by Jamie Canosa
“I told her to go home,” Simon tattled on me, sliding the oversized, steaming mug across the countertop. “She wouldn’t listen.”
“Yeah.” Caulder’s eyes stayed firmly fixed on me. “She’s stubborn like that.”
He reached for his wallet, but I shook him off. “It’s on the house.”
“Angel.” It was more of a warning than a word, but I shook him off again.
“It’s on the house for coming to my rescue.”
His scowl was ruined by the way his lips tipped up on the sides. I could have strangled him when he pulled a twenty dollar bill from his wallet—more than quadruple the cost of his order—and shoved it in the tip jar. But with Simon eyeballing it like a kid on Christmas morning, all I could do was watch Caulder saunter over to a corner booth, a self-satisfied smirk on his lips.
It really was a slow night. Caulder settled in with his book and his coffee, and didn’t say another word. I did feel his eyes on me every now and then, though, as I scrubbed counters, washed dishes, and mopped the floor. The entire place was sparkling long before close. The only line we’d had all evening was the after dinner rush, and even then it had only been five deep. They were in and out in ten minutes and I slumped against the counter, shutting my eyes when the last was gone.
Despite the lack of work, it had been a really long night. I hadn’t even considered how I was supposed to get to and from work for the next few days, or what Mom was going to say about the car. It didn’t matter that I paid for everything—the car, the insurance, all of it—myself. I’d been going out of my way to avoid giving her an excuse to get mad ever since Michael showed up and now . . . She was going to be pissed.
“You okay?” I blinked my eyes open to find Simon invading my personal space.
“Yeah. Just tired, I guess.”
“No wonder.” He cupped my jaw, tipping my head back once more.
My stomach clenched as he ran a feather light touch over my injured lip. I wanted to retreat, but didn’t want to insult him by doing so. And if I didn’t, and gave him the wrong idea? Sweat broke out in my palms as indecision ratcheted my anxiety level up to ten.
“Here ya go, man.” Caulder stood at the counter with his empty mug, glaring daggers at the two of us.
“Thanks.” Simon took the cup and headed for the back room where the industrial dishwasher was loaded up for the night.
Heat crept up the back of my neck, infusing my cheeks as I stood there staring at the shiny black tiles beneath my feet. Caulder had just witnessed Simon hitting on me. He’d witnessed me allowing Simon to hit on me, less than a year after we put his brother—someone I claimed to love—in the ground. He must have thought I was the most horrible human being on the planet.
“Hey.” His soft command drew my attention and I couldn’t stop myself from lifting my eyes to his. “What’s running through that head of yours?”
He didn’t already know? Well, that was a relief. “Nothing.”
I reached for a rag and started rubbing idle circles on the counter.
“Was that guy bothering you?”
“Who? Simon?” That was . . . unexpected. “No. Simon’s harmless.”
Was it possible that he’d picked up on my discomfort from all the way across the shop and that’s what pissed him off, instead of the fact that he thought I was a raging slut?
“Alright, but if he bothers you, you let me know. I’ll take of it.”
I swallowed and nodded, feeling suddenly shy for no good reason.
Eleven
“Well, well, look who it is.” I cringed at the sound of Michael’s scratchy voice greeting me as I stepped into the apartment. He always sounded like he needed to clear his throat or something. “Isn’t it the pretty, pretty princess? Not so pretty anymore, are we?”
I knew I’d reached a new low when I sought out my mother for security. Michael and I had exchanged very few words since his arrival. There was a reason for that. Besides making my skin crawl, the guy scared me. Even with a smile plastered to his face, there was a deliberate evil in his eyes that I’d never seen from my mother.
Or maybe it was my imagination that she was the lesser of two evils. Maybe it was just that he was the lesser known variable. I didn’t know what to expect from him, which made him all the more threatening.
“How was work?”
I wanted nothing more than to continue on my way, but he’d asked me a question. It would be rude to walk away without answering. “Work was fine.”
