Chapter Sixteen #2
“When we were younger, before Eve moved, there was a boy who lived in the neighborhood who really, really didn’t like me,” Darius started.
“Even now, two decades later, I have no idea why he hated me as much as he did. I wasn’t mean to him, didn’t ignore him, never fanned the flames when he still tried to bully me.
He just didn’t like me. Every summer he spent with his grandmother, he would find ways to peck at me.
Not Eve—who, by the way, tried to fight him multiple times in my name—just me. ”
The heaviness of memory pressed into Darius’s back.
He was uncomfortable, but he continued.
“Then one summer, something in him changed. He wasn’t just some annoying kid who was annoyed by me, he was angry.
And then that anger almost killed me.” Liam’s eyes widened a little.
It was enough to verify that the man really hadn’t known the story.
That there hadn’t been a thread of town gossip about him that Darius had managed to miss the past several years.
He was glad for it.
This was his and Eve’s story. It wasn’t some cheap tale to give out for some kind of shock value or as a way to break boredom.
“Before the steel mill ruled this town by itself, there was a tractor-supply company that employed a lot of the town,” Darius explained.
“They had two locations—the main office, and a warehouse where they stored equipment and occasionally did maintenance. The warehouse was rarely staffed unless someone actively needed to use what was inside or do a pickup. It was also two miles from my house. Which is how Jon got me there on foot and alone.”
Darius shook his head, unable to avoid the anger he had at himself for being so stupid back then.
He said as much now.
“I was naive enough to believe him when he said he and Eve had found something that they wanted to show me,” he continued.
“The second he said Eve was there, I was already anxious that I wasn’t, so I followed him into the warehouse without blinking an eye.
But she wasn’t there, and Jon attacked. He got the upper hand, and before I knew it, I was tied up to an old industrial rotary tiller.
” Darius laughed. It was in bitter disbelief, even all these years later.
“He had jerry-rigged the tiller to twist the rope until it broke or until I was pulled up to the first blade.”
“My God,” the sheriff interrupted.
Darius understood the knee-jerk reaction. The horror, the sudden escalation of it all, had made it feel like he had been placed in a tub of ice in the moment. It wasn’t until the tiller turned on and started to drag him backward that young Darius pushed his shock aside to fight against the rope.
“No matter how much he hated me, he couldn’t stomach watching whatever happened next.
He left when I was a foot away from the first blade.
” Darius shook his head a little. He could still feel the twisting panic in his stomach like it had only happened yesterday.
“The rope was for industrial use, and the knot he’d tied was surprisingly effective.
I couldn’t untie it, and I couldn’t miss that first blade, no matter how much I moved. ”
It had been the single most terrifying moment of his existence.
He would die alone, in a terrible way, on the floor of a warehouse his dad and police would never think to look in, while his mother would never care to look for him at all.
The quiet son of parents who were never there, gone missing at the hands of a bully down the road.
Darius smiled.
“But I had Eve.”
Warmth spread over that twisting terror in his gut.
The scariest moment of his young life held hands with one of the most profound.
“She got worried when I wasn’t home, and instead of waiting around to know the reason, she went directly to Jon’s house.”
“How did she know he was behind it?” Liam asked. It was a genuine question, no suspicion that it might have warranted from an outsider.
Darius couldn’t help but give a little laugh.
“Because she said she knew I wouldn’t just leave her behind without a word,” he answered. “A little kid with an overwhelming sense of confidence in her friend’s loyalty to her.”
“She was right.”
Darius nodded.
“Jon’s grandmother told her the direction we had headed in, and she took off running,” he continued.
“She didn’t stop, not even when she passed Jon.
She just kept going until she said she heard me screaming.
She broke a window with a rock and found me just as the first blade was cutting into my back. ”
For all the serious bluster he had clung to during his career—and in most of his personal life too—Darius broke his own character and let the sheriff see something he wasn’t even sure Eve had seen before.
He let Liam see him as that scared little boy on the warehouse floor.
With wide eyes, still able to fill with the absolute adoration and wonder he’d had for the little girl who had come to him covered in sweat and worry, he looked at his sheriff with every wall he’d built through the years completely down.
“Eve pulled the blade off my back just far enough to slide her hand in between and, as the blade went into her hand, she used the other one to help me untie the knot. And, when we finally got it undone and I was able to move away, do you know what the first thing she said was?” Darius didn’t give him the time to answer.
“She was angry she hadn’t gotten there sooner. ”
Her hand bleeding, hair plastered to her face and neck from sweat, dirt pressed into her clothes, shards of glass still embedded in one of her shoes, and all she had been was angry at herself for not running faster.
“I never told her that, in that moment, all that fear and pain and panic I had been feeling just went away. Instead, what I felt was nothing but pride.” The warmth from the moment spread through Darius, just as warm as it had as a kid.
“Pride in her for being so brave and selfless. And pride in myself because, for the first time in my life, I was able to feel worthy. That something I had done had earned the unwavering love of the girl from next door.”
Darius shook his head.
“That moment is the entire reason I got into law enforcement,” he admitted.
“She gave me a gift, and I wanted to spread that to as many people as possible to honor it. To honor her. Even after she left town and we lost touch, I never for one second forgot her. She’s why I help people.
She’s why I try to save them. She’s why, even if I can’t, I’ll make sure I bring whoever hurt them to justice in the end. Liam, she is my why.”
The sheriff’s expression gave nothing away.
Darius waited, knowing they were already back to the present before he asked his question.
“So the point of you telling me that story is—what? That you’re not going to tell me what really is going on with you, her and the Keyses?”
Darius felt his walls rise back and settle into place again. There was no smile, no adoration in his eyes and no warmth left in his chest.
There was anger now.
“This is me telling you that there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for that woman.
” Darius felt that anger rise. He lowered his voice, but the feeling behind it was still just as clear and loud as if he had been yelling.
“And that’s why, if I were you, I’d break Scott Keys before it’s my turn to get to him. ”