Free Caged: Cellar Door Series by K. Pars Page A

her close to Matt. “I’m out.”
    Matt nodded once, his arms wrapping around Kylee’s waist as I strode towards the front door. She fought like a hell cat to break free, all kinds of insults hurled at both me and Matt. Kylee was pissed but she had no idea what all was going on and I wasn’t in the frame of mind to enlighten her, not without creating collateral damage I probably would never be able to fix.
    I got out the door, hit the steps and found the pavement in a hurry, opening the door to my truck and settling in the seat as quickly as I could. The truck was started and out of the apartment complex even faster. I needed room to breathe. It felt like the entire world was wrapping around me, suffocating me.
              I drove for hours, no rhyme or reason. No set path, just drove and then drove some more. I stopped for gas and grabbed a toothbrush, felt like a caterpillar had cocooned itself on my teeth and proceeded to remove that shit, spitting in the sink of the gas station restroom before getting back in my truck and driving some more. I zigzagged across the state, got close to home twice and picked another route to take me back away again. It was fucked up; I was fucked up and couldn’t wrap my head around the reason why. He was gone. That should have been a relief. Except some part of me was...yeah fucked up…that’s what I was.
              Around noon or a little after I stopped, killed the trucks engine at some wayside joint and powered my phone back up. I had switched it off a few minutes after getting in my truck when the damn thing kept going off non-stop. I didn’t bother to look at the missed calls or messages that were waiting for me, just googled the number I needed and called the sheriff’s department. A few sentences later and I was googling the local funeral home. Never thought I would be the one taking care of my pops but there was no one else to do it and good, bad or ugly, he was my responsibility now.
              Finished with setting up the funeral, I tossed my phone to the truck console, leaned forward and crossed my arms over the steering wheel, staring out the windshield at absolutely nothing. After a while I started the truck back up. Sooner or later I would have to go home and I was a few hours from it. With nothing but time to kill I pulled back onto the highway and headed back towards Bristow.
              The ride let my mind blank out, let me get my emotions back under control and by the time I hit the town limits, I felt more like myself. Still fucked up in all my glory, but more my normal fucked up and less out of control.
              Pulling into OverTime, a local bar, not feeling the club, I parked and headed inside making my way past the pool and beer pong tables, straight to the bar that lined one side of OverTime. The place stretched out with a stage at the far end, the bar lining one side and numerous tables in between. There was a small step down to the area directly in the front the stage that defined a dancing area when it didn’t have tables filling the space. TV’s ran wall to wall showing every type of sporting event possible. There were two bartenders manning the length of the bar and the chick looked vaguely familiar. I hoped to hell it wasn’t in the drama’s about to kick off kind of way because of a one night bag and tag I may have pulled.
    Her face turned towards one of the customers at the bar and it clicked. Her side profile gave away the small imperfection along the ridge of her nose that wasn’t noticeable before. She was part of the scene down at Cellar Door, matter of fact she was a fighter there.  Rowdy Ronnie Dalton also apparently tended bar at OverTime. Funny what street clothes and tape free hands could do for you and it had relief flooding through me, though her hair should have been the tip off. Ronnie wore her hair up for fights but it still was always multiple colors on any given night, but down it