Out of Darkness Read online

  “Boxing?” she asked as she came down the steps of the front porch. Now that she was closer, she could see that his hair was wet. It looked like he had taken a quick shower before he came to get her.

  “Yeah. Kinda like you going for a run. Layne and I box. He has the same kind of temper as me.”

  Layne, she knew, was a Prospect who had been over in Iraq as a member of the armed forces. He probably did have a lot of aggression to get rid of. “I understand, I was just worried.”

  “It’s the only way I can keep from showing you my anger,” he admitted. “I don’t want to scare you, but sometimes I want so badly to find the fucker and beat his brains out that I’ve just got to release it somehow.”

  She understood exactly where he was coming from. When she was ready, she wanted to find him and do the exact same thing. “I know,” she told him softly as she got on the back of the bike.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t hold herself away from him. Business as usual. It was just him that felt disoriented on this day.

  She couldn’t breathe. Her face was being held down in the dirt, and dusty soil coated her tongue, making it heavy. Meredith tried with everything she had to scream, but all she kept getting were mouthfuls of earth. All of a sudden she started to choke. It caused her to panic, and she began to hyperventilate, trying to breathe air into her lungs. Clawing with her nails, she fought against the weight pressing her down, but she could not get it off her. Her back ached as she tried to throw the heaviness off. Thrashing her head back and forth, she fought to get either air in or dirt out. It didn’t matter which.

  “Meredith.”

  A deep voice, one she knew, called her name. She wanted to go to that voice. It represented safety and warmth. When she heard it, she didn’t feel cold. Struggling to lift her eyes open, she continued to fight.

  “Meredith, open those eyes. Stop fighting me. You’re gonna hurt yourself. C’mon honey, open them eyes.”

  It was the endearment that got her. He never used them, and it put a warm spot in her torso where her heart beat wildly. She wanted to see him say these words to her. With a start, she awoke.

  Opening her eyes, she took stock of what was going on. Her nails dug into Tyler’s biceps, holding him away from her. She had been kicking her feet and his arm lay over them to prevent her from kicking him.

  “Oh no, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Are you okay?” The tenderness in his eyes was almost her undoing.

  “You need to talk to the doctor about not being able to sleep without having these nightmares.” It killed him to hear her call out in her sleep, to watch her fight the unknown assailant. It pissed him off; made him want to find the man and rip his heart out.

  “She told me once that when I’m ready to get over it, my nightmares will go away. I’m still hanging on to something, I guess.” What that something was, she didn’t know, but obviously it had a tight grip on her.

  He wanted to know what it was. What had such a hold on her that she couldn’t sleep at night?

  “When I find him and kill him, you’ll sleep perfectly.”

  Her heart hated when he said things like that, but her mind agreed with him. She wanted him to find the man that had hurt her and punish him. Meredith wanted him dead.

  Chapter Four

  I went to the grocery store yesterday, and I was scared to death. Some kid dressed up for Halloween and looked just like my attacker. I had a complete meltdown in the middle of the store. What does that say about me? Even I can tell I’ve been shaken ever since. I don’t think I’ve been this fragile since the actual attack. Last night I barely slept at all. I even heard Tyler come to bed. I’ve never heard him come in the room before. I’m so on edge, I don’t know what to do. I feel like I need to reclaim some piece of myself, but I’m not sure how to do that. I want to feel like I can protect myself and hold it together. I need some kinda outlet besides writing because I feel rage beginning to overtake my personality. I’m starting to get angry and I don’t want to take that out on Tyler. He admitted to me that he’s been boxing with Layne. That they beat the shit out of each other and that’s the only way he can come to me without the anger. I’m not sure that it’s healthy, but it’s got to be better than what I’m doing. Which is absolutely nothing. How can I take back yet another part of myself that I didn’t even know I’d lost?

  Breakfast was well underway when Meredith finally made it to the kitchen. Tyler sat at one side of the table drinking from his skull mug. She couldn’t help but notice that everyone gave him a wide berth at breakfast. It was wide most of the time, but breakfast was a different kind of wide.

  “Is this seat taken?” she asked as she walked over to where he sat.

  “I think you know it’s being saved for you.”

  She couldn’t help but smile a little. He didn’t flirt often, but when he did, it was very cute. “Are people scared of you?” she asked, indicating his mug.

  Leaning as close as he dared, he whispered. “Word has it that it’s sacred. Not many people want to touch it, and nobody else wants to drink out of it. They’re afraid of what might happen.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Are you tellin’ the truth or are you pullin’ my leg?”

  “You wanna take a drink and find out?” he asked, an innocent look on his face.

  That seemed so intimate, drinking after him. Before her attack, she would never have given it a second thought. Now though, it felt like something that couples would do. “No, that’s okay.”

  She watched as he brought the mug back up to his lips and took another drink of the hot coffee. The skin underneath his eyes was dark, and she could see that he was tired. Had her nightmares been keeping him up more than she realized?

  “Somethin’ you wanna ask me?”

