Takedown: A Tapped Out series standalone Read online

  Nine months ago, I hadn’t had to deal with any of this. I’d never even been on a real date. Now I had a sexy guy in my bed, on my couch, eating my licorice. Leaving his razor on my sink and his shorts on my floor.

  It was as scary as it was wonderful. Forget scary. Try terrifying to someone who was fighting a battle every day to be normal. Just normal.

  Normal people didn’t crave pain. They didn’t want to wrap up their hands and beat the hell out of things only to get whaled on in return. They didn’t beg for their boyfriend to hold their wrists so tightly while they fucked them that the bruises lasted for weeks. Did they?

  I didn’t know, because I’d never been anywhere close to typical in any way.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Dr. Phelps consulted her pad. “And what about the bothersome phone calls? Are you still getting them?”

  “Occasionally.” I picked at my nails. “Hardly ever.” If hardly ever counted as twice a day without fail.

  “Have you considered that Tray is worried you may have become some sort of target? That perhaps that is why he decided to move in now?”

  “Target of what?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I can’t, because I don’t know what you’re insinuating.” As usual.

  One thing I did know was that Tray couldn’t think I was a target of anything because he didn’t know about the phone calls. Between school, his two jobs, and the stress with his parents, he didn’t need for me to unload my crap on him too. Besides, this wasn’t important. A little pointless harassment wasn’t worth dredging up the past we’d tried so hard to put behind us.

  Perhaps there wasn’t even a link. Random crackpots still existed, right? The fact that I’d attracted two in the last decade was just happenstance. Or maybe my unusualness acted as a kind of bug light to all the crazies.

  “Your case received a good amount of attention. Are there any significant anniversaries coming up?” She consulted her file. “It’s been around seven years, correct?”

  I could give her months, days, weeks. I’d probably figure out the minutes tonight if insomnia continued to kick my ass. I had nothing better to do with the empty hours than count and listen to Tray breathe.

  And wonder how many times I could screw up and he would still love me.

  “My case, as you called it, has nothing to do with this. A few crank calls don’t mean squat.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  “I just am.”

  She sighed. “You’re positive no important dates related to the case are coming up? There are those who thrive off of resuscitating pain, especially if it might bring them notoriety.”

  Didn’t I know that. I’d known it the first time I started receiving the phone calls, more than three years ago. They’d led me to leave my aunt’s home in upstate New York and disappear into New York City. I’d legally changed my name to Mia, which I’d hoped would discourage any news gawkers while preserving my family connection through my last name. My parents were gone, but I wasn’t ready to let go of that link to the Andersons.

  For a while, all had been quiet. Now the calls had started again.

  In three weeks, it would be eight years since I’d been taken. Three months after that, it would be eight years since I’d saved my own life by slitting my captor’s throat.

  No, there weren’t any anniversaries of my hell to mark. Except the ones that existed with every beat of my heart.

  “No.” I reached up to touch my earrings. Tray had given them to me, and I’d never taken them off. Never would. “The dates are off.” Not by much, but I refused to acknowledge the possibility that the sludge of my past might try to suck me back down again.

  “Perhaps someone took note of you when you began fighting. A fan, perhaps. Have you considered—”

  “I’m not considering anything. Sometimes a hang-up call is just a hang-up call. Not everything that smells like shit is an asshole.”

  Dr. Phelps folded her hands over her pad. “Mia, if your safety is at risk, burying your head in the sand isn’t an intelligent move. You’re a smart girl, despite what you insist on telling yourself in your self-talk.”

  Self-talk, my ass.

  “Is the hour up yet?” I pretended not to hear the plaintive note in my question. I wasn’t desperate to leave that sterile beige box surrounded by degrees and leather furniture and thriving plants. No way. I just needed to…grocery shop.

  We were out of milk since Tray kept draining every carton I bought. That was a legitimate need. No one would think I was crazy because I had a yen to buy milk. That was much more reasonable than my yen to get beat up all to shit.

  Fucking A.

  Dr. Phelps consulted her slim bangle watch. “Three minutes. Have you turned to combative sexual activity to feed your compulsion to self-harm through your physicality?”

  Back on that again. “Say what?”

  “Do you fuck violently because it satisfies your need to fight?”

  The pleasant tone fooled me for a full thirty seconds until the good doc’s question permeated my brain. “I’m pretty sure I fuck for the same reasons everyone else does. I might be broken in a lot of ways, but I still have basic physical desires.”

  That knowledge had caused me plenty of heartache last winter, but the last eight months had changed me. Tray had changed me. As much as I might sometimes want to brain the guy with one of Carly’s slotted spoons, I couldn’t deny all the ways he’d helped bring me closer to the regular person zone.

  Closer was the most I could hope for. Even that was a freaking miracle.

  “There are more reasons to copulate than physical needs.”

  From sexual activity to fucking to copulation. My head was spinning. “I know that. Some people just use it as an excuse to spoon. Or spork. Or whatever the hell it’s called.”

  “But not you.”

  “I don’t like getting hot when I sleep.” I pushed to my feet. “Look, Doc, awesome sesh. I’ll see you next—” Lifetime. Century. Millennia. “Week,” I finished, bending to grab my backpack.

  Dr. Phelps rose. “I’d like to ask you again to reconsider having Tray join us.”

  I stopped dead and shot her a glare over my shoulder. “Why? He’s fine. He’s not like me.” No one was.

  “I think your relationship could benefit from couples’ counseling. What one partner endures affects the other. You said he went through some troubles of his own. Perhaps if you shared your difficulties together, you could reach a new level of understanding. With my help, of course.”

  “No. He’d never do it. He’s fine,” I repeated. “He’s annoyingly well-adjusted, even with his ‘difficulties’.”

