by Hart, Eve R.
Now she was looking at me. That sweet smile plastered on her face and it was so damn cute.
“Don’t go gettin’ all sappy on me now, Bridget.” I pushed her shoulder so she knew I was just messing around.
“I just think it’s kinda funny— and adorable, you know, how you guys are all so gooey in the middle.”
“Oh, shut it,” I said with a laugh. She wasn’t wrong. Most of us were hard on the outside. Some of us were even grunty and crude. But once you got past all that, we had a caring side and big hearts.
“There’s movement in the upstairs bedroom,” she stated as she brought the binoculars up to her eyes. “I see a shadow. Small. Looks like it could be a woman.”
I squinted. I could see a dark outline of a figure beyond the curtain but couldn’t make out much more than that. Whatever it was, it appeared to be on the short side. They stood there for a long time unmoving.
“Come on. Open the damn curtain,” Bridget said but I got the feeling this was one of those times when she didn’t really mean to speak out loud.
“Bridget,” I whispered not really sure what else to say.
There it was. That feeling that set off alarms in my head. I was talking about it all. The hairs standing on end. The shiver down my spine. The feeling in my gut like I’d been punched.
“I feel it too, Cable,” she whispered back not taking her eyes off of the window for even a second. “Someone else is in there with her.”
I couldn’t see another shadow, but the one I had eyes on suddenly whipped around as if they had been startled.
“Here,” she said as she held the binoculars in my direction with one hand while she reached for her bag with the other.
Once I had a closer look, I could see that the figure was most likely female. I guessed about five and a half feet at most. It could have been Claire. But then again, it could have been one of a million other women too.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I heard her digging through her bag. I had the binoculars covering my eyes and I didn’t even so much as want to blink and miss something let alone move them away from my face.
“Camera lens.”
“Smart.”
“Got it. Okay, I think I can zoom in far enough to get a halfway decent image. If only they would open the damn curtain.” I could hear the mix of excitement and irritation in her voice.
The tiny figure swayed as if they were losing their balance or suddenly week. I worried they might fall or pass out but it wasn’t like I could do anything to catch them. It was clear that something was going on here but I didn’t have the first clue what.
An arm raised, and then I saw fingers curl around the curtain as if they were trying to use it to steady themselves. Shit! It was a female.
The sound of Bridget’s phone snapping pictures almost made me jump out of my skin.
“Is that her?” she asked.
A quick flash. A female. Small. Dark hair. Doe eyes staring out blankly to the street below.
It was the girl I’d seen in the photo on Claire’s driver’s license.
It was Claire.
Then she jumped and backed away from the window and I lost her.
“Keep watching. Try to get whoever is in that room with her,” I said.
But it didn’t happen because, in the blink of an eye, the curtains were violently pulled closed again.
“Shit,” Bridget breathed out as she sagged back into the seat.
That was when my phone rang.
“Yeah,” I barked out as I answered it.
“I think I found something. One of the names on your list.” Bocca’s voice filtered through the speaker and I knew that this watch was over.
“Heading back now.”
I dropped the call and turned over the ignition.
At least I had found the girl and I could only hope that she wouldn’t be going anywhere until I could figure the rest out.
Something definitely didn’t sit right about the whole thing.
But it would have to be put on the back burner for now.
“Are you going to tell Sketch?” Bridget asked as we made our way back to the compound.
In a way, it sucked that she’d found Lake at a time when there was so much chaos surrounding the club. But also, it was kind of a good thing because she got thrown right in. She knew what to expect. And like now, she didn’t even ask if we needed to head back because she just knew.
“Not yet. Mind keeping this quiet for now? Something isn’t sitting right and if I know him, he’ll rush in here without a plan. Can’t afford that shit right now.”
“Got it,” she said and I saw the firm nod of her head out of the corner of my eye. “Yeah, I agree. There’s something more going on here.”
My head was going in so many different directions all at once. But whatever Bocca had found needed to become top priority right now.
CHAPTER TEN
Claire
There was yelling coming from the main part of the house. He was angry. But that wasn’t anything new. Only, this was a fury like I’d never heard before. I couldn’t understand what he was saying but it sounded like he was barking off orders. I felt it in my bones that something big was happening. Something unexpected for him and I knew it wasn’t a good thing, that was for sure.
How would this affect me?
How selfish was that?
I could only think about how he might be too busy to bring me what I needed. Which I knew meant that I was now so far down the rabbit hole I probably wouldn’t ever find my way out again. If my body wasn’t shaking so much I might have cried.
I just needed to take a little nap. I was sure that would make everything better.
His voice rose, spitting out words I couldn’t make out. My head throbbed and I knew there would be no sleeping any time soon.
“Outside?” I heard one of his men say.
