by S. M. Shade
“You’re right. Shitballs is fitting.”
When the show ends, the sound of her T.V. does as well, and I hear her bed creak. “Going to sleep now?”
“If my infuriating neighbor will allow me.”
“Your infuriating neighbor can come over and make sure you sleep well. I’ve got the cure for insomnia.”
“In the same place you keep a plethora of STD’s, I imagine. Good night, Dare.”
“Good night Ayda.”
The smell of cinnamon wafts through my kitchen the next morning, making my mouth water. Ayda must be baking and it smells amazing. Leaning against my counter, I grab a cup of coffee and tap on the wall. “I smell French toast.”
“No,” she replies. “You smell cinnamon rolls.”
“Don’t you know how cruel it is to tempt a man with baked goods and not share?”
She doesn’t reply, and I hear her shower kick on, effectively ending my teasing. Oh well, I have shit to do today that doesn’t include the obstinate girl next door. After a quick shower, I text Justus and arrange to meet him at the gym.
Unlike Landon, Jeremy, and me, Justus has a moral objection to taking stolen money from the credit card scammers unless it’s used to help a victim. He chooses instead to work as a stripper. He must be good at it, because I’ve seen the ridiculous amount of money he pulls in. We all like to give him shit about it, I mean, one of our best friends shakes his cock in women’s faces for money. That shit is just funny.
The toe of my shoe comes into contact with a sealed plastic container when I step out of my door. I’ve noticed containers like this left at Ayda’s doorstep before, and now I know it’s because she gives food to the homeless man who lives in the parking lot. Maybe he returned the container to the wrong door? That idea is quickly squashed when I pick it up and realize there are two large cinnamon rolls inside. Ayda left me breakfast, but why didn’t she just knock and hand them to me?
I learned long ago not to try to analyze the perplexing minefield that is the female thought process, so I scoop up the rolls and take them with me, eating them both before I make it out of the parking lot. Damn, they’re good.
Justus is just pulling into the gym lot when I arrive, his mop of blond curls whipping in the wind. “Hey, lovely locks.”
“Fuck off, Hulk.” Justus pulls his hair back and wraps a black band around it.
“You’re just jealous because my dick is bigger around than your bicep.”
“And yet, I still get mine wet way more often.”
Laughing, we head inside. I began working out in prison because it was about the only thing that passed the time other than reading. It surprised me how quickly I grew to love it, and one of the first things I did when I got out was sign up for this twenty-four hour gym. Justus and I go a couple of afternoons per week, and I also meet Landon here for a few night workouts since he can’t go out during the day.
Landon has a rare disease that forces him to stay out of the sunlight. He deals with it well, but it also isolates him, so I try to get out with him at night when I can. Since he’s met his girlfriend, Zoe, he’s been pretty occupied, though, so I’m back to working out during the day.
We hit the weights first, spotting each other, then head for the treadmills for some cardio. “What’s up your ass today?” Justus asks. “You’re in your own little world. You need to get laid that bad?”
“Fuck you. I’m just thinking. I realize that’s a foreign concept to you.” Actually, my mind keeps wandering to Ayda. I haven’t once spoken to her face to face, but she won’t get out of my head. I realize it’s strange that she’ll talk to me, but doesn’t want to meet, and I could use another opinion on it.
“You know the girl who lives next door to me?”
“The one you can hear using her vibrator?”
Damn, why did I ever tell him that? “Yeah, we’ve been hanging out…sort of.”
“What do you mean sort of?” He increases the speed and incline of his treadmill, and I do the same, matching him.
“We can hear each other through the walls, especially in the bedroom. We talk and watch T.V. and shit.”
Justus raises his eyebrows. “You only talk through the wall?”
“So far.”
“Do you even know what she looks like?”
“Sweet, tight little body, an ass you want to take a bite out of.”
“What are you waiting for?”
I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. “She’s my neighbor. If she turns out to be a psycho, I’ll never get away from her.”
