by Ashley Hall
A floorboard creaked, reminding me that the some of the boys were still eavesdropping. Which just pissed me off even more. But, my anger was quickly overshadowed by my feelings of regret and disillusionment.
"Can we go upstairs and talk?" I asked, almost pleading. "I'll tell you—"
"I'm not going up to your room." She crossed her arms and shook her head emphatically. "No way."
Shit, she thought I just wanted to stop talking and fuck her. At this moment, I didn't. I wanted more from her. I wanted more from us.
I glanced over at my father, who had fixed himself a drink at the bar despite the early hour. Once again, he'd screwed things up for me. Yeah, I knew he was trying and all, but why the hell had he felt the need to explain everything to Sky? It wasn't his damn place.
True, maybe I should've told her everything right from the start. I suppressed a snort. Yeah, because who would ever want to hear all about my past mistakes, as awful as they were and still want anything to do with me? In the past, as Allie, she'd been willing to turn a blind eye to my missions, and she'd been willing to as Sky too. As Allie, she'd left me over learning about my being a contract killer, and now it seemed she might do that again as Sky. She was remarkably consistent.
"Fine. That's fine. We can talk here." I hated this. The look in her eyes… She didn't trust me. Would she believe me? I hadn't told her everything about my past previously. More details might just push her away, but I had to try and see if I could regain some ground somehow. "I'll tell you the truth, I swear."
She didn't blink, her face a mask I didn't recognize. I couldn't read her at all, and it frightened me. What was she thinking? What was she feeling? Did she think I was a monster? Maybe I was one, but if that was the case, it was because of the monster I'd faced all alone in the dark as a child.
I started to reach for her hand before dropping my arm back at my side without touching her. "I swear I don't do that anymore."
"You mean the contract killings?" she asked coolly. She crossed her arms, glaring at me.
I nodded. "Yeah. I—"
"You haven't stopped killing, though," she pointed out.
She wasn't going to give me an inch. And maybe I deserved that, but I had to get her to understand the kind of place I had been in at the time. If she could just understand, maybe she'd be able to accept me.
"I don't kill for money. I…" This wasn't going to make things any better, but I'd promised to tell her the truth so here it was. I took another deep breath. Fuck, my chest was tight. "I used to be a junkie."
She jerked back. "You do drugs?"
The condemnation in her tone was killing me. Everything from her stance, to her cold eyes, to her glower was killing me. "Did. I was a junkie. And it was an expensive habit—"
"So you killed to get money to buy drugs," she said.
"Yeah." There was no way to sugarcoat it. It wasn't worth trying to.
"You killed for drugs," she amended. "You never mentioned drugs to me last time. Any other dark secrets you're keeping from me?"
I winced. I reached out and touched her shoulders, needing a connection to her. It felt too much like she was slipping away from me. Seeing her and not being with her was torture. It was almost as painful as some of the memories from my past.
She jerked back, forcing my arms to fall away. I hated not touching her. I hated that she didn't want me to touch her. I hated how weak I'd been, how weak I still was. Physically, I was strong and capable, but on the inside, I was a mess. I'd probably always be a mess.
"There's nothing else. Nothing I’ve held back. I swear. Ask me anything, and I'll answer you. With the truth."
Sky just glowered at me.
"I… I needed to get extra cash," I tried to explain, desperation in my tone.
"You couldn't have found another job. Really, Shadow? Not one other option?" She rolled her eyes and tapped her right foot.
Frustration made me want to snap, but I struggled to keep calm. Blowing up right now would only make things worse. "It was a really dark time in my life. The drugs… they dulled the pain, helped me forget… I was really struggling with my childhood molestation and I just couldn't handle it. I couldn't handle anything. I needed the drugs to get through the day. To get through every day."
Sky didn't move back when I took a step closer to her. A good sign, maybe. I hoped.
"I hated myself. I hated my life. My past… The drugs provided some relief, but it was only temporary. Somehow, I managed to stop using. I quit. I got out of that lifestyle." Probably the best thing I had ever done besides dating her. It hadn't been easy to stop the drugs, but my mother had been a druggie, and since I didn't want to be like her that helped motivate me to quit. Plus, going after targets while high had been a disaster. I'd almost gotten myself killed a number of times. And despite the numbness, I still felt the pain underneath it all. That pain was always there. I could try to ignore it all I wanted, but it lingered then and it lingers now.
"The mob just let you walk away." She snapped her fingers. "Just like that?"
"Not exactly," I muttered.
"Then how?"
Her asking questions was a good thing. She wanted clarification, details. We weren't fighting. We were talking.
With her eyes cold, her body closed off, judgment in her stance. Fighting wasn't the right word. Squaring off was more like it.
"I explained to the boss that I wanted out. He laughed at me at first, but then he said if I really wanted to go, that I had to do one last job for him." I fell silent.
