I scanned several floors and searched for my window, knowing right where it should be. But it was gone. The window configuration was completely different. It wasn’t a facelift. It was a brand-new building, and it wasn’t even finished yet. When I glanced through the windows, it was just a shell. They’d been telling the truth. I didn’t live here anymore. The last link to the only life I’d remembered was gone, and it shook me like nothing else had, not all the crazy stories or the bruises or couches breaking.
There was no me left. I didn’t even know where the clothes on my back came from. It was as if my entire life had been completely erased in those months I’d forgotten.
“What happened? Couldn’t they have fixed it?” I turned to Butch, one of the people who acted like they had all the answers.
Butch opened his mouth, then started chewing on his cheek as a couple of “ums” slipped out. He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, stopping to scratch his scalp. “You really don’t remember any of this? Not even a hazy sort of blur?”
“No.” Did he think if I did I’d be standing here? Dumbfounded?
Butch looked behind him, where Leon was lagging a few feet away. Leon shook his head in an I already took my turn sort of way.
Butch scratched his head again and finally spat out, “The explosion was really bad. It burned for a day. There was nothing left.”
“How?” It shouldn’t have mattered. It was gone, but I still wanted to know.
“You talked to a crawler. That’s why Kane told you not to talk to them. They blow things up.” He took a couple of steps and kicked a stone out of his way as I stared at the new building.
Was it true? Maybe the building had just burned down on its own. My whole life, no one believed me about the monsters, and now they were telling me they caused my building to burn down.
I was still staring as Butch made a loop around, stopping beside me. “You ready to go back yet?”
“Back where? That club?” Was that the only reason they’d brought me here? Get it over with, let me see I had nothing so I was easier to handle? Did he really think seeing this was going to make me want to skip back there?
He nodded. “Yep, that’s the place.”
I gaped at him, stunned, before I finally said, “No. Absolutely not.”
Now he was the one with his mouth open, as he turned back to Leon.
“I don’t know why you thought it would be that easy,” Leon said, shaking his head.
Butch walked over to Leon. “Now what do we do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never dealt with something like this either.”
I didn’t wait to hear how they were going to fix me. I walked away, hoping I’d never see any of them again.
I kept walking for a while before the sad realization that I had no money and nowhere to go sank in. Then I walked back to my building, or where my building used to be, and sat on an empty stoop across the street. I leaned my shoulder and head against the concrete doorframe as construction workers walked in and out of the new building that had stolen my home.
Chapter Five
The sun had set hours ago, and Butch and Leon appeared to be gone. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were hiding around the corner, spying on me. I didn’t care. As long as I didn’t have to deal with them or see them.
The crawlers sitting across the block scattered, and I turned to see Kane a few steps away. I hadn’t noticed him as I’d sat angled toward the building. Yep, the Thug Brothers must be lurking around here somewhere. I should’ve kept walking, but there was that damn problem of having nowhere to walk to. Probably wouldn’t have mattered. They had two feet each to follow me with.
“You took a while,” I said as I turned back to where my building used to be.
“Was hoping you’d figure it out on your own that you can’t sit here all night.”
He was acting more like he had that first night I’d met him, and it was something of a relief. Except when I turned toward him, I caught him in an unguarded moment. He shuttered it quickly, but it was too late. It was that same look he’d had earlier, like he was in mourning or something. And all it did was make me want to run. That or scream, I’m here. I don’t know who you’re looking for, but I’m here, me, Ollie. And if whoever I am isn’t good enough, then stop looking at me.
But I didn’t say any of those things, because I didn’t want to have that fight. I wanted to be alone, where people didn’t look at me at all, and when I saw a stranger, they really were a stranger.
Maybe I really had been someone different during those months. A guy like him never would’ve been with a girl like me. It wasn’t my looks, exactly. I knew guys liked the dark hair and grey eyes, and my body wasn’t bad either. I was attractive enough to get interest, but I was also a mess, with crawlers stalking me. I’d gotten fired from my last job for being a no-show, and now I was homeless to boot, not to mention the psychiatrist on speed dial. Nothing about me was dating material.
I could see by the cut of the pants he was wearing and the quality of the fabric of his white shirt, the understated watch that I knew cost more than my apartment had, that he had it all. He’d get the pick of the litter when it came to women: looks, smarts, and mentally sound.
Didn’t matter. He wasn’t my type anyway. No man was. Not now. Maybe not ever. Having a husband and kids seemed a bit of a stretch when I was still afraid of the boogieman in the closet.
When I dared to look back at him, his expression was shuttered again. It was safe.
“Where are your buddies?”
He nodded toward the end of the street, and I leaned forward to get a better view. The Thug Brothers weren’t bothering to hide anymore, but standing a block or so away, sipping takeout coffee.
I leaned back, getting as comfortable as you could in a cement stoop. “You should’ve stayed away. I’m not going back there with you.”