I took a step forward, but he wasn’t going to make it that easy. “What happened to your face?”
I was not having this conversation with him. It was bad enough that I’d have to have it eventually with Mom. “I hit it on something.”
“Apparently. Didn’t anybody ever teach you to duck? You let somebody mark you up like that, it’s an invitation for everybody else to do the same.”
He thought I’d gotten into a fight. And he didn’t even care. All he cared about was that I’d obviously lost. The worst part was that I didn’t even know if his words were meant as a warning or a threat. Whatever they were, they weren’t a comfort.
“I’m tired. I’m gonna go to my room.”
“Yeah.” He used his tongue to clean something from between his rotted teeth and smirked at me. “I’d want to hide, too, if I were you. There’s a reason people keep their punching bags where no one can see them.”
I tried to ignore him. To tell myself this man meant nothing to me and so his words shouldn’t matter. But he was my father and, no matter what I told myself, they did. Hot tears pooled in my eyes and I twisted away from him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of my pain, only to see Mom entering the room from the kitchen, carrying a bag of chips.
I was outnumbered and surrounded.
She took one look at me and flicked her gaze to Michael.
“What’s the matter with her?” Spoken as though I weren’t in the room or capable of answering for myself.
I’d never felt more vulnerable, standing between them with tears in my eyes.
“Nothing. She’s just being overly sensitive. Can’t take a joke. Must have gotten your sense of humor.”
Mom scowled at him, but I doubted it was on my behalf.
“Can’t take the heat?” Michael stretched out his leg, nudging the back of my knee with the toe of his dirty sneaker. “Get out of the kitchen, sweetheart.”
Taking that as my cue to escape, I rushed past my mother and down the hall to the sounds of their laughter.
I felt dirty. He’d barely touched me, but his words had burrowed beneath my skin. I’d let him in. Let him get to me—and he knew it. There would be no stopping him now.
Veering away from my bedroom, I slipped into the bathroom and locked the door. Water from the shower head pounded the tub floor, drowning out their voices. It was the one place at home where my overworked brain could catch a break. Relief washed over me along with the steaming water and I sighed. I found a patch of dried blood that had been cover by my pony tail and scrubbed it out of my hair. Little by little, my muscles began to relax, easing the soreness by degrees. Examining my unclothed body, I noticed bruises in places I hadn’t realized. A dark purple stripe across my collarbone where the seatbelt kept me from flying through the windshield—a decent tradeoff. A few more on my legs, but none of them were terrible. In a few days, I’d be good as new. Too bad the same couldn’t be said for my car.
I was still waiting on a call from the mechanic, but my best guess was that I wouldn’t be seeing her again for a while. If ever. I couldn’t even think about that. I needed that useless piece of crap to do what she was supposed to do, so I could do what I was supposed to do. That was the deal we made when I bought her from that junkyard. I didn’t ask much from her. A to B, and back again. That’s it. How hard was that?
Scrubbing my face with hot water, I winced and poked gingerly at the puffiness around my lip. What a mess. It was always something. And never just one something at a t
ime. My entire life felt like drowning. Endlessly struggling upward for so long, only to finally break the surface and find myself staring at a sheer cliff wall.
I stayed in there until the water ran cold and I started to shiver. Stepping out, I snagged a towel that looked like it had served double duty as a moth buffet from the linen closet at the foot of the tub. Water continued to fall, catching the backs of my legs with its icy spray, as I pulled the rough material around my shoulders.
I wasn’t ready to shut it off yet. I wasn’t ready to tune back into my life. Wrapped up against the growing chill, I sat on the side of the tub and let my mind empty.
***
“What the hell did you do?”
I spun around, nearly dropping the laundry basket in the process, to find DJ closing in fast.
“What?” I backpedaled, scanning the area for an escape route, but it was too late. He was on me. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you try to feed me that innocent crap, Jade. I’m not buying it.”
