Rose (Road Kill MC #3)

by Marata Eros

  Thorn turns on a dime, looming over Kiki, and I think they'll come to blows.

  Kiki drives her finger into his chest. “I'm sorry that you’re glued to Simone and pissed about it.”

  My stomach drops at her words.

  “And that some French dude is sniffing around your girl.”

  His girl. A flutter of excitement develops where churning was.

  “But! That doesn't”—poke—“give ya the right”—stab—“to treat Kiki like shit!”

  Thorn looks at our laced hands, and I let him go.

  He grabs me and shoves my body against his.

  I hide my smile against the flat planes of his chest.

  Thorn sighs, absently stroking my hair. “I'm sorry, Kik. It's been a day.”

  Kiki vigorously nods. “Yeah, first Chet then that weirdo Shepard...”

  Thorn puts a finger under my chin. “We gotta talk.”

  I knew this would come.

  I shake my head, taking a deep breath. “Anything I say will put you in jeopardy.”

  Kiki rolls her eyes. “Jesus, ya assholes, I kinda want to know what the hell you're saying.”

  I feel my face grow hot.

  “I'm sorry. I just... When I get stressed out, English doesn't come first.”

  “What did you say?” Kiki asks.

  I glance at Thorn then at her. “I don't want to be responsible for your life.”

  “Moi?” Kiki asks. Thorn and I cringe. She makes a face at our expressions. “Piss off, elitists.”

  I watch the fine wheels of her mind turn. Her eyes flick to Thorn, then gravitate to mine. “You mean my death?”

  I nod.

  “Well—fuck me.”

  “Yes,” I agree.

  “I need to get my drunk on to deal with these revelations,” Kiki says, moving into the kitchen.

  Clanking and muttering, including the occasional colorful word, reaches us.

  Thorn's lips twitch.

  “She's quite a character,” I observe.

  “Loyal as hell,” he adds.

  The way he says it makes me give him a sidelong glance.

  “Like you?”

  He turns toward me. His palm goes to his chest as though he thinks I've asked the wrong person.

  I put my hand over his. His heart beats beneath our hands.

  I nod. “Like you.”

  He stares at me for a second, his hard eyes edged with softness.

  “Don't tell no one about Thorn.”

  I shake my head. “Never.”

  The secret of his still waters running deep is safe with me. I would never bring a drought to that.

  Thorn guards his goodness so well it would take someone seasoned to see it.

  For what I have to say, he'll need it.

  *

  Kiki slurps the last of her drink, a Sex on the Driveway, and stands. She totters on her heels. “I'm getting another. Any takers?”

  “Ya don't need another one, Kik,” Thorn says in a dry tone.

  I have to agree, but since I'm a guest in her house, I stay silent.

  Her eyes laser on Thorn.

  “Just sayinʼ,” he says.

  “Yeah…?” Her eyebrows pop. “Don't.”

  Thorn's hands dangle between his knees. A muscular leg like a tree trunk presses against mine as we sit on her couch.

  “Fine!” Kiki throws up her hands then looks at me. “Spill.”

  I take a deep breath. Thorn lays his hand on my thigh then lifts it.

  Go ahead, his gesture says.

  “I don't want you to die,” I begin.

  They stare at me. Kiki's eyes are round, and Thorn's are thoughtful.

  She gives a little laugh. “Girl, Kiki doesn't want to die either.”

  I nod quickly, blinking often. I wring my raw hands. I’ve washed them three times, scrubbed off what I've done.

  But my soul remembers: them or me.

  “La foule Français.” My voice is barely above a whisper.

  Kiki taps her chin with a nail tip. “Frenchie?”

  I glance at my clenching hands and nod. “Yes. Shepard.”

  I lift my chin.

  “I am their mule.”

  Thorn gives me a sharp look. I feel he might withdraw from me.

  My bravery balances along a tight wire.

  “What—a donkey?” Kiki asks, and Thorn hangs his head.

  I meet Kiki's eyes. “No, I smuggle drugs to foreign countries and provide... comfort for gentlemen of the trade.”