  Her fingers twisted, and he could see her hem and haw. “Just spit it out.”

  “If someone wanted to know how to defend themselves – not like self-defense classes where you have to touch each other, but some other kind of defense – what would you tell them to do?”

  This was for her. He wasn’t stupid. His only hope was that she was finally getting to the anger side of her grief because until she got angry, she would never be able to overcome it, and he would never be able to get revenge.

  “I’d tell you that you need to learn to shoot. Want me to take you?”

  He’d given her a gun for protection once before, but she didn’t know how to use it. If push came to shove, she figured she could just point, shoot, and pray for the best. Now though, in this stage of her recovery, she wanted the instruction. She wanted to know how to defend herself if she ever had to. It would be unfair to count on Tyler forever.

  “Would you?”

  “If you want to learn, I’d be happy to teach you. You wanna go today?” His dark eyes took in the vibrant light that lit up her face. Finally something was coming through besides the darkness. Would she accept it or would this just be something else she talked herself out of?

  “Can we?” It felt like she was putting him on the spot. “If you have other plans, you realize you can say no.”

  “I don’t have any other plans.” And even if he did, he would never say a word to her because this was something she wanted and needed. He would disappoint a million other people before he said no to her.

  She nodded. “I don’t want to monopolize your time if you have something else to do.”

  “Trust me, nobody else matters as much as you do right now,” he admitted softly.

  Meredith didn’t know what to do with that knowledge. It scared her and made her happy, all at the same time. While it excited her that he said those kinds of words to her, it also caused her to wonder what he was giving up for her. What was he not telling her?

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he frowned. “Like I’ve told you before, if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. Just because you’re having doubts – don’t throw that on me.”

  With those words he had rea
d her mind. She could tell it pissed him off by the way his eyes narrowed, but he kept it in check for her. Tyler was so nice to her, but she just kept throwing it back in his face. When would she be able to just accept the nice things he wanted to do for her and live a normal life?

  “It’s very heavy,” she told him as she stood with a gun in her hand.

  “It’s supposed to be. It means business, and you mean business by holding it. Nobody’s gonna mistake you for a pushover with you pointing that at their chest.”

  He had taught her gun safety and how to stand. “Now, I want you to line it up and shoot it. Watch for the kickback,” he cautioned.

  Doing everything he’d taught her, she cursed as it kicked back on her, making her shot go wide.

  “Brace with your hand on the butt of it,” he instructed.

  She did as he instructed and shot again, but again it went wide when it kicked back.

  “What am I doing wrong?” Meredith was getting irritated. In her old life she had been good at everything. It had been required by her parents for her to be good at everything. If they could see her now, they would probably be looking down their noses. To her knowledge, no one in her family had ever owned a gun or hung out with a motorcycle gang. Leave it to her to break the mold.

  His long legs ate up the distance between them. “I’m going to stand behind you and put my arms around you. Okay?”

  Not sure how she felt about the situation, she nodded anyway. When he cozied up to her back, she inhaled deeply, smelling his masculine scent as well as the leather of his cut. Carefully, he put his arms around her and put his hands over top of hers. He was so much bigger than her, but she never felt threatened by him. His chest was hard against her back, and she wanted to snuggle up to it. Shockingly, her nipples hardened when he moved his arms back, inadvertently brushing the underside of her breast. His deep voice lulled her, and she just tried to enjoy the feelings for a few moments.

  The chest behind her was hard, a solid wall of muscle that told her just how strong he was. Closing her eyes against the panic, she thought back to that night, how that man had boxed her in and she hadn’t been able to get up. Her mind told her that this was Tyler, not her rapist, but that didn’t stop the quickening of her heart. Stop it, Meredith! He’s the one person who’s not going to hurt you. Just allow this to happen, she told herself.

  “Are you even listening to me?” his voice held a tone of frustration.

  “Sorry, what were you saying?”

  “That it’s important to pay attention when you’re aiming your gun.”

  His double meaning wasn’t lost on her, and her cheeks heated. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and concentrated on paying attention while he told her what to do.

  “You ready to do this on your own?” he asked.

  “I think so.”

  Tyler didn’t want to let her go. Every time she came to him willingly, it was that much harder to release her. He hated the hold that monster had on her. Hated that he couldn’t seem to break through the walls she had erected around herself. He understood them, but hated them just the same. Reluctantly, he stepped back from her. He set up some targets for her, and then watched as she aimed and fired, knocking every one of them down.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” He raced over, giving her a high five.

  Excitement caused her to launch herself into his arms. She hugged him tightly before realization smacked her in the face. His face wore an expression of shock before he disentangled himself from her.

  Brushing her confusion off, she cleared her throat. “I can’t believe I just did that,” she smiled.

  The feeling was exhilarating as she realized that she had made a move to protect herself. With his encouragement she had learned to do something she’d never thought she would be able to do.

  “You did do it. I’m so proud of you.”

  She beamed for the first time in a long time. Pleasure shone on her face, and he basked in the glory of it. The words she spoke next made up for everything he’d been through with her. “Ya know what? I’m proud of me too.”

