Final Day

by Megan Erickson

  A buzzing sound filled the small apartment, and his foggy brain took a minute to catch up that his cell phone was going off. After a quick glance at the caller ID, he picked up. “Yeah.”

  “Jock.” Roarke’s voice was low and calm in his ear. “How’s it going?”

  “Going,” he answered as he powered down his computer. He stood up, stretched, and took a sip of cold coffee.

  “Anything?”

  “No hits on her cell records, bank account, or apartment security.”

  Roarke’s voice was muffled as he repeated Jock’s words, probably to Wren, his girlfriend. Back in college Wren and Fiona had been friends, and both had been taken by the bastards. Wren had escaped quickly. Fiona didn’t get away until weeks later.

  Wren’s voice filtered through the phone, and then Roarke was back. “Wren, uh, wants to know Fiona’s mood or attitude. Is she happy?”

  Roarke sounded as uncomfortable asking the question as Jock felt answering it. “Fuck if I know.” He couldn’t read women that well, even if he’d known them for years. He’d only been observing Fiona for two weeks. Except sometimes he did notice the nervous habit she had of biting her nails, the way she kept her hand tucked into her purse when she did leave the house, and the brisk way she walked. “Always on alert,” he added.

  “How so?”

  “Takes stock of her surroundings, hates something at her six,” Jock answered. “Equipment in her apartment shows some history of self-defense classes. She works out, stays in shape. Runs on her treadmill.” He liked that about her. Tracking her while she ran outside sounded like a nightmare.

  “Okay, that’s good. Sorry, we can’t risk Wren calling her so…”

  “It’s fine.”

  “We can relieve you if you want. Marisol’s from the Bronx—”

  “Got it handled,” Jock said quickly. The thought of someone else—even a member of their crew—taking over this job didn’t sit well with him. He knew the lay of the land. He knew Fiona and her schedule. He’d lived a long time learning the person he could trust the most was himself.

  “Okay,” Roarke said slowly. “Any problems, hit us up. You’re doing us a favor.”

  Roarke didn’t realize how much this job wasn’t about the crew anymore. This wasn’t for Wren or Roarke or anything. This was a job that Jock had volunteered for and one he’d see through to the bitter end. He was committed now. “Alerts are all on, so gonna get some sleep.”

  “You do that. Later, Jock.”

  He hung up the phone and glanced at the time. Almost seven. She’d be out soon. He stood near his window, where his blinds were drawn but left open just enough for him to see outside.

  The sun wasn’t high in the sky yet, and the air had that hazy, humid look to it. It’d be hot today.

  The staircase door opened and Sundance exited first, nose down on the pavement. Fiona stepped out behind him and blinked up at the sun. She wore a pair of loose cotton shorts and a thin tank top. Thin enough that he could see the outline of her dark bra underneath. She wore her hair in a messy knot on top of her head, but strands escaped, falling in tendrils around her face.

  Objectively, she was a beautiful woman. Subjectively, he was attracted to her. And personally, he’d once allowed himself to wonder what it would be like to touch her. The time she’d nodded at him. Then he’d locked it all down, cut off the feeling, and focused on the job.

  As far as he could tell, she didn’t date. She had no dating profile on any dating sites. Her apartment was stocked for her and her alone. He’d searched it when he’d first arrived for any bugs, and found nothing. Although he had found a variety of vibrators in the drawer of her bedside table. He’d worked really hard to forget about that, but clearly he hadn’t. He was tasked to keep her safe, even if that meant from him, too.

  She let the leash go, and Sundance wandered around the small courtyard as he usually did, sniffing plants and small bushes, doing his business and marking everything he could.

  Fiona sat down on a small stone bench, pulled a paperback out of the back of her waistband, and began to read.

  Jock didn’t move, only watched her. The way she bit her lip and ran her fingers over the edge of the cover, the way her head turned as she read from page to page. She read romance and mystery novels. She alternated. The last couple of days she had been reading a romance novel, and she was almost finished with it.

  She read another twenty pages—he counted—and then she turned the last page. Her shoulders heaved with a sigh, and she closed the book, setting it gently in her lap. Her head came up, and her eyes looked wet. Unless he was imagining it, or it was allergies. She ran her hand under her nose and stared at the apartments around her. Her eyes passed over the window where he looked out, and for a moment he swore that she saw him, locking eyes, before her head turned.

  He sucked in a breath at the expression on her face. Wistful? See, now Wren had him worrying about emotions. He didn’t know what to name emotions. His spanned a whole spectrum of three—calm, annoyed, and angry.

