Chapter 10
10
JOSS
Where Cheyenne was tiny and somewhat wild, her brother was the exact opposite. The man towered over me, and the darkness in his eyes was the only thing wild about him. It had been years since I’d last seen him, and I’d almost forgotten Dakota’s immense calm.
He stood over me just as he had when Cheyenne and I were kids, staring down at the two of us like she’d just done something to get us in trouble. That familiar fear zipped through me, but this time it had less to do with Dakota’s presence and more with what he was about to say.
Dakota never failed to surprise me. When Cheyenne forgot to tie up their horse and it ran away, I had expected the tongue-lashing I would have gotten from my parents had it been my horse at my house. When Cheyenne left the back door open one day when she went to school and a family of raccoons came in and ransacked the kitchen, Dakota hadn’t torn her to shreds and told her how he expected better out of her, like my parents would have done.
This man’s response was always calm, and it only made things worse. In that quiet, there was no stopping my brain from turning over all the wrongs I’d chosen and all the things I should have done.
I should have listened to Cheyenne and stayed far, far away from Peter.
I never should have let him take me out on that first date.
I never should have let him convince me that I loved him. That I needed him. That it was my fault his hand hit my face. That he was sorry he stuck his foot out and tripped me. That he didn’t mean to punch me in the gut.
I never should have stayed with him. Moved in with him. Let him seclude me from my friends and family until the only one I had left was Cheyenne because she was too hardheaded to listen to Peter’s threats and leave me alone.
With Dakota’s dark gaze glaring down at me, all the tears I’d abandoned on the side of the highway came back, welling in my eyes and threatening to fall.
“I thought I told you not to come in here on your own.” The calm of his words felt menacing, and it made my eyes burn and my lungs clench. He nudged his sister out of the way and snatched my hand out of hers.
On my left hand, on my ring finger, was a thin, white-gold band. It was the same ring Cheyenne had squealed over when she ran inside Peter’s house and found me. It was the same ring I’d been staring at all day.
It was the same ring I hadn’t been able to bring myself to part with when I left my diamond engagement ring on the hotel’s bedside table this morning.
“She was telling the truth?” Dakota’s eyes met mine as his sister scoffed. I could barely muster a nod, but when I did, the corner of his mouth twitched up. “Congratulations on your nuptials, Joslyn. Next time you better listen to me, or you might not make it back to your husband.”
“Dakota! Don’t threaten Joss!” Cheyenne squealed, snatching my hand away from her brother.
“It’s not me she needs to be worried about, Cheyenne.” Those cold, hard words would have frozen me in my place had his eyes not already accomplished it. “Peter isn’t the kind of man who will let you go willingly. This ring on your finger will only make it worse. I told you not to come in here alone because it puts your life at risk.”
Sucking in my bottom lip, I nodded as much as I could. “I’m sorry, Dakota. I won’t do it again.”
“You will listen to me while we’re here. I don’t want you on your own, not until we’re far away from that man.”
“I understand.”
Dakota swept his gaze across the living room, to all the bags and boxes I’d already packed up. I didn’t have much—Peter never allowed me to have too many things cluttering his space. The boxes were still packed from when I moved in years ago. The bags were what I was able to throw together before Cheyenne and Dakota showed up.
“What else do you have left to pack?”
I gestured over my shoulder to the bedroom. “Just the clothes in my closet and a few things under the bed.”
He gave a nod. “Cheyenne, start taking her things to your car. We’ll get everything we can and get out of here before Peter gets home from the bar.”
A shiver raced up my spine. Peter at the bar was never a good thing. He was a mean drunk and often took his anger at the world out on me.
Cheyenne glared at her brother, cocking her hip to one side. “You really gonna make me carry all this shit myself?”
“Did you come here to help, or did you come here to pout?”
My friend scoffed, then rolled her eyes. She spun to grab one of my boxes while she muttered under her breath. “Lotta good it did calling you. Just stand there and watch while the women do all the work.”
It wasn’t until she’d barged out of the house and the screen door slammed shut behind her that Dakota turned back to me. He blinked, almost as if in slow motion, then shook his head.
“I don’t like to leave you alone in here, but if I don’t help my sister, neither of us will ever hear the end of it.”
I laughed at his candor. “You’re right, we won’t.”
“I have a friend watching Peter. He’ll let me know if the asshole moves from his bar stool. That’s the only reason I’m comfortable letting you out of my sight.” He turned to pick up a box, but I stopped him with a hand on his forearm.
“Dakota?”
He turned his dark eyes on mine but didn’t respond.
“Thank you. For coming here. For helping me.”
“You are as good as family, Joslyn. We take care of our own.”
With the deep timber of his voice reverberating through the room, Dakota picked up a stack of boxes and exited, quiet as a mouse.
Even though the night wasn’t cool, I clutched my arms around me to try to warm up. Looking around, I took in what was left of the house I’d lived in with the man who had once meant something to me.
Something, though I couldn’t remember what it was. And I couldn’t remember when that something mattered as more than the habit of being here.
