“Not right now, we’re not,” she said and scooted closer. “Where did you get the shades?”
“Glovebox,” he said. “There are power bars in there if you’re hungry.”
“Not yet, but I would kill for a coffee,” she said, then slapped a flat hand to the middle of his chest. “I didn’t mean that we should kill for the coffee. I didn’t mean that. That wasn’t like a request, or a suggestion… or an order.”
“I don’t take orders from you, Cupcake, and I’ll stop when I’m ready to stop.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything else,” she said, hooking her arms onto the back of the seat and extending her legs onto the dash where she pointed her toes. “I still have all my fingers and toes. Guess a night in the snow wasn’t so bad.”
“You spent less than ten minutes in the snow.”
“We’re going to work on your ability to sympathize,” she said. “Did you sleep at all?” He shook his head once. “It would be some kind of ironic if you drove off this road and killed us after what we survived last night.” Pulling her feet from the dash, she crossed her legs and leaned over to put a hand on his forearm. “Do you want me to drive for a while?”
He picked her hand off him again. “You don’t know where we’re going.”
“Does it matter?” she asked, looking at the strip of highway stretched out before them. “It’s not like I can get us lost when our destination is oblivion. We’re together, the zip code we’re in doesn’t matter.” Rora wasn’t really thinking about much when she caught him looking at her. “What?”
His lips parted and she noticed his tongue curled in his mouth. Eventually, he exhaled. “Ireland.”
“What?”
“I was born in Ireland.”
Rora gasped. “You were?” she asked, pouncing onto her knees. He nodded once. “Your parents were Irish?”
“I didn’t say that. But the physical process of birth, it happened in Ireland. I was born and she died on the Emerald Isle.”
Rubbing his leg, Rora let her hand push up to his inner thigh. “I always thought Irishmen were sexy.”
“I don’t have a birth certificate,” he said. “It’s true that I have no nationality. My birth wasn’t registered anywhere. Ever.”
This show of trust invigorated her to the point of arousal. The great and powerful Exile was handing her his past, showing her that he trusted her in a way far more intimate than any sex act could convey.
“How do you know? If there was no one there?”
Another breath in, she could tell he was uncomfortable and her stomach flipped. “My father,” he said.
“You knew your father,” she said, exhaling her clarity. “Oh my God, Strike.”
“He was a… a super professor, genius guy… After my mom got pregnant, he withdrew from the world, most people thought he was dead. Wasn’t easy to track him.”
“Not for a mere mortal,” she said, and bowed to trace her lips on his wrist, her breath prickling the hairs on the back of his forearm. “You found him?”
“He never claimed me. Obviously. She worked in his department, she was his subordinate.” So, it wasn’t like a back alley, middle-of-the-night rape. His mother had been raped by a man she knew, one she probably trusted. A revered man of superior intellect, she probably didn’t see the violation coming. “He paid my grandfather a fortune to keep quiet. Old man went through that money fast, extorted more, he had an easy life. He took me from Ireland to India, Thailand, Moscow, we never stopped… Made it easier for me to kill him. I don’t remember much about him beyond that.”
“Did he love you?”
“The old man?” he asked and scoffed. “Nah, I spent most of my life on the street, I was looked after by neighbors, or whoever walked by… he disappeared to blow through the cash, and he’d come back to switch countries and beat me some until my father sent more dough. Rinse, repeat.”
“Do you think he was punishing you for your father’s crimes? He lost his daughter and maybe he wouldn’t have if…”
“If I hadn’t been born?”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said, curling her hands around his forearm to rest her head on it. “You weren’t to blame for your grandfather’s hatred, or your mother’s death. Your father was. He did this. To all of you.”
Pulling his arm out from beneath her hands, he rubbed his own thigh in a sign of discomfort with her touch and with what he was confessing. “I’ve never talked about any of this stuff.”
“I know,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. She wasn’t going to push him when he was proving he’d come to her on his own. But it was obvious he’d never been able to trust anyone. He hadn’t even trusted Bella enough to reveal Opal’s name to her. “I’m honored you chose to confide in me and I won’t ever breathe a word to anyone.”
“I know,” he said, glancing at her. “Smothering is still on the table.”
She smiled at him and he did his best to reciprocate, but it seemed his lips just couldn’t figure out what they were supposed to do. “You can always tell me anything, but… why did you choose now?”
“You were fearless last night,” he said, fixating on the road. “For a girl who says she’s always chased by fear, you didn’t hesitate when I told you to move. I told you to jump and you jumped.”
Because she trusted him, probably more than she should, given some events of their past. But it wasn’t easy to accept feelings like the ones he provoked in her. Chances were, he was going through the same things she was because they weren’t that different in many ways, even though there was no doubt his journey had been harder than hers. But that just meant he’d need a little more time to accept that she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I don’t want you to change, Strike,” she said, letting him know that he didn’t need to prove anything to her. “I don’t need you to be anything other than what you are. I won’t ever judge you for anything.”
“Did you just pluck that straight out of my head?”