“Yes, right fucking outside!” he roared.
I tried to drag myself out of the bed. I felt sick and just had to make it to the bathroom.
I rolled out of the bed, my knees hit the wood floor and I bit back a cry. With shaky hands, I pushed myself to my feet. I stood there for a long time because I was so afraid to take the next step.
As I closed my eyes, I let myself drift off to a better place even if it hadn’t been the easiest kind of living then.
“What’s this?” I asked Sketch as he came in carrying three pizza boxes.
“Dinner,” he said with a wink as everyone else came running over. “Tonight we dine like kings.” He plopped the boxes on our makeshift table in the middle of the abandoned church.
We’d been here for two weeks now and it was looking more like a home than the last place we’d hunkered down at.
Before this, it had been the place with all those old, no longer used shipping containers. They were so cold during the winter, but they were isolated and no one ever bothered us there. Plus, we each kind of had our own, so it was almost as if we got rooms like normal people had. But the bone-chilling cold had forced us to find better shelter until it warmed up again.
I didn’t know who had found this place, or how, but I didn’t mind it so far. Some might have thought it was a little creepy being in a church, abandoned or not, but it never really bothered me. I had a feeling once we left, we’d end up circling back around to stay here again at some point.
It was best to keep moving, or that was what Sketch thought. We couldn’t afford to get comfortable with anything. When you felt comfortable, you instinctively dropped your guard. Shifting around kept us on our toes. Sometimes we ran into problems with other people taking over the few places we had sort of claimed as our own. When that happened, we moved on. It was better to not invite trouble in if you could help it.
“You didn’t have to do this. We’ve been doing okay,” I said looking at him with sad eyes.
“Nah,” he replied, handing me a slice of almost warm pizza. “Old man let me work for a few hours. Had to clean out the drain
traps and shit. Paid me in pizza.”
Which of course, he brought back to share with us. I was going to keep an eye on him, make sure he ate at least one of the slices he’d worked so hard for.
“Thank you,” I said softly and then the room was silent with all of us shoveling food into our mouths.
It might have seemed simple to some but it meant the world to us right then. For just a few moments, nothing else mattered and nothing was as bad as it might have seemed. And it didn’t just have to do with the food we were currently downing.
Sketch.
He was always there.
Doing everything he could to take care of us.
To watch over us.
To make this day a little better than the next.
“I don’t think I tell you enough how much you mean to me,” I said later that night.
Everyone was asleep. The cold kept us all in that night, huddling under threadbare blankets and layered in all the clothing we owned.
I found Sketch sitting on a half-rotten picnic table out back, his hand moving frantically and I knew just what he was doing. This time the top of the pizza box was his blank canvas and I knew the eraser was probably already half gone on the pencil he was using.
The grass was so tall I had to stomp it down to get anywhere. The brittle crunch echoed through the quiet night as I made my way over to him and settled down right next to his side. He didn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around me and when I rested my head on his shoulder, he turned and placed a light kiss against my hair.
“I know it. Ain’t no need to say it all the time,” he replied back and though I couldn’t see his face, I knew his lips held a small smile.
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll last out here.”
He said nothing in return. I was sure he was thinking of all the other times I’d had the same feeling and took off only to return a few week or months later with some stupid sob story.
Even though I might have had it a little better in some ways when I was gone, he never once pointed it out. He never once made me feel bad for taking off.
He wouldn’t try to stop me. He’d given up on that a long time ago. But he would be here when I needed him again. And there was no doubt that I would— I would always need him in my life.
We sat in silence, the full moon casting enough light on the broken down sad excuse for a playground behind the church. The swings lightly moved with the breeze causing an eerie, high-pitched creak to fill the air every now and then. One of the legs for the slide had given up and broken off. The stairs leading up to the top were rusted out and I didn’t have to test them to know they wouldn’t support any kind of extra weight.
He left me not long after that. He made sure I was tucked away in my spot on the floor and then he was gone into the night. He’d be back come sunrise and we’d never talk about what happened while he was gone. We’d never admit the shame and dirty we both had etched into our souls. We’d never acknowledge the slivers of ourselves we gave away in order to survive.
“What are you doing?” his voice snapped me back into reality and my legs started to give out on me.
I reached out without any thought and tried to grab onto the first thing I could to steady myself. It turned out that curtains weren’t all that supportive. And it hadn’t been smart to stand in front of the window in the first place. He’d warned me once before to stay away from the windows. And now there was a sliver of light pouring through the slit I’d accidentally made.
“You are starting to become more of a problem for me. I don’t like problems. You know what I do to problems?” His tone was wickedly harsh and sent harder shivers through my already shaky body.
“Take care of them,” I whispered as my eyes fell downcast.
