by Callie Hart
“Tommy.”
“Mitch. What the fuck is going on?”
“Uhhh… Nikki wasn’t feeling well. We were out having a few drinks and she asked us to bring her home, so—”
Lies. He’s lying to me. I can see it all over his face. I can fucking smell it on him. I can also smell something else: excitement turned sour. I know the look of a guilty man. I know the tremble in a scared man’s hand, and I know the look of panic in someone’s eye when they’ve been caught doing something bad. Something very, very bad. “Why don’t you put her down on the sofa,” I say calmly. “I can take it from here.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right. If you’re sure you don’t mind?”
“Not at all. If she’s sick, someone should be here to take care of her.”
“Fuck this,” the other guy says—the guy I don’t recognize. “There are two of us and one of him, man,” he hisses under his breath. I pretend I didn’t hear him, turning to face him, squinting at him.
“I don’t know you. What’s your name?”
“I’m Manny Barrows. What’s your name, motherfucker?”
“Me? My name is Thomas Kendrick. Tommy to some, but other people have been known to refer to me as Havoc from time to time.”
The mouthy bastard pales. He knows, then. He’s heard of me. He doesn’t sound like he’s from New Orleans, but if he’s been here long enough, he’s probably heard my name whispered quietly in certain circles.
“Oh,” he says.
“Yeah. Oh.”
“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Mitch says. “Let’s just leave Nikita here with you and we’ll go.”
“Okay. Sounds like a good idea.”
Mitch doesn’t make a move to put Nikita down, though. He looks like he’s about to bolt back out of the door with her. “Look, Tommy, this really isn’t what it looks like…”
“What does it look like?”
Mitch shifts from one foot to the other. “Like…I don’t know. Like something untoward.”
“Put her down on the sofa, Mitch.”
“Fuck.” He cautiously makes his way to the sofa and he tips Nikita over his shoulder, letting her fall onto the cushions with zero care. Motherfucker. Her eyes are open. Her pupils are shot to all hell, blown way bigger than they ought to, obliterating her unique irises altogether. She looks at me, and I can see how panicked and how angry she is. God knows what these punks have given her, but looks like she’s completely paralyzed. My muscles twitch and jump, adrenaline spiking high in my blood stream. My breath is coming in quicker and quicker with each inhalation, but I do my best to hide my agitation. Turning to Mitch, I hold out my hand.
“What?” he asks.
“Her keys. You did just drive up in her car, right? You did just let yourself into her place? So you’ve got her keys.”
“Right. Yeah. Give them to him, dude,” he says to Barrows. The other guy holds out the small set of keys. His hand is steady, but I can see the doubt in his eyes. He doesn’t want to get close to me. Not close enough to place something into my hand, anyway. He gets within a few feet of me, then tosses the keys. “There you go, man.”
I catch them out of the air, nodding. “Thank you. I think it’s time both of you get out of here, don’t you?”
“Yes. Yes, thanks, Tommy,” Mitch says. “We really appreciate the help.”
I give him a tight smile—the most convincing smile I can manage. I know what I look like, though. I’m a great white shark, baring its teeth when I smile like this. “No problem.”
The two men rush for the door, both of them practically tripping over their own feet in their rush to leave.
“Hold up a second,” I say quietly. Both of them freeze, their shoulders tense, almost hitched up around their ears. “I think Nikita wants to say something.” I stand by Nikita on the couch, looking down at her. There are tears welling in her eyes; they spill over, fat drops racing down over her temples, over her cheeks, her earlobes. Her mouth isn’t moving, but she’s speaking volumes with what little body language she can muster. Her hands are clenched tight into fists, her knuckles blanched white.
“What’s that?” I say, angling my head, making a show of trying to listen. “Kill the bastards? You want me to kill them?”
She closes her eyes, more tears overflowing as she sucks in a pained sob.
“Whoa, look, man. This had nothing to do with me,” Mitch’s friend says. “It was all his idea. He was pissed at her, said we ought to teach her a lesson. He told me she was into this kind of shit. That she likes it.”
