7. Selene

7

SELENE

G ravel shoots up from the driveway as Justin skids to a halt. His face is panicked, covered in a sheen of sweat. He quickly tosses my keys to me.

“Justin? What the Hell is going on?” I gasp and point at my front bumper. “Is this a dent? Where did this come from?”

“Selene, you’ve got to help me out,” he mewls, looking over his shoulder down the road. “If anyone comes up here, tell them you were driving your car, not me.”

“Did you have an accident?”

“Yes! And I have a suspended license so they’ll arrest me. But you’ll just get a ticket and a slap on the wrist.”

“And a mark on my permanent record. I don’t know about this, Justin…”

“Please? I’ll pay you double whatever your fine is.”

A police car is suddenly just there, parked in the backyard. I don’t even remember seeing or hearing it approach.

“Is this your car?” the cops demand as they shove me against the hood.

“Ow! Yes, it is, what’s wrong?”

“It was just used in a robbery. You’re under arrest.”

“No! Justin, tell them! Tell them that it wasn’t me!”

But Justin just cowers in the bushes, unable to look me in the eye …

My eyes snap open and stare at a bewildering ceiling. Where am I? Oh, right. What Dane laughingly refers to as his compound.

I hate that fucking dream. It’s not even the way it went down. When the police arrived, they figured out pretty quickly I didn’t fit the description of the six foot two inch man who robbed the convenience store.

Justin hadn’t hid in the bushes, either. He’d run through the woods behind our house and stayed on the lam for about six months. That was actually the most peaceful time of my life.

But the dream remains as a sign I don’t trust my brother not to get me into trouble. As it turns out, that’s a pretty good instinct. This time, it’s more than just an inconvenience. It’s downright dangerous.

Maybe I should have tried to help Justin more when we were growing up. It’s not his fault that our mom got sick and was in and out of the hospital all the time. Our father was up at the hospital a lot, too, which left me to fill in the gap when it came to taking care of Justin. I was too busy pissing and moaning about my own life to give him the attention he probably needed.

I managed to make it out all right. But Justin is still running from the past and wrestling with his own shadow.

Wondering how long I've slept, I check my phone. Five hours, damn. Guess I was pretty worn out. Groggily, I get up and look for the bathroom and my host, in that order.

I don’t see him inside the house, but I do detect a trail of smoke snaking out of the food truck exhaust fan. When I open the door, I can hear music emanating from the truck.

I open the door, the aroma of cooking spices carried by the cool wind of the repaired AC. Dane stands at the stove, his massive back facing me. He has a laughing jester skull tattoo covering the middle of his back, flanked by a sea dragon and a wolf on each shoulder. I take a moment to appreciate both his physique and the artful aesthetics of his ink.

He doesn’t seem to have noticed me yet. I clear my throat and he still doesn’t react. I guess he’s closer to the music than I am.

I should say something to let him know that I’m here. All of the sudden all I can think of is how hot he looks without his shirt on. My lips move before I’ve fully formed a proper thought.

“I’ve always wanted to get a tattoo, but I'm afraid of the pain.”

He glances over his shoulder at me. Our eyes meet and for a moment nobody says anything. I feel like an idiot for saying that. Not a proper salutation by anyone’s measure.

“Tattoos hurt plenty, don’t let anybody fool you. But after the first one, the second one hurts less. And the one after that hurts less, and so on. By the time I got this dagger on my forearm last year, I barely felt it.”

“So your solution to being afraid of tattoos hurting, is to get more tattoos?”

He chuckles and motions for me to join him.

“Come on in, and shut the door. I finally got the air conditioning on.”

“What are you making?”

“Pork shoulder with goat cheese sandwiches. I’m afraid canned peaches are the best I can do for a side dish.”

“It smells fantastic. Can I help?”

He nods, a smile blossoming on his face. God, those eyes are just gorgeous. Like emeralds, shining in the overhead lights. It’s almost enough to make me ignore the chiseled magnificence of his muscled torso. Almost.

“That metal pan on the grill has melted butter in it. Can you brush some onto the buns?”

“Sure.” I go to pick up one of the buns. “This is still kind of frozen.”

“I know, once you butter them, put them on the grill. Hopefully that will warm them up.”

