The Lost

by Cole McCade

  “I see.”

  A humorless, mocking chuckle slid from beneath the Impala, followed by a long, ferally graceful body: a stark man, defined by absolutes and keen edges. Chill gray eyes, pale as cracked ice. Hair as black as the sea at night, sharp-cut and falling over one eye, spilling against the cracked wood of the creeper beneath him and touched with thin threads of shooting-star silver at the temples. Older, she thought, from his hair and a certain dignified elegance to his stubble-shadowed jaw. Tanned, scarred skin stretched over broad shoulders. Sweat and grease stains darkened his thin white A-shirt. His tattoos said ex-military, jagged silhouettes of fierce-sweeping wings and a pointed beak in the stark style of the Arapaho, turning his right arm into a canvas from shoulder to wrist, slick black oils painted on burnished gold. He stretched out atop the creeper in a long, lazy sprawl and looked up at her, guarded and impenetrable. Something about him spoke of cold precision. A gunsight in human form, locked on and ready to kill.

  And when he looked at her as if he could see right through her, see through the transparent empty pointlessness of her, Leigh didn’t just feel like a target.

  She felt like prey.

  She straightened and looked away, tucking her hands into her pockets, her stomach shivering and light. “This your place?”

  “It is.”

  “Blackbird Pond?”

  “One witch, at your service.”

  “She’s contrary as a very witch herself,” she quoted, a smile trying to creep over her lips if only she’d let it. She bit it back and studied the Impala—watching him only from the corner of her eye. “You done working your magic on Gary Mitchell’s car? I’m supposed to pick up.”

  “You’re Leigh, then.” He rolled to his feet with easy grace. He moved like an animal, something savage under his skin, behind those unreadable eyes. Something wild that pulled at Leigh like the jungle calling to a beast that had spent its entire life behind bars. She lingered on his hands, large and cruel and rough-cut as raw granite, as he wiped his fingers clean on a rag. “Just finished final inspection. You sure you’re big enough to drive her? She’s a brute.”

  “My feet reach the pedals, Daddy.”

  A forbidding stare pinned her. “Cute.”

  Nothing else. Just that hard, steady stare while he stood over her, feline and powerful as a black-spotted leopard, lazy strength looming tall until she was a child in his shadow, beneath the weight of his gaze. He didn’t look at her the way most men looked at her. Like they were eyeing her pale pretty thighs and tiny skirt and slight, girlish body and wondering if she was street-legal, wondering if she’d let them go for a test drive to find out. There was a certain kind of man who went for the dirty grunge princess look, pure heroin chic, all smeared eyeliner and kiss-swollen lips, and normally when she made eye contact she knew with a certain click of rightness that she’d found a place to sleep for the night. Even the ones who didn’t want to fuck her, she could still tell what they were thinking—but not him.

  He was a glacier, and she found herself wanting a name just to make him human.

  Still he waited. Leigh lowered her eyes, curling her fingers in the pockets of her hoodie and digging her short chipped glitter-spangled nails into her palms until the edges scratched her. He was supposed to offer the keys, let her sign off on the repairs, and send her on her way. Not stand there watching her like he wanted something, but nothing she could offer. Something ate at her, but she refused to ask what curled on the tip of her tongue.

  No names.

  She cleared her throat softly. “What branch of the service?”

  His brow arched in a line as severe and cutting as a razor blade. “How could you tell?”

  “Tattoos. Dead giveaway. You wear them like war paint.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. A reaction, finally. She hadn’t realized how much his emptiness, his complete lack of reaction, was getting under her skin until she saw something else on that grim face—even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

  “Marines,” he said tightly, almost challenging.

  “No wonder you talk like you’re straight out of West Point.” God, she wanted out of here. She didn’t need this strange, quiet man looking at her, confusing her. She couldn’t read him. Couldn’t figure out what he wanted. Even if his eyes were reflective walls of steel, he wanted something. Everyone did. His wanting wrapped her lungs in cold hands and squeezed tight until her next breath hurt, and she barely forced out, “You going to hand over the keys?”

