16. River
CHAPTER 16
RIVER
I stumbled from his room, choking on my breaths as my lungs revolted when I sucked air in through my clenched teeth. Tears burned down my cheeks, carving agony into my bones. This is what happened when you gave your heart to someone and trusted them. I gave him the power to destroy me, and he did it with four little heartless words. This was a mistake played on repeat in my head like a scratched record, drilling my pain into me until I was consumed by it. I tripped over my feet as I fell into my door and ended up sprawled on the cold floorboards.
The desire to move was long gone. If he didn’t care about me, who was left? I’d rather be six feet under. I was more alone in the world than I’d ever been, flying high one second, only to crash back into the ground, smashed to smithereens.
His muffled voice sounds distorted, like he was trapped on the other side of a landslide. I wanted to call out to him, beg him to keep me, but what was the point? What happened today was my fault. I fucked everything up.
I was worthless.
Broken.
Disgusting.
I gave him the only thing I had to give that really meant anything—my body. He loved it until he didn’t. They always love the illusion over reality. I should have known better than to let myself dream. No one tells you that nightmares were also dreams. The look of disgust and loathing that distorted his beautiful features would be etched into my memories for as long as I breathed.
The shower turned on, drowning out the last time I’d ever hear his voice. This was my swan song. My last goodbye. I tried to convince myself that this was okay, that this made everything easier. If only I could turn those pesky, manipulative emotions off. On my hands and knees, unable to find the strength to stand, I pushed the door closed and locked it, then curled up on my bed. Silent tears poured from my aching eyes. Visceral agony consumed me, and I gave in to the darkness clawing at me.
I was trapped in a war between my mind and my heart. My brain knew the truth, but my heart refused to accept it. I wanted him to want me the way he said he did. I craved it, fucking needed it like I needed air to breathe. My body was scarred from the abuse of a million faceless men, but the wound Bane left on my heart was the one that made me pray for it all to just end.
Time passed unchecked, but the pain inside me didn’t abate; it only grew in its intensity. His heavy footsteps stormed out of his room, halting by my door. His labored breaths sounded like a battering ram. I held my breath, praying he’d knock or kick it down, desperate to hear his voice as he begged me for forgiveness, but it never came.
A door slammed downstairs, echoing through the hollow walls. I expected to hear the throaty rumble of his bike, but all I caught was the low hum of an engine from the driveway. Tires squealed against the blacktop as he floored it away from me. He couldn’t wait to be rid of me, leaving me behind like he’d done before. I should have known history would always repeat itself.
My knuckles bit into the flesh of my thigh, fire burning under the skin as I brought my fist down onto the same spot again in another bruising blow. I needed another source of pain to unlock my chest. It might sound crazy, but I could regulate physical pain. Own it. Even seek release in it. The scars on my arms were testament to that. My thigh pulsed, but it wasn’t enough to override the surge I was drowning in. I could smash my fist or head into a mirror, but that would create too much mess, and I’d already stained Bane’s life with my presence.
Gritting my teeth, I let the memories flow. They shredded what was left of my heart as his bright smile flickered through my mind. The taste of his lips. Soft and warm as they devoured me. The silky heavyweight of him on my tongue. His intoxicating cedarwood and leather scent. The one that permeated the entire house and my godforsaken soul.
When the only thing I could focus on was the poisonous pain spreading through my leg, I could finally breathe. This, I knew and understood. I was a master at it. Slipping off the bed, I wobbled as my feet hit the cold floor, the room spinning around me. Unable to bear weight on one side, I pushed myself to the closet and grabbed my bag. Glancing over my room one last time, my eyes snagged on the permanent marker on the nightstand, and I shoved it into my pocket before picking up a tee off the floor.
The walls moved of their own accord as I stepped into his room and shoved my shirt inside his pillow. I wanted him to have a piece of me with him, even if he didn’t want me. There would always be a part of me that wanted him. From there, I walked into his bathroom. His scent hit me in a cloud of steam. My heart stuttered for a beat before it started racing. The mirror above the sink was clean and dry, thankfully. I pulled the pen from my pocket and wrote the words I’d never be able to say.
