Beyond Addiction (6 page)

The main structure was several stories tall and made of wood, wide boards cut from what must have been huge trees. A generous porch wrapped around both sides that Trix could see, and the glass-paned double doors sat open.

Two men dressed in denim and leather stood by the doors, smoking. One nodded to Finn. “Little early, aren’t you?”

“Situation’s changed.” Finn’s voice stayed relaxed, but his fingers tightened around hers. “I need to call in that favor.”

The man brushed his dark blond hair out of his face and studied Trix. On the surface, it was a lazy perusal, slow and indifferent, but his gaze was sharp, and she knew he missed nothing.

Finn tensed as Alya reached over to pluck the cigarette from Shipp’s fingers. She took a hit, exhaled toward the porch ceiling, and crushed it out into an ashtray. “Hawk,” she said, nodding to the second man. “Head over and get things started. We’ve got business.”

“You got it.” He lumbered off into the darkness, but not before Trix got a good look at the giant handgun strapped to his hip. It looked like a cannon, for Christ’s sake.

Whoever Finn’s friends were, they were deadly.

Shipp tilted his head toward the open door of the cabin. “You hungry?” he asked Finn.

Finn exhaled slowly and relaxed, as if the offer had answered a silent question. “We could use a decent meal.”

“We’ve got leftover stew. Some bread and cheese.” Alya waved them into the cabin after her. “You both look like you could use a drink.”

“Just water, please.” The last thing Trix wanted was to feel groggy again, out of control.

Shipp took the chair at the head of the long table. “Introduce me to your friend, Finn.”

Finn hauled out a chair and held it while Trix sat. “Shipp, meet Trix. I knew her back in the day, but for the last few years she’s been running in Sector Four. With Dallas O’Kane.”

“Is that what those are?” He nodded to the ink peeking above the tops of the bandages on her wrists. “His cuffs?”

Trix fought the urge to hide her hands in her lap. “Yes.”

He grunted in response.

Alya brought a pitcher of water to the table and set it down beside two glasses. “If you’re waiting for us to fill in the blanks, honey, we’ll all be here a while. You know we don’t hear shit out here. No vid network, no wireless.”

Finn rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“Probably not. As I recall, that was a damn big favor.”

“I know.” Finn met Shipp’s gaze. “I need to get word to Four, let them know she’s here. And we need a safe place to stay until they can come and get her.”

Shipp’s jaw clenched. “Who’s after you?”

“Most of Five.”

“Must have really pissed off your boss this time.”

Finn snorted. “Something like that.”

Alya thumped a bowl of stew down in front of Finn so hard that a little slopped over the edges. Then she slid a second one in front of Trix. “How do you expect us to send a message? I just told you, we don’t have access to the network.”

“You could send someone.”

Shipp laughed. “You make it sound easy. Maybe you forget that it isn’t, not for everyone.”

Finn pressed his lips together, one big hand clenching his spoon until Trix thought she saw it bend. “Not easy, but you could do it. All they have to do is get to Four, and O’Kane will come get her. I know he will.”

Shipp reached for the glass in front of him, but instead of filling it from the nearly empty bottle of O’Kane whiskey at his elbow, he spun it around on the table. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Tense silence. Finn slanted Trix a look, but jerked his gaze away the moment her eyes clashed with his. “Mac Fleming was trying to start a sector war between Four and Five. Kidnapping her was part of it. I put him down.”

“Put him...” Shipp blinked. “You fucking
killed
him?”

“Shit got complicated.”

“No kidding.”

Alya sank into the chair next to Trix. “They’ll do this all night, you know. Dance around what happened one sentence at a time. Finn’s drugs are more affordable than his words.”

“We don’t have to dance around what happened,” Shipp said lazily, with no trace of humor to match his light tone. “Our buddy Finn killed a sector leader and came here. But what’s done is done.”

“What’s done is done,” Alya agreed. “I won’t turn you away from the farm, but you’ll have to let Shipp decide when it’s safe to send a messenger.”

Shipp rubbed his chin and sighed. “Tomorrow’s soon enough. We’ll have to spend tonight on guard, just in case.”

A muscle in Finn’s cheek clenched as he finally looked at Trix. “Is that okay?”

As if her input mattered to Shipp and Alya—but at least it did to him. She smiled gently, grateful for the chance to pretend, if only for a moment, that her answer carried weight. “It’s more than generous. And I’m sure Dallas will show his gratitude.”

