He turned and looked at me. I felt my eyes mist up. He was in emotional pain but wouldn’t share it. Refused to let me into that part of his life.
“Casey, you don’t need this. In a few hours you and your friend will get on that bus and go back to your world, back where things like this, things like me don’t exist. God willing, you’ll live a nice wonderful life. You don’t need to know about the ugly side of the world.”
It was as if someone had dumped ice cold water down my back. How dare he tell me what I did and did not need? Jumping out of the bed I marched up to him and stuck my face next to his. “You listen to me Austin…”- I realized I didn’t even know his last name - the drama was lost without a last name. How did I get this far without knowing his last name? Shaking my head I tried to gather myself. I put both fists on my hips and stared into his eyes, trying for that look my mom did so well. “I’m not some little girl that can’t bear to hear the truth,” I continued with a slight stutter.
He stared back for a second and I saw a fear deep in his eyes. He so desperately didn’t want me to know. He wasn’t ready, not now. My heart fluttered and I knew I had to let him alone on this. Stepping up I put my hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay Austin, you don’t have to tell me. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed.”
He looked down at me. Staring into my eyes, locking me in position. At first I thought he was going to tell me, going to share. Instead he leaned forward and kissed me. It was a kiss that contained every part of his soul. His lips possessed me, drinking me in and caressing my heart. My legs began to buckle. He slipped his arm around my back holding me in place, pulling me closer. I thought I would melt and knew it would be the best thing to ever happen to me.
A deep moan escaped before I could stop it and I didn’t care. I felt his caressing lips all the way to my toes and pulled myself closer. I couldn’t get close enough.
Austin slowly pulled back, my lips followed him until I realized he was breaking the most wonderful kiss of all time.
“I could do this forever but I’ve got to hit the gas station.”
Relenting I put my jacket and shoes on while he blew out the lamp. The sun was up and lit the factory floor enough so that we didn’t need the flash light.
Within minutes we were at the gas station. He let me use it first. Finishing I looked at myself in the mirror and freaked. My hair like a squirrel's nest. I tried to hurry; I knew he was outside hoping from foot to foot. But a girl has to have some pride.
He shot me a scowl when I opened the door then rushed past me. When he stepped out he said, “Come on, Ahkmed won’t wait around.”
Were we finally going to get Jeanie, and if we did, what then?
Chapter Ten
Austin
Dressed in white painter pants and a white T-shirt, Ahkmed looked like a Middle Eastern Pillsbury dough boy. A streak of flour marred his forehead above his heavy eyebrows. He nodded to me but ignored Casey as he turned towards his building. She shot me a look as if asking ‘What’s his deal? He doesn’t see me?’ but I shook my head, not now.
Jogging up the steps he punched in his code and held the door for me. “Thanks Ahkmed, We really appreciate it,” I said. He dipped his head in acknowledgment before scurrying down the hall and into his apartment.
Steering Casey towards the stairs we started up. The place smelled old, musty and moist, with a base aroma of refried beans and cabbage. The well-worn carpet had to be at least forty years old and the walls were worse. Dim bare light bulbs lit the way. I wondered if the tenants or the landlord changed them when they went out. It was the kind of place that catered to the people barely hanging on, people who couldn’t complain and couldn’t move.
“What if she’s not there?” Casey said, her face twisted in concern.
“Then we’ll keep looking but she should be there.”
“What if that Charlie guy is there?
“Then we’ll deal with it, but I bet he’s still in jail.” My stomach turned over. Each step we took up those stairs was one more step closer to Casey getting on that bus. I knew that was what I wanted, what she needed. But that wasn’t going to make it any easier.
The plain white door of apartment 3C awaited us. Casey’s face dropped to a paler shade of gray as she raised her hand to knock. At the last second she pulled back her hand then leaned forward and placed an ear to the door. Listening for a moment, she shook her head, took a deep breath and knocked three times, firmly. Then stepped back and waited.
The door cracked open a mere inch, enough to expose a feminine eye, blinking furiously. “Casey?” was heard from behind the door when it was closed quickly and the chain latch removed before being flung open once again. “Casey!” the girl said as she threw herself into Casey’s arms.
