Cage (2 page)

Pennsylvania, Present Day

”I don’t get why you’re doing this!” I complained
bitterly, scraping my worn sandals off my heels with the toes of the opposite
foot. “It’s not like I’m a teenager anymore…I’ve been an adult for
years.
I can take care of myself, you
know!” The sandals clattered against the tile as I leaned forward, my elbows on
the counter with my feet dangling against my barstool.

“Perhaps it’s time you started acting like one, then.” My mother’s eyes
were mischievous as always, but her lips were drawn down in a grimace. The
contrast threw me off as she quickly appraised me in a glance. “You’re always
out doing
Heavens knows what
with
boys, coming in late at night…besides, it’s our wedding anniversary! I’d hoped
you would have been happy for us.”

She knew damned well I only ever went out to the club with my
girlfriends, but I knew better than to try and argue the point. It never went
well. “Mom, you
know
how badly I want
to go to Paris! I’ve always wanted to eat–”

“Yes, yes, how did it go?
Eating French
cheese, sipping French wine, lounging in the rolling grass of Southern France…
did
I get it right?”

As she peered in the refrigerator, she cast me another quick look with
those wide eyes of hers. My mother always looked like she was on the cusp of hysterical
laughter, always beaming with joy. It was no wonder my parents were celebrating
their anniversary in Paris. Unlike most of the young married couples from my
graduating class of high school, my parents
seriously
hit the jackpot on each other and they knew it. I’d never seen them bicker,
fight, or anything of the sort in my entire young life. Their love and
compassion for each other was almost sickeningly adorable, and I knew it was
one of those “lightning strikes” moments.

If only,
I thought to
myself,
I wound up half as lucky as them.

“I’m really sorry, sweetheart. Truly. I know that Paris means a lot to
you. But your father and I are really looking forward to this…and I promise
that if you keep your grades up, we’ll send you there soon. Maybe next summer!
How would a month in Paris sound as a graduation present, hmm?”

She tilted her head slightly, with those wide, cheerful eyes. It was
like talking to a puppy…a wealthy, happy puppy that was determined to come
between you and your dreams. How do you stay mad at someone with that much
infallible happiness?

“Fine. At least I’ll have the place to myself all summer…” I grumbled to
myself. It was a perk, at the very least. I’d already started calculating the
logistics of a “Home alone for the summer” party.

“Well, actually…” Mom started, her eyes suddenly tentative and cautious,
“we wondered if you’d like to have the Beach House for the summer? As a
consolation?”

“The
Beach House?
” I suddenly
sat up, my dejection temporarily forgotten. The vacation home had been in my
family since the marriage – a glamorous building right on the edge of the
ocean, down in Pensacola. Some of my happiest summers had been spent there.
“But I thought you said you sold it?”

“Well, it turns out that we didn’t have to, after all!” She laughed,
pouring two glasses of orange juice for us. As she tucked the pitcher back
inside the fridge, she handed me a glass and leaned against her elbows on the
lower counter. “I know how much you loved that place…just be okay with us
taking our trip, and we’ll let you stay at the beach house all summer. Get some
relaxation in. Work on that tan! Just, no boys alone with you there…”

“Mom…” I started, giving her a half-hearted glare over the lip of my
glass.
One
coy, misplaced barb per
conversation I could stomach, but a
second
was bound to push my buttons. “You
know
that I don’t—”

“I know, I
know
,” she
murmured, glossing dismissively over my rebuttal. “But there
is
one
teeny, tiny condition
…”

“A condition?” I raised my eyebrow. “What, you don’t trust me alone
there? I’m an adult, mother! I’m going to college and I’m making responsible
choices. I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you are, dearie, but your father
insisted…”

“…Insisted on
what?
”

“Well, you see…it’s not that we–”

I heard the front door, or at least I thought I did. We both paused,
listening for any other noises. After a moment, it was followed by footsteps in
our general direction. My gaze locked onto hers, my brow lifted again, and we
both stiffened up at the same time.

“Mom, are you expecting anyone–”

I stopped as I saw who had entered our home unannounced, pausing at the
doorway into the kitchen. With a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm, a sly
smile crossed his lips.
 
His eyes
slid from hers to mine.

Him.

Sawyer Samuels.

The complete bastard who
abandoned us…

“Little Saffie,” my cocky asshole of a stepbrother chuckled as his grin
widened. “Been a minute, hasn’t it?”

“Not long enough,” I murmured, recalling that stupid nickname he’d
always had for me. Dread pooled in my stomach as I bit my lip furiously.
 
