Chapter Twenty-Three #5
Not only did that moment shape the rest of my life in so many ways, but it also ruined my friendship with someone I’d known since I was a kid. Jeremy was petrified of his parents doing the same thing mine had. So he stopped talking to me completely. I was invisible after that night.
Last I heard, he married this girl we went to school with. They have two kids, and he works for a car dealership in KC, five minutes from where we grew up.
Not me. I just couldn’t do it. Despite knowing I might never be my true self, I had to get as far away from my parents as possible; from the memories of that pain.
The thing is, though, no matter how far you run… it always catches up.
An hour later, we arrive at Americana. Apparently, Velle knows people here, so he gets us a table in the back with little effort.
There’s bottle service, but I’m sticking to water, despite the tiny voice inside urging me to self-sabotage.
Fortunately for my sobriety, it’s not the loudest voice I’m currently using the loud music to drown out.
I consider ordering a Coke, but even the act of asking the cocktail waitress with the flirty eyes for it exhausts me.
Joy’s friend, who I’m willing to bet works for The Ivory in some regard, shows up, and the next thing I know, pills are being popped, mass amounts of powder being vacuumed up nostrils, shots on shots on shots being ripped.
It doesn’t take long for my coworkers to reach shit-cocked level, knocking things over, laughing and causing a ruckus, as they do.
Inviting sexy strangers to join our private party.
Joy is on Jasper’s lap while he talks to someone I don’t know and she pours booze into Peters’s cup, sloshing it everywhere.
Lucas is sniffing lines. Hancock is flirting with some girl while a guy, who I think is her husband, grinds into his ass like they’re making a body sandwich.
And Velle is slumped back, looking bored and pissed and faded.
I’m guessing because Rook is nowhere to be found.
And as usual, I’m just sitting back, watching it all unfold. Up in my head, and hating it.
Sober, but still actively using.
Pulling out my phone, I go back to obsessively scouring Google. Reading anything and everything I can find about what happened today. Even the sources that hadn’t initially confirmed whether Dash was killed at the bank are now saying he was.
So I guess that’s it. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, Dascha Reznikov is officially deceased.
Fitting, since he’s been haunting me for a while; a ghost I never knew.
I wonder about his family… Will they be devastated?
Does he even have any family?
They’re never mentioned in any of the news stories. Maybe he’s been on his own most of his life… Like me.
This setting, the distraction I’ve chosen… It’s not working.
I’m not distracted from shit. All I can think about is my conversation with The Ivory earlier.
He didn’t say it outright, but I read between the lines.
Dascha Reznikov is coming to Alabaster Pen.
We’ll be sharing fucking oxygen, and I’m goddamn fucking panicking.
What am I going to do??
I can’t be around him… How can I??
A grainy black-and-white picture of him turned me feral. Who knows what would happen if I were in the same room with him…
I shouldn’t feel so affected by the idea of being near him. He’s a killer.
He’s… dangerous.
Scrolling articles on my phone, I find the picture that started it all: Dash’s mugshot.
Biting my lip, I take it in, studying the symmetrical lines of his perfect face. He doesn’t look scary… But the idea of coming face to face with him scares the bejesus out of me.
What would I do with someone like that…? A violent, cold-blooded murderer…
A stunning, sexy, delicious morsel of temptation.
God, I bet his body tastes like candy, and his voice sounds like a sweet melody when he’s rasping and purring and whining about how good it feels when I…
“Ugh, stop,” I grunt under my breath.
At that ravenous animal inside me that just won’t shut up.
“Hey,” Peters slurs by my ear, and I flinch. “So you sure… about that Daska kid?”
My eyes slide to his. He’s clearly wasted already, which has me checking to make sure no one else is listening.
“It’s Dascha,” I mumble. Peters waves his hand, hiccuping and slugging back more of his drink. “Yea… pretty sure.”
“Whaddya think… Like, tomorrow?” His eyelids are drooping.
This dude’s gonna need a liver transplant when this purge is over.
“Probably.” My eyes shift. “But hey, don’t tell anyone, okay?”
He grins. “Your secret is safe with me.” He mimics locking up his mouth and throwing away the key. A gape at him, and he chuckles, “Yo, lighten up, man. I’m not gonna tell anyone about the bank robber you’re obsessed with.”
