Chapter 11 Talon’s Past #2
Her gaze flicks to the booth and back. “What if I go and warn him?”
The words don’t wobble. They land.
So she blushes like a schoolgirl and still runs a tight ship. “You were asking me not to cause trouble moments ago,” I tell her. “Now you’re threatening to cause me trouble?”
“Nope.” She shrugs. “Just trying to feel you out.”
She smiles. I find myself smiling back.
“You see, he’s a dealer. I’m going to make sure he remembers where his money’s supposed to go,” I say. “But I also know where he lives. So even if you warn him, his fate’s sealed.”
She exhales through her nose, a tiny breath that fogs the edge of the pint and disappears.
“I see.”
I glance at the kid. He’s got that hollow-cheeked, loose-jawed look of someone who hasn’t eaten a proper meal since the first frost. The blonde is halfway in his lap now, whispering in his ear like she’s narrating a porno just for him. He keeps nodding, eyes shiny.
“You know him?” I ask.
“Nope,” she says. “Just having some compassion for a stranger.”
Compassion. What a distant fucking word.
I tip the pint back and kill half of it without tasting a thing. “Alright,” I say. “If not in the bar, then what would you like me to do, Rhea? Maybe if you say it nicely, I’ll follow along.”
She blinks. Blushes harder. Swallows.
“Take him outside,” she says finally. “Scare him, I guess. Make him pay what he owes, if that’s what it takes. But don’t… kill him.”
“Hey now,” I say. “I asked for your opinion, not a bargain.”
A laugh huffs out of me despite myself. It twists something tight under my ribs.
Lark would’ve smirked and told me not to grow a conscience. Lark would’ve kissed me in the alley and told me to go do what I do best.
If only she lived.
What the hell am I even doing, discussing Fisher’s orders with some stranger girl, thinking about the one who died on me years ago?
“I mean…” Rhea murmurs. “If it’s a bargain you want, I might participate.”
“What do I get out of it?” I ask.
“What do you want?”
I roll the pint between my palms, the glass sweating cold. A hundred ugly answers rise to my tongue—lines I’ve used on other girls to end the night my way. I think about them. For whatever reason, I don’t use any.
“Straight deal,” I say. “You keep the kitchen open after closing. Feed me something hot. How about that?”
Her gaze drops to my hands. When she looks up, her blush widens.
“Done,” she says. “But you wash before eating.”
A laugh slips out before I can stop it. It feels weird in my throat, like a rusted hinge trying to move.
“Bossy.”
“You bet.” She nods toward the booth. “Go on, then. Before the blonde convinces him to spend whatever he owes you on her.”
Aye, miss.
I finish the beer and set the glass down with a quiet clink.
When I slide off the stool the room tilts.
Not from the drink, but from the part of me braced to break something and the other part trying not to.
Lark’s face flashes up uninvited: green-glass eyes, wind-tangled hair, the smell of gasoline that never left my jacket.
I know how the violence ended back then.
Four men dead.
Don’t think. Just do it.
The kid sees me coming and scrambles deeper into his hoodie. The blonde clocks the danger and goes still.
I’d been in the same room as them the whole time and they hadn’t noticed me.
“Hi, guys,” I say, dropping my hands to the table. “How’re you doing?”
He swallows so hard I can hear it. “I—I was gonna call—”
“Sure.” I lift a shoulder. “Right after your fairy godmother wires rent and a backbone.”
The blonde finds her voice. “Hey, we were in the middle of—”
“Leaving,” I tell her, not looking. My tone’s light, the kind of light that makes glassware rethink the idea of jumping. She decides she forgot something in the bathroom and evaporates.
I slide into the booth, crowding the kid until he has to turn toward me. He smells like cheap cologne trying to drown fear.
“You know why I’m here.”
He nods, jerking. “I got some. Not all.” He digs in his pocket and dumps a rubber-banded wad on the table like it’s an offering. I don’t touch it.
“How much are you short?”
His mouth works. “Three-fifty.”
He owes eight. Fisher told me. “So here you are, with less than a half and a date.”
“She—she was gonna spot me,” he stammers. “She said she—she knew a guy—”
“She probably knows lots of guys. And not in the way you’d like, my guy.” I lean back, give him a breath. “You’re gonna pay the rest. In two weeks.”
