The Vigilantes Collection

by Lake, Keri

  “Whyn’t you take her to a hospital? That cut on her leg looks pretty nasty.”

  I’d forgotten about the cut on my thigh, where the metal door of the storage unit had scraped across it in my failed attempt to escape. Vinco had caught me, of course, and the drugs I’d been given afterward had dulled the pain.

  “Don’t trust the hospitals, or the cops right now. Tesarik’s going to come after her, I have no doubt about that. I got someone I know. She can check her out.”

  A moan leaked past my lips as I settled into the cool softness that welcomed me like clouds. I smiled, stretching like a cat sprawled in the sunshine, the heat warming my cheeks.

  “That’s better, yeah?”

  His deep voice rippled down my spine along with the drugs, only adding to the bliss of my high. Eyes still closed, I purred in response, and rubbed my knees together, the smooth cotton fabric between them creating just enough friction to feel something.

  “That’s it, baby. Just relax.” A warm hand drifted down my temple, and I turned toward it, savoring the scent of his skin, delicious citrus with notes of something woodsy and masculine.

  “Look at her. She’s like a little kitten now. Should’ve given her that shit about a half hour ago. Before she popped me in the goddamn nose.”

  “You need a tampon, Rhys? Quit being a pussy. I’ve hit you harder than that just fucking around.”

  “Fucker’s been broke twice. Someone so much as taps it, hurts like a bitch.”

  Their voices began to fade in and out as the drugs pulled me deeper and deeper into the blackness. I could feel my body drifting, as if I’d been placed on a raft in the middle of the ocean, sitting atop smooth, billowing waves.

  Nicoleta. The young girl’s voice broke through the clouds, reaching to yank me back, but failed to latch onto my high. What’s your purpose? Remember.

  A hiccup of laughter slipped out as I imagined the girl grasping for strings, while I floated away.

  “I’m gonna bounce outta here, Dax. You need anything, you know where to find me.”

  “Thanks again, Brother. I’ll let you know if anything comes up,” the one who’d called me baby answered back.

  Dax.

  The monster inside my belly retreated, and that name followed me back into the void.

  * * *

  I awoke in what felt like minutes. My body shuddered as another wave struck my stomach, and against the restraints at my wrists, I curled into myself as much as I could, hoping if I made myself smaller, the pain might shrink, too.

  The hard plank surface beneath me prodded my muscles, and the once cool sheet had become too hot against my skin, like sandpaper scraping across it with a chasing burn. Every sensation had intensified, and the pressure in my belly felt as if it might explode, pop my insides open.

  Branches of ice snaked across my bones and vibrated with the kind of chill that tickled the chest. The kind no amount of blankets could smother. Acids gurgled somewhere deep inside of me, a volcano of sickness ready to erupt, and I turned my head in time to expel it from my body. A burning torrent that fell into a black hole set beside the bed. Through a sleepy haze, I focused on the shine around the rim of it, and realized I was staring down into a trash bin.

  After I’d emptied my stomach, I lay back on the pillow and stared up at the white stucco ceiling above me, muscles tense as the creeping threat of withdrawals settled over me. The words of my mother rattled inside my head, like noise bubbling inside a hot kettle. Prayers she’d whispered while slung over a dirty toilet, or lying passed out in bed on nights she’d gotten so drunk she couldn’t even remember her own damn name.

  O Lord, in your anger punish me not; in your wrath chastise me not. For your arrows have sunk deep in me; your hand has come down upon me. There is no health in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no wholeness in my bones because of my sin. For my iniquities have overwhelmed me; they are like a heavy burden, beyond my strength.

  Those were times I’d sneak out of the house and roam the neighborhood alone. That was how I’d met Dmitry and ended up on the shit-list of the state’s most dangerous criminal. His name chiming inside my head left an encroaching black obscurity on the fringes of my consciousness. Perhaps another blackout.

  I could’ve laughed, if not for the tears stinging my eyes, as the acids burned my throat, while my memories took me back to nearly seven years ago.

