She dragged her gym bag out of the backseat and walked on weary legs to the front door, unlocking it and stepping inside, locking it again as soon as she was inside the darkened house. Her gun was tucked into her gym bag, easily accessible if needed, but the house was quiet, nothing out of place—that she could see anyway.
Flipping lights on as she went, she checked every room. Once satisfied that the house was empty, she trudged into the bedroom, dropping the gym bag onto the foot of the bed with a groan. Roxy untucked the gun from the inside pocket of the bag, hiding it beneath her pillow before stripping the athletic jacket down her arms. Peeling the obnoxiously tight leggings down her legs, she tossed them both onto the pile of clothes overflowing the laundry basket in the corner of the room. Struggling, shewriggled free of the skintight sports bra, breathing out a sigh when the spandex material landed on top of the pile of clothes with the rest of her outfit.
Shimmying out of her panties, those too followed into the pile. Padding into the bathroom, she turned the shower on and waited for only a few minutes before stepping in beneath the warm spray, just long enough to wash the sweat off her skin. Toweling dry and wrapping the fluffy towel around her body, she retreated to the bedroom. Pulling on a pair of waffle weaved lounge pants, she shoved her arms into a matching cropped sweatshirt, the buttery material soft on her skin.
As she climbed into bed, Roxy’s thoughts turned once again to Travis. Whatever this was, she was struggling to continue fighting it.
And by the sounds of things, he was, too.
He was dazzled by her?
Her?
She grabbed the tv remote from her nightstand and flipped the tv on. A rerun ofHow I Met Your Motherstarted, and she settled in beneath the covers as Ted started another tall tale.
Fourteen
Headphones on, angry metal music blasting in his ears, he climbed out of the old, rusted Ford F-150, the hinges groaning as he shut the door as quietly as he could. Slinging his gym bag over his shoulder, he sighed as he stared up at the dilapidated two-story house that had been his home for as long as he could remember. He was running late getting home, something he didn’t do often; as much as he could help it, anyway. Turning off the hand-me-down I-Pod, he tugged the headphones off his head, letting them rest around his neck as he jogged up the cracked concrete walkway toward the back door. Dad’s car was parked in the driveway already, which meant he was home early. He swore, hustling toward the back.
At nineteen, it was probably time to find his own apartment, but the thought of leaving her alone with him… No. He could tough it out for a while longer. If it meant keeping her safe, he’d do anything.
Pushing the back door open, he entered the mudroom and took off his work boots, setting them in the corner, then dropped his gym bag next to them. He knew better than to call out to announce his homecoming, that would just piss him off. And depending on the mood he was in…
Padding through the mud room into the living room, he made note of the baseball game on the old tv across the room, the volume up louder than normal. The smell of dinner wafted from the kitchen, though his nose perked at the slight burnt notes in the air.
“Fuck,” he muttered, grimacing. That was sure to piss him off, too. He hated it when Mom burned dinner, even if it wasn’t on purpose.
Stepping toward the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks, his eyes not fully processing the scene in front of him.
Her face was beet red, eyes bugging out of her head, arms hanging limp at her sides. The pretty, floral dishtowel a noose that was wound tightly around her neck, held by big, beefy hands. And when those dead, dark eyes raised to his, those hands slackened, dropping her lifeless form to the worn tile floor in a heap.
Rage. Rage the kind that he had never felt before welled inside him and he roared in agony and grief and fury as he launched himself at the monster in front of him, the monster that alcoholism had turned his father into. A gruff shout, and the flash of silver glinted only a second before razor sharp pain sliced through him, but he didn’t stop moving forward. Again and again, that flash of silver in his vision, and he realized it was a butcher knife from the counter. The fucker was stabbing him, repeatedly. Blood poured from him, over the floor, splattering the cabinets and her too-still, lifeless body, but he managed to wrestle the knife out of the bastards’ hands, sending it clattering to the floor.
His hands curled into fists and then he was swinging, over and over again. The crunch of bone, the spray of blood, none of it registered through the haze of blind hatred, rage, and bloodlust that fueled him. Until the monster beneath him didn’t move, until his face was completely unrecognizable… untilthere was nothing left of him to salvage. He turned away. This monster deserved not one more second of his time.
Ignoring the pain that slashed through him everywhere, he dropped to his knees next to her, lifting her lifeless body into his arms as tears made his vision swim. Grief tore through him in agonized screams as he tucked her gray streaked hair behind her ears, hating the blood that he was spreading over her, but he couldn’t stop. Blood poured out of him, out of the wounds he’d attained, but still he didn’t let her go. Wouldn’t let go even after the county sheriff came in through the door, and he fought like a madman to get back to her as he was torn from her, even as the bite of metal cut into his wrists.
From his stomach on the kitchen floor, he let the tears roll down his face as he stared at her. His mother. His beautiful and lovely and kind mother. Taken from him by that monster that now lay in a bloody mess across the room, his life snuffed out as surely as he’d snuffed out hers.
Travis wasn’tsurprised when he woke up from the nightmare.
Drenched in sweat and breathing raggedly into the darkness of his bedroom, he sat up, throwing his legs over the side of the bed, and settled his bare feet against the hardwood flooring. He let the coolness of the floor against the soles of his feet anchor him as he took long, deep breaths in, then let them out slowly again. The sheet was twisted around his waist. He clenched and unclenched his fists in the sheet beneath his hands on either side of his hips until the tension ebbed away.
He’d known the nightmare was coming. It always did.
The chest tightening, throat closing, mind numbing knowledge that he’d been too scared, too weak,too lateto save her. Every goddamn time.
He blamed Roxy for the nightmares return. It wasn’t fair, and he certainly wouldn’t take it out on her… but regardless, he still blamed her for bringing those old feelings up. Of being too late to help. Seeing that same fear in her eyes was doing things to him, bringing up all those old demons that he fought so hard to keep at bay.
Resting his elbows on his knees, he scrubbed his hands over his face, shoving his unbound hair back and took long, deep breaths in, letting them out just as slowly.
Twenty years. It felt like a mere heartbeat and an eternity had passed at once.
In their tiny town in Oklahoma, justice was a joke; it was more about who you knew and who could pad pockets than who was actually guilty or not. His family had lived in poverty most of his life, especially after his dad had lost his long-time job as a bailiff in the tiny one room courthouse due to his drinking. But he was still buddies with several of the deputies, including the sheriff, and when Jenkins had shown up that night… it hadn’t mattered that his dad had been the one to kill his mother, or that Travis had been stabbed sixteen times with that butcher knife. Jenkins spun a tale in retribution for Travis killing his old man, and he’d sat in that county jail for three months before a court appointed lawyer had come to get him out. He’d told him that the charges were being dropped on account of several neighbors coming forward about what they’d heard that night, and some fancy investigating that had proven Travis’s story after all.
They hadn’t let him out to attend his mother’s funeral; not that there was one, anyway. They’d cremated her and put her ashes in a shoe box. He had to pay to have her ashes released to him. He didn’t know what had happened to his dad’s body, or where he’d been buried, or if he’d been cremated, too. He didn’t give a shit. He hoped he rotted on that kitchen floor. Hoped he was burning in Hell. He’d see him again; he was sure of it. That’swhere he was headed, too, when it was time. If he were to believe in all that.
He was just as much of a monster as his old man was. It didn’t matter the reason. Blood was on his hands, and always would be.