Both girls hugged each other as if the world might fall away, slowly rocking back and forth. I took a step back and watched the reunion. Jeanie lived up to her picture, red hair the color of a toy wagon with fingernails painted to match. Shorter, with a round face, a little pudgy but in an attractive kind of way.
As Jeanie started to pull Casey into the apartment she peeked down the hall as if checking to see if anyone was watching. “What are you doing here?” She asked as she closed the door behind us.
I clinched my fists and hunched my shoulders as I prepared for a bombardment. There were no guarantees that Crap Face was still in jail. The apartment was small and dingy. An old beige sofa with ripped cushions sat against the wall facing a sixty inch flat screen TV. The small kitchen off to the side was barely big enough for one person. I could see a door to the bathroom and bedroom down a short hallway. Both doors where open and the rooms appeared to be empty. I let out a huge sigh and felt my shoulders relax for the first time that morning.
“He’s not here,” Jeanie said to me, her eyes lingering on my black and blue bruises.
Casey remembered where she was and what was going on. “Jeanie, this is Austin, he helped me find you.” She continued to hold Jeanie’s hand and examined her friend with searching eyes as if trying to see for herself if she was truly there and truly all right.
Her friend gave me a small smile while she assessed the strange boy standing in her apartment, probably trying to figure out what I was doing and why I was helping her friend. “You shouldn’t be here Casey,” She said nervously.
“Jeanie, you have to come home. I’m sorry, so sorry. It was a stupid fight. You didn’t give me a chance to say I’m sorry.”
The young red head eyebrows narrowed in confusion for a moment. “What fight, you mean us? Oh Casey I didn’t leave home because of our stupid fight.”
“Then why?” Casey asked.
Jeanie frowned and shook her head. “I had my reasons, believe me if you knew you’d understand.” The sad frown looked like it might become permanent and my heart went out to the girl. Whatever it had been it must have been pretty bad. “You’ve got to go Casey, before Charlie gets back. He’ll be mad if he finds you here. Real mad.” Her frown got deeper and a new fear danced behind her eyes.
“Jeanie, I don’t care what it was, you can’t stay here. You don’t know what we know. You don’t know what Charlie is.”
Jeanie shook her head again, “What?” her face began to turn red. “I know what he is, yeah I know,” she said with a resigned sigh.
Casey’s face lost all its color and her jaw dropped. I thought my heart would rip in two watching her go through that pain. “What … How.”
“He’s been pushing me to do things, things for money.” Her face grew red as she stared down at the floor unable to meet her friend’s eyes. A silver tear began to slowly fall down her cheek.
Casey gently placed a finger under her friend’s chin, raising it so that she could stare deep into her eyes. “Jeanie, that’s why you’ve got to get out of here, now. Whatever it was that made you leave home we’ll fix it. You can live with us; you know my parents will be okay with it. You cannot stay here. Do you understand?”
“Casey, y
ou don’t understand. What I did can’t be fixed. My mom …” Her face scrunched up as she fought to maintain control but it was a losing effort, it always was going to be. Taking a deep gulp of air she brought her hands to her eyes as she began to cry. Not simple simpers. These were the deep sobs of shame and guilt. My protective instincts kicked in. There is nothing worse than seeing a girl cry, it rips at a guy’s souls and screams for him to fix it. I started to step forward but Casey shot me a look that said not now. She took her friend into her arm and let her cry on her shoulder.
“Shsss,” Casey said as she gently rubbed her friend’s back. “We will …”
“Damn it Casey, you don’t understand,” Jeanie said through sobs then pulling back. “I slept with my mom’s boyfriend Barry.”
“What?”
“Yeah, Barry, The first real boyfriend my mom’s had since my dad left ten years ago. How’s that for….”
“Are you okay,” Casey said interrupting her friend. “Did he rape you?”
“No Casey, it was all me. I seduced him, granted it wasn’t hard. A smile and a little flirting and he was more than willing.”