  Chapter Five

  “Meredith, it’s been a week since our last session. How have things been going?”

  She looked at the doctor, avoiding her eyes. This was supposed to be helping her, but it would never help her if she didn’t come clean. That was something she realized now more than ever. Especially after the events of the last seven days. She took a deep breath and began talking to Doctor Jones.

  “I’ve had an interesting week. I finally went out and about with someone besides Tyler and it was a complete disaster.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Denise took me to the grocery. Well, the grocery also has Halloween costumes for sale. I nearly had a panic attack because of the number of people in the store. Then at the checkout, some guy bumped into me. I looked behind me, and he was dressed exactly like my attacker was. He was so excited that his Halloween costume scared me, and I took off running. It brought back everything and I damn near passed out in the parking lot. I also had another nightmare that night.”

  Doctor Jones took in the paleness of her face and the dark circles under her eyes. “Do you have nightmares a lot? That’s something you’ve never really been open about. You’ve mentioned it once, and I told you that you weren’t ready to get over whatever was bothering you, but if you’re having them every night there may be an issue.”

  “I have them every night. Tyler wakes me up and tries to calm me down. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “What happens in your nightmares?”

  The room began to close in on Meredith, but she knew that she had to get this out. The collar of her shirt felt tight, and she reached up to pull it away from her neck. “I re-live the attack. Sometimes it’s just parts of it. Sometimes it’s the whole thing. There’s one thing that gets me every time. He threw a dollar bill on me afterwards. He said it was for ‘services rendered’. That’s usually where it ends.”

  Doctor Jones’ face paled. In her experience, something that crass – it was personal and it caused fear to clench her stomach for her patient.

  “How do you feel when Tyler wakes you up and it’s over?”

  She hated when Doctor Jones asked her redundant questions like this, but knew she was just trying to get to the bottom of her feelings. “I used to feel so sad, like I could completely breakdown and just curl in a ball and die. Now I feel angry. There’s a part of me that wants to find this guy and throw a dollar bill on him. Then there’s the part of me that’s scared shitless of doing it.”

  “Anger is good, that means you’ve moving on in the grief stage.”

  “That’s what Tyler said,” she chuckled. “I guess I should also report that I asked Tyler to teach me how to shoot a gun.”

  “How did he react to that?” Doctor Jones smiled.

  “He took me out to the shooting range and taught me gun safety and how to shoot. I did it and actually hit the target after a little practice. That’s the first time I’ve been proud of myself in a long time. I should also mention, I had a reaction to Tyler.” She said the last part softly.

  “Okay, first of all, let me say I’m proud of you. You decided you were ready to take your safety into your own hands and you did something about it. I would caution you to not go all vigilante, be sure and keep your anger under control. Save it for the shooting range.”

  Meredith completely understood where the older woman was coming from and greatly appreciated the warning. “I understand,” she nodded.

  “Now, about your reaction to Tyler. Define reaction.”

  This made her very uncomfortable. Even before she had been attacked, her sexuality wasn’t blatant. She was the type of person to read erotic romances on her e-reader, but balk when a boyfriend asked if he could smack her ass. She wanted it, but didn’t want to admit that she wanted it. It was always hard for her to tell someone what she wanted, even if that meant a lot of her desires were
unfulfilled because she wasn’t vocal about it. Her parents hadn’t been the type to kiss or make sexual advances towards each other in front of her. It wasn’t until she’d moved out and gone to college that she’d noticed those things between couples. She crossed her legs and put her hands between her knees.

  “This makes me very uncomfortable,” she openly admitted.

  “It’s alright, it’s just us here. You know that whatever you say doesn’t go out these doors.”

  “I know, but it’s hard for me to put into words what I’m feeling.”

  Doctor Jones sat forward so that the two of them were eye to eye. “I’m not blowing smoke up your ass here, but let me be real honest with you. You’ve done a complete 180 since you started coming to these sessions. Do you remember the first one? You barely said five words to me. We’ve been patient with each other and now look at how much you’re opening up. It’s the same with anything in your life. You have to be patient. It will all come to you if you keep working on it. I have no doubt that you will achieve everything you want to, and I look forward to seeing it. If it takes you two hours to get through this, it’s fine. I’ve got time.”

  That’s what she needed to hear. Feeling more empowered than she had in weeks, she took a deep breath and began. “I’m attracted to Tyler. I was way before that night, we had a flirtation with each other. It wasn’t anything huge, but it was obvious we liked each other. It seemed like fate that he found me the night of the attack. From the first moment I met him, I felt safe around him, even though he scared me with how large of a man he is.”

  That was news to Dr. Jones. “He found you the night of the rape?”

  “Yes,” she nodded. “He is the one who made me see a doctor, and he stayed with me until it was all over. That was the night he took me back to the clubhouse and began sleeping on the floor. He’s been doing it ever since.” A thought hit her out of nowhere, causing her to worry. “You don’t think I have misguided feelings for him because he is my knight in shining armour do you?”