  Comfort comes out something like criminal.

  I let it stand. My remorse hangs in the air like the smell of rain before it falls.

  “So…” Kiki's eyes train on me with compassion. “You know I love ya, right?”

  I understand the American vernacular well enough to know she means she holds great affection for me.

  I nod.

  “So you put smack in your sweet spot, and then after it's delivered, you screw the men.”

  I close my eyes for a long second. That's not a perfect translation, but it’s close enough.

  I own it, though I am a prisoner. Was.

  “Yes.”

  “How?” Thorn clips. His word is like a painful slap.

  I struggle not to become defensive.

  “The mechanics of it, or why I would do it?”

  Kiki looks from me to Thorn.

  “Holy shit… both, Simone,” he exclaims.

  I search his face. I find many emotions there, including the one I hope for: faith.

  Thorn has faith there's a good reason for what I've done. That he can put it somewhere in his mind that makes sense.

  I start at the beginning. “My grandmother is Nigerian.”

  “I knew you were a sista!” Kiki says, palm up.

  I've never felt less like high-fiving, but I slap her hand anyway.

  Thorn's eyes move over my features. I know that a little bit of my ancestry peeks out around the edges, but generally, people aren’t sharp enough to guess it. They merely lump everyone of color into the same dim category: black.

  I am Simone.

  Actually, I’m Juliette Marcel, and I consider myself French.

  FIFTEEN

  Thorn

  “I know a little about the drug trade,” I say carefully. I watch her face. Shame, remorse, and some other slice of bad hangs around her features, smearing them until I want to wipe away those feelings.

  Her eyes snap to mine. “What?”

  I sigh. This isn't very undercover of me, but basically, my goose is fucking cooked. If my DNA is found at her apartment, I'm linked to those murders. I'm obligated to come forward.

  It's my duty.

  But I can't. If I do, they'll stick a microscope up Simone's ass and never let up.

  She's the victim here. I haven't heard her words yet, but I know it.

  The real story's probably worse than my speculations.

  I scrub my head, slowly letting out the air in my lungs. I think about how she never noticed the cherry on the hood of my car.

  “I'm an undercover cop.”

  Simone shoots up from the couch like a rocket. Kiki gives a little yelp and stands up too, knocking her empty cup over on the coffee table.

  Remnants of Blue Curaçao dribbles over the side and beats a dripping rhythm on the wood floor.

  “Shit!” Simone says in a strangled word, making her way for the door.

  I try to remain calm when every fiber of me wants to freak out. “Simone,” I keep my voice low and steady, “where the fuck do you think you're gonna go?”

  I rise from the couch and move to her. I'm not letting her go out and run into what's-his-nuts.

  She looks so lush standing by the door, her misery like the pull of a magnet. Instead of adding to it like the dysfunctional Thorn of before, I want to erase it. A first.

  I stand in front of her. My hand goes to her nape, and I pull her toward me until our faces align. When a paper can't slide between our lips, I suck at hers. N
ot gently either, sipping, pecking, and bruising her full mouth.

  I want Simone. Murderess. Drug smuggler. Whore for the French mob.

  My words are the shit, but my body shows her what it's really about.

  “God damn,” Kiki says. “I've got a guest room for all that.” Her palm swings behind her.

  My hand sweeps up from Simone's neck and dives into her hair. The other hand joins the first, and I hold her head, moving my lips over hers in a continuous press of heat. I can't stop. Kiki's comments roll off my back into the blankness of I don't give a shit.

  Simone struggles, and my grip tightens for a split second. I need her to know that I want to possess her.

  I finally release her, and she steps away. Her hand automatically goes to her swollen, raw lips.

  “I'm not fucking you over because I'm the law.” I didn't fully appreciate that I wasn't until just then. “I'm telling you so ya know that what you tell Thorn, stays with Thorn. Maybe, because of the work I do, you know I'll get what you say.”

  Simone sinks in a recliner directly behind her, and my hands reluctantly trail off her body. She's not sitting to relax. She perches on the end of the seat like a fragile bird readying for flight.