“She likes it?” I look down at Nikita on the couch. Her chest is heaving, her eyes, now open again, filled with panic and fear. “Get over here,” I snap. When he doesn’t move, I lunge, fastening my hand around the back of his neck, dragging him over to the sofa. Mitch shifts, putting one hand on the door handle. “I swear to fucking God, if you open that door, I will rip your balls from your body via your mouth, do you hear me, motherfucker?”
He removes his hand from the doorknob. “This is stupid, Tommy,” he says. “We were just fucking around. She’s been leading me on for months and then I hear she’s been hooking up with another guy. It can drive you crazy, right? I just wanted to teach her a lesson. You know what it’s like, man.”
“I have no idea what the fuck that’s like. When a woman’s been flirting with me, she sure as fuck isn’t gonna go sleep with another guy. No fucking way. I’m guessing she’s never been remotely interested in you, Mitch. And even if she was and she changed her mind, that’s her fucking right. You don’t get to teach her a lesson. You get to thank god that you’re still privileged enough to breathe the same air as her, and you get to move on. Now, this…” I jerk Barrows, shoving him forward so he can get a proper look at Nikita. “This is fucking unacceptable. Does it look like she’s enjoying this to you, asshole? Does it look like she likes it?”
Barrows whimpers as I tighten my hold around the back of his neck. “N—no. No, it doesn’t.”
“What were you going to do to her once you got her back here?” I snarl.
“Nothing. Nothing! We were just going to frighten her and then leave. That’s it. That’s all, I swear!”
More fucking lies. I’ve done a stellar job of keeping my fury in check until now, but hearing this bullshit spewing from his mouth leaves my self-control in tatters. I take the keys in my hand, and I form a fist. Less than a second later, I’m making contact with Barrows’s cheek, and three of the jagged keys are ploughing straight into his face. The metal punches through skin and muscle. The metal scrapes over bone. Barrows hollers, a shapeless shout of agony and surprise, and then he collapses backward, his legs buckling out from underneath him.
“Ahhhh! Motherfucker! My fucking face!”
Mitch makes a dash for it. He rips the front door open, and then he’s running across the front yard, sprinting out into the street. He clearly keeps up on his cardio. The bastard could run track for the state of Louisiana. I’m fast too, though. Faster than he thinks. He slows just enough to cast a look over his shoulder, and boom! I launch myself at him, tackling him, sending him crashing down to the ground. His head bounces off the concrete, a loud crrrack jarring through both his body and mine.
I’m about to turn him over, to pummel his face into a bloody, unrecognizable mess, when a loud whoop whoop-ing sound cuts through the night air. I haven’t noticed the police cruiser until now. I look up and the blue, black and white vehicle is screeching to a halt in front of us. Mitch starts laughing. “Oh, boy, Kendrick. You’re fucked…now, my…friend,” he wheezes.
“Down on the ground,” a voice announces from the cruiser’s loudspeaker. “Down on the ground with your hands above your head.”
Fuck. Fuck, shit, fuck. Of all the times to be caught by the cops. Do I have any outstanding warrants with New Orleans P.D.? Fuck, I don’t think so. Who knows, though? Guess I’m about to find out. My body feels weighted, made of lead as I climb off of Mitch’s body and lay myself down on the ground
beside him. The bastard’s still laughing silently to himself, his shoulders shaking up and down. He stays where he is on the ground, but he turns his head to look at me. “You’re so screwed,” he informs me. “They’re gonna send you back to the Parish for this. And guess who’ll be there to make your life a living fucking hell? I’m gonna make sure you wish you’d never been born. And Nikita? I’ll be raping her virgin ass every night of the fucking week, you punk.” He spits, aiming for my face. Lucky for him he misses or he’d be dead in three seconds flat, cops or no cops.
The doors slam on the cruiser, two loud thuds, and then I watch as two sets of polished leather boots approach. The cops stop in front of me and Mitch lying on the ground; I chance a look up and both of them have their weapons drawn, flashlights shining down on us.
“Well I’ll be damned,” one of them says. “If it isn’t Thomas Kendrick.”
