by Elena Monroe
That pang of jealousy crept up my spine, knowing that she had some kind of habit of liking cheap versions of things, me included.
“Who is this guy? Guy number one, two, three…? You think I don’t know how many guys you fuck, Jus?” The Nordic nightmare’s voice tripped over certain letters, but we all heard the meaning. He was insulting her in front of me, and the jealousy I was now carrying didn’t approve.
Golden standards don’t allow for this kind of idiocy.
Stepping forward, closer to Justice, I stayed silent, waiting for some kind of signal that she approved of all the ways I wanted to hurt him.
Her hands swept down his arms, toned just as much as mine, while soothing his anger. “He’s just my boss. We aren't exclusive, remember?” Her voice was soft and purposely treating him like a child throwing a tantrum, only we were adults outside of a venue littered with security.
I heard the sirens in the distance, racing down the street, and the shady side of town was feeding off of the scene we were making in the middle of the fucking road. I’m sure fights in this neighborhood were normal, probably something they wore like a purple heart.
“Justice, handle this. The police are on their way.” I tried to warn her, but it wasn’t any help. She was neck deep in drunk bullshit.
I clamped my eyes closed, trying to tune it all out, when I knew I had to make a move before they got here. Her tough attitude was clashing against the veil of booze wafting me in the face every time he yelled at her.
Stepping forward again, I curled my fingers around his shirt, holding him in place while Justice gave me some unholy stare, like the time I swore in church because I dropped my phone. The entire church, including the four families, stared at me like I summoned some demons.
Maybe I had. The four of us were cursed, taken over by demons, or simply fucked by the thing called life in a way that we couldn’t fix.
“You wanna stand up for her? Fucking bitch can take it. Somebody should give her a dick. All she does is fuck people over.” The Nordic tried to twist towards me with my fist still holding onto his shirt, keeping him rooted.
With wide eyes, I looked at Justice to motivate whatever she was thinking into action before the cops pulled up. “Whatever you’re going to do, can you do it already?”
She stood there angry with her arms folded. “I can handle myself. I don’t need saving.”
“Take the swing, Justice. Call it a team effort. We can resume our own war tomorrow.”
The cop car rolled up to the curb, not caring if they cut off traffic or ran over anyone’s feet. They were here to assert the law, and if they got to crack some skulls, well, the law told them they could. I didn’t have the same outlook on the laws and regulations as Justice did with her fucking buttons screaming how much change she wanted to see bleed from the world.
Justice maintained eye contact with me while she drove her knee into his crotch, making him fold like a cheap table and grab himself on the way down.
I knew she wasn’t weak, and I was kicking myself for buying into that notion for one minute.
The two cops got out of the car, and I was trying to keep most of my face hidden from them. I didn’t need Justice to analyze my relationship with law enforcement or have more clues when it came to the Clave. The first cop opened his arms wide with a smirk, “Miss Fritz, how many times is this now?”
My eyebrows collapsed in the center of my face, now questioning her relationship with law enforcement too. She wasn’t just a peacekeeper... but a law breaker?
“Seriously, Rodriguez? Do you call dibs every time someone says I’m involved?” She swung around to face him, putting her hands up, and he proceeded to pat her down.
“Anything that can poke me this time?” The cop laughed, like they were old friends, not enemies.
The Nordic finally stood up trying to catch me off guard, and I caught his arm and dodged a quick fist headed straight for me. The cop grabbed a hold of him. Pushing him over the hood of the car, he zip tied his wrists and started asking for his name.
Justice was calmer and more collected, like it was just a normal day for her, completely unbothered. She let the cop make jokes, recite her rights to her, and prepare her own set of zip ties, when Rodriguez finally noticed me.
Fuck my life.
Rodriguez is pretty much top of the food chain when it comes to LAPD, and he was privy to knowing the Clave was his real boss. We paid him better to turn a blind eye to what we did.
“Victory Rockefeller? Is that you?” He didn’t take his attention off of Justice, like he needed to keep his eyes on her. I could see her making a quick getaway even with the zip ties.
Standing up straighter, I pulled my hair back into a sleeker bun and put my mask back on. Golden Boy. Poster Child for the Clave.
All my power pinned to my outside again, like one of her stupid pins, had me right back in the role I played every day. “Rodriguez. I’ll handle this. You can let her go. Let this guy dry out overnight.”
“You know this delinquent? She’s a spitfire, ain’t she?” He puckered his lips at her and secured the zip ties, while her face boiled into complete aggravation.
“She’s my PA. Uncuff her, Rodriguez.”
He followed suit, standing up to match my height and steeling his spine against my demands, ready to challenge me. “She’s in my custody, Rockefeller. Now she’s my problem.”
We were standing tall; both rooted in getting our way. “She belongs to the Clave. Know your place, foot soldier.”
Taking a step towards him, I kept eye contact, willing him to stand down and heed the warning I was giving him. Rodriguez had been in the Clave’s pocket for years, but he was used to dealing with our fathers, not us. It wasn’t a good enough excuse for him to talk back to me.
