The Company

by JA Huss

  He stares back at me and the moments of silence make things uncomfortable. He’s on top of me.

  And then, as if he’s reading my mind, figuring out that his touch is making me nervous, his leg changes position, his one knee drawing up against my hip. Then the other. I close my eyes and begin to cry again, because now I figure he’s gonna rape me and I just had random lustful thoughts about my rapist.

  “Why are you crying?” He sits up, so he’s straddling my body, holding me down by the shoulders. But he’s not resting the full weight of himself on me anymore and that’s a welcome relief.

  I open my eyes at the question because it throws me for a moment. Why is he asking me these things? “What are you going to do to me?” I sound like a stupid child.

  He studies my face for a moment. “What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

  “Kill me, rape me, torture me, take me back. Or all of the above, in reverse order.” I try to avoid his stare but I can’t help myself. His face is so beautiful. His features so perfect. His hair is short and dark, no beard, but the stubble on his chin and jaw is the kind that says I’m too busy attacking young girls on piers, so I have no time to shave daily. As stunning as his eyes are, they might not be his best feature, because those full lips are calling to me right now. God, what is my problem?

  I change tactics. “Please, get off me, or just do what you came for.”

  “OK,” he says with a smile. And that’s it, the smile, that’s the best part of him. It’s wide and genuine. And he has perfect teeth. Perfect white teeth that don’t look like the teeth of a killer. “Let’s get down to business. I asked you your name, I’d like an answer.”

  What? “My name? You jumped off the pier and attacked me because I didn’t share my name?”

  “I saved you, woman.”

  My entire body goes flush with that word. Woman. Why is he calling me that? Surely he can see how young I am. I’m not a woman. Barely legal, as they say. And I feel like a very small child at the moment.

  “The one your parents gave you. Don’t lie to me, I’ll know.”

  I bet he will. Should I tell him? I turn away and sigh. It hardly matters now. He’s caught me. If he didn’t already know who I was, then why is he so interested? “Harper.”

  “Mmmm.” He laughs a little. “Harper,” he repeats, like my name was a secret he was desperate for. “I like it.” He pulls me up to a sitting position and then stands, bringing me up with him. Before I can turn away or try any of my other killer moves out on him, he’s pushing me back against the concrete pillar. He presses his body against mine, his hands resting on either side of my head. “I figured you’d be an easy target, but I was wrong. You got a little lion in ya, don’t you. Some poison to go with it, right? Lionfish?” He smiles big now and dimples appear. One in each cheek. He’s quite adorable for being a killer. “I’ve got a bit of blue-ringed octopus in me, as well.”

  What?

  “I’m not typically surprised, especially by women. But I have to tell ya, Harper, the thought that you’d rather jump off a pier than be asked out on a date by me… well, it’s an ego bruiser, to say the least.”

  A laugh busts out of me before I can stop it. “A date?”

  “Most women,” he says, ignoring my question, “do not assume a guy is gonna rape her or kill her when he asks for her name.” He leans down into my face, and my eyes can only concentrate on his lips.

  Is he going to kiss me?

  Just as he gets close, he changes direction and his breath pours into the shell of my ear. “I was really only looking to get laid tonight if you said yes”—the wetness gathers between my legs—“and that was going to be the end of it. A few Coronas and some rolled tacos on the beach. Or if you’re the fancy type, a seaside restaurant with an expensive bottle of wine to complement the surf and turf. The night ending with a nice hard and dirty fuck at your place so I can disappear in the middle of the night while you sleep peacefully, content with the multitude of orgasms I gifted you.”

  I swallow hard again and his palm comes up to my throat, his thumb caressing small circles against my skin. It stops on the thumping artery and it’s like he’s assessing my reaction by the flow of my blood. I hold my breath and he moves his hand, sliding it down to rest on my shoulder. “But that’s not how this is gonna go now, Harper.”

  “No?” I whisper, my mind totally blown by what’s happening. What’s happening?