I’m sorry for ruining everything.
Forgive me.
Downstairs, I kissed Shadow goodbye. His large eyes blinked up at me as he tilted his head to the side in confusion. “I’m sorry, baby boy.” He licked my face, making me swallow around the ball of emotion lodged there. “I can’t stay.” I sobbed, tear drops clinging to my lashes. “Look after Daddy for me.” He licked me again, and I took that as a yes and gave him a treat before shutting him in his crate.
My boots were where I’d left them by the front door. I grabbed them and headed into the attached garage and slipped them on. From listening to Bane’s conversations with Montoya, I knew there was a blind spot on the side of the garage where his property bordered the old lady’s next door. This was my only shot at getting out undetected, leaving Bane none the wiser.
Luckily, the garage window was unlocked. I flicked the latch and pushed it open enough to drop my bag down. After one final glance around, I slipped out and closed it behind me. I slid my arms through the straps and tightened them around my shoulders. I didn’t know how long it would take me to get back into town, but knowing I had some supplies was enough for me to trust the plan I had would work. It had to fucking work. I’d only get one shot.
The boundary fence was low on this side of the house, so it was easy enough to climb it and get into her yard. The drop on her side took me by surprise, but a bush broke my fall and the rest of the undergrowth gave me enough cover to get to the end of her property unseen. I could hear her talking to someone on her back deck. Guilt ate away at me as I clambered through the post and rail fence at the back of her yard by the woods. Bane had recently had a six-foot solid fence installed on his for my protection.
I scoffed at the idea. The only thing I needed protection from was him. The devil couldn’t reach me, so he took the most precious thing I had out of my life. I wouldn’t go willingly to my grave. I would make every second count, because even though Bane turned his back on me, I wouldn’t turn mine on him. Everything I did from here on out was for him.
It wasn’t long before I came to the end of the row of houses and reached the sidewalk. I paused, taking in the surrounding streets, and tried to regulate my breathing before heading in the opposite direction to the one Bane had taken me on his bike. Every step hurt. I was already raw, but it rubbed salt on my open bleeding wounds. I could suffer for him, to help bring an end to the suffering Black Dahlia brought to so many like myself.
A craving crawled under my skin that I hadn’t felt since my eyes fell on Bane in that interrogation room. The scent of tobacco smoke drifted on the gentle breeze as the golden sun in a cloudless sky mocked me with its brightness. At the bus stop, a man sat in a heavy coat, with a cigarette between his lips, staring intently at his phone.
“Hey.” My voice sounded like I’d swallowed glass. “Can I bum a smoke?”
The guy looked up. He was younger than I expected but had a refined air to him. His brown eyes narrowed for a second as he inhaled, the cherry burning a fiery red. “Sure.” He held out the packet to me, flicked the bottom to make one pop forward, and passed me his lighter.
“Thanks,” I mumbled around the tip as I placed it between my lips and lit up. Taking a deep inhale, my eyes fell closed as the thick toxic smoke filled my lungs, pushing its venom into my veins.
“No problem, kid,” he said in a gruff, no nonsense voice. “You got somewhere to go?”
I grunted in response and chewed the inside of my cheek as I toed the cracked pavement, unwilling to answer his question. Why couldn’t he be like everyone else, too wrapped up and consumed in their own lives to notice mine spilling around me in a pool of blood?
“I’m not some kind of stalker.” He huffed a breath, smoke billowing between his lips. “You just look like you’re running.”
I snorted. “Story of my life.” My voice cracked and broke, just like my shattered heart. I inhaled a long drag and rolled my lips inward to stop the flow of words and palpable pain that wanted to spill from me.
“Don’t talk much, huh?” I shook my head. “Spent time in the foster system, I assume?” He took my silence as agreement. “Me too, kid. It might suck now, but if you want to, you can make it out and stop the cycle from repeating.” He ran a hand through his shaggy dark hair. “I left at eighteen, with only the dollars they gave me to my name. Now I run shelters across the state.”
