Thirteen
T he money helped a bit. Knowing that I could leave this horrible place in the morning, and get a bus into town, or go somewhere for food, made the darkness seem less terrifying. Knowing that I had options. Knowing, of course, that most of the money needed to be transferred to the care facility, but even that helped. Because knowing that she was safe for a few more months meant everything to me, that even if my life had gone completely to hell, I wouldn’t let her down.
The only question was what I could do long term. No short term job was going to bring in enough money to keep up with the monthly bills. They took her house, and even that didn’t cover her for long. It was extortionate, and that was why I’d tried gambling. That was why, out of desperation, I’d tried maximising what little I was earning, and that was how I’d ended up in so much trouble that I couldn’t find a way out.
At least by being homeless, and nomadic, I could stay one step ahead of those psychos for a little longer. Maybe the best idea was to leave town. To get as far away from here as possible. Not only for my broken heart, but for the relative safety of being an unknown. Living in the same area as the people I was hiding from was just insanity.
Up until just before I’d been taken by the bikers, I’d been left to try and find a way to pay them back. But the real threats had started just a day before I was taken, and that was why I was actually relieved that I was with them, and hadn’t been taken by the people I feared the most.
My time had run out, and I’d been about to run then, but suddenly I’d had a place to hide, with people who were always watching out for each other, and therefore, me. Even though I’d known that it could still fall apart, for the first time in forever, I felt like I had a home. Somewhere I could belong. It was cruel how quickly that had been taken from me. How quickly he’d been taken from me.
It was agonising, knowing how easily Reacher had thrown me aside, without even giving me a chance to speak. To explain. To… what? Justify stealing and lying? I lied right to his face. It was no wonder he couldn’t trust me. Who the hell would?
I just had to wait for daylight, so I could grab some breakfast and a bus. A bus to just fucking anywhere. From there, I’d figure out the rest, but staying in town was no longer an option for me. If I could get far enough away from them before they found me, then maybe I could get work, build up some cash, pay them back… and then what? Go home? What home?
Every ounce of my being missed Reacher, like if he appeared in front of me, I’d just wrap myself around him, and beg him to let me stay. And feeling that way pissed me off even more. How could he just reject me, how could he just discard me like I’m worth nothing? Sending a fucking prospect to remove me from the premises, like I’m not even worth another minute of his time? Like I wasn’t his fucking everything just an hour before? Maybe what I’d mistaken for sexy roughness was nothing more than brutal cruelty, dressed up as something more palatable.
I finally fell asleep sitting against that wall, and woke with the sun shining into the room, and a crick in my neck.
Time to run, and never stop running. I let myself back out of the crappy disused property, and headed back down to the high street to grab something for breakfast, before I could grab a bus ticket, or maybe a train ticket. Which would get me further? Probably the train.
Reacher
W e interrogated that bastard for another hour before he expired, and all he fucking told us was that Alicia was somehow mixed up with whoever the hell he worked for, and she was dead if they found her.
The fact that they were apparently after her, and had attacked Ice, had me worried that he’d taken a blade instead of her, or even because of her. She’d said she didn’t want to bring trouble to the club, but perhaps she already fucking had. I needed answers directly from her, since corpses won’t speak, no matter how hard you hit them.
I stared down at the dead guy, glad that he no longer fucking breathed.
“You know we need to bring her back, Pres. She knows something, and we need as much info as we can get.” Stitch waved the others away, closing the door, so that it was just me and him, well, and the dead fucker.
“How the fuck am I supposed to trust anything she says?”
“Well, I don’t know, but then again, you still haven’t told me why you kicked her to the curb?”
Shit. I stared at the blood drying on my hands, my skin feeling tight and itchy. In fact, every part of me felt tight, wrong, fucked up.
“She lied to me, brother. She knew exactly what she’d done, and she played dumb.”
He cursed, moving in front of me, and blocking the corpse from my view. His arms were folded across his chest.
“And what did she fucking do?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets, leaning against the wall behind me, because I felt like I needed it to keep me upright.
“She stole the rape drugs from the fucking infirmary.”
Stitch blinked, trying to catch up with my sudden announcement.
“Wait, what? The stuff Ice had?”
I nodded grimly. “Turns out that Ryder and his old lady have been using that shit to get off, and he was supplying them.”
I watched his face drop.
“What. The. Actual. Fuck?”
“Exactly. Right there with you, brother. The same stuff that bastard used when he raped her, and they use it like a fucking sex aid now.”
He started pacing, his hands dragging through his hair.
“That’s a level of fucked up that I didn’t see coming, especially from Ry. So she took it for them?”
I nodded again. “And then she sat with me, and fucking lied about it. Well… pretended she knew nothing about what was going on. Sucked my dick with nothing but lies in her mouth.”
