by Evelyn Glass
“Is something wrong?” she asks sleepily, propping up on her pillows.
I quickly tell her, starting with the boat ride and ending with my conversation with Patrick.
“How could this have happened, Dawn?” I ask her. “Seriously, what the hell? There’s a track mark in my arm, and I don’t remember the last few hours. But I don’t remember injecting myself, either. Surely I would remember that? When you take drugs—sorry to put this on you, but please—when you take drugs, do you ever get so out of it that you don’t even remember taking them? Is that possible? But surely you remember taking them, at least? Surely you remember that?”
I realize I’m bombarding her with questions and stop myself.
“I don’t know,” Dawn says, looking at me uncertainly.
“What? What don’t you know?”
“You really don’t remember taking them?”
“No!” I cry. “That proves I didn’t, right?”
Dawn shakes her head slowly. “No, it doesn’t prove anything, not really. It’s like when you get really drunk. Sometimes you get so drunk you can’t even remember your first drink. It’s the same. Sometimes you get so high you don’t even remember what you took, or how much . . .” She trails off, still looking at me uncertainly, head slightly tilted, eyes narrowed, as if she is trying to unravel some mystery.
“What is it?” I demand. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
Dawn holds her hands up, her small, delicate hands. Or, at least, that’s how I see them, as her child’s hands. In reality the nails are chipped and the fingernails are scarred and tough from burns and fights, from her drug days.
“First, let me say that everything is going to be okay. Whatever happened, you and Killian will be together again. I know that. You two are perfect for each other. I saw you at the meal, how you talked like nobody else was there, the way you looked at each other. I know you’ll be able to sort this out.”
“There’s a but coming, isn’t there, Dawn?” Even my own sister doesn’t believe me . . . Wait, you don’t know what she’s going to say—
“But, I’m not sure . . . how did you get high if, like you say, you were on a boat, all alone, just the two of you? Look, sissy, you can tell me anything, you know that? Our family has a history of drug use. You’ve stood by me more times than I can count. What sort of sister would I be if I didn’t stand by you now? Hey! Where’re you going?”
I walk from the room and close the door behind me, standing in the living room with my fists clenched, bouncing against my thighs, bruising them.
I need to talk to Killian.
I rush to the couch and grab my cell, sunk in the cushions.
“Come on, come on.”
I’m sitting on the edge of the toilet seat, in total darkness save a sliver of starlight which darts through the narrow window and the light of the cellphone, staring down at Killian’s name. I’ve called him three times already and each time it’s gone to voicemail.
“Come on!” I snap, when it goes to voicemail for the fourth time.
I jump to my feet and walk back and forth, the tiles cold on the soles of my feet, pressing the call button again and again, and each time it rings for half a minute and goes to voicemail. I imagine Killian sitting on his bike, staring down at his phone, seeing my name and ignoring it.
The image makes me want to cry, but I blink away tears and press the call button over and over and over and over . . .
Voicemail, voicemail, voicemail.
As I pace, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. On impulse I turn on the light and stand there, staring at my reflection. Black rings border my eyes, my eyes are bloodshot, my skin is tired, saggy-looking. What the hell happened to me?
“Please, Killian, please,” I murmur, dialing him again.
And again, he doesn’t answer.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Killian
As autumn turns to early winter, I work hard. I throw my mind and my body into my work. I think: if I can work hard enough, if I can end each day so tired that I can barely stand, if I can make my body ache with the pain of it and my eyelids heavy, then I will not think about her.
The main bulk of our work over this period is protection and gun running. These are the most dangerous gigs, but they’re also the most profitable. As the streets of the Cove turn to ice and snow coats the roof of the club, the Satan’s Martyrs make more money than ever before. Money practically pours in through the doors. And at the end of each day I collapse into the office bed and close my eyes and will myself to think of nothing.
And each time, I think of her, her, her. She leaps into my mind and she won’t leave.
During the days, it’s easier. I’m riding, fighting, shooting, working. But during the nights, no matter how tired I am, I can’t help but think of Hope. At first, the thoughts are longing. I long to hold her in my arms again. I long to kiss her. I long to take her. I long to be with her in every way. I can almost imagine that I am with her. I smile and roll onto my side, hugging a pillow.
But then I grip the pillow with angry hands, digging my fingers in, and my breathing comes labored and quick. I remember how she looked, high out of her mind, like some kind of sedated animal. My Hope, so full of life, so sarcastic and biting and kind and lively, lolling there like nothing more than a sack of skin and bones. Eventually, I have to jump out of bed and take three quick shots of whiskey to calm myself. Then I return to bed and the specter of Hope chases me into my dreams—
My dreams, hell. My dreams are part of the problem.
