Indulgence

by Liz Crowe

  “I need to finish her back,” Clarence said. I could have hugged him for the interruption. “We’re not going to get anywhere right now. She needs rest.”

  Ross scowled at the doctor, then shoved his pants in his pockets and backed away. “We’ll talk later then.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” My eyes closed and I felt the bed flatten under me again, so they could roll me back to my side.

  *****

  I woke up stretched out on the couch back in Kirk’s apartment; I was half propped up against his chest, nestled between his legs.

  “Hey, Sugar,” Kirk whispered when I readjusted myself.

  I looked up, managing a small smile despite my swollen face. A pain poured deeper into my chest that the pain meds couldn’t touch, but I wasn’t ready to voice it. I didn’t even want to think it.

  There was a thud on the door and I froze.

  “It’s Miles,” the voice outside announced.

  “Come in,” Kirk yelled.

  I glanced back at Kirk as the lock snapped.

  “He’s holding on to all of the master keys until we get things sorted.” He kissed my forehead, putting my current concerns at ease.

  Miles entered with a case of beer and a small black box.

  “For you,” he handed the box to me. I squinted at first then opened it, discovering some kind of chocolate mousse cake. “According to what Alley tells me numerous times a month, chocolate fixes everything.”

  I felt Kirk’s chest shake as he chuckled. His fingers drifted through my hair.

  Then, Miles slid the case of beer across the table. “That’s for you. I figure she has pain pills so you’ll need something.”

  “Thanks, Miles,” Kirk said.

  I dipped my finger in the mousse and licked it off. “Yes, thank you, Sir.”

  Miles shook his head and disappeared into the kitchen while Kirk lifted forward so that I sat leaning half-sideways against the back of the couch. When Miles came back, he slid a spoon into the black container and dropped a bottle of water on the coffee table before taking a seat next to it. “Everything is taken care of—for now. Alan is with the others in lock up, but no one is really talking. He hacked into our system today and forced through an old feed, so they wouldn’t be caught on camera dragging her into the room downstairs. It’s also curious that he was the one on duty when Morton was passing drugs to the girls.”

  “A diversion,” Kirk said. “Just how deep does it go?”

  Miles cocked his head. “I wouldn’t count on being able to trust anyone outside of this room right now.”

  He leaned toward me and I closed my eyes, savoring a bite of the rich chocolate cake. “I don’t know anything but chocolate, Sir.”

  Miles chuckled and ripped open the beer case, handing one to Kirk, and taking one for himself.

  But I did know something else. I stabbed the cake with my spoon and twisted to face Kirk. I opened my mouth, then chickened out, biting my lip, but both men were already watching and waiting.

  “The black-haired guy who came down to tell you that Ross was coming back….”

  Kirk raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly.

  “He’s in on it, too.” I shuddered, pulling my knees closer to my chest. Every single movement hurt, especially my attempt at curling up into an unbreakable ball. Behind me, Kirk sat, pressing his body against me, holding me together before I had the opportunity to fall apart. “I don’t think I was supposed to be alive to tell you that.”

  Miles jumped up. “And what the hell were they planning on doing with a missing slave and her dead body?”

  “They’d already set her up,” Kirk growled. “Alan called us down and alerted us about the suspicious patron, who then gets caught with Kat. She tries to link Silver with it—”

  “And Silver had already tried to run.” Miles ran his hand over his short hair and paced around the couch. “If she disappeared it would have confirmed the suspicions that she was involved with the breech. And if you weren’t paranoid enough to have installed a damn alarm on your door… we wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”

  I looked back to Kirk and nearly dropped the cake onto the floor. Paranoid. I was thankful for his paranoia but if he was a mole like Gabe said, he was paranoid for good reason.

  Kirk raised his eyebrows briefly and rubbed my side. “We’ll have to round up Mitch, but with Gabe gone, and so many of the group getting busted, I think our best hope is that anyone else involved either gets wise enough to fall back in line or stupid enough to get caught.”

  Taking another bite of cake, I hoped to lose myself again.

  Miles shook his head and stood. “Ever wonder why we do all of this?”

  Kirk made a sound in his throat but didn’t really answer. “Are you thinking about getting out?”

  “Thinking like that would get me killed. Don’t get me wrong. I love playing with the girls, but I don’t like seeing them hurt.”

  I lifted my head, giving him a half-hearted smile.

  “I better get back downstairs and find out where our last little rat has run off to.” Miles took a swig of beer and squeezed my shoulder lightly before he left.

  After the door closed and locked, I twisted to see Kirk.

  “Enjoying your cake?” he asked.

  I nodded, taking another decadent bite. I wanted to ask him about what Gabe had said, but I was afraid I didn’t want to know the answer. I didn’t want to know the whole story. If he was a mole, who was he working for?

  There was already too much going on.

  Instead, I finished the last bit of cake and snuggled against his chest again. Fuck the rest of the world and everyone else in the building. I didn’t care who he was working for or why as long as I didn’t have to leave the couch.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Wall Behind the Truth

  I felt the heavy metal of the gun in my hand, so heavy I couldn’t lift it.

