She shrugged, sticking close to my side as we rounded the corner. “That’s the point of brunching. It’s a social activity.” She glanced up at me. “Don’t you and your buddies go out drinking?”
I nodded. “Well, yeah.”
“Same thing. We just start out late morning and go all day.”
“Damn, that’s actually kinda hardcore,” I said. “And you’re drinking the whole time?”
She bobbed her head side to side. “Sort of? We start out with mimosas or screw drivers usually, and then once we’ve had lunch we switch to white wine. So, I mean, it’s not like we’re drinking to get black-out drunk. You’re brunching all day, so you have to pace yourself. You can’t be falling down drunk by like two or we won’t invite you back. You have to be able to keep up and hold your liquor.”
“Sounds competitive.” I was keeping her busy so she wouldn’t notice me scanning our surroundings.
“Oh it is. Getting invited to one of my brunches is a big deal. It can make or break your social standing. And if you get drunk and we have to ask you to leave because you’re embarrassing us? Forget it. You’re done. You can kiss your reputation goodbye.”
“Has that ever happened?”
She nodded. “Oh, yeah, all the time. It’s like the first couple episodes of The Bachelor, there’s always someone who gets obliterated and makes a fool of themselves.”
“The Bachelor?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve never seen that?”
I frowned at her. “Do I seem like a guy who watches The Bachelor?”
“I guess not. What do you watch?”
“I don’t watch TV,” I said. “Never got into the habit.”
“What do you mean, you never got into the habit? It’s television.”
We’d been walking in a straight line for too long, so we turned the corner. I wasn’t going anywhere specifically yet, more just trying to see if anyone was following us. Once I’d determined that we weren’t being tailed, I’d catch a cab to the airport and try to figure out some way of hooking up with the guys. Times like this, I wished payphones hadn’t gone extinct—it’d make it easier.
“Like I said, I grew up on the streets. Not much opportunity to sit around staring at a TV screen. Gotta run the hustle, you know?”
“Not really, no.”
I let out a soft, irritated breath. I hadn’t meant to let the conversation go back to this topic. “I crashed on a lot of couches when I could, and slept in alleys when I couldn’t. And during the day I was hustling.”
“What does that mean?”
“Dealing, Princess. Slinging dime-bags. Scrapping with rival gangs. That kinda shit.”
“Oh.” Her voice was…small, and tight. Disapproving. Which only pissed me off more, and I was already antsy from talking about this in the first place.
“Listen up, Fancy. Not everyone was born with a silver spoon, okay?” I stopped and faced her. “I didn’t have a famous mom and dad to put everything in my hands. I never knew my dad, and my mom was literally a crack-whore. Meaning I was born addicted to crack and shouldn’t have survived, but I did. You know who didn’t survive? My mom. I found her OD’d when I was six. Came home from school one day and there she was, passed out on the couch like usual. Only, she wasn’t just passed out, she was fuckin’ dead. That’s how my life started. So yeah, I was a drug dealer by the time I was ten, pimping by fourteen, and pushing kilos by the time I was seventeen. A criminal. I was dirty, and violent, and mean. I was a piece of shit, is what I was. Is that what you wanted to hear, Fancy?”
I was in her face, fuming, teeth gritted. And she was cowering away, frightened.
“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t—I mean…I didn’t mean—”
I pivoted away, scrubbing the side of my jaw. “I know you didn’t.”
I grabbed her arm and hauled her back into a fast walk. And she let me, for all of a hundred steps, and then she yanked her arm free, and then it was her turn to stop facing me.
“You what? Fuck you.” She stabbed her finger into my chest. “I didn’t ask to be born to rich parents. I didn’t ask for the life I have. It’s all I know—all I’ve ever known. And what, I’m supposed to apologize for my easy life because yours has been shitty? Fuck you.”
“No, you don’t choose the life you’re born into, and no, you don’t have to apologize for yours. But you don’t get to give me that look, the one that’s all pitying and disapproving because I spent the first half of my life surviving the only way I knew how.”
“It wasn’t pity!” Temple shot back. “Or disapproval.”