"And?" she prompted, her foot tapping faster now.
"I did it. One last job."
"Who did you kill?"
"The mayor. But after that, they left me alone. It was like I never worked for them. I stopped doing drugs and I stopped killing for the mob. My life was halfway decent. And then I met you, and everything seemed to really be going good for me."
"You got out of the killing for the mob business and moved on to killing pedophiles," she said slowly. "Is that really any better?"
I clenched and unclenched my fists, needing something to do with my hands since she wouldn't let me touch her. "I'm not a good guy. I've made mistakes, but I'm trying. I don't kill for money, and I don't use drugs. Not anymore. I'm struggling to stay afloat. I need someone who can help ground me. I need…"
I needed her. I had to have her in my life. Losing her again would destroy me. I could already feel the darkness her void would plunge me into, and I shuddered.
A silence stretched between us, cold and foreboding. And the longer it was quiet, the worse I felt. My past would always ruin my present. It dictated my actions, and now it was taking my only source of happiness away from me… for the second time.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you the whole truth," I murmured.
"You never would've told me, would you have?" she demanded.
I couldn't answer that because I honestly didn't know. "I was afraid that if you found out the truth, all of it, you would break up with me again. Sky, I need you." I was pleading, begging for her understanding, but I didn't care. "I love you. I just… If I had told you, you would've already left me."
"You didn't trust us enough," she whispered. "You didn't have enough faith in me."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Hope burned in my chest, almost too hot for me to handle.
"I feel for you. I care for you, Shadow, I really do." She stared up at me. Her mask slipped and I could see tenderness in her eyes.
The burning sensation grew. Could she love me enough to stand beside me despite all of the horrible things I'd done? Did I deserve to have her in my life after everything?
I opened my mouth, but she held up a hand, so I kept quiet.
"I care for you," she said quietly, "but I'm not sure I can be with someone who would conceal this secret from me, and not even just once, but twice." She shook her head sadly.
"You would have left me. I… I couldn't risk that." The burning sensation remained, but it was v
oid of hope now. I was sinking into an abyss; drowning. My chest ached. "Maybe I should've told you—"
"Maybe?" She rolled her eyes and shook her head again, her hair falling forward over her shoulders. "You're a liar, a former druggie, and a murderer. Whether you kill for money or some kind of warped sense of justice, you're a killer. Oh, and you're a thief too. Can't forget that."
I reached for her hand, but she skirted back.
"I never want to see you again. Don't even try to stop me. I'm going to go pack." With that, she flew out of the bar, and out of my life.
Chapter Twenty-One
Shadow
For a moment, I just stood there, staring at the spot she had just occupied. My worst fear was coming true. First Allie had left me, and now Sky was leaving me too. The love of my life wanted nothing to do with me, and I couldn't really blame her. She had every right to be upset with me for not being completely honest. I'd deliberately kept my past from her.
As much as I wanted to run upstairs and try to convince Sky to stay, I knew it would only make things worse. Nothing could change my past—not the molestation, not the terrible things I'd done to try and cope. The drugs, the hired killings… I knew killing pedos was wrong too, but I couldn't stop. I had to do something to help make the world a better place, to prevent kids from going through the hell I had lived through and still was. No one should ever have to go through what I did. It wasn't right. Wrong on so many levels. Kids should be protected from predators at all costs.
Footsteps came closer, but I didn't bother to turn around to see who thought it was smart to bother me right now.
"Need a drink?" Eyebrows asked from behind me.
It was way too early in the day for that, although the idea of getting pissed drunk was appealing. I also wanted to get high, which was something I hadn't craved in a long while. I hadn't fallen back into old habits when Allie had left me. And, I wouldn't do it now. I'd come too far for that.
But she wanted me to go even farther. She wanted me to give up on the only thing that gave me any semblance of peace. Yeah, I was majorly screwed up, considering I needed to kill to have peace, but the world was messed up too. Shootings at elementary schools and colleges, pedophiles, kidnappers… We lived in a fucked up world.
"Better not. I'm fine." I hardly ever lied to the guys, and I hated it when women said that phrase. I'm fine always meant the opposite, and that held true for me too.
Fading footsteps told me he was walking away and that I should go before someone else approached me, but I felt too numb to do any damn thing. I was spacing out, like an out of body experience I just wanted to get out of my own skin, get out of my head was more like it. Too much shit had gone down. How much could any one man be expected to take?!
Sure enough, someone else was walking my way. No peace for me, ever. I braced myself, but it was only my father. He gave me a look, maybe filled with sympathy or regret, and continued on by and leaving the house without saying a word. Good. If he had tried to start talking to me, I would've bitten his head off. He'd apologized to me so many times since he'd come into my life, and I just couldn't handle hearing another one.