I do as I’m told, buttering the rolls and placing them business side down on the grill. Dane finishes seasoning the pork and lays a slab of lard down on his half of the grill. Once it melts, he dumps the ground, heavily spiced pork and steam hisses up toward the vent hoods.

“Were you able to find anything out?” I ask .

“Some. There’s a man named William Petty we’re trying to find. He has a connection to Moreno but he’s removed enough from the inner circle we can actually get at him.”

“Get at him?” A frown creases my face.

“What’s wrong?”

“I guess I just don’t like the idea of hurting someone to get my brother back. I mean, sure, I’m all for hurting the people who actually took him, but some random person…it just doesn’t sit right with me. Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

He stirs the food on the grill, lips pursed as he considers my words. I appreciate that he doesn’t just argue back immediately how wrong I am. He actually thinks about what I have to say.

“I get your point, but there are some nuances here you may not have considered.”

“Such as what?”

He turns those piercing emerald eyes on me and I want to give in and say he’s right. About everything, just please keep looking at me some more.

“Such as the fact that Moreno isn’t just a singular entity. It’s the entire syndicate that’s kidnapped your brother, if you want to argue semantics. Petty is part of that syndicate, as much as part of the people who kidnapped your brother as Moreno’s right hand is a part of him.”

“I don’t like semantic arguments much. They always lead to gray areas and lesser evils and all that,” I say firmly. “What else you got?”

“If we want to find your brother, we will have to enter a world where good and evil aren’t so black and white. And quite frankly this is the only lead I have on getting Justin back. The only one, at all.”

“Well, okay…” I sigh and rub my eyes. “But only if hurting the guy is used as a last resort.”

“I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best,” he replies. “Check the bread, it smells about done.”

Using a pair of tongs, I turn the bread over and find a golden brown, crispy edge with some sizzling valleys of molten butter. I place the buns on the plate and sigh about the cholesterol and the carbs. But when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

“You know, the first thing I’m doing when we leave this place is take you to get a real, balanced meal,” I say.

“Are you dissing my cooking?”

“No, not at all. I eat everything you make, don’t I? It’s just missing a couple food groups. Your cooking skills are actually pretty impressive. I would have thought you were a guy who dined exclusively at places with golden arches out front.”

He heaves a long sigh.

“I do like my McNuggets.”

“Ha, I knew it. It’s all right, there’s nothing wrong with liking nuggets. Just like there’s nothing wrong with enjoying missionary, it just pays to spice things up from time to time, that’s all I’m saying.”

The narrow kitchen is hard to navigate. I lose my balance while reaching for a paper towel and nearly fall. Dane catches me before I hit the floor, holding me in a low dip.

“Thanks. I guess I should stop making funny quips and start paying more attention to what I’m doing, huh?”

“I should have cleaned the floor better, it’s probably a slick spot,” he says, his eyes burning like twin emerald suns. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

How can I not be okay? When he caught me, I grabbed his arm on instinct. I can feel the knots of muscle playing under his warm skin. The throb of his pulse moves through my fingertips and into my body. All of the sudden, it’s hard to breathe.

His eyes close halfway, and he reaches out to brush my bangs out of my eyes. Dane licks his lips, then swallows hard before speaking.

“Selene, I…”

“What?” I ask when his voice trails off into silence.

“Nothing.”

He pulls me back up to my feet and attends the grill.

“The meat got a little crispy, but it’s good that way.”

I look at his back and frown. For a moment, I thought he was going to make a move on me. I’m not sure if I’m more relieved or disappointed that he didn’t. It’s better that we keep things professional, right?

Dinner turns out to be delicious. All the high calorie, high carb awfulness of it. At the end of the meal, Dane has a solution to my overfull belly.

“You need a pickle.”

I give him a dirty look until I realize he means an actual pickle. Apparently, the vinegar helps your stomach break down food.

Once our food has had a chance to settle, my thoughts settle as well. I start to dwell on all the horrible things that could be happening to Justin. I wish I’d never been a guest on that stupid podcast.

I heard some stories on that podcast that stuck with me. Stories about what Salvatore Moreno does to people who cross him. None of them were pleasant. The most disturbing thing of all, though, was a certified fact: Moreno kept a fully trained doctor on hand to make sure that his ‘guests’ didn’t die before he could make them suffer for their supposed crimes.

