Red put her small arm around his waist as they walked to the truck, for all the good that it would do. Sometimes, she thought holding someone up was more about the gesture than anything else.
~*~
There was a cute and kitschy motel in the heart of downtown, one of those places that boasted authentic western flair, with leather everything and wagon wheel chandeliers. But that was too obvious. Rooster drove out to the Holiday Inn by the Interstate ramp, asked for a room on the third floor with two beds, and then prayed to any god listening that his Visa card still had a little juice in it. It did. He exhaled slowly through his mouth and felt the entire left side of his body tremble. Anxiety had burned through Red’s cure faster than normal.
The woman at the front desk smiled and said, “Have a wonderful stay,” passing back his card printed with the name Joel Rutledge.
Bless him, Deshawn was really good at cooking up these fake IDs.
“Thanks,” Rooster said, slipped the card back in his wallet and limped back out to the truck to collect Red. He never liked for her to interact with front desk people: the red hair was too memorable. If goons in riot gear kicked in the door tonight, he didn’t want it to be because the receptionist had ratted them out.
When he got back to the truck – parked away from the cameras, of course – he could see through the passenger window that Red had kicked off her boots, reclined her seat all the way back, and lay with her socked feet propped up on the dash, eyes shut, hands folded over her stomach. She looked like Sleeping Beauty. If Sleeping Beauty had a hole in her left sock big enough for her whole toe to peek through. Poor tired kid.
He rapped softly on the glass and she opened her eyes slow, blinking a minute, fighting the exhaustion of her earlier display.
“Got us a room,” he said.
She gave him a tired smile and raised the seat, unlocked the doors for him.
Another night, he would have carried her. But tonight, their bags were almost too much for him. He told her to go first up the staircase that ran along the outside of the building. Partly so he could keep an eye out, but also so she couldn’t see the way sweat popped out on his brow and he had to grit his teeth against the pain. It never really went away, even when Red was at her strongest and freshest, her hands hitting his skin like God’s own heating pads. But her power could push it back, drive it out of his nerves and into his bones where it lay dormant, buzzing quietly to itself, waiting until it found the chance to slip back to the surface and cripple him again. They tried to keep on top of it, but sometimes, like tonight, he fought it alone, playing the martyr, he guessed, until it came roaring back and got out of control.
On the second to last step, his left leg buckled, and he caught himself hard against the railing, one of the duffel bags thumping to the ground. The pain was so fierce he could feel it in his teeth, and his muscles had gone watery weak.
Red turned around, worry notching her brows, hands already reaching out.
“Nah,” he huffed, and knew his smile was more of a grimace. It hurt so fucking bad. “Just tripped.”
“Liar,” she said, and made it sound like an endearment.
Rooster bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, bent at the waist, and snagged the fallen duffel. Almost there, almost there, almost there. His mantra for the last five years. Almost to the truck, almost to the room, almost to the next town. Almost done running.
When he fumbled the key card with shaking fingers, Red picked it up and unlocked the door to their room. From behind, he watched her shoulders relax as they stepped into the room and he managed to elbow the door shut behind them. Safe for now, away from eyes. She felt all those almosts, too.
Rooster secured the safety bar, and let their bags drop to the peach carpet. For a moment there, on that last step, he’d thought he might go down in the stairwell and not make it this far. But he had, and a standard double room with vertical blinds, an Ikea TV cabinet, and awful floral bedspreads had never looked so wonderful.
Red started fussing with the bedspreads right away, folding them down and peeling back the blankets. She’d watched a 60 Minutes special about the microscopic dangers found in hotel rooms, and the black light demonstration had left an impression on her, needless to say. “Alright, come lie down,” she said. “And we’ll get you fixed up.” When she smiled at him over her shoulder, he saw the dark circles under her eyes.
He shook his head. “I’m fine. Watch some TV or something. Rest. I’m gonna take a shower.”