  I couldn’t remember why I even needed the gun then I heard footsteps behind me and spun around.

  “Gabe.” I shook my head. “You can’t be here.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because, I…” I looked down at the gun in my hand and raised it to his head.

  “You’ve already shot me,” he said, closing the gap between us.

  I took a step backward, the gun shaking in my hand. I felt a wall at my back, leaving me nowhere else to go.

  Silver, a voice in my head shouted, and I shook it off.

  “You’re just a piece of meat. Only difference between me and your snake of a Master is that I don’t muddle your role in the world.”

  The gun clattered to the floor and I pushed off the wall attempting to get past him. He grabbed my arm and I spun to the floor.

  Silver. I heard the voice again but couldn’t find anyone else in the room.

  I dragged myself across the floor on my back, as Gabe dived at me. Pulling my body under him and pinning me down with his knee. His hands ripped off my shirt, and warm drops of blood landed on my skin.

  Gabe’s forehead opened up, until blood poured onto my body. I screamed, trying to push him away. I covered my face with my hands trying to block the flow of blood, but I tasted it in my mouth and felt it in my eyes and nose. Rolling down into my ears.

  I was going to drown in his blood.

  “Rose”

  I sat up, gasping for breath on the couch in Kirk’s apartment. He sat behind me, his arm braced around me. He touched my face as I calmed.

  “Don’t call me that.” My voice cracked with emotion and abuse.

  “I’m sorry,” Kirk whispered. “You wouldn’t wake up.”

  “I know,” I tried to lean back or find a more comfortable position, but the slightest movement set everything ablaze again. “I’m pretty sure I could hear you.” I took a deep breath and let it all fall out—tears broke free, and I buried myself in Kirk’s chest and cried.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated. I heard it over and over through my sobs.

/>   “I shot him.”

  “No—”

  I jerked away and looked into his eyes. “I can tell your story, but I shot him. He was just standing there and I shot him.”

  “He deserved it.” Kirk brushed my hair back and leaned his forehead against mine, but whether or not he believed that, the ramifications of what I had done would be up to Ross.

  “Is that what everyone else thinks?”

  “Close enough.”

  “Why is Miles covering for me?”

  “Because he saw what happened. He saw what I saw when we busted in, and he understands. He said if it had been Alley, he’d have done the same thing.”

  Adrenaline and a wash of emotions shook my body, and I twisted to lean sideways against the back of the couch and face Kirk. “What are they going to do to you?”

  “Nothing,” he shook his head, “I’ll probably get the ass end of the stick for a while, but that’s it.”

  Even then, I didn’t like the thought of him taking the blame for something I had done. I had caused him enough trouble. “What if they knew it was me?”

  “If they did, you’d already be dead.”

  He handed me a glass of water and an oval white pill.

  “I get glass now?” I said, forcing a smile and hoping it’d lighten his mood a bit.

  The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’ve had the whole apartment twice. That included the glasses and knives, and everything else in the room.”

  At the moment we both started trusting one another, everything fell apart again. “I want a bath.”

  “It’s probably going to sting.”

  “I don’t care. I need it.”

  He nodded and slid his leg around me so he could stand. “Sit here while I run it.”

  Kirk returned a few minutes later and gently lifted me from the couch.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and inhaled his scent. Safe again.

  “I’m sorry, Silver,” he said again.

  “Stop apologizing. You saved me…” I paused. “You and your damn alarm. Still afraid I’d run?”

  “I didn’t put it on today.” He slowly lowered me into the tub. “But I’m glad I had it on today. Miles texted me right after he talked to you, so I could account for the first time the door opened. I called him the second time, but there was nothing on the monitors and you had already disappeared.”

  He guided me as I sank down into the warm water. The welts burned as they hit the water, but it soon receded to a tolerable level. “We got lucky,” he whispered, “By the time I got back, Miles had managed to narrow it down to the seventh floor since there’s a record of elevator stops.”

  “I promised to protect you,” he whispered. “I showed you the cameras; I said he couldn’t get to you.”

  My eyes became heavy again. “It’s not your fault. You still managed to find me.”

  “You did pretty well with your story to Ross,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Especially while drugged out on pain killers, eh?” My eyes fluttered closed and I struggled to open them again.

  “No sleeping in the tub,” Kirk said, but I felt him adjust me to make sure I couldn’t slip under the water.

  I took a breath and held it for a second as the drugs encouraged my curiosity and wore away at my worries. “What’s your real name?”

  Kirk stared back for a moment, “Why would you ask that?”

  “Just a feeling. You know, ‘which of these things doesn’t fit in?’ And since you didn’t just deny it, there must be something to it.”

  I heard him swallow then he took a long, slow breath. “James.”

  It was true. The room may as well have dropped to the ground floor. “I think I like James more than Kirk.”

  “Me, too.” His voice was low but thick with emotion. “Although sometimes, I don’t think I can remember who he is.”

  “You don’t have to remember, he’s just who you are when you’re not trying to be someone else.”

