“Then, if not Pike, who ratted on you?” Darius asks, confusion lining his angry face as the officers tug his arms together and slap him in cuffs.
“You’re still on that? You can’t see the bigger fucking picture here?” Percy asks, in angry amazement.
Darius can’t hear him over the noise in his head. “Who got you locked up? Who, damnit? Tell me!”
Percy smirks. “It was me. I got myself locked up. I did the things that I did, and I take responsibility for them, but I never would have done any of it if it weren’t for you. You tainted my blood with hate. You made me fearful of what’s different. You taught me to be violent and…” He trails off, shaking off images of the past with a jerk of his head. He looks to the sky and bites down on his bottom lip before refocusing his attention on Darius, who’s now being dragged backward towards a squad car, digging his heels into the dirt as if he could prevent the inevitable. “I took responsibility for what I’ve done. Now, it’s time you to do the same.”
“Did that little bitch make you do this? Of course, she did. She’s a fucking traitor, just like her old man. I’ll kill her like I killed him. Like I killed her entire fucking family. I’ll never forgive you for this! Any of you!” Darius roars, attempting to pull free from the officers, to no use. “You’ll all rot in hell!”
“You first,” Pike replies.
Percy steps up to his restrained father. “Nobody made me do anything, except you. And nobody will make me do anything anymore. And I don’t need your forgiveness. The only person who needs to forgive me is me. And this is the first step toward that.” The officers shove Darius inside the back of a blacked-out patrol car. “You are the one who started all of this, old man, but I’m the one whose ending it.” Percy glances at me and then Pike. “With some help, of course.”
“Noooo! This can’t be happening. This won’t happen. I won’t let it. I won’t let—” Darius cries are muted by the slam of the door.
Percy watches the patrol car as it disappears down the road. “Bye, Dad,” he whispers, then spits on the ground, kicking dirt onto it with his boot. The rest of the agents shove random resisters into their various vehicles, and without a word, one by one, they take off into the night, leaving us standing there in the center of the courtyard, untouched and alone.
Percy turns around to face us. He looks to Pike. “We all good now?”
Pike nods. “That last part was a surprise. Never took you for a rat.”
Percy shrugs, “Rats spread disease. That was Darius. All I spread was the truth. And a death sentence? That’s what the old man would have done. I’m trying to be different, better.” He holds out his hand. “So, again, I’ll ask: we good now?”
“A deal is a deal,” Pike says with a curt nod. He takes his hand and surprises me when the two do that bro thing half hug back tap thing that guys are so good at.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask, jerking my head between Pike and Percy. “You two really know how to piss a girl off by keeping her in the dark. Out with it. Now!”
“Your man and I made an agreement. He held up his end, and now, it’s time for me to hold up mine. I’ll be out of town by sun up.” Percy looks at me. “I’m sorry, Mickey. For everything. For…all of it.”
The sincerity in his voice reaches me loud and clear. “You righted a wrong. Something I’ve been trying to do myself,” I say. “I forgive you.”
“Thank you,” he says, with glistening eyes. He takes a rag from his back pocket and wipes at the temporary ink covering his face and neck, revealing a less hateful-looking man underneath. He walks past us into the warehouse and grabs a duffel bag hidden behind a gasoline can. He drapes it over his shoulder and heads for his truck. As he passes Pike, he stops and looks us both over one last time. “Pike, take care of her. I meant what I said before. Don’t you fucking hurt her.”
Pike nods and tucks my hand into his in a reassuring gesture. “That you don’t gotta fucking worry about. Ever.”
My chest tightens along with my fingers around Pike’s.
“What are you going to do now?” I call after Percy who tosses his duffel bag into the back of his truck. He opens the door and stands on the step. He takes a deep breath and smiles as if smelling the salty-pine air for the very first time. “I’m gonna go get my girl.”
Percy drives off, and I think it’s just me and Pike until Rage saunters over from the field. “Guess I won’t be needing this,” she says, tossing Pike a small remote. She tosses her own duffle bag over her shoulder and saunters over to a baby blue Vespa, her blonde ponytail swaying along the way. She takes off, the humming of her scooter fading as she disappears down the dirt path in the center of the field.
Pike takes my hand, and we begin to walk away, but I stop, removing my hand from his.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I turn around and take one last look at the compound. I can still hear the hateful chants that were repeated here. Ghostly words whispering all around me. “Is there anyone left inside?” I ask.
Pike shakes his head. “No, the FEDS cleared it.”
I smile. “Good.” I reach over and pluck the remote from his hands.
“What are you—”
I press the button, and the building explodes in a fiery ball of flames and smoke. The wind blows back my hair, and my face heats under the intensity.
“We have to go,” Pike orders, pulling me through the field to his truck.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, still basking in the glow of the explosion as we get inside.
“Nothing is wrong. I just have to get you home. Now.” He throws the truck in reverse and speeds through the tall grass to the back road. His gaze meets mine as he spins the wheel, turning us around.
“Why?”
He reaches over and takes my hand pressing the back of it to his lips. “Because that was amazing, and because I’ve never been so fucking hard in my entire fucking life.”