She’d let him deflect her up ‘til this point, but had now had enough of the game. She turned around fully to face him, fists settling on her hips. “Rooster.”
“Red,” he shot back. It took every last scrap of self-composure he possessed not to wince as he crouched down and dug a mostly clean shirt and sweats from the bag at his feet. “I wanna clean up first.”
When he stood – with another monumental effort, and an embarrassing grab for the edge of the nearest bed – he found her glaring at him. It was about as threatening as being glared at by a Disney character, but voicing that might get his hair singed.
“You’re hurting,” she accused.
“Five minutes to wash the stink off me, yeah?” And five minutes for her to lie still and recover a little, as best she could.
She held his gaze a long moment, clearly unhappy, then jerked a single nod and sat down on one of the beds. “But if I hear you fall down,” she said, reaching for the remote.
“You’ll set me on fire?”
She heaved a dramatic, put-upon sigh, and Rooster managed to smile through the pain.
When he was shut inside the bathroom, he sagged back against the door a moment, letting the cheap wood hold his weight. Pretending he didn’t hurt too badly was exhausting, and now, away from her wounded, woodland creature eyes, he felt the last of his energy give out.
His strength bled out from the top down, and the shakes came rushing in to fill the gap. His hands shook, but so did the big muscles in his legs, and arms, and chest. His breath hitched in his lungs and his eyelashes fluttered. His teeth chattered, and his thoughts flickered, on and off, an old radio station at the county line.
Five years ago – almost six, now – he’d lived with the agony of his screaming nerves day to day, moment to moment, the only relief the few hours he managed to find in the bottom of a bottle. Constant pain was the sort of awfulness the human body could adapt to.
But after Red, after she’d been able to turn the dial down and take the pain from a roar to a faint whisper, managing it during the breakthroughs rendered him helpless.
He estimated he had about ten minutes before he was reduced to the fetal position, so he turned on the shower, cranked the knob to hot, and stripped with clumsy movements.
He didn’t intentionally seek out his reflection in the mirror above the sink, but the scars grabbed his attention, the way they always did. In the last five years, he’d managed to regain the muscle he’d lost after his discharge and then some. Lowered pain levels meant he could run, and lift, and push his body in a way he hadn’t thought he’d ever be able to again. His shoulders and arms and chest looked huge in the dinky hotel bathroom, shadows defining the sharp cuts of muscle, veins standing out in his wrists and forearms.
But Red hadn’t been able to erase the scars, all the pink patches and craters down the left side of his body that marked the places where shrapnel had carved away little slivers and chunks. The muscle tone in his left leg looked off, his body compensating for the places where tissue had simply been lost, unable to be replaced.
He was still square-jawed, and tanned, hair still wheat-colored where it fell nearly to his chin. But he wasn’t sure anyone from his old life would have recognized him. He looked like a fugitive, and maybe that’s what he was.
Slowly, gripping the handrail mounted to the tile, Rooster stepped over the lip of the tub and into the shower, hissing as the hot water hit his oversensitive skin like needles. The pervasiveness of th
e pain never ceased to amaze him, the way it could make every inch of his body ache and throb. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, breathing slow and uneven as the heat slowly began to soak into him, the jets easing some of the tension in the back of his neck, the steam loosening his lungs.
He was weak as a newborn foal when he finally shut the water off. Almost there, he thought, toweling clumsily. Almost there. He tripped putting on his sweats and nearly bashed his head on the counter. Almost there. Shirt, socks, token scrub at his wet hair with the towel.
He walked like a gnarled old man, tiny shuffling steps, through the door and into the room.
Red sat against the headboard of the nearest bed – the one he always took so he could be closest to the door, a shield between her and whoever might try to come after her. A silent way of her acknowledging that he was a dirty liar who did in fact need her to work her magic. The brat.
She turned around when he approached, expression pinched with worry. “Oh Rooster, why did you wait so long?”
