Page 14

Indy

One bad day turned into two.

Then three. We made do with food delivery and a few supply drops from Sully.

She hung around after each visit, asking probing questions about how things were going with Whitney and Loren, and if I’d made it to any meetings.

I hadn’t, and I didn’t need to.

I was clean, and I intended to stay that way.

Besides watching movies and cleaning—Loren cleaned; I watched movies—there wasn’t much to occupy our time.

Whitney came and went while Loren moved from the bedroom to the living room and back on repeat.

He still wasn’t talking, and he refused to write notes, but when I changed my question to a statement and told him we were going to the grocery store, he nodded consent.

I’d hoped the outing would provide a break from the monotony and brighten Loren’s mood.

I certainly felt better by the time we returned to Trailer Trove with six bags of food goods and a tasting menu for Whitney.

“I got Cheez Whiz, Funyuns, Reese’s Puffs, ramen noodles, pizza bites, and whipped cream because maybe that’s like a syllabub,” I said while tailing Loren to the rear end of the Firebird.

“Have you heard of a syllabub?”

He shook his head.

Opening the trunk lid, he ducked inside to grab the plastic sacks and stack them up one arm.

I leaned in to peer at the contents visible through the thin bags.

“Ooh, and Snowballs.” I snickered.

“Wonder what Whitney would think if we taught him about the other kind of snowball.”

Loren shot me a weary look.

I stepped closer to him and hooked my fingers over the waistband of his jeans.

“You know, I’m making a list for you too, baby,” I said.

“All the things we’ll do once you’re healed up. I’m gonna put that tongue to work.”

Pushing onto my tiptoes, I kissed his cheek, then used my grip on his pants to tug him toward where the Airstream was parked a short distance away.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I said as we walked.

“I got all this food but nothing actually edible.” I shot him a grin, and the hard set of his features relaxed.

“Just watch, Whit will love it, and you’ll be all alone with your Perrier and smelly cheese.”

Stepping under the trailer’s awning, I climbed the steps to the front door and pulled out my keys.

I unlocked the door and opened it for Loren to go ahead with the groceries.

I followed him inside to find the place uninhabited.

Whitney must have been out, which gave me time to assemble my surprise snack smorgasbord.

We had a wooden charcuterie board in the cabinet above the stove, and I relished the thought of how Loren would cringe watching me lay out Doritos, fruit Gushers, and sour cream dip in artful patterns.

I rifled the bags as quickly as Loren could offload them and realized I had forgotten drinks.

Except milk.

“Wine,” I declared.

“We should’ve gotten wine. I can ask Sully to bring a few bottles. It would give her an excuse to snoop. Maybe ask you some questions for a change.”

Loren dug through the bags, taking items out and lining them on the counter in neat rows.

Suddenly, he stopped and straightened, tilting his head so he could sniff at the air.

Stepping aside, he glanced out the window above the kitchen sink and scanned the trailer park outside.

I was about to ask him what was wrong when the front doorknob rattled.

Bad timing for Whitney to return.

I wasn’t even close to ready.

I scrambled to spread my arms and put my back to the display to obscure it from view, but when a stranger entered the trailer, snack-cuterie was the last thing on my mind.

A tall, broad man with gym bro written all over him stepped through the entry.

His hair was buzzed, and muscles bulged under his thin white tank top.

He would put the bouncers at the club to shame, and then in a headlock for fun.

He put one foot on our floor, half-in, half-out of the Airstream before a flurry of movement changed the entire scene.

Air gusted past me as Loren bolted forward with an animalistic snarl that made my hair stand on end.

The growl was met with a yelp as the two men collided, tumbling out of the trailer and onto the patio outside.

I chased them, my heart pounding and my skin chilling with panic.

Under the awning, the intruder was pinned to the ground with Loren’s massive glaive speared through his chest. Loren was on top of him, making noises like I’d never heard.

The other man thrashed and struggled, kicking his legs while black blood seeped into the ground beneath him.

I thought to shout, but words hung in my throat as another person rushed to the scene.

A young woman dove into the mix, her fists clenched around what appeared to be a pair of brass knuckles that she swung in a jarring connection with Loren’s face.

Blood spritzed the air as his head whipped aside, cheek torn and leaking.

The woman—another hellhound, I could tell—snapped her teeth and lunged for Loren’s throat.

I tried to yell again, but only shrieked, feeling more banshee than phoenix as Whitney sprinted into sight.

A curved sword appeared in a sheath on his hip, and he drew it.

The blade flashed in the sunlight moments before he ducked into the shade of the awning and joined the fray.

“Stop!”

I thought it was me commanding them all.

Three hellhounds tangled on the patio, a blur of teeth and claws and so much movement I couldn’t keep track.

But it wasn’t me; I hung in the doorframe, frozen and silent when the voice bellowed again.

“Knock it off!”

I tried to pick Loren out of the mess and found him grappling with the girl hound who reared back to deliver another bone-cracking punch to his jaw.

The yelp this time was his, and it filled me with such fury I jumped off the steps on a beeline for the attacking hound, ready to grab her by the ponytail and bash her face against the pavers.

But Loren threw her off and rolled until he was on top of her, pinning her arms with his hands and howling—damn near roaring—inches from her face.

Whitney maneuvered through the rabble, swinging around behind Loren and grabbing a handful of his hair.

