“And now she’s out of that life,” I pointed out.
“Says who? You? The Carrions? Think about it, Mister Presley! When she was on the streets it was a quick sale! Money changes hands and then they get to put themselves in one of three orifices. Wham, bam, thank you, Mia. Transaction over. Simple enough, sure, but how many of those guys do you think walked off thinking they’d found love? How many likely fantasized about freeing her from that life? Or, at the very least, how many were at least smitten enough to come back again and throw down some more money? I’d imagine a great many, right? Sort of goes hand-in-hand with salesmanship to work for repeat business, and there’s no denying that Mia’s great at selling. Always has been. Twist the details of a story here, embellish there, and suddenly she’s the poor little girl who was trapped in a basement with a corpse. Next thing you know the whole city’s pouting beside her and chastising the big, bad brother for putting her in that horrible, horrible situation. But nobody ever caught wind of the detail that she was the one that wanted to go to that house in the first place—that it was her idea to find out what was in that locked basement—and that I was the one tagging along to help her do it. When she wanted to see a new movie but didn’t have the dough or a ride to the theater, some pouty lips aimed at the right jock were just the ticket. And, if you ask me, those same lips probably did a little more than just pout to make sure the deal was sealed. And that was well before she was fifteen, Mister Presley. But nobody ever thought to stop her; she was too good at selling herself as either the good girl or the victim every step of the way. Good girls and victims get public handouts, and what she couldn’t get being a good girl or a victim she was sure to get by being a slut behind closed doors.”
“I swear to Christ,” I said, seething, “I am a red cunt hair from bashing your teeth straight down your fucking throat!”
“Can’t you step back far enough from the situation to consider the bigger picture?” he demanded, suddenly sounding bolder once again. “This is a girl who has made a career her entire life of using any and all means to get her way. Yes, I got myself into some deep shit with the Carrion Crew. And, yes, Mia was kind enough to put herself out there to help me out while I was in a bind. I’m not proud of any of that—that I got into trouble in the first place or that she took it upon herself to help me the way she did. Obviously neither of us knew what sort of hell she was getting herself into. So, imagine if you will, that our cunning, manipulative Mia finds herself in an absolutely shitty situation, right? And it’s way too dangerous to just try to up-and-bail. We both met that T-Built asshole at some time or another; guy was out of his mind. Mia would know better than to try to give a guy like that the slip. She’d be signing her own death certificate. So what does she do? She does what she does best! She does a bit of research, finds the best target for the situation at hand. See,” he leaned in as though he were sharing a coveted secret, “the jocks she pursed her lips at in high school weren’t random guys with sports jackets, Mister Presley. They were the seniors with the nice cars and enough dough to buy a second ticket and all the popcorn a teen girl could gobble. Fast forward a few years, multiply that cunning, manipulative wit alongside them, and it’s not impossible to see her setting her sights on you, Mister Presley. Not only are you loaded-as-hell, but you’re a part of the only possible threat to the people who she was working for at the time. Nevermind part of the threat, you’re the Crow’s goddamned leader! And, what’s more, you have history—direct history!—with the sadistic psychopath holding Mia’s leash. And, as luck would have it, you just happened to cross paths, right? Now let me ask you this, Mister Presley, and bear in mind the only way a person could possibly know this is if they’d seen Mia do exactly this sort of thing before, because nobody but you and Mia truly knows how you came to meet one another.”
I stared coldly at him, not daring to invite his question; knowing he’d offer it up soon enough.
Sure enough: “How difficult would it have been for Mia to stage whatever sequence of events went down to get you to take notice of her in the first place?”
I blinked at that, forced despite all my efforts to think back on it.
I remembered following after T-Built through the crowded Carrion Crew event.
I remembered losing track of him in the crowd and hurrying to keep him in my sights.
I remembered Mia appearing out of nowhere, drink in hand, and colliding with me.
And then I remembered her calling me out, saying all the right things to get me paranoid; saying all the right things to convince me to get out of there.
But you asked her to leave with you; it was your idea to use her as cover to—
But what if you hadn’t? Would she have just volunteered?
Were circumstances already perfect for her to be certain she’d get to leave with you?
“I’m guessing she said all the right things, right? Just the right amount of sass to seem disinterested while offering up just enough sex appeal to keep you on the line,” he went on.
I remembered sardonic wit, passive disinterest, but an ongoing threat to reveal me to the crowd of murderous Carrions if I…
No panties. She’d practically advertised from the get-go that she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
“And I’m also guessing it didn’t take long to get her talking, right? Total strangers, but I’d put down money I don’t have to bet that she provided you with a decent enough line to get you interested, right?” he cocked his head, seeming genuinely interested. “She opened up to you, the poor, mistreated prostitute—down on her luck and just hoping for a better tomorrow—and, when she knew the hook was good and deep in the fish’s gullet, she pulled the line tight. Get the rich, powerful biker bad boy to take her on a couple of dates, sell herself real good to the big score, and finally find an opportunity to get you to swoop in and save her from all of it.”
