by Naomi West
I continued like I hadn’t been expecting an answer. “Who gave you permission to speak to my son?”
Ivy said nothing in response, instead choosing to stare down at her boots. It was probably for the best; there was nothing that she could say that would make me less angry at her messing around in my business. I took hold of her arms and pushed her back against the corner. Her skin was hot and quivering under my fingers, and I had to take a deep breath to steady myself. That pretty, tanned skin was soft as silk under my fingers, and I was hard pressed not to caress every line of her I could reach.
God, she’s fucking hot. Why did she have to be hot? It was harder to stay angry with her when she was looking up at me through those long lashes. But no matter how hot she is, she isn’t worth the extra complication, the extra body to keep safe from the arsonists. No, Ivy isn’t worth anything to me. It’s hard enough to keep Josh relatively safe from the gangs and the rivals.
“Who gave you permission to break into my house?”
The woman blinked up at me, finally finding her voice even through all of the shaking. “He was lonely and scared and just wanted in. I never meant to--”
I shook her, perhaps a little too hard, making her squeak in fear. “Don’t ever talk to me or my son again, Ivy, or else you wished you never moved into this place. Do you understand me?”
The woman nodded, her eyes wide like a rabbit’s. She turned as soon as I let her go, fleeing into her apartment and locking the door behind her. Odd, hearing her talk. She doesn’t sound like she belongs here. She didn’t have an accent, but she spoke like she’d been educated well. At least, educated better than any of the schools in this trash part of town could do.
I stared after her long after she had vanished, pondering the mystery of her. Her clothes aren’t new, but they are a much better make than most clothing in this place. The way she talks makes her sound like she’s from the other side of the river, not here. She must have been rich at some point to live where she would have picked up that way of speaking.
It was pretty obvious to anyone who saw her that she didn’t belong here. It was equally as obvious that her transition was new, and she was trying desperately to fit in. It made me wonder where she was a year ago that she’d ended up in such dire straits.
Not that it’s any of my business. Not that I care.
It didn’t matter how hard life was for the poor little rich girl next door; my life had been harder. It was harder. Either way, it wasn’t like I could help her out. I had my own problems. If the Boss didn’t stop with his wild planning soon, the number of those problems would start growing by leaps and bounds. Sighing through my teeth, I turned away from the bewitching woman’s door and started back down the stairs. With every step, I tried to will myself into icy numbness. It was probably the only way I would ever get through this next meeting with the Boss.
Chapter Five
Ivy
Another night shift, another too-long day with crappy tips. And now a run in with the scary guy next door. Today was simply not my day.
My heart still fluttered uncertainly in my chest. I locked the door, but I was still waiting for him to crash his way into my room and wrap his hands around my throat, squeezing until I vanished. My breath came in quick gasps as I pressed my back to the worn, wooden door, the hard surface the only thing in the world that wasn’t spinning. I closed my eyes, taking a deep, steadying breath to trying and calm my heart.
Under the fear, under the certainty I was going to die soon, there was the desire. My mind, even as frightened as it had been, had managed somehow to remember the fire in his beautiful, steel gray eyes. I could remember every angry line of his chiseled jaw.
Exhaustion hit me like a train barreling through the station, and I sagged against the wall. As soon as my breath steadied and I could stand without wobbling, I pushed myself away from the door, slipping my uniform off of my body and to the floor. I didn’t have to work until late tomorrow, which would give me plenty of time to run to the laundromat and wash it in the morning. Or afternoon. Stained with ketchup and reeking of old food and sweat, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stomach another day wearing that filthy thing without a washing. I wish I had the money for a second uniform, I mourned, looking at the dirty puddle of faded yellow and red fabric of my stupid uniform. But it doesn’t matter. Rebuilding my life doesn’t involve any frivolities.
Dragging on my pajamas and running a brush through my hair, I threw myself into my bed. I was starving, but too tired to do anything about it. So I wrapped myself up in my sheets and closed my eyes.
That’s when the little brat next door decided to blast the TV again.
Growling, I sat up, my eyes already feeling glued shut. Closing my fist, I banged on the wall. “Turn that down, Josh!” I yelled, my voice quiet compared to the blaring volume of the TV.
A brief round of banging on my wall and shriek giggling was the only reply. Sighing heavily, I could feel the aches and pains of every hour on my feet seem to grow exponentially as I glared at the wall in between us. I’m going to buy earplugs tomorrow. I can’t keep losing sleep because that little brat never learned any manners. Even if I have to take money out of me savings to do it.
Grabbing my fluffy robe and wrapping it around my aching body, I got back out of bed and headed for the kitchen. If I’m not going to sleep, I’m definitely going to eat something. That little bastard; why isn’t he in school? The sun was coming up over the horizon now after my late-night shift, so he should have been heading for the bus by now. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that scary man doesn’t make his kid go to school.
