by Liz Lorde
I loosed a palpable sigh of relief, trying to ignore the shaking in my legs and the hurt in my heart.
Chapter 14
Hunter
It was turning into midday already and I still couldn’t get her out of my mind. Still couldn’t remove the glow she’d put on me; like I’d been blessed by the lips of some angel that I’d ripped from heaven’s charge.
I just couldn’t believe that she left without saying a word. Made the anger boil in my knuckles and a hurt slash at my chest.
Reyes and Jameson were guarding on the inside of the rented out shack of an apartment, along with a prospect we’d picked up. He went by the name of Chris Easy, always down to help, always slow to temper and always quick to bed a woman. He was a good kid at heart, reminded me of myself a little bit – or how I used to see myself at least; I’d always been kind of the opposite. Quick to anger, quick to fuck and quicker still to speak my mind.
The years with the Reapers had calmed me though, had served to put a leash on that inner beast that dwelled within me. The one that I thought Jessica could tame. Of course, now I started to doubt that – I’d thought we had a real connection. Was I just some dick to blow off after a good lay? I couldn’t accept that. No.
The thought of still not being officially patched ate away at me. It was a highly unusual case, but Brad assured me that when everyone came around to the vote, that I would be in. Impatience and hurt gnawed at my chest all the same, though.
I found myself grinding my teeth ever so slightly at the prospect of being used. I hated it. And I hated it even more for the fact that I god damn—well, it ripped me up inside too much to dwell on. But I felt something for that girl; and I’d made sure to check her place after I’d managed to wake up and get my morning routine settled. She wasn’t to be found. Guess she was at her apartment or whatever it was that she did – Reyes had told me that he didn’t trust her, and I’d told him to go fuck himself, not that it was much different from what I normally told him.
Still, the crazy bastard had always had the club’s interests at the core of his heart. He was truly devoted. Maybe even more than me.
I lit my cigarette, making the end of it cherry red and pulled deep from the stick of ash and pleasure, bringing in a precious flow of smoke and exhaling it in a long, singular breath through my nose and mouth – from anyone else’s perspective I’d surely look like a bull. Still nothing out on the streets, ‘sides a lot of empty noise and passing cars. I was on lookout for the Niners, bunch of rag-tag sons of bitches that kept getting a hit on our re-supply zones, specifically this apartment on River and Franklin. For the most part we could handle those bangers, they were nothing more than the lowest level of black in town – but they did a lot of muscle work for Asher Faux.
Now there was a man’s man; dark as coal and sculpted like half a god, the man ensured absolute perfection by entrusting himself to the best council that money could buy. Asher was what the dudes from the Niners wanted to be – hell every two-bit crook in the city wish’d they could be like him. Suave, smart and powerful.
Money’d never been my motive, but even I held a couple of pangs of envy for the man.
So, I was stuck up on guard duty, wishing I was lookin’ for the girl that stole my breath away – wishin’ that I’d get some answers from the heaven that was her precious lips. Still, if our re-supply got hit again, it’d be the third time this month. Once? Alright, shit happens. Twice? Suspicious as all hell, but three times? That’d only mean one simple thing. Somewhere out there, there was a snitch.
The club did not take kindly to snitching, be it to the law or to anyone outside the club. The brothers and sisters and those pledged to the Hell Reapers were your blood, even above family – because in a way, we were all each other’s family.
They were certainly all that I had left anymore after a lifetime of mistakes, fuck-ups and trusting in the wrong people. At least Jessica, even for all the questions I still had simmering in the back of my head, at least she was a light at the end of this never ending tunnel. My one ladder in the gaping maw that was the cesspool in which we Reapers constantly swam through, struggling and fighting and raging against that terrible tide.
I sucked deep the cigarette hanging off of my lips, my elbows resting on my knees as I sat down on the stoop of some brownstone. Even with some of the shade that I was lucky enough to have, it wasn’t enough to keep me fully shielded from the sun. The day was becoming long and mindlessly boring, worse still, the gnawing at my chest wouldn’t go away no matter how much I smoked or tried to distract my mind.
Flashes of Jessica slammed into my mind and I pulled on that cigarette even harder.
I exhaled another line of smoke and then flicked the cigarette off to the side, pushing myself from my relaxed position on the stoop. Craning my head around, I looked both ways for cars and then walked across the quiet street, making my way to the sidewalk. Narrowly avoiding a few cracks in the pavement, I worked my aching muscles and tired bones – bringing my knees up and ascending the small set of stone steps.
Looking back behind my person, I made certain that there weren’t any figures watching me, making sure that it was all good to play my hand. My gut was what I trusted more than my eyes, and even though I couldn’t be right every time – the recent attacks had all happened in the morning, and the day was proving uneventful enough.
Bringing my fist to the face of the door, I knocked four times at a medium paced tempo – our specific signal that it was one of us and everything was good. Five knocks was to indicate that something was amiss. “It’s Hunter,” I called out, waiting for the boys to get to the door.
After a long moment, of which I hoped they weren’t considering sudden but inevitable betrayal, Reyes unlocked the door and opened it enough to peek his rugged face out. His eyes scanned across the area and then did me over a couple of times.