My entire body turns to stone. “I’m not… I’m not obsessed.”
I’m entirely positive he’s just fucking with me, and my tense awkwardness is just proving the opposite of what I’m overreacting to get across, but I can’t help feeling like I’m falling apart.
If it’s this obvious that I have some vested interested in Dash before he’s even showed up, what the hell is going to happen when he gets to Alabaster Pen and I’m expected to work and behave like a normal correctional officer who isn’t secretly infatuated with the kid??
“You seemed pretty invested before.” Peters gives me a pointed look. “You know all about his story n’ shit… You care what happens to him, man, and I’m just saying, you can’t care…”
“I don’t,” I grunt, gut twisting and turning almost violently.
“You can’t get emotionally involved, brother,” he goes on, ignoring my feeble argument. “It’s the job, and I know you, of all people, know this. You don’t fuck with inmates… you keep your nose clean. That’s… that’s how you gotta do it.”
He stares into his glass for a moment, like he’s being hounded by his own incessant thoughts, before slugging it back.
“I’m… married,” I stammer, then clear my throat. “I’m not… I mean, I wouldn’t—”
“Right.” He smirks lazily, lying back and closing his eyes. “Famous last words.”
Peters is obviously just drunk. I doubt he has any clue what he’s saying right now, but it doesn’t matter. He’s right.
I’m all out of sorts. Just lost in an endless forest of uncertainty.
I can’t stop thinking about Dash, and it’s only getting worse. It’s only going to get worse…
Where is he right now? Is he alright?
Did he mean to kill Karly Clayton? Is he a soulless monster… or was it an accident?
Is he scared? Alone?
Will he be able to survive Alabaster Pen?
Will I??
This overthinking and constant unbalanced obsession is driving me nuts. The music is so loud, it’s rattling my brain. I can feel a migraine coming on, and I just can’t take it anymore.
Getting up without a word, I leave. Weaving through bodies until I dive out of the club into cool, fresh air. On the sidewalk, I can breathe again. Manhattan is also loud and messy, and tragic, but at least out here, I’m just another lonely guy with secrets he can’t run from.
So I pick a direction, and I walk. Block after block, I just keep walking. I walk around the city for hours, going nowhere. Escaping nothing, because there is no escape.
You can run from anything but yourself.
Eventually, I find myself at home, though I barely even remember how I got here. It’s late, after three in the morning, when I drag myself up the steps, to our bedroom. The room is dark, but I can make out the shape of my wife, lying in bed, likely asleep.
Sighing out of disillusion, I get undressed and crawl under the covers. Lying beside her, staring at the back of her head, I remember the first time I saw her, all those years ago…
I’d been working for Manuel Blanco for a couple of years, fighting to stay clean, and at the moment, I was losing. We were on a purge, and I was trying to meet my dealer, but he was blowing me off, and the angst of impotent desperation was getting to me. So I went into a random bar for a drink.
Nikki was there with some friends.
One of them came up to me and said, “Hey, so my friend is newly single, and she’s afraid to come up to you. But she totally thinks you’re hot.”
He nodded in her direction. I looked.
She was noticeably beautiful—to people who noticed women’s beauty without it being pointed out—grinning and covering her face in embarrassment at her friend’s audacity.
My eyes slid back to the friend. I didn’t need to know anything about him to know he was gay. It was just a feeling. He had nice eyes and full lips…
That was something I noticed on my own.
“I think she’s hot too,” I pushed out the words; a hard shove, I ejected them without a parachute. “I’d love to… buy her a drink.”
The friend’s eyes scanned me up and down, and in that moment, I knew he knew. We both knew… It was so obvious, and this act was so fucking futile.
But it didn’t matter. I forced a smile at Nikki that was so fake it smelled like fresh plastic. I turned to the bartender and ordered her a drink, and by the time it was in front of me, she was next to me.
Two hours and a hefty bar tab later, I was in her apartment. Fucking her from behind and picturing her pretty, blue-eyed friend to keep my dick hard.
I sling my arm around her waist, moving up to her back. She shifts a bit, taking my hand in hers.
“I love you…” I speak the lie into the dark, quiet room.
“I love you too,” she yawns.
And I stare, unblinking, waiting for the high to kick in, but knowing it never will.