  “No,” he says, his intent gaze pouring into mine. “I watched you all morning as you did your circuit. Pull-ups hanging off the railing of the pier. Running the steps that lead to the beach exactly fifty times. Sit-ups lying on the sand. And then the final cooldown walk out to the end of the pier just before dawn. And the entire time, your eyes were sweeping the area. Looking for people.”

  “I never saw you,” I say, the panic back again.

  “No, I’m not someone who likes to be seen, Harper. I’m someone who likes to do the seeing. But I figured,” he continues, changing the subject back to me, “you were just being careful. Maybe a bit paranoid. Afraid of getting mugged by a crazy homeless person looking for drugs. Typical shit, Harper.”

  The way he says my name, God. Why is this man making me feel like this?

  “So I was curious. Just an ordinary kind of curious. The kind of curious I feel when I see an unusual bug. But diving off a pier—great form by the way, did you take diving in school?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. “Diving off a pier, to avoid telling me your name? Now that… Harper, that shit is downright intriguing.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes.” His lips touch my ear this time. His tongue slides in and flicks against my skin. I hunch my shoulders and let out a moan. “I still want the dirty fuck. But not right now.”

  “Oh God,” I whimper. “Just say it already, what do you want with me?”

  He pulls away. His hand comes back to my throat, but it doesn’t rest there. No. His fingertips are prodding me to lift my head up and meet his gaze head on.

  I obey. It’s like I’m stuck in a trance. He’s entranced me.

  “I want to know you.”

  And then his mouth is on mine, his tongue probing, pushing for entrance. His hand goes to that spot between my legs where it throbs wildly as he creates friction, calling forth more wetness. His other hand goes to my breast, the nipple hard and bunched from the cold water, my skin tingling with anticipation, fear, and want.

  He tastes like salt and he kisses like the sea. Like a dangerous, killing, unforgiving sea that can do whatever it wants with my body. Toss me, twirl me, take me under and steal the breath right out of me. Make me powerless.

  And that’s exactly how I feel.

  His kiss becomes rough as he squeezes my breast and stimulates my clit at the same time. My legs are trembling so bad, I think I might fall. And even though no man has ever made me feel this way, and even though I want this more than anything—I make myself wriggle and pull away. “Stop!”

  And that’s all it takes.

  His support is gone. His body is no longer pressed against mine, holding me up. I slump down to the shallow water and draw my knees up to my chest, hiding my face with my hands.

  And when I look up a few minutes later—he’s gone.

  Like he was never here.

  Chapter Three - Harper

  It takes me several minutes to gather myself together under the Huntington Beach Pier. The city is coming to life now. Dawn has come and gone while I was having a personal crisis and the streets are alive with foot and car traffic. Horns honk, people are laughing, bikes whiz by on the path. Even some early-morning beachgoers are present now. A game of volleyball is just starting up near the steps that lead to Pier Plaza.

  I stand and start making my way up the beach, sand scratching my skin inside my wet clothes. I drag the tank over my head so I’m just in my sports bra.

  That was not sexual. That was… an attack. That’s it.

  It felt sexual though. He said some ver
y sexual things, even if all he did was steal a kiss.

  I take a deep breath and deal with my bare feet as I reach the cement. Having to walk the streets barefoot grosses me out to no end. I don’t mind no shoes on the sand, or the deck of a boat, or inside my own home. But anywhere else—gross. I climb the steps that bring me to street-level Pier Plaza, looking down Main Street.

  I cross Pacific Coast Highway and head north one block, dodging bikers and early-morning joggers, and then turn right on Fifth Street, towards the police station. I live across the street. Well, not exactly across. The Mexican restaurant in front of my building is kitty-corner to the HBPD, but it’s close enough. And if my brother ever knew…

  I allow myself a smile and a laugh. Even though my morning sucked and some guy sexually assaulted me—but you liked it, Harp. You know you did—my brother would die laughing if he knew I was living right across the street from the cops.

