinking about girls just like her.” He jumped up and, before I could get to my feet, his foot lashed out and caught me in the jaw. Pain exploded in my head, white-hot and all-consuming. The room span.
“Don’t worry,” he told me. “I’m not gonna hit her too hard. I don’t want her passed out while I’m bangin’ her. I want her to be able to moan my name.”
I came up off the floor and slammed into him like a force of nature, bearing him down to the floor.
I heard his arm break as he landed, by which point I was pounding on his face.
He hit me a couple of times in the ribs, but it barely even registered.
Three good punches and he dropped his arms. Four, and he went limp.
I sat there, straddling his chest. He was looking up at me through swollen eyelids, not giving in but not taunting, either. Wondering if I was going to finish the job and kill him.
I wanted to. For the first time in my life, I really wanted to. And for the first time, I really understood the difference between someone like me and a real killer.
She wouldn’t want me to. I knew that.
I stood up. Lowell turned his head and spat out a tooth. He clutched at his broken arm. “You’re fucked,” he managed to croak. “Both of you. You’ve brought down hell on yourselves. Have you any idea what Rick’s going to do now?”
I turned and walked away, leaving him in a pool of blood. I felt sated. And I’d done what I’d gone there to do—there was no way Lowell could hurt Sylvie now.
But, as the adrenaline faded, I knew the scumbag was right: Rick would retaliate. I hadn’t had a choice, but I’d just made things worse.
Minutes later, I found out how much worse.