Axed - A Forbidden Dark Romance Novella Read online

  She opens up a folder on her lap, holding a pen in her hand. “So, everything seems fine here.” She gives me a smile of encouragement. “How are you doing since we last spoke? Have you settled into your job okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine.”

  She makes some notes in her folder. “And how are you adjusting to the outside world?”

  “Okay. Things are different from what I remember but also the same. If that makes sense.”

  “It does.” Her eyes meet mine, and she smiles and nods.

  “Also, not having someone tell me when I can eat, sleep, and wake up is pretty damn good.”

  “I can imagine. And how are you sleeping? I know for other parolees who have spent a substantial amount of time in prison, they sometimes struggle with sleeping. The change in environment, although better, can be jarring.”

  I glance down into my coffee. “When I was lying on that cot in that prison cell at night, all I would pray for was silence.”

  The wails and cries from my fellow inmates throughout the night were like a living nightmare. And when I did sleep, my own nightmares would haunt me. Peace was all I thought of. Being back home, safe in my own bed.

  And of her. I thought of Eden most nights. Just picturing her pretty face, remembering the conversations we had in class, would get me through.

  “And now, you have the silence?” she asks softly, and I look up at her.

  “It’s almost as bad as the prison noise,” I admit, but I omit that my own nightmares came home with me.

  When I shut my eyes at night, I see the blood … his blood that covered my hands.

  I can’t bear to sleep with the light off, and I can’t sleep with it on. And the silence here is fucking deafening. I lie in bed at night, and all I can hear is the echoed memories of those nights I spent in prison.

  I’m out of that place, yet I still haven’t quite escaped it. And I know that I will never escape what put me there. That’ll be with me for the rest of my life.

  “There are things you can do to help you sleep,” Eden says in that same soft voice. “As you have no history of drug addiction, your physician can prescribe some sleeping pills. But there are other non-medicinal ways to aid sleeping. There are apps you can get on your phone that can help with sleep. They play calming music. But honestly, I’ve found the most success with those sound machines that have a night-light.”

  I arch a brow. “You mean, the ones that babies use?”

  She laughs, and the sound travels right through me, heading straight for my dick. “Yeah, the ones that parents use for their babies. Trust me, they’re really soothing. I have one. It projects stars onto the ceiling.”

  “You have trouble sleeping too?” I ask her with a chuckle.

  She pauses a moment before saying, “Don’t we all?”

  That stops my laughter and has me wondering what keeps Eden up at night. I always thought she lived a charmed life, but maybe that’s not actually the case.

  I bring my coffee mug to my lips and take a gulp. I watch Eden over the rim as she blows at her coffee before taking a sip, and I can’t even tell you how many dirty images of her blowing something else flit through my mind.

  I’m a sick, sick man.

  I shut those thoughts down and try to focus on something else. Anything, except her.

  Then, I remember Wade’s death and feel like a complete asshole for not saying anything to her before now.

  I lower my mug to rest on my thigh. “I, er, heard about Wade. I’m sorry.”

  Her expression turns sad. “Yeah … it’s just so awful.” She bites her lip and stares down into her coffee, like I was moments ago. “I hadn’t seen Wade in a long while. We drifted apart after graduation. We decided to break up before going to college. There was no drama, but we lost touch.” She looks up at me. “I guess I don’t have any right to be upset. It’s just so weird, you know? It feels surreal.”

  “He was a big part of your life at one point. It’s going to feel strange, and you have every right to be upset.”

  She nods. “I just feel so sorry for his family.”

  I agree because I do too. He was a prick in high school, but he could have changed. Even if he hadn’t, he still had a family who cared about him.

  Like the man I killed.

  That thought pierces straight through my chest, just like it does every time I think about him.

  Yes, it was self-defense, and if it wasn’t him, I don’t doubt that it would have been me who died that day, but it doesn’t change the fact that I took a man’s life, and people were hurt and affected by it.

  I regret it. If I could go back and stop it from happening, I would. But I can’t, and I can’t regret fighting for my life. Even if the last eight years haven’t been anything close to the life I imagined it would be.

  I’d say the only good thing to come out of it is that it’s put me back in the same room as Eden again. Although it’s just back like how it was in high school. Me wanting her but unable to have her.

  The intro to “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC starts to pump out of my truck’s speakers. Turning the volume up, I rest my elbow on the open window and tap my fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music, a sense of peace washing over me.

  This freedom … I’ll never again take it for granted.

  This is my life now. Go to work, go home, sleep … well, try to. Rinse and repeat. And I fucking love it.

  I drive my truck, climbing the dirt road on the hill, taking me to work for the day.

  Being a lumberjack isn’t the job I once envisioned myself working. I was in my third year of a computer engineering degree when I was arrested, thus ending any chance I had of finishing college. I could have completed my degree in prison, but I wasn’t in the right headspace for a long time to do anything related to my former life.

