Somewhere in Wisconsin

Sam 

"So start talking," I'm mustering up all my courage as I grip the gun. "What's your agenda?"

"I already told you I want to get the bad guy."

"I need more details than that," I say as I narrow my eyes. 

"I'm not about to spill everything I think I know to some stranger who doesn't trust me," he replies. 

"But you're asking me to trust you, so give me a reason."

"Saving your life wasn't enough of a reason?"

"Why were you watching me and Jackson?" I ignore his question with one of my own. Truthfully, I am grateful that he saved me, but that doesn't mean I trust him. 

"I told you already."

"Why would you give a damn about me? You don't know me."

He lets out a long sigh. "Because I am one of the good guys, I might not play by the rules, but I'm still a police officer. You were left to fend for yourself, and I just -- had to make sure you were okay. Those woods can be unforgiving. You've been really lucky."

"You don't even know half of what we went through over the winter. This time of year is easy compared to that," I say with a scoff. 

"You think so, but animals get hungry, and the weaker and thinner you get, the more you start looking like prey to them."

"That's why you've been flying around more often since he left," I mutter. "But you didn't answer my other question. Why have you been watching Jackson?"

"Can we go inside, and I'll tell you more in there? I know you're probably hungry. I don't have much, but there's a little food."

The allure of any meal is too strong to ignore, but I hold up the gun as a warning. "Fine, but I'm keeping this."

"Okay," he agrees a little too easily. I wonder if he's full of it and this isn't even loaded. I'm glad I have Jax's handgun in my bag, it helps me feel safer.

Dylan gets out of the car, and I follow him. He unlocks the trailer door, and the hinges squeak as he opens it.

We step into a modest trailer home, and I can tell it has been closed up for a while; it has that stale air the cabins get at times. Dylan doesn't kick off his boots as we step onto the yellow and orange-patterned hard floor, so I don't either. The kitchen is tiny, but it's an actual kitchen with a stove, a small fridge, and a real sink. It feels surreal after roughing it without these things for long.

"Help yourself to whatever. There's not a lot, but I'll get groceries tomorrow, hopefully."

It probably depends on whether he can trust me not to run off. I still don't know if that's what I should do. I don't know where I am, and someone could be out there looking for me. The safest option does seem to be staying here, but what if it's not?

What if he's lulling me into a false sense of trust only to deliver me to the Russo's? 

Dylan walks into the adjoining living room and opens a window. The breeze helps the air smell less stale. I take a quick peek around the small trailer. It's not much larger than the biggest cabin in the woods.

There's a small metal table just off the kitchen. It's cluttered with yellow envelopes. I see the name Russo on one of them. 

The floor changes to a brownish carpet going into the living room. There's nothing on the walls except for one framed photo. Dylan, at a much younger age, appears to be at a ball game beaming with an older man next to him. His dad, I assume.

The room is sparsely furnished with just a shabby plaid couch and a TV sitting on a little stand facing it. There are two doors alongside that wall, a bedroom, and a bathroom, I'm guessing.

"The door on the left is the bathroom," Dylan confirms when he sees me looking that way. "Help yourself. There are towels and stuff in the closet. The other door is to my bedroom. You can use it. My couch pulls into a bed. I'll sleep out here."

"I'm not going to take your bed. I'm fine on the couch," I offer.

"No, really, it's okay," he says. "If anyone does find this place, it's better if I'm out here and you're behind a door," he argues.

"Is that it, or do you want to make sure I don't leave in the middle of the night?" I question as I arch an eyebrow.

"You're smart," he says with a soft chuckle. "Look, I am trying to keep you safe, Samantha. You do not want to become a tool in this fight."

Samantha, yuck. I despise my full name, but I won't ask him to call me Sammy just yet. It feels too friendly.

"I already am a tool in this fight." I stick the gun in the waistband of my pants and open the fridge. I nearly cry when I look inside. To the normal person, it isn't much. To me, it's a feast. Half a load of bread, lunch meat, cheese, and condiments, like mustard and mayonnaise. 

And ... there is a case of Coke. 

"There's frozen pizzas in the freezer, too. I live off of those when I come here," Dylan says as he heads over to the table and starts staking up those Manila folders. He then shoves them all in a file cabinet, which, to my disappointment, locks.