He must have been thinking about her judgement or about what she wanted from him. “I wish I could read your mind, Strike,” she said and took a deep breath before twisting to slump against the back of the seat. “Then I would understand why I haven’t gotten laid since we met.”
He didn’t look at her or respond, but when she peeked at him, she was sure there was a hint of a smirk on his face. He enjoyed her, in his own way, even if she didn’t completely understand it.
eighteen
“You’re going to stay here,” Strike said when he dropped his hand from between her shoulder blades.
“I’m going to stay here,” she repeated, scanning the rundown apartment he’d brought her to.
It wasn’t in a block she knew, but it was in a city she recognized because it was the one their story had started in.
“That’s what I just said.”
Strike turned away from her and she grabbed for him, bounding around to get in front of him. “No, I mean, if I’m staying here, where are you going?”
“Business, baby,” he said. “You’re going to be safe here.”
A toilet flushed and the door on the right opened to allow someone to come into the room. “Buddy,” she said and the hulk of a guy smiled at her.
“You look real pretty in daylight.”
It was barely daylight still, and she wasn’t sure if he was implying she didn’t look pretty in the darkness around the Last Resort, but Rora chose not to fixate on that. “Ok, settle down, Bud,” Strike said, putting his hand on her back to push her toward Buddy. “Buddy has clothes and stuff for you; he went out and bought a bunch of women’s things.”
Buddy was about a zillion sizes bigger than her, so he didn’t exactly have a model for the apparel, and she’d never seen him in anything more than jeans and leather vests, so questioned his taste level. But… ok. Some clothes would be better than nothing, Rora just hoped she didn’t live to be proved wrong.
Trying on a polite smile, she didn’t want to be rude. �
�Uh… thanks, Buddy,” she said.
“Everything’s set,” Strike said, but he wasn’t talking to her, he and Buddy were exchanging something significant through their eye contact.
“Yep,” Buddy said.
Strike turned and got to the door before she caught up with him. Pushing the door with her weight, Rora tried to get in front of him again, but he kept hold of the door, so she had to battle to stop him from leaving.
“Flame,” she said, giving the door a hard nudge.
“What?”
“What?” she asked, astonished that he could think he could just walk out and abandon her here. “You just… you’re just going to walk out on me?”
She stumbled when he let go of the door, but he caught her with a hand between her shoulder blades and pushed her back into the room. “You’re going to stay here. Buddy will look out for you. He has a lot of friends around here. You’ll be safe.”
Twisting around, she managed to curve herself into his body and curled her arms against his torso. “That’s not what I’m worried about,” she said. “What about… us?”
His brow dropped, deepening his frown further. “Don’t use cards. Buddy will give you cash. Lay low. You don’t exist anymore anywhere, I erased you. Everything. Kyan’s little sister died in childbirth, never went to school, and was never at that crime scene. Bud will get your new IDs. This is your fresh start.”
She didn’t even know what to say. It wasn’t fair of him to drop this on her like this, seconds before he wanted to abandon her. “Strike,” she whispered.
Touching his index finger to the underside of her chin, he pushed it up. “Chin up, Cupcake.”
He spun around and walked away, out the door, and then he was just… gone.
Rora didn’t know what to do, she wanted to run after him, but her feet were planted to the floor, like they were lodged in concrete. She’d thought they were starting something, that they were going to be a part of each other’s futures, yet all the time he’d been concocting this plan that severed all ties between them.
“No,” she said and took a step forward, but Buddy caught her arm and pulled her back. Rora hadn’t even realized that he was so close behind her. “Let me go, Buddy.”
“You have to stay, Aurora,” he said and for a big guy he managed to soften his voice quite considerably. But after a brief glance at him, she returned her focus to the door. “I tried to tell you, he doesn’t exist.”
But he did. He did exist and she wanted to scream it from the rooftops. Detaching himself from the world was his way of surviving. He hid from the law, kept himself closed off to protect himself and his liberty. Making sure that he had nothing to lose was his way of limiting his vulnerabilities; no one could hurt him if he had no weak spots.
But… she’d thought she was different, that somehow, they were different.
The legend lived through stories. Those who came across him in the real or digital world, told another person their story, it was exaggerated and twisted until he became an untouchable enigma. Now her story would join theirs. Except, she would never tell anyone what he’d told her. She was different. But no matter how much he confessed to her, he wouldn’t accept her, he wouldn’t accept them.
“I love him,” she breathed out.
“Who?” Buddy asked. “There ain’t no one here but you and me.”
His hand slid away from her shoulder and she was left cold, alone, and deeper in grief than she ever had been before.
For two weeks, Rora stared at that door.
Buddy wasn’t a bad roommate. He had a tendency to drink too much beer and belch too much, but cooking and cleaning up kept her busy. Buddy insisted that she stay in the apartment most of the time. He wouldn’t let her think about getting a job or socializing beyond the times he took her into Last Resort, which she’d actually come to see as a comfort.
Although Buddy usually put her at the end of the bar while he went to shoot pool, she’d sometimes stare at the corner where she’d met Strike. She resented anyone else who ever sat there and often wanted to go scare them away just in case Strike came back and wanted his table.
