by Vivian Gray
“What’s going on?” Blanche coos, attempting to roll over towards me. “Do you need to go to work or something?” Her arms search for me, but I move away and get up.
“Yeah,” I answer as I try my best to keep any sense of emotion from seeping into my voice. “Keep dinner warm for me, okay? I – I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Really?” Her voice drips with disappointment. “Come on, Diesel. Stay for a little while. We can have round two...”
“No, Blanche,” I nearly shout. “I’ve got to fucking go. And when I say I have to go, I damn well mean it.”
Her soft face transforms as she whispers, “Yeah. I know. I’m… I’m sorry.” She gathers the bedsheet around her, covering up her body. “I’ll just… see you when you get back.”
I mutter an almost apologetic, “See ya,” under my breath and start to get dressed.
She leaves the bedroom and heads back to the kitchen – to the pot on the stove –, pretending to be occupied, while I silently fight the urge to tell her everything that’s going on. Though I know I should, I can’t. I can’t do it until I see the body and know that what Knux is telling me is true. If her brother is truly dead, I am going to get vengeance first – before she sheds even one damn tear.
Chapter Nine
Blanche
It’s the fifth night in a row where I’ve slept alone in Tyler’s old bed. It’s the fifth night where I’ve cradled my legs to my chest and hunched under the thin comforter while I listen to Diesel stumble in through the door at three in the morning. In a few hours, he’ll walk back out, and that will be the last I hear from him until tomorrow night. It’s the fifth night where I’ll will myself to not chase after him, begging him to tell me what’s changed.
I’m not used to this lonely “new normal”. In the few months I’ve been here, I’ve gotten used to having someone around the house, and I hate to admit how badly I don’t want to go back to the life I lived in Illinois: an empty apartment, a few friends I’d only see at work, a dinner for one… I was never the person who had people around them at all times. And my few failed relationships crashed and burned out like the Hindenburg itself crashing into a field.
That was before Diesel trapped me in this tower and banned me from leaving. I hated the idea from the get-go. The first few days, he wouldn’t even let me turn on the TV when the bar was open. He found me books to pass the time, and he allotted me a few hours on my phone to play some mindless games and to assure my family that I was still alive and not MIA, but that was it.
When time passed, and no one came looking for me, he gave me more liberties. He rented me movies from the kiosk at the grocery store, and I pretended to be grateful for his choices of crappy action movies. He must have appreciated my Oscar-worthy acting because, a few nights later, I could go on morning walks with him before his shift started, and I was allowed to get the week’s grocery shopping done as long as I was back before the owner of the bar could catch me.
I hate to admit it, but the honest to God truth is that being held captive appears to come perfectly easily to me. Sure, I miss my job as a nurse. I miss the hospital and the buzz of treating someone. And I am sure as shit going crazy from lack of human interaction. But Diesel has been... well, remarkably pleasant.
Even though Diesel often acts like a goddamn beast with his own special variety of mood swings, his insistence on keeping the place spotless, and his insatiable appetite for, well, my body, there is something about his presence that makes me feel totally at ease with him. I’m even sometimes able to forget about Tyler being missing for the fourth month now or the pink slip my job sent to me for not showing up to work.
I could even look past my parents’ constant messages and calls begging me to come home and give up the search for my brother. When I’m with Diesel, none of that outside stuff matters. In this apartment, it’s him and me – the rest of the world can go straight to hell.
That was until the night in the kitchen.
I don’t know what changed or if I did something wrong. There was a text message that transformed him and then a long trip away from home. He was gone for a few days, but it felt like a lifetime when I had no information to go off of. Diesel would send me a text or give me a call here and there to check in on me. He even had a neighborhood woman deliver me some food when groceries got low – apparently, my days of going shopping were done. But that was the extent of his contact with me.
The man who laughed with every part of his body suddenly stopped smiling. His face grew dark and tired, and the length of his shifts (or whatever he was doing at night) started to wear on his body. Now, he’s become a shadow of the person I knew – the person that gave me butterflies when he tore through the door each afternoon.
I can’t do it anymore. My mind races as I think back on everything that I have said and done to him to drive him away like this. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that I could be held responsible for, and I can’t stand the thought of him treating me this way. If I am going to be his prisoner, he was, at the very goddamn least, going to treat me with respect and dignity.
I spend the next few hours waiting for him to come back from wherever he goes at night. I sit in the living room with Tyler’s blankets wrapped around my legs. My ears prickle at any sound of potential footsteps. I even allow myself to peek through the large, gray blackout curtains Diesel installed when we realized my stay would be longer than expected. Despite my being on alert, it still startles me when I hear the key scratching in the lock.