Rodriguez’s jaw tightened and his eyes hooded before he twisted around to Justice who was staring at me confused as fuck as to why I was talking to a cop like this. I wasn’t about to explain it either; that’s a clue that costs too much.
After waiting for her wrists to be freed, I placed my hand on her back, ushering her down the street to where I parked. Surprisingly, she didn’t fight me the way I expected. Instead, she just kept staring at me like I grew two heads.
“What?”
“How do you know Rodriguez?”
“Good question, you two seemed pretty friendly. How do you know him?” I pulled on the door handle and waited for her to slide inside, when she bounced off the sidewalk.
Leaning on my door, she squinted at me, trying to see past the mask, “It’s impressive how you really keep that mask in place. I can’t see where it ends. A real talent, huh, Vicy?”
She was standing on her tippy toes with only the door between us when the sticky heat flared up around us again. We couldn’t be this close without ramifications.
“Knowing thy enemy requires seeing beyond what’s presented.” I was toying with her as much as she was with me. Despite her fucking nickname I loathed hearing.
Vicy.
“Always with the riddles. Only snakes talk in tongues, try being human next time.”
Finally sliding into the car, I closed the door behind her, shattered by the idea that she knew exactly what we were, how the mask is required, and how really seeing me is something we don’t entertain. I sat behind the wheel, glancing her direction, already comfortable in my space with her Converse on the dash and the seat pushed back too far for me to get on board with.
I liked things the way I liked them, without Justice making it clear that she hated the rules.
JUSTICE
“Humanity is a waste of time. What does it get you? You’re over here fighting every minute of every day trying to be the best human, and no one even gives you a trophy.”
I kept my shoes on the dash, even though the disapproval was all over his face. Vic got me out of trouble, and the weight of feeling indebted to him was hard to push down. He spoke to Rodriguez, who has been arresting me for years, since transiti
oning to the outskirts of LA to live with Grams, with ease and assertion.
Something about him pulling me from the danger I chased got me hot.
I couldn’t even argue with his logic for not being human; it was true. No one was giving out trophies for being the best human with strong morals and always doing the right thing.
“He’s been arresting me since I moved in with my Grams after my parents died.” Fingering the locket I never took off, I gave him a nugget of truth—just a small nugget.
His head turned to look at me, ignoring the fact that he was racing his Porsche up the freeway at an alarming speed and not looking. “What happened to them?”
No one had ever asked me that question. As soon as they hear dead parents, they go into support mode—hugs, sympathy, even offering more of themselves to compensate for what I had lost. I respected Vic for not being one of those people; he simply wanted the truth without the emotional lens.
I could appreciate that.
“Protest went wrong... They were on a long weekend together, but I guess they were actually protesting. I thought they stopped back in the 90’s when my mom got pregnant with me. Guess some habits die hard.” I let my words trail off, unsure of what to say. It was a war wound that I’d rather forget even though that was impossible.
His hand landed on my thigh, giving it a squeeze, while keeping his gaze on the road. I was thankful he didn’t say anything. Sometimes the silence was loud enough.
The rest of the ride, we rode in silence, but I could tell his mind wasn’t exactly silent. He had that look on his face, with his lips turned up, and his eyebrows pinched.
What are you thinking, Vicy?
Why wasn’t my parents death in my file?
Why was Abigail’s file an information dump?
He pulled into my driveway for the second time with no memory loss. He remembered everything about me without trying. Meanwhile, I barely knew anything about him in return.
“You know you're winning, right?” I sat there in the still car.
He looked in my direction with a kind of innocence I couldn’t tell was genuine or not.
“I told you, I don’t lose.” His mouth didn’t even crack into a smirk like I expected. No, the features I was staring at weren't part of a mask at all.
He read my mind and was giving me something in return—something I wasn’t sure he’d be capable of.
“Maybe losing would be good for you.” Twisting to face him, I studied this face, this authentic one, for every long minute he let me.
Leaning into my space, he rested his arm on the console between us, leaving his mouth inches from mine. “You’re the only person I would consider losing to. Now get out of my car, Peace Corps.”
Twisting towards the door, I clutched the handle and squeezed it in my hand until the door unpacked to let me push it open. I slipped out of the car and walked around the back to his side.
I couldn’t let him have the last word. Leaning down to his open window, I almost sang the words: “And here I thought you’d kiss me goodnight... That is a loss.”
I almost skipped inside my apartment that I could barely afford on my own with my win and a mental image of Vic without a mask.
It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
I started stripping my clothes off piece by piece on the way to the shower. Now that I had no roommate I was able to walk around naked if I wanted to. Twisting the shower on, I swore I heard a knock on my door that had my ears perk up, before it even registered in my mind.
Grabbing my towel from the hook, I held it against my chest, making sure it covered me from the front. Pulling the door open, I saw Vic standing as big as the doorway without his leather jacket, just in his striped shirt and Converse that seemed so unlike him.
In one movement, his hands were around my neck, and he was dragging my lips to his. It only took two pecks to get my mouth to fall open for his tongue to tangle with mine.
I felt myself melt into his chest, losing my balance, and my knees actually felt weak.