With his shaggy hair cut short and his
obvious muscular makeover, he was
stupidly
handsome. Even with his motorcycle gear on, his build communicated all I needed
to know – that Sawyer 2.0 had seriously cleaned himself up. He was
stronger, healthier, and all around built. It would have been attractive, but
the dumb grin on his face told me he was just as much of a jackass as before,
and my spirits plummeted. I started rolling my fingertips on the countertop as
I glared at him.

Brushing off the remark, Sawyer paused to watch my gesture for a second,
and then moved towards the refrigerator. As I heard the clinking of glass
bottles –
of COURSE the first thing
he does is rummage for a beer
– he called out to our mother. “Don’t
suppose you’ve told her yet, or should I break the news?”

The dread compounded, and I turned to her. “Mom…why is he here?”

As Sawyer ducked his head back from the fridge, popping the top off on
the counter, Mom turned to me with an uncharacteristically weary glance. “The
Beach House…I mentioned that your father had a condition.”

My gaze flitted from her to him and back again.

“Oh, you have
got
to be
kidding.”

“There have been some threats,” she explained. “An ex-employee of Chet’s…the
police are looking for him, and it’s probably nothing. But your father and I
want you to be safe while we’re away,” Mom smiled weakly at me.

“
He’s
my condition?” I
practically shouted, pointing angrily at my stepbrother. He simply took another
sip from his beer, and Mom looked at me weakly again.

“That’s right. Sawyer’s going to be your bodyguard.”

(
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)

Chapter 2 – Sawyer

New Orleans, Five Years Ago

I knew they were going to take it pretty rough when I left in the middle
of the night. I did my best to push my guilt away, although separating myself
from them – from
her
–
was harder than I’d anticipated. But I knew that Saffron would be fine. She
hated me, after all. I also knew why I had to go. I willingly embraced this
path…but not before doing a little due diligence first.

Carrying only fifty bucks to my name, I arrived down in New Orleans
– fresh off a Greyhound bus and far from the opulence of my parents’
gilded little world. I realized that I had made the right choice when I saw the
city. No longer would I be living under their roof, sitting in their lap of
luxury and feeling my brain start to rot.

Normalcy, luxury, comfort.

These things bothered me.

That’s a major part of the reason why I left home at the earliest
opportunity. I’d spent eighteen years on this planet and I’d never seen what
the world was
really
like. Screw
endless bank accounts and high-end meals; I was determined that
I was going to
live
. My parents could
keep their wealth – their comfortable life of smooth edges wasn’t for me.
What I needed was to feel the jagged lines of this world; I craved the
roughness of a life forged out of the burning blaze of circumstance.

I meant to carve out my own way.

If I told you it wasn’t an adjustment, I would be lying to you. But I
was streetwise enough to improvise. I’d sought out trouble during my early
teenage years while my father was dating my stepmother-to-be. It wasn’t out of
any malice or rebellion against the memory of my mom. I just needed to learn my
limits, and that meant testing my mettle through the occasion fight or pissing
off the authorities.

I enjoyed pissing people off…

Except Saffron, after she became my stepsister.

I pissed her off just
because
.

Through observation on my first afternoon in the city, I learned quickly
to stick to the business district, perhaps the garden district if I really
wanted to spread my wings. The former had everything I really needed, whereas
the latter clearly contained nothing of any significance to me.

But I’m not stupid.

So I taught myself the land.

As I sat on one of the streetcars, themselves mobile landmarks of the
old, beaten-but-never-fallen city, I allowed my eyes to take in the prominent
Garden District. While we slowly chugged along St. Charles Avenue, I allowed my
disgruntled gaze to soak in the multimillion-dollar houses, standing proudly
three stories tall and boasting of their rich, exorbitant culture. My eyes fell
upon the parked cars lining either side of the street, and the occasion driver
desperately trying to snatch a small, inconvenient spot with anything less than
a twenty-point turn. Lining the street on either side were the large, majestic
oaks, stretching the tendrils of their pavement-cracking roots and cloaking the
entire area in shade. As we continued along, the expensive houses and their
accent treeline receded for the back-to-back universities of Tulane and Loyola.
They were beautifully sprawling fortresses jutted against the sky, overflowing
with students either carrying a direct line to Daddy’s checking account or
resigning themselves to decades of crippling financial debt.

The streetcar carried me to the other end, but I remained on board. I
was in hardcore observation mode, determined to learn the immediate layout and
any points of interest to me. A small crowd of people stepped on and off the
tram with each stop, and we swung back up St. Charles Avenue headed the other
direction.

