by E. M. Moore
We.
I march that way, trying to set aside my ridiculous jealousy, telling myself that he must’ve found someone who knows something. I pull the car door open and slip in. Thankfully, we brought one of the bigger Crew cars tonight that has seats facing each other. It came in useful earlier because Brawler, Oscar, and I could sit in the back together without being squished, but now it’s coming in even more useful.
As soon as I slide across the seat across from him, Brawler says, “I had to get her out of there.”
I glance over at her. Recognition tickles my throat. How I know her is on the tip of my tongue, but I’m just not sure. First of all, she’s made up to the hilt. Fake eyelashes. Bright eyeshadow that looks caked on. She’s also wearing a short ass skirt, her legs wide open. The red lacey panties she’s wearing are practically a neon sign.
The door opens again, and Oscar gets in. Magnum and I move over to accommodate him. “Thanks for telling me we were taking this party elsewh—” He shuts up as soon as he sees the girl in Brawler’s lap. She’s out cold right now, eyelids fluttering like she’s dreaming.
“So, I act the part,” Brawler begins. “I tell the guy at the bottom of the stairs that I heard there was some fun shit happening upstairs. He gets this twinkle in his eye. I hand him over a twenty, and he lets me up. I’m directed to a room with her inside,” he says, staring down at her. “She’s awake, barely. Slurring her words.”
“She’s on something?” I ask.
“Something, but I don’t know what.” He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t have struck me as odd except I fucking recognize her. She goes to the Heights.”
Oscar’s gaze narrows. Much like me, I’m sure he’s probably trying to look past the caked-on makeup to figure out who it is. “Fuuuuuck,” Oscar breathes. “That’s the chick that actually cares about school.”
I glance at her again. I don’t know many people at school, but as I said, I feel like I know her. I turn my head, tilting it at the angle the girl is facing, and that’s when it clicks into place. This is the girl who walked me out my first day at the Heights. The one who told me to stay away from Nevaeh and to not leave the school out the front doors when everyone else had left because the guards were handsy.
“Shit.”
“Natalia,” Brawler says. “She lived around the corner from me growing up. No way would she be doing this. Her grandmother was so strict with her.”
Oscar rubs his face. “I hate to say it, but you never know.”
“I’m telling you,” Brawler growls. “She seemed confused. She seemed not to know what was going on. I slipped the guy at the top of the stairs a hundred dollars and told him I wanted to take her home.”
I glance at Brawler. How he even had that much money on him, I don’t know. But I do know he needs that money for him and his mom. He must be certain about this.
“So, what’s your plan?” I ask him.
“When she wakes up, we’re going to ask her what she’s doing there. If we have a witness to what’s happening, even better.”
Magnum and I exchange a look. He must still be thinking that the Crew knows about this.
“Oscar, the file?” I ask, holding my hand out.
Oscar pulls it out of his jacket and starts leafing through it. He shakes his head. “It’s tough to know because I’m not privy to what Candy’s numbers actually are. It’s not like there’s a sign here saying this is the money we’re keeping away from the Crew, don’t tell anyone.”
I roll my eyes at his pure Oscar remark and then take the file to flip through it myself.
Magnum reaches through the divider and pulls a bottle of water back through. “Sit her up,” he instructs.
Brawler does so, making her sit up in the car next to him. She stirs. Magnum leans forward, holding the opened bottle of water to her lips and tips it up. Some of it gets in her mouth and some of it dribbles down her face.
Her eyes blink rapidly and then they open. Immediately, she’s on high alert. “Where am I?” her gaze darts around to us surrounding her. “What’s going on?”
“Natalia, it’s Mack,” Brawler says. “You were at Candy’s. I noticed you were kind of messed up, so I got you out of there. Are you okay?”
“Candy’s?” she slurs. “Okay…”
She starts to go back to sleep, and I snap my fingers in front of her face. “Hey. Stay with us.”
She looks me up and down. “You.”
“Me,” I say. “We were worried about you.”
