Chapter 16
-Dylan Drake-
I get it, why she’d say no. I do. It’s no more than I deserve, considering…
We’re not exactly friends. We’ve indulged in an illicit, foolish relationship, brief enough in duration to barely qualify as anything at all.
Nevertheless it hurts to walk away knowing this is it.
Now that the threat to my person is removed, there’s no reason for me to have a bodyguard, and hence no cause for our paths to cross.
This is over, our final goodbye: her refusing to get out of the car, me steadfastly not looking back.
It sucks.
The worst part is I can’t fathom why we’re doing it.
You’re gay. She’s a woman. It’s not rocket science.
It’d be fine if all of those things were true; if I wasn’t a big fat fucking liar.
Seriously, what sort of twerp lies to himself and lets the woman he cares about walk away?
If I was really skewed that far over to one end of the Kinsey scale, would my heart do a jig whenever she laughs, or do a loop-the-loop—seriously, a frigging loop-the-loop—whenever she glowers and that V forms in the centre of her brow? Of course it wouldn’t.
“I can’t be your guilty secret, Dylan.”
“What if you could be something else? What if it wasn’t secret?”
Her laugh tinkles like the rain rushing over the roof of the smoking shelter earlier. “You’re going to admit to the world you like pussy? Dylan, sweetheart, you can’t even admit that to yourself.”
“I like you.” It’s not about genitalia. “Everything is different with you.”
Wrong words.
I can’t find the right words.
“I’m not ready to live without you.”
A sad smile plays upon her lips, and shadows flit behind the silver of her eyes. “You’ve suffered tonight. I get it, you need some security…to feel safe, and I’m the person paid to ensure that.”
“No, you don’t get it. It’s more than that. This has never been about you protecting me.”
“Dylan, don’t fool yourself. We were never meant to be. For as long as you’re you and I’m me, we never can be.”
The lift doors open, but I don’t get out.
It’s a shoddy way to end things, and I can’t face myself if I allow it to happen.
I jam my thumb against the button, and mash it until the doors close and the metal box slides down the elevator shaft again.
What I’m planning to do when I reach the car park, I don’t know, I just know it can’t end like this.
The car park is dingily lit. One of the lights illuminating the bays is busted. There are only a few cars and a whole lot of emptiness, including the space where Kira parked up. She’s gone. I’m too late. Story of my life.
“Hold the doors, please.”
The slender woman sprints towards me from out of the gloom, head bowed, her hair covered by a baseball cap.
She’s wearing an odd combination of clothes, a casual jacket and that cap, thrown over the top of a glitzy party dress and preposterous heels.
Maybe she got caught in the rain and a friend took pity.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
She presses the button for my floor, and stands too close.
There’s space for sixteen people in here according to the signage, so there’s no need to squash up like this, but I guess some people don’t grasp the concept of personal space.
Thirty seconds, I’ll be out of here, and I won’t have to speak to anyone until I’m ready to.
The lift judders as it comes to a halt, and a green light pings on to indicate the floor number. Her palm brushes my thigh.
Jeezus, do I have grope me signs stuck to me tonight? I start to move, but there’s a sharp sting in my left quad. I look down and watch the syringe fall from her hand. What in hell? Finally, I get a glimpse of her face under that preposterous hat.
“Ma-rrow-y?” The floor lurches up to meet me, but we don’t connect. Instead a vice-like band squeezes my ribs.
“There you go. I gotcha, Dylan. I warned you if you didn’t do as I asked there’d be consequences.
You just couldn’t stay away, could you? Got to strut your stuff, and advocate your twisted agenda.
No doubt you think it’s your God-given right to corrupt innocent souls.
Well, it isn’t, and I’m going to stop you before you destroy anyone else’s life. ”
She’s talking like I should comprehend what she’s saying, but I don’t.
Well, I get the hate. Even when the world is spiralling, I get that.
Kaleidoscopic patterns paint the inside of my eyelids, even with my eyes wide everything is on spin.
I’m moving, but I don’t really understand how.
I’m flopped against her, I think. She smells minty.
“Are you all right, miss?”
A black blur approaches. Waiter, maybe? His moustache is long and droopy at one side.
“Fine, thanks. He’s just had a bit too much to drink. I’m getting him to his room.”
“Don’t let her,” I say, but I’m not sure it comes out like that. More like ‘Doo-dell-ate-her.’ My voice is reedy and stretched out, like a gramophone record drawing to a halt only partially played.