His eyes flare. “I can’t—”
“You can.” I say it plain. “Because you’re going to stop buying your own product, and you’re going to stop trying to impress girls who’d pawn your shoes while you sleep.” I jerk my chin at his wrist. “Leave the watch.”
“It’s a fake.”
“I know.” I hold out my hand anyway. After a second he peels it off and drops it into my palm like it’s a finger. I close my fist around it. “Collateral. Miss the first Friday from tonight, I take the fingers that wore it.”
He believes me.
I mean, I’d believe me too. The problem? My grandmother wouldn’t believe anything about me if she saw me now. All those promises I made her went and fucked themselves somewhere along the way.
Do I like looking in the mirror? No. Not really.
“Stand up,” I tell the kid.
He does, wobbling like a foal. I grab the wad of cash off the table, tuck it away, then curl my fingers into the front of his hoodie and steer him toward the door.
The blonde reappears just long enough to decide she doesn’t want to be collateral and vanishes again, perfume trailing after her like she hopes it’ll confuse the hounds.
We hit the alley. It’s brittle cold; my breath ghosts and disappears. I shove him against the brick, but not hard. Just enough to make the sound echo. You gotta give the night something to chew on, or it keeps coming back hungrier.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “Please, man, I’ll get it, I swear—”
“Open your eyes.”
He does. I hold them. “Two weeks. First Friday. Don’t make me chase you. If you do, I’m gonna be really mad, and that’s the last thing anyone wants. Okay?”
He nods, quick. “Okay.”
“And if Fisher sends someone else,” I add, because I’m not always the one who gets cleanup duty, “you tell them you already settled with Talon. They’ll ask if you’re lying. You’ll say no. You’ll show them your wrist, naked as a baby. You’ll tell them you know what fingers are worth.”
He swallows so hard his throat clicks. “Okay.”
I let him go. He staggers, hands on his knees, sucking in cold air.
“Now go,” I say. “And don’t bring dates to business. It never ends well.”
Lark flashes behind my eyes. She was about that blonde’s age when she died. I wonder what kind of person she’d be now if we’d made it back then. Ten grand in our hands, a car, and each other for a team…?
In hindsight, I think her plan was to cheat me. Steal the money and disappear into the ether forever.
Well, I wouldn’t have let her. I’d guard the money, guard her, and if anything, we’d skip town together.
I wasn’t far from it. In my memory, all it took was one question and the cash.
She’d be a waitress somewhere, I’d be a mechanic. We’d probably split a year later but stay friends anyway.
That’s how I rewrite it in my head, at least.
But who the fuck knows what would’ve happened for real?
The kid stumbles off into the night, tripping over trash bags until the dark swallows him whole. I’m left standing in the alley with my fists clenched and my head full of ghosts.
Lark. Always Lark. Her laugh in my ear as we tore down the coast, the reek of cigarettes and gasoline clinging to her jacket, the smirk she gave me right before our first kiss.
Rhea’s voice cuts through the fog when I head back inside.
“That didn’t take long.”
She’s wiping down the bar again, but watching me over the rim of a glass. Her eyes flick to my hands, checking they’re not broken or bloodied.
“They’re fine,” I tell her, sliding back onto the stool. “Kid got the message.”
“And you got paid?”
I toss the wad of bills onto the counter between us. “Enough. For now.”
She doesn’t ask if I hit him. Doesn’t ask what enough means. She just nods, and it charms me. She clearly knows nothing about my world, but she doesn’t make it feel like a big deal.
“Kitchen’s closed in five,” she says, nodding toward the little swinging door. “You hungry, Talon?”
I am. Haven’t eaten since noon. My stomach’s a fist. “Starving.”
“Wash.” She points to a hallway near the bathrooms. “Soap’s by the mop sink. Don’t touch anything that says bleach.”
My grandmother used to press a bar of cheap soap into my palm after I’d been crawling around with the other boys outside. Keep yourself clean, kid. It was one of the promises I broke and kept in equal measure.
Feels nice.
“Yes, ma’am.” I give her a salute.
The mop closet reeks of lemon and something old. I scrub until the water runs brown, then clear. The mirror over the hand dryer is cracked; my face stares back in shards. Ginger hair too long, jaw shadowed, eyes a shade too tired for my age.
