Stephanie Tyler - Vipers Run

“Should I even ask?”

“I’m not picturing clothes.”

My cheeks burned at the roughness of his voice. “You’re dying and you’re picturing me naked?”

“I’m a guy,” he said. And he did sound better, so who was I to argue? I laughed, then put my hand over my mouth simultaneously to keep from crying. “What . . . were you doing . . . before I called?”

“I was on the phone.” I didn’t mean for the words to come out so clipped.

“You sound sad. Can’t be . . . for me.”

“Why not?”

“Calla . . .”

The way he said my name was like a warning and a command. The oddest thing, but I blurted out, “It’s just my family.”

Because a dying man needed my drama.

“Do you get along . . . with them?” he asked.

God, I didn’t want to talk about this. I felt the blurred edges of a panic attack closing in, sure that if I looked up I’d see the room glazed over. Instead of looking up, I forced myself into tunnel vision. “My mom died a couple of years ago. My Grams died early last year.” And I’m all alone.

“I know what being all alone’s like.”

I hadn’t realized I’d said that out loud. Cage and I shared a silent moment together, and I wondered if he realized the irony that, finally, neither of us was alone. “Grams used to tell me that being able to keep someone’s company is the most important thing in the world, and that the hard part was finding the person who you could tell your deepest, darkest secrets to.”

“What are yours?”

I almost didn’t answer, but knew I had to. “I’m scared I’ll always be alone.”

“By choice? Or . . . by design?”

“Both,” I admitted.

“Don’t . . . let that happen.”

I swear, it sounded like an order despite the hitch. “You sound better.”

“Yeah. Feel . . . beyond the pain.”

That couldn’t be good. I gripped the phone hard as I forced myself still.

“God, Calla, I really fucked this up.” He laughed, but it came out more like a groan. “Should’ve known . . . I tried to fight them. My whole life, I tried . . .”

“Don’t let them win, Cage. Please . . .”

“You sound like you know what it’s like.”

“I do. And I let someone win and I hate him for it.”

There was such a long pause that I thought I’d lost him—I closed my eyes and just waited for what seemed like forever.

And then he said, “Fuck, Calla. Would strangle the son of a bitch who hurt you” in a voice so strong and fierce that I actually took a step back and hit the wall.

“I’d let you,” I said softly.

“What did he do to you?”

“I can’t tell you.” I couldn’t tell anyone. It had been all locked up, put away. Except it never really was. “There was this guy. I was fifteen. He—” I couldn’t say much more except, “He took so much from me.”

I waited for him to say he was sorry, that he wished he could do something, because there were so many wishes associated with what had happened to me.

Instead, he growled, “Did anyone make him pay?”

Even though that’s not what Cage was asking, I thought of the money in my account. The pictures. “No,” I whispered.

“He will pay. I promise.”

How many broken promises had I waded through? “Don’t.”

“Don’t defend you?”

“Don’t promise.”

“Too late.”

“I don’t goddamned believe you, Cage, so take it back.”

“Who gets into a fight with a dying man?” he asked out loud.

“I don’t believe in promises.”

“And I . . . don’t . . . break them. You need to be . . . prepared.”

Prepared? What did that mean? “Don’t do this to me.”

“What are you afraid of?” he challenged, sounding more resolved by the second.

“That you’re going to want to know what happened to me. That you’re not going to want me.”

“I think you’re really . . . scared that I might . . . want you, and you’ll have to let . . . those walls . . . all the way down.”

I wanted to tell him this was a hypothetical conversation, that I was happy he was going to live, but that I’d make sure he didn’t find me.

And what are you going to do, Calla? Quit Bernie’s and run away?

“I don’t want to believe you,” I told him.

“But you do.”

“Maybe,” I admitted.

“Fucking meet my angel in the middle of hell,” he managed, more to himself than me. “Gotta go, Calla. Remember . . . what I said.”

“Cage, please let me do something for you.”

“Babe, you have no idea what . . . you’ve already . . . done. I . . . Shit.”

“Please.”

“I’m . . . coming back.”

“I believe you,” I said, because how could I not? Because I wanted him to. “Let me help you.”

There was a silence and then he coughed and then, “Gonna give you a number. Remember . . . it.”

“Of course.”

“Bernie . . . tell him . . . immediately. Important.”

“I will.” I memorized the last thing I’d know about Cage. Ten numbers that meant nothing. “I’ve got it.”

“Say. Back.”

I repeated them and he sighed. “Good. Sorry . . . so sorry.”

Sorry? For dying? For giving me a relatively simple job? For not letting me help him? “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, Cage.”

“Jesus. You did . . . everything.”

“Cage . . .”

But the line clicked off. I blinked back tears, unable to stop the small sob that made my shoulders lift involuntarily. I was yelling then, slamming the desk with my fists before I pulled my shit together.

Feeling like I’d failed.

Another loss. My whole life was loss and pain, and why I thought it could be any different, I had no idea.

I looked up at a picture behind Bernie’s desk, hanging low on the wall. I’d never really noticed it before, because if I was in here, Bernie was in his big chair, which partially covered it. Why it was hung so low was another story, but I finally realized that Bernie was one of the men wearing an Army uniform. I grabbed a magnifying glass to look at the names on the uniforms. There was one man, his head turned to the side . . .

“Calla?”

“Bernie!” I dropped the magnifying glass and turned, wanting to hug him. I handed him his phone and started babbling about Cage and the numbers.

His face paled. He looked behind him, out the window and then tossed me a set of keys. I caught them instinctively. “Black truck in the corner of the lot. Walk to it like it’s yours. Get in. Hit the GPS and follow where it takes you. Money’s in the glove compartment. Do you understand?”

“Bernie—”

“There’s trouble, honey. Please, do what I say. Now.”

He walked out then. I don’t know why, but I grabbed the picture from his wall before I went out the back, grabbing my bag along the way.

Two weeks earlier, he’d gotten a call that made him close his office door. He never closed the door. And when he’d finally emerged, he’d been pale and distracted. Twitchy, even.

For the rest of that week, he answered all his own calls. But then things seemed to go back to normal. We dealt with the usual cases . . . some heartbreaking, some frivolous.

I supposed I could call in my father, ask for help. Or I could throw off everything, once and for all, and thank Cage by actually going free.

When I got into the black car and turned the key in the ignition, I’d made the choice. As I pulled the car out of the lot, I heard gunshots, four in a row, and I forced myself not to go back and check on Bernie. Instead, I followed his orders and got the hell out of there. Running from my past and present . . . and realizing I had no clue where my future lay.