Interesting. When he comes here, so this is not his permanent residence, I wonder if it's in Chicago? I suppose that makes the most sense if he works for the Chicago PD. 

I put my focus back on food as my stomach angrily growls.

A pizza and a coke? I've legit dreamed of this and woke up crying for it a few times. It might make me sick, but I don't even care. I pull a pizza from the freezer and a Coke from the fridge. I'm half tempted to pick up the block of cheese in there and bite into it, but I somehow refrain.

Instead, I turn the oven on, pop the Coke open, and take a long sip.

"Oh my god," I whisper after the sugary bubbly drink goes down easy. 

"Missed that, I bet," he says with a small laugh. "The shower will probably feel good, too."

A shower... oh good god, an actual shower.

"I think I'll do that while the oven preheats." I look down at my dirty clothes and cringe. I only have one change of clothes in my bag, too, as I intended to cross back over the creek the next day.

"I have something you can wear. Be right back," Dylan says, then pops into the bedroom. He comes out with a teeshirt and a pair of sweats.

"These will be big on you, but they'll work," he says as he hands them to me.

"Thanks," I say as I take them from him.

The bathroom is tiny, and the toilet and sink look slightly rusty but clean. I lock the door behind me and take another sip of Coke.

I walk up towards the vanity and gasp as I look at my face for the first time in months.

I left my house as a teenager that scary day several months ago, and today, I'm all grown up. My face looks so much thinner and a lot older, too. My eyes don't have that same innocence shining in them. They don't look as haunted as Jax's eyes often do, but they aren't the same. 

I'm not the same, and I never will be.

I set the gun and my soda down on the vanity and then strip down.

"Oh my..." I nearly whimper at the skeletal look of my body in the mirror. I thought I'd been doing pretty good with the food Franky brought and all the fruit I'd been harvesting, but my bones are jutting out, and my stomach is as caved in as my cheeks. I was only keeping myself at bay from starving from the looks of me.

 After turning it on, I hurriedly step into the shower, and it's hard to think of anything but how good it feels when the water starts raining down my head. The amount of dirt coming off my body is unbelievable.  I nearly feel bad for Dylan; I bet I really stunk up his truck. It was decent of him not to mention that, although he certainly opened a window fast and pointed out his shower as soon as possible. 

I stay until the water runs clear and then stand under the stream just enjoying it until it goes cold.

I can smell the pizza cooking as I get out and dry off, and it nearly knocks me over. It smells so good. I change into the sweats needing to roll the waistband up several times to keep them upright. 

I don't see Dylan as I step back out of the bathroom. It takes me a second to notice a phone cord leading towards the door which is ajar.

Did he call someone? Who? What if it's Vinny? I believe his story about being a cop, but that still  doesn't mean he's not a crooked one. 

Anyone can say they're a good guy... 

I creep towards the door as quietly as I can.

"I know, baby, just give me a few more days, okay?"

Baby? Hmm, so he has a girlfriend. Somehow, that makes Dylan feel more, I don't know, real. I take a small step back, and the floor creaks under my feet, making a loud noise.

Oh fuck.

"I got to go. I'll call you soon." He ends the call and walks back in before I have any time to pretend I wasn't listening, so I don't bother.

"Your girlfriend?" I ask as he walks past me to put the phone back on the cradle.

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"It's complicated," he says as he walks into the kitchen. "The pizza should be done by now."

"Is she upset that I'm here with you?" I don't think I'd like it much if Jax was holed up in a small space with an attractive woman. Not that Dylan is attractive....

 I mean, okay, he is, but not like that smokey-eyed boy I miss so much.

"Like you care what's going on with my love life," he scoffs. He looks off, like it wasn't a good call. I bet she is angry that I'm here. I shouldn't care, but I am a little curious. All I've had to entertain myself for the last several weeks is squirrels.

"Sit down, and I'll tell you more about why I was watching Jackson."

I'm much more curious about what he knows about Jax, so I drop the subject and take a seat as I watch him cut the pizza.

He sits down across from me, sliding me a paper plate that I quickly with fill slices of pizza.

"Let it cool, or you'll be hurting," he warns me when I pick up a steaming hot piece.

"I forgot how hard it is to wait to eat pizza," I grumble as I set it back down to cool.

