by Sophia Reed
"Are you listening?" Sarah asked.
"No. You're not saying anything."
Dad opened his mouth, considered which of us would annoy my sisters into explaining in the fastest way possible, and closed his mouth again.
But this time mom had stepped in. Her cheeks were flushed and hectic and she was crying again, though she seemed unaware of it.
"Ed, damn it, you almost died. You had a massive heart attack and heavy blockage. They had to wait to do surgery until you recovered from pneumonia and you still have a rattle when you breathe and don't you fucking dare tell me you don't!"
My mother swearing was enough to make anybody reconsider an argument.
She went on from there to explain that the place was a rehab hospital and to explain, almost patiently, to me that she had told my father, he just kept freaking out and wouldn't listen.
Well, sure. I got that. I reached over and took his hand. He was sitting in a wheelchair even though he was still in a hospital room, which meant Emily and Sarah were sitting on his bed. Jane had taken a chair by the window at some point and my mother was pacing.
And me, I was about to scratch my way out of my skin. Several times during the conversation I'd felt the anxiety ratchet up. That seemed to be the first step for me. If I could find some way to control the anxiety, I might find some way to control the addiction.
Or maybe PD could use the addiction. Maybe I could go even deeper cover. It was a thought. A stupid one but –
"Are you listening?" This time it was my mother asking.
And this time I said, "No. Dad, are you all right with this now?" Please be, I thought, because I'd already gotten to my feet and I just couldn't stay in this hospital room another minute.
"Yeah. Now I'm actually in the loop." He gave my sisters a dark stare but only smiled at my mother. "I know you've got things to do. Just stay safe, you hear me?"
'Yes, sir," I said, and wished I hadn't. Suddenly Cole was on my mind.
"Annie Knox, don't you dare leave this room." My mother started and Dad said, quietly, "Mae. Let it go."
Whatever mom had in mind, if dad was overriding it, I was getting out just in time. I raised an awkward hand at my sisters and made a break for it.
I heard Sarah whisper shouting in the hall the instant the door closed behind her. "Annie Knox, you wait."
Instantly there was a nurse, being far louder and shushing her, and I knew she'd be held up for just long enough.
I hit the next hall at a dead run.
"Young lady!" That was yet another shocked nurse.
I said, "Sorry!" and fled. Ahead of me there were stairs. I sprinted to the exit, grabbed the knob, and went up instead of down.
Sarah followed and I heard her cursing as she came through the metal fire door, then heard her footsteps descending.
I spent a quarter of an hour on the stairs, breathing and thinking. I couldn't talk to Sarah. She made demands and if she got nowhere with me she'd go to mom and mom had to have my number. Sarah had no clue what I did. She probably thought I was some kind of Charlie's Angels private investigator.
Sarah could get me killed.
So could the anxiety that was kicking its way up inside me again.
I didn't go home. First there was coffee, then there was a bar where I bought shots of Patron and downed them like they were antivenom. No one came near me. Obviously when I'm on the job, doing my best at being a high school student, I don't put out vibes of being a cop.
But sometimes in a place like this it's all too obvious. The uniform's still there, even if you haven't worn it in over two years.
The bar wasn't any good for thinking. The bartender wanted to take my keys. I lied and told him I’d come here by bus. No way I was getting stranded a city far away from where I lived.
More coffee after the shots sobered me up. By late afternoon I was ready to head back to Seattle with way too much time to think.
I needed to get back on the job. I was running toward the end of my month anyway and I was clean, or at least I would be by the time day 30 rolled around. Get back to work. Get Samuels to find me a new undercover because that shit was still out there on the streets. Maybe Jesse was gone, that didn't mean someone hadn't instantly moved into his role.
There'd be a period of time that I’d be inhouse, doing paperwork, maybe talking to IAD. I might even have to talk to them about my Dad's case. That was fine. It wasn't like IAD didn't know who I was.
But most of the department didn't know how deep I was. Not when I was working. Only Samuels and whoever he answered to.
So he was the one I needed to talk to.
"Knox?"
"Yeah?" It came out kind of a question, not because I didn't know who I was. Because I didn't know who he was. He wasn't Samuels. A second later I had it. "Charlie?" Tad Charles, big, buff, black and beastly, everyone said. I thought he was a pussycat but maybe only because he actually liked me.
"Damn, girl, you've picked a bad time to resurface. You wanna stay low."
My heart started thudding hard in my chest. Charlie was talking low, trying not to draw attention, though honestly in the PD that probably drew it more than anything else.
"What's going on?" My voice came out harsh and demanding. I was standing on a corner in Portland, not wanting to look too closely at the impulse that had led me to call in while I was still three hours away.
"Clusterfuck," he said. "This one came home. Loot's still in charge, but there's been some rearranging the furniture."
I considered pulling the phone away from my ear. Instead I sighed. "You want to tell me this in English?"
"Not so much," he said, but his voice cleared, and he stopped the hoarse whispering. He must have been alone. "Samuels is out."
That actually made me stagger back a step, my back catching against the wall of one of those bus shelter things. "What? Why? How?"
