Chapter Six
Hayes
Fourteen years ago…
“Just leave her alone! Go to bed, you’re drunk!” I slam the storm door, roaring in frustration as I stomp down our rickety wooden porch.
Another night, another disgusting display by my father. He’s a loser.
The first beer gets cracked open when his eyelids do, and he doesn’t stop until he’s belligerent. Somehow, he still manages to go to work and pay the bills on this shitty trailer so he can hold that over my mom’s head. And mine, not that I asked to be put on this earth.
He’s belittled my mom for so long that she hardly ever speaks, and when she does, she merely whispers. I can’t stand to be around them.
I hate my dad, but I love my mom. I hate watching her stay around a man who treats her that way.
If I could get out of this hellhole, I’d get her out of this damn trailer park.
I won’t have to stare at this sad neighborhood playground covered in spray paint. I’ll buy her a house where the grass is always green, and she never has to tiptoe around. My father can rot by himself in his recliner.
“Fucking, loser!” I yell into the sky, kicking the rusted swing.
The hinges squeak painfully until I grab the chains, halting them. Something shuffles across the playground, and I see her retreating form on the other side of the slide.
“Liv?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t want to intrude.”
“No, you don’t have to go. I’m just pissed at my dad.”
She stops walking and turns towards me. She has her backpack on and has a laptop folded up against her chest.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was trying to get some homework done. If I sit out here, sometimes I can connect to someone’s internet.”
“You don’t have the internet?”
“My mom doesn’t think it’s safe.”
That makes me chuckle. All the bullshit in my head lifts away, and I let myself laugh.
“What classes are you taking?” I sit on the landing below the slide, letting her choose to come closer. And, she does, rattling on about the college-accredited courses she’s taking and the classes she needs to graduate with honors next year.
It’s refreshing being around someone whose biggest problem is seeing how much they can succeed. She is going to make something of herself. I don’t know her very well, but I can tell she’s one of those types. She’s meant for great things.
Peace flickers inside of me.
Maybe the world isn’t as fucked up as I think it is, and I don’t have to go down with the rest of them.
* * *
Present…
The second Jo told me that Liv was trying to get in touch with me, I knew something was wrong. I dropped what I was doing and jumped on my bike.
I know where Thea’s house is. I memorized the route after realizing how often Liv spends her time here.
Since the day I saw Liv at the sanctuary, I’ve been keeping tabs on her. She accused me of being her stalker, but I’m only trying to keep her safe.
I accelerate down the street until there’s an opening in the curb, driving up onto the sidewalk and into the front lawn. It’s dark…
Too dark.
The street lights illuminate the front porch of the old Victorian house just enough that I can see there isn’t anyone out front, but all of the windows are blacked out. It’s completely dark inside, and my head’s on a swivel as I climb the porch steps.
I try the front door, but the handle only twists because the deadbolt is locked above it. I glance up at the porch light.
Jesse doesn’t seem like the type of homeowner who would let something like that go. It looks intact above my head, but I reach up anyway to tinker with it. One slight twist and it floods the entrance with light.
My palm halts before it connects with the door. I don’t want to startle her. “Liv! It’s me!” I shout instead.
I step back, contemplating how I’m going to get in if she doesn’t answer, because I’ll break the door down if I have to, but luckily, it swings open.
“Hayes,” she pants my name like she’s out of breath. Her eyes are wild, staring at me as if she’s hardly holding herself together.
“Are you okay?” I keep my tone low as she glances left to right, as if she’s waiting for something to jump out at us.
“No,” her voice cracks. She’s terrified.
Seeing her like this bothers me to my core, and it takes every ounce of willpower not to erase the distance between us, so I can wrap her in my arms.
That’s what she needs, and what I’ve always been good at. But I’m nearly a stranger to her now.
“Do you want me to come in?”
She nods, stepping back to let me through the door, and that’s when I see the gun in her hand.
“Liv,” I utter her name, staring at the firearm.
“Oh. It’s Jesse’s gun, I got it out of the safe upstairs.” She hands it to me like it’s burning her skin, and I stick it in the back of my waistband.
“You know the code to their safe?” I ask as I turn the lights in the living room back on.
“Of course, I do.”
“Sit down, and try to relax. I need to put it back.” She stares at the door that I’ve already relocked and then back to me like she’s afraid someone will barge in at any moment. “You’re safe, now, but I need to put the gun away. I’m a felon.”