“That’s true. Why only talk through the wall? Ask her to come over, see if she’s crazy before you fuck her.”
“I plan to. So far, she isn’t having it.”
Justus throws back his head, laughing as he steps off of the treadmill. “Dare finally has to chase a woman. Priceless.”
“Why do I tell you anything?” I growl, accompanying him to the locker room.
“No idea, dude.”
My stomach is growling like a pissed off bear, so I stop at a burger joint on the way home. After ordering a double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a drink, Ayda’s voice pops into my head, telling me she feeds the homeless man who lives behind the dumpster. Turning back to the drive through speaker, I add, “Actually, double that order.”
The homeless man is sitting on the curb in the parking lot, a tattered paperback book in his hand when I pull in, the greasy bag of food on the seat beside me. I’m not real sure how to go about this without making him feel like I pity him. I know if someone pitied me it’d piss me off.
“How’s it going?” I ask, approaching him, and I instantly feel like an idiot. It’s obviously not going well if he’s here instead of eating dinner in an actual home.
“Can’t complain,” he replies, a guarded look on his face.
I take a seat on the curb beside him. “Burger place screwed up and doubled my order. Want a burger? It’s just going to get thrown away.”
His expression tells me I’m not fooling him, but he nods. “I could eat.” He looks surprised when I divide up the food, then proceed to eat instead of going inside. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
We eat in silence, catching a few stares from other tenants returning home from work. “People can’t mind their own damn business, can they?” I grumble.
The man laughs. “That’s all you. People look right through me.”
I’ve been guilty of that myself. I have no idea how long he’s been living out here. If I’m being honest, I probably never would have talked to him if it weren’t for Ayda bringing him to my attention. His clothes are dirty and wrinkled, and it’s clear from the jut of his collarbones he doesn’t get enough to eat, but his posture and the way he holds himself screams soldier.
“Iraq?” I murmur.
“Afghanistan.”
“How long have you been back?”
“Six months.” He gets to his feet, and chucks our food wrappers into the dumpster. “Thanks for the burger. I got to go.”
My hand darts out as if it has a mind of its own. “My name’s Dare.”
He shakes my hand. “Tucker.”
“Good to meet you. I’m in apartment 2B if you ever want to have a beer.”
“Sounds good, thanks.”
* * * *
It’s past midnight when Justus rings my phone. “What do want, stripper?” I ask, annoyed he’s interrupted my nightly conversation with Ayda.
“Have you heard from Jed lately? I’ve been trying to reach him all day.”
Jed lives in a farmhouse ISH bought a few years ago. He takes care of the place and raises the pigs who help us dispose of the remains of die-hard pedophiles. Jed is around sixty years old, but still sharp as ever. We met him a few years ago, tracked him down, actually. It was all over the news that someone was killing sex offenders, just making their way down the registry.
His granddaughter had been kidnapped, raped and killed when she was ten, and t
hough her murderer is doing life in prison, Jed realized there were many who weren’t. And the government kept a nice little hit list for him. When he found out who we are and what we do, he was happy to help.
“Haven’t heard from him. Do you want to head out to the farm? Make sure everything is okay?”
“I think we’d better. I’d take Landon, but he’s holed up with Zoe somewhere.”
Scrubbing my face with my hands, I accept the fact it’s going to be a long night. “Just come and get me. I’ve had a few beers.”
“On my way.”
I lean my head back against the wall after disconnecting the call. “I have to go. Raincheck on the next episode?” I ask Ayda, through the wall.
“Sure. Is everything okay?” She barely knows me, but I can hear the concern in her voice. She’s so compassionate.
“Probably. A friend of mine hasn’t been answering his phone. He’s getting older and lives alone, so my buddy Justus is coming over to get me so we can check on him.”
“Oh, I hope he’s all right.”
“Thanks. Good night, Ayda.”
“Good night, Dare.”
Justus shows up a few minutes later, and I hop into the passenger seat of his truck. “Were you sleeping?”