“Actually, if you could just help me a moment. He has a key card on him somewhere, but I can’t quite reach.”
Capable hands pat down my sides, and rifle through the breast pocket of my shirt.
“Here you are, miss.”
“Thank you. Appreciate it. Um…” We waltz together unsteadily.
“Do you need some help getting him to the bed?”
“Yes, if it’s not any trouble. He’s a mite bigger than me.”
“You his girlfriend?”
“An acquaintance.”
“Designated driver? You deserve a medal for putting up with this.”
I’m floating. The voices are nearer and then far away. I’m rising towards the ceiling, then sinking, being smothered by mint imperials.
“Just call housekeeping should you need anything.”
“Thank you, I will.”
***
“Dylan. Can you hear me?” Fingers click before my face. “Come on, you can snap out of it now. I need you awake for this. You need to feel it.”
I squint, and croak some sort of nonsense.
The lights are too bright, and everything is still swirling and dissolving into puddles.
I don’t understand where I am, or how I got here.
Did I overdo the booze? Booze has never caused me to hallucinate before, but there’s a first time for everything, and there sure has been a lot of unexpected firsts recently.
A cough rattles my chest and my mouth fills with acid. I swallow it again, my lips too numb to enable me to spit.
“I’m right here. You look at me now.”
It’s not Kira’s voice. I know her voice. It is woven into the fabric of my soul.
Kira left. My fault, I couldn’t say the words, couldn’t give her the reassurance she needed. She’s right; she shouldn’t need to be a filthy secret. She’s much too good for that, and in any case secrets just lead to wounds and deceits, and knots that pull so tight you can never unravel them.
There’s something anchoring my wrists, but I don’t know what it is, and nausea rolls up from my stomach when I try to move my head to look.
“I know you can hear me, Dylan. You’d better look at me. Focus.”
The slap makes my cheek throb and sets off a peel of bells inside my ears. I blink away the water that fills my eyes, and my vision clears enough to make sense of the face peering down at me.
Mallory? Hugo Whit’s kid. She’s only inches from me, and so much younger than I remember. She’s still girlishly soft around the jaw and excessively swayed by fashion if her ham-fistedly pencilled-on eyebrows are anything to go on. Her eyes however, are the stone cold glare of a killer.
I’ve heard that teenaged girls are like walking evil.
Never had much involvement with them myself, but I had first hand lessons on how warped a woman’s mind can get courtesy of my mother.
Frankly, it’s a miracle I made it as far as adulthood without winding up as some brutal sadistic dick or sleeping in the gutter.
I know what saved me. Landing the role in Sunsetters.
“Are you going to puke? You’d better not do it on me.”
I blink and she slaps me again. “Hey, wake up, I only gave you a little bit. I’m sure you’ve shot up before.”
Nah, actually. Narcotics aren’t my thing.
Her fist tightens on the front of my shirt, tugging until the fabric is so taut I’m sure it’s going to rip.
“Are you listening, arsehole? You’d better be paying attention to me.”
The buttons give. It takes a moment to realise they’ve been sliced off. She has a knife! A fuck off big kitchen knife, the sort that pro chefs use, and that probably came straight out of the drawer at home. I doubt she’s old enough to legally purchase such a thing.
“Mallory,” I croak. I attempt to turn my head, but the throb behind my temples immediately turns into another toll of bells in my ears. “What’s going on?”
“Payback. You fucked everything up, so I’m returning the favour, and then you won’t be able to do it again. Nobody will want you anymore. No one will be tempted.”
It would be helpful at this point if I understood what exactly I’m supposed to have done.
The only connection between us is the commercial and Whit, but that was eighteen months back, and I haven’t seen the man since.
Other than the one brief exchange at the gala dinner, Mallory and I have never spoken.
It’s probably not wise to ask, but if I know, I might at least manage some sort of defence. “What did I do, Mallory?”
“You know.”
That’s just it, I don’t.
“You ruined everything,” she snarls in exasperation. “You and Bask turned him. Made him into a filthy faggot like you, and now he doesn’t want me anymore. Our home, our family, it’s ruined because of you. It was perfect before you came along. Perfect.”
“I’m sorry about your parents getting divorced, but people fall out of love.”
The black of her eyes is going to be burned into my memory for the rest of my days if I live through this.
“No. You caused it. You and Bask. You turned him, stole him from me when you put your thing in him and fucked him in your dirty, nasty way.”