It had been several days since we’d spoken or, more importantly, since we’d touched. We were prisoners of forbidden love, just like Romeo and Juliet but without the poetic, old English double speak and Italian marble balconies. And while our families weren’t warring, our circumstances were so different it made us an unsuitable match, or at least that was what my parents insisted. But in my heart, I was certain they were wrong. All I knew was that standing near Kellan, even up on the flat roof of the gym with its maze of air conditioning units and electrical boxes, made me feel as if we were the only two people on Earth. And that fantasy suited me just fine.
Kellan pulled me over to the edge of the roof where you could look out over the east side of town. A ceiling of stars glittered above. Street lights and house lights flickered below like a massive forest of candles. The stripe of darkness in between the glow of houses and shops was the railroad that cut through Bluefield, the make believe border that separated the two vastly different parts of town. Beyond that was the huge stretch of empty blackness that was the Bluefield Coal Mine. My dad was one of its investors and a member of the board, which made him one of the most powerful men in town.
Kellan took hold of my hand and pulled me around to face him. His large callused hand pressed against my cheek. It felt cool and soothing and completely right. The glint in his eyes had faded some, and his tilted smile had disappeared, the creases on the side of his mouth gone with it. “Couldn’t stand another second in that boring as hell dance watching you and wanting you and having to keep my distance. Hell, Lanie, I’ve been waiting all damn day to have you alone. I hate this. I hate having to see you across a room and pretend that I’m not completely fucking nuts about you. I hate that you’re just gonna drive away from here at the end of the week to go off to some faraway college. I’ll be back here in this shitty town thinking about you. You won’t give me another thought.”
I pressed my body against his. “Not true. There’s no way I can ever stop thinking about you.” I took his hand and pushed it against my breast. “Feel that. My heart can’t even slow to a normal pace when you’re near me.”
He rubbed his thumb over my breast and my nipple hardened beneath the satiny fabric of my dress. Kellan lowered his mouth to mine and kissed me. His kisses were always filled with an edge of urgency mingled with a trace of rage, as if he thought it would be the last time he ever kissed me. And every time his mouth covered mine and I melted into the static charged heat that always surrounded me in his arms, my chest would tighten with the love I felt for him and the horrible dread of not knowing how this could ever end happily.
Kellan pulled his mouth from mine. The lazy smile that I always saw in my dreams formed on his face. “I’ve got something to show you.” He lifted the sleeve of his shirt and pushed it up above his shoulder. He turned slightly. In the shadowy light of the rooftop, I could see puckered pink skin around black ink letters.
“You’ve got a new tattoo?” I leaned closer to get a better look. Lanie was written down his arm in fancy script. Kellan had morphed my real name, Rylan, into the nickname, Lanie. He was the only person to call me Lanie, and I’d grown to love it more than my real name just because of the way it sounded when he said it. I covered my mouth with my fingers. I was filled with a mixture of surprise and heartbreak. My throat was too tight for the words to flow.
He yanked the shirt down. “I had to have something of yours to keep with me. Shit, say something, Lanie, before I die of embarrassment.”
I threw my arms around his neck but couldn’t speak a word. I was overwhelmed with how much he meant to me. We kissed until a brisk wind shot up the side of the building and slipped beneath the flimsy, satin fabric of my dress. A shiver coursed through me.
Kellan leaned back and smiled down at me. “Guess it’s colder than I thought for stargazing. We could go back inside.”
I shook my head quickly. Inside meant returning to our own corners of friends. Inside meant pretending not to be crazy about each other. Inside meant no kisses and no arms around me. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a little cold.”
“I’ve got a sweatshirt in the truck. I’ll run down and get it.” He walked two steps and then swung back around and kissed me again as if we were parting forever. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “Hurry back. I’ll be waiting for you.” I watched his broad shoulders disappear through the stairwell door.
Chapter 5
Kellan
Music thrummed through the open doors of the gymnasium. Everyone was still inside dancing and celebrating the end of our school years. No more being treated like a kid. We were being tossed into the adult world to fend for ourselves, but I’d already been doing that for the two years since my dad had died of emphysema. A two pack a day cigarette habit coupled with years working in a coal mine, and especially in the early years of his life when profit had trumped safety, ventilation and the health of the miners, had taken him to an early grave. Even as working conditions below ground improved, his lungs deteriorated. The damage had been done, and there was no coming back from it.
I glanced back toward the roof of the gym. Rylan was on the opposite side, and I couldn’t see her from the parking lot. Soon she’d be leaving me to start college and, eventually, a career, and I’d be pulling on my dad’s coveralls and steel toed boots and heading down into the mine. It was something I’d wanted to do since I was a little kid waving good-bye to my dad in the early hours of dawn as he climbed into his truck with his lunch pail and work clothes. It was what I’d been born into, and I was fine with that. But knowing that the one person in the whole damn town who mattered was leaving me to start a better life made everything feel cold and crappy. In a few short days, Rylan would be in a place far away from the constant haze of coal dust and clamor of coal laden box cars, and she’d be far away from me.