He didn’t.
It was evening in the apartment and she was sitting in her armchair, fixated on the front door, as she often was when she was here. He’d left her. He’d turned his back on her and walked out that door like she was nothing, like she was the kind of woman who’d just lay down to be walked over.
But the woman who walked into Last Resort that first night wasn’t a pushover. The woman who’d been ready to take an insane female as a lover wasn’t squeamish. The woman who’d jumped from the window of a burning building wasn’t easily scared.
And damn it, he’d bought her a cupcake. That meant something whether he would say it aloud or not.
“You hungry?” Buddy asked. He was seated on the threadbare couch perpendicular to her chair. The beer in his hand was propped on the arm of the couch, his attention stuck on the TV.
“No,” she murmured, letting her feet slide down from the seat.
“I feel like Chinese… or pizza… what do you think?”
“That I’m not done,” she said and stood up.
He looked up at her. “What?” She started across the living room. “Where you going?”
Snagging the baseball bat that stood in the corner by the front door, she tossed it up onto her shoulder and marched out, determination in her gait. She was halfway down the stairs by the time Buddy caught up to her.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, Rora, what’s going on? Why do you look all… edgy and angry like that?”
Stopping at the communal entrance, she twisted to snarl at him, “Because he’s not allowed to walk away from me.”
Kicking the door open, she ran down the stairs, widened her grip on the bat and swung at the windshield of the car parked on the street. “Hell!” Buddy hollered.
Smashing a headlight on the same car, she moved to the next one to swing the bat at its quarter panel. “What are you doing?” Buddy asked as car alarms began to blare. “Oh my God!”
Taking out a parking meter, she went on to smash the window of the storefront on the corner. “Yo! Bitch!” someone screamed.
But there were plenty of voices rushing toward her, all angry, all looking for a piece of her. Rora grinned and swung at the back window of another car. After pulling the bat from the hole she’d just left in that window, Rora walked out into the street, looking straight ahead, ignoring the blaring horns, not caring that she was stopping traffic.
One car screeched to a halt and she turned to narrow her eyes on the driver for getting so close to her. “Get the fuck out of the road!” the driver screamed out his window. “You crazy, bitch?”
The corner of her mouth curled, and she lifted the bat up over her head. “You bet your ass I am,” she said and brought the bat down in the center of the hood.
The guy started cursing and swearing at her. He leaped out of his car, but she propped the bat on her shoulder and sashayed across to the opposite street without slowing for him.
Buddy had his work cut out holding back the crowd coming after her, baying for blood. Beating the crap out of another car, and another, she didn’t slow down even when she heard the sirens blaring.
Police cars screeched down the street and stopped all around her, one even bumped onto the sidewalk, blocking her from turning the corner. She didn’t even pause; she swung hard, putting her bat through the police car headlight. Half a dozen cops jumped out of three different cars, pulled their guns and demanded she drop her weapon.
Letting the bat fall from her hands, she locked her hands behind her head and smiled when a cop ran up behind her and threw her down on the hood of the cop car she’d just trashed. He grabbed her wrist to turn her hand down against her lower back.
“I was just getting warmed up,” she said when he clamped the cuffs around her wrists. “Can I request a cell with a view?”
She was hauled up. The cops struggled to hold back th
e masses who wanted her head. Every uniform looked at her like she was insane, and she didn’t doubt that she was.
Just before she was pushed down into the cop car, she saw Buddy at the edge of the group. The poor guy looked terrified, but she smiled and winked. As far as she was concerned, there wasn’t a thing to worry about.
nineteen
“Do you want to explain your actions?” the first cop asked.
Turning her lips into her mouth, Rora struggled to contain her smile. Blinking her wide eyes down to the table, she touched the edge of her paper cup with the tip of her finger, resting her cuffed wrists on the tabletop.
“You’re in a lot of trouble,” cop two said. “You caused thousands of dollars in property damage.”
“The owners will be compensated,” she said, taking a drip of her water to her mouth with a fingertip.
“By you?” cop one asked. “We can see to that, if you give us your name and address.”
Squeezing her lips between her teeth, she shook her head and for a flicker of a moment, she understood the seduction of insanity. It felt good to be free of all fear. The cops certainly thought she was nuts and she considered that they may be right.
Rora wouldn’t give them any of her details. She had no ID on her, no fingerprints in the system. They’d demanded a DNA swab, but she refused to give one, even though she was confident that they wouldn’t link her to Kyan, even if they did run her DNA.
The door to the interrogation room opened and the cops turned. They might not have been expecting anyone to interrupt, but she had.
When she saw her old friend Torres there, just inside the door, she smiled.
“Who are you?” cop one asked, leaping to his feet.
Torres flashed a badge at him and the cop looked staggered. His partner got up, amazed. “You’ve got yourselves quite a prize here,” Torres said. Rora turned her smile down to the table. “I’ve got this from here.”
The cops faltered like they might consider objecting to this intrusion by another agency, but one nudged the other, shoving him to the door, and they gave up the fight.
Hide & Seek Page 16