  * * *

  “Momma. Wake up.” I shook my mother’s bony shoulder, and slipped the thinning strap of her worn bra back up her arm. “Wake up.”

  The stench of sex clung to the air. I shouldn’t have known that smell at my age, but I did, and I buried my nose into the crook of my elbow to keep from breathing the filthy scent into my lungs. Beside my mother lay a pig of a man I couldn’t stand to look at, sleeping passed out in the white sheets of the bed, on the side where I sometimes snuck to on nights I couldn’t sleep. His tongue hung out of his mouth, the drool dried in white patches across his cheek as his snores filled the room.

  The sheets would have to be bleached.

  He ran the trailer park where we lived, like one of those mafia guys in the movies that came around collecting money. Only we didn’t have much that week, which probably explained why he’d spent the night.

  Momma didn’t believe in women sleeping with strange men, but she thought him to be charitable, in the way he’d cut her a break on rent in exchange for her company.

  An act of God.

  The man lying next her was the furthest thing from being pure and holy as far as I was concerned, but she liked to make up her own rules about the Bible sometimes.

  I looked around the room at all the empty bottles lying about. She’d spent the grocery money on beer and liquor again. Maybe fifty empties I could return at ten cents apiece. It’d get me something.

  I grabbed a discarded plastic bag from the floor and gathered up the cans and bottles, dumping the last bits of beer into a red Solo cup that held cigarette butts on the nightstand beside Pigman, as I called him. Bending to the floor, I reached just beneath the bed and slid the can of Busch toward me, eyeing the brown wallet sticking out from the back pocket of the fat bastard’s jeans. Scanning back up to where he slept, I kept my gaze locked on his face, grimacing at the glisten of his sweat seeping into the bed, where there’d undoubtedly be a yellow stain left over. His gut hung over the edge of the bed, like a whole other human grasping to him for dear life. How she could sleep with such a thing was just gross.

  I slid his wallet from the jeans and flipped it open to a license picture that looked like a mug shot, and an EBT card. Behind those, a small bit of green, and I delighted at the sight of the ten-dollar bill, quickly stuffing it into my pocket.

  He didn’t so much as twitch, as I backed myself out of the room, with the bag of empties clutched in my hand.

  I pushed through the flimsy screen door of the trailer and nabbed my bike propped against the outside of it. Bottles clanged in the bag I’d hung from the handlebars, as I rode two blocks up to the party store.

  Only one car sat parked in the lot—a fancy black ride that reminded me of something out of a movie. The kind celebrities drove, with shiny chrome and tinted windows.

  I parked my bike off to the side of the building so it wouldn’t get stolen. Even if it was a boy’s bike my mom picked up from somebody’s garbage.

  A chime rattled when I entered the party store. I lifted my bag so Pops could see it, as I made my way toward the back of the store. Place was usually empty during the day, since most people bought their alcohol at night.

  “How many you got, kiddo?”

  “Sixty.”

  “Liar.”

  I huffed, stopping just past the refrigerators, where a box sat half filled with empties. Dumping the bag made an awful clang, and I tossed it into the nearby trash. From the row of fridges on the other side, I grabbed a carton of milk, before making my way back to the front, where a tall man in a swanky suit stood at the counter with
his back to me. On the counter sat two packs of Marlboros and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Not like the kind in the pile of bottles I’d just emptied, but the ones Pop kept in a separate case off to the side. The more expensive kind that my mom could never afford.

  I stood admiring the stranger’s shoes, which shined enough to reflect the lights in the ceiling.

  The guy glanced back at me, and in that brief second, I felt something cold in my chest. A bad kind of tickle that one felt when they met a bad kind of person. Like something warning me.

  Shallow gray eyes drilled into mine, his brows tilted just enough to make him look mad. Reminded me of the gloomy day we went boating with one of my mom’s clients and the waves were choppy and scary, rocking the boat back and forth. I ended up getting sick that day and throwing up all over the man’s leather seats. Chunks of pizza and soda everywhere, and my mom got so angry, she made me clean it up myself.

