Ruby Dawn

by Raquel Byrnes

  Tom glanced at me and then walked off.

  Lopez turned to me. “You know, you’re as stubborn as I heard.”

  “You heard I was stubborn?” I was shocked. “From whom?”

  “Just about every informant we have on the street. Ruby-D, you’re as fearless as they come,” Lopez said and gave a crinkled grin.

  I watched Tom cooling off by the windows and turned to Lopez. “I’m not fearless where he’s concerned,” I whispered. “Does he have people watching his back?”

  Lopez’s smile faltered. “Not the way it works.”

  “There’s no other way to do this? Tom has to go back in?” My voice caught in my throat.

  Lopez nodded. “He’s the key, Ruby. The whole case rests on Tom’s shoulders.”

  34

  Dresden Heights Detention Center

  Ten Years Ago

  I’d never known fear like that. Not before that day, not since. I wish I’d noticed the signs. I wished I’d been able to stop it. As it was, I nearly didn’t live through it.

  The day after my confrontation with Griffin in the lunchroom, one of his buddies picked a fight with Tom in class. The two of them spent the hours after school in detention.

  Afraid of another run-in with Griffin, I hurried to my dorm room after classes and did my homework. The evening bell that signaled the Dorm Check and Lights Out hour, ten o’clock, jerked me out of reading. I stood up and stretched out the kinks in my back.

  I saw the orange squares of lights from the boys’ dorm windows across the quad. Tom would be out of detention by now. I pried the door open and went to the bathroom. The last stall also had a window. The lock, broken since before I’d arrived, clicked open easily, and I slipped out into the night.

  I needed to tell Tom about Griffin’s recent behavior before he found out on his own. I took a path that brought me near the back of the cafeteria. If I saw the glow of the white sock hanging over the edge of the roof, then Tom would be there. Only we knew the signal.

  I squished through the wet grass and rounded the corner. The gym sock glowed in the moonlight. I reached for the door, slipped inside, and made my way to the supply closet, then touched the light switch. A terrible pain exploded behind my eyes.

  I went down, moaning and rubbing the back of my head. Confused, I looked up at two figures in black. Knit caps covered their hair and cloths covered the lower part of their faces, completely obscuring their identities. I struggled to get up, but one kicked me, and I went back down, moaning.

  “Stay down!” he hissed.

  The tennis shoes by my face, familiar somehow, squeaked as the two forms moved to either side of me. One of them reached down and pressed something over my mouth. I pawed at it and it pulled on my skin. Duct tape.

  “Grab her.”

  I struggled against the dizziness. They dragged me out of the supply closet and past the metal sinks. I kicked and tried to get my mouth free. I heard the walk-in freezer open. They dragged me inside and shut the door. The red bulb flashed, backlighting them like demons rising out of hell.

  “Tie her hands,” one of them ordered.

  The other guy, smaller, lashed more tape around my wrists. I heard him breathing hard.

  “Hurry up,” the shorter one whispered.

  The big one stood over me and pulled something out of his sleeve. He waved it in front of my face and chuckled. Dread pulled in my stomach. I recognized Griffin’s throaty laugh. The freezer made me cold, but his voice made me tremble.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  I stared at the scissors, terrified.

  “Let’s see who wants you after this,” Griffin spat.

  He grabbed a chunk of my hair and cut, yanking as he worked.

  Hyperventilating, I struggled against the other boy’s grip and kicked.

  Griffin dropped down, pinning my legs.

  “Hold her still,” he ordered.

  I screamed and twisted and bucked under his weight but couldn’t get away. He kept cutting, throwing the wads of hair in my face. No one heard anything. Not through the duct tape on my mouth and not through the metal freezer door. All the while, Griffin laughed and screamed that I was trash.

  A sharp pain in my head pierced through my fear and I blinked, dizzy. Nausea washed over me and the spot where they’d hit my skull throbbed with my heartbeats. A familiar smell swirled, the scent I felt before a seizure. My eyes darted from one boy to the other, and I yelled against the tape that something was wrong. Above me, the red freezer light buzzed louder. The entire room jerked to the side, spinning crazily.

