Chased (9 page)

The rest of the day is a blur. I remember I’m supposed to work and go to Tor’s at six.

“How’s Ariel?” Amos asks, coming up behind me where I’m cleaning glasses to prepare for tonight.

“Fuck off.” I haven’t heard from Ariel and don’t want to be the guy that calls her endlessly when she needs space. Hell, maybe I need some space too. We’ve only known each other a week. But somehow I’ve fixated on her and she’s all I know. All I want to. It’s fucking terrifying.

Amos leans on the bar next to me. “You’re being a prick. She wouldn’t give me her number Friday, Chase. She’s a damn beautiful girl – smart too – but I had a feeling she was hung up on you, actually.” He shoots me a meaningful look, his red hair falling across his face. “You’re a lucky guy.”

I give up wiping bar ware and turn to him. “I can’t have her, Amos. You know that.”

He knows what I mean. “The past doesn’t define us. Don’t choose for her. You could be just what she needs.”

“Maybe. But I think I fucked up. Amos, what the hell would you do if the girl wouldn’t let you protect her?”

He thinks about it. “It’s the twenty-first century, man. Girl’s got a right to be independent, doesn’t she?”

I brace my elbows on the bar, lean my head in my hands. Having the same argument with myself I’ve been having all day. “Even if she’s in trouble?”

“Yeah. I think she does.” His blue eyes are clear when I turn toward him. “I know it’s shit. But you can’t force a girl like that to stay out of trouble, Chase. Hell, we never figured out how to keep out of trouble. How can you expect her to?”

I let out a groan I couldn’t get away with when the bar’s open. It echoes in the empty space. Amos doesn’t so much as blink.

“Alright,” I concede. “I’ll call her later.”

Amos claps a hand on my back, crossing behind me to check on the stock out back.

Tor’s opens an hour later and I relax into the flow of bartending. It lets me stay in my head. Amos and I move in a rhythm we know well. Better than expected since I only started bartending here this year.

My phone rings in my pocket. It’s eleven and the first wave of traffic’s been processed. I don’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

“Chase? It’s Tess. Ariel’s roommate.” I’m about to brush her off when I notice the tension in her voice. “She didn’t come home from class and I wanted to see if she’s with you.”

“No. Why?”

“Her computer’s on the kitchen table. There’s an email from a really weird address.”

My hand grips the bar and I look at Amos. He finishes pouring a drink, pockets a bill absently before crossing to me.

“What does it say?” I ask tightly, the phone pressed hard against my ear.

“It says ‘he can’t protect you if he’s in jail’. Those are the actual words. And there’s a picture of you two. In your room. It looks like…well, it’s just really creepy.”

Panic washes over me. “Don’t go anywhere, Tess.” I hang up. “Amos, come with me.”

He runs to the back to tell Tor, then gets up on the bar and shouts. “No drinks for the next hour. But a round on me when I get back.” The usual clients cheer.

I hand Amos my phone as I swing the truck out of Tor’s. “Ariel’s missing.”

Amos doesn’t need instructions. He grabs my phone, finds her number. “Ariel, It’s Amos. I’m with Chase. We’re worried about you. Call us back.” 

I fill Amos in on the back story. Then we blaze into the visitor lot of her apartment. I don’t bother to park straight. Then pound on the door.

“Where would she be?” I demand as a worried-looking Tess ushers us in.

“She had class until nine.”

“Show me the email.” Tess motions to the computer and I look at it. The address isn’t anything I recognize. Attached is a grainy picture but clearly me and Ariel in my room. Not Ash, I can tell by the body and the hair. Which means it was taken today.

If the guy knew I was with her, was getting pictures, I was willing to be he knew her schedule.

Ice runs through my veins.

We check her classroom. Nothing.

“Where else would she go? Her friend Ben’s? Home?”

Tess shakes her head. “I tried Ben, she’s not with him. She wouldn’t have gone home. I don’t want to worry her dad, he’ll freak out.”

“What about the library?” Amos asks.

“She has a study room,” Tess offers.

The acned student on duty at the front desk looks at me like I’m a jealous boyfriend and insists he can’t tell us which room is Ariel’s.

I resist the urge to put the guy’s head through the book return slot. “Listen. She’s in trouble. And unless you want me to drag you down these halls until you point out which one’s hers, you might as well tell us.”

Tess steps in front of me, holding up a hand. “I’m her roommate. It’s an emergency. Please.”

“Alright,” he says suspicious. “It’s eleven twenty-one.”

We make our way up to where all the study rooms are located on the third floor.  The doors are all shut and the library is eerily quiet. I think it closes at one am and it’s twelve now. It’s impossible to tell who’s using their rooms and who’s not.

I try the door to hers. It’s locked.

“She’s not in there,” Amos infers.

I start kicking at the door but Tess stops me. “The rooms are small. She could be right behind the door.”

“Not unless she’s—” I shake my head to clear it. “Fuck, I can risk it. We need to know she’s not here,” I hear myself say.

I kick the door in.

We’re greeted by a paralyzing sight.

Ariel’s in the corner, sitting passed out with her hands behind her back. She’s wearing a bra and panties, different than the ones she was in this morning. Her shirt and jeans are on the floor in one corner.

Bile rises in my throat, competing with the panic.

But we’re not alone.