  Then she whistled softly. Sundance picked up the end of his lead and trotted after her as she walked back into the building. When the door shut behind her, Jock closed his eyes. That was it. That was the last he’d see of her until the next day. He hated it a bit, that he couldn’t keep an eye on her all the time, but he was used to it now after two weeks.

  She’d taken Sundance to the dog park yesterday—the park being one of the rare places she went to when she left her apartment—and she only went three days a week, so he had some time to sleep now.

  After checking to make sure all his alarms were working to alert him to any breaches in his security, he stripped down to his boxers and slid into bed. He didn’t even remember his head hitting the pillow.

  * * *

  The humidity was so thick Fiona could barely breathe. Add to that the ever-present Brooklyn smell of the nearby restaurants’ meat and spices, plus the exhaust from way too many vehicles, and she was about done.

  She hadn’t brought Sundance. As she ducked her head and speed-walked up the street to her Bushwick apartment, she felt naked without her constant canine companion. This had been stupid, but the grocery order she’d placed had come in and her usual delivery person hadn’t been available. She hadn’t wanted a stranger at the door so she’d gone to pick it up. Juggling groceries and her dog had seemed like a difficult task when she’d decided to go. Now she wished she’d brought him. At least she had her weapons in her purse.

  She thanked her workout routine for her arms, but even this short of a walk was taxing as she regripped her heavy bag, hitched her purse up higher on her shoulder, and continued on. Despite the neighborhood’s low crime rate—having decreased in the last decade despite Bushwick’s reputation—she didn’t feel safe. She hadn’t felt safe for over ten years. She’d probably never feel safe again.

  “Calm your shit, Fi,” she whispered to herself as she blinked sweat out of her eyes and squinted at the glare of the evening sun. She’d give just about anything to head to the park down the street and read her book there on a bench without a care in the world, but she didn’t remember what that was like. Maybe she’d try it with Sundance soon.

  She passed an alley and a chain link fence rattled. Her steps faltered and her stomach cramped with nerves. No, no, no. No way would she be caught out here like this, on a hot night with a clear sky, carrying produce. Had she really needed fresh vegetables that badly? She couldn’t have lived on the canned goods for a while?

  She picked up the pace, and by the time she turned the corner two blocks away she was winded and all her senses were on alert. The instinct she hadn’t had ten years ago, but the one she had now, was in full-alarm mode, blaring in her brain, coursing through her bloodstream like a shot of adrenaline.

  She tried to calm herself, thinking about the book she’d just read, but even an eighteenth-century widow finding love with an outlaw gunslinger wasn’t enough to take her mind off whatever the hell was movin
g in the corner of her vision.

  Something was there—alive. And that something could range from a rat to a kid to an adult person intent on doing her harm.

  Another block. Close to home. People here kept to themselves, and the last thing she needed was attention. A cat screeched and sprinted out of the hallway, just as a human-shaped shadow melted back into the alley.

  Nope, that was enough.

  She drew her gun, silencer attached, and pointed it at the dark hallway. Overkill, but no way would she be caught vulnerable again. “Who’s there?”

  No answer. Not even a breeze. But something had scared the cat, and she’d seen the shadow. “I have a gun. Tell me who you are before I start shooting.”

  A rustle followed her words, a scuff sound of shoes on macadam, stepping on trash, and then a figure emerged from the alley. Her eyes adjusted to take in a massive man—tall, broad-shouldered, and scowling, and that was all she needed to know.

  She pulled the trigger.

  The bullet whizzed by the man’s head and he jerked to the side, his hand coming up quickly to cup his ear. “Fuck, woman!” He pulled his lips back in a grimace, and she knew she should feel bad but it’d only been a warning shot. She hadn’t hit him.

  He dropped his hand and dark red blood dripped from his earlobe. Okay, oops? She’d tried to miss. Still, she didn’t drop the gun. What normal person skulked around in an alley? “What do you want?” she asked, trying to control the shaking in her voice. “Next time I won’t miss.”

  He held his hands out to his sides, palms facing her, and his expression looked bored. “Put the gun away.”

  “You’re not in a position to make demands.”

  “You just shot me in broad daylight.”

  “I’d call this dusk, to be honest.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, and she wondered why he didn’t look more scared. Oh shit, were there more of him? More big-ass dudes lurking in the shadows? She took her eyes off him for a minute and glanced around.

  Big mistake. Huge.

  For such a large man, he moved with a quickness that took her off guard. He had the gun out of her hands and his beefy arms wrapped around her body within seconds, incapacitating her.

  Her heart beat against her ribcage like the bones were prison bars, which only made her feel more trapped as she was pressed against the man’s body, her back to his front, and well within the shadows of the alley.

