I wouldn't lie, it was refreshing when, after a job, I could actually take a hot shower to scrub off the blood. It definitely beat out the cold, makeshift hose showers of my past.
No matter how hot the water got—and Vance had fixed the heater enough to make the water almost skin-blisteringly hot—there was no getting it off.
The grime.
That coating I had been wearing around on my skin for years. The filth that covered me, that sometimes I swore sank down into my skin, became a part of my soul.
I never felt clean even after scrubbing my skin raw.
I figured it was a small price to pay—never feeling wholly comfortable in my skin, carrying around these blood-soaked hands, not being able to sleep soundly—to be able to make a difference in the world.
I slipped on fresh clothes, ate a couple Devil Dogs, went ahead and poured some soap on my bike like Finch had suggested, but only after having heard him leave for the night.
Then, tired down to my bones, I dropped down on the couch.
I wasn't sure if it was the thunderclaps or the nightmares that finally woke me up. All I knew was I woke up with a fist lodged in my throat, with my heart hammering in my chest, with a cold sweat covering my skin.
I'd tossed and turned for hours, catching snippets of sleep here and there, not nearly enough to take the ache out of my muscles, the heaviness off my eyelids.
On a sigh, I unfolded my body, climbing off the couch, moving out toward the door, opening it up.
I had always liked the rain.
Reading Weather, my Aunt Reese, the local librarian, would say.
Maybe that was part of it. It was an excuse to curl up in pajamas and ignore the world.
At least, that was part of it back then.
Now, though, I liked it because it matched my mood. Especially after a job. Especially after slathering on another layer of filth.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped out into the downpour, sliding down onto the cement slab that acted as a shared porch for all of us, though no one bothered to put out cute rocking chairs or planters filled with happy flowers. This was not the kind of place you lived in because you wanted to, that you wanted to spruce up. It was a stepping stone to someplace else, somewhere that you would put effort into.
All there was, instead, were old cigarettes or cigar stubs or even half-disintegrated joints from the unit to the other side of Finch.
I appreciated the honesty of this shithole of an apartment building.
Almost as much as I appreciated the fact that when they looked out the window to see me sitting there in the rain, they said nothing, did nothing, minded their own damn business.
My eyes drifted closed, my head leaning against a half-crumbling railing, feeling the water soak through my clothes, wash over my skin.
I wondered if I sat in a storm for long enough if it could take a layer or two of the slime away.
I figured it was worth a try.
"Ace, what the fuck are you doing?" Vance's voice asked, shocking me out of my half-consciousness, making a surge of adrenaline course through my system.
I blinked up at him, a towering shadow with glistening hair. "Enjoying the rain," I heard myself mumble.
"People enjoy the rain from the window, not sitting out in it. It's fucking freezing," he added, suddenly making me aware of the chill moving through me. "Come on," he said, going to reach for me before remembering himself, offering me his hand instead. "You're going to get fucking sick," he added.
"You can't get sick from the cold," I told him, my old know-it-all self rearing her giant head.
"No, but it can lower your immune system so that the next time you are exposed to a bug, you can't fight it off as well," he shot back. "This girl I used to know told me that," he added, eyes twinkling a little.
God, that was a good twinkle too.
Something a part of me responded to, making my hand raise, settle into his, letting him pull me back to my feet, lead me inside.
"Here," he said, finding a pile of clothes, handing them off to me. "Go get dressed. I'll order some food. Something hot to warm you up."
I realized as I made my way to the bathroom that he hadn't been pissed. That I hadn't texted. That I didn't tell him I was on my way back.
Truly, I meant to. I was so unaccustomed to answering to anyone that it had completely slipped my mind in my race to get back, to get clean.
"I know better than to ask where you went," he said when I walked back into the room. "But how about I ask if you're alright."
I felt my lips curve up a bit at that, not sure the last time someone asked how I was.
Holden cared. In his way, he cared. But he wasn't a touchy-feely "is everything alright" sort of guy. He wanted to know if you had any gaping holes anywhere that needed to be stitched up, and that was about it.
I guess how could he ask me if I was okay—mentally, emotionally—when he was clearly anything but?
"I don't really know how to answer that," I admitted. Because, physically, I was just fine. A little banged up. I had a bruise the size of a foot on my side. But it was just a nagging sort of ache if I moved the wrong way. Emotionally, mentally, well, I wasn't even sure. Could anyone who took lives for a living ever be truly alright? No matter how noble the cause.
Surprisingly, Vance nodded his head at that, accepting it as an answer. I was pretty sure most of the people in my life would have pried, would have demanded more of an explanation.
"Are you going to be running off again like that anytime soon?"
"I don't have any plans to." I always had feelers out, was always looking for the next big bad, the rising star in the trafficking world, and a couple of elusive cases that had been nagging at me for years. But I had no current leads, no one on the horizon that I knew about.
If the emails came in, if the information was there, then, yeah, I would need to go. But I figured I had a few weeks before that happened.