I shifted in my spot and leaned an arm against the wall of the apartment, “You going to let me in, chief?”
“We don’t change shifts for another hour,” Reyes pointed out. For an American badass, he really was a stickler for rules. Always with a rigidity to him.
“I’m losing my mind out here,” I groaned, looking back behind my person and then turning back to Reyes. “Can you smell the ash on me?” I asked, pushing out an exaggerated breath at his face. “Think I went through a pack of Newports; you know I counted how many people walked by today?”
To me, Reyes was like a grizzly bear. He grumbled something deep from his chest, and the hard lines of his face – which I’m sure he practiced in a mirror every morning of his damn life – softened just enough to remind me there was a man inside of that façade of hardass. “I know brother,” he said with some sympathy, “I didn’t like it either, but it’s two inside, one out. That’s what Brad said,” Reyes nodded more to himself than to me, “it’s what he said.”
I sighed, “I know what he said. I know what’s been going on, but this isn’t even part of the pattern,” I argued, “I’m itchin’ to go man.”
Reyes held his position as loyal and true guardian of the drug door. I wondered when the wedding would be. “You’re itching to see that girl,” Reyes crowed. “How long ‘till you screw her and toss her aside? Days at best, I’d say. For your own good, too.”
Rivulets of fire moved through me and I leaned in closer to Reyes, bringing my tone down from conversational level to a private whisper, “First of all, I don’t know why you guys keep saying that—“
“Because it’s what you do,” Reyes matched my tone immediately, full and harsh and thick from years of smoking and hounding at the booze. “Same as most of us do, ‘cept you’re usually worse with it.”
“I don’t see a woman at your hip,” I barbed at a spot that I knew would hurt the man, couldn’t say why I did it – couldn’t say why it felt good to say it; I loved the man, so why did it bring me even the smallest bit of pleasure to hurt him?
The cascades of guilt and shame quickly followed i
n wake of what I’d said.
“Don’t believe in love,” Reyes said cold as arctic night, “only thing that any of us should believe in, is this right here,” he pounded at his chest, “the club’s all I’ve got. I still haven’t seen enough dedication from you,” he spoke the words like I was some child to scold. He looked around me and muttered that he didn’t like having to keep the door open.
The electricity snaked up my spine. “You’re holding back the vote,” I said with crystal clear realization, some kind of hurt constricting at my throat.
Reyes didn’t say anything with his lips, but his gleaming gray eyes told me the tale. “You’ll get patched in,” he said, “when you’re ready.”
I felt the anger flowing through me, but I stepped back and away from Reyes. “I’m out,” I announced, “get someone else to take my spot.”
“You’re the best spotter we’ve got,” he argued, sticking his head further out of the door, “you can’t do this. We need you, and you fucking know that.”
I turned around and descended the steps calling out to him as I walked away, “Not my problem to make everything my problem. Let someone else learn how to handle that shit, I’ve got my own shit to worry about,” I looked over my shoulder at Reyes, “’sides I’m not ready.”
I didn’t know if I was doing the completely wrong thing or not, but I couldn’t be expected to handle everything for the club even as the so called golden boy.
They’d just have to find someone else for today, I’d got better things on my mind.
Chapter 15
Jessica
“Hey, I’m here to see Beatrice Ives,” I smiled and told Carl Hemlocke at the front desk of Mercy Hospital. The hospital had a cold and lifeless look to it, one that was a kind of clinical fixedness to its existence. Every light was hung perfectly and made the utmost sense in its location for performing a function, bathing the whole place in a white light. The windows beside the waiting area sat there like tall glass soldiers guarding the hospital from nightfall, each one of them tightly knit next to the other and reaching almost to the ceiling.
Normally they kept my mother in room 34A, but for whatever reason every couple of weeks they would bounce her to other rooms – I suspected that it had something to do with rich clients, as the room that she was normally kept in was a cut well above the rest.
“Haven’t seen your pretty face in a while,” Carl confessed, rolling a couple of feet to the left in his beige desk chair. The P.A above droned on about a doctor LeMarchand; the sound of people waiting to be seen in the waiting area also filled the air. What with their coughing and sneezing and their high-toned explaining, to what I presumed to be family members on their phones.
“It’s not always easy to break away from the doldrums of the day-to-day,” I replied, leaning up against the bland, massive desk, folding my arms over one another. “I’m sure you know plenty about that,” I felt my lips twist into a broader smirk.
“Hap-solutely,” Carl waved a hand quickly in a gesture before bringing their self to the keyboard of the computer. Carl did not used to always be a man, and in fact, still was not – which was not always easy for me to mentally remember. They preferred a neutral term, and though was much closer to the masculine side – still they held a hint of femininity, though more so in the way they moved and spoke than in the way they fashioned themselves.
Carl typed up a storm on the keyboard, occasionally stopping to click something on the monitor of their screen. “Just one sec my girl,” they assured. Carl had a thick crop of rich neon-green hair that stood up in a proud sort of fluff, a few stray bangs of their hair managing to lazily frame their face. If there was one thing that I learned about them, it was that they were perfectly suited to fit the needs of a hospital receptionist – always without a temper, constantly up to date on things that they shouldn’t even have to be aware of. Cordial, comforting and respective of all things.
