Page 37

Danger

Muscle memory. It’s doing the same thing over and over until you can do the action with your eyes closed. It’s why we practice. It’s the reason we push our bodies to the limits to keep control within ourselves to carry out the action. I’ve spent many hours on the track, driving around and around to teach my body to learn the movements. To teach my body how to grip the wheel tighter on the turn. To loosen the grip on the straightaway.

There’s one thing I could never teach my body, and that’s how to deal with a past that tries to control me at every turn. It grips me in the middle of the night. It never loosens when I wish it away. It terrorizes me in the worst way, and there’s no way to come back from the suffocating reality of it all.

I blink my eyes, trying not to remember the way my sister screamed when my father came after us. How that woman’s cold dead eyes stared straight through me.

Twelve women.

My father had killed twelve women from the college he worked at.

My mother was his thirteenth kill, and the nail in his coffin to ensure he would never step foot outside of prison ever again. Forever cast down into the shadows of his very own tomb.

I’ve never visited him. When I woke up in a hospital bed, I worried for days about my mother. My sister. My everything.

At first, I thought Isabella was dead just like my mother.

No one would give me a straight answer. I was just left alone to deal with the heartache all on my own. I cried. I cried so hard I felt like I’d drown from my own tears. I felt vulnerable. I felt like it was all my fault. If I just didn’t go down into the basement that night, my mother would still be alive. The what if of it all blistering my mind every night as I tried to sleep. It wasn’t until I was placed in a foster care home, and sent to counseling did I truly understand what had happened that very night. What had been happening in our house for over a year.

My father was luring students home, while we slept. Miserable with his own failures, he took out his madness on others. And the things he did to them still make my stomach churn with acid. Still keeps me up at night in a cold sweat.

I’ve tried to wash away the memories of that fateful night. At first, I tried hard during counseling. I tried to behave with my foster parents. It wasn’t until the day I realized Isabella was still alive and in a different home that it all fell apart.

That my whole existence crashed and burned.

They wouldn’t let me see her.

And for all I knew she probably thought I was dead.

I left my foster home in search of her, staying in the basement of friends' homes.

Until I met Kav.

As the years passed, I accepted my fate. Threw myself into racing and adopted the name Danger and took Kav’s last name, Hudson. I didn’t want any part of my past any longer.

I didn’t want any connection to the man I once called father.

But the more and more I tried to push away the memories, the more and more I realized I needed to know what happened to Isabella.

So, I’ve been searching ever since, hoping the money I make from winning will help me further in my quest to find her.

I’ve been holed away in Kav’s basement for the past three days since leaving Monterey. I know no one can find me here. I should be with my team. I should be out there preparing for the race in a couple of days. I should be doing anything but sitting here feeling sorry for myself.

Pity.

I’ve sat here swimming in my own failures and misfortunes, drowning in my own self-doubt, as I think about the way Monterey must feel about me now that she knows who my father is.

When Monterey said it wasn’t my fault about my past, I couldn’t even face her. I couldn’t face the fact that she knew the truth. It pained me to see it there in her eyes. The shame from where I once grew up.

“I’m heading out. Sure you don’t need me to get you anything?” Kav calls from the doorway.

I shake my head, unable to even utter a response.

“Don’t you have that meeting today?”

I shrug. “Who cares?” I’m not going to any meeting.

“Don’t mope down here all day. Remember why you got into racing in the first place and get your ass back out there. You have a great shot at winning on Saturday.”

I glance up at him, knowing full well that what he’s saying is the truth, but I still can’t see it. How can I drive in front of millions of people who know the truth about me? How can they root for the devil’s son?

I nod and Kav taps the door frame as he stares at me for a moment. And then he keeps on staring, studying me for a minute longer before he finally leaves. Maybe he’s right. Maybe I do need to stop moping around and get my shit together.

Problem is, I’ve never in my life let my confidence waver, and for some reason it is tonight. I know I have a race to win in a couple of days, but that negates the fact that I’m still a wreck over someone leaking my story to the world.

I need to find that reporter and bash his face in.