The idea of my brother being in the hands of such a man made me physically ill. I wanted to crawl up in a ball and die.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. “I just need to go and lay down.”

“Begging your pardon, Miss Selene, but laying down is the last thing you need right now.”

I arch a brow at him.

“Miss Selene? If you call me that again I’m going to go outside the gate and let myself get eaten by the first bear and/or mountain lion that comes along.”

“What’s so bad about Miss Selene?”

I groan. “If you must know, before I got my full-time gig I had to babysit on weekends for grocery money. There were these little eight-year-old brats, twins, and they were always calling me that. Miss Selene, I’m hungry. Miss Selene, we can’t find any cartoons to watch. Miss Selene, he just picked his nose and wiped it on me. Ugh, I can still hear their grating voices in my dreams.

He laughs, and holds up a hand.

“All right, that’s totally legit. Sorry…Selene.”

“And why shouldn’t I lay down? I didn’t sleep a full eight hours or anything.”

“No, you did not, but right now you're feeling down because you’re worried about your brother. You need some stimulation, something to keep your mind off of him.”

“Oh, and you’re just the guy to give me that, are you?”

He chuckles, green eyes sparkling.

“In a manner of speaking. Get up, I’m going to show you some self-defense.”

“What? This seems random.”

“You need to get up and move around. The endorphins from exercise will counteract the totally understandable depression you’re feeling right now. Proven scientific fact.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

He laughs and pats his belly.

“I didn’t get these abs because of vanity. Let’s say it takes a lot of endorphins to help me forget to be miserable.”

I sigh, my heart melting all over again.

“Dane, it’s okay to feel bad. It’s okay to talk about what’s making you feel bad, too. I want you to know that you can talk to me.”

“I just did.”

“No, you made a little one-liner alluding to your depression, which could be viewed as a cry for help. You want the help but you’re afraid to ask for it.”

He laughs and scoots a little bit closer on the sofa.

“Are you a makeup artist or a therapist?”

“I’m a little of both. Look, it takes hours for the prosthetics and the applications to dry, and then you move onto the next layer, which also takes hours to dry…you wind up talking to your models and actors. A lot. I can probably bury a career or two with what I know, let’s just say that. ”

“I have to warn you, there have been more than a few women who’ve tried to ‘save’ me.”

“Who says I want to save you? I don’t think you need saving, Dane. I think you need support, not a savior.”

“Let me teach you how to defend yourself, Selene. The number one priority right now is keeping you safe. What I need can wait.”

I decide not to press him any further, for now .

“Alright Dane, teach me self-defense.”

A smile flashes over his face. When Dane smiles, it takes my breath away. His gaze flashes over my form.

“You might want to trade out the designer jeans for something easier to move in.”

“Um, I think I have a pair of yoga pants stashed in my bag.”

I quickly change into more appropriate workout gear, lacing up a pair of sneakers I’ve barely broken in. For a moment, I sit and stare at my shoes and the unfamiliar floor beneath. My life took a complete turn, out of nowhere. While Dane has been an unexpectedly pleasant surprise, it doesn’t change the fact my little snow globe of existence has been seriously shook.

A gentle knock at the door heralds Dane.

“Are you decent?”

“I’m dressed,” I quip back, offering a weak smile as Dane enters the room.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m okay. Just contemplating how things got like this.”

“You’re going to get through this, Selene.”

He brings me outside, onto the patio connecting his two ‘wings’ of the container house. The air smells crisp and clean as he spreads out a rubber wrestling mat to cushion the wooden deck.

“All right, let me see your battle stance.”

I laugh and pantomime like a kung fu master.

“I’m serious. How do you stand when you’re ready to throw down?”

“Um, I don’t.”

He tilts his head to the side, confusion reigning in his green eyes .

“What do you mean, you don’t?”

“I mean I don’t. I don’t have a fighting stance because I don’t get into fights.”

“You’ve never been in a fight? Not ever?”

“No, why is that so hard to believe? I mean, I got into a couple of shoving matches in first grade or something, but I’ve never been in an actual fight. Most people haven’t, you know.”

He stops and thinks about that for a long moment.

“You know, you’re probably right. I guess I thought my experience was the same as everyone’s but that was a stupid way to think about it.”

“It’s not stupid, most people, men in particular, are at least a little bit egocentric.”