The world sorely lacked in Carls.
“No rush,” I affirmed, even though I was tired and stressed from the events earlier in the day. I couldn’t believe that Jerry came to me like that at the office, everyone and their mother must have heard me shout at him. And of course because of that I had to field looks and whispers and go into damage control ‘till my shift ended.
I hated myself for wanting to be held by Hunter. For wanting to be in that bed again, naked and exposed and under his warm gaze, his big strong arms wrapped tightly around me – my head on his chest and listening for that beautiful heartbeat. Closing my eyes, the images of my mind inked over to the thought of him – his perfectly sculpted face and the playful smirk that graced his lips.
I can still smell you if I try. How long, I wondered, would it take for me to forget the smell of him? To forget the scent of our bodies mingled together.
The answer punched into me like a knife: too long.
“Ah here she is,” Carl announced, bringing a hand to their chin and then swiveling over to me, “your mother’s in room thirty-seven A. Tell her I said hello,” Carl blessed me with a warm smile.
“Of course,” I replied, “I will. And thank you. Next time burn me a CD and I’ll check out your band.”
“Oh pft, you wouldn’t like the crap I sing. ‘Sides, I only do the vocals cause our guitarist had food poisoning.”
“Nonsense, I’m sure you’ve got a beautiful singing voice if you’re speaking one’s already so great.” I could see the blush beginning to form in their face.
“Next time,” Carl said defeated, “now go hug your momma.”
I nodded and made my way through the first floor of the hospital and to the stairs. Stairs would keep me busy, stairs would keep me fit. And a busy me, was a me that wasn’t thinking about the man I’d so callously left at the break of dawn.
I lifted a leg up the first stair and cursed beneath my breath. So much for the stairs serving as a distraction.
After a spell of time, I’d worked my way to the third floor. The fourth floor was where I knew my mom to be located, and I’d hoped beyond hope that she was still feeling well enough to talk – it was getting harder and harder for her to find the strength to carry out casual conversation. Reaching the plain white door to the fourth floor, I pushed it open and followed along the guiding lines – taking note of each room number as I neared my mom’s spot.
You can’t be with Hunter. There’s just no way that it could work. Some invisible hand clutched at my heart, cursing me with some hurt that I just couldn’t shake. Perhaps if I wrote the article about the Hell Reapers in such a way, that they didn’t have to be portrayed as criminals, maybe that would work. I chewed on the thought
32…33. No, that’s not what Gates wants I’m sure of it. He’d never go for an angle that didn’t appeal to the story that he wanted to tell, if what I wrote was anything less than damning for them – he would surely have me fall on the sword.
I can’t afford to lose my job. Can’t afford to not write this paper.
I finally reached my mother’s room and I peeked inside to see her laying down in her bed, covered up and reading one of her favorite books The Picture of Dorian Gray. Opening the door and stepping inside, I smiled at her, “Hey mom.” I could make out the steady rhythm of beeps coming from her machine, the IV hooked up to her arm.
Mom whipped her head over to look at me and her lips curled tightly with happiness, “Jessica,” she drawled. “I’m so glad to see you, my Blue Jay.” It was still painful to see her without her hair that she loved so much, where once was tangles of wild orange, only the baldness of her head remained.
“I missed you,” I confessed in a low tone as the door shut behind me and I stepped over to her bedside. “Still reading it eh?” I pointed with my chin at her book.
She looked down almost as if she had forgotten what was there, “Oh, Dorian? Yes,” she chuckled, “you know me, stubborn and always going back to the one’s that I love. I never could get into those books that you tried to persuade me into reading.”
“Not even a little, my sweet Blue Jay,” her smile melted me at my core. Every bone in my body lit up with this great mix of pain and joy, my heart swelling just being around her. She’d called me Blue Jay ever since I was just a young thing; used to talk to the birds when we went on our camping trips in Tallulah, Georgia. Used to always without failure spot those perfect creatures that I’d swear, when I was a kid at least, were called ‘boo jay’. Guess it was something she couldn’t forget either.
Momma Beatrice cleared her throat, “I hate to ask you this—“
“No no,” I insisted, “you don’t have to hate to ask me anything. Uh besides, when I push something from my womb I fully expect you to be the grandma that backs me on having them be my exclusive and eternal minion,” I grinned.
Mom shook her head, but I could tell she liked the idea of being a grandma. “Could you fetch me a glass of water?”
“Of course mom,” I lifted myself from the chair, grabbed her foam cup and carried myself all the way to the water fountain, taking from it a nice, cold sip and making my way back. The door closed behind me again and I handed her the cup.
“Thank you,” she said, always one for manners. Taking the cup from me, her leathery hands shook just a tad. She took a sip of her water, “yes your father really was the patient one of the family,” she set the cup on her nightstand. “Always, always putting up with the things that I would do and say. You know I tried to make sure you never heard me curse,” she gave me a wry look, those crinkled golden eyes full of pride and yet, so too of shame. “Cursed enough for the both of us, I suppose.”