The man watching us pushes up from the desk he was leaning against. He’s as tall as me but thin, older. Forty. Dark, greasy hair. Eyes that make me wonder if he’s on drugs.

I don’t see a weapon, besides a length of rope on the desk. But the guy lifts a wood chair, the only other furniture in the room, holding it between us.

“Chase,” Amos warns from behind me. “You’re on parole.”

The man swings at me with the chair. I dodge it, mostly, then kick at the man’s knee, and he doubles over. I grab his hand and twist it behind his back and he hisses out a breath.

“See if she’s breathing,” I tell Tess, who’s standing frozen by Amos.

She rushes over. Looks back at me. “She is.”

Relief. “Good. Get her dressed. See if you can wake her up. I need to look after something.”

I drag the guy down the hall and into the stairwell. I’m grateful no one else is around.

Amos follows a few paces behind. “Calm down, Chase.” He’s one of the only people who’d look at me, as calm as I am on the outside, and know I’m murderous on the inside.

I pat the guy down as best I can. I’m confident he’s not carrying a gun or a knife. I let go of him in the stairwell landing, both of us between him and the door. He’s got only stairs in both directions, and the way I just broke his kneecap he’s probably not going anywhere fast.

Despite his disadvantage, the man leers at us.

I’m not afraid. Not even close. The adrenaline pumping through my veins inoculates me.

“Listen, fuckhead. There are two ways this can go down,” I mutter to him. “You’re already going to be arrested for kidnapping and God knows what else. On top of that, you took a swing at me.”

“I didn’t touch you, kid,” he sneers.

I turn to Amos, deadly calm. He shoots me a businesslike look and I nod incrementally. Then he slugs me in the cheek. I wince at the blinding pain, resisting the urge to hold my face as I turn back to the other man.

“Your word against ours, asshole. And when Ariel says you drugged her, who’re the police gonna believe?”

The whites of his eyes show now. The tinge of fear.

“You have no fucking clue who you’re dealing with,” I breathe on him. “I’ve done some serious shit.”

“What about him?” He shoots a look at Amos.

Amos flashes teeth, a humourless smile. “I’ve helped him do it, friend.”

“What did you do with Ariel.”

“The girl? Just slipped her something to make her sleep. I didn’t touch her, I swear. Me and her mom, we were gonna be together. High school sweethearts. That stupid girl killed her. She doesn’t deserve to live, skulking around ungrateful, shacking up with—”

I kick him in the stomach, where it won’t show. He groans.

“Let’s go, Chase. The police can deal with him.”

He’s right. Amos pushes the man in front of us and we march him to the front of the building where the cops are pulling up.

“We’re going to need your statements,” one of them says as two others take the man from us.

“Yes. I just need to get—“ I turn back to the library. “Ariel.”

Tess is walking toward us, Ariel leaning on her. Ariel’s dressed but looks seriously out of it.

I run to her, pull her into my arms. “Are you OK? Did he hurt you?”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I’ve got her,” I tell a worried-looking Tess, who nods.

They’re pushing the man into the car and I watch his face, Ariel leaning on my side. The man’s expression transforms from nervous to intense. He calls something out at me and I struggle to hear it, his eyes boring holes in me.

The police take statements. We try to send Tess home but she insists on coming with us to the hospital. The doctors corroborate that Ariel’s had some kind of drug. Probably placed in her water bottle when she stood up at the library.

It’s after three am when we drop Tess off, then Amos.

“You sure you don’t want me to come over?” Amos asks.

I grab his arm. “We’re fine. Thanks.”

I finally take her back to my place to sleep.

Upstairs, Ariel crashes.

I lie awake, watching her sleep and stroking her hair. I don’t even bother getting undressed, because I’m not going to sleep.

Instead I watch her. And the street.

~

“Hey you.”

I blink into the light. Ariel’s leaning over me, a smile playing on her lips.

“Ariel. How are you?” I try to sit up but she rests a hand on my chest.

“I’m fine. Thanks to you.”

“What time is it? I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

“I think you’re allowed to.” She ducks her head. “Chase, I shouldn’t have chewed you out for wanting to protect me.”

“No. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have told you what to do.”

She crosses her arms on my chest and looks down at me with those depthless eyes. “I can’t do this, Chase. I don’t want to fight with you. You’ve told me you don’t want casual and you don’t want intense. Tell me what you
do
want.”

I’ve been asking myself the same damn question for more than a week. Here, wrapped up in her, my heart still pounding from feeling like I was going to lose her.

“I want whatever we can have together. You’re the last thing I think about at night. The first thing in the morning.”

“Good.” She presses a kiss to my mouth and I deepen it, my hand weaving through her blond hair. But gently.

Even though she swears she doesn’t remember anything between drinking tea in the library with the door to her study room ajar and waking up in the hospital hours later, she’s had a rough couple of days.

When she pulls back I study her. The heart shaped face. The straight hair. Perfect bow lips. I think of all the reasons I’d resisted this. How powerless I am to resist her. But I have to be honest. “I can’t promise you a future Ariel. But I want to.”

“The future isn’t ours to promise.” She looks at me earnestly and I believe her.

I’d gotten used to not having things I wanted. But it’s worse because I’ve let myself think I can have her. The hope is killing me in a way the defeat never could.