"I guess I will have to learn to live with that uncertainty," he said, shaking his head.
"Unpredictability keeps you on your feet. What kind of pizza did you get?"
"Quarter plain, quarter pepperoni, quarter mushrooms and onions, and a quarter veg."
My old favorite order. I had needed to beg the pizza place to make it every single time because it wasn't something that they offered. You got toppings on the whole thing or half and that was it.
"Why didn't I hear any pleading?" I asked, brows lowering.
"Perks of being a member of an outlaw biker gang. People just do shit when you ask them to."
Apparently, being the offspring of an outlaw biker president didn't afford me the same courtesy.
"Bastards."
"They are throwing in a liter of soda too," he added, rocking back on his heels, pleased with himself.
"I haven't had pizza in years," I admitted, not knowing why I wanted to do so. If I just didn't want the silence to grow awkward, or if I genuinely wanted to give him little parts of myself.
"I noticed you look a little thinner than usual," he agreed. "On a strict diet?"
"You could say that. I wasn't cooking my meals. Everything was very basic, very healthy, and very plain. I hadn't had cheese in like... eighteen months until I got back here."
"I have to ask because it is going to make me sick not knowing... were you being held by someone?"
"What? No. Of course not. Would a captor let me write letters?"
"True. Your mom was always so excited when they came in. She would bring them to the clubhouse to let your aunts and uncles read."
"Oh, God. There was never anything interesting in them. Definitely not enough to spread around."
"They were all she had. All they all had. They pored over them when they showed up." He paused at that, and I had a feeling he was trying to let that sink in, like he figured I needed time to process things. Which I did. "Can I ask you one more thing?"
"Well, you're buying me dinner. I think that means I owe you small talk."
>
"I want to say that you don't owe me anything, but if social obligation gets some information out of you, I'm not above utilizing it."
"Very pragmatic," I agreed.
"Why the flowers?"
"The flowers?" I repeated, lost.
"On the letters. There were always flowers drawn in the margins. Roses. Daffodils. Lilacs. Daisies." The favorite flowers of my aunts. I honestly didn't even remember doing that. "It just always seemed odd to me. You never liked flowers. It made you sad when they died."
It did.
He remembered so much about me. Some things I even forgot about myself.
"I wish I could give you some meaning. I guess they were just... things that reminded me of my aunts. I really wasn't conscious of doing it." I must have doodled them after I finished writing the letters, while my mind was still in places other than the present situation. Then when I snapped out of it, I'd thrown it in an envelope after without glancing over it again.
I never wanted to stay in that Navesink Bank headspace for too long. I knew it would be too hard to leave it behind if I did.
"Are you excited to see your parents?" he asked, following me as I dropped down on the couch.
"I think the predominant feeling is worry."
"Worry," he repeated, brows knitting. "You're worried to see your parents? Why?"
I couldn't seem to make eye-contact, pretending instead that inspecting my ripped cuticles required my utmost attention.
"I'm not who I was, Vance. You see that. I know they're going to see that."
"It doesn't matter who you are. You're still their daughter."
"You don't understand," I objected, shaking my head.
"Then help me understand."
I wanted to.
God, I wanted to share it.
Which was all the more reason I couldn't. The desire to talk about it, to spill all the pain and heartbreak and fear and sacrifice over the past several years was just more proof that being here, that being around these people who had known me so well, was going to make it impossible to keep myself as detached as I would need to continue to do my job.
"I can't talk about it. Not really. But... it's just. There's not as much to love now."
"Ace, there is plenty of you to love."
There was no stopping the scoff that escaped me. "How would you know?"
"Maybe you've changed. Maybe there is some coldness and some guards, honey, but you're still you. You still have the same likes and dislikes. You're still sharp. I get that you've changed. But we've all changed. That's what time does. You might find some things different about your parents and aunts and uncles. And you damn sure will find things different with your siblings. Your life didn't stop when you went away. And none of our lives stopped either. Everyone is going to have to get reacquainted."
"Why did you quit the band?" I blurted out.
"What?" he asked, jolting back at the change of topic.
"You said I would need to get reacquainted with everyone. That we've all changed. You're here. You've changed. So why did you quit the band?"
This time, it was his turn for his gaze to slip from mine, staring forward toward the front window, the blinds much cleaner than they had been when I had left, leaving me to wonder if he had somehow also inherited his mother's and Iggy's habit of cleaning when they were stressed or restless.
"I didn't quit. I was forced out."
"Forced out," I scoffed. "You were the only one with any talent in that band. You created that band. How could they force you out?"
"Pretty easily, it turns out," he admitted, shaking his head.
"Tell me," I demanded, knowing I had no right to ask when I wasn't willing to give him anything, but finding I needed to know, I had to know what he'd been going through over all these years.
"I saw you had picked up our Waiting album," he started, looking at me, almost daring me to deny I had done so.
"You told my story."