  He slid his hand into his pocket and withdrew a plastic temporary keychain, the ring rattling against the key—then let it fall to his side, disappearing into his palm. “Are you going to pay the repair bill?”

  The bill. Right. The bill. She closed her eyes, swearing under her breath, the sour thick taste of mortification on her tongue. She’d been standing here trying to figure him out while he’d dug those silver eyes into her like bright needles, twisting her insides…

  …and he’d only been waiting for her to pay up and leave.

  “Crap.” She opened her eyes and swallowed back that sick embarrassment, pushing it down past the knot in her throat. “Gary didn’t send me with any money.”

  “Then how do you plan to pay for this?”

  Her breaths hitched. How did she ever pay for anything? She only had one form of currency, but Gary wouldn’t have sent her expecting her to…would he?

  Of course he would. No wonder he’d refused to look at her.

  It hadn’t been about the money at all.

  She wet dry lips. It was one thing when it as her choice. When she went out looking, seeking something she’d never find. For Gary to use her as barter…

  But this man didn’t look like he’d accept a no.

  She took a deep breath, then squared her shoulders and stepped closer, a practiced pretty lipstick smile on her lips, sliding over her mouth like liquor and turning her into a different woman; one who never let anything touch her deeper than her skin. Her bones went loose as she stepped closer and felt that lax sway flow through her body, lilting her back and forth, lyrics in her blood and music in her flesh. She slid her hands from her pockets and reached up to rest them against his chest. He felt like hard lava rock under her palms, rigid stone over flowing molten magma, full of heat that did nothing to melt the ice of his eyes.

  He tilted his head, studying her with an appraising look, jaw tight. She hardly saw him move, hardly felt the warning ripple of tension before his hands locked around her wrists. Harsh. Immovable. The key in his palm bit into her flesh, tangling with the soft silver jingle of the charm bracelet around her wrist, while his rough-worn fingers dug into her skin and made a low deep hurt start between her thighs, sweetly painful.

  “Don’t,” he said, toneless and low, and she hated herself for the hot wanting that throbbed just below the pit of her stomach. She averted her eyes and tugged on her wrists.

  “Don’t what?” she muttered sullenly.

  “I know that look. You think you’re going to spread your legs, and I’ll let you drive off.” He thrust her away, releasing her wrists.

  She stumbled back, rubbing at the lingering ache ringing her wrists like bracelets, and glowered at him. “I’m not like that.”

  “Neither am I,” he bit off with icy precision. “And I have no intention of taking advantage of you to settle his bill.” A scathing look raked over her, cutting into her skin like frostbite, before he turned away, giving her the broad, powerful line of his back. “Wait here. I’ll straighten this out.”

  He walked away, liquid and prowling, and as much as she wanted to look anywhere else she couldn’t force herself to look away. God, he was pure gunmetal, and right now he moved like the safety was off, the trigger cocked, ready to fire.

  What the fuck was wrong with her?

  She scowled after him until he stepped through a glass door into a small office, the bell jingling as the door swung closed in his wake. Slumping against the wall, she watched while he p
icked up an old rotary phone, spun the numbers with his fingertip, then lifted it to his ear. Through the door he caught her eye, fixing her with a long, inscrutable look, before pointedly turning his back on her.

  Jackass.

  His voice drifted, muffled, through the door. She couldn’t make out what he was saying, but his tone was clipped, precise, bordering on menacing. He ran his fingers through his hair, then turned to the counter to write something down before moving around to punch something into the register, fingers stabbing the keys like he had a grudge. He made even the smallest things look like combat, and she wondered what he was fighting against.

  He hung up, shot her another raking look, then ripped a slip off the register and stepped back out. He offered the receipt between two fingers, along with a pen.

  “Mitchell settled by credit card. Sign the receipt and go.”

  Just like that. Dismissing her as summarily as if he was cultured royalty and she was a scummy little peasant grubbing at his feet. Humiliation squeezed tight until her veins throbbed and her ears burned. She’d never been ashamed of the life she lived, but one stupid assumption and suddenly she was a dirty brainless little whore—and if she hated herself for the way the hard tight heat of his body had made her breasts feel tender and hot and needy, she hated herself even more for giving a fuck what this man thought.