  She lifts a shaky hand to push her heavy black hair out of her face.

  “I'm more than a mule.”

  Sounds like a confession.

  Kiki moves to stand beside me.

  “I'm highly trained.” Her eyes bounce to ours then glance away. “Hand-to-hand combat, martial arts, sex. I speak four languages and have a running knowledge of the government in six countries.”

  Kiki whistles. “Damn, you're like a spy or something.”

  Simone shakes her hands slowly.

  I crouch, taking her hands in my own. “Then what are you?”

  “Yeah.”

  This from Kiki.

  “I'm a girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  I stroke her knuckles.

  They're missing skin. She packed some punches against those perps. Like anyone in a fight, she won't feel the abuse she sustained until it's over.

  “I was fourteen when I met Shep.” Her words are soft, but her breaths come faster when she talks about that French prick.

  I want to kick his ass so bad, I can feel the texture of his blood on my hands.

  “What?” Kiki asks. “I won't lie, I'm not digginʼ where this is going...”

  Me neither.

  Simone speaks to the hands I hold. They grow cool within my grasp.

  “He's a cherry picker.”

  I stiffen, totally connecting the dots for the meaning behind those words.

  “He acquires new talent. Young girls who are exotic enough to blend into whatever country they visit, beautiful enough to appeal to many foreign nationals... and smart enough to be taught defense, linguistics, and etiquette.”

  “That's not all he does, is it?” Kiki guesses softly.

  The first hot splash of tears hits my hand. I gather her into my lap and sit back on my ass.

  “How old, Simone?” I ask, not wanting the answer, but needing it.

  She sucks in a sobbing breath. “Shep waited until I was sixteen.”

  What a dick.

  “That fucking perv!” Kiki yells.

  I hug Simone tight. Kiki and me—we get it. We were used when we were young too.

  Doesn't make it right, but we know.

  Simone pulls away, looking deeply into my eyes. My heart.

  Soul.

  God damn.

  “Technically, no,” she says. “In France, sixteen is the age of consent.”

  Kiki makes a noise. “Yeah, if a girl that age is even consenting to anything.”

  Yeah. “I know what sixteen is... and any girl that age is too young,” I say.

  Simone nods. “Shep's considered a ʽtender picker.ʼ” Simone gives a little shiver, and not a good one. “Some would have taken my virginity the instant they sealed the deal.”

  “Did you have a choice?” In a low voice, I add, “Did you fucking consent, Simone? Or was it just rape?”

  Her face tells me, and I pound my fist on the wood floor. Simone hops in my lap from the force.

  She waits through my outburst. “I knew what my place was. I didn't know anything about sex, naked men... any of it. He was decent to me, slow... But I didn't want to, of course. I was sixteen and had no one else.”

  I open my mouth. Simone presses her finger against my lips.

  “Thorn, they owned me.” Her eyes brim, tears slipping onto her face and I catch them before they fall. “I knew the alternative was just someone other than Shepard.”

  She shakes her head. “If you knew what some of the other girls go through... My treatment was humane.”

  “There's not a goddamned thing humane about some man coercing a young girl to give it up because she feels there’s no other option,” Kiki says loudly.

  Simone nods. “You're right.”

  “Hell yeah, I am!” Kiki says emphatically.

  I exhale in a rush. “What happened?”

  “My family sold me.” She says it without flinching, like stating the weather being cold or hot.

  I close my eyes.

  I know exactly where she's at.

  “My grandmother had a debt in Nigeria. They were calling it in. In that country, descendants can be made to pay an elder's debt.” Simone gives a helpless little shrug. “My parents knew that if I did this...”

  She clasps her hands harder.

  I hug her tighter.

  “Then your whole family wouldn't have to pay her debt.”

  Simone gives a single miserable nod.

  “But why did your French parents not see the atrocity of that?”

  “They love me, but my father is half-Nigerian. No matter how much my mother wailed and cried, Shepard got me.”

