A Kiss For You

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Are you afraid of me now, bitch?”

  “Stop! Don’t! I’m—” I croaked out, stopping just short of saying the words. Tanner’s eyes went wide. His chest heaved up and down. He didn’t blink. His mouth opened but no words came out. Then suddenly, it was as if he’d registered what I’d said, because he stood from the floor and kicked the side of the dresser, sending the baby monitor and the contents of Sammy’s diaper changing station crashing to the floor around my head.

  He crossed back over the room and stood above me, glaring so hard I could feel the heat of his stare. I flinched when he bent down, but he’d only picked up something from the floor.

  The phone King had given me. A wicked smile lit up his face. With a guttural roar, he lifted his boot.

  The last thing I saw was the heel.

  The last thing I felt was it connecting with my face.

  King

  “So, I’ve decided I’m not going to die,” Grace announced, handing me a beer. Ever since I brought her back home from the safe house, I’d noticed a change in her. She was moving with more ease. Her skin had some color back in it, the bags underneath her eyes were gone.

  “That’s just something you can decide now?” I asked, taking a swig of my beer and setting it back down on the table. Grace reached over and picked up the bottle, setting it onto the coaster she’d set out on the table for me, but I’d forgotten to use.

  I’m pretty sure that if you went back to my house and searched top to bottom, you wouldn’t find a single coaster.

  “Yes. It is.” Grace reached out and placed a hand on my forearm. “You have been through so much, my boy. I don’t want to put you through anything else. Besides, you kids need me. That much is obvious. So nope, I’m not dying. I’m staying put.”

  “What does your doctor say about your new life revelation?” I asked, taking another long pull of my beer. With Eli out of the way as a threat, and a date to bring my girl back home, I finally felt like I could let my guard down.

  “Oh, what does he know? I’m feeling great and that’s what I am going to focus on. Going back to him week after week, wasting hours of my life just to hear him tell me how much of it I have left? It’s absolutely useless. So I’ve decided I’m not going anywhere, and that’s that.”

  “Honestly,” I started, “if anyone can avoid meeting their maker just because they decided to live instead…I believe you can.” And it was the truth. Grace wasn’t just an old lady with too many ceramic rabbits. She was a force to be reckoned with and if she wanted to use that force to fight the boatman, then who was I to argue? “So, you won’t need me to bring you weed anymore?”

  “Now I didn’t say that,” Grace sang. “And I have to be around for a lot longer, especially now that my boy is going to have a kid running around. Grandma Grace has her spoiling hat on, and I’m warning you, once it’s on, it’s hard to get it back off.”

  “Kid’s got a dad, Grace. I’m just going to be his…” I paused. In my head I’d never put a title on what Doe and I were. She was just mine. So when faced with having to say it out loud, I faltered.

  “Step-dad type figure,” Grace offered. Her smile turned into a straight line. She picked at the label on her beer, focusing on the neck as she spoke. “I’m sorry about Max. I would have done anything for you, you know that. I would have adopted her myself if they would have let me.”

  I nodded. Before I’d left Doe last night, I’d told her that I’d signed off on Max’s adoption. I could fight it. But Max deserved a good home and not a battle that could keep her in foster care until she was eighteen. I just hoped that one day she would seek me out and let me explain that I did what I did, not because she was a burden, but because of the tremendous amount of love I had for her.

  “Or you can be his real step-dad if you decide to marry the girl,” Grace said.

  “Can’t marry her. She’s already married,” I reminded her.

  “Right now she is. But that will all be fixed. And if you’re half as smart as I think you are, you’ll figure out that being married isn’t just fodder for stand-up comics. If you two have even half of what Edmond and I had, you best snatch it up as quickly as you can. Hold on as tight and never ever let go.”

  “She’s a teenager, Grace.”

  Grace shook her head. “There ain’t nothing about that girl that’s a teenager except her age. She’s lived two lives already. I think you need to make sure that life number three has been worth the trouble.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “So when are you going to get her?” Grace asked eagerly.