I took the time to learn common denominators between the people I saw.
Various levels of class and dishevelment greeted me; in this city, everyone
from primped Southern women to shaggy, unkempt street ruffians used this
transit. Another observation: with the exception of a pair who recognized one
another, nobody spoke. Everyone operated as if the entire streetcar was
otherwise empty, neither opening conversation nor even glancing at the others.

Good,
I thought to
myself.
That’ll make it easier to blend
in.

My firm grip on my duffle bag relaxed; my shoulders released their
tension. Every major city carried veritable rot in its sprawling underbelly,
from the disorderly and desperate among the homeless to the alleyway muggers
that vanished into the crowds. I had been mindful of the risks to coming here.
From what I had seen since arriving, it appeared that I had overestimated. I
could see now that by playing it safe and keeping to myself, sticking to the
safer districts, I was going to be okay.

I was wrong.

Pennsylvania, Present Day

Flying down the interstate, I felt the engine of my
Suzuki throttling hard between my legs. With the slightest shift against the
handlebars, I leaned just slightly into a lane shift, and then back, weaving
between traffic as the sun began to descend in front.

This is what I lived for.

Although I could easily tell why I’d been seen that way, I never
considered myself a daredevil. The five years since I had left Pennsylvania had
made me find myself in one thrill after another. Riding the open road and cage
fighting were simply parts of my everyday life, and I handled them the same way
that I did with anything else – by throwing myself completely into it,
feet first. I figured out every moment as it came, whether it was dodging the
next haymaker or popping between cars on the interstate.

My confidence came with inertia; its own momentum carried it forward. I
never had the patience for hesitance.
 
It had no place in my life, and I was determined to keep things that
way. I lived on instinct. Reactionary. I was always in the instant.

 
A big rig was coming up on
the side.

Only a moment to decide.

I leaned into the handlebars again.

For a brief flicker, remorse at my antics around a machine like that popped
into my mind. I understood how hard it was to slow those huge things down, and
I could only imagine that the trucker was cursing me as he overcompensated on
the brakes. But I was already weaving back into my original lane again, freed
from the tyranny of the speed-limit jackass cutting off my passing lane.

I turned my helmet towards said jackass, and I got the finger for my
efforts.

Yeah, okay pal.

The passing sign on the right told me what I needed to know: that the
exit was finally nearby, just two miles away. I allowed myself to wonder again why
I was even doing this. Everything that I had experienced these last few years
had come to redefine me, fine-tuning my instincts and hardening my resolve
– none of which I could have done here. The life I had left back in my
teenage years had retained nothing of use to me – if anything, I might grow
softer by being here. Weaker.

I couldn’t allow that to happen.

Something had clicked in my head when my father called. Turns out he
didn’t need private investigators to find me. Even by being careful, I’d become
well enough known that Google pointed my somewhat savvy father my way.

Still, I hadn’t been prepared for the nature of the phone call itself.

Saffron might be in danger,
he had told
me.
I need your help.

Nothing about coming back to Pennsylvania had ever been remotely
appealing to me, but for this… I didn’t have much choice. He still sounded
surprised when I took him up on his offer. If I’d have taken a minute to think
about it, I might have felt the same why. Why the hell did I agree to this? As
much as I hated to admit it to myself, there were tougher people he could hire –
people with guns and decades of experience bodyguarding defenseless people in
and out of danger.

Was it because of her?

Saffron Samuels. Originally
Saffron
Tate
, before the marriage – and my father’s adoption of the scrawny
little teenager – had seen to that. We had only lived together a couple
of years, and it had been easily double, maybe three times that since I’d seen
her last.

Who the hell would want to hurt her? Sure, Dad had a few corporate
enemies, but that was just business. Death threats against family were a bit
more serious.

I slowed down, letting the Suzuki’s throttle dampen as I turned onto the
exit. Dropping from eighty to forty in a couple of seconds, I put a knee down
and leaned into the wide curve, past the green light, and continued onward.

Not long now.

I remembered my first assessment of the girl. It wasn’t favorable. She
was incredibly shy, and more or less stayed totally out of sight until the
marriage was finalized.

Hell, I didn’t even
know
about
the girl until Dad married her mother. But my father was so busy at the time
that he barely told me anything – electing to spend late nights at work,
and when Ellen entered his life, it was late nights with
her
instead. I didn’t particularly mind. My father wasn’t distant
by any means, but he picked a convenient time to be less than accessible,
because I was a teenager and there was oh so much trouble I could get up to
while he was gone.