“She… no,” I shook my head and looked away, trying to think of something to punch a hole in his logic. “She was attacked. Showed up bloody and beaten; some guy—some asshole—hurt her; hurt her bad, and—”
“And she had a knight in shining army to call on when it happened,” he injected. “It could have been anything, Mister Presley,” he went on. “If it hadn’t been that violent encounter it would’ve been another. Maybe something worse, maybe something not-so-bad. But isn’t that just the life she was trapped in? A whore on the streets? How long before somebody tries to rob her or hurts her or does something—anything!—to give her an excuse to call you. Then you, with all your resources and connections, take her off the streets, bring her to your fancy house or wherever you live, and just start pouring the lavish lifestyle all over her. ‘Poor Mia, here’s some pearls,’ ‘poor Mia, here’s a brand new wardrobe,’ ‘poor Mia, here’s a new car!’ And she gets to live a lush, protected life of luxury, knowing she’s got the best possible protection from those Carrion cocksuckers, and all she has to do for it is the exact same thing she was doing before: take a dick into one of three orifices. Except now she’s only got to take one dick, she’s getting a lot more in exchange for it, and she doesn’t have to share the profits or squat in a rotting drug den with a bunch of other whores.”
“No…” I heard myself whisper. “That’s not…”
“Meanwhile,” his words trailed on, “there’s a war brewing, one that’s been in a slow boil for a long time from the sounds of it but is most certainly in full heat with all this happening, and she’s got a safe place to watch the fireworks fly. Now let me ask you this, Mister Presley: do you truly believe that, if the Crow Gang begins to slip into the losing side of this war—if Mia started to see the safety net that you represent right now starting to tear—that she might not find herself somebody else who she might be able to convince to save her from you? What sort of sob story do you think she’d need to cook up to make you the monster in some fantasy story fed to the next knight in shining armor? Maybe she’d track down some honest cop and offer up the promise of exposing yo
ur whole operation to not-so-forgiving authorities. Can you imagine what sort of opportunity that would represent for some do-gooder lawperson, Mister Presley? The bust of a lifetime and a girl like Mia sucking their dick the whole time.” He groaned, sounding like he was disappointed in the whole situation. And maybe, just maybe, he really was. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Mister Presley, but my sister is a parasite. She always has been. I don’t think she’s ever cared for another human being in her entire life, but I can rattle off a list of names as thick as your average phonebook of guys who believed with all their hearts—as you seem to believe now—that she cared for them even half as much as they found themselves caring for her.”
I had no words left to say at that moment.
“I wanted to get you out here to warn you, Mister Presley,” he finally said after an extended silence. “If you want to go to war with the Carrion Crew, be my guest. Lord knows you’d be getting me out of a shit-ton of trouble if you took them out of the picture. But if you’re about to escalate things with them solely because of this business with my sister then there’s a strong possibility that you’ll be going into battle half-cocked and over a matter that, in all likelihood, will have run off with all your belongings before you get back. Assuming, of course, you don’t wind up getting yourself killed in the process.”
“Wh-why…?” I finally managed to stammer out. “Why tell me all this? What do you get out of this?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, not much. I already said that it’d be nice if you did manage to take them out, but I think you and I both know that’s a pretty big ‘if.’ Quite frankly, I’m just sick of life stabbing me in the eye with the shit-stick while she gets to manipulate and fuck her way in and out of every little thing. For once it’d just be nice to see things not work out for her. That, and,” he shrugged innocently, “you don’t seem like you deserve much more shit in your life. I looked into you, Mister Presley—if my sister can manage a background check on a guy like you it shouldn’t be a surprise that I can, too—and I just figured you’d dealt with enough to not add a lying, manipulative whore to the list of tragedies. Guys like us—guys who the universe just seems to love stomping on at every turn—gotta watch out for one another, right?”
Cloud nine dissipated in a dark sky then, replaced by dark, angry clouds and the promise of stormy, dangerous weather.
In the back of my mind, I heard broken gears grinding against one another; cursed to never fit properly with anything ever again.
I turned and walked away.
“I’m Malcolm, by the way,” he called after me as I headed back for my bike. “But everyone just calls me Mack. I hope there’s no hard feelings about all of this. Just thought it was right to warn you before things got painful, you know?”
I didn’t have it in me to respond.
I really just wanted to be alone at that moment.
PART 2
Infection Spreads
SEVEN
~Mia~
Something was going on with Jace.
Ever since the day before, he’d been distant; seemed… wrong.