  “Tonight,” I said, hiding the smile that threatened to take over my face. I can count the times I’d smiled in the last year and every single fucking one of those smiles were because of my girl.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket indicating a text message. I was going to ignore it, but then I remembered I’d given the number to Pup in case she needed me. I pulled it out of my pocket and glanced at the screen. I had a missed call from her. “Fuck,” I cursed. I hadn’t even felt it vibrate or heard it ring. Pup had also sent a text.

  Well, it was from her number.

  I clicked on the icon.

  What I saw made my heart drop and my blood boil.

  There on the screen was a broken, bloodied, and bruised version of my Pup. The hair that fell into her face was streaked with red. She was tied to a chair, her mouth wide open. Her jaw set to one side like it had been punched repeatedly. Her clothes were torn and hanging off her body.

  Then I noticed that the picture had a sideways triangle in the middle of it. “What the fuck is it?” I asked out loud. Grace came to stand at my side to see what it was that had me struck completely silent. I pressed the triangle, and the horrible scene I thought was just a picture played out in front of me in video form.

  Pup, being hit over and over again in the face with a man’s closed fist. She was screaming, crying, begging for the beating to stop. By the time the frame froze again, she was lifeless, but the blows continued. Delivered by a closed fist wearing a gaudy gold watch with a red diamond bezel.

  The senator.

  Another text came in, the icon appearing over the playing video.

  HOUSEBOAT 11pm

  ALONE

  UNARMED

  OR SHE DIES

  King

  The worst fucking feeling in the world is not being able to help the person you love. Hearing her cries of pain and seeing her bleeding and broken was enough to drive any sane man crazy.

  And I wasn’t exactly sane to begin with.

  I thought the senator might have wanted me dead, but I honestly never gave a thought to him hurting his own daughter. I’ve hurt people. And given the chance to be a father, I would see to it that harm never came to my daughter.

  I was hoping the senator operated under an honor amongst thieves set of rules, but apparently I underestimated his determination to ruin lives.

  I was going after her and I didn’t care if I died. I didn’t care if he shot a cannon at my head, but I was going to save Doe. And then, if I was still breathing, I was going to make sure that before I killed the senator, he suffered pain and fear like he never knew existed.

  A funny thing happens when you fear for the worst. Some people give in to their panic and freeze when a situation seems dire. Others, stay and fight, even if the situation is hopeless.

  The prison psychologist called it fight or flight response.

  I’m a motherfucking fighter.

  Always have been, from the playground to the prison yard.

  The message said to come alone, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need backup on standby. I looked down at my phone. Eight p.m. I had time and thank fucking God, because I would need every single second of it. I dialed Bear. No answer. I slammed my fist on the steering wheel and rested my forehead against it. Of course not. He’d been even more fucked up in the head since the shit with Eli went down. He was probably fucked up to no end and cock deep in Beach Bastard pu
ssy. I looked up from the wheel and staring me right in the face was a sign for the exit for Coral Pines.

  It was a sign, but I took it as a sign.

  Because there was only one person I knew in Coral Pines and he was exactly who I needed.

  I spun the tires in the wet grass. I barreled off the ramp and toward the only person I knew who could help in a moment’s notice.

  No, the only person who could kill in a moment’s notice.

  Jake Dunn was a killer for hire. Or at least he was before getting married and settling down. Only a few people in this world knew that about him. If he didn’t have the tattoos and the attitude, at first glance, you would think he’s just another clean-cut kid from the beach.

  Jake Dunn was the walking, talking equivalent to an angel of death.

  And the only reason I even knew about that part of his life was because we had a mutual acquaintance who put us in touch while I was in prison. The Dutchman called Jake, The Moordenaar. The Murderer.

  Subtle.

  When I pulled up to Jake’s little Mayberry house, I didn’t even have time to really take in the absurdity of Jake Dunn living in a house with little pink shutters and a swing set in the front yard.

