Stalkers

Chapter 21

Ella

Aiden is gone, and that means the pressure in the bunker is relieved. The man has an energy that charges a place, no doubt about that.

“Get dressed,” Luke says, smacking my ass hard enough to make me yelp as I lie on the couch, reading an old book for the umpteenth time. “We’re going out!”

“We’re allowed to go out?” I sit up, rubbing my rear. “Or is Aiden going to be pissed about this?”

“Leo needs to see a doctor, and I’m driving him, so you are coming,” he says.

“Is he okay?”

“It’s a routine appointment,” Leo says, stepping out of his room. He looks almost normal, wearing a cardigan sweater that buttons down the front so he can take it off easily.

From time to time, I stare at these men and just fucking marvel at how hot they are. Leo is looking better than ever. A beard is starting to come in on his face. I’d call the color a deep caramel. It makes him look distinguished.

I feel a little pulse of arousal down low in my belly, but of course I do not act on it. Instead, I go and get dressed as best I can. This bunker was built for the family. It doesn’t have much in the way of girl clothes. A few have been brought for me, but still. I want to go shopping very badly.

“Can we go shopping? I mean, can I buy some things while Leo is seeing the doctor? I’ve been wearing the same two pairs of underwear for what feels like weeks now.”

“Aiden wouldn’t like it,” Luke says. “But I don’t see the harm. Just don’t get kidnapped for a third time.”

“I’ll try not to get snatched up in the lingerie section of the department store,” I deadpan, grinning. I am excited! The simple act of going out feels like rebellion. I wonder if Aiden really does know that we are leaving the bunker without him.

“I never thought I’d miss traffic,” I say, sighing out the window as we crawl through city stop/start jams.

“I know what you mean,” Luke chuckles. “It feels damn good just to be part of the world again.”

“Do we really have to go back?”

“Don’t start wheedling already,” Leo says warningly. “If you start pouting on the rare outings we can take, you’ll miss out on them altogether.”

“You don’t have to lecture me like a spoiled kid,” I frown. “I was just asking if maybe we could have a little more normality so I don’t go fucking insane. Sorry for asking!”

“Less of the attitude,” Leo says. “Or I will have Luke thrash you for me.”

I know the threat is genuine, so I don’t push it.

I am already the only entertainment in a confined space with two men who are lustful as hell.

If I get them started whipping me, god knows when that will end.

The thought is somewhat delicious, but I can’t give into it because I want to stay out.

I want to have access to freedom and to the world. Being locked away is an awful thing.

So I fall silent, and I hope that pretending to be good is the same as actually being good. It may as well be.

I wait for us to get to the hospital, and when we are there I take the cash Luke gives me, three hundred bucks, which doesn’t go nearly as far as they probably imagine it does with women’s clothing, but never mind, because I have another plan anyway.

“Don’t spend it all at once,” he grins. “Stick to the shops around here, too, okay?”

“I don’t know that we should let her go on her own,” Leo says. “Maybe we should wait until after the appointment, then all go together.”

“Do you want to stand around racks of panties? Because I don’t,” Luke says. Very unenlightened attitude from him really, but it works in my favor, because frankly I don’t want the two of them standing around while I try to pick out underwear and clothes either.

“I might need a little more money,” I say. “Bras are like eighty dollars each.”

“Eighty…” Luke’s eyes widen. “Are they diamond bras?”

“Brother, we are worth billions. Give her more than a pittance,” Leo says.

I don’t think Luke has ever done much in the way of shopping. He seems like the most grounded of all of them, but he cannot help being out of touch.

Luke sighs and digs into his pocket, pulling out more cash. “Is this enough?”

“Thank you,” I say. “I’m sorry to have to ask.”

He frowns. “No. You shouldn’t… no, don’t be ashamed to ask. It’s your money as much as it is ours anyway at this point. Go, have fun. Buy whatever you want. Meet us back here in two hours.”

“It’s going to be two hours?”

“They’re doing a scan under light sedation, then there will be a wait to see the doctor. It might be three hours,” he says. “Just don’t get lost.”

“I can take care of myself,” I grin. “I hope your wound is okay, Leo.”

Leo gives me a little wave. I don’t think he is looking forward to the sedation and such.

He likes being in control too much and oh, that’s right, the time I drugged him and left him probably didn’t help.

I feel a small pang of guilt, but I remind myself that was a different time. A more innocent time, in a lot of ways.

I step out of the hospital by myself and I feel a rush of freedom that I have not experienced in, well, I’d say a long time, but running around the world with their money was also pretty freeing.

That also feels like a lifetime ago now.

Time moves differently around these men.

I’d say it flies when you’re having fun, but so much of this has been filled with grief and misery and pain…

and then the most incredible highs and emotional moments of pure joy.

A lady comes past, walking a pit bull on a leash. The dog’s big jaws are parted in a broad grin, and in that moment I miss Ethel more than I have ever missed anyone. She should have been taken with us. She should have been protected too.

I am so emotional right now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s all just catching up. Living in the bunker has been like being stuck in a sexy pressure cooker. Aiden going away is like a release valve. Everyone is doing things and feeling things they didn’t when he was there.

It sounds like he’s a monster, and that’s because he is, I think.

Aiden has a way of occupying every space he is in completely, of turning the people around him into satellites of his influence.

He might be the most naturally charismatic man I’ve ever met.

In his absence, I find parts of myself that were either soothed into silence, or just straight up suppressed by his presence.

Probably a red flag, but in our world, what fucking isn’t.

My life is a parade of red flags, and the one guy who wasn’t got shot.