  I took a step back to give him some space, and watched as he slid a wallet from the pocket of his wrinkle-free pants, his hand covered in a black leather glove he didn’t bother to remove. Gloves in the middle of summer. Weird.

  A clacking sound drew my eyes to the card that’d fallen at my feet, the signature scrawled across it. I bent forward, flipping it over to the Mastercard emblem and the 16-digit number embossed on the other side of it, before handing it to the man whose eyes were glued on me.

  Without saying thanks, he swiped the card from my hand and turned around. In minutes, Pops cashed him out, and he headed out the door with his smokes and liquor.

  Asshole.

  I hated when rich people came to our part of town. Like they were showing off, or something. Always rude and inconsiderate.

  A five and a single sat on the counter, waiting for me.

  “Was fifty,” I said, pushing the extra bill back toward Pops.

  “Ah, I’ll give it to ya. You’re a terrible liar, though.” He pointed a finger at me, his stern features softening to a smile. “Tell your mom I’ll give her another week on her tab. That’s it, though.”

  “Thanks, Pops.” I slid the cash into my pocket, alongside the cash I’d nabbed from Pigman that probably would’ve wiped out some of my mom’s tab. Just like the liquor and beer she’d bought could’ve probably covered it, too.

  When I exited the store, the black car was gone.

  The man’s credit card number hadn’t left my head, though. 9464317895338681. Obviously. Some days, I wished I didn’t have photographic memory, filling my brain up with stupid, meaningless numbers and words.

  I hopped on my bike and headed back home, holding the half gallon of milk in the crook of my elbow as I rode one-handed, my tires bouncing over the uneven gravel of the dirt road. The neighborhood seemed quieter than before … or maybe the sounds of my mother’s shouts coming from the trailer drowned them out.

  I threw my bike to the ground, hobbling toward the front door with the milk, when the screen door flew open, at the same time something crashed inside. Pigman wore a smirk on his face as he zipped the front of his jeans and stepped out onto the porch.

  “Look what the swamp washed up. Fuckin’ toad on a turd.”

  I ground my teeth together, eyes narrowed on him, as my mom’s sobbing bled through the screen door. “What did you do this time, jerk?”

  Shoving a cigarette into his mouth, he strode past me and swatted the half-gallon of milk from my arms, knocking it to the ground, where the plastic burst, leaking white onto the dirty gray pavement.

  “Someday, little girl, I’m gonna teach you a lesson about respect.” His liquor-stained breath wafted over me, forcing me to hold mine to keep from inhaling that greasy scent.

  “Someday, I’m going to watch you die.”

  His brows furrowed, as he took a step back and sucked a long drag from his cigarette. “You’re fucked up, kid, know that? You belong in a goddamn straight jacket.” Cigarette dangling from his fingertips, he pointed at me. “Watch yourself.”

  I kept my gaze on his until he made his way to the beat-up Impala half parked on the small bit of lawn. The hinges creaked as he fell into the driver’s seat, then he tore out of the driveway, kicking up bits of gravel and grass.

  Once he was out of sight, I stared down at the milk pooling around my flip-flops. With a huff, I lifted the last quarter left in the container and pushed through the screen door into the trailer, noticing the bedroom door was closed. Plumes of smoke seeped from the crack at the bottom of it, like a warning to stay away.

  Smoking again.

  I killed time straightening up what I could inside the trailer—washing the dishes, emptying the ashtrays, tossing the garbage scattered about the floor.

  Not so much as a peep rose from the back room, and when darkness and shadows crept in through the windows, I started to worry. Momma usually started her evening routine by then.

  I knocked on the door.

  Nothing.

  Opening it a crack, I peered into the darkness, listening for any sound, any sign of movement.

  Nothing.

  Pushing through the door, I entered her room that stood empty, and tiptoed across toward the bathroom.

  Alongside the toilet, momma lay curled up on the floor, the bottle of whiskey held to her chest. I dropped to my knees and set my ear to her mouth, feeling the faint warmth of her breath against my skin.

  Still alive.

  “Momma?” I shook her arm, but she just curled into a tighter ball.

