Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

Lakelynn

M y racing thoughts keep me tossing and turning all night. Just as it did before when I dreamed of the past, my heart pounds in my chest. I try to summon forth my mantra, but all I can think of is: I can’t do this. I can’t do this.

Feeling the contents of my stomach bubbling up, I run to the bathroom. I just barely make it. Everything within me revolts, emptying into the toilet.

Once it’s over, I lean back against the wall and try to catch my breath. My gaze centers on the cabinet beneath the sink. My thoughts war with themselves, fighting to decide what would be easier: giving in or holding back.

Tears well in my eyes. The urge to pull out a new disposal razor, break out the blades, and run it across my skin is strong. I want to ease the chaos swarming my mind. I miss Ty.

He left me when I needed him most.

Why?

He could have come back for me, and I’d have gladly run away with him. I could have easily lived as an outlaw on the run. I don’t need much. All I needed back then was him.

Now I’m sitting alone on the floor, crying my eyes out and feeling more alone than I have in a while.

My thoughts drift to my stalker. His blue eyes look similar to Ty’s. And the fighter from last night had similar blue eyes too.

I need answers. I don’t want to keep guessing. I’m tired of feeling so lost and alone. Wiping away my tears, I force myself to stand and clean up. The desire to cut is still there, but I try to refocus my attention on what I truly wanted to do this weekend before Lena invited me to the fight: find information on the men in my life.

After showering and getting dressed, I meander into the kitchen. My footsteps falter when I see a bouquet of flowers and money resting on the counter.

Again, my mind wanders to Ty. He used to give me flowers. They were picked from the yard, not store-bought like my stalker brings, but it still reminds me of him.

I pick the flowers up off the counter, smiling. Ty was the first man who sparked something inside me, made me crave more...of everything. My stalker is the first person to revive those feelings within me. He made me feel safe and desired, just as Ty did once upon a time. To discover they’re the same person and that Ty’s been with me the entire time would be the best thing ever.

Hope blossoms inside me. It’s a feeling I haven’t had in many years. I forgot how good it feels. It’s a farfetched fantasy, but I can’t help holding onto it.

I arrange the flowers in a vase, imagining the impossible. My phone rings from the bedroom, shaking me out of my thoughts. With a sigh, I silently admit how unlikely it is they’re the same person.

I trudge to my room and pick up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey!” Lena’s as cheerful as ever in her greeting. “Did you make it home okay last night? I’m sorry I couldn’t go out with you and Kieran after the fight. Donnie was pretty beaten up, so I needed to get him home.”

“It’s okay,” I assure her. “We were both tired after all the excitement, so we made a plan to meet up next week. Hopefully you can join us.”

“Definitely! I’ll make sure to be there, no matter what.”

“Good. How’s Donnie?”

“Okay, considering,” she says. “He’s in a lot of pain, but refuses to admit it. You know men.”

I snort. “Yeah, I do.”

It hits me, and I pause.

The fighter from last night.

His eyes had shone with recognition when they landed on me. I could ask Lena about him. Maybe something will stand out as to how he knows me and if he’s connected to my stalker.

“If Donnie is feeling up to it, could you ask him what he knows about the fighter from last night?” I pry.

“Ooh.” Lena perks up. “Thought he was hot, did you?”

“Something like that,” I mutter.

I can’t deny he was sexy as hell. Remembering the strength in his moves, the cruel and dominating power in him, along with his rock-hard abs and muscular arms, causes a shudder to course through me.

But that’s not the reason I’m asking. I can’t tell her that, though. Kieran freaked out when I mentioned the blue eyes of the fighter matched those of my stalker’s on our way home last night.

He kept telling me to report him, not understanding the fascination I have for him. While I love Kieran, he can be a bit overprotective. Neither he nor Lena know about my past traumas with the Rylees, and I’d like to keep it that way, but it also means they’ll never understand me or why I feel safe with my stalker.

Deep down, I know the masked man is no threat to me. But they’ll never see it from my side, so I’d rather not bring anymore attention to it. It’s easier to play it off as a crush and curb Lena’s questions about the truth.

“Hold on. I’ll ask,” she says.

I head back into the kitchen and fix myself breakfast while I wait. They exchange a few words before she comes back to me.

“He said he only knows what everyone else does in the circuit. No one knows what he looks like under the mask. His sponsor, Tomas, is the only way to find him. And he’s well-known around the streets as one of the best fighters to come through the illegal rings, but he refuses to move up to anything bigger or take on more sponsorships.”

I frown as I take my eggs over to the kitchen table and sit down. That’s not much to go on. How am I supposed to find out whether my assumptions are right if I have no way of checking off facts about them?

“Would you like to meet him?” The giddiness in Lena’s tone signals how hard it is for her to hold back from teasing me.

I straighten my spine. “Can I? Is that possible?”

“Donnie could probably set up a meeting through his sponsor.”

“Then yes. Do it!”

“Yay!” Lena cheers. “I’m so glad you’re finally dating.”

“You don’t have to say it like that, jeez.”

“Oh yes, I do. We’ve been friends for years and I’ve never seen you date anyone. It’s about time you started having sex. I was beginning to think you never would.”

“I’m not a virgin, Lena,” I scoff.

“Really?” She hums. “I would’ve never guessed.”

Truth is, I thought Ty would be my first, but that was before the incident with our foster father. I’ve been too afraid to lie with anyone else since.

Obviously, my libido isn’t dead; whenever I feel a need for release, I imagine Ty or my stalker going down on me or fucking me roughly. But I’ve never told anyone about them. My fantasies are my own. I keep them as hidden as my past.

My therapist has mentioned that being intimate with others would be hard for me due to the actions of Mr. Rylee, but I’m glad I can experience a sense of normalcy with each orgasm I bring myself to, even if it’s by imagining a masked guy cornering me in an alley to have his way with me.

Other than the fantasies, stalker guy, and Kieran, I get skittish whenever men get too close. With Kieran, it’s understandable; I’ve had time to get used to him in a platonic way.

With my stalker, it’s less so. I barely know him. And he’s only touched me once, but that one time he did, I wasn’t afraid. I was turned on. I wanted him to kiss me and make me his. I know from experience I won’t feel that way about anyone else. The only person I’d consider being with is him or Ty.

But thinking Ty is stalker guy is pushing it, I know. I’ve tried to find him through the years online and in newspapers, but to no avail. He’s a ghost.

I miss him. Ty always made me feel safe. I didn’t know it then, but now I know everything he did, he did to protect me from Mr. Rylee. Even at the expense of Sierra. She was thrown in to protect me more than once. I’m sure she blames me for her abuse in a way, wherever she is. If another girl had been taken into their care instead of me, Mr. Rylee would have swapped his attention to the new girl rather than continuing to molest Sierra for as long as he did.

After Mr. Rylee’s death, I discovered how many little girls he molested. I was lucky because of Ty. To this day, I still don’t know what he did to convince the other girls to take Mr. Rylee’s attention away from me, but I’m thankful for it. My internal damage would be far worse if he hadn’t.

“I’ll have Donnie contact Tomas and get back with you,” Lena says, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Okay. Thanks.” I hang up and stare down at my food.

Is it really worth trying to meet the fighter? Feeling deflated, I wonder if I should just let it all go and move on with my life. It would be easier, but when has anything ever been easy for me?