“The fuck it wasn’t. I know what that shit looks and sounds like, okay? Someone finds out how I grew up, they give me that same look.”
“Compassion and pity aren’t the same thing, Duke,” Temple said.
“Yeah, well…I don’t need either.” I pushed past her, stomping back into an angry walk. “Not from you, not from anyone.”
Stupid shit was, I didn’t even really know why I was so pissed. I hated talking about my life pre-Army, hated telling anyone about it because I always got the same sappy bullshit pity. But this, the blind, unreasoning anger I was feeling, it was more than that—I just wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t like it, though. I didn’t like emotions I didn’t understand, which is why I avoided situations that might involve emotions, because I didn’t understand most emotions.
Emotions were hard. Fucking, fighting, drinking, breaking down doors and clearing rooms and rescuing people, I understood that. It was easy.
This…wasn’t. Temple wasn’t easy, and I didn’t mean easy as in loose, easy to get into bed, but rather…she was just…difficult. She was hard to understand, and worse, she made me feel like shit and I wasn’t sure how or why she did it, but she did and it pissed me off.
But even all that wasn’t why I was so pissed off.
I kept walking, stopping to glance back at Temple now and again, making sure she was still behind me. She was staying a few paces, power walking to keep up with my long legs, and looking equal parts pissed off, confused, and hurt.
Which didn’t help.
I was trying to push all this emotional horseshit away so I could focus on the real problem at hand: getting away from Cain’s dickheads, and getting in touch with Harris and Thresh and the boys. I’d been out of communication for a while, which was unusual for me, especially when it came to Thresh. He and I were always in contact, so I knew if he didn’t hear from me soon, he’d start to worry.
Then, being mentally preoccupied, I nearly got us both killed.
A big black Tahoe zipped past us, which wasn’t a big deal; they were a common kind of truck. When the SUV hit the brakes and swung a smoking-tire U-turn, that was a big deal. Problem came when I was too caught up in my own mental bullshit to register that maybe they were making a U-turn because of me. I missed that little signal.
The Tahoe burned rubber, bolted back the way they’d come, and then cut in toward the sidewalk.
Toward Temple.
And that was when my head cleared enough for me to jump into action.
“Temple! Duck!” I shouted.
I hauled at the Beretta, palm slapping over my trigger hand to brace myself. I cracked off two shots, one round fragmenting the rear driver’s side window and the other plugging into the door beneath it. The truck kept going, hitting the brakes and sliding to a halt a dozen feet away from Temple, who had, as I’d instructed, hit the sidewalk and was hunkering with her hands over her head. I probably should have told her to run, but I’d been more worried about accidentally shooting her if she moved the wrong direction.
And now the driver’s door was opening, as were the doors on the passenger side. The rear driver’s side door stayed closed, which meant I’d probably taken out at least one. Still, I had a feeling I was about to be outnumbered and outgunned, and Temple was in the middle, a good fifteen feet away.
I popped off a shot at the body emerging from the driver’s door; I hit hi
m I wasn’t sure where, but I knew I’d hit him because blood spattered and his feet slipped and he slumped to the ground. Not dead, but out of the fight. I was running, obviously, and ten feet hadn’t ever felt so far. It felt like I was running in place, not quite able to cross the distance between me and Temple, not quite able to put myself between her and the bad guys.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I let my pistol do the talking, cracking off another two shots at the partially broken rear window, shattering it completely and breaking the window on the other side, making way for the second round, which—through sheer luck, found a target. The dumbass was just standing there, as if the window was going to stop a bullet. My round caught him in the shoulder, sent him spinning and clutching the wound, and I sent another bullet his way, which hit him in the face and dropped him. Two down.
I reached Temple, crouched in front of her, waiting. “Stay down,” I hissed, and she nodded under her hands.
“How do they keep finding us?” she asked, her voice muffled and shrill with hysteria.
“Fuck if I know. These guys probably knew we were on foot somewhere near the apartment and just went in widening circles until they found us.” I hoped that was the case, because this was becoming intensely distressing, the way they kept showing up. It was twice now. Twice could be luck, or coincidence…but my gut instinct was suggesting otherwise.
