by Ginger Booth
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he whispered in her ear. “Except I did. Mean to interrupt.” He raked his lower lip along her jaw until his lips touched hers. “Not that it’s any of my business. You mind?”
“Cade.” She kissed him.
“Ava.” He kissed her back, then let her go. “Good to see you. Couldn’t resist.”
“Glad you did. You look great.” She brushed her fingers through his hair. “No more white.” He used to bleach it. She couldn’t tell what color it was now in the gloom.
“Oh. Yeah. I’m done with Frosty the Snowman.” He relaxed his hold on her a bit. “Hey, Raper.”
“Frosty,” Doc greeted him guardedly. “Everything OK, Panic?” He and Sauce looked dubious about what they could do about it, if it wasn’t OK.
“Raper? Really?” Ava demanded. “That was your handle?”
Doc shrugged, hands deep in his pockets. “Long story. This is Sauce.”
Cade nodded to Sauce. “Excuse us,” he said pointedly, standing his ground.
“It’s fine,” she assured her wingmen. They moved away, not turning their backs for the first few steps. Judging by their trajectory, they headed for the bus. Ava pursed her lips. “Puño might drop by,” she warned Cade.
“Cool, I enjoy Puño. Don’t you need to pass third dan?” He stepped back and put up his guard lazily, and nodded respect.
“What, now?” Ava laughed, and dropped to a crouch, side-stepping further into the street. “How mad at me are you?”
“God, it’s great to see you,” he said, heartfelt, and shot a lightning-fast cross-punch at her face.
She ducked beneath, but raised her arm to block the punch.
“Good.” Seemingly out of nowhere, he launched a roundhouse at her hip. She jumped away before it could land. “Good. So? Counter-strike.”
She danced around him a little, considering her options. “I haven’t studied for this test.”
“No.”
She jumped forward, arms down, leg up for a front kick. He caught her ankle and turned it. She rotated with the turn, landed onto her hands, and pushed off to help power a back-kick with the other leg to his thigh. He easily stepped away, but had to drop her ankle to do it.
“Good,” Cade said. “Not proper form for a test. But you can kick butt on the street. That’s where it counts.”
“Hey, Frosty,” Puño greeted him, sidling up. “This is our squad leader, Sergeant Calderon.”
Cade held Ava’s eye, came to a straight-legged stance, and bowed. She returned the bow. Then he offered Calderon a hand-shake. “Cade Snowdon. Honored to meet you, sergeant. I coached these two for second degree black belt in my art.”
“My ex,” Ava added softly.
Calderon nodded. “So you could wipe the street with them? I’d like to see that.”
Cade smiled. “Maybe another time. I was just checking whether Ava was ready for three dan. She isn’t. Puño isn’t eligible until July. Two years,” he reminded Puño. “Practicing your art regularly.”
Puño sighed and bowed, a wad of clothing pinned under his elbow. “Hai, sensei.” He handed the uniform shirt and coat to Ava. “You OK?”
“I’d love a chance to talk,” Ava suggested, looking a question at Cade.
He nodded, with the tiniest of smiles. “Out of the wind? My car.” He pointed to an SUV with a roomy back and tinted windows.
Calderon glanced at Ava. “Have fun. Use a condom. Curfew twenty-three hundred tonight. Or you could get an overnight pass.”
“May I please have an overnight pass, sergeant?” Ava asked.
“Sure. More room in the bus for us. Back by oh-six hundred. C’mon, Puño.” Calderon turned and walked away.
“But sarge,” Puño said, unwilling to finish his sentence, stepping quickly to catch up.
“Only one confused here, is you,” Calderon assured him.
“I like your sergeant.” Cade draped Ava’s coat over her shoulders, and steered her toward his car, hand on the small of her back just where she liked it.
33
Interesting fact: One of the biggest concerns in the tsunami’s aftermath was the nuclear power plants strung along the Eastern seaboard.
Entering first into the back of the SUV, Ava faced a choice of a bench seat, or the area behind with the seats removed, leaving space for bed and cargo. She selected the more flexible bedding area, but was surprised by a deluxe air mattress, and tripped onto it, laughing. “That was smooth.” She clambered to sit against the wall, legs stretched before her. The bedding, plaid flannel over down stuffing, smelled of evergreen woods, camping Upstate in the wintry fresh air.