  Cops in HB drive cars, sure. This city is more than the beach. But they have their share of shorts-clad hot men riding beach cruisers, too.

  And there are several of them standing outside the station drinking coffee when I walk past. I make a point of ignoring them completely. I’m definitely not in the market for a cop and the last thing I need is for one of them to take notice of me.

  Not that they would. I’m the invisible girl—except in the case of one very beautiful green-eyed man.

  I try my best to be as unattractive as possible. My hair is never styled, pony-tails only. I never wear makeup. I’m tanned and my hair has bleached strands that make it look like I spend a fortune dying it in fancy salons. But I can’t help any of that. That’s just the natural me.

  Mr. Beautiful is the kind of man everyone notices. Tall—my chin only came up to his shoulders. Dark, yes. But with those brilliant green eyes, it made his brand of dark more exotic than most. And he was hard.

  I mentally shake myself for that Freudian slip. His muscles were hard. And thick.

  But he was hard in that other way, too.

  He was solid. And strong. And for those few moments when he was holding me there underneath him, gently cupping the back of my head to keep the rushing water from overtaking me as we regained our breath… he was everything I’m looking for. And everything I should run from.

  I cross the street at the Mexican place, then walk to the side yard where a six-foot wooden gate stands guard for the building behind. I work the latch, which is some stupid rope contraption that pulls a lever on the other side, and then enter the walkway that leads to the hidden apartment building.

  Only four people live back here. Two people live in the small studio apartments that divide up the ground floor. One older man lives in the second-floor penthouse—which is a relative term, since it’s only two stories tall, but whatever. And me. I live in the garden-level apartment. Better known as the basement.

  Even though I’m the only one on this level, I share the space with the building laundry, so my place is small. Only a half-galley kitchenette, a bathroom, and the living room that does double duty as a bedroom.

  If Beautiful had his way, he’d be fucking me here tonight.

  God. Where did that come from?

  He did get his way, Harper. He got your name.

  I shake my head and enter the building, walk past the laundry and into the mechanical room where I keep my key. I carry nothing on my person when I leave here. No phone, no key, no ID. When I leave this building, I am nobody. I cease to exist.

  It’s like that thought experiment—if a tree falls in the woods… If a girl is not noticed, does she still exist?

  I grab my stashed key behind the hot water heater and make my way to my door. Zero is my number. For mail and stuff, my address. Zero is my spot in this world. And it’s so appropriate to be nothing, and not all in a negative way, either. I like being nothing.

  I don’t mind being zero, because when I come home to this place, my little space of nothingness, I feel safe.

  Being invisible. Being nothing—a zero. It’s good.

  I’m not safe, of course. No one is ever safe. But I need the illusion, now more than ever. Because someone, after living here for eleven months—eleven long and lonely months of no friends, no family, and no hope of ever having a normal life again—someone wants to know me.

  Not fuck me, although he did say that too. He ended the conversation with know me.

  The apartment is nothing special, but it’s not infested with cockroaches so I count myself lucky. I looked for that before I moved in and paid my rent up front for one year. Cockroaches. No. That’s worse than bare feet on the street.

  I have one more paid month and then decisions have to be made, because I’m out of money. This place might be small, have no ocean view, and be about the farthest thing from where I grew up. But it’s one block off PCH, one block from HB Main Street. It’s a five-minute walk to the sand. And it’s eighteen hundred dollars a month. The only way I’d be able to stay here after my pre-paid year is up is if I robbed a bank.

  I’m not that desperate. Yet.

  My phone vibrates on the counter and jolts me from my pity-party introspection. In a second my heart is racing again. Who the fuck? I walk over and pick it up just as the vibrating stops. ‘I know where you live.’

  What? My heart is beating so fast, for a moment I think I might fall over and collapse. I stagger to a chair and sit down, gasping for air in short little bursts as the fear takes over. I lean over and put my head between my knees just as the phone vibrates again.

