She lets out a mix between a laugh and a huff. “I mean it. On paying back and working here if I have to.”
“If that’s what makes you feel better then—”
“That’s what makes me feel better.” She sighs as if she’s annoyed, as if she’s exhausted, as if she just dropped a heavy weight. “If I’m not selling, I can get a real job and then I can work real hours and since I won’t have to be gone most the night, maybe I can cut back on the nurses’ hours and that will cost me less, but even still...I’m not sure it will be enough.”
“Do you trust me, Abby?”
Abby stares at me long enough that most men would have pissed on themselves by now. She’s an intimidating girl. Beautiful. Seductive. Deadly if she wanted to be. Abby licks her lips. “Yes.”
I tip my head to the window behind me. “Do you trust them?”
She lowers her head like trust means defeat. “Yes.”
“Then let us worry about helping with what you can’t cover when you go legit.”
“You’re asking me to have more faith in you than I’ve ever had in anyone.”
I am. “Isn’t that what faith is? Believing in something without seeing it first?”
“You suck, Logan.”
“Oh, well.”
I ease onto the car next to Abby and she knocks her knee against mine. “Isaiah’s going to kick our asses for touching his car.”
“I’m not scared of him.”
She half laughs. “You aren’t scared of anything. I’m not sure you even know fear.”
“Used to say the same thing about you.”
Abby raises her face to the deep blue sky above. “I couldn’t afford fear, not for a long time, but being shot...the fear caught up. But it’s not dying that I’m scared of.”
“What are you scared of?”
“Of still breathing but being dead inside. I think that’s a fate worse than death. I was already halfway there when I walked into the car shop to find you and Rachel hanging with Isaiah. I knew then I should have walked away, but I was tired of being numb.”
We’re silent and it feels right and wrong. Right in that her admission deserves the respect of thought, wrong because Abby deserves more than to be the only one putting herself out there.
“A few years after being first diagnosed with diabetes, things went bad. My kidneys freaked and I ended up in the hospital. I was scared then.” Terrified. “When I was better, one of my mom’s boyfriends took me rappelling and I loved the rush. Loved feeling alive. Death scared me so much that I like it when my heart beats too hard for too long. Reminds me I’m still breathing.”
I glance over at her. “I was also scared when I heard shots in the alley, saw you lying face-down on the ground. Death scared me. Losing you scared me. The idea of losing you still scares me.”
This time we both pretend the sidewalk is interesting. One eighteen-year-old and one seventeen-year-old. Both dealing with adult shit. Both having the emotional capacity of children. Wanting to belong to each other, but unsure how to navigate emotions.
“Think we did this to ourselves on purpose?” Abby asks.
“Did what?”
“Became the things we were terrified of becoming. You are always trying to cheat death with the crazy stuff you do. I followed in my father’s footsteps and allowed no one in for such a long time.”
“We’re both too strong for that. We haven’t become them, Abby. We’re mocking them. I do crazy shit because I am alive and I enjoy feeling it. The adrenaline pumping in my veins, the air in my lungs, the heat of my skin and yours when I’m kissing you. And you’re not dead inside. You’ve loved too many people for that.”
Abby’s eyebrows raise in doubt.
“Think about it—Linus kept pressuring you to give us up.” I gesture to our group inside currently laughing at something Noah is saying. “That in there, those friendships, that’s dangerous. The good friendships, they’re more potent than an atomic bomb. None of us would let you feel dead inside.”
Abby rocks her knee against mine again and sends me an under-the-eyelash gaze that causes my blood to warm. “Thanks for that.”
“For what?”
“For everything.” Abby flexes her fingers like she’s about to compose on a piano. “I don’t know how to walk away. In all the rules and pieces of advice my father gave me over the years, he never taught me how to give two weeks’ notice to a drug lord. I mean is there paperwork? Should I bring flowers? Do I have to train my replacement? Create a training manual? If I have Kinko’s print and bind it, does that make them an accomplice to organized crime? I mean, how exactly do these things work?”
My lips tilt up as Abby begins talking her nonsense. A conscious stream of things that make sense yet don’t. It’s become a comfort to me, just like our pretend past, just like I’ve become addicted to holding her at night.
“How can I help?”
Abby’s lips thin out and she goes serious. “I need to see my dad.”
Abby
Logan and Isaiah stand with me as I wait for my number to pop up on the screen. I’m the only one who will be allowed in. Dad has a list of people he’s handpicked to visit him, and I’m on that short list even though I’m under eighteen. Mac’s my legal guardian and he signed a notarized letter that gives me permission for the jacked-up meet and greet without an adult.
Other numbers continue to flash on the screen and the people are ushered back to where they’ll be patted down. After that they’ll walk through a metal detector and then be assigned a table where the inmate they want to meet will be.
Lots of suck parts of these visitations, but for me, especially coming unannounced, Dad can refuse this meeting. I’ve never done this before, showed up without Denny making arrangements first, and I mentally will my number to appear, to prove Dad misses me.