I saw a pair of feet underneath the overhanging back end of the SUV, wearing black sneakers, creeping toward us, crouched to take advantage of the body of the truck. I heard voices muttering low, heard the snick-click of slides being pulled and released. At least two more, maybe three or four. I glanced around quickly, hoping to find somewhere for Temple to take better cover, but there wasn’t much except doorways. Which, I supposed, were better than being in the open.
I tapped Temple on the shoulder. “You’re gonna run for cover,” I said, pointing at the doorway of an office building twenty feet behind us; at the first bark of gunfire, the few people there’d been on this side street had vanished, but it wouldn’t be long before black-and-whites started showing up here, too—time was at a premium once again. “When I say three, you’re gonna run fast as you can for that doorway and you’re gonna hunker there till I finish this shit off. Ready?”
Temple’s gaze went to the dead body half in and half out the driver’s door, the shattered rear window, the blood splattered on the black leather interior, and then she glanced back at me and nodded.
“Ready,” she said.
I cut a look at her feet. “Shoes?” I said, ejecting the partially used magazine.
She wiggled her toes in her wedge heels, and then slipped them off and held one in each hand. “Okay, I’m ready for real this time.”
I slid a fresh magazine into the Beretta and pulled the slide. “One…two…” I fired two rounds at the rear of the vehicle, and then shouted “THREE!”
Temple took off running, and I was impressed. She was faster than I thought she’d be—the doorway was twenty some feet away, and she was halfway there before I’d finished the shout. I brought the Beretta to bear on the front of the SUV as I moved to put my shoulder against the wall, caught a bit of black hair and the top of an ear. Sent two rounds at the head, aiming a little high for the first one and lower for the second. Red sprayed, and I bolted forward to lean against the hood of the Tahoe, paused, and then rolled out to the other side. Two bodies. Made that four down, and at least one more to go.
I straightened into a Weaver stance. “Hey, asshole. Over here.”
Stupid bag of dicks fell for it, too. He popped from behind the Tahoe, but at least he came out firing. He missed, but points for the effort. Four banging concussions, yet none of his shots came close enough for me to even notice, and then my pistol bucked in my hands and he fell backward. No tricks or waiting, this time. I swung sideways all the way around the back of the SUV, and then peeked in the back window.
That was all of them, then. I jerked open the rear driver’s side door and let the dead body fall to the ground; thank god I’d popped this asshole first, since he’d been packing an AR-15. The trunk of the Tahoe was filled with firepower—two more AR-15s, two small rectangular cases which I assumed contained more handguns, several boxes of assorted bullets, a Mossberg 500…these boys had been packing the right firepower to take me on, they’d just made the stupid mistake of not using it the second they saw me.
I yanked the corpse out of the driver’s door and kicked him aside, noted with relief that most of the mess from my round hitting him had been contained to the side of the driver’s seat and the metal of the A-pillar between front seat and rear. Meaning, the seat wasn’t all nasty. I tossed the duffel bag behind the driver’s seat, kicked the back door shut, then hopped behind the wheel, keyed the ignition, and hauled the driver’s door closed.
I pulled even with Temple and grinned at her from behind the wheel. “Good news is, we got us a ride.”
“But there’s—there was—”
“Yeah, well beggars can’t be choosers. No mess on your seat, so just don’t look back if it bugs you.” I reached across and shoved open the passenger door. “Now let’s go, sweetcheeks!” I heard sirens close.
She hopped in, and looked back. “Oh my god. There’s blood everywhere! And the windows are gone!”
“I told you not to look. At least the dead guys aren’t in here with us, right?”
She shuddered. “Yeah, I guess that’s a bonus.”
I gunned the gas pedal and we took off. “Need you do to me a favor.”
She eyed me warily. “I’m not giving you road-head.”
I snickered. “Well damn, how’d you know what I was gonna say?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re a typical guy, so all you think about is getting your dick sucked.”