"Maybe 'cause he's dirty?" Charlie said. "Maybe because he didn't bring you in but hung you out. Don't worry, Annix." That was Charlie's weird nickname for me. "Admin can figure out why you needed the time but they're not saying anything and that means you're still true blue. You're not the first that got her dick wet."
I laughed aloud at that. "And that translates to?"
I could hear the smile in his voice fade. "You okay? I'm not gonna say why I'm asking. I think you know."
I swallowed hard several times and looked out at the Portland day. "I know. They know?"
"They suspect, and that's different. Nobody's bringing anything to your door. Not about that. You've done a lot of good. You come back healthy, they'll let it slide. But Samuels – you worked with him. So give it some time."
That was all he was going to say about it. Honestly? That's probably all I needed to know. Fucking Samuels had fucking sold me to that maniac St. Martin. I couldn't be sorry he was gone, just frustrated I was hung out here until the month ended. With the rising anxiety and everything going on in my life, a month felt like a threat.
It felt dangerous.
4
Cole
The girl on the bed was close to bleeding. The ladder on her ass, up her hip, down along her thighs, was bright red and already trying to bruise. There were flecks of blood along the edges. I'd have to discard the cane afterwards. Maybe force her to take it with her.
She'd like that.
Her name was Marilyn. She was tall and strong and took care of her body. Every bit of her was toned and sleek, hairless and shiny. Whatever it was she was atoning for, she'd been coming to me since we met in a bar three months ago. There'd been a break when Annie was first in residence and I needed to concentrate on her, but now Marilyn was back. Back and screaming against the gag, lunging against the restraints that held her up on her knees, on the bed, her arms tugged back behind her. It wasn't an ideal position for caning but I'm damned good at it and it had the added benefit of being horribly uncomfortable for Marilyn.
I was striking where I meant to hit. Laddering her. Leaving stri
pes so close together there'd be no safe place for her to sit tomorrow.
Three last strikes, so close together she didn't even have time to catch her breath. She screamed hard against the gag, thrashing in the restraints, and I moved up behind her, rolled on the condom and took her from behind. My hands went round and pinched, punched and slapped her breasts, making them bounce against her thin frame. There was nothing of kindness in anything I did and nothing but acceptance from her.
The image of Annie, angry, fighting, filled my mind. I thrust it away. There'd been no contact like this between us. I had never had the pleasure of caning her but I would when I brought her back.
Her freedom was temporary and she was a fool if she didn't know that already. There was no way Annie Knox was ready to face the world beyond my compound. She was wounded. She'd been too long undercover and now she was as much a victim as the real victims of the gangs. There had been so much stress on her, she'd caved. I thought she was stronger than she thought. I thought if it hadn't been for either of the things happening to her father, or Jesse being killed, or the Chinese turning on the buy, or any one of half a dozen other stressors, she might not have broken.
Using fet, a career cop using, that was breaking.
My actions were not noble. I was not putting her back together out of the goodness of my heart. That idiot Samuels selling her to me sealed the deal on his getting fired. I couldn't risk him being around to report what I did on a regular basis, and definitely not what I had done this time.
Buying a cop with bribes is one thing. It's so common that sometimes there's a bidding war. But buying a cop as property? That would be a problem. I was safe enough in that, with records of what I did poised to go out to every media outlet possible if anything should happen to me, the evidence led right back to the police. But even billionaires can be brought down.
Thrusting hard into Marilyn, I made her beg through the gag for me. I pounded into her and I fought to keep Annie's face out of my thoughts. Her face, her slim hips, her curls. Her eyes, so expressive. She wanted something. Something she'd die to find. Something she might die if she didn't find.
How soon could I bring her back? I knew where she was. I knew what she was facing. Samuels hadn't been the only cop I was paying in Seattle.
Annie would break soon. I'd be there when it happened. To pick up the pieces before I broke them again. And again. And again.
Until she was healed.
Or broken for all time.
Until she was mine.
Marilyn writhed under me and I came, pushing her down on the bed before she could do the same.
Then I turned and left her there. She could find her own way out.
I wanted to know where Annie was. I'd figure out then whether or not to bring her back.
5
Annie
When Mark and I were first together, long, lovely Sunday mornings at a pancake house, or stretched out on the couch reading the Sunday paper together over OJ and bacon, or tumbled back into bed, half making out, half sleeping, like puppies cuddling together – those were the things my fantasies revolved around. Actual mornings I then dreamed of for the rest of the week.
Then Mark graduated and went into his internships and residencies and I went undercover with the first wave of high school deaths from fentanyl. Things changed. Not all at once. But gradually. Mark was always gone, always on shift, and he was exhausted when he was home.
Eventually I really was gone all the time, it wasn't just what it felt like. I was living somewhere else, leading a different life, making love, or more honestly, having sex, with another man.
We went on with our routine, fell back into our rhythms when we were both home. But as I became burned out and couldn't admit it, having a long leisurely breakfast at a pancake house made me want to scream. And if Mark was across the breakfast table from me, at home in our apartment, he was reading out a medical book, not reading me snippets of the Washington Post.