He blinked, his lips twitching at me.
“You know, if you’re going to start doing the poetic thing, you might want to wait until you can think straight, because that… yeah, moving on, because that just got weird … did you ask her about it after?”
I turned and grabbed the door handle, striding from the room. I nodded at the prospect waiting outside, so that he knew to get on with clean-up, and then I kept walking.
“Don’t just fucking run from me, brother. We need to talk this through. You know we have to find her, right?”
I stopped, turning to glare at him.
“She’ll have gone to that flat of Tori’s. It’s not like we can’t just go grab her any time we want. There’s no rush.” I reached into the front pocket on my cut, and held up the key to prove my statement.
“We can even just let ourselves in. This is the key right here.”
He opened his mouth, just as my mistake hit my bleary consciousness.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah… unless she had a spare, you made sure she couldn’t even go and hide there.”
“Jesus fuck.” I shoved it back in my pocket.
Stitch grabbed my shoulder.
“Go freshen up. Get more coffee. I’ll get a couple of the guys to start looking. We’ll start at Tori’s, just in case she broke in. I’ll also speak to Tori, in case there’s anywhere else she knows of that she might have gone.”
I went back to my room, which was too fucking empty without her, the loneliness punching me in the face as I entered. I closed the door and leaned back against it. Just twelve hours or so ago, I was banging my old lady against this very door, and now I’m alone again. And maybe that was what I deserved. I just killed a man with my bare hands. I mean, we all took a piece of him, but the finishing? That was mine, and it hadn’t soothed my soul like I’d hoped it would.
I went and showered again, watching the water run red, then pink, until the blood was cleansed from my hands, face, and hair. Jesus. I slumped against the tiled wall, missing her like I missed my youth. She was supposed to be my future.
By the time I was finished in the shower, and went back into my bedroom, with just a towel around my waist, I noticed I wasn’t alone.
Stitch was sitting at my dining table, coffee in hand.
“Yours is getting cold, man.”
I nodded, grabbing some clothes, and dressing quickly. I joined him at the table, sitting down heavily.
“So?”
He leaned back, resting both hands on the table surface.
“Good news or bad news first?”
Jesus . “There’s good news?”
His face dropped and he shook his head.
“No. There really fucking isn’t. First up, Tori has no idea where Alicia went. She’s heard from her, and she’s sent her money, which means she’s no longer too broke to leave town.”
“Shit. Got someone watching the bus station?”
He nodded slowly, but he didn’t look convinced of our potential success, and why would he?
“Thing is, I can’t guarantee she won’t go for a train, or some other method of leaving town.”
I rubbed at my piercings, wanting some clarity of mind, so I could figure this shit out and get my woman back, for questioning… just for that, right?
“Uh… we can’t pull the money back from her, can we?”
Stitch frowned. “With whose skills? You know we’re fucked right now without Ice.”
I stared at my phone over on the kitchen counter.
“I can try to reach her, but the chances are that she’s gonna ghost me if I try, and I’d fucking deserve it, wouldn’t I?”
Stitch shrugged. “I can try. She doesn’t have my number, so won’t know it’s me, but then she also might avoid it in case it’s whoever she’s running from.”
“Tori might be our only option for getting more info then.”
My VP was looking shifty.
“What?”
He sighed, glancing out at the day dawning outside, a wary look on his face when he turned back to me.
“Well, there’s another option, brother, but it means opening cans of worms.”
He looked at me again, raising his eyebrows as he waited for me to grasp his meaning, and I groaned, finally catching on.
“Rossi.”
He nodded. “We already have a budding relationship, and some goodwill on their end. What’s that for, if not to help us in our time of need?”
Jesus. I stared at my coffee. Did we really want to start asking mafia bastards for favours? Where would it end? One favour becomes many, and the next thing we know, they own our asses.
“Is it worth getting caught up with them, brother?”
Stitch shoved his hair out of his eyes.
“Depends really, doesn’t it? Is it worth getting your old lady back? Or are you just gonna toss her aside like old news again, once you’re done with her?”
“What the fuck!”
He was glaring at me now. Like I was the fucking bad guy.
“You threw her out with nothing. No money, nowhere to fucking go, nothing… that was cold… colder than I ever thought you could be.”
“She lied to me.”
“And? That means she’s trash, and should be thrown into the gutter, without any opportunity to defend herself? You didn’t even throw her out yourself. I saw Nick before I came back up here. You made that poor bastard throw her out, because you were a cowardly asshole, and couldn’t face her. I feel like I have no fucking idea who you are right now.”
Jesus. He was right. It was a fucking asshole move, and she deserved better. She deserved more.
“Fucking hell. You’re right. What the fuck was I thinking? Make the call, brother. We need to find her.”