“Nope,” Danny answered, pulling his own helmet on as he spoke. It was a strangely foreign sight, and it occurred to me this was actually the norm and I’d just grown used to riding with a man who never wore a helmet. “She’s back at my place fer the time being; sleepin’ off a long night.”
“Your place, huh? Has she tried to make a move on you?” I smirked, remembering how Candy was during her first meeting with Danny. She hadn’t been shy about showing her disappointment when Danny confessed to her, but it seemed to me that she’d seen this more as a hurdle to be vaulted rather than a dead end to be abandoned.
“We’ve gotten past that, I think,” Danny replied, his eyes twinkling with merriment as he glanced back at me.
“Oh?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at the tone in his voice. “And why do you think that?”
“Because she walked in on me buried to the hilt in another guy,” he answered, kicking the motorcycle to life and letting out a laugh that rumbled along with the engine. “She wanted t’know if I’d seen her body glitter,” he went on. “Long story short:” he started us rolling and started laughing all over again, “I had!”
Then we were both laughing together as we rode off.
The feeling was completely different than when I had ridden with Jace, but I could still feel myself relaxing. The sensation gave me that same freedom I had felt before, though there was an undeniable difference in the machines, and I relished the sensation.
God! I’d really, really needed this!
Needed to stop thinking, even if only for a brief moment.
I moved my hands to Danny’s stomach, chuckling at how much more stomach there was to hold onto, and Danny turned his head to glance back at me. “I heard that, girlie!” he had to yell to be heard over the roar of the engine. “Ol’ Mercury’s got a gut, no hidin’ it, but I ain’t had a complaint about my it yet! Just more meat to throw around, y’know?”
“I bet,” I called back as I coughed on a laugh and held on tighter, shaking my head at that.
I caught sight of Danny grinning as he turned back to face the road, revving the engine as he began to speed out of the hospital’s parking garage. I closed my eyes, allowing the sensation of the bike to take over. A sensation of nothingness grew and I welcomed it. Welcomed the lack of thoughts, lack of emotions, lack of…everything.
I was, for that instant, free from my own burdens; free from my own mind.
And, again, it was exactly what I needed.
There was no pain; no Jace; no threat of gang war.
There was just the air on my face; just the nothingness of flying—sweet, sweet nothingness.
Then, not long after, I felt the bike was slowing and, with it, I felt everything start to come back at once.
It was a jolt of awareness, and I held back the whimper that threatened to spill past my lips as everything came back to me. Taking a deep breath, I held it together—knowing I had to be strong for myself. I had to be strong for Jace.
Like Danny said, he would wake up. I had to have faith in that thought. No matter what Depression tried to tell me.
Moving off the bike, I looked up towards Danny’s place. It was a small ranch-style home and even with how dark it was, I was struck to see that it was painted bright pink. I blinked, glancing over at Danny.
Before I could think it over, I heard myself say, “Don’t tell me you chose this paintjob.”
“What? Don’t like it?” Danny grinned. “Well, too bad. Pink’s my favorite color.”
God help me, I couldn’t help it. I fell forward across the motorcycle in laughter. Tears streamed down my eyes at just how ridiculous this was. The idea of a large, tattooed motorcycle gang member who spoke like he was from the south telling me that he deliberately made his house pink—that his favorite color was pink—was so over-the-top hilarious that I felt like I’d died and been reborn in a Saturday morning cartoon.
“There ya go,” Danny laughed as well, patting my back. “It is kinda ugly, ain’t it?” he admitted with a sigh, shaking his head. “Something I didn’t exactly consider when I picked it.”
I was about to say something—maybe something reassuring or maybe something playfully mean, I was still undecided—when the front door swung open, lighting up the front entrance from the light that spilled out from inside. Hearing a familiar, high-pitched squeal, I looked over in time to see Candy running towards us. I gasped as her arms wrapped around me, squeezing me tightly against her, in an embrace that was as much a hug as it was a standing tackle. With Candy’s arms around me, I finally let loose everything I had been holding back. The tears finally fell. The emotion finally came screaming out of me and Candy was there to take it. She was there to hold it all together for me.