Because Isaiah’s supercrazy about keeping his back safe in a crowded environment, we stand by the wall and he methodically swivels his head like an owl’s as he mentally tallies the people surrounding us.
“The criminals are the ones behind the big fat wall,” I mutter.
“All the same,” Isaiah replies.
While Isaiah watches the world, Logan watches me. He seems to understand I don’t want to be touched, I don’t want to be coddled, that I need to be a bit numb when walking through that door. But I like that he’s beside me, standing strong, staying silent, just being there...ready to catch me when I fall.
Because I will fall. I always do. With the choices I’ve made in my life, my path is nothing but crumbling cliffs.
In the past, I picked myself up and dusted myself off with no help and I have to admit it’s more than nice to know that I don’t have to tend to my wounds alone anymore. Nice to know that I could possibly be living a life that no longer causes wounds that bleed.
It’s taking too long. My number should have appeared by now. My blood starts to whoosh in my ears. He’s refused me. My father’s refused me. It’s as if a trap door is being pulled out from underneath me.
“Abby,” Logan says. “It’s your number.”
Relief rushes through me, and I have to remember to suck up my reaction. Dad deserves more than to see my fear and my pain. He needs to see I can stand strong on my own two feet.
I glance up at Logan and he stares down at me. Every caress, touch, and kiss of encouragement I need is shining in his dark eyes. “Go on. We’ll be here waiting when you’re done.”
No doubt that the two of them will be in the same spot. Isaiah searching for the threat to us, Logan waiting for me.
* * *
The guard opens the door for me and the multiple conversations in the room assault my ears. I walk into the room, counting the tables before me and when I find my assigned table, my heart skips a beat.
&n
bsp; Orange jumpsuit, red hair, blue eyes, a rugged beard hiding his reaction. Standing there, staring at me as if he’s seeing a ghost is the man who saved me all those years ago. It’s my father.
Logan asked me once how Daddy knew I was his child for sure and I basically answered I didn’t care. I don’t care, but I know and so does Daddy. I’m not his. Not when my mother was fair-haired with a light complexion. Not when I don’t physically resemble him in the least.
I overheard him once speaking to Grams after they tucked me into bed. I crept down the stairs, just needing to hear the sound of his voice again, when she had asked him if she should be concerned about whether my real mother or father would ever come hunting for me. He told her no, that he would protect us both, and I always believed him.
It’s hard not to run to him, difficult to will my feet to move at a normal pace. The urge is to rush him, wrap my arms around him, beg him to break free of this place and take care of me again. But he can’t break free. There’s a good chance he’ll never be free. My father is paying for his sins.
Less than two feet away, my father holds out his arms and I don’t hesitate to fall into him. He hugs me tight, his hand petting my head, and he kisses my hair then says in my ear, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I whisper. “I’m healing.”
“In danger?”
“Yes.”
There’s a clearing of a throat and my father and I break apart. Inmates and visitors are only allowed a brief embrace, even if it is a father welcoming a daughter. We both sit, him on one side of the corner table, me on the other.
Dad glances around and I track where he’s looking. Everyone seems lost in their own conversations, but I don’t pretend to understand his world, just know that for every action there is a reaction.
“The whole world is exploding right now and it’s over you.” Dad leans in to make this conversation private. “Last I heard, Linus thinks Eric has you.”
I search Dad’s face and while he’s always worn cool and collected, even when he’s on the verge of a murderous rage, I don’t spot what I had expected—a masked anger over the kidnapping.
“I’m not with Eric.”
“Didn’t think you were. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”
“Eric told me to tell you that he saved me.”
Dad doesn’t flinch. “Anything else?”
“And he told me to tell you thank you.”
Dad’s lips twitch up.
It’s a disgusting sensation as part of me swims in confusion and dips in betrayal. “You knew Eric was going to kidnap me.”
“I told him to get you out of town.”
My fingers draw in for a fist and then I force flex them out. “He blindfolded me and hog-tied me then threw me in the back of a car.”
That flash of craziness I originally expected finally appears, but Dad retains his cool. “But he got the job done, and you’re sitting here safe.”
“And Eric’s your enemy,” I whisper-shout.
Dad edges forward to give us more privacy. “And boundaries are shifting. You’re smart, Abby, and I expect you to keep up.”
“They have TV’s in here, right? I mean, when you aren’t sitting around plotting out the world outside these walls, you must watch it. Does it ever sink in when watching the Disney Channel that people don’t normally have their daughters kidnapped? That instead of working through coded messages through other people that you do something crazy like talk to me directly? Normal fathers talk to their daughters.”
“I’m not normal and neither are you.”
“No shit. And here I thought my father sold cosmetics door-to-door. You know, someday, I’m going to have a job where I can come home and sip lemonade on the front porch and watch people mow their yards and I’m going to have goldfish and bunnies and I will no longer have to have conversations about me being saved by a kidnapping. But for now, this is where we are at so how about you fucking humor me and tell me what the hell is going on?”
Dad cracks a grin, and I hate that amusing him causes a high within me. “I miss how you view the world, Abigail. You always make the serious moments have less of an edge.”