Jerking Loren’s head back, Whitney leveled the sword at his throat and hissed in a quiet voice that managed to be incredibly loud.

“Lorenzo!”

Everything went still with only the sounds of heavy breathing and the buff guy groaning while he tugged on the shaft of the polearm buried in his chest.

Loren stiffened in Whitney’s grip, but he didn’t release his hold on the girl hound.

Black trickled down his jaw and dripped off his chin, splotching the front of his button-down.

Bending in close to Loren’s ear, Whitney growled, “Let her go and get up. You’re causing a scene.”

A vein pulsed in the side of Loren’s neck, so near Whitney’s sword blade it made me tense.

“Who is she?” Loren asked.

“Who are they?”

He talked.

It took a moment to register on the heels of the chaos, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed his voice.

He talked, and I was relieved, then immediately confused.

How long, and why, had he been keeping that from me?

“We need help.” Whitney’s response brought my focus back to the moment.

“Reinforcements. So, I got some.”

With a heave and a grunt, Gym Bro yanked the glaive out of his chest. It dissipated in the afternoon air and was carried away as a wisp of smoke on the breeze.

Everyone else remained posed as if the slightest wiggle would upset the tenuous peace.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Loren said, barely breathing while the saber dented the skin above his Adam’s apple.

Whitney scoffed. “ You didn’t ask for anything. You’ve been too busy pouting and pretending you couldn’t speak. I was getting to like you better that way. Less whiny.”

Loren released his grip on the girl hound.

She shimmied out from between his legs and pushed herself to standing, glaring daggers the whole time.

Whitney’s sword disappeared, and he stepped back, freeing Loren to stand as well.

Gym Bro was last on his feet, pressing his palm to the hole in his chest and grimacing.

I entered the mix, creeping up behind Loren and grabbing his wrist. The gashes on his face had started to close, but I wiped at the residual blood trails until he shook me off.

“We need to get inside,” Whitney said, keeping his voice low.

“Everybody, move.”

The newcomer hounds obeyed, turning toward the trailer’s folding steps.

Loren sidestepped and twisted his hand to grab hold of my wrist pull me roughly behind him.

I staggered against the Airstream’s aluminum shell, pinned in place while Loren’s fingers cinched down tight.

“No going inside,” he told Whitney.

Whitney’s expression darkened.

“You want your neighbors to see this?” He swept a hand in reference to our blood-splattered patio.

“Call the police?” When Loren didn’t yield, the other hound snorted.

“You might as well be sitting in prison when Nero comes for you. Trade one cage for another.”

Another growl rumbled out of Loren.

I never saw him this uncontrolled, bordering on unhinged.

It might have been sexy getting a glimpse of the big bad hell-wolf inside of him, but it stemmed from a dark place.

Anger and fear had him in a chokehold, the same feelings that had kept him silent for days.

He set his feet, and his free hand moved toward the open air.

He could summon his polearm in a flash and restart the fight, but surely he wouldn’t challenge all three of the others.

Those were losing odds.

“No going inside,” Loren repeated.

“None of you are welcome in my home.”

Whitney’s lip curled with a measure of the same disbelief that came over me.

I twisted my arm in Loren’s grasp, trying and failing to break free.

“It’s my home, too,” I reminded him.

“Don’t I get a say?”

Talking to the side of his face was as good as talking to a wall.

His attention fixed on the trio of hellhounds while his other hand continued to hover, fingers poised like a western gunslinger ready to draw.

“ Loren .” I grabbed his arm and tugged.

“Can we at least let them explain?—”

“Obstinate man,” Whitney spat, ignoring me as effectively as everyone else.

“Have it your way.”

He spun on his heel, then made a beckoning gesture that called the other two hounds to heel.

With separate, scathing glances, all three departed.

Loren watched them go and only released me after they were well out of sight.

I rubbed at the sore spot on my arm as I moved around in front of him.

His features were pinched, and his dark eyes were wild, unfocused.

It unsettled me to see him so frightened, so out of touch with himself and everything around him.

It was like he was somewhere else, and the distance I’d felt between us the past few days was more palpable than ever.

I reached toward him, needing to stop the panic playing on loop in his mind.

I recognized it. I’d been there, recently in fact.

Spiraling down, down, down…

“I’m safe, baby.” I moved slowly and spoke softly because I could see how frayed his edges were, and I didn’t want to unravel them any further.

“You’re safe,” I told him, then cocked my head, wondering, “You know that, right?”

Before I could touch him, Loren flinched away, then turned and broke off at an inhuman pace, opposite the direction Whitney and the hounds had gone.

I thought about shouting after him, but the neighbors were, indeed, watching like groundhogs poking their heads out of the dirt.

And there I stood in the middle of what had just been a battleground with no explanation for the pools and speckles of black staining the ground.

The old lady who lived across the walking path pretended to water her plastic flowers while casting over-the-shoulder glances my way.

Whitney was right. She could call the cops; anyone could.

Then we would have the forces of Hell and Earth on our asses and no backup because my overprotective boyfriend ran them off.

Then he ran, too. From them?

Or from me?

Either way, I wasn’t going to accept the silent treatment any longer.

Whatever was wrong and whoever was at fault, I would find out, and Loren was going to tell me.