“DJ, I . . .” Taking another step back, I tripped, slamming my hip on the dryer with a hollow clang.
He followed me, pinning me against the machine with the sheer force of his rage. I didn’t bother looking for help. No one was there. And even if they had been, I didn’t live in the kind of place where people generally stuck their necks out for one another.
“Shut your mouth. I don’t want to hear your lies or your excuses or any other bullshit you’ve got inside that stupid as shit brain of yours. One thing, Jade. I asked you to do one goddam thing. How hard is that?”
“Is this about the package?” Of course it was. What else could DJ and I possibly have to discuss? Though I thought the time for discussing even that was long over. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about that terrifying night since it had happened. Months ago. Whatever Caulder said to DJ that night had done the trick. This was the first I was hearing about it from him. “I gave it back to you. I couldn’t deliver it. You know that. I told you—”
“That the cops were there. Yeah, you told me. But you didn’t tell me why they were there, you stupid bitch.”
Why? How was I supposed to know . . . “You don’t think I—?”
“I gave you that address and an hour later the cops are knocking on the door? You fucked up, Jade. You have no idea how bad you fucked up. Those guys that got arrested, they were part of the Hell Hounds. The motorcycle club.” Terror ran my blood cold and sharpened my senses. For the first time I noticed the horrible bruises covering DJ’s face and arms. The long, jagged gash along his hairline. The black eye. Distorted nose. And the way he was limping. Someone had worked him over. Hard. “You don’t mess with them and live to tell about it.”
“I didn’t mess with anyone.”
“That’s not how Stryker sees it.”
“Because of you! What did you tell him?”
“Only what I know. Now I’ll tell you the same. He’s out. And he’s pissed as hell. He knows someone narced on him. He’s lookin’ for blood and I’m not going down for this bullshit. You better watch your back, Jade, because he’s coming for you.”
“No. DJ, please.” Life had hit an all-time low when I started looking to DJ for protection, but I was scared out of my mind. “You have to tell him—”
“I ain’t tellin’ him shit. You’re on your own.”
“But I . . . I can’t—”
“Shoulda thought of that before you decided to play do-gooder.” He started to back away, a cruel sneer warping his already disfigured face. “Where are your friends now, sweetness? Who you gonna get to clean up this mess for you?”
Little leech. Bottom-feeding parasite.
“You’re the worst kind of rat, Jade. And you’re gonna die in the sewers with the rest of us. Who knows, maybe we’ll eat you for dinner.”
The basket slipped from my tingling fingers, slapping against the concrete floor and spilling neatly folded shirts, jeans, and undergarments everywhere. I grabbed ahold of the dryer for support as my legs turned to jelly and focused on controlling my breathing before I hyperventilated.
This couldn’t be my life. I was not the girl that had scary bikers hunting for her. I was the girl who ducked her head and hid in bathroom stalls. I was the girl who served coffee and wiped counters. The girl who sailed quietly beneath the notice of the rest of humanity.
At least that’s who I tried to be.
So, then, why did things like this seem to keep happening to me?
Twelve
The phone buzzed for the hundredth time. And for the first time ever . . . I regretted knowing Kiernan. I regretted that he cared about me enough to make me a part of his family. Because all I wanted was to curl up and disappear. But he wouldn't let me.
Caulder refused to let me slip away unnoticed. He refused to let me lie down and surrender. He demanded that I keep fighting, no matter how hard it was. And if I tried to tell him that I couldn't, that it was too hard, he'd insist on fighting for me.
I was tired of fighting.
“What?” My voice came out harsher than I meant it to.
“What? I’m in my car, on my way to your apartment. That’s what.”
“Why?”
“Because you refused to answer your damn phone.” He sounded more irritated than I was.
“So?”
“You were in a car accident, Jade. You refused medical treatment, insisted on working. Went home to a couple of raging alcoholics. And then don’t pick up when I try to check in on you?”