She shrugs. Her head lolls around on her neck like she has no control over it. When it points down, she frowns. “Whose clothes are these?” She picks her hand up, then brings her finger down on the short leather skirt she’s wearing. She pulls it up, flashing us all her panties again like we couldn’t see them before. “Whoa. Is it Halloween?”
I pull her skirt back down. She’s totally out of it. I don’t know Natalia like Brawler does, but I think his instincts are correct. The girl who walked me out of school that day would not do this.
“I look like a slut,” she slurs.
I jab Oscar in the ribs.
“What?” he exclaims.
“Don’t even think about making a joke.”
His gaze narrows at me, but he doesn’t say anything.
“This could be a victim like your mother.”
“I’ve been around my mom enough to know that she does this shit to herself. The way I see it, it’s all too easy. Don’t do drugs, and you wouldn’t be caught in the fucked-up situations you find yourself in.”
“Natalia’s not a druggie,” Brawler says, voice firm. “She wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like that.”
I eye him again. He gazes softly down at her. He definitely knows this girl and is worried about what happens to her. He’s got such a good heart.
But I will cut a bitch if I have to. Just sayin’.
Magnum drives to a corner store to pick up a few things and then to a park just outside of town. We stay there until Natalia starts to come around again. She’s in and out of it, and no matter how much I want to slap her to get her to wake up quicker, I agree this is the humane way. It’s just that the more we wait to see what’s happened to her, the more the same thing is happening to someone else.
An hour and a half later, Natalia’s eyes shoot open. Her cheeks blow out, and she covers her mouth. “Fuuuck,” Oscar says, backing away.
I grab the shopping bag Magnum came out of the store with and shove it in her face. She expels the contents of her stomach into it over and over, gagging. The air in the car turns putrid. We throw the car doors open. Oscar and Magnum even leave while Brawler and I stay with her.
I hand her the water, and she takes it gratefully, sending me a short-lived smile. Her hands shake as she holds the bottle to her lips, gulping the water down. I tried to keep it cool, but she’s been out for too long, so I doubt it’s stayed refreshing. It doesn’t seem to matter to her though.
She lies back on the seat, throwing the bag out of the car. She turns her gaze to Brawler and then to me. “What am I doing here?”
“You were at Candy’s,” Brawler says. “We were there for Kyla’s after party and you looked messed up.”
She clenches her stomach. “I work there,” she says.
Brawler and I eye each other.
“I just started as a waitress,” she continues. “I don’t know. They’re not doing the strip club thing anymore, so I thought what the hell. The last thing I remember is getting a drink before my shift started. We heard you had a fight that night, so we knew we were going to be busy.”
Her drink. They must have put something in her fucking drink. “You don’t remember anything after that.”
She shakes her head, but the look on her face is telling me things are still fuzzy. “Fuck. Do you think someone put something in my drink? Fucking Gregory handed it to me.”
I refuse to look at Brawler. That’s the evidence we needed. I think. He’s Dunnegan’s right-hand man. He was
in there with Oscar’s mom last night. If he’s orchestrating this sort of sex ring with women who are too out of it to notice, Dunnegan has to be in on it too.
I glance up at Natalia who’s drinking the water again. How do I even tell this girl what’s going down at Candy’s? Or what I think is going down at Candy’s? I don’t want to alarm her for no reason, but she wasn’t upstairs for the fun of it.
“We found you upstairs, Natalia. Upstairs at Candy’s.”
She shakes her head. “That doesn’t make sense. We’re not allowed upstairs. It’s where they used to have the private stripteases and shit, but since they’re not doing it anymore, it’s off-limits.”
I put my hand on her knee. She looks down at herself, frowning at her outfit. Recognition starts to spark in her gaze. “Natalia, I think you were drugged. Brawler found you upstairs in one of the rooms.” As I’m talking, I’m a half second behind her thoughts because before the next thing even slips out of my mouth, it’s as if she knows what I’m about to say and is already dreading it.