  I passed out.

  I vaguely remember seeing the door open as they left. Sometime later, I heard Tom’s voice in my ear.

  “Oh, Ruby,” he croaked pulling off the duct tape. “Who did this?”

  Barely conscious from so long in the cold, I let my head loll to the side and took in Tom’s beautiful pale gaze. Eyes wide, he looked scared out of his mind with worry.

  “Don’t let them make me leave,” I breathed. “Don’t tell anyone or I’ll have to leave.”

  Tom carried me out to the grass behind the cafeteria and set me down. I couldn’t stop shivering.

  “You need…,” he stopped mid-sentence.

  I followed his gaze to his hand. Numb from the freezer, I hadn’t noticed the blood seeping down my neck. I lifted a hand and felt a split in the skin at the base of my skull. They must have hit me with something hard.

  Shocked, Tom put a hand to his forehead and took a step back. His words came out on a strangled whisper.

  “Who did this to you?”

  Seeing the rage rise in his face, I reached for him. “Tom, don’t!”

  “Who did this?” He yelled.

  Slowly, resolutely, I shook my head. “No, Tom.”

  Tom’s gaze found mine and the anguish there made my heart break.

  “I’ll make them pay, Ruby.”

  In the end, we all paid.

  ****

  For the next couple of hours I answered questions for both the local police and the DEA. Benrey took the rest of my statement, not that he believed me, poor guy.

  Lopez drank hospital coffee and chatted with the crime scene guys while they collected bullet casings and blood samples.

  I walked over to Tom. He stood facing out the window, walking a coin along his fingers.

  When I leaned my head against his shoulder, he sighed. “There’s no way to talk me out of this, Ruby.”

  “No way at all?”

  Tom shook his head silently and handed me the coin, chocolate as always. He laced his fingers through mine.

  “You’re so concerned about me, but what about you, Tom?” I asked, my lip trembling. “Antonio is out there, what if he saw you?”

  He lifted my hand and kissed my palm, his touch leaving heat on my skin. I stared up at his pale eyes and my heart skipped.

  “Ruby, stop.”

  “Don’t do this,” I hissed desperately. “Please.”

  I felt like I was losing him again, to violence and bad choices. I blinked back tears.

  Tom wiped them with the pad of his thumb. “Let me get you out of here, Ruby. We’ll talk about it later.”

  We walked back past Lopez. “You can’t leave with her.”

  “I’m taking her to the safe house,” Tom said quietly, his face hard. “I’m not asking.”

  “This is an unnecessary risk, Tom.”

  Tom whirled on Lopez. “I’m not asking!”

  Conversations around the room stopped abruptly as people stared at us. Lopez took a step back, his hands up.

  Tom led us out of the building, out the back way through the garages, and into a borrowed surveillance car.

  We rode in silence. Unfamiliar shops and houses flitted past the window. I stared out into the day, silent.

  My stomach churned and twisted as I held myself in check. This reckless decision to go undercover crushed my hope for a normal life with Tom. Could I bear the endless worry; stayi
ng up nights wondering if he would make it back home? The old couple at the Japanese garden flashed in my memory and my heart wrenched. I couldn’t live like this.

  Tom parked, got out of the car, walked to the passenger side, and opened my door. He took my hand in his and pulled me towards the front door. I heard Lilah’s voice inside and I pulled back. I couldn’t go in. Not feeling like this.

  “Ruby…”

  Shaking my head, I stepped back. “I can’t do this, Tom.”

  Sighing, he peered around the corner, and then led me to the side door of the garage. I squinted inside the musty room, making out a tattered couch and an air-hockey table. A dangling light bulb swung in the breeze caused by our entrance. The door into the house was closed.

  I went into the area and leaned against the side of the couch. An old recliner sat facing the far wall, the tattered corners barely visible in the dim light.

  “I can’t do this,” I whispered again. “I can’t…I don’t think I can take losing you again, Tom.” My lip trembled, and I bit it to keep from crying. “These risks you take…”

  “Ruby,” Tom sighed. “This is my job.”