But I knew my place, and I followed the rules.

Most of them.

Well, some.

He never suspected, and I never planned on him finding out about the
types of friends I had over – or the fun we got up to. I wanted something
new, something more meaningful than what I had. They say sex can become an
addiction…

It wasn’t my only vice.

I was more addicted to fighting. It was all about honing my body and
learning my limits. I pushed myself continuously, even without any real weight
lifting. I picked fights with the tougher guys around, and I got my ass handed
to me more than a few times before I started winning. I learned from every loss
and came back harder, faster, tougher. Soon, I was virtually unbeatable in a
fair, one-on-one fight – and I took on any challenger, just to prove my
mettle.

And then the scrawny twerp popped into my life.

Like I said, I didn’t know she existed until the marriage. Apparently,
she didn’t know
I
existed until the
day she came back. I remember her little outburst when she met Dad and realized
that there had
been
a marriage. That
should have tipped me off, but I’d brushed it aside, because what kind of
daughter doesn’t know her Mom remarried?

Nobody offered to clue me in. I thought that she’d been MIA for the
duration of our parents’ relationship, maybe as some sort of silent rebellion.
That’s why I chose to mess around with her a
little
bit.

It was all in good fun, anyway.

It wasn’t until a few weeks after I met her that I found out what had
really
happened: she had been out of the
country the entire time. Studying a late year of high school in some British
city.
Bristol
, I think it was. Not
only that, but in today’s day and age, her mother had barely kept her updated
on anything – and barely responded to her messages. If I’d known
that
before, I would have recognized
that she had been locked completely out of the loop, even less so than myself.
Probably would have been a lot nicer to her from the get-go.

But by that point, I’d already settled on screwing with her.
Inertia… It’s a bitch.

A couple of more turns, and I was in the right neighborhood. I could
already see the place up ahead on the left… my family’s proud little hilltop,
looking down over everybody lesser.

Of course, that wasn’t fair. My father had never been anything less than
favorable towards his fellow man, and my stepmother really rubbed off as being
infallibly appreciative of her new lifestyle. The two of them were a good fit,
and they visibly made each other happier…they even made each other
better.

As I pulled up to the gate, I hesitated.
What if they’ve changed the code?
It never occurred to me that it
would be anything else.

I punched in the numbers – my birthday – and the gate
electronically whipped into gear, sliding open on its arc. With a quiet
chuckle, I revved my engine and peeled through the entrance and up the drive
towards the house.

It was all coming back now, all the old sights revisited. The trees that
lined the long driveway up, the very smell of the place. It brought back a
flood of memories as I meandered up towards my past, contained within that
ridiculous house.

After another minute of driving, the trees cleared, and the entire house
came into view. The landing was here, along with the carport.

All exactly as I left it,
I observed.

I entered the carport and parked between the vehicles. There were three
of them now – hard to say what belonged to whom. My parents weren’t the
type to go overboard with cars. They had always settled on one apiece, at least
when I was still around. If that was still the case, then one of these in all
likelihood belonged to Saffron – which meant that she was home.

Removing my motorcycle helmet, I slowly, steadily walked towards the
huge front doors. It was only when I reached it that I realized that I still
had the thing tucked under my arm.
It’s
not like me to be this absentminded,
I chided myself.

But I had a lot on my mind.

The door was unlocked, and I let myself in. I could hear voices nearby
– from the kitchen, by the sound of it. There was Ellen, with that
unmistakable cheer, but another voice…unmistakably
her.
Older now, more mature, but still recognizable as my little Saffie.

I took a brief sigh. The entire drive back, I’d ignored something in the
back of my head. It was only now that I was here that I could finally deal with
the fact that there was another reason entirely for my departure. While I was
gone, it plagued my mind in various levels of self-destructive torture. Some
days had been easier than others, but I’d been able to block it out during my
focus on the road.

It wasn’t just my need to prove to myself that I was a man. That I could
handle a life stripped of luxury. That I could carve out my own place in the
world, independent of anyone or any
thing
else.
I could have probably done that on my own, here, and been a much better son to
my parents.

It was arguably a far more important reason altogether.

It was that stupid girl.

I couldn’t bear the thought of someone hurting her…

It’s been five years,
I thought to
myself as I stepped into the kitchen, seeing the two of them for the first time
since I was eighteen. I summoned up every drop of strength I had and forced a
grin across my face.
If five years away
didn’t cure my stupid infatuation, then I really am doomed.