Sometimes, I’m rolling around in bed with Hope. Her perfect body is open to my hands. In the dream, whatever I want to touch is where my hand rests. If I reach for her face but I suddenly want to touch her pussy, she is magically moved so that her pussy is what I am reaching for. I lose myself in her body. I come inside her sweet tight warm hole over and over. She moans in my ears, sweet moans which tell me she is coming just as much as I am. Those big breasts, that curvy ass, those gorgeous legs. I wake up rock-hard. I can’t make it go away. So I have to sort myself out, closing my eyes tight-shut and thinking of Hope.
Other times, we aren’t fucking, but laughing. The dream never lasts long enough for me to know what we’re laughing about. All I know is we’re laughing at something we find very, very funny. We sit in the box of the ferris wheel at the amusement park, giggling into the night. Hope looks achingly beautiful when she laughs, elfin face thrown back, dark eyes black in the night, and yet somehow still twinkling. When I wake from those dreams, I have a goofy-ass grin on my face and I’m still laughing. Then I remember her, the way she was and what she threw away, and the laughter dies.
The last dream comes the most often, and when I wake from this one, I’m sweating through my sheets. Once, I woke from this dream screaming into the night.
When I enter the dream, I’m standing at the foot of a long, wide staircase. The land around the staircase changes each time, as does the material of the staircase, but it is always long and wide. Sometimes the land is rolling sand, sometimes rainforest, sometimes jungle and sometimes cityscapes. And sometimes the stairs are wooden, marble, stone.
Whatever they are, I walk up the stairs, my legs burning, sweating, panting, struggling to get to the top as fast as I can, struggling to reach something. I have no clue what it is. Though I have dreamed it before, in the dream I never remember. Only afterwards.
Each time I reach the top, I see a double bed, the sheets bright white, emitting their own light. Atop the bed lies Hope, naked, one leg folded seductively over the other, her head propped up with her hand. She’s lying on her side, giving me fuck-me eyes that are impossible to ignore. I’m yanking my clothes away before I can give it any thought. No man could resist Hope when she’s lying there like that, ready to explode in pleasure. No man could even try. As I undress, I look down, not wanting anything to snag, to delay the pleasure.
When I’m finally as naked as she is, I look back up at her.
When she talks, her voice is muffled with blood: “Don’t you want it?”
With bloody hands, she lifts up two needles, brandishing them at me.
“It’s fun.”
Her words are too clear. It’s as though the blood is not muffling her at all, although it sounds muffled.
Aiming the needles, she springs from the bed like a javelin, ready to pierce me.
Tonight, I wake from this dream, sweat coating me, chest heaving.
I rub my eyes and rise to my feet, walk across the room, and scoop up the whiskey bottle from the desk.
I think I’ll need more than three shots tonight.
I’m sitting at my desk, sorting out the men’s pay, when Patrick knocks at the door. Two swift knocks, and it’s like he’s pounding me in the head with a hammer and a nail. I overdid it on the whiskey, that’s for sure.
“Come in,” I groan.
Patrick enters. He’s like a man reborn, now that I’m around more, and now that we have more jobs. He’s lost a few pounds from all the work and it’s been replaced with muscle. When he smiles, his face looks ten years younger. Lately, mine has been looking ten years older. At the moment, he could be the younger brother and I the older. He swaggers into the office and sits in the chair opposite me.
“Hey, brother,” he smiles. “Declan was just explaining to me what a Golden Age is. Ever heard of it?”
“Can’t say I have,” I answer, massaging my temples.
“Apparently it’s when a country goes through a big boom, when they make a shitload of cash and have enough money and free time to do a shitload of cool stuff. He was telling me that he thinks the Satan’s Martyrs are going through a Golden Age right now.”
“Can’t deny that,” I mutter. “Don’t have any aspirin on you, do you?”
Patrick tilts his head at me, and then jumps to his feet and goes to the door. He pokes his head out and shouts: “Somebody get the Boss some goddamn aspirin!” Half a minute later, one of the pledges comes scuttling down with a bottle, creeps into the office, places it on the desk, and creeps out again.
I dry-mouth three tablets and lean back in the office chair, stretching my neck from side to side. Rain falls outside, a light pat-pat-pat, but to my whiskey-aching head it’s like a series of engines exploding.
“Rough night?” Patrick asks, smirking.
I think Patrick imagines that I’m completely over Hope, that all the men imagine it. They all think I let her go just as I let every other woman go I’ve ever been with. Just pushed her out of my life and out of my mind, just forgot about her the second she was gone. But then, they must know something or suspect something, because I haven’t had another woman since Hope. Not even a quick fuck. Nothing. Even now, as I look across the desk at my brother, I’m sure I can see Hope standing beside the door, smiling softly at me.
“Huh?” I grunt, snapping back to reality when Patrick barks something at me.
“I said, are you alright, brother?”
“I’m fine,” I murmur. “You here for a reason?”