“Nah, just talking to Ayda.”
Justus shakes his head with a grin. “Through the wall again? You realize that’s really fucking weird, right?”
“I’ve tried to get her to come over, or to invite me over. She’s kind of introverted.”
Justus laughs. “Isn’t prison supposed to harden you, not soften you up? The old Dare would’ve just charged in her apartment and made himself at home.”
“I don’t want to scare her, but believe me, I’m close to doing just that.” I unlock my phone and try to call Jed again. “Still no answer. He could just be passed out drunk.”
“Most likely.” But we both know we can’t take that chance. It’s unlikely that anyone has connected Jed to ISH, but not impossible. If some hacker or predator has gotten to him, they’ll wish they hadn’t. I trust Jed. He’d never lead them to us or tell them anything.
The drive takes over an hour and I know something is wrong as soon as we pull up to the house. Jed’s dog, a lab mix with the eloquent name of Humper, runs to meet us, whining. Jed never leaves Humper outside overnight.
Justus rubs behind Humper’s ears. “Hey there boy, where is he, huh?”
Humper follows us to the door, and wiggles impatiently as Justus unlocks it. The house is dark and chilly, the open windows letting in the cold air.
“Jed? It’s Dare!” I yell. “Where are you?”
Justus gives me an anxious glance when there’s no reply. I flip on the living room light, illuminating a perfectly normal scene. Jed’s cigarettes and lighter are on the table by his well-worn leather recliner, the T.V. remote resting beside them. “I’ll check upstairs,” Justus says, and I nod, heading for the kitchen.
Just as I open the pantry door, Justus yells my name. Taking the stairs two at a time, I find him with his hand on his forehead, standing at the edge of Jed’s bed. Despair shines from his eyes as he turns to me. “He’s dead.”
“What the fuck happened?”
“There’s no blood or anything. I think he just died in his sleep. I’m going to call an ambulance. Will you look around outside, make sure nothing is out of the ordinary? They’ll probably send cops since it was an unattended death.”
“Yeah, sure…are you okay?”
Justus was closer to Jed than the rest of us, and often spent the night here, drinking and playing cards with him. “I’m fine.”
He’s lying, but he obviously wants to be alone a moment, so I call Humper to join me and make my way outside. The barn is open and the pigs haven’t been fed, so I quickly slop them before locking up. The shed is secure, and there are no missing tools or equipment as far as I can tell. The wail of a siren reaches my ears and I round the corner just as it arrives, its lights throwing red streaks across the darkened farmhouse.
“Upstairs,” I inform the two young paramedics. “When my friend didn’t answer his phone, we came to check on him and found him like this.”
It doesn’t take long for the medics to pronounce him dead and arrangements are made for the coroner to retrieve the body. Two officers arrive and take a look around before taking our statements. “No, he has no family to notify,” Justus explains to the officers. “We’ll take care of him.”
“Sorry for your loss,” one the officers mumbles, before they leave.
The coroner removes the body and informs us where to go to make arrangements. There’s a good chance they’ll want to do an autopsy first since he had no medical conditions as far as we know.
Justus sits on the steps, staring into the distance at the rising sun. “I didn’t know he had no family,” I remark, sitting beside him.
“He had a daughter, but she killed herself when her little girl was murdered. That’s why he was so devoted to ISH. His life wasn’t easy.”
I lay a hand on his shoulder. “He was a hell of a guy, and he spent his last years doing exactly what he wanted to do. Helping rid the world of child predators. He went in his sleep, the way we should all hope to go.”
Justus nods, his hair falling over his forehead. “Yeah. A hell of a guy.” He turns to me. “After we get him taken care of, we have to find someone to watch the farm.”
“We’ll take care of it. One thing at a time. Let’s go tell Jeremy and Landon what’s happened and see what we need to do next.”