  Her purse had a Taser and pepper spray but she couldn’t get to it now, not with the man squeezing her. She wouldn’t cry. Not now. Tears would get her nowhere. Hell, they had never even gotten her out of a speeding ticket.

  “Fiona.” His voice was deep, and the rumble in his chest vibrated against her back. He knew her name, and the only answer that gave her was that she was fucked. She closed her eyes and swallowed, taking the time to gather some strength before she went full-on wildcat to get out of his grip. He took a deep breath. “I’m friends with Wren.”

  Her eyes flew open and she stared out into the street. Those were not the four words she’d thought he’d say. She tried not to react, not to show that she knew Wren, in case he was feeling her out. “What?”

  “Wren Lee, Korean-American. Parents live in Erie. Brother’s name is Erick. You and her went to school together.”

  She wasn’t prepared for this kind of conversation. She’d assumed if they ever sent someone after her, they’d kill her on the spot. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Another sigh. “Not going to hurt you. Will you promise to stay put if I let you go?”

  She snorted. “No.” Then she clacked her jaw shut. Shit, she was stupid. She couldn’t have just said yes?

  He paused for a minute and then made a huffing sound that might have been a laugh. “You shot my ear. Think you owe me five minutes without running. Not. Going. To. Hurt. You. Okay?”

  His arms loosened and blood rushed back into her hands. She curled her fingers into fists and waited until the heat of his body left her back. Then she whirled around and clutched her purse to her body. She had her pepper spray pulled out and pointed at him just as he pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

  He arched a blond eyebrow at her, but otherwise didn’t make a big deal about the pepper spray pointed at his face.

  He pressed a button and waited, never taking his eyes off her. “Put Wren on,” were the first words he said into the receiver. Then after ten seconds, all he said was, “Made contact.” Then handed the phone out to her.

  She looked at it, then at him, and then back to the phone.

  “Probably have to put the pepper spray away to talk on the phone,” he said slowly, as if she were a scared deer.

  She shoved the canister back into her purse and snatched the phone from him. “Hello?” she said into the receiver.

  “Fiona.”

  The word was a gasp, and Fiona blinked at the brick wall, processing the fact that she hadn’t heard her friend’s voice in nearly a decade. “Wren?”

  “I don’t even know what to say right now. I wasn’t prepared…what happened? Did someone try to hurt you?”

  “Uh, I shot some guy.” That was all she managed to say as she stared at the man in front of her, standing with his hands on his hips, blood dripping from his ear.

  “You shot someone?” Wren asked.

  “The guy who handed me the phone?”

  “You shot Jock?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t introduce himself. He was hiding in an alley like a creepy person, and I freaked out and shot him!”

  “Is he okay?” Wren’s voice was reaching screech levels.

  “Fine.” The man, who Fiona assumed was Jock, muttered loud enough for the phone to pick up.

  “It’s like…his ear, I think. I meant to miss, honestly.”

  “I’m kind of proud of you. I like knowing you’re up there, capable of defending yourself.” There was a smile in Wren’s voice, and Fiona’s heart ached. She missed girls’ nights out. Girl talk. All the things that came from talking woman-to-woman with someone who knew you better than anyone else. She’d had that at one time with Wren.

  But that was before…before everything.

  She cleared her throat. “So can you tell me…?”

  “Oh right,” Wren cleared her throat. “So that’s Jock, and you can trust him. He’s been there for about a week watching out for you…” Her voice changed, and Fiona braced. “I can explain, or Jock can, but we have reason to believe they are looking for you. Actively looking.”

  Fiona’s throat constricted, and a panic attack like she hadn’t had in years—that Sundance had seemed to placate—threatened to drown her. She flared her nostrils, seeking more oxygen just as the edges of her vision began to blur. Fuck, fuck, all of this just for some fucking kale…

  His arms were around her again, but this time they weren’t contracting. There was something else about them, something that didn’t elevate the panic attack but certainly didn’t make it better. Wren was still talking, her voice sounding more frantic. Then the phone was out of her hand, and a deep voice murmured. She couldn’t concentrate on the words.

  Fiona’s legs buckled and she wanted to cry for being this weak, for being unable to handle this news. She’d feared this for so long and had known it could happen, but the actual truth was too much.

  She never hit the ground, though, despite her body giving out. She was airborne, and although that deep voice was no longer in her ear, a warm body cradled hers. Her fingers slipped into coarse hair and she held on, not sure where she was being taken, but Wren’s words telling her she could trust this giant of a man were on a repeat in her mind.

  Trust him. When was the last time she’d trusted anyone but herself?

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