Camden (The Henchmen MC 18)

Life would be so much easier if I could just get a job serving tables, manning the counter at a convenience store, pumping gas, but those on-the-books jobs weren't an option for me. Which made finding work much harder.

I was adaptive, though.

I had been a dog walker, house sitter, guitar teacher, leaf raker, Christmas present wrapper, babysitter, the person who drove elderly people to do their errands, house cleaner.

You name it, I did it.

And it got me by.

If I lived in a busy enough area with people who had more than enough disposable income, I could even get by well. My first move into California left me with a hefty savings that got me through the two next moves in smaller towns where I could just barely scrape by.

I couldn't seem to make myself settle in, unpack, feeling completely detached from this new life, this unwanted fresh start.

There had always been moments of anger directed at Thomas. It was hard not to have it when he was the sole reason I could never finally find a place and call it home. As a whole, the fear of needing to flee was chased with a smidgen of anger as I drove to my unknown next destination. After that, though, it was all pure survival mode once again. Find shelter. Find food. Find work. Settle in. Get to know the area. Find more work. Save money. Prepare, prepare, preparing.

Because before long, it would be time to move once again.

This was the first time I seemed wholly stuck in the anger phase - the sensation of heat boiling in my belly, this strange tightness in my hands, in my jaw, never going away.

Because he had finally stolen something new from me.

Over the years, it had really just been new towns he constantly took away, the small connection I felt toward clients. Nothing profound, nothing worth raging over.

This time, though, he took away Navesink Bank.

He took away Camden.

He took away any possible future I could have genuinely found there.

For that, I hated him.

It was a new feeling, hatred. I'm not sure most people - even ones who think they had - have ever felt pure, undiluted, all-consuming hate before.

But I hated him.

With every waking moment.

With every dominant thought.

With every breath I took.

My mother hadn't raised me that way. She'd been forgiving, good, kind. She was the type who believed in third and fourth chances, no matter how many times she got hurt because of that. She always told me that people were constantly having their own personal evolutions, and that just because they hurt you in one phase didn't mean they would hurt you in the next.

I wanted so badly to be like her. And, for a good part of my life, I truly believed I had been. I didn't hold grudges. I didn't often take offense. I just let people be who they were. I saved myself when that meant that some people were in a toxic phase, but I didn't yell, didn't lecture, didn't toss half-hearted hatred their way.

There was no way, though, that I could find anything even resembling kindness or compassion or understanding for Thomas anymore.

All he had, all he would ever have from me, was a bone-deep loathing, a burning rage, an untethered hatred.

It didn't lessen.

As the days turned to weeks. As I got a set of odd jobs. As I made a life of this new place.

Every single day, I woke up with it.

And every single night, I went to sleep with it.

I coddled my hatred like a baby that needed constant care, constant attention. I fed, nurtured, and watched it grow. Until it was a bigger part of me than I ever was. Until ugly, violent thoughts started invading my head.

Ideas of staying put, refusing to run.

Prepare, prepare, preparing.

But not in the old way.

Not in the way that constantly made me the fox being chased by the teeth-bared hunting dogs.

No.

I entertained the possibility of waiting him out, drawing him in, and finally putting an end to it all.

I'd never been a violent person. I was someone who relocated spiders, who cried if a squirrel ran out too quickly for me to brake in time. I couldn't even fight back when someone had once sucker-punched me on a playground. I had looked at my hand, knowing what I was supposed to do, but unable to raise my arm to do it.

I'd never hit anyone. Never hurt anyone. Never even given it any thought before.

But, God, I wanted to hit him. I wanted to hurt him.

I obsessed about it.

I convinced myself that carefully placing various things I found in the shed - a pickax, a spear, a baseball bat - around the house, always within reach, was what I needed to do. Even though I had never needed to in the past. I fantasized about picking one up, hitting him with it. Once, twice, three times. Over and over and over until I couldn't lift my arms anymore.