But handsome, anyway.
I’ve always been a handsome fucker.
When I return, we’re the only ones here. Rhea slides a bowl across the counter. Steam. Something red, thick, flecked with green.
“Chili,” she says, bracing her hands on the wood like she’s daring me not to like it. “From a can, but I doctor it. Don’t complain.”
“Spicy?”
She snorts. “Eat and find out.”
I do. It burns. A little too much for me. The heat knocks a hole in the frost layered under my ribs. But it’s good.
“Give me your hands,” she says when I set the spoon down. “Let me see, please.”
Please. What a pretty word.
Also… she’s really not from around here. What a weirdo. Why would she ask a man like me for my hands? I know a dozen guys who’d hear that and take it as an invitation to fuck her within five minutes. We’re alone and all.
“Why?” I ask.
“Nursing school,” she says. “I just know too much about bacteria not to want to bandage half the people who walk in here.”
“Yeah?” I echo. “Then go bandage them. You don’t have to bandage me.”
“Well…” She thinks. “Most of them never agree to any of my requests like you did. I suppose I’m thankful for your good deed.”
I want to laugh at her. But alright. She’s too cute for me to curse at, and what harm can come from letting a stranger patch me up?
I offer my hands. She turns them over, thumbs tracing the constellation of scars. Her touch lingers on the newest split across my knuckle.
“This one’s deep,” she murmurs.
“Brick wall,” I say. “I won.”
She lifts a brow. “Against a wall?”
“Wall had it coming.”
A corner of her mouth tugs. She reaches under the bar and pulls up a battered plastic kit. Inside: gauze, tape, little brown bottles with handwritten labels. “I can clean and close it, but I think it will scar anyway.”
“Everything does,” I say before I can catch it. “But I don’t mind it, Miss Nurse.”
Her eyes flick to mine. “Don’t call me that. I failed.”
“You seem good enough to me. All that Good Samaritan spirit.”
She rinses the cut with saline. It bites. She dries, presses, tapes a pair of butterfly closures, then wraps the gauze snug around my hand.
“Believe me, I used to be better.” She pats the wrap.
“Better than this?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t believe you,” I murmur. “What were you, Mother Teresa?”
“Something like that,” she says. “You done for the night?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you can help me close.”
Again, I really don’t know why the fuck I stay—but I do.
We stack glasses, flip stools, mop around a puddle that’s older than either of us.
“You plan to work this bar long?” I ask.
“If you mean, do I have any plans to disappear soon, then no. I’m thinking of staying here for a while.”
“Why this bar?”
“It’s the first job I got,” she says with a small smile. “Simple as that. The manager’s a creep but he promised to pay me on time, so I like it.”
“If he doesn’t, I’ll break his fingers,” I say.
She laughs, startled, then sobers when she sees I’m not entirely joking. “Oh, so we’re friends now?”
“We can be, if you want.”
I keep flashing smiles; she keeps catching them and blushing. I don’t like it, and like it at the same time.
Some fucking spell must’ve hit me in the head, because I keep feeling like two people at once: one that wants to fuck off and shake himself for making a connection with a stranger—connections are trouble—and the other that keeps doing it anyway.
At this rate I’m going to do something stupid, like ask her for a real number. I need to touch a topic she’ll push me away for. Hit a nerve. Get her cagey and scared, or she’ll charm me to death.
“Your scar,” I say. “What’s it from?”
She rolls her sleeve down by instinct, then stops halfway, considering. “Car accident,” she says finally. “Textbook: don’t stick your hand where glass lives.” A beat. “No one died.”
Fuck. Car accident, huh.
I know something about those.
“What about you?” she asks softly. “Tell me something about yourself.”
I think about it for a minute.
If I were smart, I’d turn away and go home. Turns out I’m not very smart.
“I’m all alone in this world,” I say, smirking. “Just me and the shitstorm outside.”
“Is that right?” she echoes.
“Hell yeah.” I wiggle a brow. “So don’t come too close, yeah? I tend to bring that storm with me wherever I go.”
She cocks a brow, purses her lips into a half-smile, and nods.
Something tells me that the warning didn’t hit as hard as it should’ve.
And it should have.
Experience says so.
But warnings only work on people who want to listen.
Apparently, Rhea isn’t one of them.