Chapter Three
Ayda
I hate to admit it, but I’ve started looking forward to my nightly conversations with Dare. It’s nice to have a man to talk to, someone who likes the same shows I do. Over the past month, he’s invited me over to watch T.V. and tried to get me to invite him countless times, but I don’t want to ruin this. The way it is now, we can talk about our favorite shows and books, and I can laugh at his jokes without worrying about keeping my face turned away or wondering how disgusted he is by my marred skin. We’ve never met, and as soon as he sees the woman he’s been spending so much time with, I know it’ll come to an end.
My protesting muscles make me groan as I climb out of bed. I’ve been dancing much more than usual, spending time at the studio about four nights a week working on choreographing a new number. Sometimes it feels like a waste, since I know no one will ever see it, or know the hard work I put into it, but it doesn’t matter. I dance for me, for my own health and peace of mind.
I’ve barely dried my hair after my shower when Sadie knocks on the door. When I open it, she flounces in with a wide smile. “Good. You’re ready. I figured you’d try to back out again.”
“Nope, a movie sounds great.” I think I’ve pushed Sadie to the end of her rope lately, canceling plans or finding a reason to turn her down. I don’t want to lose her friendship, so tonight I’m determined to go along no matter how uncomfortable I feel in public. Besides, theaters are dark, so I shouldn’t have to deal with too many whispers or stares.
I grab my coat and follow her out to her car. A chilly breeze blows my hair into my eyes, and I tuck it behind my ear. The weatherman has predicted below average temperatures this week and apparently he’s right. A shadow flashes beside me and I turn to see Tucker making his way back to his sleeping bag. He must be cold, and probably hasn’t eaten all day.
“Tucker!” I call, heading over to him.
“Hey there, Miss Ayda. You look pretty. Going out tonight?”
“I’m going to a movie with my friend.” I hold out my spare apartment key. “My apartment will be empty for a few hours. Why don’t you go grab a hot shower and wash your stuff? There’s a big pot of chili in the fridge. Just needs popped in the microwave.”
Tucker hesitates, surprised I’m offering him a key. “That’s really nice of you, but I can’t—.”
“Also, my toilet has been running something awful. I’d hate to have my water bill skyrocket. Maybe yo
u could have a look at it?”
His hand goes to the back of his neck, giving it a rub. “I—yeah, I can take a look at it.” He takes the key with a smirk, letting me know I haven’t fooled him one bit. “Thank you.”
Sadie stares at me with her jaw agape when I return to the car. “Did you just give him a key?”
“Yeah.”
“To your apartment?”
“Yeah.” I should’ve known she’d freak out.
“You gave a homeless man a key to your apartment?”
“Nothing gets past you.”
She holds up her hands. “Oh no, you don’t get to bring the sarcastic Ayda out to play on this one. This is serious. What if he robs you? Or lays in wait for you to come home and decides you’re going to give him more than food?”
Laughing, I fasten my seatbelt. “He won’t even take money from me, so I doubt he’s going to run off with my computer.”
“Maybe he’ll just settle for a piece of ass,” she argues.
“I can’t give that away,” I snort. “He sure as hell isn’t going to take it.”
Her face darkens as we pull out into traffic. “There are plenty of guys that would love to get with you, Ayda, you just don’t give them a chance.”
“Whatever. The point is, he’s a decent guy who’s having a hard time. I’d want someone to help if it were me.”
Sadie smiles softly. “Sometimes, you’re too damn nice for your own good.”
“Noted. What movie are we going to see?”
“Your choice. I can’t decide between the new Kevin Hart comedy and a romance with Channing Tatum.”
“Comedy,” I decide. “I’m not a big romance fan.” I used to adore a good love story, but I don’t watch them anymore. It’s too depressing and only reminds me what I can’t have. There were two main things I wanted in life when I was young: a career in dancing, and a loving family. Any hope of either was stolen from me by one competitive bitch and her devoted psycho boyfriend.
The movie is funny and we have a good time. Some of the lewd jokes made me snort with laughter and my first thought each time was that Dare would’ve liked it and probably had a crude add on to contribute.