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Chapter Twenty-Seven

Summerville Dani

S itting at the house, eating and drinking with Lex feels... normal. It's been so long since Dani has felt anything other than fear. She smiled, laughed, and even cried tonight, all of which feels like the biggest milestones as of late. For the first time, she doesn't feel like a giant disappointment.

It helps that Lex didn't really know her before everything happened. They'd met a few times, but they wouldn't have been considered friends. It means Dani can just exist. There's no comparison about how different she is compared to who she was three years ago. How her laugh isn't as loud as it used to be. Her smile isn't as bright. The sense of humor she thought she lost isn't quite what they remember. And there's no guilt with Lex because she doesn't live up to the person everyone else remembers.

Something Lex said earlier hasn't fully left Dani's mind, and she can't stop thinking about it whenever she has a moment or two alone. Right now, she stands in the bathroom staring at her reflection. The longer she holds onto what the Kingsmen did to her, the longer she stays in their prison. And she deserves more than that. She doesn't want to stay locked up in the mental basement anymore, but she's not sure if she can ever verbally share what they did to her. How they hurt her. In a perfect world, there'd be a pill that she could take to make her forget it all and return to the person she used to be.

“She's going to think I'm sick if I stay much longer,” she says to her reflection. “Maybe I can share a few non-big things that happened. Test out the waters. I don't think she'll judge me. No, she won't judge, but I can't take the look of pity. That's what everyone looks at me like. I can't handle it anymore.”

Splashing water on her face, she takes a few deep breaths. She'll give a few tidbits to Lex to see how she reacts. If the look of pity fills her eyes, Dani will stop. She won't go any further because the look is almost worse than the pain of not living up to the old version of herself.

The vault everything's locked up in seemed safe, but it's starting to get heavy. Really heavy, and she needs to try and lighten the load a bit.

She walks back to the table, and Lex sits with her hands under it. Something about the way she looks at Dani makes her nervous.

“Is everything okay?”

“I don't want you to panic,” Lex says.

Dani sits, her body frozen in fear. “That's not a good way to make me not panic. That has the opposite effect, actually. It has me in a panic.”

Smiling, she says, “It's going to be fine. Trust me?”

“Yes, I trust you, but what's going on, Lex?”

“I saw a couple Kingsmen outside when you went to the bathroom.”

Her eyes widen with more fear. They’re coming to get her again. They’re going to take her back, and they’re going to hurt Lex to do it. “Do we call Dax or Colt?”

“We give it a minute to see if whether they're just driving by, or-”

The front door kicks in, and it stops Lex's sentence. Dani wants to run and hide and scream and cry all at the same time, but all she can do is sit there, completely paralyzed in fear. The last thing she wants is to go back to those basement dungeons. She can't do it again. She'd rather they just killed her.

“...see if they know you're here,” Lex finishes her sentence as two men Dani vaguely recognizes walk into the kitchen and stand behind her.

Their aimed guns slowly lower when they realize only the two women sit in the kitchen. They wait to listen for anyone else before letting their guard down, and Dani feels the tears sting her eyes.

“Look, we don't want to hurt you, Alexis,” one of them says. “We know who you are, and we know it'll be a shitstorm if anything happens to you. You have connections we don't want to fuck with.”

“We just want Dani, and we'll be on our way,” the other says.

Dani shakes in pure fear as it courses through her veins like ice water, but Lex watches them with an eerie calmness. She's never seen anything like this before, even with Dax, who was always so calm under pressure.

“Why do you want Dani?” Lex asks. “You're not using her to drive Dax crazy, otherwise, you would've let on that she was alive a long time ago.”

“She knows too much.”

Oh, God, I shouldn't have ever left Dax's house. This wouldn't be happening if I was at his house right now. Well, no, that's not true. They already broke in looking for me. If I was with Dax, he'd probably be dead, and I don't want that. But I also don't want Lex to die, and I don't want to be taken.

“I know you said you don't want to fuck with me because of my connections, but I think you're forgetting a few things.”

Dani glares at her. What the hell is Lex doing? She's going to make this so much worse.