“Why, I mean Barry! You don’t even like him.”
“I don’t know, after what happened with Tommy. It seemed no one wanted to be around me. My mom and I were fighting, like always, you and I were fighting. None of it seemed to matter. Barry wanted me at least. “
“I’m so sorry,” Casey said. “I never…”
“It isn’t about you Casey, it’s me, I’m broken, there’s something wrong with me. I hate everything about me, the way I look, the things I do. The fact that the first night here I shacked up with Charlie… Most of all I hate what I did to my mom, I can’t stand the idea of what I did. I dream at night, the way she would look at me if she knew.” Jeanie started crying again. “I can’t face that.”
Casey brought her into a hug again and looked over Jeanie’s shoulder, her eyes pleading with me to do something. A second ago she’d warned me away, now she wants me to fix it.
“Listen guys, we need to get going.” I said.
Pulling back Jeanie continued to shake her head while she wiped at her eyes. I could tell she wanted to go, but that first step towards facing her mom was a tough one.
“Believe me, no matter how bad it is, it won’t be as bad as staying here. Plus, Casey needs you at home. She’s going to need your help in justifying blowing off her parents to come find you.”
Jeanie stared at the floor for a moment. Her shoulders sagged as she dipped her head in acceptance of her fate. I sighed in relief. One crisis averted. I don’t know what we would have done if she refused to go. Casey smiled and turned to start gathering her things when all three of us froze in our tracks.
A key rattled in the front door. Holding our breaths we watched the door slowly open and Douche Bag walk in. Damn, you’d think the justice system could keep a guy locked up a little longer. He stopped in mid stride, one hand still holding the knob while he tried to remove the key.
“What the …?” he asked, his eyes blinking rapidly trying to figure out what was going on.
“Charlie, these are my friends, Casey and Austin,” Jeanie said, stepping forward. Obviously trying to sooth troubled waters.
“I know who they are,” he barked as he stared at me with a hate that could burn a brick building. He looked like the kind of guy who’d spent the night in jail. Rumpled cloths, unshaven chin, and blood shot eyes. As if he hadn’t slept in a couple of days. The bruises I administered started into a rainbow collage of blues, greens, and a little yellow. My gut dropped and fists clenched.
He looked at Jeanie then grabbed her arm. “Go to the room,” he said pushing her towards the bedroom.
“Hey, leave her alone,” Casey yelled as she stepped towards him. God I wished she hadn’t done that,
“Shut up bitch,” he said through gritted teeth. Before I could react, before I could move, his other hand shot out as he swung and back handed her across the face. The sharp sound resonated through the room and into my spine like a gun shot.
I lost it.
Casey.
My world turned fuzzy as I stumbled back into the wall. A shimmering white with stars floating by. Did he really do that? My mind reeled. I could still feel where his knuckles had connected with my cheek bone. It was so fast, before I could react the shock rocked my world to the very core. Things I thought I knew had to be adjusted. I’d never been hit in my life. Never even come close. As my vision began to clear I saw Austin launch himself, driving the top of his head into Charlie’s chest.
Both of them collapsed to the ground into a twirling, heaving, heap of terror. Austin brought his knee up into the other man’s groin as his fists flew over and over again. Charlie answered with a flurry of his own then heaved and threw Austin off as he rolled out from under him. It reminded me of a dog fight, or like two Tasmanian devils going at it. So fast I couldn’t follow whose fist or whose knee was connecting. Where one man began and the other finished.
I gasped as Charlie’s hand swept up a lamp and swung it at full speed towards Austin’s head. He raised an arm catching most of the brass. The force continued on, glanced up and into his head. The light bulb connected, shattering into a thousand pieces. A jagged edge of glass remained in the socket and scraped along his hairline at the top of his forehead. A surgeon couldn’t have cut a straighter line. Immediately a bead of red began to grow then drip down his face.
Austin didn’t react, I think he wasn’t aware of anything around him but getting to Charlie and hurting him. He kicked out at Charlie’s knee then followed it in with two quick punches to the gut. Charlie grabbed him around the shoulders, twisting, throwing him to the ground.