  This job might not have been my first choice, but I like it. I’m outdoors, and I’ll never complain about that. It’s hard but honest work. The guys I work with all seem cool. And I’m getting paid a decent wage that pays the bills.

  For an ex-con, it’s more than I could have asked for.

  I pull my truck onto the site and turn into the parking lot. I’m the first one here.

  I’m just about to turn off the engine when a news flash on the radio grabs my attention.

  “This just in. The death of Wade Evans, whose body was found three days ago in the Willamette River, is being treated as suspicious. According to the coroner, Wade’s death was not by drowning. The autopsy shows that he was already dead before his body entered the water. The police believe that his death was due to foul play and are launching a murder investigation.”

  Wade was murdered?

  Shit, that’s fucked up.

  Wade was a dick, but he didn’t deserve to be killed. I’m assuming this, of course. I hadn’t seen the guy since high school. Maybe the high school bully became a good guy who didn’t deserve death. Or maybe he became an even bigger prick after high school, and someone got tired of his shit and did him in.

  My thoughts go to Eden. I know this news will upset her.

  Maybe I should text her, see if she’s okay.

  She’s your parole officer, dipshit. Not your girlfriend.

  But she used to be my friend. Kind of.

  Grabbing my tool belt, I climb out of my truck and press the button on the fob to lock it.

  I’m still debating over whether I should text Eden or not as I walk over to the site when an eerie feeling passes through me. Like someone is watching me.

  Stopping, I look over my shoulder. No one’s there.

  I turn on the spot, doing a full three-sixty, checking my surroundings.

  Definitely no one here.

  I’m about ten feet from the logs that I piled up yesterday when I get another eerie feeling. But this one is different. This isn’t the sensation of being watched. This is the sense that something is very fucking wrong here. I can feel it in the air, like ice-cold fingertips trailing over my skin.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  Something tells me to keep walking toward the pile of logs.

  I’m a few feet away when the smell hits my nose.

  The smell of death. I’ve only smelled it once before. The night I killed that guy, but it’s not a smell you ever forget.

  My heart starts to pump in my chest as I put one foot forward, stepping toward the unknown but knowing that whatever I see in these next few seconds isn’t gonna be good.

  I step around the pile of logs and see a guy sitting, propped against them.

  And one of the axes that I was using yesterday to chop those logs is stuck in his chest.

  Fuck.

  I stumble back a step, burying my nose into the crook of my elbow.

  I know that guy. I went to high school with him. Aaron Goodman. He was Wade Evans’s best friend.

  My first thought is that I don’t believe in coincidences. Two best friends from high school, dead within days of each other.

  My next thought is that a convicted felon—me—finding a dead body, is not good. Not fucking good at all.

  For a moment, I consider walking away, climbing back in my truck, and letting some other fucker find him.

  But I can’t. It’s not who I am.

  So, I reach in my pocket, grab my cell, and dial 911.

  “Thanks for the ride home,” I say to Eden as she pulls up outside my house.

  She was waiting for me when I left the police station after giving my statement. I guess the cops notified her that I was there, with her being my parole officer and all.

  My truck is still up at the site because I was taken in the cop car to the station. Can’t say I loved being in the back of a police car again.

  More like fuck
ing hated it. But they insisted I go with them. Said the whole area was a crime scene and I couldn’t move my truck until it was cleared by forensics.

  So, now, I’m without my truck and unable to work until the police are done with the area.

  Which is nothing compared to the ax in the chest that poor fucker Aaron Goodman got.

  I know I’m sitting on their list of suspects just because I found the body and I have a prior for second-degree murder, which I only just got out of prison for.

  A convicted felon finding a dead body is pretty convenient—those were the detective’s words, not mine.

  That, and I previously knew the deceased—again, the detective’s words.

  I probably should have gotten my lawyer while they were taking my statement, but it hadn’t helped me last time, and I didn’t want to give them any more reasons to think I was guilty.

  I just wanted out of that place. It brought back too many bad memories.

  “No problem at all,” she says softly. “I just can’t believe Aaron was murdered. First, Wade, and now, Aaron … it’s unbelievable.” Her eyes meet mine. “How are you doing? After finding Aaron, I can’t imagine …”

  “I’m fine,” I say gruffly. “It’s not my first time, dealing with a dead body.”

  Her silence speaks volumes. She knows my case—well, she knows what my file says, not what actually happened that night.

  It starts to rain. Heavy raindrops pelt the windshield.

  I curl my hand around the door handle, ready to open it, when her quiet words stop me.

  “What happened? That night when you killed that man?”

  My body stiffens, and I slowly turn my face to look at her.

  “God, I’m sorry.” She looks contrite. “I shouldn’t have asked that. Especially not after what you’ve been through today. I can only imagine how you’re feeling right now.”

  I turn my face away, staring out the windshield.

  “Did the detectives give you a hard time?” she asks me.

  She knows the system, the way things work. Even if you’re not the bad guy in the situation, once a felon, always a felon.

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Although I’m in no fucking hurry to go back to that police station anytime soon.