“Dark in here,” Cade returned. He rolled the van door shut, deepening the gloom. The street was only dimly lit outside, and the windows tinted. More adeptly than she had, he reached an arm down beside her, and pivoted in a single swoop onto the bed, back to the wall of the vehicle.
Ava was always in awe of that, his strength and dexterity. Cade’s movements were so controlled. He didn’t appear to think about it. She liked to believe his grace had rubbed off on her by association.
“Dark is good for confession. Also making love. You look fantastic, Ava.” His voice was husky. “The Army’s been good for you.”
“You look great, too.” She wanted so much to stroke his chest, feel the changes the months of food and training had wrought in him. But she hesitated. If she wanted sex without complications, she should have stuck with Mario. She was acutely conscious of Frosty’s familiar body next to hers, but for the moment, they didn’t touch, couldn’t see.
Talk first, she decided. “I missed you.”
“Nearly broke me when you left,” Cade murmured. “Thought about going to get you back every day. But.”
“But what? Frosty – Cade. I don’t understand. Why so cryptic?”
He silenced her with a finger on her lips, then broke the touch. “Remember a night in July, I came home at like two a.m., drunk?”
“I wondered where you got the booze,” Ava agreed.
“Elon Libre,” Frosty said. “Tribeca opened their public access terminals that day, and the amnesty took effect. Maz and I psyched ourselves up to go check the missing persons database. Find out what happened to our families outside. Elon had the same idea. We ran into him along the way. Like three hundred people in that line. Just melted, letting us straight to the front.”
Ava blinked. “You have family outside.” She didn’t. Her parents and grandfather were the only family she knew, aside from Frosty. There were cousins and an aunt in Serbia, if they survived. Serbia might as well be on the moon.
“I didn’t want to say anything, because you didn’t,” he confirmed. “But yeah. Dad made it. He fled to rural Jersey, near PA. Part of Upstate now. They shifted the Apple borders past him a year ago.”
Ava knew Mr. Snowdon had remarried. Cade had a step-sister and a baby half-brother. They had a nice house in the Jersey suburbs, a tolerable commute into the city. Ava wondered if that was why Frosty went on those damned Midtown foraging expeditions into Jersey. Ava had met Mr. Snowdon. He and Cade got along famously. He never missed Cade’s karate competitions. He regularly dropped by the dojo to take Cade out for supper. Ava joined them more than once. Great guy.
“I’m glad for you. His wife and kids?” she asked.
“Just my step-sister. She’s in bad shape. She was kidnapped, handed around for a few weeks, before Dad got her back.”
“She’s what, twelve now? God, Cade.”
“Yeah. She’s not OK. I visited at Thanksgiving, after I left the city. I had to stay with a neighbor. She doesn’t remember me, couldn’t stand having me in the house. Screaming terror. Hard for Dad to make a living and take care of her. I send money to help out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His answer was slow coming. “Complicated. I didn’t want you to think I’d leave you, for them. And I wouldn’t have. Ever.”
Ava believed that.
“B
ut I didn’t want to stay in the city, either, Ava. The whole gang boss thing. I wanted out. I did that to protect us. Didn’t make sense anymore. I tried to find a way. You did, too,” he reminded her.
But we did it without telling each other, Ava thought guiltily. She’d acted like she didn’t trust him. But he wasn’t telling her what was going on. And then he sold them out to White Rule.
She frowned in sudden realization. “Did you feel like I sold us out to Soho Ville? I only intended to give everyone a choice, to come in from the gangs strong.”
“Soho Village wasn’t a bad plan,” Cade allowed. “Assuming I wanted to stay in the city. Ava, the thing is, Maz and I already decided he would take over the gang. That night in July, Maz and Elon agreed to found Chelsea Free, our own gang ville. Well, me, too, at first. But later I realized I didn’t want it. I just wanted out. And to bring you with me.”
But I left you, Ava completed the thought. “You didn’t tell me.”