He’d come home late and, saying nothing, slid into bed. There’d barely been a greeting. When he saw that his arrival had awoken me—saw me looking back at him as he walked in—there was a flash of tension. It was as though he’d caught himself nearly stepping on a venomous creature, a moment of disgust that was outweighed in leagues by fear. Then, seeming to force himself to act otherwise, he’d given me the only greeting I’d get that night: nothing more than a sad glance and a hesitant nod—his eyes seeming afraid to even aim themselves at me—and, after a painful pause, a contemplative grunt. Then he’d been lying down, back to me, and gone still. I’m sure he’d hoped I’d thought he was asleep, but I knew from the pace of his jagged breaths that he barely slept a wink that night. Because of this, I’d barely slept a wink, and what sleep I did manage to steal was haunted by terrible dreams. A portion of this broken-glass slumber was stomped out when I heard the whisper of fabric, and I pulled myself from unconsciousness and caught him getting dressed. This time he didn’t notice me—or maybe he just pretended not to notice—and he didn’t so much as glance in my direction as he slipped away, seeming content to leave me alone and confused in his bed. Terrified by this new demeanor, I’d gone after him, staving off tears, to ask where he was going.
The look in his eyes terrified me. It was cold and distant; it was enough to drive me to silence.
Then, without another word from either of us, he turned and was gone.
Unable to bring myself to do anything else, I slunk back to the bedroom—back to the suddenly cold bed—and allowed my depression to rape my thoughts again and again and again. And, with that being the sole occupier of my morning, a sort of sleep took me—dreamless and with no hope of rest, I simply lost enough hours to my broken heart to claim I must have been asleep. When, at last, enough awareness returned to me to justifiably claim I was among the waking world, the first thought that came was the memory Jace moments before he’d left.
I shivered at just the memory of those eyes on me.
Deciding that just sitting around wasn’t going to help anything, I pulled my phone out and numbly went through the motions to call Candy. When she didn’t answer, I forced myself to leave the bedroom, knowing it would only feed my depression to stay in that suddenly vast desert of a bed, and wound up slumped in the equally vast, equally lonely clutches of the couch. I barely remembered the trip down the stairs and through the living room, the entirety of my mind seeming to cyclone around the freeze-framed scene when Jace had turned to face me before leaving.
What had that look meant?
Was it intentional, or was he just too consumed in Crow business?
Was I taking something personally that wasn’t meant to be?
But something in those eyes…
No, I felt certain that his face was reflecting what he’d been feeling the moment he’d seen me; I felt like… like what was troubling him was me.
But why?
And what did whatever it was mean for us now?
Whatever it was, I knew I couldn’t stay there. Either I was working myself up with thoughts that weren’t accurate reflections of reality, or…
Or there really was something wrong between us.
Either way, I knew I couldn’t stay there; knew I couldn’t coop myself up in that cold, lonely place and wait for something worse to happen—either by my own mind’s doing or…
But I knew it was better not to just leave without at least something of a destination in mind. But I couldn’t reach Candy. Chewing my lip, I considered my other options. Just as I was about to give up, my phone began to light up and I saw that it was Danny.
“H-hello?” I answered, my voice sounding dry and hollow from my extended silence; the pain and sadness that had been carrying me since the previous night betraying my effort to sound otherwise.
“Mia?” Danny’s normally cheerful voice already had an undertone of suspicion, and I cringed at how just my name sounded. “How ya doing? How’s Jace?”
“Good,” I answered slowly, struggling to make the lie sound convincing. “I… uh, Jace is out. Umm… grocery shopping or… well, yeah. Grocery shopping.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding disbelieving. “So where are ya?”
“The condo…” I answered, then immediately realized what I’d just confessed to.
“Jace jus’ left ya at home, huh?” Danny questioned. I could imagine his wise eyes narrowing at the phone, keying in on the fact that something was wrong. “Well… if ye’re all on yer own then ya want to get some lunch or somethin’?”
“Lunch…” I repeated the word, feeling like I might shudder—certain that Depression would tell me I was too nauseous to eat—but was surprised to hear my stomach growl instead. “Lunch actually sounds great,” I finally said.
“A’right. I’ll be by in a jiff to pick ya up,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I cr
inged, hating the idea of him coming here and catching me like this. I at least needed to collect myself and get away from here. Making a quick-yet-calculated decision, I said, “I’ll take a cab. Where do you want to meet up?”
“Denny’s sound good?”
I almost laughed at the cruel irony of that, but still managed to keep myself composed as I answered, “Sounds fine. See you soon.”
I hung up and thought back to my last experience at Denny’s, the closing act of my first encounter with Jace. I remembered just how strange that night had been. I clenched my eyes shut, not wanting to worry about how Jace was acting. Wanting everything to continue to be as amazing as it had been the past few days.
Was that so much to ask for?
Didn’t we deserve that much with everything that had happened to us?
I sighed—a heavy, almost meditative exhale—and, deciding that it felt good, repeated it more times than I could count. Then, feeling (more or less) collected, I went about getting dressed. Then, still focusing on my breathing, I took the elevator down to the garage and made my way to the security booth. The guard on shift was all smiles and “ma’am”s as he called me a cab, and before long I was in the diner chain’s parking lot and slipping a few bills into the cabby’s hands.
****
“Ya okay, girlie?” Danny called out from the entrance, already holding the door for me despite an entire parking lot still waiting between us.
“Y-yeah, sorry,” I offered. “Just distracted.”
CROWS MC SET-TO LOAD Page 47