  “Lee’me ‘lone.”

  “Momma, what’s wrong?”

  Reaching over her head, she nabbed the yellow sheet of paper and handed it to me. “’Viction. We’omeless.” Sniffles turned to sobbing and she curled herself around the base of the toilet. “He’s kick’n’ us out.”

  “We’re gonna be okay.”

  Her body seized with a sniffle, and she shook her head. “We’re not. We’re fucked. God hates me. God hates both of us. We nothin’ but lowly sinners.”

  “No.” I lowered to the floor and tucked myself against her back, lying beside her on the cold linoleum. My arms took in the feel of her too-skinny, trembling body. “He can’t kick us out. We’re not going anywhere.”

  A barky cough bounced off the walls, and she scrambled out of my grasp, just making it to the toilet in time to expel the sour smelling vomit, before plopping back down onto the floor. “Be so much easier … if it was just me.”

  If I’d let her words slice me, I’d be admitting they were stronger than I was, so I swallowed back the tears in my eyes, instead. She wasn’t always that way. I liked to think, sometimes, maybe she’d smiled at me when I was a baby, wrapped up in a blanket in her arms. That maybe there was one moment in my life she’d wanted to be my mother.

  Everything inside of me told me to leave and let her cry alone on the bathroom floor. But even if she didn’t think she wanted me, I still loved her. Because I was a stupid kid, and kids loved harder than adults.

  We lay there for a while, until she finally passed out. As horrible as it made me to think it, there were times I wished she wouldn’t wake up, because when she slept, there was a vulnerability about her. Our relationship was like a Band-Aid that begged to be ripped off, and yet, there I was with my head pressed into her spine, hands tucked between us, as if I needed her.

  “I hate you,” I whispered against her skin, feeling my words bounce against my face in every harsh breath. “I hate you for everything. When you ignore me. When you spend all our food money on your shitty liquor. When you bring disgusting pigs into our house. I hate you for never asking me about school. For never showing up. For embarrassing me. And I hate you right now.”

  The more I said aloud, the more I wanted to say, so I clamped my lips shut and screwed my eyes tight, trying to think of anything else. My dad. The house we once lived in. Nothing came to mind.

  9464317895338681.

  The stupid credit card number of that rich asshole filled up my brain, instead. I opened my eyes.

  “I have an ide
a, Momma.”

  * * *

  Funny how love could sometimes be a lifeline and a noose. I could’ve laughed at the stupidity of it—the girl who begged to be loved so much she’d up and sold her soul to the devil.

  I heaved again, my eyes squinting as the acids shot up into my sinuses.

  “’Sokay. Get that shit out of you.” That voice from earlier cut through my thoughts.

  At a soothing hand stroking my arm, I opened my eyes on a blurred form sitting alongside me. Through a shield of clear, jelly-like tears, I blinked to focus on it, trying to make out some familiar detail, practically begging for distraction from the slow-building pain spreading through my muscles that promised a world of misery.

  The blurry form moved about in my periphery, and I tried to follow its path, but another round of acids rumbled in my stomach. I turned over freely, weakly hoisting myself up on an elbow, while the burn shot up into my sinuses.

  My body flew up from the bed, the spinning of the room disorienting me, stirring the nausea in my gut. I tucked in my head, and as the warmth and tickle across my cheek was accompanied by the delicious masculine scent from before, hunger struck my belly with the sudden urge to lick and devour that intoxicating smell, quickly tamped down by cramps radiating down into the pit of my stomach.

  I tipped my head back, catching the black markings of his tattooed chest, and lifted my gaze higher, unable to make out the features of his face. “Please.” I needed another dose. Didn’t care if I had to take one every hour for the rest of my life, I just wanted the pain to end.

  “I promise I’ll make you feel better. Just sit tight, baby.”

  A lightness claimed my chest as I was lowered into warm waves of bliss. I had no awareness of where he’d taken me, only that I felt swaddled in heat, and the chill no longer stuck to my bones. Soft cotton trailed over my forehead, my eyes, my face, leaving behind a cool clean scent. Like citrus.