“Maz wanted to stay and make it work. I kept running the gang to keep us strong during the negotiations, keep us together, no internal politics. But I was searching for a new life outside. Yeah, that part I should have told you.”
“We could have applied to resettle,” Ava said. “They give preference to people reuniting with family.”
“Yeah. But Ava, we’re in the database as undesirables. Gang royalty. Dangerous criminals. Even with the amnesty, doesn’t matter. Just means they can’t prosecute. Forgiven. Not forgotten.”
“So we – you – could apply. But might not be accepted.”
“The librarian in Tribeca told us the score that day. With our records, we didn’t stand much chance. Elon has family in Connecticut. Maz might manage it. His dad’s got that survivalist enclave in New Hampshire. They might have liked Maz’s record.” Cade chuckled. “Who knows. Maybe Mr. Mazurkiewicz would have sponsored me, too. Neither of us wanted to go there, though.”
“You could have explained on the application. We’re not like Elon, Cade.”
“Oh, I applied. Near Dad. Mom’s parents are near Boston. Dad’s mother lives in South Florida. I hope she’s OK, after the tsunami. An aunt in Michigan, too. When you left, I still had a couple applications out. Doesn’t matter. They all turned me down.”
“You applied alone. Not with me.”
He blew out, almost a whistle. His tone veered to the sarcastic. “Well, Ms. Ava Panic.” He pronounced it correctly, Panitch, “I applied jointly first. Said we intended to marry. The librarian reviewed my application for me. She pointed out that you were an under-age illegal alien, as well as gang royalty. That didn’t help my case. She suggested I apply on my own, and try to bring you along later.”
“Oh, yeah.” Ava sheepishly scratched her nose. “Guess my visa expired when my parents did. But I’m an adult Hudson citizen now. Voter, too.” The Constitution that granted her those rights was unveiled later, in September. As good gang leaders, the couple were proactive that summer, ahead of the curve.
“You could have told me,” Cade groused.
“Could I? Then? And since I didn’t then, when?” Cade was anti-immigrant. He probably meant illegal immigrants, but in conversation, he didn’t make the distinction.
“Yeah, I get it,” Cade conceded.
“Cade… It would have been easier to love you, if I weren’t so scared of losing you. You had all the power. If I pissed you off, I was dead.” Ava swallowed, then added in a tiny voice, “I’m sorry I lied.”
“I’m sorry I was scary. Sorry I hit you, hurt you, yelled, bullied, froze you out. A thousand kinds of sorry.” His head thunked back on the wall of the van.
She took his hand and squeezed it. “You apologized at the time. No do-overs.”
“I didn’t apologize for August. For White Rule.” He pressed her hand. “I can’t tell you that part. But I am sorry. I froze you out. Again.”
“Does White Rule have to do with your secret job Upstate?”
Cade hesitated. “No comment.” He sighed. “Ava, you and Maz, you came out of this saner than I did. I did a lot of really screwed up things –”
“Sh,” Ava said. She rose to her knees and put a finger to his lips in turn. “You’re OK. Here and now. Don’t go back and second-guess. Cade, I was standing right beside you. Maz too. Through it all. We absolve you. No one else was in a position to judge. Including you.” She kissed him.
He pulled her onto his lap and enveloped her in his arms, nearly crushing her to him. “Thank you,” he breathed. “You didn’t leave me because I was so screwed up?”
She considered that, finally giving her fingers permission to play across his redeveloped chest. “We were both screwed up, and doing our damnedest to unscrew ourselves, and each other, and everybody else. I left because I wanted out. I wanted a life after the Starve, after the gang. I didn’t know what that life would look like, and I still don’t. I thought you wanted that too. But then you allied with White Rule. I hated to give up on you. I couldn’t give up the dream of –” She stopped. She still wasn’t sure what she was dreaming of, really.
“Life after the gang,” Cade supplied softly. He huffed a soft sad laugh. “We both wanted the same thing. Should have known.”
“We made a good team. Except when we froze each other out.”
“Yeah.”
Reluctantly, Ava added, “You’re still freezing me out.”