  “Is that the fucker's real name?” Kiki asks.

  Simone shakes her head. “No, we all have false identities.”

  She trails her hand along my jaw, and I lean into it like a cat for a scratch. “What is your real name, Thorn?”

  I smile, and she feels my happiness fill her hand.

  “Tyson Marius Simon.”

  “Wow,” she breathes. “A mouthful.”

  I kiss her palm. I know what I want to put in her mouth. Then I frown. Her story sucks balls, and I'm thinking sex. Balls. Sex. Nice, Thorn.

  “Is Simone your name?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “My name is a secret no one has known in the seven years since I was taken.”

  I wait, and she looks at Kiki. But her eyes come back to mine.

  “Juliette.”

  “Oh my God,” Kiki says with a giggle of delight. “You're her Romeo,” she says to me.

  I guess I am.

  I kiss Juliette softly as my tough heart cracks, absorbing the wounds of hers.

  SIXTEEN

  Juliette

  “Wait a second,” Kiki says, counting on her fingertips. “You're not twenty-three!

  I shake my head. “No, twenty-one.”

  Thorn stands awkwardly. My body weight has been on his lap for a half hour, and he has to be stiff, getting feeling back into his limbs.

  None of that shows.

  He walks me to the couch, cradled in his arms like a precious bundle. He sets me there and runs his hand down my hair.

  “Juliette,” he muses then smiles. “That's an even prettier name than Simone.”

  “I got to pick my name. It's pieces from my family.” I look at them. Shame fills me, but I squash it. I don't see the expected condemnation, only compassion. “My grandmother's maiden name is Balland.”

  “I could listen to you speak French forever,” Kiki says.

  I bite my lip to keep from crying at the small compliment.

  God, I'm so shaky.

  “Hey, baby, settle. It's a good thing,” Kiki says, squeezing my shoulder.

  “I know. I just… God, I'm such a mess. I've fin
ally talked about my dirty deeds, and it feels like such a release. But there's a lot of guilt mixed with it.”

  Kiki nods. “I gotcha. I feel the same way.” She lifts a finger. “Not that I'm not some multi-lingual, gorgeous, talented, smart girl who was made into a drug runner and sex goddess. Nope. But I understand what it is to be made to do things you don't want to do.”

  I look into Kiki's wide-spaced chocolate eyes. She’s too wise to be innocent of some of what I've been through. We may not share the same experiences, but we’re in the same book.

  Thorn lifts my chin again. “It's not your fault, Juliette.”

  I nod, but my heart doesn't believe him. “I've had to do terrible things to survive. Things I never want to do again.”

  “So you escaped?” Thorn asks.

  I nod.

  “Yes.”

  “That was brave,” Kiki says.

  “Yes,” I say without a hint of pride. It was something I could do, an opportunity I took.

  I leap, trusting for what feels like the first time in forever.

  “I—I was at a delegate's personal residence and there was a cherry there...”

  Kiki's eyes widen. “God, seriously? Is that what you call the girls?”

  I look at her. “Yeah. When a girl is first ʽpicked,’ she learns the ropes—if Shep is the man in charge for getting her feet wet in the trade.”

  I admit yet another horrible revelation on top of the others. “A virgin can't carry an Easter egg.”

  Kiki just stares at me and Thorn groans.

  “What. The. Fuck?” Kiki says, looking between the two of us.

  “It's what women put in their vaginas to transport the drugs,” Thorn says, and I nod.

  Kiki looks so disgusted, I don't feel so bad about what I'm going to say. They need to know I don't kill people easily.

  “So this cherry is there in this group of male delegates—”

  “Name?” Kiki asks in a harsh one-word question.

  Like I can forget. Ever.

  “Colette.”

  I inhale sharply. “Shep assigned me to watch her. There's always three sets of eyes on a cherry.” I tick them off on my fingers. “Shepard, of course. Then an experienced girl. In this case, it was me.” I look at them, and their faces are serious but not accusing. I go on. “And the Body.”

  Thorn's eyebrows lift.

  “A guard,” I say.