“There, there,” Candy whispered, shifting gears quickly from girly and excited to motherly and comforting. “Let’s get inside, shall we?”
I nodded against her and let her lead me inside, Danny lumbering after not far behind. We moved into a brightly lit living room and sat down on a large sofa. I fell back against the softness, my eye lids beginning to grow heavy. Candy stroked my hair as Danny thumped past. The two exchanged words, but I was suddenly having a very hard time grabbing the words out of the air.
I…
I needed this.
That damn waiting room; that damn chair…
Candy kissed the top of my head and said something that made me smile, though I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was a moment later.
She was right. Just like Danny had been right.
I… needed…
****
I came awake to the small of eggs and bacon and coffee. Anybody who says it’s not the best way to wake up is a liar, and it doesn’t take a college education or a lick of street cred to know that fact of life.
I sat up from the sofa, stretching out and loosing a yawn that was borderline orgasmic as I did. Floating on the euphoria that comes from good rest and glad awakenings, I followed my nose towards the source of the aroma and spotted Candy through the divide that separated the living room from the kitchen. She was standing over a stove, wearing an apron over an otherwise topless torso; a pair of loose-fitting pajama bottoms keeping her from being totally naked.
I peeled myself from the sofa, amazed at just how much better I had felt in such a short period. I had slept long and hard and was grateful at how dreamless my sleep had been. I bit my lip as flashes of the nightmare from the waiting room came to mind and quickly shook them away. I stepped into the kitchen and saw that Danny was sitting at a small table off to the side of the kitchen, looking down at a stack of papers.
“Mornin’, girlie,” he said, looking up from his work. “Sleep well?”
“I did, surprisingly,” I smiled. “Thanks again for this, Dan—uh, Mercury. I obviously needed this.”
“No duh!” Candy said, turning to half-face me from her pan of sizzling bacon. An aggressive amount of side-boob stared back, as well.
I blinked at the jiggly display and looked back at Danny, who was already consulting his papers once again. “That doesn’t bother you?” I asked.
He shrugged, not bothering to look up—obviously knowing to what I was referring. “Tits is tits, girlie. Even I got ‘em.”
Candy giggled at that and gave three little hops to get her assets bouncing. A pink patch of areola peeked out on the second and third, but went back into hiding once she stopped. “Long as I’m makin’ bacon he wouldn’t care if I was fisting my—”
“Don’t be too certain, jiggles,” Danny interrupted her, giving her a stern look. “Ya can air out the girls, sure, but don’t be thinkin’ this means a damn thing.”
“This is because I caught him having sex with a guy,” Candy mock-whispered behind a the flat of her hand. “Two of them were covered in my body glitter. All of it. All… of… it!” she giggled at the confession and shrugged, giving her breasts another victorious shake as she returned to her cooking. “Now I get to ‘air out the girls’ all I want
.”
“Jus’ so long as ye’re ready for it when I start airin’ out mine,” Danny muttered before taking a sip from a nearby coffee mug.
“Hope you’re hungry!” Candy said, ignoring him. “I’ve got about a pound of bacon cooking here and almost a dozen eggs!”
“That much?” I blinked. “Do you really think we’ll be able to eat all that?”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Danny scoffed. “What do ya think happened to the other pound of bacon and dozen eggs?”
I stared at him, stunned.
Candy just nodded that, yes, he was serious.
I laughed and moved to sit beside Danny at the table and glanced down at the papers. I could see something about the Carrion Crew before he moved the stack away, setting it face down on the table. I looked up at him and saw that his face had gone serious and he shook his head at me.
“What is all that?” I asked.
“Oh, this? This here’s a big stack of you don’t need to worry about what all this is,” he replied.
I looked over to Candy and saw that she had gone back to cooking, deliberately ignoring us as she did. I frowned, feeling that something was up, and leaned over, snatching one of the sheets of paper and looked down, freezing.