That word shifts her demeanor entirely, like she finally remembers who I am. I try not to let it gut me.
When I come back downstairs, she’s pacing back and forth in front of the green couch.
“The light bulb on the porch was tampered with. Someone was fucking with you,” I tell her as I sit down in the chair beside the coffee table.
“Someone was out there, and all I could think about was the baby.” Her body sinks to the couch cushions, finally, and she covers her face with her hands.
“What’s her name?” I ask, trying to distract her from the real issue at hand because I can see the panic building.
“Catherine Olivia Callahan. But we call her baby Kate.” She smiles to herself, as if saying the name brings her that much joy. “Thea wanted her middle name to be Olive, but I insisted that she give her the normalcy I always wanted and use Olivia instead.”
“I like your name.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re the one who started calling me Liv.”
“Because I wanted your full name all to myself.”
“Stop, Hayes.”
My rebuttal dies as someone raps on the front door, and her face drains of color.
“It’s only Malec.”
“What? You called him!”
“I called him after your call disconnected. I didn’t know what was happening.”
“I wasn’t ready to tell anyone, and you went behind my back?”
“It’s not just anyone, it’s the Sheriff.”
“Why? You hate the police!”
“It’s you, Liv. You! I have to keep you safe.” I rake my hands over my scalp, trying to rein myself in. “Do you think I can sit back and let anyone hurt you?”
“Right. Only you’re allowed to do that,” she snaps after I turn my back to open the door, making my shoulders tense. I deserve that.
I stay silent as Liv reluctantly tells Malec what happened. I melt into the wall as the conversation ticks every nerve ending in me until I’m ready to blow.
“How long have you noticed the gifts?” Jackson asks, writing on a notepad.
“It started a couple of weeks after I moved here. I thought it was the locals being friendly at first, until the flowers on my car. They’ve shown up whether I was at home, work, or the store. Chocolate-covered strawberries have been left on my porch. Bottles of wine.”
“Any notes?”
“No,” she states bluntly.
“Is this the first time someone has tried to approach you?”
“I guess. I encounter the public all the time in the courthouse and in town. I’ve never noticed anything odd.”
“This shows an escalation. Until we know the intentions of this person, you need to be cautious. We need to save anything left for you. If you notice anyone following you or anything out of place-” She glances at me briefly but looks away just as quickly. “Let me know right away.”
“I will.”
“Liv! Oh my God! What is happening?” Thea scurries through the door and drops to her knees in front of where Liv is on the couch. Her palm goes to Liv’s forehead as if she’s checking for a fever. It strikes me as odd, but this is a new mother, maybe it’s instinct.
“Someone tried to break in,” she utters to her friend, revealing herself fully for the first time since I’ve been here. Her chin trembles, letting herself break.
Jesse is sprinting up the stairs before anyone can stop him, only returning a minute later with a ghostly expression on his face.
“She’s fine,” Thea murmurs to him when he’s close. “Liv kept her safe.”
He kneels next to her, and their foreheads meet, exchanging a brief but deeply intimate moment in a room full of people, so they don’t fall apart.
“Are you okay?” He turns his attention to Liv, squeezing her shoulders and examining her with concern.
“I’m fine,” her voice cracks, and Jesse pulls her in for a hug, but not before looping his wife in. Warmth blooms in my chest.
These people love her.
“I don’t think you should be alone tonight, Liv,” Jackson says from the doorway.
“This wasn’t random. Whoever did this had to seek you out; they unscrewed the light bulb so you wouldn’t be able to see them, and the only thing that kept them out was the dead bolt.
They might get bolder next time, especially if they’re angry they missed out this time. ”
“You told me you’d keep me in the loop about creepy flower guy,” Thea scolds her as if she suspected this guy would be an issue.
“I have been. This is the first time anything like this has happened. I swear.”
Unlike some of her earlier responses, I can tell she’s telling the truth. She might be withholding the truth from Jackson, but she won’t lie to her friend.
“How do you know it’s a guy?” Jackson asks.
“The handwriting was definitely from a man,” Thea admits, and Liv squeezes her eyes shut.
“You said there were no notes,” I call her out, and everyone’s attention falls to me suddenly as if they just remembered I was here.
“There was one note,” she admits. “It said… Choose me.”
Whatever warmth there was in my soul earlier ignites into a fiery rage.