My feet spring to action as I smooth out the wrinkles of my black silk nightgown. I brush back my hair into a quick ponytail and pinch my cheeks to make me look more alert than I actually am. I’d give anything to go back to bed and do this in the morning, but I know that it’s now or never.
If I let him go tonight, I’ll never have the guts to say what is really going on in my heart. Still, my stomach churns horribly as the door creaks open and the light from the street lamp peaks in through the dark.
“Jesus Christ!” he hisses out urgently, flinching as he places his leather coat on the hanger closest to the door. “For the love of God, Blanche! You scared the living shit out of me.”
For a second, he studies me, his eyes moving over my body from toe to forehead. Does he know what is coming to him?
“I’m sorry,” I reply softly. “I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that you’re never home anymore, and I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?” he asks with a heavy, exasperated sigh. “You know I gotta sleep. I have my shift starting in a few hours, and it’s already four in the fucking morning.”
“I know, I know. And, again, I’d talk to you about this when you get home from your shift, but you’re never home long enough for me to actually have a conversation with you…” I’m rambling now. The nerves and adrenaline are all catching up with me.
“Spit it out,” he snaps. “If you got something to say, say it now.”
“Well, I guess… Where have you been?”
“At work,” he answers in a clipped, sullen voice. He doesn’t even bother to look at me.
“I know you probably go to work in the morning, but what about at night? You never worked night shifts before, and now you’re gone from the moment your shift is done until now. What do they have you doing that you’re working yourself to the bone?”
“You know that it’s none of your goddamned business, right?” Diesel growls out. “What goes on in the club doesn’t concern you. In fact, girls like you who get too curious get killed for asking too many damned questions.”
I know he doesn’t mean it to be a threat, but I can’t help but place a hand protectively around the base of my bare neck. My voice cracks as I go on, “Then, fine. Play it that way, if you want. You won’t tell me about work, that’s your business, and I guess I can handle that. But can you at least tell me about my brother? You used to give me updates on Tyler, and then it changed. Now you never talk about him at all. Has
– Has something... happened?”
He walks around the living room, his face turning pale. My heart skips a beat as I realize that I’ve found something. He’s hiding something. No matter what he says next, I am a hundred percent certain he’s trying to hold back some information about Tyler from me.
“Nothing has happened, Blanche. I can’t find a trace of your brother from the night that he left – outside of the details I told you. He’s gone.” His voice grows quiet as he adds after a long pause, “He’s probably dead. The bastard got himself killed.”
“You… You don’t really think that, do you?” I say, feeling the blood rush away from my face. “The club… I mean, I thought you paid his debt?”
“I don’t go back on fucking promises, Blanche. I’ve got an honor code to uphold. So yeah, I did. I kept my damn word to him and to you.”
“But then why would your club want him dead? Why would they do such a thing?”
He turns to me, his face transformed into something unrecognizable. He leans close to me, so close I can taste his breath as he whispers sternly, “Because we’re evil, Blanche. Back home in Illinois, where the cows rule everything or whatever the fuck happens in the flatlands, you go about your day not knowing evil. But we’re out there. Men like Knux and me, we run the streets, and we do some crazy shit in order to keep our power.”
“That’s not true…” My voice quivers as I feel my bottom lip shaking. “You’re not like that, Diesel. You’re not evil. I know you. I’ve lived with you. I’ve slept with you! You’re not like them.”
He laughs, and it practically shakes the entire apartment. “I am one of them, Blanche! What do you not see? Are you so naive to think that just because I slept with you and kept you around to fuck whenever I want that you could… What? Change me? Make me a better man? Is that what you thought?”
He laughs again, and the sound of it breaks my heart, even though I should be made of steelier stuff.
“Fuck that shit,” he continues. “I’m one of the bad guys, Blanche. And so was your brother. But somehow, Tyler managed to be worse. Because instead of being smart, he was a freaking fool – a worthless idiot who couldn’t figure out how to stay on good terms with a club without getting killed.”
“Killed? He was killed?” I feel faint as I feel whatever blood was left in my upper body pooling around my toes. I reach for the side of the couch to hold on.
“I didn’t say that!” Diesel shouts. “But so what if he was? Would anyone really care besides you? You’re just as big of an idiot as him! You trusted me, and you thought your brother could be saved. And for what?”
“He’s my family,” I answer with a growl that’s as strong as I can muster. “He’s my brother, and I love him.”
“Family means nothing, Blanche. Everyone looks out for themselves. The faster you learn that, the better off you will be.”
“Is that why you’re acting like this? Is it because you don’t know how to let someone in? Have I gotten too close to you?”
He slumps back down on the couch, facing away from me. “Gotten too close to me? No. You’re only stupid enough to think you have. I let you in my bed at night, and suddenly I’m your boyfriend or something? You have to be kidding me, Blanche. Please tell me you’re not that goddamn stupid?!”
