Free Chains by Kelli Maine Page A

leave him to be mutilated by another dog. His snout was longer than a pit and his light brown body wasn’t as boxy. My best guess was he was a lab mix. We both turned to the bathroom door when it opened, and Danny came back out.
    She stopped at the end of the bed, looking at us with a faint smile touching her lips. That’s when I realized there was only one bed—when I really realized, because it had been in my mind all along, but Danny and I always shared a bed when we were young. She got scared and sneaked into my room at night. But now… Now it felt different anticipating her body lying next to mine in the dark. “I can sleep on the floor,” I said, sitting up. A pain shot through my side and I groaned, bracing my ribcage with my hand.
    “Lay down,” she said, rushing onto the bed on her knees and helping me back onto the pillows. “Why isn’t that cut bandaged?” she asked leaning over me to see the gash in my left side. “And that one?” she said, noticing the one on my shoulder.
    “No reason,” I said, through gritted teeth, trying to breathe through the pain.
    “Do you have Band-Aids at least?” She shook her hands in front of her and bounced on her knees like she was about to get hysterical.
    “Over there,” I said, pointing to my carry-on bag. “In the inside pocket. Band-Aids, tape, gauze, everything.”
    She darted off the bed. “Really, I’m okay,” I said, trying to keep her calm. She’d never seen me after a fight. Well, after a fight with an opponent who didn’t go down after one punch to the side of the head—Striker didn’t count. “I’ve been much worse before.”
    “I don’t like it,” she said, digging through my bag. “I don’t want you to fight anymore.”
    My insides froze to solid ice. “I have to fight. It’s what I do for money now. Not like the fight tonight. Organized fights where there are rules and a referee and opponents that train like I do. I’m a fight away from going pro in mixed martial arts, Danny. MMA. You’ve heard of it?”
    She stood up with handfuls of first aid supplies and came back to the bed. “I’ve heard of it. I don’t like you fighting. I don’t want you doing it anymore.”
    I watched her hands as she bandaged the cut on my side. Then I watched her face—the way the tip of her tongue poked out from the corner of her mouth while she worked—while she dressed the wound on my shoulder. Her eyes were ringed with dark circles and her cheeks were sunken. Her hip bones stuck out in points through the boxer shorts. “I’ll make you a deal,” I said, knowing what I had to lose, but wanting more than anything for Danny to be better—to be the way she would’ve been had I stayed with her and made sure she was okay. “I’ll stop fighting if you stop doing drugs.”
    “I don’t do drugs,” she said and skittered away from me to the other side of the bed. She ran her hand over the puppy’s belly and scooted under the covers.
    “I know that’s not the truth. I’ve seen you blown out of your head twice already. Why would you lie to me, Danny?” I scooted down beside her and faced her with the dog between us. “Look at me, please,” I said, lifting her chin. “This is me. We tell each other all our secrets, don’t we?”
    She stared at me with those soul-searching blue eyes, the corners of her lips drawn down into a frown. Her eyes shined wet and she blinked, shedding tears down her cheeks. “We used to,” she whispered.
    The sucking ache in the hollow of my chest almost killed me. I pulled her head down on my shoulder, tucked it under my chin and wrapped my arm around her. Her cool, wet hair smelled fresh and clean. She felt like a feather—like a China doll—in my arms. Delicate and light, like she might blow away if I let go or fracture into a thousand pieces if I held too tight.
    Her stillness and silence devastated me more than if her body heaved with great sobs, and she screamed at me for leaving her for years. Say