I blinked up at him in his sneakers, jeans, and big thick coat. I couldn’t see it if I was being honest, but he laughed like it was no skin off his back. Probably wasn’t—we had to grow a thick skin early in the system or it’d chew you up and spit you out before your age ended in teen.
“Don’t look at me like that.” He snorted. “It wasn’t easy. I worked my ass off to get where I am.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a card, passing it to me.
Better Together was embossed on the thick white card along with the name Alan Rothschild. I flipped it over a couple of times, noting the phone number scribbled on the back before shoving it in my pocket. I could feel the weight of his gaze on me, but I ignored it and took another inhale.
“Keep that with you. Never know when you might need it. My name is Alan, by the way. Stick with me, and I’ll make sure you get to town. I’m assuming you don’t have any money?” Without waiting for me to answer, he handed me a new packet of smokes and a lighter. My heart flipped from this random act of kindness by a total stranger. “Come on kid, let’s go,” he said just as the bus pulled to a stop at the curb in front of us.
Holme Oaks was bustling and vibrant, the main strip filled with hoards of shoppers and friends. But like any metropolis, behind the glittering facade, you could find the darkness that existed around every corner. Blood money flowed just below the surface. Extortion, racketeering, and every addiction under the sun walked hand in hand with glowing white smiles and million-dollar haircuts. You just had to know where to look, then follow the breadcrumbs to the places where the sun never shone as sin owned your soul.
I’d never walked around downtown, but all towns felt the same. It didn’t matter where you were in America—whether in a small town or a sprawling city—it was never hard to find the places where the broken and the addicts drifted, clinging to the shadows.
For my plan to work, I had to be exposed long enough to be seen, so I stopped by a coffee shop on the way and grabbed an XL Americano before taking a side alley and leaving the world most knew behind. There were always districts that lived in the shadows, even on the brightest days, where the shop facades had barred windows, cracked glass, and the bullet holes. Sidewalks were broken and weed ridden, unattended and overused. Litter, broken bottles, and used needles hugged the curbs and built up in building entrances. The old industrial units that had yet to be repurposed were where I was heading for the night. They wouldn’t take me in the cold light of day, not when they could be seen. The stench of urine and rotting food replaced clean air and the delicious scents drifting from artisan shops selling handcrafted delicacies.
A faded tarp covered a hole in a wall. I’d spent long enough on the streets to know this marked the entrance. I pulled it aside and stepped through into hell on earth, where the living prayed for death and the dead begged for life. The stench of desperation and discontent was smothering. Small fires flickered faintly in the darkness, surrounded by groups of people while others lay passed out on stained mattresses with needles still in their arms and vomit drying on their lips. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as a woman’s screams rendered the air, but no one ran to her rescue. It was a regular occurrence in drug dens like this. If you had no money, you used whatever means you had to pay. It began with stealing, but when the monster of addiction had you firmly in its grip, you’d sell your soul for another hit. What was a beating or rape when oblivion was but a few seconds away?
What did it say about me, that I felt more at home, more at ease in this environment than I did at Bane’s? He kept his clean, ordered white on white house perfectly maintained, but it made me realize the gulf standing between us. I felt like the filth on the bottom of his shoes; a pretender, an actor playing a role, expecting to be thrown back onto the streets before I could blink.
Beams of light seared my eyes as I trudged in the opposite direction of the screams, exhaustion settling into my bones. In our own way, we were all just trying to survive, to make it from one day to the next in places like this, chasing oblivion, a fleeting moment of reprieve, of happiness. But death stalked us all from the shadows, counting down the seconds until he could claim us.
“You’re new,” a voice snarled from the dark corner. “No one comes in here without my knowing. Pay the levy, or I’ll take a payment of my choosing.” A sneer curled the man’s lips, revealing rotten teeth as he stepped into the muted light.
Without answering, I shoved my hand in my pocket and pulled out a fifty, holding it up so he could see it. He reached for it, but I stepped back, only to walk into a wall of muscle. Glancing up over my shoulder, I saw two men who looked like they could rip my throat out with their bare hands. The confidence I’d had in my plan evaporated, and my heart thundered up my throat. “I-I.” I clutched at my throat. “Just need...t-t…l…la…low…night.”