The page appeared to be a printout from a series of one-sided text messages:
Papa Raven is sending additional
crew into the city.
Eager to see a return on lost
profits.
Not happy about losing product.
Enlisting support of known CC
allies and dependents.
Known Crow informants missing.
Increased security measures
suggested.
“What is this, Danny?” I asked again.
Danny let out a sigh that sounded more like a growl and snatched the page out of my hand. “We are taking care of it, Mia,” he said in an eerily different voice; his hands working the array of pages into a sloppy pile that crammed them blindly into the folder. “These are just notes from an informant we are working with.”
“This didn’t end with T-Built, did it?” I bit my lip.
Danny only stared at me.
“Of course it wouldn’t. Shit! I’m so stupid!” I groaned.
“Hey,” Danny said, moving his hand over mine. “This ain’t yer fault. It ain’t any of ours. It’s that damn Carrion Crew! They started all this shit years ago, and they’ve just been itching for an excuse to escalate things ever since. Now they got a reason, and that gives us a reason to up our own game. And, simply put, that means we will end it. As soon as Jace is up, I’ve got some plans to stop them once and for all.”
“At what cost?” I glanced up. “We got lucky this time, sure, but what if we aren’t so lucky next time?”
“Then we deal with it,” Candy replied, looking over from the stove. “That’s what we do, right? We dealt with working with T-Built. We’ll deal with this too. Together.”
I frowned at that, not satisfied with the cliché speech and all its empty promises. “And you, Danny? You’ve already been shot over this! What if you aren’t so lucky next time?” I demanded, eager for a little sense to counter Candy’s blind optimism.
“Me?” Danny scoffed and shrugged, the look on his face almost childlike. “I been shot before, gonna prolly be shot again, I’m sure,” he smirked and shrugged. “Yeah, I got lucky. Luck’s part of the life, girlie. Explosion knocked me down, kitchen held together decent enough so I didn’t get burned up too bad from any falling nastiness. I got saved from a belly full o’ smoke, an’ T-Built is—was—a lousy shot. Missed all the good parts. Hurt like a whore…” he trailed off and gave the two of us a look. “Sorry,” he offered.
I blushed.
Candy smirked and shrugged.
“But, yeah, shit fuckin’ hurt good enough. So I stayed down after Jace emptied his piece into yer old boss. Somewhere along the line I musta gotten sleepy, fell into a sorta doze. Doctors called it somethin’ else, but—”
“‘Something else,’ in this case, being cardiac arrest,” Candy injected then, shaking her head and beginning to plate the bacon. “The big bear was saved by a heart attack of all things.”
I blinked at that, a myriad of questions coming up in response to this new information, but the one that burst forth was, “Should you really be eating bacon if—”
“SO HELP ME!” Danny growled, slamming a fist on the table, “If I gotta hear ‘bout my fucking heart and whether I should be eating this-or-that I swear—I fucking swear it—today will be the day that bitches die!”
“Yeah, yeah, tubby,” Candy said, rolling her eyes at him. “You’ll get your bacon, ya dick-loving oinker, but don’t you come sobbing grease to me when you’re doubled over all over again, got it?”
“Deal,” Danny said, perking up at the promise. Then, offering me a shrug, he continued on his prior point: “Either way, we’re past that mess and working to clean up any others, alright? It’s what we do, Mia; it’s what I do. I been doin’ it for a long time, too—ever since Jace’s daddy first ran things. I knew what kinda work it was then, and I’m still willin’ to do it now. Hell, I love my job! This ain’t gonna stop me. Ya’ve got a choice, though; ya both do,” he said, nodding to the two of us. “So if ya don’t wanna be a part of this, ya don’t have to be.”
“And leave those girls to the streets where the Crew can just pluck them up all over again?” Candy asked. “No fucking thanks!”
I frowned and shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere, either. It’d mean leaving Jace, and I won’t do that; not for the world. Plus, if what you paper says is right and the Carrion Crew is on the lookout for me, well, it’s only a matter of time, right? Wouldn’t be smart to cut out and run from the only people who can do anything to help me.”