“It’s not…that bad,” he lied. Lied badly, voice jumping and catching.
She scooted to the edge of the bed, positioned so she’d be on his bad side when he lied down. She patted the stacked pillows. “Come on.”
Getting onto the bed was a process, one that left tears standing in his eyes. He blinked them away and breathed shallowly through his mouth, teeth clenched against the litany of curses that waited on his tongue.
When he was reclined against the pillows, Red knelt by his hip and reached to very gently push his sleeve up. Her own sleeves were singed at the edges, the delicate lace detailing charred and crumbling.
“You ruined your dress,” he said, sad for her. She’d spent hours bent over the thing with thread and needle, humming an old Bee Gees song to herself.
Her smile was warm. “Worth it. Now hold still. Where does it hurt the worst?”
“Everywhere.”
She nodded. “Thanks for not lying that time.” And put her hands on his arm.
It was the same every time, but he always managed to forget; it always shocked the air out of his lungs, bowed his back off the mattress. Her power hit him like a train. The forceful shove that pushed the pain back into his marrow where it belonged; that chased agony back to the root of all his nerves and pinned it there.
He closed his eyes and thought, like always, that he must be on the floor, all the way across the room. Must have gone through a wall. But when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the bed, his body warm and humming, brimming with energy.
And Red knelt over him, red hair falling in tangled curtains around her face, her skin pale and her mouth slack, eyes vacant with exhaustion.
Shit, he shouldn’t have let her do this. She was still worn out from the show, and she’d pushed herself too far. Was now drained. He should have waited, should have put his foot down. Damn it.
Rooster reached with arms that no longer shook and caught her around the shoulders, eased her down to lie beside him, her head on his shoulder.
Her hand settled, limp, on his chest, right over the steady thump of his heart. She let out a quiet little sigh. “I’m alright.” But it was just a thready whisper, sleep pulling her under.
Rooster cradled the back of her head, the small, fragile shape of her skull. “It’s alright. You go on to sleep.”
“’Kay.”
The last of the tension left her as she drifted off, her body relaxed against his.
He stared mindlessly at the TV screen, listening to the normal hotel sounds around them, straining for the barest whisper of a threat.
One didn’t come – not tonight – and he eventually fell asleep, lulled by the gentle rhythm of Red’s breathing, the press of her slender rib bones against his own.
7
Turned out the bank opened at eight-thirty, and by nine they were seated across from one another in a window booth at Mosby’s Diner, steaming plates of ham and eggs in front of them, two-hundred dollars richer. Rooster had awakened starving that morning, and shoveled his food in with only a token stab at table manners. By contrast, Red only picked at hers, tired eyes downcast, hand limp on her fork.
“Eat,” he prodded, nudging her plate toward her.
One corner of her mouth lifted, a sad attempt at a smile. “I feel kinda sick.”
“That’s ‘cause you need to eat.”
She speared a wiggly clump of egg with her fork and looked at it dubiously. Her gaze slid to the laminated menu cards in their rack behind the salt and pepper shakers. “They have chocolate chip waffles,” she said, voice all innocence, and bit down on her lower lip in that way that meant she was trying, badly, to contain a smile.
Unlike her, Rooster had gotten very good at holding back smiles in these sorts of situations, content to enjoy the little blossom of warmth in his chest. “That shit’s just sugar.” He tried to sound stern. Which was a waste, because she’d never once been put off by that.
She looked up pleadingly through her lashes, green eyes catching light from the window, dazzling as gemstones. “I’ll eat the eggs, too. Promise.”
Rooster feigned a deep sigh and flagged down the waitress.
Red beamed at him, and it was the kind of smile that toppled kingdoms. God knew it had toppled him a long time ago.