“Tommy shot me,” I blurt because I don’t have time to play, not even with him. “I don’t have proof, but if I really needed it, I can get it. Eric saving me, my own side taking a shot at me, Ricky wants me to start moving up into management, and Linus is getting a position watching my back with this promotion—I’ll admit to being overwhelmed. Then the last real conversation I had with Linus, he informed me that if I wanted out, there is no out. That I’m safer in than I ever will be out. Now I’m discovering you’re working with Eric. I’m lost and I’m in danger and I need out.”
Dad gestures up with his hand. “You are out.”
“I’m not out. I’m hiding. My home is in Louisville. My life is in Louisville. Grams is in Louisville.”
Dad narrows his eyes on me and I sit back, knowing I’m about to get schooled. “You have broken nearly every rule I gave you to stay alive. You made attachments.”
I shrug. “They weren’t friends within the streets. They were out.”
“You fell in love.”
My eyes snap to his, wondering how he knows about Logan. “He’s a good guy.”
“You trusted when I told you not to trust.”
I blink. Then blink again. A coldness crystalizes the blood in my veins. “My friends, those attachments you’re worried about, they won’t betray me.”
Dad raises his eyebrows. “It’s not them I’m referring to.”
“I never trusted Ricky. I never trusted any of them.”
He just keeps staring, waiting for me to catch up, and when the answer strikes me the blood rushes out of my face and I bend over with the impact. Linus.
“He ordered Tommy to go after you,” Dad says under his breath. “Not to kill, just to scare you. It went further than he had intended.”
My hand presses against my stomach as if that can keep me from vomiting. “How do you know this?”
Dad’s blue eyes become ice. “Because he confessed to me. Linus saw how you were pulling away and didn’t like it. Felt like his meal ticket was too strongly tied to you and he needed to keep you in and figured he could use fear to do it. You aren’t safe with him anymore. You aren’t safe working for Ricky.”
My heart jumps to my throat. “Ricky was in on this?”
“Linus says he wasn’t, but I don’t know. I don’t believe in coincidence and Ricky’s push to move you up, Linus’s promotion associated with it, and you being shot all work too closely together for my taste.”
“The alley couldn’t have been a setup. Ricky warned me off from selling that night. Linus had no idea I’d be there.”
“Them going after Eric’s crew was a setup, but by you not paying attention, you stumbled into it.” His murderous glare and firm reprimand cause me to internally shrink. “Linus told me that he had been talking to Tommy about possible ways to scare you into submission for a few weeks, but he swears none of it was supposed to hurt you. After they did their business in the alley, Linus decided to take advantage of your stupidity and scare you into going deeper.”
“Why did he confess?”
Dad briefly glances away as his eyes soften and that causes my heart to warm. “Linus knows what you mean to me and part of his job was to protect you. He lost you with Eric’s kidnapping. Thought he had lost you for good. He came to tell me and then...” Dad returns his typical hard stare on me. “I told him I already knew and that if he valued his life, he better tell me the truth real fucking quick.”
I shiver and my stomach bottoms out. Death is in my father’s eyes. The type that’s either already been done or is in the works. Either way, Dad has played the reaper, I just don’t know who he’s been toying with. “How
did you know about Eric? Why are you working with him?”
My father merely holds up his hand and I fall silent. “Do you want out, Abby?”
“But—”
“Do you want out? Because if you do, you don’t get to know any of this business anymore. If you want to stay in, tell me, but the stakes of the game have been raised. You will have to accept that promotion, and I can no longer guarantee your safety.”
It’s hard to recover from the pain ripping me up on the inside. Linus...my God, Linus. The ache in my chest is too hard to ignore. He, at the heart of it, was like a mentor to me. And Dad was right, I trusted him. Not in the way I trusted Logan or Isaiah. But I thought he was an ally among wolves. “I want out. It’s going to be tough to figure out how to take care of Grams, but I think I can swing it.”
“You can’t go back to Louisville,” Dad says. “Retired dealers are a liability. Especially you. You know too much. On both sides. Ricky can be dangerous, but so can some of your clients. Any of them thinking you’re making a deal with police could cause you problems. And by the cards I’ve been playing lately, I can’t trust that someone won’t take their aggressions for my choices out on you. In here, I don’t have the reaction time needed to keep you safe.”
The world spins. “Where am I supposed to go? Do?”
“Denny’s working on it. I knew you’d eventually surface and figured you’d contact him for help once Eric told you the truth. Denny is getting together a new identity for you. New background. He’s going to raise you a year in age so you can find a job.”
I don’t even get to finish high school. I don’t even get the option of Harvard or a state school or junior college or even something online. “You’re going to make me disappear again? Like me...like Abby never existed?”
Dad nods, not seeing how he’s taken a knife and has gutted me open. Yes, I hated the Abby I was becoming, but at times, I like the girl she was and I was in love with the girl she was going to be. Tears prick my eyes as I already mourn her and then turn my head to avoid a dry heave at the thought that no one will care if and when I disappear again.
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