Finally, my legs felt ready to move and I entered a seldom-used office. I just needed a moment to try and piece my life together. Everything was falling apart. Sky would be gone for good soon, and all I would have left were my boys and my missions. It wouldn't be enough; Not to sustain me. I was filled with so many emotions; so much anger, sadness, rage, and grief all at once. I felt like I was caught in a violent tornado that had me both, spinning me out of control and suffocating at the same time. My brothers could only help so much. I had lived so much of my life without love. I started to hate myself for being so weak when it came to my foster father. I hadn't known love ever. Not until Allie. There had been women before her, yes, but I hadn't let any of them in. Hadn't loved them, so I hadn't even considered letting them get to know the real me. But Allie, and then Sky, had been different. She loved me, and I fucking loved her. But even her love wasn't enough to overcome my darkness. My love wasn't enough of a reason for her to stay.
I rubbed a hand down my face. Just then, my cell rang, and I answered without looking at caller ID. "'Lo?"
"Hey, is this Shadow?" some guy asked.
I narrowed my eyes. I didn't recognize the voice. "Who is this?" I demanded.
"We talked earlier today," the guy said, but I still couldn't place who he was. "I'm Greg Anderson. Landlord of—"
"Brett who is friends with Frank Greene. I remember you." I'd figured Frank was on the run and wouldn't return home, so friends had been a logical place to look for him. Hadn't found him earlier though, and close friends typically wouldn't turn on their buddy, not even after he'd been accused of horrible things. Oh no, not Frank. He's such a good guy. Yeah, because good guys molest little kids.
"You said to call if I saw anything, and I did. I saw him earlier. Frank, not Brett. He was sneaking in. I thought…" Greg took a deep breath that he exhaled loudly into the phone. "Another fifty and I'll delay telling the cops until tomorrow."
"You got it." I hung up. What was fifty bucks? Nothing. Yeah, funds had been tight lately, which was why our food selection was so limited, but this was important. This guy had to be nailed. Since he was on the run, I couldn't risk taking any chances now that I finally had a lead.
My gun was still on me from earlier, and I pulled it out from the back of my jeans and double checked that it was fully loaded. It was. I could just picture holding it up, right at Greene's chest. Would he piss himself? Beg for mercy? Cry?
Normally, I never went out on a mission by myself, not even during recon. Right now, though, just like earlier today, I couldn't handle being around anyone. Any of the guys would either ask about Sky or make a point not to, and either way, it would be awkward and just something else I didn't want to deal with. I had to be focused. I couldn't risk any kind of distractions. Better to go it alone.
I slipped out the back door and walked around to the front. My bike felt like an extension of me as I climbed on. Maybe I should tell someone where I was going, but I already started up my bike and was driving away. I was more than ready to do the only thing that made me feel better—erase scum off the face of the fucking planet. Yeah, so it was stupid, reckless, and downright dangerous to go on this type of mission alone, but I was through with trying to survive. Because, without Sky, that would be my life—trying to survive, not really living. Just existing day after day, hunting down pedos, feeling like shit, and hating life. Back to what my life had been after she'd left me the first time.
If this was to be my last mission, so be it. I was ready. So ready.
Bring it, asshole.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Shadow
It didn't take me long at all to reach the apartment complex. I floored it the whole way there, going at least twenty over the speed limit, and parked in the back. Depending on how things went down, I couldn't risk having my bike parked blocks away. A quick getaway in case something went wrong, or for needing to flee after I put a bullet or two into Greene, was absolutely essential.
As I hurried to the back door, I couldn't help feeling uneasy. Usually, I researched the fucks I was hunting, knew where they worked, tailed them enough to know their habits, gained insight, at least somewhat, to what made them tick. It made it easier to bring them down. One pedo I tailed always got drunk every Friday night at the same bar. He would then walk home because the bartender would take his keys. Every single time without fail. I'd laid in wait in an alley along his route home in a desolate part of the city and popped him with ease. No witnesses. No issues at all. The guy never knew what hit him. Didn't even grunt. Just fell to the ground. Dead. About half of the pedos I've taken out don't even know why I came after them. I wasn't much of a talker when it came to missions. Only about action and results, and dead pedos of course.
But this guy, Frank Greene, I didn't know much about him, and this was a different case anyhow. The pedos
I targeted were never hunted by the police before. They never knew anyone was watching them. This would make Greene paranoid and dangerous. I'd have to be careful, especially since I was by myself.
Thankfully, the landlord had been forthcoming earlier and I had been able to learn about Brett, Greene's friend, from one of my informants. If the Police had informants, so could I. Anything to give me an edge over those twisted sickos.
It made me feel better that Brett hadn't been around earlier. It was entirely possible Brett would side with his friend, despite what he had done, and since Greene had snuck into the place, he obviously thought Brett would have his back. I had to consider the possibility that I might have to take two guys out, not just the one.