16
Pike
“Where is she? Where’s Mindy?” Mickey excitedly asks Thorne as we burst through the front door of the pawn shop. It’s late, and Thorne looks exhausted but perks up when she sees us. Her shoulders lift as the weight of her worry disappears.
“Nice to see you, too,” Thorne replies.
“Hey, sis,” I greet.
“You know!” Mickey says, happily clapping her hands together.
“Wait, you knew?” I ask.
Mickey bites her bottom lip.
Thorne laughs. “Yeah, it took her a few days. Only several years less than it took you.”
“Jo Jo?” I ask.
She points to the office. “She noticed that I was waiting up for you so she crashed in your office. Last time I checked, she was asleep on your desk.”
“Thank you. For everything,” I tell her.
Mickey frowns. “I’m so happy to see you, Thorne, but seriously, where is Mindy?” She bounces on the balls of her feet, her eyes wild with excitement.
Thorne points up the stairs, and Mickey wastes no time bounding up two a time.
“You two can…uh...catch up. It’s been a late night, so I’ll just crash on the cot next to Jo Jo so you don’t have to worry about her.”
I put my arm around Thorne, and she yelps in surprise as I pull her into my chest for a long overdue hug.
“At least, you smell better this time.” She sniffs my shirt. “But why do you smell like a fire?”
“More like an explosion,” I correct.
She pulls away from me and opens her mouth before shutting it again. “You know, I am really tired so whatever weird tale that is, you’re going to have to save it for tomorrow.” She joins Jo Jo in the office, and I head up the stairs to find Mickey.
I’m loving how enthusiastic Mickey is right now. Most people in her position would just want a shower and a nap. I laugh to myself and watch her burst through my apartment door. She’s probably still high from all of the adrenaline. Explosions have a way of doing that to people.
“You kept her in the cage!” Mickey yells, running to the corner of the room. She drops to her knees. “How could you do that to her?”
“I kept the door open,” I reply. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were so against it.”
A sinking feeling begins in the pit of my stomach. A spark of worry that pulls at the hairs at the back of my neck, plucking at them one by one.
Mickey’s shaking as she reaches inside of the cage. When she pulls back out, she sits cross-legged on the floor with her back to me. “It’s okay now. I’m here. We’re together again. I love you. I’m never leaving you again. I’m so happy that you’re alive.” She continues to whisper while rocking back and forth.
“Mic?” I ask, taking tentative steps over to her, wondering what I’m missing. What the cause could be for this reaction. I’m not heartless. I knew she’d be happy, but this seems a bit much given the situation.
Mickey looks over her shoulder. Her eyes are wide and wild, but not with excitement, but the same dull focus they had the night I found her wandering down the road.
I freeze. My chest seizes.
Shit.
“Thank you,” Mickey says, a tear spilling down her cheek. “For giving me Mindy back. For protecting her.”
The sinking feeling turns into all out dread.
I stagger backward, and when I hit the wall I drop to my ass.
Mickey is still smiling at me, but it doesn’t reach her eyes because as much as I don’t want to admit it, Mickey isn’t in there anymore. What’s left is a confused shadow of the girl who just took on the entire Fourth Reich without showing even a hint of fear.
And then shattered.
Mickey spins around on the ground, revealing the dark ball of fur on her lap. She lifts her arms, hugging the squirming puppy tighter, pressing her cheek against its head.
“My sister thanks you, too.”
* * *
My head is spinning, and my heart is racing. I head downstairs, leaving Mickey in my apartment with the puppy.
I run into Thorne. “Hey,” she says with a bright smile that quickly falls when she sees the expression on my face. “What the fuck is wrong? What happened?”
I say nothing because I have no clue what fucking words to use.
“Tell me, Pike! What the fuck happened? Where’s Mickey?” She looks around.
I stare at the broken case. “She’s upstairs, and no, it’s not okay.” I close my eyes tightly. “Nothing is fucking okay.”
Thorne cautiously approaches me. “Hey, tell me.”
“She broke,” I say, meeting her eyes. “It was all too much, and it fucking broke her, and I don’t know where to go from here.” I point to the stairs. “She’s up there right now rocking the fucking dog thinking it’s her dead sister, Mindy.” I shake my head. “I can’t believe I thought she was talking about the dog the entire time. That she named it Mindy. This…this wasn’t anything I fucking saw coming.” Anger and guilt tug at my heart. “I knew she saw things from time to time, but she always explained it as a coping mechanism. She always knew they weren’t real. This…this is different.”
Thorne looks like I’ve just punched her in the fucking gut. She wraps a hand around her throat and the other around her midsection. “I’m so sorry.” She pulls back with glistening eyes. “Any idea what you’re going to do?”
I shake my head. “Not a fucking clue.”
“What do you want me to do? Do you want me to go upstairs and keep an eye on Mickey?” She sniffles. “Give you some time to think things through?”
I nod and rub my hands over my face. “Yeah, thanks, sis.”
She bites her lip and heads up the stairs.