Visions of Austin on the ground being pummeled flew through my mind. Without thinking I threw myself onto the back of Charlie and racked my fingernails down his face. He screamed and threw an elbow back into my nose. Once again my world turned as white as November snow. I landed on the couch. The pain was replaced by a satisfaction like nothing I had ever known before. It flowed through me when I thought about how wonderful my fingernails felt sinking into his flesh.
Before I could clear my head and get back up Austin had Charlie down, pounding on him like a blacksmith working an anvil, over and over again.
“Enough,” I yelled as I tried to pull him off. “That’s enough Austin,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him to get him to stop. “Any more and you’ll kill him.”
“Exactly,” he yelled as he tried to get out from my grip and back to what he was doing. I held on for dear life, his more than Charlie’s. I couldn’t let him do something that would ruin him. Sighing he stopped struggling and turned to face me.
My heart which had been beating at about a thousand times a second immediately stopped. His face was covered in blood. I mean literally, as if someone had draped a red satin cloth across it. “Jeanie, call 911, now!” I yelled.
“No,” Austin yelled back. But he was having problems focusing on me as he tried to wipe the blood from his eyes.
“This is too much Austin, we can’t walk away from this,” I said looking down at the unconscious Charlie and then back into his face.
“No, you don’t… You get away …” he mumbled before he collapsed into my arms.
Chapter Eleven
Austin
A blinding light was shoving needled into my brain. That special tang of rubbing alcohol and industrial strength cleaner let me know I was lying in a hospital, probably the city emergency room. Vivid memories danced to the front of my mind and I had to fight to push them back down. Now was not the time. I needed to get out of there.
I blinked and tried to clear my vision while swinging my legs over the side of the bed. A gentle hand pushed my shoulder back down onto the bed. Casey and Jeanie stood there, faces creased with concern.
“I’m sorry Austin, but I didn’t know what else to do. You were bleeding too much.” Casey said as she continued to push me back into th
e bed. My head spun as I fought another wave of nausea. I wanted to push back but I felt as week as a starving kitten.
I touched the bandage wrapped around my head. My stomach felt like I was going to puke, swallowing hard I got it under control then sank back onto the bed. Okay, I’d give it a moment to collect myself, to learn what was really going on then I’d beat it. I wasn’t handcuffed to the bed so I was already a couple of steps ahead of the game. People, doctors and nurses moved and talked on the other side of our privacy curtain. My shoulders relaxed a little. If I wasn’t locked in I could leave. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d removed my own I.V.
“Where’s Charlie?” I asked.
“The police took him. I think he’s somewhere here in the hospital.”
“Are you all right?” I asked. The bruise on her face where Mr. Dead Man had hit her flashed as she turned. My blood started to boil again. I wanted to get out of there and go find him. She should have let me finish him when I had the chance.
“Yes, I’m fine. The doctors said that you have a concussion. No broken bones. They had to put in fifteen stiches. They also stitched up the cut from yesterday.” She gave me an ‘I told you so’ look then continued. “You’ve been in and out for an hour. Let them help you Austin … please.”
Nodding my head made alarms go off, sending jackhammers up and down the back of my neck. Stop moving I told myself. Closing my eyes I started to drift away again.
“Casey!” a deep mail voice demanded from outside our curtain. My eyes shot open. Although I had never heard it before, I knew that type of voice. That was a dad’s voice. A pissed off dad. The curtain shot back and a very large man dressed in a charcoal gray suit stood there, his eyes examining everything instantly. They came to rest on Casey immediately appraising her wellbeing and finishing on the bruised cheek. Casey stood frozen like a trapped cat.
His eyes narrowed and face turned red, his fists clenched and unclenched as if he wanted to strangle something. This was a hard man, a man you didn’t mess with. If I’d seen him on the street I’d have crossed to the other side. Instead I was trapped here in this hospital bed like a cadaver on an examining table. To confirm my feelings I noticed that his two little fingers on his left hand were missing. “Are you all right?” he asked through gritted teeth.
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