"I tried," he admitted, nodding. "I think it was cathartic, a way to help me sort through the situation. I didn't really mean for it all to become an album. But the guys came across it all one day. They loved it. We decided to go ahead and make the album. We expected much of the same thing we'd always had in the past. Sell a couple CDs to the local fans, get a few further away gigs to try to expand a little. But it blew up. We literally couldn't keep stocked. We had lines at our shows. And then there was a record producer and a contract and some serious shit. I think we were all too stunned to do anything but sign the papers and agree to everything."
"Understandable. That must have been very exciting."
"You'd think," he agreed, nodding.
"That was your dream. How were you not excited?" All I ever remembered him talking about was making a name for himself, following the greats, making music, playing shows, going on wild adventures. Once someone was offering him all of that, he should have been over the moon.
"I was in a weird place. In my own head a lot. It was kind of dark days back then. I just... went with the flow. It sort of happened around me instead of to me. If that makes sense."
"It does."
"So we just kept touring and all that. Did some bigger shows. Signed some fucking autographs," he added, shaking his head like he still couldn't believe it. I could, though. I always could.
"Then what happened?"
"Then we cut our second album. Even then, I was getting a lot of push back, a lot of shit for the songs I was writing. They were too 'whiny' or 'longing' or shit like that. But it had worked for the first album, so they just let it ride for that one. But when it was time to start brainstorming again, they all cornered me and told me if I write any more of 'that shit' that I was out."
"Your bandmates were always kind of assholes," I told him. I'd kept my mouth shut about it back in the day because I knew they were important to him. And every girl knew that if you wanted to eventually start a relationship with a guy, it was important that his friends like you and that you at least pretended to like them.
"In retrospect, yeah, they were. At the time, they were my friends. I gave a shit about their opinions. And I wasn't feeling too sure of myself to begin with. So I agreed. And then I couldn't write a single fucking thing. I was dried up. Had nothing left to offer."
"You had a lot to offer," I objected. He had dozens of notebooks full of rough drafts of lyrics. More than he would need for a lifetime of record making.
"It wouldn't come to me, though. And you kind of need the music to come to you. It's hard to force it. And if you force it, it's crap anyway. I started getting threats from our manager, the record label saying shit about me neglecting the contract. Eventually, I guess they found a big enough of a loophole to push me out but keep the name, keep the rights. And I was out."
"Those fucking bastards," I growled, angry for him.
"I get it to an extent. This was their dream too. I was fucking with it. I was the only thing fucking with it."
"Yeah, but without you, they never would have had that dream."
"They managed well enough without me."
"They're still making music?"
"Have you been living in a hole for eight years, Ace?"
"In a way," I told him. "I haven't been in touch with anything popular culture," I added, not wanting him to think I'd literally been in a cave or something.
"They are still hitting the tops of the charts," he told me. "The guys are millionaires. Drive around in a half a million-dollar tour bus."
"Who replaced you? Who is writing the music?"
"Two different guys last I checked replaced me. And the music is picked from whoever is a big name in the lyricist game at any given time."
"Soulless crap."
"Pretty much."
"It's all about fucking and fighting and doing drugs."
Vance and I had talked about music a lot when we were younger. About the validity of rock-and-roll culture. The songs about fucking and fighting and drugs. But only when it was a ref
lection of the struggles of the members of the band. If everyone in the band was in a monogamous relationship and sober, they had no business faking it for sales.
And, well, I knew the drum player had been with his middle school sweetheart for ages. And the singer was straight edge.
And, well, we'd always one-hundred-percent agreed that when it came to rock, you had to write your own music to be legit.
"How did you handle the fallout?"
"You're looking at it," he told me, waving a hand around. "I packed up my shit, headed back home. Used what I had to rent this place as I tried to figure out what to do."
"Did you try to form a new band?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I had no music left in me. Not any unique music, anyway. I still played. I still play. But other people's music."
"But... you could have joined a band that already had a lyricist."
"I think it was all or nothing for me, Ace. Without the words and music in me, there was no dream."
"I'm sorry," I told him, voice with more emotion than I had heard there in ages.
I'd never had a dream like his. Unless, of course, you counted the dream I cradled to my chest of being with him, sharing his dream and life with him.
But I hadn't grown up with a surety about what I should do with my life. I didn't have a secret talent or a bone-deep passion. I'd been one of the few people I'd known, actually, who didn't have a plan for their future.
I hadn't been concerned. With my large extended family—many of whom had their own side gigs—I figured that I would always end up somewhere.
I couldn't imagine what it had been like to possess the kind of passion that he had for music only to one day lose it all. It must have been devastating. It must have left him feeling like his world had collapsed around him.
"What did you end up doing?"
"I bounced around a few jobs. Nothing worked out."
"How did you end up with a Henchmen cut on your back?" I asked. The question had been niggling at me since I first saw him in the front yard of the clubhouse.
"I just couldn't find a place. Years ago, your father told me if I ever needed anything, to come to him. I needed a new focus in life. He gave it to me."
"That's quite a shift, though. A musician to an outlaw biker?"
The Rise of Ferryn Page 11