Page 19 of Forgiveness
Emily. He had to find his baby girl.
There was a sharp knock on the door. A loud enough noise that Flux jolted back from his memory into the present while the panic, guilt, and loss still ate him alive from the inside out. He scrubbed his hands down his face. If he ignored it, they would probably just go away. He tried to keep quiet while the ache in his veins blossomed until he was rocking back and forth, sitting on the bathroom floor.
But the pounding on the door didn’t stop. It got worse.
Then, he wondered if maybe it was only his imagination, his own headache and guilt creating shit that didn’t exist. The banging grew louder and more insistent, and it was like a damn freight train running through the middle of his head. He weaved up onto his feet and braced himself against the doorjamb.
More knocking—it just wouldn’t stop.
“Fuckin’ shut it, I’m coming!” he yelled, slowly making his way to the door like an old man.
When Flux opened it, he took a quick step backward and nearly knocked himself over by tripping on his own feet. While the memory of his wife and child was still murky within his subconscious, Maggie stood in front of him with her arms crossed and her head down.
“Yeah?” he asked gruffly, unable to change his demeanor, given the circumstances. Flux didn’t remember how to interact with humans, let alone talk like one with the shock still fresh in his brain.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … I just, uh … didn’t know where to go …” she trailed off with a small sniffle, which alerted a protective part of his lizard brain that something was going on there. “I can go. It’s no problem.”
She made to leave and turned around before he grabbed her wrist. Maggie spun around as if he’d hit her, and he dropped her arm immediately, hands up at his sides. Her wary eyes studied his face, shifting up and down every area of his expression. At that moment, he was pretty fucking sure he was rocking the zombie look.
Flux grunted and moved to the side. A silent signal for her to get the hell inside or leave—her choice. When Maggie looked up at him and took a few steps into the room, he noted the red rings around her eyes as if she’d been crying.Fuck.
He shut the door, barely able to keep it to a loud slam.
“What happened? Tell me.”
Flux’s demand wasn’t met with a cold shoulder or an abrasive look from her. Instead, his words seemed to deflate Maggie where she stood, as her shoulders folded inward and her hands covered her face. Damn, he was going about it all wrong. Flux was tongue tied and gruff, ripping through what was happening like an asshole with no sense of compassion. It was his demons that still ate at him.
They were both at a vulnerable place and, maybe, this was his chance to make whatever problem she was going through right now better, if she would just talk to him.
“You must’ve come here for a reason, Duchess. Tell me what’s going on and I’ll help if I can.” The words sounded foreign coming from Flux as he cleared this throat and took a seat at the edge of the bed. “Let me … be there for you.”
Flux patted the spot next to him, inviting Maggie to join him on the rumpled queen bed. There was enough space between them that they weren’t sitting on top of each other. He was thankful for the small favor. Fuck knows, he couldn’t handle it if they touched too much right now. Not when everything inside him was raw, and they were both live wires begging for a grounding connection.
“Chet has been fucking with me for months.” Her voice came out in a low, enraged accusation. “Tonight topped it all. He’s been following me and downright stalking me.”
“Whoa, wait a fuckin’ second! He’s beenwhat?” Flux nearly jumped out of his skin as protectiveness reared deep within him.
“I should probably go back to the start of this story …” Maggie licked her lips and continued to hug herself. “We’d dated for a little bit. Nothing serious. It was only a couple months, clearly not enough time for me to have noticed the extent of his level of crazy. But he’d seemed like a decent enough guy …”
Flux scoffed and ran his palms down his jeans, focusing on her numbed-out expression while she looked straight ahead and told her story. Yeah, Chet was an entitled asshole. No doubt about it, but taking it to this level? Fuck. With all the scum he’d seen in his lifetime, this shouldn’t have shocked him, but the idea that Chet would fuck with Maggie still threw him. It enraged him down to a part of himself he never knew he could access.
“Go on,” he gritted, gripping his knee caps so he didn’t punch something and scare the ever-loving shit out of the woman who was opening up to him.
“And then I started to hear the rumors.” Maggie covered her face again with her hands, and when she removed them, her expression was filled with a mixture of rage, pain, and regret. “He was a womanizing dick-bag who was terrible in bed and had a tab with the local brothel. He’d left a wake of women who hated him strewn all over town, and I was his next victim. I’d been stupid enough to fall for the ‘good ol’ boy’ routine. I’m sure he peddles that crap to anyone who’ll listen. Then I’d started noticing the girls who worked behind the scenes at the rodeo … and how they wouldn’t go near me when I was with him. Women whom I’d made friends with, who’d said hello to me on a regular basis, were treating me like I wasn’t even there anymore.”
“Not a great fuckin’ sign,” Flux breathed out, his words were meant to help not hinder her story.
“It gets worse. One of the women, Darlene, had cornered me after a race a few months ago and demanded to see my phone. When I handed it over, she’d asked me to unlock it. I was wary, but we’d had conversations before and I figured Darlene was pretty trustworthy, so I did what she asked me. She’d found an app on my phone … a tracking one … Chet had put it there.”
Maggie took a long breath and closed her eyes before breathing out again.
“Of course I’d confronted him about it, and when he denied it, I’d broken it off. But it seemed like he wasn’t even hearing me anymore. He kept placating me—trying to touch me, soothe me, kiss me—until I’d pushed him off me, ran out of his room, and never looked back again.”
“That must’ve been rough for you.” Flux tried to be sympathetic while every fiber of his being yelled at him to get the hell up and pound the shit out of Chet so he could never ride anything again—a bull or a woman. “And he bothered you again, tonight?”
“He’s just continuing the harassment—it never really stopped. Oh, there’ve been small periods where it’s not as bad, but they’re few and far between. He acts like he’s this good man with all these decent values, and he’s nothing but a hypocrite. The crazy part is that he’s convinced himself that he’sthatguy. Anyway, he follows me around on the rodeo circuit. If he’s not competing in one of the rodeos, he’s still there in the stands watching me. It’s creepy as hell.”
Flux saw her shudder and he wanted to draw her close to him and wrap his arms around her, but he didn’t budge.