“For real?” The flashlights go out, and then the officer on the right crouches down, leaning forward to get a better look at me. I look him in the eye, jaw clenched, nostrils flared as I get ready for what comes next. I’ve been beaten black and blue at the hands of disgruntled cops before. I’ve suffered countless broken ribs and concussions for resisting arrest. I’m notorious in this city, a difficult man to bring down. They always used to make the rookies try and cuff me, just for shits and giggles, before the senior officers would bring out the Tasers.
This guy doesn’t look apprehensive, though. He looks amazed. “Well fuck me sideways,” he says, scratching at his jaw with the end of his gun.
“Officer, this man attacked and assaulted me,” Mitch says. “I’m a correctional officer at Orleans Parish Prison. I was just walking down the street and he came out of nowhere. I believe he used to be incarcerated at the prison. He must have recognized me or something and felt like chasing me down.”
Slowly, the cop turns his head to look at Mitch. He squints, apparently taking stock of the man. Then, to me he says, “Is this true? Did you attack this man for no reason?”
“I attacked him because he drugged and was about to rape someone. I’d call that a pretty good reason.”
The cops exchange looks, then the one asking the questions stands up, holstering his gun. “All right. On your feet, both of you.”
Mitch’s eyes nearly pop right out of his head. “You’re not going to cuff him first?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“Fuck! You guys are fucking incompetent,” Mitch hisses through his teeth. He pushes up from the ground, hopping to his feet, his whole body rigid. “You could learn a thing or two about how to handle prisoners from us, y’know. Damn it, give me your handcuffs. I’ll do it myself.”
The cop on the left laughs. Just once. Then he raises his gun, still in his hand, and shoots Mitch in the leg. The gunshot is like a whip of thunder snapping across the sky; the sound echoes off the houses, repeating once, twice, three times before dying somewhere in the distance. Mitch drops to one knee, a look of unparalleled surprise on his face.
“What the fuck?” he gasps. “You just shot me.”
“He’s smart, this one.” I can see his badge now, reflecting under the streetlights: Officer Friday. The other cop’s badge reads Broussard. Broussard, the guy who crouched down, looks familiar somehow. I make to get up, and Friday holds his hand out to help me. This is about as strange a turn of events as I could have hoped for.
“Glad to see you’re back in the neighborhood, Tommy,” Friday says. “We heard you were gonna be fighting again. We’ve been taking bets down at the precinct.”
“I have a grand riding on you, Tee,” Broussard says, clapping me on the shoulder. “I saw your last fight back in oh-three. Man, that shit got nasty real quick toward the end there. The Bastien girl… That was a crying shame, it really was.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mitch wails. “He’s a goddamn criminal. You have to arrest him.”
“Sounds to me like you’re the criminal here,” Broussard replies. “Tommy was chasing you down ’cause you’re some sort of sexual predator.”
Mitch laughs nervously, his voice high-pitched, hands jittery as he holds them to the bullet wound in his thigh. “How are you gonna trust his word over mine, man? I work in law enforcement, too. I’m like you. He’s a fucking thug with a rap sheet longer than my right arm.”
Both the cops ignore him. “This woman was a friend of yours?” Friday asks.
“She is,” I reply.
He nods, swapping yet another questioning look with his partner. They appear to come to a decision. “You want us to deal with this for you, then?” Broussard asks.
“What? No. No! You’re just going to shoot me because he says I was going to do something?”
Broussard shrugs. “Like I said. I have a grand riding on him winning his fight at the end of the month. How can he win if he’s locked up? Honestly, though, I’d shoot you simply because he asked me to. You Parish assholes are all the same. You think your shit don’t stink because they gave you a uniform. Let me tell you something, though. You’re all pussy-ass bitches. There aren’t ten of you cunts worth one of us.” Broussard sends me a questioning look. “Can’t really let him go now anyway, can we?”
“Then I guess you know what you have to do,” I say.