I trudged across the asphalt to the truck, my inheritance along with a second mortgage on the little house my mom and I lived in. I pulled out my keys, opened the driver door and leaned inside to grab my sweatshirt.
I caught the reflection of three faces in my driver’s side window as I shut the door. I swung around sharply. Jason Meade’s thick fist slammed my face before I could duck out of the way. I fell back against the truck. The salty taste of warm blood filled my mouth, the gross taste of it, reviving me some.
I spit at the ground as adrenaline filled every muscle in my body. But as I lunged for Meade, his two sidekicks, Gilly and Lowe, grabbed my arms. The skin around the tattoo burned as Gilly’s fat fingers twisted my arm back. Jason took the opportunity to nail me in the gut, forcing the wind out of me. I sucked in blood from my split lip as I gasped for air. I dropped to my knees, coughing and splattering Meade’s shiny, black loafers with red spit.
“Fucking hell, Trog,” he complained, “these are hundred dollar shoes.”
In my haze, I saw the toe of his shoe coming at me fast. My reflexes had been muted by the pain in my head and stomach. My teeth clacked shut around my tongue and more blood rushed down my throat.
“Hurry and get him tied up. I see some people walking out of the dance.” Meade’s order rained down on the back of my head. I spit another lump of blood out and pushed to my feet. I managed to wrench free my arm from Lowe’s grasp, but in response, Gilly tightened his fingers around my arm and the sore skin surrounding the tattoo. I grimaced in pain enough to catch Gilly’s attention. He grinned as he grabbed the arm tighter and gave the skin an extra hard twist as he yanked my arm behind my back. I swung my fist out as Meade drew near, but my balance and aim were thrown off by the spinning in my head.
“Get the car, Lowe,” Meade growled as he turned me around and shoved me hard against the side of my truck. A rough piece of rope was wound around my wrists and tied tightly enough to make it impossible for me to break free of it.
Car lights flashed fro
m behind, lighting up the road running adjacent to the parking lot. It was a quiet night, and the only real use of the road was to get to the high school. The car pulled into the lot, but the driver didn’t even look our direction.
It was three against one, and I had no use of my arms. Meade and Gilly half-dragged me to the car. The trunk popped open, and Meade shoved me hard. I fell against the open trunk and kicked out, managing to hit Gilly hard in the knee.
Gilly bent over in pain. “Fucking Braddock.” He lifted his red face and shoved me hard with both hands. I fell back into the empty trunk. I struggled to climb back out, but Meade reached up and grabbed the edge of the trunk. His ugly grin appeared. “Better duck, Trog, or this trunk is coming down on your head.” He made good on his threat and pushed the trunk down.
I dropped down to my side and curled up in the suffocating darkness of the trunk. I had a thing about small spaces, a stupid ass problem for a future miner. I usually knew how to get past it. But in the cramped trunk with my hands numb and motionless behind me and the pain in my head, I had to suck in long, deep breaths to keep from freaking out.
Over the pounding of my head and heart, I could hear their mumbled voices and the tinny sound of the car speakers. I had no fucking clue where they were taking me or what they were planning to do, but something told me this all had to do with Rylan. And it didn’t fucking matter. They’d have to send the car into the lake and let the trunk fill with water if they wanted me to give her up. Meade had always hated me, and he’d had a big thing for Rylan. She’d always made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him, but thickheaded idiot that he was, he chose to ignore that little piece of reality.
The car drove along smoothly for what seemed a mile or two. Then my body slid and my head smacked the inside wheel well of the car as it made a sharp left turn. The road beneath the tires crunched over gravel for a few minutes. I couldn’t get rid of the taste of blood in my throat, and the motion of the car was making me sick. We hit several deep ruts in the road that launched me against the top of the trunk. I wanted badly to stretch my legs and even more badly to move my arms. The rope was doing double duty by keeping me shackled and causing all feeling to leave my hands.
The ruts meant we’d gone off the road. My sense of direction told me we were heading to the train tracks. A flash of terror went through me. Were they planning on ditching the car on the tracks with me in the trunk? It would be a fucking gnarly death and one I’d prefer not to experience. I had no idea how far Meade would take this or just what’d made him decide to go after me tonight.
The air inside the trunk felt hot and thick as if I was drowning in a pot of soup. My eyes drifted shut, and I was having a hard time keeping them open. Just as I headed toward unconsciousness, the car came to a sudden stop, startling me awake.
The motor stopped. The car doors opened and slammed shut. The trunk popped open. Meade’s beady eyes stared down at me. He had a metal baseball bat leaned against his shoulder.
“Great,” I said, groggily. “I always love a good game of baseball.”
“Yeah?” Meade snarled. “Me too. Only we forgot to bring a ball.”
Gilly got a kick out of his comment but then he was the type of guy to laugh if someone tripped and smacked their head on the edge of a wall. Gilly was armed with a shovel, and Lowe had a tire iron.