~*~
Red loved diners. The blended smells of savory and sweet, thick curls of steam licking off the massive flat-tops behind the counter. She loved the clink of plates and cutlery, the outdated country music on the radio, the rustle of newspapers and controlled shouts of the kitchen staff as they worked at a lightning pace to get everyone’s food out. She loved the gleam of morning sunlight on the chrome of the stools, the glass of the bakery cases, the fake-maple syrup pouring down onto her waffles. She especially loved diners in the morning, when the world was waking up, when sitting in a booth felt like being a part of something bigger, like being involved in the mundane dramas of some small town where everyone’s biggest worry was finding a seat for the Friday night football games.
Across from her, Rooster choked down the last bite of his breakfast, pushed his plate away, and turned his gaze to the window and the street beyond, little line sprouting between his brows. On guard, as ever. Gone was the sleepy, pain-free man who’d tucked her into his side last night, and back was the Marine in the middle of a warzone, at least three guns on his person.
Red loved diners, but she hated what they did to Rooster.
“These are really good,” she said, chiming the tines of her fork against her plate. “You want some?”
“Nah, you eat them.” His gaze slid to her, briefly, sparking warm a moment, giving that divot in his brow a second’s respite, before he returned to his vigil. “I know how much you like your chocolate.”
And what do you like? she wanted to ask. He took scrupulous care of his guns. He drank bourbon – sometimes enough to get maudlin. He always ordered his Whoppers with cheese, and sometimes, through closed hotel bathroom doors, she heard him groan in a grateful way when he stepped into a hot shower.
But unless he was smiling, his mouth was tight with stress, even in sleep sometimes. He didn’t ever seem to enjoy anything, not the way people did in movies and TV shows, laughing and playing and spending “guys’ nights” in front of football games with all their friends. Rooster had friends – he had Deshawn, anyway – but they never saw each other, only talked on prepaid cellphones sometimes.
Rooster didn’t have a wife, or even a girlfriend, a woman to kiss, and hold, and take to bed, and make gasp. She thought he probably needed that. Didn’t everyone? She didn’t know for sure, but was starting to be curious. Sometimes she felt…
Well, she didn’t know. But she wondered, sometimes.
A vanload of children in soccer uniforms and knee socks came bursting into the diner, all talking excitedly, blocking the door and drawing eyes.
Red grabbed her coffee mug and slid out of the booth.
Rooster’s gaze snapped around immediatel
y, watchful frown deepening into an expression a lot like panic.
Before he could ask, she smiled and waved her mug at him. “Just gonna get a refill.”
He scowled. “She’ll come around and do that.”
Red gestured to the counter. “It’s two steps. Be right back. Promise.”
It took an effort not to laugh at his face – the awful, overdramatic, twisted-up frown – and she turned, took the as-promised two steps to the counter, and climbed onto an empty stool.
The waitress on the other side spotted her empty mug and held up a finger. “Just a sec, hon.”
“It’s fine.” Red sent her a smile and settled in to wait. The sugar of waffles and chocolate was helping, but truth be told she wasn’t back to full strength yet. She didn’t normally perform and then ease Rooster’s pain in the same night; it had sapped her, truly.
She took note of the men seated on either side of her: one was young and blond, her age, maybe, having an omelet and a Coke, paging through a hefty textbook and smearing the pages with grease. The other, on her left, was someone who reminded her, at least a little, of Rooster. Mid-thirties, powerful build that wasn’t well hidden under his windbreaker and busted jeans. He wore a ballcap, but what she could see of his hair was dark and clipped military short. A little scar curled down from the corner of his near eye, pink and shiny, still almost fresh. Military, his bearing screamed, and she’d know – she’d spent the last five years sharing Slim-Jims and hotel beds with a Marine.
Tired as she was, something in her tightened. Not fear, exactly – she had enough juice to raze someone to ashes, if she needed to – but a disquieted sort of feeling.
She swore she could feel the heat of Rooster’s scowl behind her. Damn. Always so protective. Like the world’s biggest brother…who thought she was totally helpless. The self-sacrificing idiot.
Red Rooster (Sons of Rome Book 2) Page 10