He walked the last few steps toward me. “Ollie, I know that this is rough on you, but we’ll figure out what happened and it’ll come back. But in the meantime—”
I shook my head. “You have no idea if it’ll come back.” I’d talked to my psychiatrist about amnesia once. It had been a random conversation born of desperation. I’d made a passing comment about some guy who had forgotten his entire adult life, and maybe it would be worth it for a clean slate. He’d told me that whether his memories came back was hit or miss, but it wasn’t something he’d ever wish on someone. Thinking back now, maybe it hadn’t been so random. And now I knew why he wouldn’t wish it upon someone. I didn’t get it then, but your memories are you. Losing them was like losing some of yourself.
“I know they will because I know…” He took a step away.
I know you. That was what he’d been about to say. It might’ve been true, but it made me want to run. My silence answered what I thought of that.
His stiffness said he was getting impatient. I just wasn’t sure if he was getting impatient with me or who he thought I should be.
“Come on. You’ve been here too long. Let’s head back.”
I snapped my head in his direction. “Head back where?”
“To the Underground. The place you left earlier,” he added, in case I’d forgotten the name. I hadn’t.
“I told you in the meeting last…” Fuck. It hadn’t been last night. I couldn’t make slips like that unless I wanted to sound as unstable as I felt. “I told you that I wasn’t staying there.” I stood and took a couple of steps away from him. “I don’t know what our relationship was, but I don’t know you and I don’t want to.” I looked down the street. “Or them. I’m not staying there.”
His jaw clenched, and there was nothing shuttered about his expression now. He shoved up his shirt sleeves and folded his arms. “Then where do you plan on going?” He cocked an eyebrow at me, and he might as well have added, Go ahead, genius, you tell me.
I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms. “I don’t need to inform you of that.”
He walked towa
rd me, narrowing the gap. “You mean you don’t want to tell me what stoop you’re sleeping on tonight?” Arrogance poured off him as thick as water over Niagara Falls. I could only imagine that standing in those cold waves was just as uncomfortable.
“I’m not going back to that place.” I’d lost months of memories, and my home. The idea of being surrounded by crazy people, talking to me like they knew me all day, made me want to climb up to the roof of the new building and take a leap.
“Ollie—”
“Look, I know you’re offering me a place to stay because I’m essentially homeless, but I can’t go back there. I need some time—space.” I needed a place where people I didn’t know weren’t looking at me expecting things.
He stood staring at me. Was he going to try and grab me and drag me back, or respect my wishes? I did remember him sending the Thug Brothers for me, but he had let me leave after the meeting. The longer we stood staring at each other, the more I wondered if he had no idea what he was going to do either.
He looked up and muttered something to the sky that sounded like “She’s injured.”
I nodded, even though I was pretty sure he wasn’t actually talking to me.
I looked back over my shoulder at where my building used to be again. Why this too? I’d just lost my family, or it felt like I just had. Now I’d lost my memories. I was going to break. I could feel it. I gripped my arms with my hands so he couldn’t see the tremble. I kept my gaze on the building until I could get the burning in my eyes to stop threatening tears.
I took a deep, unsettled breath and squared my shoulders, preparing to settle the issue with Kane and withstand the icy onslaught.
When I turned back to him, his expression was guarded, but I saw his eyes take in the way I was hugging my torso. I dropped my arms quickly, shifting my hand to my hips in a battle position.
But a battle wasn’t what I got.
“I own some real estate around here and I’ve got a place a few blocks away.”
My chin jerked up. “I’m not looking for a handout.”
“I’m not giving you one. I’m offering you a compromise. You’ll be alone there, but the place is secure. You can stay there until you clear your head and we figure out what happened.”
More details from yesterday came flooding back, details Kane had given me. I’d been so obsessed with getting home that I’d pushed away the fact that, in the time I’d forgotten, I might’ve made some enemies. There was stubborn and then there was stupid. I definitely fell into the former occasionally, but I tried to avoid the latter.
I nodded, and then forced myself to say, “Thank you.”
He nodded, looking as unhappy as I was. He took a few steps down the road while I tried to force my feet to move.
He stopped and turned back to me. “Are you coming?”
“Yes.” I had to. I had nowhere else to go. I forced my legs into action, telling myself everything was going to work out as I did.
He waved off Butch and Leon when we got to the corner. Even though I saw them leave, I doubted they’d be far away.
He kept walking, and I followed without asking any questions. When he got in a black Mercedes, I got in the passenger seat without prompting, telling myself this was a lot better than a stoop.
And when we got out in front of a huge brownstone, I followed then, too.
“You own a unit here?” I finally asked. The only reason I spoke was I wanted to confirm no one else would be dropping by and looking for rent that I didn’t have to pay.
“I own the building,” he said as he opened the front door, waiting for me to walk in. “But I keep one of the units open. Sometimes I need a place to put people up away from the Underground.”
Did he put women up here? Or criminals? There was yet another story that I wasn’t ready to open the cover on, not when all I wanted was a bed, not a reason to leave.
We climbed to the second floor, where he opened a door and then handed me the key before he walked in.