The cool night air was filled with the semi-sweet smell of mossy water. We were near the river.
The moon overhead illuminated the smooth arches of the Jackson Bridge. It was a railway bridge built solely for the purpose of running a train north and south. The Fulton River was as wide as it was deep, even when rainfall was below average. A bridge was the easiest and shortest route for the unit train, the long train that carried coal from the mine to other destinations.
Meade handed Gilly his bat and used both hands to yank me from the trunk. I swayed on my feet. He shook me hard enough to snap my head back. “Wake up, Trog, we’re taking a little walk.”
“Fuck, is this trick or treat session over, cuz I’ll take the treat instead. What the hell do you want from me, Meade?”
Meade’s laugh was the kind that could make dogs howl. “Damn, you’re stupid, Kelly boy. Think it should be obvious. You’ve been warned to stay away from Rylan more than once, but you insist on being a dick about it.” He pushed his fat fingertip hard against my shoulder. “You’re a lowlife Trog. You stay on your side of the tracks and stay away from our Highlander women.”
I stared hard at him and even though I was tied up, he fidgeted. “There’s nothing you can do to keep me away from Rylan, so send me off that fucking bridge or tie me to the tracks. I’m not giving her up . . . ever.”
He winked at Gilly, who laughed like the big goober he was.
“Well, I was picked for this mission by someone who has a big say in Rylan’s life. Her dad is on the Bluefield Mine board of trustees. He wanted me to let you know that you are to stay away from Rylan. Don’t talk to her ever again.”
Suddenly, the bat and shovel were nothing compared to the weapon he’d just drawn. I knew Rylan had been fighting with her parents about seeing me. I was sure she’d made up plenty of lies to cover up the times we met.
The blood on my mouth had dried, but as I clenched my teeth in anger, the split reopened and the blood flowed again. It rolled down my chin and speckled my shirt.
“From the look on your face, Braddock, I guess you understand my message. Your job or Rylan. Easy choice if you don’t want to be living with your mom in the back of your old man’s truck. Although, I think it would be pretty damn funny.”
The fist to my stomach was nothing compared to the pounding my gut took with his last words. I hadn’t expected Rylan’s dad to stoop so low, but apparently, I was too fucking clueless or just too nuts about Rylan to have considered that her father hated me that much.
Meade’s ugly laugh startled a squirrel from a nearby tree. “Look at that,” he said to his buddies, “guess we finally found a way to seal Kelly boy’s smart mouth for good.”
The cold, moist air was doing little to clear the pain in my head. My chest felt as if it was caving in with the weight of the night. I was losing the only person I’d ever cared about. And her dad was behind it all. She’d be leaving Bluefield soon, and by the time she walked into her first college class, I would be brushed from her mind like coal dust on a windy day.
“Get on with whatever sadistic fucking thing you have planned for me, Meade. I know you’re not just out here because Graham Merritt sent you to do his dirty work. You’ve been itching to pay me back for laying you flat in the school hallway. Which, by the way, you fucking deserved. So, get on with it and then leave me the fuck alone. I don’t give a shit anymore.”
“Ahh, poor brokenhearted Trog.” He laughed again. The sound of it made me want to puke. “You actually thought you were going to end up with one of our girls, didn’t you?”
“She’s not your girl. That’s another reason you’re out here, isn’t it? She hates your guts, and you’re going to take out that stunning slap in the face on me. Let’s get this done.”
“Now, where’s the fun in just beating the shit out of you?” Meade checked his watch and motioned for Gilly and Lowe to grab my arms. Gilly licked his thin lips with enthusiasm as he grasped my arm, the one with the name of the girl I loved tattooed permanently in ink. I was all right with it though because nothing would ever erase the way I felt about Rylan.
They led me to the tracks, and we walked along the steel rails toward the bridge. The roar of the river grew thunderous, and cold water sprayed at us from below. It was a good twenty foot drop to the river. With the strong current and boulders and dead tree stumps hiding beneath the churning surface, no one had ever survived a jump from the bridge. Of course, the two people who had made the plunge had done it with the intention of killing themselves, so it had worked ou
t fine for them.
It was close to midnight, and a long line of empty coal cars would be returning to the mine.
I’d walked across the bridge dozens of times, stopping to throw rocks into the river or just to stand and watch an angry storm surge roll beneath it after a big thunderstorm. But I’d never walked it with my hands tied while being led by three goons who believed that people who lived below the tracks were something less than human.
We stopped at the middle pylon, the cement post that supported the center of the bridge. The flat top of the pylon stuck out about six inches from the edge of the steel rail. It was not a pedestrian bridge and it was as old as the town itself. There were no barriers or metal wires on the sides.
“Step out on that pylon, Kelly boy,” Meade commanded.
I looked at him in disbelief. “Just beat the shit out of me and leave me out here to rot.”
“That’s probably still going to happen, Trog. But I thought this would be more fun. I’m letting you have a chance to avoid the gauntlet of pain we’re going to set up for you on that side of the bridge. Now step on that pylon.”