by Lake, Keri
He shot up from the couch as I approached, and was the first to pull me in for a hug. “Good to see ya, Hawk,” he said, before taking off toward one of the buildings.
“Haha! I knew you couldn’t resist, Motherfucker.” Dax stood up and punched my shoulder, before handing me a drink.
I threw my thumb over my shoulder toward Xavier. “Where’s he going?”
Dax jerked his head toward the building behind him. “Wants me to get a shot of him from the top floor.”
I glanced up toward the series of windows that lined each level of the hotel, where, row after row, all of the glass had been busted out.
“Hey! Bridger!” Dax called out beside me.
I turned to see Sean Bridger, one of my brother’s best friends, limping through the crowd toward us, both hands tucked in his pockets.
As he closed the space, his eyes flickered to Dax then me. “Jase? What the fuck, J-Hawk! You’re alive?”
I hadn’t seen him since before the attack.
“Shit, I can’t believe you’re alive!” Sean pulled a small package out of his pocket and handed it off to Dax. “Hey, man, some dude told me to give this to you.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know, asshole, just take it! He said to give it to you. Said it was a sample of something.”
Dax frowned and flipped the package over in his hands, squeezing it once, then tucked it in his pocket. “Probably that sketcher from the east side. Keeps trying to shove his fuckin' meth down my throat.”
“Or his dick. Watch where you pass out, Brother, and keep your mouth shut unless you want his tip between your lips.” Rhys’s hearty laugh had me grinning.
“Man, fuck that.” Dax glanced back at Rhys and off toward the crowd. “Nothing against gays, you know I’m cool with everyone, but I can’t even stand biting into a jelly doughnut and that shit hitting the back of my throat.”
The image painted in my head tugged laughter, and I caught Rhys wiping tears from his cheeks as his body shook with amusement.
Sean patted me on the shoulder. “Good to see you, man. Damn good. I’m … I’m sorry about Reed. That’s fucked up, what happened, you know?”
I gave a sharp nod.
“So, Jase, what do you think, man?” With his hands still tucked into his pockets, Bridger flared his webbed arms to the side, presumably showing me the far too flashy shirt beneath. Maybe to change the subject from a second ago.
Something wasn’t right about the kid. Like he’d been abused for too long and just didn’t know how to socialize. He grew up in The Ladder and took a lot of shit from some of the other kids, until Reed friended him. No one messed with him after that.
“What do I think?” I looked back at Dax, who stifled a laugh. “I think you look like you’ve been on both sides of a blow job.”
His face pinched to a frown. “Man, fuck you.”
Both Rhys and Dax belted out a laugh, and Dax rubbed his knuckles in Sean’s hair.
“Quit fuckin’ up my 'do!” The kid swatted at Dax, and that’s when I noticed his hand was missing on the right arm, leaving only a stump.
“Hey, what happened?” I nudged my head toward his arm.
As if he realized I’d seen it, he tucked it back into his pocket. “Nothin'. Had a bad run in with a gang, awhile back. Hey-ho, you know. Debts have to be paid.”
“That’s fucked up. They took your hand?” I asked, kicking back a swig of my beer.
He seemed to avoid my stare, casting his gaze toward the ground. “Yeah. Thought they were going to kill me.”
“Who did it?”
“It’s a long time ago. Not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Dax blew a cloud of smoke as he vaped beside me. “You jack off with your left hand now?”
“No, your mom jacks me off, bitch.” He flicked his fingers, and Dax passed him a beer. “I need a place to stay for a few days. Can I crash at your place, Jase?”
“Nah, man. Jase has one too many ladies in his bed.” Dax snickered. “You’d cramp his style.”
“I been kicked out of my house. I just need a couple days to get by. I can cook, and shit.”