“So I’m stupid? I’m stupid for caring about you… and Tyler?” The words seep out of my mouth like a broken sewer. I feel like an idiot for even saying them, but now that the dam’s been busted, I feel like I might as well keep going.
I take a deep breath before continuing: “You didn’t know me before I came here. I was nothing. I had no one. And you, well, you changed that for me. Even though I want nothing more than to go back home, I stayed here with you because, dammit, I thought I felt something.” My voice quavers just a little, much to my annoyance. “And I thought you felt it too.”
He scoffs and throws his hands up, but I continue anyway.
“Come on, Diesel. That night we made love in the kitchen and bedroom – you know what I’m talking about. That night, I felt the way you touched me, the way you kissed me. Then, I wasn’t the girl you were fucking or keeping around to play with. You wanted me for other reasons. I know it, and you know it too. Now, if something’s changed from that night, and you’re done using me, at least have the decency to let me go home.”
“Is that what this is about? You want to go back to your fucking Podunk town in the middle of the freaking cornfields? Jesus Christ, lady!”
“I think we both know it’s not, and you’re a fucking idiot, but sure,” I offer, shrugging my shoulders dramatically, “let’s go with that. Let me go home.”
He stares at me, his mouth slightly agape. He looks off to the side for a second while his jaw juts towards the side. There’s a quiet about him that doesn’t feel right in any way. He’s holding back info about my brother, but that’s not the only thing I can sense he’s trying to keep to himself.
“What is it?” I ask, my voice softer this time. “What are you not saying to me? Why won’t you talk to me?”
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. It’s flush full of cash and a card or two. He pulls out the entire stack of greens and places it on the metal and glass coffee table. “Take it. Buy yourself a flight home and go. Do it during the morning when no one will see you leave. Don’t stop, not even for a cop. The club’s got no one watching the airports that I know of, but they’ve been keeping track of the buses and trains.”
“Why? I want to stay here and help you find my brother.” I’m not even attempting to hide my sorrow over this. Damn Diesel and his stupid biker pride, but I will not leave while my brother is missing – and, what’s worse, he knows that, which is why he called my bluff. At least when I started, when I came here, I knew Tyler was alive and well. Now everything in my heart and all the signs from Diesel are pointing to that being far from the truth.
Diesel doesn’t reply. He places the folded and damaged picture of Tyler, the one I used to track him down on my first day in California, onto the table next to the cash. Without a word, he stands up and walks towards me. I almost think he will walk straight through me, but he stops in mid-stride and lifts his hand towards my face.
Every bit of my body screams at him to touch me, to talk to me, to throw me on the couch and take me. But he sighs and places the hand back on his hips. Then, he turns towards his bedroom, walks inside, and shuts the door.
My mind goes blank. My hands shake. I can’t tell what is up or down. The small apartment feels as if it is collapsing on me. I can barely stay on my feet as I rush towards the bathroom. The cold tile floor turns my skin icy and hot all at the same time. I reach the toilet just in time to release the contents of my stomach over and over again till all that’s coming up is my tears and coughs.
I’m sure Diesel can hear me, but I don’t care. Neither does my stomach.
But that’s when something dawns on me. I force myself to stand on my feet and think through the last few days. This isn’t the first time I’ve been sick this week. In fact, I’ve had a suspicion, for at least three weeks now, that something is off with my body.
I squat and open the cabinet under the sink where all the cleaning supplies are stored. I restocked it just last Friday, and on my trip, I picked up a small white box I’ve kept out of sight in case Diesel should see it.
It takes me only a moment to take the pregnancy test.
It takes three minutes for the second line to show.
I repeat with the second tester in the box an hour later. It’s as clear as it can be.
Positive. It’s positive.
I throw up again. And again. And again. Every bit of me purges until I feel as if I will be lost forever in the news.
Pregnant. How the hell could I have been so stupid? I’m a freaking nurse! I should know better about condoms and birth control. But my birth control prescription ran out the week I left town in search of Tyler. I thought it would cover me long enough until I co
uld get back home. No way my body could be ready to reproduce that quickly off the meds. But even as the months passed, I still allowed Diesel to take me as he wanted, without any protection.
How long has it been since my last period? A month? Two? I honestly can’t remember dipping into my stash of products that still sit in my backpack. It happening the first night I was here could be a possibility… That would put me at nearly three months – past my first trimester. I run my fingers through my hair as I think back on the class on midwifery. What have I missed? What could I do? I needed to have seen a doctor at least a month ago. And I should have been taking prenatal vitamins at the start of conception.
I place a shaking hand on my stomach and take a deep breath in. Just knowing that something is in me, something that is a part of me and the man sleeping in the room next door, calms and centers me.