Sighing, I shuffled into the kitchen on bare feet, opening my fridge to look inside. I pulled out some frozen onions, a frozen package of eggs, margarine, and a pan. I’d snuck my double butane stove top in with some of the rest of my old camping things that I hadn’t been able to sell. Now that I knew that the stove in my apartment was broken, I was glad I kept it. It was the only way I had to cook food inside the house.
Although it’s cheaper to swipe leftover food off of customer’s plates at work, I think I want to cook for myself for once. Perhaps a healthy, home-cooked meal would make me feel a little better after how this whole week had gone. If nothing else, it would ease the gnawing in my belly.
When I was eight years old, my father showed me how to make a perfect omelet. It was also my father who had shown me how to freeze everything under the sun, from eggs (“Freeze them in an ice cube tray outside of their shells and they’ll keep for months, Ivy.”) to orange juice (“Buy it in bulk when it’s on sale and drink a glass before freezing it, so it doesn’t break the bottle when the liquid expands.”) All this knowledge I’d thought was useless for years was now coming in handy; more than once, my dad’s money-saving knowledge had saved my life these past few weeks. Without it, I don’t think I could have survived my world falling apart for the second time.
It was the omelet lesson I remembered better than all of the others. I was standing on the kitchen counter of our tiny little townhome, my father’s brilliant red hair mussed from a long, sleepless night of tossing and turning. My hair was similarly messed up; sometimes we couldn’t sleep. I supposed insomnia ran in our family. So instead of lying in bed and tossing anymore, we’d both decided to get out of our beds and had ended up in the kitchen.
It was an ugly little kitchen, all 1970s yellows and pea greens. But some of my happiest memories were made there. My father fumbling over the stove as he tried to remember recipes without the aid of a book. He messed them up nine times out of ten, but there was always one thing he could make without thinking about at all. The perfect eggs.
“It’s all in the margarine. Most people use butter,” my father said, condescendingly. “But they are all wrong. “Without the margarine, you won’t get this perfect, beautiful fluffy omelet.”
Tears pricked the edges of my eyes. I wiped them away and started the eggs cooking, on low heat since they were still frozen. It was a true t
estament to how tired I was; while I missed my father with an ache that never went away, thoughts of him weren’t usually enough to make me cry unless I was exhausted and already heartbroken. Well, it’s not entirely my fault. I can’t imagine anyone who would be chipper after one of her best friends ruined her life. But I’m trying. And it doesn’t help that the kid next door is trying to drive me mad with all of the noise he’s making.
Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself as I added the onions and a leaf or two from the sickly looking basil plant growing in my window. It wasn’t much, but with a little salt and pepper, it would be good enough.
The eggs were nearly done when there was a quiet knock at the door. I almost didn’t hear it over all the racket going on next door. I thought to ignore it, but then the knocking came a little louder and more insistent. I pulled a box in front of the stove (since it technically wasn’t allowed here) so it couldn’t be seen from the doorway.
“Who is it?” I asked, pressing my ear to the door.
“Josh!” the little kid from next door yelled. “Can I come in, please?”
Frowning, I unlocked the door and opened it, frowning down at the little kid. “No, you cannot come in. Your dad told me not to talk to you.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What do you want, Josh?”
His little nose perked up, sampling the air like a puppy. “What smells so good?”
“Eggs,” I answered shortly. This is exactly what Josh’s father told me not to do. “You need to go back to your apartment before your father kills me.”
“But I’m really hungry.” Josh’s eyes got a little bigger and he seemed to shrink in on himself a little. What a manipulator this brat turned out to be.
I shook my head. “Your father made it pretty clear that I wasn’t allowed to speak to you or even look at you. He told me he’d break my neck.”
Josh rolled his eyes. “My dad’s not going to kill you. Please? I’m super-duper hungry.”
“Did you not eat today?” I remembered how hungrily he’d grabbed for my bag of chips the day before. Did the scary man not feed him properly?
“My dad left me a sandwich, but it’s already gone.” The little boy rocked back on his heels, swinging his body back and forth in a steady rhythm.
Definitely ADHD. Must be why he isn’t in school. They’d force him to hold still for hours, which would probably kill him. Poor darling.
“I’ll only let you in and feed you if you turn down that TV and keep the volume down while I’m trying to sleep. Deal?” This was going to get me in serious trouble; I could feel it.
So Josh ran back to his rooms, turning off the noise and running back to my rooms. The sudden loss of sound was a little like someone pulling something you’re leaning on out from under you, leaving you staggering and a little breathless. I closed my eyes for a second, reveling in the silence. I felt like I could take a deep breath for the first time since Josh turned on the TV.
I faithfully pulled out another plate from the fridge, running it under warm water before toweling it off and putting the eggs on it. I started up another batch of eggs for myself while Josh dug into his plate, tapping his little feet on the kitchen floor in time with some imagined music. Perhaps he isn’t such a bad kid after all, I thought, looking the poor creature over. He watched me with solemn chocolate eyes, memorizing the motions I made. Considering he’s mostly raised himself, he’s not as bad as some of the kinds I’ve met in the system with “parents.”