  I leapt out of the truck and up the front steps, frantically knocking on the door. “Just a minute!” a woman’s voice called out. I knocked louder. “Just a freaking minute!” she yelled again.

  The door came flying open and the little redhead who appeared was about to say something, like she had assumed she knew who would be on the other end, until she looked up and her mouth closed.

  She never expected me. “I assume you’re not here to check on the status of your art work,” she said flatly, crossing her arms and leaning up against the door jam. She was wearing little jogging shorts and a clingy tank top that made the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra obvious.

  “I need Jake,” I said. I wanted to throw her aside and barge in to find him, but Abby was the only thing in the world Jake actually cared about, besides his daughter, so the chances of me doing that and still receiving his help, and not end up at the bottom of the swamp, were slim to none.

  “Yeah, I assumed as much. He’s out back.” She looked down at my muddy clothes. “Go around,” she said, pointing to the side of the house. I turned around but her words caught me. “You okay?”

  “No. I’m not okay at all. My girl’s in trouble,” I said honestly. I didn’t have time for mind games. I didn’t have time for anything. I only had until 11 p.m. to figure out how I was going to save my girl.

  “I’ll take you there,” Stepping out onto the front porch, Abby closed the screen door behind her and led me out back to where Jake was sitting on the seawall, a Corona by his side, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

  A pink Barbie fishing pole in his hands.

  “Babe, I’m getting her a real pole because this cheap piece of shit doesn’t even wind properly. I know she likes it because it’s pink, but Jesus fucking Christ, this thing couldn’t reel in a minnow.”

  “Jake,” she interrupted and he looked up from what he was doing and spotted me approaching. “He needs your help.”

  Jake took a swig of his beer and set down the pole.

  “Press play,” I said, tossing him the phone.

  Abby went to stand next to him and while they watched, neither of them said a thing. While Abby looked horrified, Jake didn’t even react, while hearing it again made another piece of me feel like it died.

  “What you need is a soldier. I’m not exactly the soldiering kind,” Jake said.

  “If I get her back, and the motherfucker is somehow still alive when it’s all said and done, you can have him. Do whatever the fuck you want to him as long as the result is the same—him no longer breathing.”

  Jake wrinkled his nose. “Nah man. Can’t take that from you. Revenge shit like this makes your blood boil and your dick hard all at the same time.”

  Jake tossed me my phone and I scrolled through the pictures, stopping at the one I’d taken just that morning. I’d taken it for my own sick pleasure, not realizing how it could come in handy. I held up the phone, showing him the screen. “You can also have this,” I said.

  “Jake,” Abby said, nudging him with her thigh. Jake’s eyes were glued to the screen, his pupils as big as saucers. “Jake,” she said again, pushing against him harder.

  Jake looked up at her then back to me. “Okay. I’ll do it. Especially because my girl is looking at me like I won’t get any this century if I don’t. And since I’m trying my fucking damnedest to knock her up again…” Jake put a hand on Abby’s back and smiled up at her. There was no mistaking the connection between the two of them, and for a guy who took lives for pleasure, there was a reverence in the way he looked at her.

  Like he worshipped her.

  Jake took his eyes away from his wife, and when he looked back up at me, I swore I saw his eyes turn from blue to black. His voice was even slightly deeper. More even toned. “You got yourself a soldier,” he said, blowing smoke out through his nose into the night air like a fire breathing dragon.

  “I’ll get your jacket,” Abby said, jogging back up to the house. Jake followed her with his eyes until she disappeared behind the sliding glass doors.

  “Your girl?” Jake asked, handing me back my phone, the video of Doe paused close up on her face. “She anything like that?” He pointed to where Abby had just disappeared behind the sliding glass doors.

  “Like what?”

  “She better than you, but for some stupid reason doesn’t get that?”

  “Sounds about right,” I said.