Dylan offers a half smile. "That was a long time out there for you. Not as long as Jackson, though." 

"Right, and speaking of..." I prod.

He lets out a soft sigh as his eyes fall to a spot behind me, the photo of him and his dad is located behind my seat.

"My dad, like I said, was the best of the best. He ran an undercover scheme for years, literal years. He was one of Edward Mancini's top guys. He'd been to the land several times and was one of the rare few who knew where it was. Then he got the job, to be the guy that watches the drugs come and go for a few years. That was part of the evidence that eventually put Edward in prison."

"He stayed on the land?" I ask with wide eyes. That notebook in the east cabin with all the survival information in it. Was that—Dylan's dad? I felt like I was getting to know that guy weirdly. I remember hoping he made it out alive... 

"And he bought the field next to it?"I ask confused as to why he would do that. 

"Yes, he pulled some strings to buy it under a pseudo-name so no one could never trace it back to him.  He built a little underground tunnel from the woods to the field." Dylan looks so proud as he talks about his dad. I can't help it. The sympathy I have been trying to hold back floods my heart. Losing his hero must have been so hard. "It gave him a way on and off the land without anyone knowing he'd left." 

"So the police all know about the land?"

"No, he never told anyone where it was other than me." 

I take a bite of my pizza and nearly forget everything, including my own name, it tastes so good. But I force myself to listen to Dylan even as I gorge on my pizza.

"Edward never did find out he was undercover, so my dad stayed on, working for Jack Mancini  when he took over after his father died," Dylan continues. "But then things got quiet with the Mancini family. Jack was lying low and demoted most of his guys to working menial jobs. Some he let go, the trusted ones. My dad fell into that category but was close enough to the family to be invited to Jack's wedding."

Jack is Jax's uncle and namesake who died at his wedding during a horrible shootout that killed most of my boyfriend's family, along with a lot of other people. I can easily guess what happened to Dylan's dad now. It is so tragic. I didn't think I could hate Vinny more, but he's affected so many people with his choices, his illegal, deadly choices. 

"You know about the wedding, don't you? I can tell by your face," Dylan says.

"Yeah, Jackson told me," I say with a light shudder.

"My dad was one of the many people that died in that shooting," Dylan confirms my guess.

"I'm really sorry that happened to him," I offer. 

"He was done. He did what he needed to do. Edward went to prison; he could have just disappeared, let it all go, given up his assignment, but he wouldn't," Dylan says through gritted teeth. "He went to that damn wedding, and we lost him."

"Why would he go?" 

"He was worried that not going would give up his cover and come back to hurt me or my mom." He lets out a dry laugh. "It hurt us anyway."

"Your mom, is she...?"

"She's alive," he says, but his face is grim. "If you can call it a life. She's drunk by noon most days."

Damn it, I don't want to relate to him! But I get that, too. My dad fell apart after my mom died, and it's how I ended up hiding from gangsters in the woods. He owed the wrong people money for his gambling addiction.

"So, your agenda, you want to avenge your dad?" I guess.

"Not avenge, Samantha. You have been spending too much time with the mobster kid. I want to know what the hell happened, and then I want the bad guy to go to prison for it."

"Please just call me Sammy," I say with a sigh, I can't handle it anymore. "And Jax is not like that. He's a good guy too. if you want to get the bad guy, go get Vinny he's the one that shot up that wedding."

"That's the story, but..." Dylan trails off with a slight shrug.

"But what?" I arch an eyebrow.

"Something is off, and I'm going to find out the truth." His sky-blue eyes are fierce with determination. 

"What does all this have to do with Jackson?"

"I know the truth about his parentage," Dylan says, and I drop my pizza slice.

"Wha- how?"

"I told you my dad was close to the Mancinis, but it doesn't matter now, so pick your jaw up," he says with a slight smirk at me. "The secret is out now that Jackson is back in Chicago."

I wonder how stunned Vinny was when Jax showed up. I hate thinking about Jax with Vinny, he's probably in way over his head right now and he's desperate to get back to me. Not a good combination. I need to figure out how to help him without getting myself and my dad killed in the process.

"This still doesn't answer why you were watching Jackson," I point out.

Dylan leans over the table slightly. "I have a gut instinct that Jackson is the key to all this."