Peter never did have the kind, loving side I found in Rylan. He wasn’t sweet. He wasn’t so many things that Rylan was.
Peter had been a boy who paid attention to me. A man who told me what I thought I wanted to hear, coaxing me into his suffocating cocoon while he slowly squeezed the life out of me.
It still surprised me when I found people like Dakota in this world. People who were willing to go out of their way to help someone who’d all but turned their back on them.
I sighed. That seemed to be a habit of mine, turning my back on people. My friends, my family.
Rylan.
With a quick glance out the door, where I saw Dakota effortlessly sliding my stack of boxes into Cheyenne’s back seat, I turned and headed toward the bedroom. My cold weather clothes were already packed—something I had to do each season so I didn’t take up too much of Peter’s space—so all I had left were my summer clothes. I grabbed one of the empty boxes I’d kept stored in the basement and set it on the bed, then started sweeping my hangers off the bar and tossing clothes inside.
Out in the living room, I could hear Cheyenne and Dakota bickering, and it made me smile. Despite their height difference, the two definitely looked like they were siblings. Both had long, black hair and dark, tanned skin. Cheyenne’s eyes were lighter than Dakota’s and often lit up her face as much as her enthusiasm did.
I sighed again. I missed Rylan’s enthusiasm. His attention. His handsome face and his warm heart. His big hands and his… his…
Well, there was no other way to put it. I missed his unicorn dick.
Once my small section of the closet was empty, I taped shut the box and grabbed another, dropping to my knees at the side of the bed. Peter made me keep my shoes under the bed, so they weren’t cluttering up the bottom of his closet or getting under his feet when he stumbled home drunk. I put my hand on the mattress and bent down to see what was underneath.
“What the fuck is this?”
Pain ricocheted through my fingers and up my arm, and a scream wrenched through my chest. I tried to sit up, only for my hand to be yanked off the mattress and my body to be tossed like I was nothing more than a rag doll.
Peter stood over me, a baseball bat in his free hand while he stared down at my bloody hand. He pulled his attention to my face, dropped the bat and grabbed me by the hair.
“What. The fuck. Is this?” He shook my head, shook my hand, all while pressing his fingers hard against the little silver band.
“It’s just a ring, Peter, I swear!” I screamed it through the pain. It was all I could do not to collapse, not to black out.
He bent my finger back, as if he’d rather break it than pry the ring off. “Not even gone two nights and you already spread your legs like a whore? You really think you can get away with this? You really think you can leave me, you fucking bitch?”
He yanked at my hair, and I felt something give at the same time I felt unbelievable pain rip across my scalp. Peter muttered under his breath as he tossed my near-limp body on the bed and pressed my face into the mattress.
I was used to this. Used to him beating me. Hurting me. Forcing himself on me when I was too weak to fight. I was used to giving in, curling up and letting him punish me however he seemed fit, because it was easier than dealing with the pain that came if I fought back.
But this time, I couldn’t not fight. I couldn’t let this bastard touch me—not after Rylan. Not after I’d promised to love and cherish…
Not after I left.
“You fucking bitch!” Peter released my hair, only to slam his fist into my face. The force of it flipped me over. I stared up at him through the thick wetness that coated my face, horrified to see he’d already unzipped his pants and taken out his dick.
I lifted my arms to try to fend him off, nearly blacking out again at the sight of my bloody left hand. Peter made a move toward the bed, but suddenly stumbled backward and smashed into the dresser, toppling his brand-new flat screen onto his back as he crashed to the floor.
A flash of darkness crossed my vision, and when I blinked open my eyes, Peter’s body was flying across the room. This time, he crashed into the wall near the window, his head leaving a dent in the drywall while his forearm smashed right through the glass.
“You son of a bitch!” he roared, somehow finding his feet and racing forward. I tried to brace myself, knowing this was going to hurt. But confusion was the only thing that hit.
It took a minute, while Peter flailed and punched and kicked, for me to realize that he was fighting Dakota. And though Dakota had a good three inches and a hundred pounds on my ex, Peter had his anger, and that anger was one of the evilest things in the world.
As I watched, Peter landed a punch to the side of Dakota’s head. The bigger man shook it off, then grabbed Peter and dragged him close. He held him in a headlock before punching him hard, twice, in the gut. Then he released him, holding him at arm's length before landing an uppercut to Peter’s jaw.
Peter’s head whipped back, and I swore, I saw his lights go out. His body dropped to the floor with a loud thunk, but chaos still swirled in my head.
Dakota turned his wild, dark eyes on me, and for a moment, I was scared as I watched his tongue flick out and lick at the shiny red blood dripping from his nose.
“You okay?” The deep tenor of his voice felt like a blanket, like when his sister and I got locked out of the house and curled up in the stables under their horse blankets to stay warm.
Like when he found us and took care of us until our parents came to help.
I started to nod but the pain was too much. Tried shaking my head, but couldn’t do that, either.
Dakota rushed to my side, helping me to sit up while gingerly taking my hand. “I think it’s broken. I’m sorry, Joslyn. Billy thought Peter went to the bathroom and didn’t realize he snuck out the back. I never should have left you here alone.”