  She didn’t bother speaking to him and only pulled the receipt from his hand, careful not to touch him. She didn’t care if he was looking at her or not when she turned away to flatten the receipt against the wall, but she could feel his gaze digging in between her shoulder blades and bet he thought she’d stretched up on her toes on purpose just to make her little skirt flip up against her ass, and not because she was trying to move the receipt into the shaft of sunlight pouring through the open garage door.

  While she scribbled her signature—three times before it would take, fucking pens didn’t work tilted backward and pointing up—he moved away, the retreat of his heat palpable. The mechanical grind of the lift broke the silence. She turned back as the Impala sank to the ground like the Hindenberg, heavy and ponderous. Jingling silver flashed toward her face, and she snapped her hand up just in time to catch the key before they could strike her.

  A snarl bubbled in her throat. He only looked at her coolly, standing between her and the Impala, that damnable brow arched again. An unfamiliar burst of anger ignited in the pit of her stomach. She drugged herself on apathy, but his frigid calm roused a fire that wanted something violent just to shatter his ice, just to make him hurt for treating her with such contempt.

  That fire frightened her, burning dark with its fury. She knew that fury. Knew its taste. It had chased her into the night four years ago with the scents of gunsmoke and burning powder hot in her nostrils, and she’d been running from it ever since.

  She lowered her eyes and shouldered around him. Her arm brushed his for a moment like a blow to the chest, before she dropped the receipt and the pen at his feet, the paper fluttering in the breeze of her passing. She yanked the car door open and slid inside, slamming it shut behind her and reaching down to adjust the seat, sliding it as far forward as it would go.

  He was still watching her. Standing in front of the car, looking through the windshield, staring her down like a matador staring down a charging bull with unflappable calm. She fit the key to the ignition, started the Impala with a roar of six churning cylinders, and set her lips into a thin line. He could move, or she could run him over.

  Still he stood, practically challenging her—or making a point. Until finally, ice-pale eyes glittering, he tipped a mocking bow and stepped aside, one arm sweeping out.

  She was sorely tempted to flip him off, as she floored the gas and pulled out onto the street.

  The drive back to Gary’s barely soothed her restless edges, when she had to focus to keep the Impala in a straight line. It fought her like a fractious horse and used its weight to throw her about; her nerves were still raw when she pulled up to the bar and slid out, her thighs numb from the engine’s vibrations shaking up through the seat. Gary came out to meet her, fiddling his cufflinks, worried eyes darting over her as if afraid that maddening asshole had hurt her. Something hard inside her softened at the genuine worry in his watery eye.

  He’d never have expected her to do anything, least of all what she’d assumed. God, was she that fucking cynical that she mistrusted even Gary’s mother-henning this much?

  “Fucking hell, Leigh. I’m sorry.” He fretted at his shirt collar. “I meant to give you my card before you left.”

  She shrugged stiffly and shoved the key at him, then stuffed her hands into her pockets. “It’s fine. Just pay me. I don’t want to be here right now.”

  His lips parted helplessly, but he said nothing. He should know her well enough by now to know when not to press. Wordlessly he fished a wad of cash from his pocket and peeled off a hundred dollar bill, then caught her wrist and pulled her hand from her hoodie to press the money into her palm. She stared up at him.

  “Gary, I—”

  “Take it. You can work it off bussing tables tomorrow night. Go buy yourself a real meal, kid. Go get something you really want.”

  She was too raw inside to argue. She only nodded, crumpled the bill into her pocket, then walked away before his kindness could chase her away. She didn’t know how to deal with it. She never felt like she deserved it, never thought she’d done anything to earn it. So she left before the ugly parts of her did something to spit on that kindness, because it was the only way she knew how to show her appreciation.

  She went to a movie on her own that night, after snapping one more picture in the park for her almost-full phone. One more thing just for her. No nameless ‘date’ pretending this was anything other than what it was. She bought her own popcorn and bit the tips off strawberry Twizzler whips and drank her soda through candy straws, and laughed at the screen without worrying anyone would tell her she was too loud and girls shouldn’t laugh that way.

