FIRST & ANYTHING

by Laura Avery

  “I have to.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t. Please, haven’t…” She looked down at the ground. “Haven’t enough people died for one night?” I could see the guilty look in her eyes, like maybe if she could save this man it could somehow make up for the life she had taken earlier today.

  The world didn’t work that way.

  And the sooner she learned that the better off she would be.

  “What do you think is gong to happen when he leaves here?” I stepped back, waving the gun in the air. “You think he’s just going to forget the whole thing happened and that no one is going to come after me?”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone! I swear!”

  “You shut the fuck up.” I waved the gun in his direction then turned back to Grace. “He’s gong to tell his cop buddies and then they are going to come after me and if they can’t make anything stick then they are going to harass me and my brothers even more than they already do.” I sighed and glanced down the road. “I can’t have that, I just can’t.”

  “Cutter,” she pleaded with me. “He’s not going to tell anyone. Come on, let’s just leave, we can get on Patty and take off. No one will even know we were here.” She was tugging on my arm, trying to pull me after her.

  I pulled away from her. “God, you really are like a child, Grace. You’re so naïve I don’t even know how the fuck you survive.” Didn’t she get anything? Did I have to explain everything to her?

  Tears started to form behind her eyes.

  Great, now I had two crybabies on my hands.

  I sighed and pulled her toward me. “Fine, you want to make nothing into something then you take care of it.” I shoved the gun in her hand and pointed at the shriveled up cop on the ground.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Do I have to spell out everything for you?” I pointed toward the ground. “You’re so worked up about this so you can be the one to pull the God damn trigger.”

  Her mouth hung open and she shoved the gun into my chest. “You’ve officially lost your mind, I’m not killing a cop!” She took a step away from me like she might catch whatever evil I had spun around inside of me.

  “You have to.”

  “I don’t have to do anything, Cutter!”

  “Are you saying no?”

  “Damn right I’m saying no!” She threw her hands up in the air. “I’m not going to kill an innocent man who didn’t do anything to me and you shouldn’t either!”

  “Isn’t that what you just did earlier?”

  Her face turned white. “That was different, he was going to kill me.”

  “And? This scum was going to rape you.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  Was she really stupid enough to believe that?

  “Pull the trigger, Grace.”

  She shook her head. “You aren’t going to make me this time.”

  Make her? Was she joking?

  “You’re refusing?”

  She nodded. “I am.”

  “Then get out of here,” I snapped. “I have no use for you.”

  She walked over to my bike and crossed one arm in front of the other. “Fine, then, Cutter, you know best. I’ll just stand over here out of your way like a good girl.”

  “No,” I barked. “I mean get lost altogether. Figure shit out yourself.”

  Fear crept into her eyes. “You mean?”

  “I mean I’m done with you, I don’t have time for little girl bullshit.”

  “You’re done with me because I won’t kill someone?” She looked dumbfounded. “That doesn’t even make any sense.” She shook her head. “What the fuck… what the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing is wrong with me, I’m fucking perfect. I thought you were special but you’re not, you’re just like everyone else.” I walked over to the cop and kicked him in the stomach, digging around in his pocket for his wallet. This was all for the best anyway, why had I allowed myself to let my guard down for even a second?

  Bad boys like me didn’t go around saving girls and hiding them from their brothers. What the fuck had I been thinking? Grace had been nothing but trouble since the second she walked into my life.

  I didn’t need her. I didn’t need anyone but my brothers.

  The emotional pull she seemed to have on me would fade.

  Just like everything else I had cared about in my life.

  I finally found the black leather case and pulled his license out, sticking it in my back pocket. “Anyone finds out about this or anything happens to me and those beautiful kids of yours won't live to see another day.” I threw the wallet down on the concrete and stomped over to my bike.

  “Cutter!” Grace pleaded.

  I sprung the engine to life and climbed on.

  “Cutter! You can’t! You can’t just leave me here!”

  “Watch me.”

  And then I did just that.

  Chapter Eleven

  GRACE

  He had just left me there, all alone on the side of the road like I hadn’t meant shit to him. What the hell was wrong with him? And what the hell was wrong with me that I was so damn upset about it?

  I had taken off into the woods after Cutter took off. I’d been convinced he would cool off and come to his senses after a few minutes but he hadn’t. What could I do? Stay there and wait for someone to drive by and see me?

  I was fucked, royally fucked.

  Some of the most dangerous men in the city were looking for me and I had nowhere to go and no one to help me. I wandered through the woods and trees for hours crying like a baby.

  I just wanted to go home.

  Why couldn’t I just go home?

  I emerged on the other side of the trees, a major highway coming into view as I tripped and lost my balance, almost smashing my head into the concrete altogether. God, I was such a mess.

  Cars zoomed up and down the thruway around me, not exactly an ideal place to start my new life as a fugitive but beggars couldn’t be choosers. I had to get to a payphone and call a cab or something. Find a way to get back to my car or to rent a car.

  I made a mental note to not use my credit cards anytime soon.

  This was going to be harder than I thought.

  The wind blew my hair around my face, sending an even bigger chill up and down my body. I walked for what felt like forever, my legs felt like they were a big pile of jelly.

  The second I heard the rumble of a bike pulling up behind me my heart skipped a beat. Cutter. He was back. He had come back looking for me. I didn’t even bother turning around if he thought he was just going to show up and I was going to fall over myself while I forgave him he had another thing coming.

  He had been a total jerk to me.

  I hadn’t deserved it.

  The engine died down. “Grace.”

  I kept walking, not looking back.

  “Grace, are you… are you okay?” When the figure finally caught up to me he put his hands on my shoulders and stopped my freezing body in place. “What the hell happened to you?”

  But when I looked up I wasn’t greeted with Cutter’s blue eyes.

  Instead, a pair of green ones.

  A pair of green ones I knew all too well.

  “Ace.”

  He put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. “I thought that was you. Grace, what the fuck are you doing out here in the middle of the night walking on the thruway wearing next to nothing? Have you gone crazy?” He turned my body around and started to guide me back to his bike.

  Ace.

  It was Ace.

  I could trust Ace. I’d been covering for him with the cops for months.

  He would help me.

  I buried my head into his chest and burst into tears. “Ace,” I sobbed. “Oh, Ace. I messed up. I messed up so bad.” The tears stung my eyes like small pins. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  He rubbed my head. “There, there, it’s okay.”

  I shook my head. “
It’s not, it’s bad. So bad.”

  He smothered his hands in my hair some more, petting me like a sick puppy that he had to take care of. I hated that I was so weak and dependent on attention but I was so cold and weak.

  And as much as I hated to admit it, I was scared.

  “So bad,” I mumbled again.

  “I know,” he told me. “I know.”

  He knew?

  I pulled back from him, confused but then I felt a small prick in my neck and the next thing I knew his face was getting blurry, bobbing up and down in my vision.

  My body went limp in his arms and I could feel him dragging me toward his bike. The trees were spinning all around me, coming alive and then dying again.

  I heard him talking to someone faintly.

  “I’ve got her, boss, on my way to you now.”

  And then everything went black.

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