Danny nodded at that and took a long, deep breath. I stayed quiet, glancing down as I fought to stay calm. Though it was vague and unclear to me, it sounded like Candy’s and my escape from our “employers” had started things moving in a dangerous direction. I wasn’t sure if it was me, personally, that they were after or if they viewed all of their prostitutes as nothing more than property that they were eager to reclaim, but, either way, it meant I was far from safe for the time being. Moreover, it was putting everyone else—especially Jace—in a great deal more danger. I clenched my eyes shut, needing to think. I’d have to be careful until Jace was awake.
If Jace ever does wake up…
“Let’s eat!” Candy said, interrupting my depression and setting down a plate filled with eggs and bacon in front of me.
I glanced down at the heap of breakfast food and while I had thought it impossible to feel hungry with everything happening, I was proven wrong as my stomach let out a loud growl. Deciding that there was nothing more we could do until Jace woke, I swallowed back the panic and concerns I had with the Carrion crew and began to eat.
“And mine?” Danny asked, looking up as Candy settled in beside me and began to eat from her own plate of food.
“Burn a calorie; save your heart,” she said around a mouthful of eggs, nodding back to the counter where the third plate was waiting.
“Whore,” Danny grumbled, pulling himself up to retrieve it.
“Faggot,” Candy said back after him with a laugh.
The way the two said it, I could tell it was a back-and-forth they’d already shared—and, from the looks of it, laughed over—a few dozen times already.
Twenty minutes later and there was nothing left. We had killed almost a dozen eggs and nearly a pound of bacon. Groaning, full, I sat back on the couch, Danny and Candy sitting around me as we relaxed after the meal and I looked over at Candy.
“Thanks for this, Candy,” I smiled. “This was—”
“‘—exactly what I needed,’” both Candy and Danny said in unison.
I blushed, realizing I might’ve said that once or twice already.
“I know,” Candy said with a nod. “Glad to see you back to
your usual self, at least somewhat.”
I smiled back at her, reminded all over again of how lucky I was to have her in my life, even if the circumstances surrounding our meeting weren’t the best ones. Then, sighing, I turned back to Danny and asked, “Mind if we go to visit Jace?”
“Ya sure ya want to? No call prolly means no change, y’know,” he warned.
I nodded and offered a halfhearted shrug, saying “Visiting hours,” like it really meant something. It did to me, anyway.
Obviously it did to him, too.
Standing, he said, “Ya promise to come back afterward? I have another guest room ya can stay in, an’ I’d feel better with ya here over slummin’ it in the ER’s waitin’ room.”
I realized that while it was phrased as a question, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. “I will,” I nodded.
“Good, then let’s get going!” Danny said, beginning to gather his things. “Ya need anything while we’re out, Candy?”
“Lube, licorice, and lice shampoo for you, you mangy beast!” Candy called after.
“Never gets old,” Danny grumbled, leading me to the door.
****
The heavy dread was upon me the moment we walked through the sliding doors and into the waiting room. It was like a thing—like a flesh-and-blood creature—that I’d left behind and had since been waiting for me to return. Now I was back, and all that heaving, panting negativity was reclaiming me.
I must have made a sound or moved somehow in response to the shift, because Danny suddenly placed his hand on my shoulder and squeezing gently. Reminded of the night before and remembering how good it felt to leave, a part of me felt suddenly eager to turn around all over again. But something—the something; my everything—kept me from doing so. I clenched my eyes shut, fought to regain my composure, and then exhaled what I imagined to be all the toxic air in my system.
I liked to consider myself something of an expert in that subject at the time.
Then, nodding my appreciation to Danny for his support, I stepped free of his hand and started for the front desk. The receptionist, despite knowing that I already had all of the details memorized, ran through the details regarding visiting hours and where we could find Jace before nodding us towards the doors—the divide been us and him, I thought—and buzzed us through. As I crossed the imaginary divide, Depression began to chatter-rape me:
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