I shrugged and pulled a well yeah face. “I mean, it is pretty much the best thing ever.” I jerked my thumb at the rear of the truck. “But actually I was gonna ask you to climb back there and grab the shotgun for me.”
She glanced back. “Shotgun?”
“In the trunk. Big fuck-off black thing, like an assault rifle only bigger. It’s got red shells stuffed into these little loops on the side.”
Temple sighed and climbed over the console into the backseat. Which…unfortunately, was a little messy. “OH MY GOD that’s so gross!” She toppled sideways into the footwell. “I’ve got blood all over my hands and skirt.”
“Um. Ooops? Forgot about that, sorry.”
She popped up between the seats. “You forgot about a giant pool of blood?”
I glanced back. “That’s not a giant pool. That’s a bit of splatter. If I’d nailed him in the head, there’d be a lot more of a mess. That’s nothing to worry about. It’ll wash right off your hands.”
“And my skirt?”
I growled. “Once I sort this bullshit out and get you safely back to Malibu, I’ll personally take you shopping to buy you a new fucking skirt.” I eyed her. “Now please…get me the shotgun.”
Temple groaned in disgust, but climbed gingerly onto the seat and leaned over the back, reappearing with an AR-15 in her hands. “This?”
“No, honey, that’s an assault rifle.”
“So that’s not it?”
“Nope. Try again. Big. Black. Red shells on one side.”
“This is big and black.” At my sigh of irritation. “Hey, what do I know about guns?”
She leaned over the seatback once more, the wind whipping through the broken rear windows, ruffling her hair and skirt. I was watching the through the rearview mirror because, come on, the view was to die for. That tight round ass of hers was all framed and spread out, bulging against the fabric of the skirt, which was inching up bit by bit as the wind blew it around. She leaned further over the seat, reaching, tiptoes pressing against the floor, and then…oh hell yes—the wind tossed her skirt up completely as she stretched to reach the shotgun, showing me that bare, delectable, perfect ass for a brief but beautiful momen
t.
She squealed as the wind blew her skirt up, tugging it back down and twisting to sit on the bench. She shoved the shotgun through the opening. “Here’s the stupid gun.” She stuck her tongue out at me. “Enjoy your free peep show?”
I took the shotgun from her and stuffed the barrel down near my left foot, leaning the stock against the side of my seat. “Hell yeah, I did.” I grinned at her as she climbed back over the console into the passenger seat. “I told you already, Fancy, you’ve got the most gorgeous ass I’ve ever seen. I could stare at it all damn day and never get tired of looking at it.”
She rolled her eyes at me, but couldn’t quite hide her flattered, pleased smile. Then she glanced at her hands, and lost the grin. “So gross, for real.” She wiped her hands on the front of her skirt, which helped only marginally.
“Your hands are just gonna be sticky for a bit, I’m afraid to say,” I told her. “Blood can be hard to get off your hands.”
She didn’t answer right away, staring at the tacky redness on her palms. “Do you mean that literally, or metaphorically?” She asked, after a while.
I sighed. “Wow, going right for the hard shit, huh?” On a whim, I dug into the console storage compartment between our seats, and found a bottle of hand sanitizer. “Here, squirt that on, rub your hands together, and then wipe them on your skirt, should get some of the blood off.”
I watched her squirt a ridiculous amount of sanitizer onto her hands, and then returned my attention to the road.
“Well,” I said, “I guess I mean it both ways. Or maybe I mean it literally because I know it to be true metaphorically, as well.” I thought for a moment. “Literally speaking, blood is an incredibly damn hard substance to deal with. It stains, it hardens, goes all tacky. Get it in your hair? Forget about it. You’ll be shampooing that shit for twenty minutes. Metaphorically speaking, the first few kills tend to stick with you. You never forget those. Then, after awhile, you just…learn to deal with it. You don’t think about it, because if you do you won’t be able to do your job. But sometimes when my insomnia gets bad, yeah, the metaphorical blood on my hands can be pretty fucking hard to wash off. ”
Duke: Alpha One Security: Book 3 Page 11