  “He’s your touchstone, Mia. I truly think any breakthrough you achieve would be facilitated by his involvement.”

  “You just want to tell him I mentioned fighting again. I’m not stupid.” I hitched up my backpack and headed for the door.

  “Mia, constantly deflecting blows that aren’t intended will hinder your recovery.”

  Fighting metaphors and a mention of my “recovery”—who the fuck recovered from being imprisoned in a pretty cage at fourteen, I wanted to know—were a recipe to send me slamming out of Dr. Phelps’ beige wonderland.

  I’d be back. She knew it. I knew it. But still, we played the game.

  On the way out of the building, I stopped in the ladies’ restroom. It was a lovely purple with sweet-smelling soap and creamy lotion for hands stressed from the rigors of digging into broken brains and hearts. I bypassed the fancy female stuff and dug out dark red lipstick and eyeliner from my bag. I’d taken to wearing them occasionally, mainly because I knew Tray liked it when I wore girlpaint. He never actually said. He wouldn’t. So I did it for him, in my own way.

  I layered the makeup on until my eyes appeared soaked in black. Rubbed the lipstick over my lips until they swelled from the pressure.

  A quick look in the mirror proved I looked badass on the outside though I felt positively numb inside. But appe
arances were important. Sometimes the most loving thing you could do for someone you cared about was to act as if you were okay. If you made them believe the cracks you’d sewn together with cheap thread were holding, maybe eventually the lie could become truth.

  I capped the tubes and marched out, head held high, chest still so tight that I didn’t dare take a deep breath for fear my ribs might shatter.

  Out on the street, I hailed a cab. Tray was probably still studying his huge stack of science books in the library, but he’d be home sooner rather than later. Just to be safe, I wouldn’t take the time to walk home in case he left school early. It wasn’t much, but at least I could be physically present for him, if not always emotionally.

  As the cab swung to the curb, my phone went off in my bag. A text ringtone, not a call. My stomach dropped to my sneakers. Shit. It wasn’t the right time for my hang-up caller. They called religiously between eight and nine a.m. and eight and nine p.m. I’d learned to keep my phone off at those times. So maybe it was Tray.

  Just like that, my muscles unlocked and warmth surged through my general heart area. I still wasn’t fully convinced I had one. Maybe the whole concept of that organ was an urban legend, built to give girls like me something else to feel inadequate about.

  Like I didn’t have enough.

  The cabbie leaned across the passenger seat. “Hey lady, you getting in or what?”

  Ignoring him, I grabbed my phone and read the text from an unknown caller. My hang-up caller was also unknown, but this was a new number. The three-word-message blurred under my intense focus, but it repeated in my head even when my eyes went blind.

  I see you.

  Before I could do anything except make the text disappear from my screen, another one came in. I breathed through my mouth, nearly panting, until I saw the new message was from Tray.

  I can make dinner. You on your way home?

  Home. As if we were a normal couple with a normal life and a normal dinner routine. My thumbs moved to reply before I stopped them. Dammit, no. I couldn’t keep pretending I was the little woman. Clearly, I had issues the usual girls he dated didn’t.

  Like stalkers and a past so lurid that reporters had chased me for weeks, trying to get me to tell my side of the story.

  Except there weren’t two sides to this one. Darren was dead by my hand. Darren, the gorgeous monster who’d kidnapped me and made me live in a mansion and dressed me like a doll in beautiful clothes for three interminable months. I’d had sex with him and sometimes I’d even come. I was that girl, utterly fucked in the body and the head and everywhere in between.

  Tray acting like I was a regular chick didn’t make it so.

  I loved that he wanted to make dinner, but if I made myself available to him constantly, I would lose the version of myself that I’d fought so hard to reclaim. It was already happening. Next thing I knew, I’d start buying tanks topped with lace, for fuck’s sake. I’d skip shelf bras for push-up ones that made my tits look like airborne missiles.

  The bottom line was I wouldn’t be what he wanted forever. I still couldn’t figure out how I’d been what he wanted even for a moment. Maybe I’d been able to pretend for a while that we could be a regular couple, even with our unusual interests. But those phone calls had reminded me swiftly that regular would never be a part of my vocabulary. And if I didn’t retain my sense of self, how would I pick up the pieces when he went away?

  The cabbie sighed. “Lady, the meter’s running. You in or out?”

  I needed to go somewhere just for me. Do something I wanted without checking in with anyone first. I didn’t have money to waste, but I had to get this frustration and helplessness out in a way that wasn’t fighting or fucking or therapy. That limited my options to exactly one.

  “I’m in.” I tucked my phone in my backpack and slipped inside the cab. “Take me to Underground Ink.”

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  Reading Order

  Mia & Tray

  Shadowboxer

  Liam & Abby: Novella

  Takedown

  Carly & Giovanni: Bonus Novella

  Body Shot

  Mia & Tray: Part 2

  Sneak Attack

  Carly & Giovanni

  On The Ropes

  Lily, Emerson & JC

  Knockout

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  What happens when secrets and mystery are in abundance…

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  Found in Oblivion

  Hammered

  Rock Revenge

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  Tapped Out

  Love Required

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  Crescent Cove Standalones

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  Kensington Square

  Afternoon Delight

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  About the Authors

  USA Today bestselling author Cari Quinn likes music and men, so she figured why not write about both? When she’s not writing, she's screaming at men’s college basketball games on TV, playing her music too loud or causing trouble. Sometimes simultaneously.

  USA Today bestselling author Taryn Elliott is obsessed with rock stars, men, and her unending playlists—maximizing these things seemed like a very good idea. When she’s not writing, you can probably find her surrounded by planner supplies trying to organize her life.

  They decided to combine forces and found that hey...this writing deal is even more awesome when you collaborate with your best friend.

  And so the Oblivion World was born.

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