The place had a high ceiling and classic dentil molding that contrasted with the clean lines of the furniture. I walked farther into the apartment, the kitchen opening up into a dining area and a living space beyond, a door to a bedroom on my left. Everything in the place had the look of quality, new but used, sparse and yet warm somehow. I chewed on my lower lip as I watched him walk into the place.
“Who owned the apartment I stayed in last night?” I asked, seeing a certain similarity between the styling of this place and that one.
“Mine.”
He said I’d have the place to myself, though. Did it matter if it was his? No.
“I’ll have someone run a few of your things over tonight to hold you over.”
I nodded, not asking where my things were now. I already knew. That apartment I’d stayed at, the one that reminded me of this place. So I’d been staying with him. Maybe we’d clicked in bed, if nowhere else.
The windows that stretched nearly from floor to ceiling gave me the pretense of something else to stare at, even though I was glued to his every move, just as he was mine.
He leaned against the counter that divided the kitchen from the dining area, acting relaxed even as I could taste the tension flowing from him. Flowing from both of us. There was history here, just as Butch and Leon had said. I couldn’t remember it, but I surely felt it.
I’d so hoped I’d wake up this morning and remember everything. I was still hoping that I’d go to sleep tonight and it would all flood back with the morning. But what if I woke and all the new sun did was bleach more of it away?
I was as lost as Alice in Wonderland.
“Here.” He dug into his pocket and placed a phone on the counter beside him. “You need a phone.”
“What kind is it?” I didn’t care about the make, but I’d never seen one with that type of silver body before.
“Special line I have made. It’s nearly indestructible. I programmed a few numbers into it.”
I knew what numbers those would be. I nearly told him that it might’ve been simpler for me to stick my head out the window and shout if I needed. But I wasn’t in the frame of mind for an argument. Let them play their games for now.
“I’ll pay you back as soon as I get my banking in order.” I knew that a couple hundred bucks, all that was probably in my bank account, would mean nothing to him. This wasn’t about the money. This was about asserting my independence.
“There’s no—”
“I’ll pay you back.” I didn’t know how, exactly, but I would. My last memory was three hundred dollars and eighteen cents. I wondered how many pennies in interest I might’ve made?
He nodded, not looking as if he were in the mood for a fight either. “I’ll bring— I’ll have Butch bring you to the Underground tomorrow so you can look through some of your things.”
He’d been about to say he would, until he remembered how that had worked out last time. I almost felt bad until I saw the tension coming back in to his shoulders, as if he’d had enough of me pushing at him. He shouldn’t have taken it so personally. We’d had a fling, and he’d surely gotten something out of it too. I wasn’t pushing him away. I was pushing the whole crazy lot of them away.
“You should be okay here,” he said, straightening.
I might’ve been safe enough, but I was definitely not okay, not tonight, anyway. I might’ve been acting like I was holding it together, but I was hanging by threads, my seams about to burst and show how flimsily I was put together. I’d see how the next sunrise went.
He moved toward the door, as if he were as ready to be alone as I was.
“Do you need anything else here?” He was almost through the door when he asked, obviously not expecting me to say yes.
“Yes.”
He looked back toward me, and I thought I saw a glimmer of hope there, as if this were something personal. It was, but I didn’t think he’d like it.
“When I told you that something bad was going to happen, why didn’t you b
elieve me?”
The glimmer disappeared and flattened. “It’s not that I didn’t believe you. I just thought I could handle whatever it was.”
“But you couldn’t.” My voice sounded snappish, probably from being too tired and hungry. I didn’t even know him. He’d probably been nothing more than a warm body on a few cold nights. I didn’t have a right to be angry.
“I understand why you’re angry.” He gripped the door so tightly that his knuckles were pronounced, as if he were the one who was angry.
“I’m not angry.” I wasn’t. Was I?
“Goodnight.” He left before I had the chance to ask anything else.
Chapter Six
A beach-boy-looking man opened the door to the Underground before I’d gotten within five feet. He’d probably known we were on our way because the Thug Brothers had reported in.
“Ollie! What’s going on? Been waiting to see you all day.”
“That’s Jerry,” Butch whispered from behind me.
“Hi, Jerry. I got hung up with some stuff.” That “stuff” would be gathering up the will to come here.
“How’s it going?”
“Pretty good.” My voice sounded like you could buy me for five bucks in an alley, while his had the real label. As bad as I felt about it, there wasn’t much to do but be a fake. I was surrounded by strangers who all knew me well enough to greet me with coffee in the morning, like Leon had today. He’d knocked on my door bright and early with a hot cup made just the way I liked it, with two sugars and skim milk.
I paused a second, fishing around in my head for small talk, or even miniscule talk. Any kind of talk I could think of.
I was saved by a pouf of blond hair attached to a body. She wrapped an arm around mine and tugged me off. Flip, that was her name. She was there the day Kane had found me. But why she was towing me through the Underground was a bit less clear.
My face must’ve asked the question, because she started to explain. “Look, I know you don’t know who I am. You don’t have to. I don’t care.”
Kissed by the Dark: Ollie Wit Book 3 Page 4