Well, when he put it that way . . . “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Some of the tension eased from his voice. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” For the moment.
In the two days since the accident, most of my soreness had worn off. I had full range of motion again. The bruises were starting to fade from a bright redish-purple to a sickly yellowish-green color that looked twice as gross, but evidently meant they were healing.
“Then why didn’t you answer?”
“I’m sorry. I should have.”
“Damn right you should have. I’ve been calling since yesterday. Do you have any idea how worried I’ve been?”
Did he really need to keep rubbing it in? Because I didn’t already feel crappy enough. “Maybe I didn’t want to talk to you! Have you ever considered taking a hint?”
A long, drawn out pause. And then, “What happened?”
“What?”
“What did they do to you now?” The tension was growing again.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit.”
“Cal—”
“Angel.”
I sighed. Dog with a bone. It pissed me off that he honestly couldn’t believe my being angry had anything to do with him. It pissed me off more that he was right. “Nothing new.”
He sighed, too, and there was a long stretch of quiet where I idly wondered if he was still on his way to my place or pulled over on the side of the road somewhere.
I’d been sinking ever since he dropped me off after work. Falling deeper and deeper into that dark hole inside of me that I worked really hard to keep covered most of the time. DJ’s reappearance in my life had been like a lead weight tied to my ankle, dragging me down dangerously fast. Hearing Caulder’s voice helped improve my mood. I could see another of those highs cresting on the horizon.
“Come with me.” There it was. Right in front of me. Tempting me.
And even knowing how far I’d have to fall on the other side . . . I gave in. “Where?”
“Anywhere. Just get out of there for a while. That place . . . it isn’t healthy.”
There was no arguing that. “When?”
“Now. I’m outside.”
Now? But I was lying in my bed, hiding from drunk parents, angry drug dealers, and scary bikers. In my pajamas. And my dresser was so . . . freaking . . . far . . . away.
“Give me ten minutes.” I hung up before he could say anything else—two could play that game—and con
tinued to glare at my drawers as though I could somehow will the clothing to pick itself out and float across the room to me.
No such luck.
Two minutes in to my ten, I finally rolled off the bed and shuffled to the mirror. Crap. I should have asked for twenty. Or a hundred. It didn’t matter. There was no fixing what I saw in the reflection.
A bruise had formed around the cut on my face, and the swelling on my lip had gone down, but the split in it looked crusty and ragged. Real attractive.
Jeans were vetoed, in favor of black leggings that wouldn’t rub so harshly on my bruised thighs. Pulling on a baby blue tank, I dug out a bottle of concealer that I’d had forever and was probably about three years expired. A few dabs and my face looked slightly less zombie-like. The only lip covering I had, however, was a clear gloss, which only served to make the cut shiny and thus more obvious. Wiping it off on a wad of toilet paper, I reexamined my reflection and frowned. As expected, there was no fixing it.
Caulder stood leaning against the hood of his car when I emerged from the building, zipping up my hoodie and tucking my hands away in the pockets. He looked amazing—as usual—with his white tee peeking out from beneath his unzipped gray hoodie and his black track pants hanging low on his hips. Which only made me want to pull up my hood and take cover.
The fact that he was eyeing me intensely as I drew nearer didn’t help. “How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
He looked unconvinced as he pulled open the passenger door and then rounded the hood without waiting for me to get in. We were stopped at the exit to the complex before I even bothered asking where we were going.
The light turned green and Caulder did a quick double check of the road before pulling out. “I was thinking about asking if you wanted to hit the gym with me, but seeing as how you’re moving like a ninety-year-old grandma . . .”
The extra money in your food budget went straight to your hips and butt.
I knew I'd put on a few pounds, but I hadn't really been paying attention to how much. Looking at my belly, I squeezed the bit of flub hanging off my bones. Gross. I was becoming a slob. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing that the granola bars were gone. And the bread. And the peanut butter. And just about everything else.