Dane smiles and cocks an eyebrow.

“And we’re back to the psychology again.”

“This is the part where you’re going to tell me I’m smart for someone who does zombie makeup, right? I might not have a fancy Ivy League education but I know stuff.”

Dane’s simile fades, and his green eyes grow serious.

“Selene, you’re a smart woman. A damn smart woman, a hell of a lot smarter than me. You’ve held it together through all of this better than I could have expected or hoped for. Don’t sell yourself short.”

Heat blossoms onto my cheeks. I can’t look straight at him.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Okay, basic hand-to-hand stance goes like this. Are you right or left handed?”

“Left handed.”

“Okay, south paw. That's a big advantage because most people can’t deal with the fists flying opposite of how they expect.”

“If you say so.”

“Here, turn yourself slightly sideways, and keep your hands up.”

I try to do as he asks, but it feels awkward.

“Wait, if I’m left-handed don’t I want to lead with my left hand, not my right?”

“No, your left is your power hand. Your right is for jabs and other short, swift attacks. You set them up with your right and take them down with your left.”

He coaches me through a jab. It still feels awkward. I’m just not a violent person, and the idea of rearranging someone’s face doesn't come naturally to me.

But I keep trying, and Dane seems pleased with my progress. I enjoy the grappling training a lot more, mostly because it seems less violent somehow.

“Remember to break my balance before you try and execute the hip throw,” Dane says as he grabs my shoulders. I try to remember the complicated steps. Balance breaking, form fitting, execution…

I spin around and basically wriggle my butt all over his crotch instead of flipping him head over heels, like I was supposed to. Our laughter echoes across the wooded compound.

“I suck at this.”

“No, no, you did really good with the shoulder throw. You should have this one down because of your hip structure.”

“My hip structure?” I gasp. “Are you trying to say I have ‘birthing’ hips, Mr. Dane?”

“I’m saying you better be ready to defend.”

He rushes at me, and without thinking, I do the hip throw. He goes right over, easy as can be.

“You scared me,” I say as I help him back to his feet.

“Sorry, but you were overthinking it. I had to take your brain out of the equation and let you act on instinct.”

“I think you’re giving my instinct too much credit, but thanks.”

“No way. Let’s practice some ground grappling and escapes.”

Ground grappling and escapes turns out to be difficult. He doesn’t go easy on me, and I end up with mat burn in more than a few places.

He winds up pinning my back to the mat, his hand grabbing my throat as he leans his body weight down on me.

“You know how to get out of this,” he says through gritted teeth. “Show me.”

Even though he’s pinning me down, I can feel how he holds back. He’s being so careful not to hurt me. Dane wants me to be confident in my ability to defend myself, so he’s pushing me hard. But not too hard.

I wrap my legs around his arm and thread them through until I can apply pressure on his throat. He has to pull back or fall unconscious from lack of blood to the brain. I go with the momentum and wind up straddling him, my forearm across his throat.

“I did it,” I say between pants, grinning ear to ear. “Only took me what, ten, twenty times?”

“About thirty, but who’s counting?”

I smack him playfully on the cheek. He laughs, a smile springing to his lips.

“I’m not going to lie, size and strength are incredibly hard to overcome in a fight. But in your case, you’re not trying to win a cage fight. You’ll be trying to escape, wound, and evade. Just get away from them, leave the fighting to me.”

“So says the guy who I have utterly at my mercy.”

He laughs. “Is that what you think?”

“I am on top.”

He grins, and then his eyes narrow. Dane moves like a snake on speed, slithering out from underneath me and catching me in his coils. I don’t have time to remember any of the techniques he just taught me before I wind up flat on my back.

Dane straddles me across the waist, pinning both of my wrists over my head with one hand.

“Now who’s on top?” he asks playfully.

I laugh, and give a half-hearted struggle.

“Dane,” I whisper. “What are you going to do with me now?”

His eyes half-close, and glaze over with desire. When he leans in for a kiss, I’m all too eager to meet it in kind.

His kiss tastes amazing, drawing me out of any lingering anxiety and into a realm where pleasure is all that matters. I don’t have time to feel guilty. I just want to give myself over to this moment, and wherever it takes us.

And judging from the way his kiss intensifies, it’s taking us somewhere right this second.