  “Apparently I’m not trying hard enough,” he brushed his fingers against my neck, “since you picked me out in a couple of weeks. You’re going to make me paranoid that everyone expects something.”

  “I live with you.” I took a deep breath and my chest shook. I didn’t want to tell him, but I had to. “Gabe knew.”

  His soft grasp on my body turned to stone.

  I swallowed, trying to find my voice and enough energy to explain. “He whispered it so only I could hear it. Said I was sleeping with the biggest mole, and if I didn’t do what he said, you’d be dead within an hour.”

  Kirk’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you shot him?”

  I nodded, “Not that he didn’t deserve it for a lot of reasons.” I wondered when the true reality of what I had done was going to kick in. I watched the bullet go through his head over and over in my mind, but I couldn’t find an ounce of sadness or regret.

  Survival. I needed Kirk to survive, and I needed Gabe to be gone. We both needed the rat to be gone.

  I tried to take a deep breath, but my chest decided not to cooperate, sending me into a coughing fit instead. I jerked forward, leaning against my knees as I tried to catch my breath.

  “That wasn’t just a lucky shot,” Kirk said.

  “I went to the shooting range with my dad a couple of times a month from the time I was eleven.” I sat there, curled up for a moment longer after I caught my breath. “Is anything you told me yesterday true?”

  “Most of it, in one way or another. I just rearranged and exaggerated my own life—easier to remember that way.”

  “How long have you been here?” I muttered, the weight of leaning my jaw against my knee muffling my words.

  “Too long,” he said.

  I lay back in the warm water again. I wanted more information, but my brain settled into a numb stupor and left me with nothing to ask, so neither of us talked. All I could hear was the sound of my own heart and our breathing.

  I startled as Kirk lifted me out of the tub.

  “Not done.” I protested.

  “The water is getting cold and you’re turning into a prune,” he said, propping me against the counter so he could dry me off.

  He was right about the water temperature, but it didn’t seem like I had even been in the tub that long. “I think these pain pills are heavy duty.”

  Kirk scoffed as he somehow managed to keep me propped up while running a towel through my hair, and dried me off. “I think you’re a light weight.”

  “Can I sleep in your bed?” My head bobbed forward.

  “Sleeping in the tub wasn’t good enough?”

  I laughed, and despite the fact that it hurt, it was the best feeling in the world. For that brief moment, I felt free.

  “Of course you can sleep in my bed, but I’m sleeping right next to you.”

  “I’m game for that.” It wasn’t as if that wasn’t how we had been sleeping for more than a week, but for some reason, I needed his affirmation.

  Kirk carried me back to the bedroom and tucked me into the bed before stripping off his wet clothes and crawling in next to me.

  “Do you still want me?”

  “Yes. Why would you ask that?”

  “I… you… no sharing.”

  He kissed my temple and tucked me against his chest. “You’re mine, Sugar. As long as you’re here, you are mine.”

  I still wanted more, why he was here, what he was doing, but my grasp on consciousness was becoming tenuous at best.

  *****

  I opened my eyes and Gabe stood over the foot of the bed. Bastard was harder to get rid of now that he was dead than he had been when he was alive. He just stood there, staring at me with the same look he’d had when I woke on the table in the basement.

  I reached for Kirk, but the bed was empty.

  “Make him go away,” I tried to scream, forcing the words out as hard as I could, but it barely came out as a whisper. “Kirk,” I tried again, but no sound.

  Gabe laughed.
“You’re pathetic. And weak. You thought you could fight us off, but all along you were like a baby squirrel in a cage of tigers.”

  “You’re not a fucking tiger,” I whispered. “You’re a sick asshat who has to prey on women because he’s too weak for anything else.”

  He grabbed me and pain shot through my chest. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t scream.

  Something touched my neck, rough but light. It wasn’t like the other men. It moved around my neck. I thought I was going to be strangled.

  Gabe’s eyes widened. “You’re pathetic.”

  The thing around my neck started down my chest. And I saw it, the head of a snake moving between my breasts, toward Gabe’s arms.

  Gabe let up and I drew in a deep breath. Oh god, I couldn’t make a sound. I didn’t know much about snakes, but I remembered one lesson—stay away if they have a triangular head. The snake coiled back, preparing to strike, but Gabe laughed—the same laugh I remembered just before the bang of the gun.

  The snake struck, nailing him right in the neck. Gabe grabbed the wound and jumped away, stumbling off the bed and into the wall.

  The snake slithered down my body, inch after terrifying inch.

  Gabe slumped and fell to a mass on the floor while the snake settled on my stomach.

  I awoke with a gasp but didn’t move.

  “Silver,” a voice whispered in my ear. I relaxed and fell into the calm place the voice offered. I tilted my head toward it. Then I glanced down and, seeing the snake-tattooed arm wrapped around my waist, I laughed.

  “You okay?”

  “Just a dream and a new appreciation for snakes.”

  I heard him grunt, but he didn’t question me. He simply kissed my temple and pulled me tighter into him. “How’s the pain?”

  “Tolerable.” My eyes drifted closed again, and I begged for the dreams to stay away.