She sits up straight. “I want to go home now.”
“Natalia,” I say, squeezing her knee.
She pushes my hand away from her. “I want to fucking go home. Now.”
We sit back. Brawler puts some space between the two of them. Magnum and Oscar must have heard what she said because Oscar gets in and shuts the door while Magnum gets in the driver’s seat and starts the car up. I close the last door, the sound ricocheting around the interior as a pool of dead weight sinks to the bottom of my stomach.
I feel for this girl, I do. Who knows what unimaginable things were done to her before Brawler walked into her room? I watch her as we drive and see the moment each terrible thought strikes her. One thing’s for sure. Natalia’s fucking strong, but her strength can’t hide the truth. Just as mine could never hide what happened to me.
30
Magnum follows Natalia’s directions, pulling up to a house that’s been turned into many apartments. The shudders are falling down, and the siding is peeling and chipping off. The glow from the porch light lights the rundown house in starkness.
As soon as Magnum parks the car, Natalia glances down at herself. She clutches her stomach. “I can’t go in like this. My grandmother will kill me.”
Brawler pulls the shirt off his back and hands it to her. She gives him a wobbly smile and yanks it down over her head. It pools around her until it’s basically an oversized dress.
“Natalia,” I start, pausing until she meets my gaze. Her eyes are like stone, and I can tell she doesn’t want anything to do with us or what happened to her tonight. She wants to bury it so deep inside her that it never comes back up. “We should talk.”
“Nope,” she says, throwing the door to the car open. “I’m good.” She pierces us all with a look before walking away. She didn’t give us the order not to open our damn mouths, but it was implied. Like we would ever say anything.
She runs up the porch steps, straightens her spine, and pulls the rickety storm door open before disappearing into the apartment.
“Son of a bitch,” Oscar curses.
“They’re doping up girls who didn’t even sign up for it,” I say, testing the words out on my tongue because it doesn’t even seem like something that should be said. How could someone be that heinous?
“And using others,” Oscar deadpans.
Magnum pulls away from the curb. It’s only a short drive to the apartment building where Brawler lives. I move to his side of the car and wrap my arms around his waist. He literally gave Natalia the shirt off his back. He has too big of a heart for the Heights. “We need to get these fuckers,” he says.
I nod into his chest, agreeing wholeheartedly. There has to be something we can do. I have to hold faith that this would bother Johnny. If I take it to him, he’ll deal with it. He’ll make sure the guys under him will be punished, right?
Brawler kisses the crown of my head. I scoot away from him, and he gets out, his broad chest naked as he walks up to the apartment doors.
Oscar moves over to my side of the car now, pulling my head down to his chest. He filters his fingers through my hair, playing with the ends until he starts all over again at the top.
“She’s going to be fucked up from this.”
He nods.
A little while later, my phone buzzes, and I pull it out of my pocket. Brawler sends me picture after picture he took of Natalia while he was in the room with her. He made sure to get the full room, so it was apparent it was taken at Candy’s, but he also blurred her face out. Or in closeups, he cropped the picture so it cut her head off. Only Brawler has the originals, and if I know him, he’ll have gotten rid of them so none of this traces back to Natalia. He probably saw his sister in her. An innocent bystander being hurt by the Crew again.
Then, a recording comes through of the conversation we had in the car. I can tell who the voices are because I was here for the actual moment, but he’s hidden Natalia’s identity for anyone who wasn’t there, and I fucking love him for it.
“Jesus, he’s smarter than I give him credit for.”
I nudge Oscar in the ribs. “Not helping.”
He blows out a breath and leans back against the seat.
“Alright,” I say, “Tell me straight. What’s the likelihood the Crew knows about this already?”