“Yeah. But it’s not up to me. I really can’t tell you what I’m doing now, Ava. And I really, really agree with that. Knowing – it’s a one way trip. You’ve got a future in the Army. Or back in the ville.”
One way trip? Interesting. “I like the people I’m with,” Ava said. “You have good people?”
Cade tweaked her nipple, hard. “No fishing. I can’t tell you.”
She stuck her nose onto his. “Did you mean that as a punishment? Scold me again, boss man.” She tweaked his earlobe, adorned with her gold stud she’d left in his bathroom. Then tweaked his nipple.
He caught her hand and pinned her on her back before she could tweak anything else. “You looked like you were out to get laid tonight, Ms. Panic. Do that a lot these days?”
“Privileged information, Mr. Snowdon. Earn it.”
And he did. Several times, in fact. Ava had often wondered, how much better sex would be, now that they were in top condition, feeling great. She survived Ebola before she lost her virginity. Her imagination was right.
“Does this change anything?” Ava wondered aloud, sometime in the night, draped naked across his side, hand possessively splayed across his chest. They’d worked up a sweat beneath the down comforter, now pushed down below their chests. Cold winter air pleasantly dissipated the heat.
“I feel worlds better,” Cade assured her. “You feel pretty good, too.”
She chuckled. “I meant about us.”
“Succeed in the Army, Ava. It’s your best shot.”
“So we can’t be together again?”
“Not now. Maybe after you finish boot camp. Or your Army stint.” He squeezed her. “I’d like to see you again. Any time I can. Always. Doesn’t seem fair to you, though.”
“That’s why the cryptic push-me-pull-you? Love you, go away, Ava. Miss you, can’t talk, bye, Ava.”
“Love you, I’m no good for you, Ava.”
“I’m alive because of you. I love you. You’re not perfect. Neither am I. But you know what? You’re not the boss of me anymore. Sorry, Cade, I grew up. I love you and want to be with you. So there.”
“Love you, but my job doesn’t let me be with you right now.”
“The one way job you can never come back from?”
He twisted her nipple again. They both laughed.
“This job better be good to you, Cade. I mean it. Because I was good for you. And you gave me up for it. You love this job?”
“It’s orgasmic. I love it. Yes.”
“Mm,” she purred. “The thing is, I know Cade Snowdon very, very well.”
“Think
so?”
“You wouldn’t leave the gang for crime. That’s not as good as Chelsea Free.”
“No twenty questions to bypass the rule.”
“You would have chosen the Army. But you wouldn’t have liked it, really.”
He twisted her nipple harder.
“I bet you’re in some kind of black ops. Or a spy.” She only meant to tease. But his body stiffened. Bingo. Maybe her subconscious worked this out while she was doing something more pleasurable. “That would be a perfect job for you,” Ava concluded.
And for me. She wondered if the Army might let her transfer into some kind of intelligence service or black ops. It would be a hell of a lot more interesting than human donkey. And being rather small, she feared she didn’t make a very good donkey.
Cade didn’t let the conversation drift that way again.
“I want to see you again. Any time I can,” she informed him in the morning, as they said their good-byes outside the SUV.
“Me, too. Thank you.” He enfolded her in his arms one last time. “Succeed in Basic, Ava. That’s our best chance.”
Our, she noticed. But she didn’t plague him by calling him out on it.
And he kissed her good-bye and drove away, she knew not where.
34
Interesting fact: One of the scandals that came out in the wake of the tsunami, was the discovery of a death angel grave site in Jersey. Major Canton Bertovich was believed to have spearheaded the introduction of Ebola into New York City. His grave seemed to indicate a military burial, in Resco Lt. Col. Emmett MacLaren’s turf.
After Frosty left, the teasing was merciless at morning workout. Ava relaxed into the ribbing, and enjoyed it. She could give as good as she got, and laugh about it. No need to defend her every choice and action. That was so exhausting as gang royalty. She realized that was what still kept her apart, not just one of the squad. The best defense was no defense, among friends. After a few minutes of laughing at herself right along with them, the butt of the jokes passed to Jenn. The oldest of the Upstate girls, it slipped out that Jenn was still a virgin.