Take care of them.
In ways that I knew of, but couldn’t let myself think about.
He was a man that you should never even tempt the thought of messing with.
His feet hit the hardwood floor with such a harshness it echoed in my ears and made the pounding in my head deepen.
Everything hurt.
My head.
My muscles.
My eyes.
My fucking soul.
What little I had left of it, anyway.
With an angry yank, the darkness overtook the room once again.
“I can’t…” I started but couldn’t get anything else out.
I couldn’t anything.
Move.
Think.
Apologize.
Go on.
Yes, that was the point I’d gotten to.
I couldn’t go on like this.
“What are the rules?” he roared so loud it made my head feel like it was splitting open.
“Don’t go near the windows,” I barely managed to get out before his huge hand wrapped around my throat.
“What was that? Maybe if you repeat it enough, you will remember it.”
I tried to push words out but I couldn’t. My mouth opened and closed and I tried again.
As spots dotted my vision, I let my lids fall closed.
But then his hand was gone and I was automatically sucking in fresh air.
“Maybe this will help you remember.” He ripped my shirt open and called for one of his men.
I watched helplessly as he gave over the knife then held me down.
“She forgot the rules. Let’s make sure she knows why this happened to her,” he said and before I could take in another breath, the sharpness of the blade was cutting into my flesh.
I cried out but he covered my mouth with this hand.
“You know I had to do this,” he said after it was over and I was left with a single word carved onto my side.
Rules.
I didn’t say anything back because I really didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t send him over the edge.
“I will make it better for you. Do not forget again,” he said and I felt him move off of the bed.
Moments later, he did make it better. I forgot all about my self-hatred and disgust as I followed the glowing light into a place that felt so warm.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cable
“Any luck with that thing?” Bocca asked me after I made my way into his makeshift room and workspace.
“Maybe,” I said in a way to brush off the whole thing. I wasn’t sure what I’d stumbled onto with the Claire situation but I knew I wasn’t really ready to go into it right now. “Whatcha got?”
“Okay,” he said turning to his laptop screen and hitting a few keys. “This guy just pulled a large chunk of money out of one of his savings accounts. He owns his own business, something in marketing. He has branches all over the south but spends most of his time here.”
Bocca went on while I scanned all the lists and documents that he’d brought up on his screen.
Arnold Trewil.
I didn’t recognize the name. If I had put it on the list, I couldn’t remember why. That wasn’t what was important right now and I trusted Bocca. He knew what the fuck he was doing and if his searching had led him to something, then I wasn’t going to question it.
“Maybe I’m grasping at straws, but he has a branch in Charlotte and a penthouse there that I see he spends a lot of time at.” Bocca pointed at an address like it would somehow register something with me. “Before shit went down, Keften was set up in Charlotte. The warehouse that burned up, this guy’s company owns it. Or did before the fire.”
He looked at me and there was almost this excited puppy expression on his face.
I couldn’t blame him. One small connection. One thread to weave a tapestry.
“What happened with that and the cops?” I asked, my fingers twitching to dig up the answers for myself.
“He was brought in for questioning but they determined that he didn’t have anything to do with it. The reports say that he explained that he’d bought the warehouse but it had been sitting untouched for a year because he hadn’t finalized his plans for w
hat he was going to do with it.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t seem fishy,” I said with a disgusted shake of my head.
“They wrote the fire off as a bunch of kids breaking and entering. Called it a tragic accident.” I could hear the anger in his tone.
I knew he blamed himself for all those girls that died that night. And so much more, I was sure. But none of us felt the same way. Hell, the guy had been fucked up by Keften so it wasn’t like he could have done anything anyway.
“Let’s get these fuckers,” I said with a deadly determined edge to my tone.
So then we started digging into it even more. Separately, of course. I needed my space and I knew he worked the same way. When we were in search mode, we weren’t social creatures.
“Fuck,” I said to an empty room after hours had passed.
I stood and stretched my aching back. Between the tension and being seated for so long, everything was starting to hurt. I rolled my neck trying to work out the crick in the back.
It was time for a break and food probably wasn’t such a bad idea.
I would say this though, Bridget had been right. One thing would lead to another and another. Maybe I didn’t know where the fuck Keften was right at this moment but with each passing second, I felt it in my bones that we were getting closer.
This was the break I’d been trying to find for so long now.
I touched base with Bocca. He said he needed a nap to recharge and I couldn’t blame him. Then I headed off to talk to Iron.
“You find out what Petra is really all about?” I asked with a smirk as I entered his office. “You’re still alive, so I’m guessing there are no big secrets you unearthed.”
“Shut it,” he said with a joking twinkle in his eye. “She’s clean. Well, as clean as someone like her could be.”