I stop, blinking. No, that’s the old Danger. An epiphany dawns on me. We’ve all done bad things, but that doesn’t make us bad people. My own disappointment with my past is what drives me. It’s what makes me act out to try to overcompensate. Sure, I’ve fucked up, but it’s time for me to man up. To own my past and be the man Monterey needs. To be the man Monterey deserves.

“I’m going to race,” I call out to no one because I know Kav has already left the house. But I just need to say it.

I guess I need myself to hear it.

It’ll be hard facing everyone, being so exposed to them all, especially Monterey, but I have to take this final step. I need to do this.

First things first, I jump in my car, heading in the direction of the meeting with the PR firm.

Downtown LA is always a parking lot of cars, sitting around, waiting for lights to change that are never synced together. I weave my way through the traffic and spot the glass building off in the distance. My resolve strengthens the closer I drive toward it.

My jaw ticks as I park along the curb.

Monterey will be here.

I stare at myself in the rearview, taking in the bags under my eyes from my complete lack of sleep over the past few days. I let out a deep breath, preparing myself to take charge and do what needs to be done. When I exit the car, I straighten my suit cufflinks, knowing full well a man in a suit is taken more seriously than a man in jeans and a white tee. You need to dress the part.

I step off the sidewalk, head inside and spot Monterey right away.

How can you not?

She’s got this energy about her that’s almost tangible. It vibrates in a way that makes every head turn in a two-block radius. Her dazzling smile about knocks me on my ass, and I try to lift my lips to return the sentiment.

“You’re here,” she whispers when she sees me.

“I’m here.” I step closer to her, wanting more than anything to wrap my arms around her, but I don’t.

Two men standing behind Monterey clear their throats and step forward. Ah, the suits are ready.

“Danger Hudson, let’s get this thing started,” the taller of the two men says, leading Monterey and I to a bank of elevators. They introduce themselves, and I swear I’ve stopped listening.

We all step inside, and I try not to stare at Monterey. I know Monterey wants some sort of explanation about my past. About everything, but I don’t know what to say to her. I wasn’t ready the day the story came out about me on the Internet. And even though I’m not ready now either, I feel like she’s waiting for something.

The elevator stops on the eighteenth floor and the men lead us down a long narrow hallway. The taller one opens the door to a conference room and steps aside as we enter.

Monterey smiles and takes a seat in a leather office chair and I sit right next to her.

“Now we know with the story about Earl Wheeler being your father, we think we can use this to our advantage,” the shorter of the two men says. The fluorescent lights bounce off his bald head and it makes my mind spin.

Advantage?

“We’re thinking this is a great way to triple our profits. Maybe we can even do interviews with you and your father,” the other man says.

I hold up a hand, stopping him before he can say anything further. “Let me just say something first…” I pause waiting for him to fill in his name.

“Mark.”

“Mark, I don’t plan on doing anything with that man. Do you not realize what that does? You’re giving the man who ruined my life a voice.”

They both begin to stutter over their own words, but I can’t just stop and listen. Saying things like, edge, power, and benefit.

This is fucking insane.

“Since you keep dismissing me as if I’m not even here, I’ll say this just once. His book is nothing but a big joke. You want to make the man who killed his wife, and abused his family for years, famous? You want to make him out to be a hero?”

“Now son, calm down. That’s not what we’re trying to do at all.” The shorter man stands up. “We want your story to be told so America knows what you went through as a child. We think you’re entitled to tell your side of the story, America has the right to know it.” He pushes his glasses further up his nose. “We’re actually thinking of turning the book into a movie and you can star as the lead.”

Now I stand as well, towering over the table. “Are you kidding me? What gives you that right? I want to keep my childhood… mine . And I don’t want anyone giving that man credit for anything to do with me. I am entitled to shelter my private life, it’s my life for fuck’s sake. ”

Monterey touches my arm and it stops the room from spinning. She doesn’t know it, but she’s my anchor, my lifeline. “Dylan.”

I stare down on her. “I won’t do any fucking movie. And I don’t even think a movie should be made. I think Earl Wheeler should die in prison with no fame from anyone.”

And I walk out the fucking door.