Rotten Teeth looked me over, then nodded to the guys behind me. “Take him.” The bald guy behind me put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, eyeing me like I was his favorite snack. His yellowed tongue teased his bottom lip, and I shuddered at the implication. “But first, payment.” I held the bill out in front of me as Rotten Teeth reached out a gnarled hand, his black-tipped fingers snatching it from my grasp and stuffing it into his inside pocket. “This gets you one night. If you bring the feds to my door, there ain’t nowhere you can hide from me.”
With my arm wrenched painfully behind my back, I was forced through puddles of filthy sewage, the foul stench making my nose bleed. Each step felt heavier as my guilt weighed me down and my resolve crumbled. The farther we went, the darker and more oppressive the air became. My skin crawled, every nerve alight with disgust, and my stomach twisted in revolt. Rats darted through the heaps of rotting garbage lining the path they pushed me down, their slick bodies vanishing into shadows as our waterlogged footsteps echoed through the cavernous, crumbling warehouse. A suspicious-looking bag covered in duct tape was half buried under rubble, and I thanked the gods I was led away from it. I’d spent enough time with dead bodies to last me a lifetime. I might not have known who was in there, but I couldn’t do another night with one.
“This is yours.” Baldy pointed to a two-foot square dry bit of cement. A pile of cardboard boxes lay a few feet away, strewn across rubble where the wall had collapsed. “Pretty boy like you won’t last an hour in a place like this.” He huffed and leered at me.
Little did he know, I’d spent nearly two years on the streets. I knew exactly what I’d have to do to survive. I spun around and flicked the pocket knife I’d lifted off him open and pushed it against his gut. His eyes widened in shock, but all it did was intensify the way he looked at me.
Holding his hands up, he took a step back and licked his lips. “I’ll be seeing you later.” His words hung in the air, a threat as much as a promise. I watched him walk away. I wouldn’t be sleeping here tonight or any night, but with nothing else to do, I grabbed some boxes and made a makeshift bed to keep my mind occupied instead of thinking about the colossal mistake I was making and the guilt encircling my heart.
With that done, I pulled my legs up into my hoodie, grateful Bane had never taken his back from me. This one was large enough to fit my legs and bag under it, so I could keep everything safe. Blindly reaching into the bag, my eyes darting around checking for threats, I pulled out a bottle of water. The lukewarm liquid was enough to soothe the abused flesh of my throat. The damage done from Bane’s dick would pass in a few days—if I lived that long. As long as I had enough time to do what I needed to help him, that was all that mattered. I couldn’t care less about my life, not if it didn’t include him. Without realizing it, he had been what had kept me going all these years and now, knowing the truth that we would never be anything, I had no reason left to fight.
By the time the temperature dropped, my teeth were chattering, and I struggled to keep my eyes open. I was losing my fight with staying hypervigilant. It was hard to determine how many hours had passed, but I assumed it was the early hours of the morning. I was on the edge of unconsciousness when I heard the first sloshing footsteps since I’d been abandoned in this corner. I was under no assumption that I wasn’t being watched, but the streets worked in their own mysterious ways. Just because you couldn’t see someone, didn’t mean they couldn’t see you. The walls had eyes.
The footsteps grew louder, and muttered curses carried to me, making my stomach revolt. I knew that voice, one that belonged to a face I hadn’t seen until recently, even though I’ve heard it for years.
“Its fucking disgusting. I should be booking these fucking vermin, not collecting them like a goddamn prized pet.”
Cold sweat pickled under my hood and dripped down my neck. Fear coiled around me, making it hard to breathe. I’d expected Dahlia to send Sean or Devlin, not a fucking cop. She really was untouchable if she was sending him to collect me. The sound of a gun cocking made me freeze. The way the sound echoed around the space was disorientating. I blinked a few times until a figure materialized in the darkness before me.
“Fancy seeing you here, you little whore,” he spat at me. “Didn’t think you’d leave Benson’s house, all protected like the man in the high castle.” He tilted his head to the side, something wild and unhinged glinting in his eyes as he flicked the muzzle of the gun at me. “Up. She wants to talk to you.”