Gutter would be the person I’d call to find out what the best thing to do for Mickey would be, but he’s fucking dead.
As dead as the look in Mickey’s eyes.
I grab the first thing my hand lands on, a gold bowling trophy, and launch it across the room with everything I have. It crashes into a glass case, bursting it open, glass shattering everywhere.
The sound of my own scream is all I can hear until a tap on my shoulder has me spinning around, startled.
Thorne is standing there with a frightened look on her face, but I realize it’s not me she’s afraid of. It’s what she’s reluctant to say.
“Just say it,” I spit.
She bits her lip and nervously twirls the bead dangling at the end of her belly-ring. “I went upstairs to find Mickey, but…she’s gone. So, is the dog.”
17
Pike
By the time the sun begins to rise, I’ve run out of places to look for Mickey.
My phone rings. It’s Thorne.
“Any luck?” she asks, sounding almost as anxious as I am.
“No,” I reply, slamming my hand against the steering wheel.
I pass the Welcome to Logan’s Beach sign where I found Mickey that first night. A thought occurs to me. One last place she could be.
Yanking on the wheel, I turn the truck around, bumping over the median. I head in the direction of the causeway, toward the beach. It’s literally the last place I think she’d go, and yet it’s exactly where I’m hoping to find her.
I pull up to the boarded-up beach house and get out of the truck. The one she spent summers with her family in. Where I took her the night I found her on the road.
Please be here.
I don’t hear or see any signs of life. Even the seagulls aren’t out and about this early. The sounds of the crashing waves and the bristling of the palm fronds are the only sounds in the salty air.
“Mickey?” I call out, rounding the building to the beach.
The puppy comes barreling over to me, crashing into my legs. I lift it in my arms and scratch its neck. “Where is she, girl?”
I find Mickey sitting in the sand facing the water. The rising tide splashes around her body, sinking her body into the wet sand. Her dark hair is blowing all around her, and other than the slight rising and falling of her shoulders, she’s completely still.
“Mic?” I ask, setting the puppy down.
The puppy jumps onto her lap, and when she doesn’t get any sort of reaction from Mickey, she jumps into the sand. When her paws hit the water, she leaps like a cat back into the dry sand, curling up in a ball behind Mickey’s back.
“Mic?” I ask again, standing beside her.
She’s staring off into the distance, tear stains on her pale cheeks.
“I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore,” she finally says.
“I’m real,” I tell her, my fucking windpipe closing in on itself. I clear my throat. “I’m very fucking real.”
She looks up at me. Her eyes are no longer dead but sad and confused. I sit down beside her in the wet sand, and she rests her head on my shoulder, pressing her palm to my chest. “I know you’re real,” she says, her cheeks stained with her tears. “You are my constant.” She releases a shaky sigh. “The rest of the world, everything I see, everything else…it’s all just variables.”
She presses a soft kiss to the side of my mouth. “Please, I need you. I need you to show me that you’re still real,” she begs.
My mind thinks it’s a terrible idea, but she’s already hurting so much, and with that one kiss, my body doesn’t care what else is going on. My heart breaks even more as she steps back and tears off her shirt and strips off her shorts, standing there naked and vulnerable in front of me. “Please,” she says once more, and my control is lost. I scoop her up in my arms and set her down on the counter. I want to make her feel good. Maybe, for the last time in a long time. If I can give this one thing to her, then I’ll die fucking giving it to her.
I kiss her back with all of the hurt and love and pain and confusion that I’ve felt over these last few months. She moans into my mouth as our tears drip over our melded lips. Our tongues dance, slowly, passionately, and when I open my eyes, I’m staring right back into hers. She’s with me. Right here. Right now.
No
delusions because she’s right.
This is real. It’s the most real thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.
She’s not just real.
She’s everything.
I break the kiss, feeling dizzy from all the new emotions washing over me. I have to remind myself that this is for her as my cock strains against my zipper. I push on her chest until her back is flat on the sand and spread her legs, kneeling before her. I lick her from asshole to pussy over and over again. When I think she’s almost there, I give her what she wants, licking and sucking on her swollen clit until she’s screaming my name while she comes in a violent thrash, all the while her eyes are open and locked on me as if she closes them I’ll be gone forever.
Just like they are.
“Please, Pike. I need you. I need you now,” she says. Her eyes are clear, and the glazed look of delusion is nowhere in sight. She sits up and reaches for my belt releasing it from my jeans, then pushes them down my legs. I chuck them off while keeping eye contact the entire time. I reach for my shirt and pull it up over my head. Her hands immediately go to my chest. On instinct, I lift her up, setting her on top of me. “Take what you need.”
“I need you,” she says as I arch my neck and press my lips to hers.
“Then, take me,” I offer. I lift her hips from my lap as she grabs my cock, positioning it at her pussy, then gradually release her until I’m buried inside the most wonderfully crazy girl I love.
She’d have to be crazy to want to be with me. Not in this way, but in any way.
The situation would be funny if it wasn’t so devastatingly unfunny.
Pawn: The Pawn Duet, Book Two Page 16