Page 16 of Raggedy Dan
Dawg set his bottle down hard, exhaling like the question dragged him back to a dark place.He rubbed a hand over his face, beard scratching against his palm.“Fuck, Dan.That shit nearly destroyed me.For a long while I was waking up every night replaying it.The reality of her being gone, because of club business, because I wasn’t there fast enough.The rage?It was easy to channel into hunts and fists.But the mental part...that’s the killer.The fact it was my fault she’d been treated so badly ate at me like fire.I shut down at first, thought about pushing Ella away to protect her.That would have been my biggest mistake.”He took a breath, then another, before saying, “But none of that made my fear any less real.”
Dan leaned in, scarred hands gripping the bottle tighter.“Yeah, I get that.Feel like I’d be one step from losing it if anything bad happened to Riley.”
Dawg met his eyes, steady and serious.“What pulled me out was facing it head-on.Talking.Of all things.Talking to Ella and to a counselor the VA hooked me up with.Yoga helped too, believe it or not.I made Ella drag me to the first few classes, where she promptly taught me to breathe through the panic instead of fighting it.Getting past everything is not about burying the demons.It’s about staring ‘em down.Let the club carry some weight, but don’t hide from her.She’ll see through it anyway.And therapy?Don’t knock it.Turned my head around, made me stronger for my Ella.”
Dan absorbed the words, the raw honesty hitting like a gut punch.He’d avoided shrinks as much as he could since the blast, but hearing from Dawg, a man he’d seen as unbreakable, made the need real.“Appreciate the truth, brother.Didn’t expect the yoga angle.”
Dawg chuckled, though it was tired.“Hey, downward dog saved my ass more than once.Seriously, Dan.Brother, if things inside your head get bad, talk.To me, to Tinder, to her.You’re not alone in this shit.”
Dan clapped him on the shoulder, a silent thanks.“Will do.Means a lot.”
As Mad Dawg nodded and focused back on his beer, Dan felt a shift, perhaps a crack in the armor he’d worn too long.Maybe opening up wasn’t weakness.Maybe it was the way to keep what mattered safe.He finished his drink, mind clearer, and headed for the showers, ready to hit the ground running with images of the flame-haired woman he couldn’t get out of his head.
Chapter Five
Dan
Dan took the second position in their little two-bike convoy out to her shop, and he pulled in a long, relieved breath when the shop’s windows were all intact.The glass of the door had been tagged, though, and he studied the writing left behind as he heeled down the kickstand and stepped off the bike.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, Riley.I’ll have someone bring out some paint thinner.What color do you want when we repaint the wooden frame?”
Riley didn’t respond, and he turned to see she was staring at the paint too, but her expression wasn’t annoyance or even anger but a soul-deep fear.“Riley, you okay?”
“What do you think it says?”Her voice quavered, but she stood there with her chin lifted, strong and defiant.She spoke faster, louder.“Dan, what does it say?”
“It doesn’t make any sense.L I R N O R isn’t a word.Is it a name of someone you know?”
She pushed past him and unlocked the door.Held it open and asked again, “What do you think it says now?”
Dan realized he’d read the letters backwards, his mind making sense out of nonsense.“R O N R I L still isn’t a word.”
“Ronnie and Riley.That’s how he referred to us after a while, because he kept me on a short leash.RONRIL.Anywhere we went, that’s what he labeled us.What he called me.”She pulled in a shaky breath.“Only Ronnie would know that.”
“Okay.Give me everything you remember about this Ronnie, and I’ll get Denver looking him up.Sooner we do that, the sooner we’ll have an idea on what’s going on.”
“He’s dead or supposed to be.”Riley looked around.She appeared to be piecing herself back together with every word and breath.“I need to get set up for my first appointment, Dan.I’ll be fine here.You can go back to your regularly scheduled life.Can’t babysit me against a dead man.”