“Yeah? What are those?” the first one asks, and his tone tells Dani he's amused.

“Well, first, taking her is no different than taking me or another old lady. She's part of the Drifters now, and if you fuck with one of us, you get all three charters after you.”

The second one laughs. “We ain't scared of you.”

“Well, then you're stupid. Which brings me to the second point. It's not in my blood to just let you take her. You have to know that if you know anything about me.”

Okay, great. They'll have two hostages. What good is that going to do?

“We know about you.”

“Then you shouldn't be as worried about hurting me as you should be about me hurting you.”

They both laugh as though her statement is the funniest thing she could have possibly said. “Oh, that's good.”

“I'm really glad my kids aren't here right now.”

“We told you that we don't want to hurt you. Let us take Dani, and we'll leave you alone, Alexis.”

Her eyes narrow. “Why are you calling me Alexis?”

“Because it's your name,” the first one says, annoyed now instead of amused.

“No one calls me Alexis. Unless they're my parent, and I'm in trouble,” she says. “Or...”

“Or... what?” the second man asks.

Smirking, she shakes her head. “This is going to be easier than I thought it was going to be. You don't really know who I am.”

“You're the daughter of the VP and married to the Sergeant at Arms’ son.”

“Oh, you really should have gotten the cliff notes of who I am and what I do.”

They both laugh. “Yeah, sure.”

Dani's eyes widen as Lex pulls a gun from under the table and fires two quick shots. Two loud thuds hit the ground behind her as she flinches before jumping up to lean against the sink. Her eyes land on the two dead men lying on the kitchen floor. “You shot them.”

“They really should've done research before coming in here like this,” Lex says and grabs her phone. “Hey, baby.”

Her eyes don't move away from the men on the ground. Lex killed them. She never flinched, and she knew what to do. Talked to them like... like they were equal. No wonder she told Dani to trust her. She promised no one would hurt her here, and she didn't lie.

“So, I need you to come home. Right now. Bring Dax. And a truck.”

Dani stares with wide eyes at this woman. If it was Dani, she'd be shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, but Lex just looks cool and collected. How the hell is she so calm?

“Well, here's the thing. Um, there were two Kingsmen that showed up. Kicked in the door and wanted to take Dani. They didn't really know who I was, and now they're dead. Really dead. On our kitchen floor. See you soon. Love you.”

Hanging up, Lex looks at Dani.

“You... you just... they were... and now they're... holy shit, you just killed them.”

“Do you have a moral issue with this? Do you wish I'd let them take you?”

Blinking, she just stares. “H-how... how?”

“I told you that I saw them. I grabbed the gun and kept it under the table. My intuition is pretty spot on.”

“Holy shit.”

“Are you okay?”

To her credit, Lex doesn't move towards her or try to touch her. She gives her space to process the crazy scene before her. “No, I'm not okay!”

“Sit down, and I'll get you some water.”

“With two dead men on the kitchen floor? Two dead men who wanted to kidnap me and lock me back up in the basements? So many basements.”

“Do you want to sit in the living room instead?” Lex asks and stands to get two bottles of water in the fridge.

Joking. She's joking right now. “You... you don't care that there are two men dead in this house. Right... right there? Like, doesn't bother you in the least?”

“If it's them or me, no, not really. I can't move them, which is what Dax and Colt are for. They'll take care of them.”

Her stomach continuously flips, but she takes the bottled water from Lex. Part of her thought everything Lex told her was nothing more than exaggerated stories, but now she knows that she told her the truth. It's both unnerving and relieving at the same time. “You aren't going to dismember him in the bathtub?”

“Hell no. That was a once in a lifetime situation. Well, in theory. Given the right circumstances, I might do it again. But it would have to be pretty big.”

“How are you so okay with this?”

Letting out a deep breath, Lex looks into her eyes. “It was you or them. I chose them. This shit ends now.”

The resolve in Lex's tone cracks a little bit of the vault Dani holds so tightly inside her, and she wants to cry. She wants to scream and punch and kick and bury her head in the sand. But she also wants to be free.