Now that I was back, not even of my own accord, but sent back, I had no idea what that would mean for us. Add to that, sometimes I thought I was clean and the craving was psychological, other times it felt like I was going through the longest withdrawal ever.
Into that mix Mark decided to throw a long, slow Sunday morning.
"Would you like coffee?" The waitress wanted to give somebody at the table coffee. Mark's a diet coke kind of guy. I figured they didn’t run to liquid morphine so I ordered tea. Because coffee sometimes was worse than nothing.
"Let me tell you the specials," the waitress went on. She was a bottle redhead, with varicose veins, a walking cliché and she wanted to talk, though it seemed to be on autopilot.
"We know what we want," Mark said. His voice was edgy. The instant we sat down I'd gone through the menu, picked out what I wanted, put it back down, and stared out the window.
That made Mark mad. Now he was mad at everybody.
"We have a Spanish omelet that – "
Mark actually reached out and took the laminated card out of her hands. She stopped and stared at him. So did I.
"I said, we know what we want. I realize this job is mind-numbing, but try not to include us in that."
"Mark!" It takes a lot to shake me but he'd just done it. "I'm sorry," I told the waitress, who made her next mistake.
"Honey, you don't have to apologize for him." She said, sounding like a waitress from some sitcom rather than a real person.
At the same time Mark said, "I do not need you to apologize for me."
Great, now he'd embarrassed me twice. "Go fuck yourself," I told him to his face.
Mark didn't even blink. "I might as well. It's not like you're doing it since you got back. I wish you hadn't even come back."
"You and me both," I shot back, hurt for no reason I could think of. I wished the same thing on an hourly basis.
"Oh, that's just perfect," Mark said, at the same time the waitress said, "I'm going to have to ask you both to leave."
Across from us, the mother of a toddler who was clearly screaming about his sippy cup or some other appalling incident and couldn't possibly hear us over his racket even if we shouted, was glaring at us with the affronted fury of a protective mother who has nothing to protect her gruesome offspring from other than someone's use of profanity.
"Great," I said to the waitress, and shot my own look at the mother. "At least I'll be able to hear myself think again."
Of course he apologized on the drive home. And of course I was there, in the car, though my first thought had been to run like hell.
We'd driven halfway home before he ran a hand through his hair, which was longer and shaggier than I remembered. He didn't look like a medical resident as much as he looked like somebody who’d stumbled in from the street and was given a job in a hospital. Mark has always been a filtered water, farmer's market, fresh-caught salmon and organic turkey breast kind of guy, when he's not doing the whole Sunday morning short stack with a side of bacon to go with his side of bacon. But when I thought about it, the refrigerator had been filled with takeout packets of ketchup, several items past expiration date and actively turning color, and takeout boxes containing what seemed to be science experiments. I thought he'd been surviving on popcorn, spaghetti, toast and Cheerios like some undergrad.
"It's not easy," he said, glancing over at me and then back at the road.
"Nothing that matters is."
He made a sound in his throat. "That's glib, and it sounds like your father."
I swallowed my automatic reply. This time it might have been, Yeah? Well my dad doesn't like you, either. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "What isn't easy?"
"Being in love with you."
That hurt so bad I didn't know how to answer it. My first reaction was to ask if he even still was. My next would have been to question the crack about sex he'd made back at the pancake place. Because we'd been doing it every damn night.
Which was exactly how that would have come out of m
y mouth, so I was glad I had the sense not to start it. "What do you want from me, Mark?" I asked, but it didn't come out as an accusation or in anger. "You knew who and what I was when you met me."
He nodded slowly at that, not looking at me while he waited for a traffic light to change. As he started up he said, "Maybe I thought sometimes you would be something more."
Not something else. Something more.
"Maybe I thought I'd be more important than the job."
"Am I more important than your job?" I asked.
He didn't answer that.
We both apologized.
Neither of us backed down.
When Mark went to work Monday morning, I went to work trying to find Cole. That was crazy, and not something I would have ever thought I'd do. But the craving was back and hotter than ever and I needed him. He hadn't sent me away with the magic opiate cure. If I thought I was ready to be in the real world, he said, then I should be in the real world. That didn't make sense, because other people would get the cures while continuing on with their lives. Unless he meant to only cure people he found interesting or attractive enough to beat on.
But the stuff wasn't yet cleared by the FDA, not that I cared. Fentanyl isn't either. Maybe that was his concern. Whatever.
Sunday night,Mark offered to take me to dinner and I offered to cook and somehow both offers turned into sex that started in the living room and continued into the bedroom, and out again so we could order in pizza, more pizza than we could eat because at that moment we were so fucking hungry and couldn't seem to focus on which of our appetites most needed assuaging.
Our coupling was fast and hot and repeated. It started in one room and went into another. It featured mouths and hands and everything else. And still it maintained a sweetness.
It never rose above love. Or below it.
There was no biting. There was no restraining. There was no hitting. There were no implements.
Mark hadn't been wearing a belt.