  “Then I hate your job!” I yelled. “I hate seeing you kiss other women right in front of me. I hate thinking you go to her after you leave me. And I hate that these guys won’t hesitate to kill you if they find out who you are.”

  Tom looked at me, stricken. He sank onto the sagging couch cushions and leaned forward, his head in his hands. “I know this is hurting you, Ruby. I wish we hadn’t met until after this operation.”

  “Then what?”

  “Sorry?”

  “What happens with the next operation, or the next one? This job takes you off the radar for weeks at a time, Tom. I don’t know if I can deal with that, with the worry of hearing that you’ve been shot again.”

  “I didn’t think about that. I thought…”

  “What did you think about? Did you think about what you are doing to me?” I cried and swiped at the tears. “How could you show up here and make me…make me fall back in love with you? Don’t you know what it feels like to watch you leave, wondering if I’ll see you alive again? I can’t live my life terrified of losing you every time you walk out the door. I can’t do it!” I couldn’t stop trembling. “I was broken, Tom, broken the last time I lost you. It crushed my spirit.”

  Tom winced as if I’d slapped him. “I won’t leave you again, Ruby. I don’t know how many ways to promise—”

  Dread and frustration boiled in my chest.

  “Not voluntarily, no. But look at what you chose as a job, Tom. You’re rewarded for taking risks, and lying, and skating the law. You didn’t change; you just found a way to get paid for your bad behavior!”

  “That’s not true.” Jumping to his feet, he strode over to me, his eyes boring into mine. “I have changed, Ruby. I’m not that kid who messed up all those years ago. Why can’t you believe that?”

  “Don’t you see what you’re doing, Tom? You are still that kid, you’re still railing against the dealers who ran your mom to the ground,” I shouted.

  Tom recoiled, his expression wounded. “What?”

  “I can’t have a future with you if you won’t stop chasing the past. You can’t save her. No matter how many of them you put away or kill, you can’t save her!” My hands flew to my mouth too late.

  Tom stepped back, stunned. “Is that what you think? That I’m so messed up I don’t see what’s in front of me? I’m not stuck in the past, Ruby, I’m not.”

  “That’s not what I see.”

  Tom looked at me, his face stricken. “Y-you don’t see a future with me?”

  I shrugged, helpless to hide the anguish twisting my heart. “Not the one I want, Tom. Not one with a family.”

  “I want a family, Ruby. What makes you think I don’t?”

  I flashed on the kids and mom at the beach and a strangled moan escaped my lips.

  “I don’t want to be a widow, Tom. I want my kids to have a father who comes home.”

  His face full of pain, he turned and stalked to the door. “This future you want, can Ben give it to you?”

  Stomach flopping I stared at his back. “I-I think so, yes.”

  Without answering, Tom strode out of the garage, the door slamming shut behind him.

  Anguish and loss knocked the breath out of me, and I sagged onto the couch in a heap. Sobs wrenched and I wailed into my hands.

  The door leading into the house opened with a squeak and Lilah looked at me with wide eyes. “Are you OK?”

  Embarrassment flared. “Please tell me you didn’t hear all of that,” I croaked.

  “I think the entire neighborhood heard it, Ruby.”

  Groaning, I got up unsteadily. “Who’s inside?”

  Lilah made a face. “It’s who isn’t inside that kind of stinks,” she whispered.

  The recliner facing away turned slowly.

  Sitting in it, face ashen, was Ben.

  35

  “Aw, honey,” Lilah said and clicked her tongue. “If Ben does stick around, at least you’ll know he had prior warning that you’re nuts.”

  She sat across from me at the small kitchen table and shoved a plate of butter crackers in my direction.

  I snorted a laugh and tried not to spit out my tea. “Yeah.”

  Ben left as soon as he could, muttering something about his shift starting in an hour. I didn’t blame him.

  “What was he even doing here?” I asked Lilah.

  “The poor guy was just picking up overtime working guard duty outside.” Lilah shook her head. “He had no idea you were coming here, or that you’d break-up with your…whatever Tom was, in front of him. He just went out to the garage to grab a nap.”