  “Do you …” She hesitates, and I look at her. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that both Wade and Aaron were killed within a few days of each other?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “You think their deaths are … linked?”

  Something in her tone has my brow furrowing and my back stiffening. “Are you asking me because you think I know the answer to that question?”

  “What?” She blanches. “God, no!”

  “Well, once a killer, always a killer, right?”

  “I don’t think that!” Her tone is emphatic, and I find myself believing her. “I know you killed that man in self-defense.”

  “If you knew, then why ask me about what happened that night?”

  “Because I wanted to hear the words from you. I know what I read, but I want to hear the actual story from you.”

  I stare directly at her. “Why?”

  “Because …” She trails off, looking down at her hands resting in her lap. She looks vulnerable.

  “Why?” I ask again.

  Her eyes lift to mine, and my heart bangs hard in my chest because it’s clear in her eyes. She wants to know because she feels for me what I feel for her, and it’s confusing her. Because she shouldn’t feel this way about me.

  A parole officer shouldn’t want her parolee. Especially not one who was convicted of murder.

  “Because I need to know,” she says softly.

  “I murdered a man in self-defense. I’d found myself in a situation that got out of control. I’d acted on instinct, and a man died.”

  “It could have happened to anyone.”

  “You really believe that?” I ask her in a disbelieving tone.

  “Yes.” She nods.

  “Is my parole officer supposed to be this impartial?”

  “I’m not speaking to you as your parole officer right now.”

  “What are you speaking to me as?” I ask her, my heart taking off in a gallop.

  She lets out a breath and then reaches over the console and covers my hand with hers, sliding her slender fingers over my rough knuckles. “Your friend.”

  But nothing about her touch says friend. It says so very much more, and in this moment, I know I’m totally and completely fucked.

  I’m lying in bed with a fucking child’s night-light and sound machine on, trying to get some sleep, when someone starts hammering on my front door.

  A quick glance at my cell phone tells me it’s just after eleven.

  Who the hell would be coming here at this time?

  If it were the cops, they’d announce themselves and then kick the door in.

  My mind briefly flashes to Eden. Could it be her? It’s been a few days since our moment—if you could call it that—in her car, and I haven’t seen or spoken to her since.

  I get out of bed and make my way to the front door, flicking the lights on as I go. The banging continues.

  “All right! All right! I’m coming.”

  I unlock the door and wrench it open, and Eden is on the other side of it.

  She looks like she’s been crying.

  My heart plummets to my stomach. “Jesus! Eden, are you okay? What happened?” I reach for her, ushering her inside and closing the door behind us.

  “Annabeth and Laura are dead!” she sobs.

  “Your friends from high school?”

  “Yes, and they’re both dead!” she cries.

  “Both of them?” I push a hand through my hair. “What happened?”

  “They were murdered!”

  I walk her over to the sofa and guide her to sit down. I sit beside her.

  “They were both killed?”

  “Murdered,” she reiterates on a cry, staring at me, wide-eyed. “Annabeth’s sister called me a few hours ago. Her body was found at their parents’ cabin. She’d gone up there for a few days, but when she didn’t come back and they couldn’t get ahold of her, her dad went there to check on her, and she was—she was …” She breaks off on a sob. “Dead. She’d been dead for days! Her sister didn’t say what happened to her, just that she’d been murdered.”

  “And Laura? Was she there with Annabeth?” I ask in a gentle voice.

  “No. I was at home, reeling from what had happened to Annabeth. I turned on the TV, and there it was on the news. Laura had been found at our old high school! She was …” She claps a hand over her mouth, fresh tears filling her eyes. Her hand slides from her mouth as tears roll down her face. “She was found naked, tied to the football post, and she’d been stabbed to death.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Wade, Aaron, Annabeth, and Laura. I’m the only one left.” Her voice trembles. “D-does this mean I’m next?”

  “What? No, of course not.” I say those words, but I’m not sure I believe them. She’s right when she says she’s the only one left from their group that hung out at high school.

  “I’m scared, Axel.”

  “It’s going to be fine, I promise.” I wrap my arms around her, holding her close to me.

  She’s quiet, her silent tears dripping on my chest, and I become acutely aware that I’m not wearing a sleep shirt. Just my pajama bottoms. And she smells fucking amazing and feels even better in my arms. Like she was always meant to be held by them.

  “I’m sorry I woke you,” she says softly, her breath brushing against my chest.

  “I wasn’t sleeping.”

  “I’m not really sure why I came here.” Her hand presses against my chest, and I stop breathing. “I just … you were the first person I wanted to talk to.”

  “Well, I’m glad you came.” And I really am glad she came to me when she needed comfort.

  But isn’t it just fucking typical of my life that the girl I always wanted but never got to have now wants me, but neither of us can act upon it?

  She looks up at me, blinking with lashes that are glistening with tears.

  My eyes drop to her lips. Those gorgeous lips that I’ve dreamed of … obsessed over kissing.

  Before I know it, she leans in and presses her lips to mine. I freeze.