So here we are, all struggling to survive while having everything people think they want.

I have a pocket full of cash, three hot boyfriends, and the world at my feet.

But right now, all I want is my little dog.

They said she was being looked after at home.

I let it slide at the time because arguing when you’ve just been chased into a hole in the ground doesn’t really make much sense.

But now I’ve poked my head out again, and I need the one thing in my life that remains innocent and untouched.

God knows that description no longer applies to me.

The house isn’t that far from here. Not really. An hour, maybe, by car. I don’t have a phone on me, because those can be tracked, and that means I can’t call a ride share, but fortunately there’s still a few old-fashioned things in place. Like a taxicab sitting outside the hospital on the rank.

I guess this is a place people come to in taxis often, owing to how much the human body can suck a lot of the time. I tap on the window, and it is wound down to reveal the impatient face of the sort of guy who knows the city inside and out and isn’t going to want to go all that far.

He’s a guy in his forties who looks like he’s been pissed off since his twenties. He’s got at least two decades of road rage building up in him. When I look into his eyes, I see a potential fucking Vesuvius.

I tell him where I want to go. He starts to wind the window up. Asshole. I’d let him do it, but the rest of the rank is empty and I want to go now. So I put my hand in the window and thanks to the people who make new cars, it stops going up. He looks at me, instantly pissed off.

“If I give you five hundred bucks, can you drive to this address, wait for me, and drive back?”

“I’m a taxi,” he says, winding his window back down. “So. Yes.”

“I know you’re a taxi. I was asking if that’s enough money.”

The driver nods, acting like he never tried to taxi ghost me in the first place. “That’s enough.”

I get in the cab, knowing that I am going to piss everybody off doing this, but I’ll have Ethel by the time they work out what I’ve done, and that is the most important thing.

I keep leaving her behind in order to go and do stupid things.

She deserves for me to do at least one stupid thing in order for me to be with her.

That rationalization feels solid enough to keep me afloat for the drive to the house.

I try not to think about what the boys will say, or how I’m probably going to have to beg them not to tell Aiden.

I don’t know why I fear him so much. He’s never been overly harsh with me.

Leo is probably the one to most watch out for. I just know that Aiden is going to…

“We’re here. You want me to wait?”

“Yes, please,” I say. “This shouldn’t take long. Leave the engine running, maybe.”

“Why, you about to rob the place?”

“Do I look like a robber?”

He starts to answer. I get out of the cab, but leave the rear door open. He leaves the engine running. I guess I am about to rob the place, though whoever is looking after my baby dog should know I exist and just give her to me.

I go up to the front of the house, through the gates, which are open, and knock on the door. I instantly hear Ethel’s mad yapping. I smile broadly, my eyes full of tears. She’s right through that door, and I’m about to be reunited with her.

“Shut up, you little bag of bones!” a rough voice calls out.

I see red as a curtain of rage descends over my eyes. How dare they speak to my baby that way? Someone paid to care for her, speaking to her with cold cruelty?

The door is already opening when I kick it in. Someone inside curses as the door hits them somewhere on their body. I hope it’s their face. Ethel comes out at me like a furious elderly missile. I scoop her up in my arms and I run back to the cab as fast as I can.

“Go!”

The guy is good enough to actually take off when I ask him to, but he slows down after a block or so. The negotiation I feared is about to happen.

Ethel burrows into my arms, flattening herself like a pancake inside my embrace. I don’t know how she always seems to understand what is going on, when she hardly understands the concept of being housebroken, but she gets me.

Tears of joy and relief run down my face. I knew I wanted to get her, but I had no idea how much emotion I was really holding back. My life has forced me to be controlled almost all the time. I can’t afford to be emotional usually. I have to fit in, be safe, and be logical.

Ethel has never been any of those things. I want to be more like Ethel. I think, maybe, I am starting to be.

“It’s extra to take a dog in the cab,” the driver says.

“How much extra?”

“Two hundred. Cleaning fee.”

I’m used to being kidnapped. Being robbed is new. I don’t much like it, but it’s less of a general inconvenience, I guess.

“Fine,” I say.

He seems happy that I’ve agreed, but a few minutes later I notice that we have slowed to an absolute crawl.

“What’s taking so long?”

“Traffic,” he says.

I keep checking my watch. They’re going to think I’ve gone missing. They’re going to be so angry. And there’s nothing I can do…

“Can I borrow your phone, please?”

“Sure,” he says. “It will be fifty bucks.”

I sigh and hand him a fifty-dollar bill. Then I take his phone and look up the hospital and call reception.

“I need to speak to a patient there,” I say. “Leo Levin. It’s extremely important.”

The lady on the other end does not care about my declared extreme importance. She deals with life and death every day and she thinks I am being dramatic. But she does try to put me through to Leo. It takes a long time. I get bounced between different departments.

Then, finally, Leo’s voice comes on the line.

“Hello?”

“Oh, my god, Leo!” I say.

“What’s wrong?” His voice is tense. “Where are you? What happened?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just went a bit further away than I thought and I’m stuck in traffic. I’ll be there soon. Don’t freak out, okay. Everything is fine.”

I hear him move the phone away from his face. “Luke. She’s on the call. She’s okay.”

Luke says something I can’t make out.

There’s a pause on the other end of the line before Leo speaks again. “You know you’re in trouble, don’t you?”

I also pause, though not for the same reason.

“Yes,” I say eventually. “I’m going to be there soon though, I promise. We’re just on the bridge.”

“We will be at the hospital,” Leo says. “Call again if anything else happens.”

“I will.”