  “I’m such a horrible person, Lilah. I think I broke both of their hearts today.”

  “Stop brooding,” Lilah said and poured more honey in my cup. “You’re not horrible; a whirling vortex of emotion and contradictions, yes…but not horrible.” She patted my hand.

  “How are you, Lilah?” I asked quietly. “I’m so sorry about Dakota.”

  She tried to smile but it just came off as a sad grimace. “I’ll be OK. We-we’ll get through. I’m OK until I think about it, so I don’t think about it. Not yet.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered and looked at the three DEA agents sitting in the other room. “Where’s Brooklyn?”

  “No idea. He split right after we got here; climbed right out the window.”

  “You’re kidding.” Shocked, I shook my head. “Did you know he was going to do that?”

  “He didn’t say anything to me, but I know him. He has claustrophobia; no way was he going to stay cooped up in a box with a bunch of cops.” Lilah picked at the peeling Formica tabletop and nodded towards the garage. “So tell me what happened in there?”

  “I don’t know where to begin, Lilah.”

  “How about how you know him and why you tried to hide that fact from me at the hospital,” she said and looked at me.

  Of course she knew. She wasn’t dumb. She’d given me space and privacy. I leaned back in my chair. “I met him when I was fifteen at Dresden Heights Detention Center.”

  Lilah nodded, she knew about Dresden. I’d told her about being there, just not why I’d left. “H-he was so, well you’ve seen him. Imagine being lost and scared and someone like Tom comes along and not only protects you in a horrible place, but loves you despite what you think of yourself.”

  “I can see that he’d be a hard habit to break.” She handed me a tissue from the box on the counter. “Why do you even want to?”

  “Something…happened at Dresden. A kid died, and Tom and I were blamed.” I stirred the honey on the bottom of my cup, not looking up. “Things fell apart after, and Tom disappeared. One day he was my whole world, the next he was gone.”

  “And you’re afraid of losing him again?”

  “I’m terrified. I can’t explain how he makes me feel, Lilah.” I looked at her with tears
in my eyes. “I-I can’t breathe when I’m around him. He pulls me around like gravity, always did.”

  “You want to give that up?” Lilah looked at me from under raised eyebrows.

  “I don’t want to risk feeling like I did when he left. I never want to go back down into that pit again. I almost didn’t crawl out of it.” My heart ached and I had to breathe in slowly just to keep from crying again. “I’m not sure I can survive loving Tom.”

  Sipping tea from her spoon, Lilah looked at me with furrowed brows. “It’s clear that Ben’s a great guy, but he’s not what Tom is to you.”

  “Ben is the right choice. He’s someone I can build a future with, grow old with, right?”

  “Ruby,” Lilah said and reached for my hand. “You know I love you, right?”

  “Nothing good ever starts like that, Lilah,” I moaned.

  “Well, listen anyway, OK?”

  I nodded, afraid to look at her. “Sure.”

  “Sweetie, you are a wonderful woman, a catch. But Ben is not your consolation prize. He deserves more than that, don’t you think?”

  “He’s not…” I didn’t finish because it was true.

  “You can’t have what you want with Tom, so you’ll settle for having it with Ben? That’s not happiness, Ruby. That’s you trying to do things on your own.”

  “I didn’t mean to treat Ben that way.”

  “Oh, I know, Sweetie. But I think you’re so afraid of trusting God again, that you’re frantically trying to do things yourself, and to be honest…I think you’re getting in the way.”

  “Getting in the way…of what?”

  “Did you ever consider that Tom is back in your life for a reason? That maybe the pain of your past and the fear for your future are tied up in your issues with him? This could be your chance to fix whatever sent you into hiding.”

  “I’m not hiding.”

  “You’ve been hiding for so long that you probably don’t even see that you’re doing it anymore, but you are hiding.” Lilah clicked her tongue. “Don’t look at me like that, Ruby. Not one date, not one friend other than me, and I work for you, not one personal relationship in all the years I’ve known you…and you’re not hiding? Come on.”