“Unlikely.” His eyes apologize as he says, “I get that they’re bad people, but they’re well respected by people around here. If people knew they were doing this, they would get so much shit. At least when it’s my mom, she’s doing it for drugs. But being drugged and taking an innocent girl to be someone’s plaything. No fucking way. In a sense, the Crew is like Robin Hood. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor. People around here have a healthy dose of respect and fear for the Crew, but look how much good they bring? They give people jobs. They give people safety.” I balk at that, but Oscar shrugs. “In here they do. I know that hasn’t been your experience with them, but I’m telling you, if you ask people if they like or hate the Crew, most will say they like them. Crew guys are like fairy tales in the making. Johnny, Mag, me, and a ton of other guys went to Rawley Heights and are doing better than most of the other guys who graduated from the Heights and didn’t join up. We have people trying to get in every fucking day. That wouldn’t happen if people didn’t like them.”
I hope he’s right for Johnny’s sake. I want to think he had nothing to do with this. In fact, I’m mentally praying he’s oblivious. Yes, I’ve seen him do some fucked up things, but hurting young girls? I just can’t wrap my head around it.
“What about the money aspect?”
“The Crew has limits.”
“But they’ve murdered people in cold blood.”
Oscar shuts his mouth, jaw tensing.
Magnum pulls into the underground parking lot, passing by security. “I’m coming up with you,” Oscar says. His hand slides down my thigh.
It’s just as well. I don’t want to be alone tonight. I shudder to think about what happened to Natalia in her doped-up state. If she doesn’t remember now, I hope she never does.
We take the elevator up to our floor. Magnum watches Oscar and me warily. He hasn’t said much since this all went down, and I’d love to ask him what he thinks about it, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.
The elevator opens, and Magnum, Oscar, and I split. I wave my hand as he turns toward his door and I turn toward mine. “Goodnight.”
“Night,” he says.
He waits until I open my door, and Oscar and I walk in. The door shuts behind us, and I search for the light switch.
“I was thinking,” Oscar says, grabbing my wrist.
“Yeah?” I finally get the light on and freeze. Johnny is standing just two feet from us. His gaze drops to where Oscar grabbed my wrist and fury erupts.
“You motherfucker!”
He rushes Oscar, the force of his attack breaking our connection. He pushes Oscar up against the door, pummeling
his fist into his face. It all happens so quickly I don’t have time to think, let alone move.
“I’ll fucking kill you!”
His words rattle me. “Johnny, Johnny!”
Oscar’s gaze meets mine. He doesn’t fight back, but there’s a steeliness in his gaze. Johnny cracks him in the nose and blood spurts from it, running down his lips. His eye is already swollen. Johnny pulls him off the door and pushes him to the ground.
“Johnny,” I say, moving forward, grabbing his hand as he kicks Oscar in the ribs. “What are you doing? Stop!”
Johnny turns his bloodthirsty gaze toward me. “I came home early to be with you.” He kicks Oscar again, and Oscar groans. My heart splinters down the center. Fissures crack all the way through. “And I find you with him!”
“We just came back from the after party,” I say, trying to calm him down. “I didn’t know you were coming home, or I would’ve skipped it.”
He brushes a bloody hand over his lips. “What’s he doing in your apartment? Where’s Magnum?”
“Johnny,” I say, trying to win back his full attention. He keeps looking back at Oscar who’s writhing on the floor in pain. I pretend he’s not there, so I don’t give myself away, but inside, I’m breaking. “Hey,” I say, once his ice chip eyes meet mine. I grab his cheeks. “Nothing’s going on here.”
“He touched you.”
“I’m sorry,” Oscar chokes out. A pool of blood from his nose and mouth forms around him on the floor. He’s fucked up. Damnit! “It wasn’t meant as anything,” he sputters.
“She’s mine,” Johnny growls.
“I know, I know,” Oscar says again. “I was just watching out for her like you asked me to.”
“That’s why she has Magnum here. Magnum in the tower. You at school. Do you need another fucking reminder, Drego? To think we fucking saved your sorry ass.”
Oscar pulls himself up to a sitting position, clutching his side. He’s pale, a hell of a lot paler than his darker skin ever is. Hell, he’s practically my shade of white. “I meant no disrespect, Rocket.”