Dax huffed, rubbing a hand down his face. “All right. Rhys’s old room is open.” He pointed a finger at Sean. “No bitches.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder, pointing back at Rhys. “It’s bad enough I had to listen to this motherfucker banging chicks all night. Goddamn, sounds like he’s slaughtering lambs, or some shit.” Dax impersonated the mewling sounds of the women moaning, inciting another round of laughter. “Expected him to walk out of his bedroom wearing a new fuckin’ sweater afterward.”
Rhys shook his head. “Blow me, asshole.”
Dax’s gaze lifted, and shoving his ecig into his mouth, he grabbed his camera from the couch beside Rhys, a smaller Nikon than the one I’d owned. He’d stolen it from a pawn shop a while back and changed all the metadata.
From the top window, Xavier hung upside from the frame, about eight floors up, a fall that would’ve likely killed him if he fell. With one leg kicked out, he hung by his other leg, while some of the crowd gasped from below.
Angling the camera upward, Dax moved beneath him and snapped shot after shot. After a few minutes, he waved Xavier on, and as the kid climbed back in through the window, Dax scrolled through the images. The dusky sky added just enough light in the background to capture his form without revealing his face, and in one shot, Xavier looked like he was falling from the sky onto the crowd.
“Sick shots, man,” I said, as Dax handed off the camera to Rhys. We probably could’ve sold our images and made some cash off them, as crazy as they were. Back when we'd explored every week, we had gotten the occasional offer.
Dax nudged his head toward me. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Yeah, sure.” I followed Dax back through the crowd, away from the music, to the front of the building where the shops used to be.
He gave one quick sweep of the hall we’d just come through and came to a stop right next to me. “I want in.”
“What?”
“This Pasák you mentioned a couple nights back. He could be the one who killed Olivia. I want in on it.”
I rubbed a hand across my jaw. “I don’t know, man. This is some messed up shit. It’s not like stripping cars, or dealing drugs.”
“I know what it is, Jase. For months, I tried to find out what happened to her.” He shook his head. “I saw some bad shit, man. Shit that’ll never leave my head for as long as I live.”
“Why would you want more of it?”
“Because it’s not right that the rotten pricks who did that to her are out there, running free.” He tipped his head to get my attention. “Fugazi’s ready to play again.”
“All right. I’ve been watching Viktor. Trying to find out what I can. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for the next move.”
“Good.” He tipped back the last of his beer and crashed the bottle against the wall. “You fucked the woman yet?”
I shook my head, my thoughts drifting back to earlier in the evening, when I’d wanted to take her more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.
“What are you keeping her for?”
“I don’t know.” I scrubbed a hand down my face. “I can’t set her free yet. She’s seen my face. She knows who I am. Fuck, man, she works for a newspaper. All I need is to have that shit blasted across Detroit, and I’m a dead man.”
“No doubt.” He nodded and took a hit of his vape. “Well, if you decide to throw her out in the cold, send her my way. I’ll keep her warm.”
The gritting of my teeth and the urge to punch him brought me to the realization that something had changed inside of me, where Lucy was concerned.
“A few strippers from Sphinx popped in. You want in on that shit?” Dax almost sounded bored, as if the guy who’d fuck three or four women at a time had gotten burned out on it. Numb. Mindless sex.
One step closer to Viktor.
Almost t
wo weeks I’d watched him, unable to pin the fucker down. I’d begun to lose my mind trying to figure out his role in Seventh Circle. Maybe the strippers might’ve had some insight. Fucking one of them might’ve led me to some answers.
“I don’t know, man. Feel like I lost my touch with women.”
In truth, I’d begun to enjoy someone else’s.
Back and forth, I rubbed my hand across my skull. My muscles had already begun to relax from the buzz of the liquor and kept me feeling good. Good enough that I wanted that touch. I wanted heels digging into my back and moans in my ear. Against the wall, and in my bed.
I wanted gray eyes looking up at mine when she took me in her mouth.
I couldn't deny it any longer. Lucy had gotten under my skin.
25
Lucy
A light caress drifted over my body, and I instinctively drew my arms down to cover my exposed breasts.
Wait, I was free?