“No. No! For fuck’s sake, what are you—” Mitch’s protests are cut short. Friday clocks him with the butt of his police issue weapon, and the man slumps into a boneless heap in the middle of the road. The cop grabs him under the arms and proceeds to drag him to the cruiser. Broussard claps me on the shoulder, grinning. “Win that fight, huh, Tommy? You’ll make me one happy man if you do.”
God, this is seriously fucking surreal. I manage to keep my shit together, though. “Have I ever lost?”
Broussard nods, happy with my answer, then he turns and helps his partner lift Mitch’s body into the back of the cruiser.
I run back to Nikita’s house, completely stunned. When I get there, Nikita is still laid out on the couch, and Barrows is nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NIKITA
My head is killing me. It feels like it’s in a vice and someone is slowly tightening the clamps on either side of my temples. I don’t wake with a hazy uncertainty clouding my mind. I remember exactly what happened last night, every last terrible second of it, and I panic, immediately trying to move my arms and legs. My heart slams in my chest as my body jolts, nearly sending me tumbling out of my bed and onto the floor.
Relief follows next. A great, overwhelming wall of relief. I can move. I can move. I’m okay. I cover my face with both my hands and I try and catch my breath, but my pulse is racing out of control.
“I see you’re awake, then.”
I sit up, my stomach pitching violently as I scramble back in my bed, gathering my sheets around me. Tommy’s sitting in a chair at the side of my bed, his face expressionless, hands stacked on his stomach, feet crossed at the ankle. “You’re still here,” I say. Talk about stating the obvious.
He nods, pouting, looking slowly around the room. “Looks like it.”
“You were here last night when they brought me home.”
“I was. And don’t even consider getting shitty with me about that. If I hadn’t been, those two fuckers would have…well. They would have.”
I cover my face again. I don’t know how to handle this. I have no clue what I’m supposed to say or do right now. The fact of the matter is that I want to crawl across the bed and into his lap, and I want him to stroke my hair and pet me, telling me everything is going to be okay while I cry my eyes out.
My body won’t let me do that, though. It simply won’t allow it to happen. I’ve been conditioned against such displays of weakness, hard wired not to accommodate them. Even crying is almost impossible for me. Almost. I managed last night just fine.
“I can go now if you want,” he says quietly.
I inhale, filling my lungs until it feels like they’re going to burst. “No. No, I do
n’t want you to go. I’d prefer if you stayed.” My voice is so small, I’m surprised he even hears me.
“I can do that.”
“Thank you.” I hitch my knees up to my chin, pressing my forehead against my thighs, hugging myself. I fully intend on staying here like this for as long as I possibly can, but then I feel the bed dip and Tommy’s next to me, his arm around me, pulling me into him. He lies down on the bed, and I’m enveloped in his touch and the smell of him. It’s strange how his smell is so familiar to me already. It’s been two days. Three now, I suppose. It’s as though he’s already engrained in my memory. My body recognizes his. It’s frightening in a way. I haven’t felt this connected to a guy since Alex, and look how that turned out. I decided a long time ago that being independent, never letting a man into my life, was the best way for me to live. Sleep with them when I really felt the need, sure. Go on a date here and there. Keep things simple, though. Don’t commit. Don’t rely on anyone. Don’t feel too much. Don’t feel anything at all if it can be helped.
The problem is that I can feel myself wanting to bend those rules with Tommy. Crazy, I know. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. There’s a magnetism between us, though. Some kind of draw between us. I’m not saying I couldn’t walk away from him at this point. I could. It wouldn’t be easy, though. It wouldn’t make me happy. He constantly occupies my thoughts. I don’t see how that would change if I asked him to leave now and told him never to come back.
“Barrows bailed as soon as you left. What happened to Mitch?” I whisper. Tommy’s quiet for a long time. After a while, I don’t really need him to answer. I know Mitch won’t be turning up for work any time soon. For a second I think I’m okay with the not knowing, but something twists inside me and I simply blurt out the question. “Did you kill him?” I’ve asked this question to people before. Men locked away inside the Parish. Men awaiting trial. Never a man I’m clinging to for dear life. A man who’s gently kissing the top of my head.