“It’s not your fault.”
He brushed off my feeble attempt at protest. “You need to get out of here, do you understand me?”
“Where’s Cheyenne?”
He brushed that away too. “I sent her away when Billy called. She’ll be fine. Now, leave your things. Get in your car and drive away. No matter what happens to Peter. No matter what happens to me. Promise— Are you listening to me?”
I nodded and immediately wished I hadn’t. I bit down on my tongue, trying to hold back a wail.
Dakota took me by the shoulders, staring down into my eyes like he had when he first arrived. “Promise me, you’ll go. Promise?—”
“I promise.” I gripped his hand with my good one, squeezing as much to assure him as to find some comfort there. “I’ll?—”
Dakota’s head whipped to the side and his body followed before he tumbled to the floor. Peter, bloody and battered, stood at the end of the bed holding his baseball bat with a wicked scowl on his face.
I scrambled to my feet, half tempted to rush to Dakota’s side. But I knew I couldn’t. Peter wouldn’t hold back this time. If I wanted to live, if I wanted to survive, I had to uphold the promise I hadn’t had a chance to voice.
Without more than a glance at Dakota, only enough to see that he was struggling to climb to his knees, I turned and ran. Leaving my belongings, I did nothing more than grab my purse from the hook by the door as I raced to my car. I climbed in and struggled to put the key in the ignition and turn the engine over.
As if it was conspiring against me, my car fought to start. It sputtered and spewed exhaust before finally—fucking finally—the engine caught.
My car roared to life just as the door to the house flung open. Peter came racing out, waving the bloody baseball bat over his head while he screamed and yelled. I slammed the car into reverse, zooming down the driveway. I plowed through the garbage cans set up alongside the street, knocking them over in my race to get away.
My head throbbed and my hand was in agony, and fear ripped through me as my attention was torn between driving on the road in front of me and what was going on behind me. Right before I turned the corner, I saw headlights flash to life, and I could only pray the brief flicker of light behind that was Dakota coming through the door from the house.
I didn’t know what I’d do if Peter killed Dakota. I didn’t know if I could withstand the guilt of being responsible for something like that. Cheyenne was the only friend I had left, and I couldn’t lose her.
Not because of this.
I hit a straight-away and gunned my engine, gaining speed, but not enough. Headlights flashed in my rear view, and they were coming closer, much faster than they should. I sped up, trying to get away, trying to make it closer to downtown, to where there were people, witnesses. To where Peter would be less likely to carry out his abuse.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Not after another set of headlights flashed in my mirror, seconds before crashing into the first car and sending it careening into the night.
It was then that I realized, that first set—that first car—wasn’t Peter’s, it was Cheyenne’s. The second was Peter’s, and now he was coming after me.
Gripping the steering wheel as hard as I could with my right hand, I pressed the wrist of my left into the fake leather-wrapped plastic to try to hold on. But it was no use. The minute he pulled up alongside me, driving in the wrong lane on a two-lane road, I knew I was dead.
There was no coming back from this. There was no happiness left for me.
Peter took it all.
He tore me away from my family and my friends, and now he was going to take my life right out of my hands.
Suddenly, ahead of me, there was a flash of red and blue. Peter’s car slowed just a fraction, but not enough. He gave a hard turn to the wheel and the front bumper of his car hit the back bumper of mine.
I was going too fast.
There was nothing I could do.
My car swerved, then hit a bump. The next thing I knew, Peter’s car was flying past my head, and I was tilting sideways, like the ground had been swept out from under my feet.
Just like when I met Rylan.
I slid down an embankment until my wheel caught on something and my car started to roll. I threw my hands out to the sides and slammed my eyes closed, not willing to see death hit me in the face. Everything around me shook and rattled, and my head throbbed as I braced for more pain.
Finally, the car came to a crashing halt. My ears rang and my heart raced, and though I struggled to breathe, I was alive. For now, I was alive.
I kept my eyes clamped shut as I tried to make sense of where I was. Everything felt off. The pain in my hand intensified until streaks of lightning seemed to radiate through my wrist, up my arm, and straight to my head. Each time I moved, it only got worse. I tried reaching for the window, for the ceiling, for… anything, but the pain was too much. It wasn’t until something brushed my hair from my face that I realized I was upside down. When I opened my eyes, the panic I could already feel pumping through me ramped up until I thought my heart would burst.
My vehicle was upside down, my windows were shattered, and water was filling the cabin of my car from the ravine I’d landed in. I struggled against my seatbelt, but all my attempts to get loose were pointless without the use of my left hand. I couldn’t undo my belt. I couldn't get free from my seat. I was stuck here, surrounded by broken glass and filthy, dirty water was rising toward my head. I closed my eyes again as the cold water danced around my forehead, and I tried to escape back to the place I’d run from only that morning. Back to the memories of yesterday, of Rylan’s strong arms, of the warm bed at his side.
Back to the time when I’d found someone to love me.
Before I ran away.