I opened my eyes, to find Jase staring down at me, his knuckles softly grazing my arm, before he pushed the chair toward the door. Blocking the entrance from the bedroom to the living room, he sank his butt down, legs splayed as he watched me. With his eyes locked on me, his chest rose and fell as he seemed intent on studying me, until his lids grew heavy and his head lolled to the side. My stomach tensed, when he seemed to pass out.
Go. Now.
Escape.
Even if I had to climb over him to get out, he’d probably never feel a thing.
Crawling across the bed, I slid onto the plush carpet and tiptoed across the floor, but as I picked up my clothes, I hesitated and glanced back at where he'd slumped over in the chair.
He had to keep me captive. If he didn’t, he’d run the risk that I’d take off and tell someone. I knew that, and a part of me felt guilty at the idea of leaving. He may not have been the boy I remembered, perhaps life had changed him in the same way it had me, but there'd been a time I'd known his intentions, and they hadn't been to hurt me, but to keep me safe.
He’d not harmed me since he'd taken me from my home. He’d fed me. Aside from ligature marks at my wrist, and the female equivalent of blue balls half the night, he hadn't inflicted any pain at all.
I shuddered to think what could’ve happened, if he’d not shown up at my apartment and I’d been left to Peepshow.
No, I couldn't just run out of there in the middle of the night. If I wanted to be free, I had to establish trust with him. He had to know I wouldn’t turn him over, and that I wouldn’t run, even if given the chance.
The question swirling in my head was, did I want to be free? Go back to my life, where nothing seemed to move forward? Where debt collectors, and all the reminders of how much of a loser I’d become, hounded me? Where dangerous torture porn enthusiasts hunted me?
With Jase, time had stopped. I’d been given a moment to reflect on things. Time to sort out what the hell I’d been doing with my life the last few years, and where I wanted to go if he happened to set me free.
I had no desire to dive back to where I was before.
I slid the blanket off the bed and padded across the room, draping it over his body as I reached his side.
Pressure slammed against my mouth at the same time his knife slid beneath my chin, leaving me staring into the deep green eyes of a killer. Not a boy. A man who could snap my neck without much effort. One who could slip that knife across my throat as if he were slicing into a tender steak.
He didn’t, though.
The pressure fizzled, as his hand fell away from my mouth and he lowered the blade, like he’d fallen into and right out of a nightmare.
I backed away to the bed and curled up on the mattress, not taking my eyes of him when he settled once more. As he seemed to drift back into sleep.
Or perhaps he didn’t sleep at all.
* * *
Deep hearty shouts woke me from dreams. I shot up out of the bed, muscles trembling, head snapping toward Jase, whose fingers curled around the arms of the chair.
Sweat glistened off his skin, his brows creased to a frown in the few seconds before his head whipped back and forth. “No! Reed! You’re killing him!” His panted breaths hastened, as if he slept trapped in another world, like The Matrix, his body twitching and jerking in the chair.
I didn’t dare go to him, for fear he might actually slit my throat. Instead, I watched him in what looked like a series of seizures wracking his body, until, at last, he stilled.
The tension that kept him propped and tensed gave way to loose muscles, and he sagged in the chair, his chest rising and falling, slow and easy. “Mia Luce,” he whispered.
Cold spikes beat across my skin, as goosebumps formed, with the wave of surprise that crashed into me.
My name.
I lay back against the pillow, tucking my hands beneath my chin, and I watched him sleep. Waiting to hear my name again.
26
Jase
A slam from outside caught my attention and jolted me upright in the chair. Head kicked to the side, I listened, before lowering my gaze to the blanket draped across my body. I had a vague awareness of Lucy covering me the night before, but my half-baked brain couldn’t distinguish reality from dreams.
Across from me, she slept curled up on the bed, and beyond her, the clock read after three in the morning.
Voices spoke low somewhere outside, and I angled my chin high. I’d learned from one too many incarcerations to sleep light and always strike first, and my ears perked, listening for the quiet mumblings I could just make out through the door.