Patrick holds his hands up. “Have I done something to offend you?” he asks.
“No.” I shake my head, and even that causes it to pound. “No, I’m just hungover, is all.”
A silence stretches between us, but it’s a silence only confined to my office. Elsewhere in the clubhouse, the men shout and laugh, glasses clink. I hear Declan, voice raspy, singing karaoke into a microphone as some of the men clap and cheer. Farther down, at the back of the clubhouse, the ring has been set up and two of the men pommel each other, their fists making slap noises on the other’s flesh. Then there’s a loud bang as someone goes down, and a cheer is thrown up.
Finally, Patrick says, “It’s her, isn’t it?”
I squint at him. “Her? Who’s her?”
Patrick rolls his eyes. “Killian, I’ve spent more time with you these past few weeks than I have at any other point in our lives.”
“Shit,” I say, realizing it’s true. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Exactly. So do you really think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been acting? Don’t get me wrong. You haven’t dropped the slack on the jobs. You’ve been doing a hell of a job. But you’re tired. You’re not sleeping.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No, not on its own. But what about the fact that you haven’t been with a woman since—you know?”
“Yeah, and what about you? When all the men went to the—”
“I’m seeing a woman. You know that.”
Ah yes, Dawn.
“Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence you’ve started to act weird since that night. Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence that you’ve started to act weird since you left Hope.”
“Maybe it is a fucking coincidence,” I growl, leaning forward. I’m not even angry at Patrick. I’m not even angry at myself or Hope, not right now. I’m just angry at the whole damn world. “Maybe that’s exactly what it is and you’re reading into shit that isn’t there. Maybe you’ve forgotten that I’m the damn boss and it isn’t your goddamn place to question me, eh? Maybe that’s what’s happening here.”
Patrick backs away a little, fear flickering across his face, but he doesn’t get up and leave the room. He watches me for a few moments, and then he says quietly, “I could check on her, if you wanted. Just to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s not my concern anymore.”
“Maybe not, but she’s definitely concerning you.”
“I didn’t take you for a fucking pun artist, Patrick.”
“You’re angry,” Patrick states flatly.
“Well-fucking-done!” I snap, smashing my fist on the table.
Patrick pushes his chair back, so that he’s out of my range, but still he doesn’t stand up.
“You’re my brother. My younger brother. I can still see the little kid, sad and terrified ’cause Dad died. Let me help you. Let me check on her. I won’t even let her see me.”
“I thought you didn’t run my errands,” I spit bitterly.
“This isn’t an errand. This is a favor.”
I stretch my arms out and open and close my fingers, feel the ache in the hand which hit the table. Maybe it would be good to at least know how she’s doing. Maybe it would be help with the dreams. Maybe I’d be able to get some sleep.
“Fine,” I say. “But don’t let her see you.”
“I won’t.” Patrick reaches into his pocket and takes out a wad of bills. “Onto business,” he goes on. “Here’s your share from last night’s job.”
He tosses it across the desk and then leaves the office. I leave the bills untouched and watch him leave, already wishing he was back with news of Hope.
Declan and I sit in the corner booth. The other men stay at the far end of the bar, drinking quietly and shooting some pool. More of them are out, either in the Cove or in neighboring towns, spending their dough. I should be out with them, picking up women and grazing my fists, but I’m not in the mood. Lately, I’m never in the mood.
“You loved this woman,” Declan says, keeping his voice quiet. The old man knows how important it is to never show weakness. The only reason I can talk to Declan about it is because he’s the most loyal man in the club. “You loved her and she hurt you.”
“Maybe I did love her,” I reply, my voice just as low as his, if not as raspy. I sip my whiskey and he sips his. “Maybe I did, yeah, but I have a code, Declan. A goddamn code. And what’s a code worth if it isn’t unbreakable? What’s a code worth if you can just shrug and say, fuck it, oh well, let’s move on? No, a code is a code because you live and die by it. No drugs. None. Zero. If you want to do drugs, fine, but not near me, nowhere fucking near me.”
�
��I know how much you hate drugs,” the old man says. “We all do. You’ve never taken a job that involved drugs, not once you became the leader, despite how much cash it might make.”
“Exactly. So you see. I shouldn’t even be thinking about her.”
“I had a wife once, Killian,” Declan whispers, his voice thick with whiskey and old age and pain.
“You did?” I ask.
“Yes, back in Ireland. I was a twenty-year-old kid and I fell deep in love with a woman five years older than me. She was a nurse and I wasn’t much of anything.” His eyes water, glass over, and I know he’s seeing her right now. “Siobhan, her name was, and she was like an angel to me. I worshipped her. I kissed her feet and I kissed her calves and I kissed her legs.” He coughs out a grim laugh. He goes to sip his whiskey, but it’s empty. I take his glass and pour him another. He nods his thanks and takes a long sip before going on.