  No. No. No. What’s happening?

  But I can’t think straight. The only thing I hear are the staccato beats of my adrenaline-induced heartbeat.

  The phone vibrates again and again, but I can’t move. I’m paralyzed with fear. I’m dead. I’m a dead girl. The phone vibrates again. I thought Beautiful was my killer, but he let me go. And now… this?

  I rock. Back and forth.

  I cry huge silent tears.

  If they’ve found me, then my life is over.

  I force myself to get up and stumble into the bathroom where I keep the pills. I haven’t used them in months. But that little white pill is calling my name. That little white pill is the only thing that will keep me from losing my mind right now.

  The bottle shakes, making the pills clatter around inside, but I manage to get a few to fall into my open palm. I gulp a handful and then stick my mouth under the tap and slurp water to wash them down.

  My phone is still ringing out on the counter, and even though I know the drug is not in my bloodstream yet, just the fact that I took the pills calms me. I breathe for stretches of minutes, and after some time, I am calm.

  Thoughts of sleep jolt me from my slumped position on the bathroom floor, so I get up and walk into the living area where my bed is pushed up against the far wall to leave space for the chair and small coffee table. I grab the phone as I walk by and then fall on top of the messy bed, rolling around a little to get under the covers, and then close my eyes.

  The phone rings and now that I’m relaxed, I can deal.

  “I’m ready, motherfuckers,” I bark into the speaker. “Come get me if you know so much.”

  “What?”

  I sit upright as the voice of the beautiful man registers. “How did you get this number?”

  “I’m the only one who’s coming, Harper.”

  I press end on the phone and page through my missed calls. All him! That stupid asshole! They were all him! I go to the messages and begin reading.

  ‘Dinner’s at eight.’

  ‘Beach tacos or fancy view?’

  ‘Harper, I do not like to be ignored.’

  ‘I’ll just come over, I’m just down the street.’

  That message was five minute ago. Before the call.

  My phone rings again and I answer. “What do you want?”

  “I asked you a question, I expect an answer,” he growls into the phone. I absently log the sound of people, cars, a siren that I can hear both
inside my apartment as it leaks in from outside, and through the phone. He’s close by. Just outside my building, probably.

  Is he one of them? I’m not sure. “I’m confused,” I confess, the anti-anxiety drug kicking into full force now, making me slur my words. My body falls back into the covers. My head is spinning and my eyes are heavy. “I’m so confused…”

  “Harper?” Beautiful demands from my phone on the blankets. I reach down, fingertips feeling for it. My vision blurs as I bring it to my face and stare at the fuzzy keypad.

  “Go away, Beautiful,” I whisper to the fading light. “You can’t see me. I’m invisible. You don’t want to know me. Because I’m no one. I’m zero.”

  Chapter Four - James

  Her words stop me. I’m walking into her building, and her words stop me. Beautiful? And then the call ends with three quick beeps and I pull my phone away from my ear and stare at it. She took those pills. Her words were slurring. I scared the fuck out of her and she took those pills.

  I grab the key I had made and open her door. The place is quiet except for the mechanical hum of the air conditioning. I close the door and walk over to her bed. She’s curled up in a ball, clutching her pillow. Most nights this is how she sleeps. But it’s not night and she’s not asleep. She’s passed out.

  I grab the bottle from the bathroom and count the pills. Seven missing. Fourteen milligrams. Not great, but could be worse. These pills are not easy to overdose on. I know this shit. Pharmacology is my specialty. My calling card when I need to take care of business. The poison I use tells my superiors what kind of job it was. Anti-anxiety drugs are worthless for killing people, so she’s not gonna die, but she’s gonna be out of it for a while.

  I pull the covers back and she moans. Her clothes are soaking wet, she smells like salt, and her head is still seeping blood. “Harper?” I pull her to a sitting position and grab her face. “Harper?”

  Her eyes roll a little as she slurs out an incomprehensible word.