A woman. And a man. Two men. One spoke in a high, squeaky voice, his words unclear, the other had a deeper timbre. As they neared, I recognized the female’s voice as that of the front clerk, who’d rented me the room.
I bolted up out of the chair and pushed it aside, then rushed toward the bed and slapped a hand over Lucy’s mouth. When she gasped into my palm, I lifted a finger to my mouth to quiet her.
“His car ain’t out front, so I think they’re gone, but I’m pretty sure it’s the one you asked about.” The woman’s muffled voice bled beneath the door. “That girl was with ‘im. Saw 'em together yesterday.”
I’d intentionally parked the car out of sight, after coming home from the party, in case anyone happened to follow.
Footsteps trailed off to a quiet that seemed to last a couple minutes.
I lifted the Glock off the nightstand, careful not to make a sound, and peeked around the doorframe, gun aimed.
A loud crack preceded a spray of gunfire, and I spun away from the door, pulling Lucy to the other side of the bed and onto the floor, while bullets pinged and plowed through the wall.
The gunfire fell to footfalls across the floor.
Glock aimed at the door, I watched as a shadow crested the doorway and shot the man who trailed after, in the shoulder.
Blood spattered across the wall beside him, and as his body spun away, his hand gripping his shoulder, bullets shot from his gun and hit the ceiling.
Not giving him chance to recover, I stood and nailed a shot in his head.
Spying a second shadow creeping toward the door, I stalked past the bed and pressed my back to the adjacent bullet-riddled wall. At the first sight of a barrel aimed toward the center of the room, I yanked the guy’s arm, setting off a stray shot, and slid my knife beneath his neck.
A pop to my face knocked my head back, and I growled, gritted my teeth, and volleyed a punch to his nose, kicking his head to the side. “Who sent you?” I ground out, angling the blade higher.
The accent I’d heard earlier left me guessing between one of Pasák’s men, or Tesarik's, if he'd happened to find out I’d been released.
“Fuck you,” the stranger choked out, a foreign clip to his words, and as I pressed the blade into his throat, he lifted his chin and let out a grunt.
“You’re one of Pasák’s bitches?”
“No. But you will be. Soon enough.” His hands shot up from beneath me, and slamm
ed against my throat.
I slid the blade across his gullet, and he dropped to the floor, hands to his neck, trying to hold on to the life I’d just stolen from him. Stepping over him, I made a quick sweep of the other rooms and back on finding them clear. After nabbing my carryon from beneath the bed, I loaded all my guns inside, and the clothes draped on the chair beside me, tossed Lucy a pair of sweats, then zipped it up.
While the foreigner lay gasping and seizing on the floor, I wiped off the blood coating my knife on his pants and pried away his stiff wrist. Flipping it over revealed the circle seven tattoo across his forearm.
I looked up, catching sight of Lucy staring at me wide-eyed, probably scared shitless after what I’d just done. “Let’s go. Now.”
Nodding, she rounded the bed as if scared I’d leave her behind. I gripped her arm, leading her out the door, and strode us across Gratiot, to the boarded up party store on the corner where I’d parked the car.
I tossed the suitcase into the trunk, slid into the driver’s seat, and as Lucy plopped into the passenger seat, I hammered into reverse and spun out of the parking lot onto Gratiot, only then slowing my speed.
In the rearview, I caught two police cars peeling into the parking lot of the motel. How the hell had they arrived so fast? Cops never showed up that quickly. Someone must've heard the gunfire and called them, I guessed, but most nights, it’d take them a good half hour to hit the scene.
Fuck.
I hated making a hasty exit like that, knowing I’d left a shit ton of evidence for the police to have their fucking field day with. By morning, I’d be all over the news, and undoubtedly, there’d be a manhunt, even if it had been a case of self-defense. I’d been arrested before, was already a member of their fingerprint club, and probably blacklisted as a cop killer’s son. I had to find a place to lay low.
Somewhere I wouldn’t be seen.