  Jake tossed his cigarette into a pink bucket marked DADDY PUT YOUR NASTY CIGAMETTES IN HEERE SO YOUS DON’T KILL THE MAN TEES. “Just take my suggestion and when all this shit is over, and she comes out with a heart that still beats, and lungs that still pull air into them, make that shit legal. Marry her. Knock her up. Anything you can do to selfishly tie yourself to her for life.”

  Abby came back out and handed Jake his leather jacket. “Keys are in the pocket,” she said. Jake stepped toward her and grabbed the back of her neck, pressing his forehead against hers. “Check on Gee. Tell her that her daddy won’t be gone long.” He touched the pendant on some sort of necklace she was wearing, and Abby covered his hand with her own. After a minute, they pulled apart and Jake shrugged on his jacket, leading the way back toward the front of the house.

  “I’ve got my truck,” I said as we reached the driveway.

  “Message said you best be there by eleven tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jake shook his head. “I’m gonna grab my bike. Ride around for a bit. Clear my mind on the ride.”

  “I’m gonna head to the clubhouse, see if Bear’s around. I can’t get him on his damn phone. Meet you at my place in an hour,” I said, turning toward my truck.

  Jake lit a cigarette. He straddled his bike and turned the key, the engine roaring to life. With a quick tip of his chin to me, he rode off down the shell driveway and onto the road, kicking up white dust into the black night air as he sped down the road.

  I looked at my phone.

  Nine p.m.

  Two hours.

  Two hours until I would see my girl again.

  Dead or alive.

  King

  I pulled up to the clubhouse and the skinny prospect manning the gate, a little shit they called Thor, stood from his ripped bar stool to slide open the gate. I drove in and parked next to Bear’s bike, leaving the keys in the ignition and the door wide open. I jumped from the passenger seat and headed to the courtyard.

  “King!” Thor called from behind me. When I turned around, the skinny kid from the gate was running toward me. “Stop!” he shouted, coming to a breathless halt in front of me, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. He held up his index finger.

  “I ain’t got time for you to learn how to breathe again, kid. What the fuck do you want?” I asked him harshly.

  “I
forgot. I ain’t supposed to let you in here no more. You can’t be here,” Thor said.

  “Who the fuck told you that?”

  “Prez. He said you ain’t one of us so you can’t be coming round here no more, and I smoked a joint and I got fucked up and I totally fucked up. He’s gonna fucking kill me.”

  “What the fuck does your VP think of that order?” I asked, crossing my arms across my chest. The kid’s eyes went wide as I stared him down.

  “Don’t know, man. He’s been holed up in his room, rotating the BBBs in and out. He doesn’t come out except to grab another bottle and buy blow from Wolf. Won’t talk to no one neither. But seriously, you got to leave. Prez is going to kill me, and worse than that, I’ll never get my patch!”

  “What are you afraid of more? Him killing you? Or not getting your patch?”

  “Patch, ’course,” Thor scoffed, scrunching his nose.

  “Stupid little shit,” I muttered, heading toward Bear’s room.

  “Seriously man, if you don’t turn around, I got to shoot you or they’ll shoot me.”

  “So fucking shoot me!” I called back over my shoulder.

  “Fuck man!” he groaned. “Just don’t be long. And don’t let no one see you! FUCK!”

  The Lynyrd Skynyrd blasting from inside of Bear’s room changed to Johnny Cash, and in the millisecond of silence between songs, I heard a slight commotion inside, like furniture scraping against the floor. I pounded my fist on the door. “Bear, get your fucking ass out here.” Looking around I didn’t spot anyone but a few of the BBBs on the balcony across the courtyard who winked and crooked their fingers at me. I pounded again. When he still didn’t come to the door, I walked over to the end of the hall to the old elevator shaft, which no longer housed an elevator, and pulled at the crumbling knee wall in front of it until I found a piece of concrete that was big enough to accomplish what I needed. I walked back over to Bear’s room, pulled my arm back, and launched the block through Bear’s window.