  And she slept in an abandoned building, resting against the wall beneath a broken-out window that poured in gray shafts of moonlight milk, while her music sang low and sweet and she curled herself in the sweet contentment of solitude.

  Tonight she was a goddess of broken-down dreams, and didn’t want any mortal man to touch her.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BY THE TIME SHE WOKE the next morning—her knees and shoulders and ass caked with the plaster dust coating the floor—that low wet ache was back, throbbing between her thighs with a gnawing hungriness that lit her up like a druggie who’d tried to skip a fix.

  She leaned her back against the wall and spread her knees. Her skirt bunched around her hips. She slipped her fingers past her panties and traced through her wetness and closed her eyes, and remembered the damp, heaving heat of breaths against her ear while a rough, desperate voice gasped God, yes…that’s Daddy’s good little girl, open for Daddy. Back then she’d burned inside with the thick sore pain of a cock bigger than she was ever meant to take, battering at her from within until she’d spread her legs to beg for more and whimpered against the hand clamped over her mouth.

  She slid her fingers inside herself and circled her thumb against her clit, her head tossing back against the wall. Her thighs squeezed around her wrist, and she clung as long as she could to the low silk-soft pulse that made her ache for a cock throbbing inside her, touching and stroking and hurting in places her fingers could never reach. And as she came down from that gasping rush, as she wiped her dripping fingers clean on her thigh, she knew she wouldn’t be sleeping alone tonight.

  She savored the feeling of her own wetness against her skin, her panties clinging thin and soaked, as she picked herself up, dusted off, and slipped out into the morning light.

  Eighty-four dollars still burned a hole in her pocket. She ate herself sick at IHOP, pecan pancakes that tasted so much better for that she hardly ever got to indulge. Most of the time she ate when she could find food. Some night
s were hungry ones with the pain gnawing in her shrunken belly, but she didn’t let it bother her. It just made things like this more sweet, and she wouldn’t enjoy them as much if she could have them whenever she wanted.

  She hadn’t realized that. Not before. Not in her old life.

  Not until she’d left it behind.

  Over breakfast, she fished a battered notebook from her backpack and uncapped a gel pen that was nearly out of ink. Past pages and pages of random thoughts, usually just one quick phrase, one inkling, one moment in time that stuck with her and wouldn’t let go, she found a blank page and tapped the nib of the pen against the note-paper lines, thinking as she nibbled on a syrup-drenched bite. On the previous page she’d written:

  humans don’t know how to be happy.

  they just know how to want.

  She’d underscored want with two sharp dashed lines. She lived her life wanting. Wanting something to fill that emptiness, whatever it might be. Right now it was her stomach that craved filling. Tonight it would be the need, clawing inside her until she was a she-wolf ready to howl to the moon if it would ease the compulsion.

  She frowned, tapping the pen a few more times, then scribbled:

  every night I’m a different animal.

  but I’ll always be a beast.

  She capped the pen, licked the last runnels of syrup from fingers that still tasted a little like herself, then excused herself from her table to wash up in the IHOP bathroom. Lifting her shirt up, and she scrubbed with paper towels until her skin glowed, and wrung her hair in the sink. Damp cool trickles poured down the back of her neck and soothed the thick wet fire of a summer morning, as she stepped out into the heat of the day.

  She still had sixty-two dollars in her pocket, and no idea what to do with it.

  She should probably save it for dry spells when she couldn’t find a good mark, didn’t want to steal from Gary’s fridge, but hadn’t eaten in days. But she wanted something; just one more little thing to make her feel lovely inside. So she bought a few bottles of glitter-strewn nail polish at the Dollar Store, along with several notebooks and pens. Things to keep her thoughts in when she couldn’t take them anymore, ready to join the five or six composition books already in her backpack. That still left her with fifty-three dollars. She wandered toward Gary’s on foot, looking in store windows. Clothing. Jewelry. Pretty things that had no meaning. She pondered buying a cheap pop-up and joining the sprawling tent city in the Upper Nests, living wild with the stars of string lights around her even when the skies were gray. Maybe one day she would.