Finally, after a long moment of silence, he finally asked, “Can I help?”
“But your eggs will get cold.” I smiled down at him. “How about you eat a little more, and I’ll tell you what I’m doing. Then, we’ll do another one together that you can take home and eat whenever you please.”
“Do you mean it?” Josh’s eyes lit up, his eyes glittering like rain in a sun shower.
I chuckled at his expression. “Of course! I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t mean it. How do you like them?”
Josh’s mouth was full, but he answered anyway. “They really good!”
Or at least I think that’s what he said. “Don’t talk with your mouth full, young man.”
“Yes, Ivy,” he said, his mouth still loaded up with eggs.
It was hard not laugh with him around; Josh was one of those kids who was clever and funny, observant and curious. A shame his father kept him in a cage next door; he most-likely craved attention and things to learn and do. At least, I had at his age.
As soon as he was done eating, I broke down the steps to make the perfect eggs into slow, simple steps, walking him through each. It was the way my father had showed me in that ugly 1970s kitchen I’d grown up in. Passing the knowledge onto Josh warmed the empty places where my heart must have resided at one time.
“Like this?” Josh asked, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration as he tried to work the spatula under the eggs.
I nodded. “Just like that; wiggle it a little. Good work!” I patted him on the shoulder as he successfully turned over the eggs.
He was beaming with his triumph, and the joy in Josh’s face was worth all of the loud TV noise and the poor manners. It would even be worth how angry his dad would be if he ever found out.
Hopefully.
Chapter Six
Creed
I hate the Boss. I can’t help but think it. Even after all this time, I still hate him. And this reckless, stupid deal he’s just made has made that hatred of him even worse.
The Boss, named Kelly Barnes, was one of the toughest assholes I’d ever known. He stood before the group, his hands spread wide, his eyes unfocused like a madman’s. He looked a little like a preacher who could feel whatever god he worshiped in the words he spoke. There was a zealousness in him that sent shivers down everyone’s spines as they watched him, standing in front of the Devil’s Edge like the clubhouse was a stage.
The boys all stood around in a circle. A few of them had stars in their eyes as the Boss mentioned being number one, the amount of money we would be pulling in, and some of the other benefits of this new arrangement.
But the rest of us looked tired or wary. If something sounds too good to be true, it is. And getting into any kind of agreement with a drug cartel is going to be messy.
“The cartel will be sending us three times the product we’ve ever been able to sell in this region. Our enemies, our rivals, will no longer be able to stand up to us,” the Boss said with a crazy smile on his rugged face. Kelly hovered on the edge of being old enough to be my father; he’d spent a great deal of effort trying to be a father figure to me.
Even after he’d murdered my father in front of me.
This is no place for anger at the past, I chided myself, forcing myself to focus instead on Kelly’s insane pro-cartel speech. He was holding out his arms again, looking as though he was trying to embrace all of the two hundred or so souls under his throne.
The Boss continued, “There will be more to go around, more for everyone. We will expand. We will take this territory for our own. No longer will we have to share space with the likes of the Carrion Club overlapping our borders. No one will question our hold!”
The men cheered, but it sounded spiritless and empty. The Boss didn’t seem to notice. But the man standing close to Kelly’s right arm, Patrick, noticed. His clean-shaven face ran over the length of the hall, obviously taking note of those who were excited, and those who seemed leery of the Boss’s idea of a good deal.
I locked eyes with Patrick; while there was no direct route to argue with Kelly in the Devil’s Edge; there was no voting, no second guessing the Boss, but there were backdoor ways around those rules. And most of those ways involved the second-in-command. Patrick, who stood in that tenuous position, had held it for as long as I could remember. Decades. Since before I was old enough to officially even join the ranks.
Patrick held my eyes for a moment before giving me a slow, deliberate nod. He knew; he knew and he was doing his best to change Kelly’s mi
nd. But the Boss was obsessed, and there was little we could do.
Sighing, I turned away first, glancing down at the floor before returning my eyes to our fearless leader. Beside him is a woman I’d seen around before. She was smiling in a way that made me uncomfortable. It was the smile of something venomous and brightly colored, drawing you in so it can murder you.
She was beautiful, to be sure. Long legs that went on for miles were wrapped in skin-tight, designer, white leather. A decorative white jacket sat on her shoulders, showing coy little hints of the glittering tank top underneath. The woman looked as sweet as candy, but her brilliant green eyes were as hard as stones. Sweeping blonde hair hung in pretty waves down to her hips, caught partly in delicate braid tipped with gold and silver beads. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as this woman; I’m also sure that one kiss on those blood red lips would kill a man even stronger than me.