Pulling away from me, his hand grabbed my hip, skin to skin, my towel barely doing anything now. “I forgot something… where’s your phone?”
Stunned by everything, I kept stuttering over my words, still consumed by his kiss.
“Wha-What? Why?”
By the time I spun around, he already had his hands on my phone that he easily found on the counter. Moving towards him, I wrapped the towel around myself tighter.
“Deleting unnecessary numbers.”
I cursed at myself for not having a passcode on my phone. I was an open book, and Vic was a Holy Bible with a heavy lock.
“You can’t delete numbers on my phone. What is wrong with you?” Trying to snatch my phone back, my towel moved, and I had to catch it before flashing Vic.
“I can, and I will. You don’t need his number anymore. He’s below you.” His fingers moved, and his eyes locked on the screen again.
“You think I hang out with him because he’s a gentleman? I hang out with him for the same reason he hangs out with me: the sex. I can take the defamatory statements and blows to my ego, because I’m winning in the end. I’m getting what I want from him.”
Going around the small island that doubled as counter space in the kitchen, he held up my phone between us. “The next time you need a good fuck, my number is in there.”
Dropping my phone into my hands, he stared at me for longer than I was prepared for.
Vic just willingly gave me his number and offered up his dick on a silver platter before walking out. He even closed the door softly behind him. He sure did know how to exit a room.
He left me with just a taste—a taste of him on my lips to keep me company for the rest of the night. It took me longer to get into the shower still stuck on Vic. Dropping the towel, I opened the door breathing in the steam.
After I showered, I found myself picking up Vic’s button down shirt and slipping it back on before I fell asleep with the image of him unmasked in my mind.
The next morning, I decided to get moving pretty quickly when I knew I wanted to see my Grams to help me figure some stuff out.
I’d rather talk to my mom, but that wasn’t an option.
I needed Grams to tell me I’m in over my head, that Vic is the wrong guy, and that my HR file is wrong. Everything was wrong, and I needed Grams to validate it.
The bus ride to Costa Mesa wasn’t bad, if you didn’t mind changing buses three times and trying to occupy two seats so no one dared sit next to you. It should have taken an hour, but it took almost two, still predominantly worth it.
Walking down her suburban street, I looked at all the perfect houses with their perfect fences and even more perfect families. I wasn’t bitter, just mildly jealous that there were young girls with two parents inside.
Kicking some rocks under my boots, I wanted to kick myself for being this upset still all these years later.
When would time heal my wounds?
Stopping in front of the house my mom grew up in and the same house that we would visit on the weekends, it looked exactly the same. Maybe in need of a touch up on the paint, but every bush looked just as manicured as they always did. Grams was the definition of independence. She had been without Grandpa for a long time, and ever since then, she had done everything on her own.
Then, when she was done raising her daughter, I was dropped into her lap.
I had more than respect for her. It was admiration at its finest.
I knocked on the door and heard my Grams fragile raspy voice shout: “Be right there!”
The door flew open to my Grams holding garden shears and wearing gardening gloves. She would live off the land in a hut if she didn’t feel tethered to stay put for me.
“Grams, you’re gonna scare the suburbanites out here.” I laughed as I threw my arms around her and squeezed.
“What are you doing here, Jus? Oh my goodness! How many buses did you take to get down here?” Pulling me inside,
she chucked the shears and tugged the ends of my hair. “Still pink, huh?”
“Grams! Less judgment in that voice, ma’am.” Still squeezing her, connected at the hip, she only pulled away to put some brownie squares on a plate before pulling a jug of milk out of the fridge.
Forever my keeper.
“You’ve got a gun for a mouth. Don’t you, honey?”
Taking a bite of the brownie, I nearly choked on the gooey batter in the center. There’s something about food made with love that soaks up the insecurities inside you.
“Grams, we need to talk, for real.”
She moved around the kitchen, ignoring me, picking up a rag and cleaning her pristine counters, trying to avoid talking about my last name or parents.
I was more compliant when I was too mad to talk about my parents and the details.
“Justice. We’ve been over this. Why are you digging up the past?”
I slammed my palm down on the counter. “It’s my past to dig up. I couldn’t deal with it before, but now it’s haunting me.”
She faced me, the island between us and a rag thrown down to match my frustration. “Your parents were good people. I’m not going to let a few mistakes change how you see them.”
“Few mistakes?” I was accustomed to the image of them being all too good for this world.
They stood up for the weak, fought for what is right, and didn’t take no for an answer. How could a few mistakes change that?
“God, Justice. I didn’t want you to ever know this... they didn’t die protesting. Their bodies were never found. The police gave up once they found their car wrecked, and I let them.”
“What do you mean?” My lip was quivering, and my body felt stiff, but shaky, right along with my lip on the inside.
“Their graves are empty, Justice. No one knows what really happened. They were missing, until they found their car in the woods crashed between two trees. No bodies. I hired private investigators, harassed the cops… I did everything I could to find out what happened.”
She moved to throw her arms around me, while my eyes pricked with tears. I had cried for long enough. I wasn’t going to let myself cry some more, because someone lied to me—someone special lied to me.