“I wouldn’t mind a little.” Alya leaned across the table to snag the whiskey bottle. “You wouldn’t believe what we have to pay for a bottle of this stuff.”

Dallas’s appreciation went far beyond free liquor. “He’ll take care of you.”

“And we’ll take care of you.” Alya rose and circled the table, brushing her fingers along the back of Shipp’s neck. A casual touch, soothing, the kind Trix had seen Lex give Dallas a hundred times. “I’m going to start the water heater. Trix, love, when you’re done eating, follow the hallway to the stairs. I’ll have a bath and a med kit waiting.”

“Thank you.” She avoided Shipp’s gaze as she picked up her spoon.

He had danced around things, all right—like the fact that harboring them, even overnight, was dangerous. It was impossible to know how far Beckett would go to catch Finn or recover her, but they had to assume the worst—that he’d tear apart the sectors, not to mention anyone who got in his way.

Finn didn’t blame Trix for rushing through her meal. Shipp looked perfectly amiable, sprawled in his chair—but she had spent her life around dangerous men. She wouldn’t miss the tension in Shipp’s eyes.

It didn’t explode until she’d vanished down the hall. They both listened to the old wooden stairs creak gently as she climbed, and Shipp lit another cigarette as the sound receded.

Then he swore viciously. “You put me in one hell of a goddamn spot here, Finn.”

“I know.” He reached for the empty glass by Shipp’s elbow and poured himself a generous helping of whiskey. “I’m sorry, man. I am. If I’d had any other option—”

“Forget Fleming’s men,” he interrupted. “Or Beckett’s, or whoever the fuck took over. The other sector leaders could want your head.”

It was true enough. For the first time in forever, the thought of dying stirred a twinge of regret. He’d been barreling toward death for so long, it was hard to believe he could still have a reason to live. But there she was, upstairs in a bathtub, trusting him to get her through this.

“My head, yeah.” He knocked his glass against the whiskey bottle. “If it comes to that, they can have it. But if you keep Trix safe, O’Kane’ll keep you safe. Believe me, Shipp. That man has more pull with the other sectors than anyone else.”

“If you’re so ready to die—if you’re not after that pull yourself—then what are you doing with Ginger up there?”

“You know that favor you owe me?”

“No need to be delicate,” Shipp shot back. “You saved my life. I remember.”

It hadn’t been a big deal—for Finn. He’d been cold already, still grieving the loss of Tracy. But he’d been in the wrong place at the right time, and so fucking tired of watching good people die. “Yeah, well, I didn’t save hers.”

“Did you take a whack to the head? Because you...” Shipp trailed off, his confused expression easing as realization dawned. “That’s her.”

Finn drank his shot. Then he poured another and drank that, too. The physical burn helped to distract him from the one in his chest, the rising tangle of grief and rage he still couldn’t face dead on, because it was fresh again. Raw.

He hadn’t saved Trix’s life. She’d saved her own. “Fleming gave her enough of the good stuff to OD a half-dozen times over. He did it to trap her. To take her from me, because he didn’t like me having anything beautiful in my life.”

Shipp muttered another curse, this time under his breath. “That’s a lot of history. Lot of baggage.”

“That’s a lot of debt,” Finn corrected. But it was his, not Shipp’s, so he sighed as he poured a third shot. “No one inside Five has any reason to look in this direction, unless one of your clients admits who sells him his illegal stims. I wouldn’t bring danger down on you and Alya.”

“Someone always talks.”

“Only if someone asks the right questions. Last I saw, they were all waiting for us to make a dash for O’Kane’s territory.”

Shipp nodded and took a long drag off his cigarette. “What’s your plan?”

He only had one—the one that would redeem and break him at the same time. “Get her home.”

“
After
that, big guy.”

That was the question, wasn’t it? If there could be an
after
in a world where Trix was alive but he wasn’t welcome in the home she couldn’t—and shouldn’t—leave. “Fuck if I know.”

“Fair enough.” Shipp shoved the nearly empty bottle of whiskey at him. “Does she know you don’t know?”

He’d already had enough liquor to fuzz his nerves, but he dumped the rest of the amber liquid into his glass anyway. “We’ve been running for our damn lives. Not a lot of time for chats about our hopes and dreams.”

“Doesn’t take long to say, ‘Don’t make big eyes at me, honey, I’m kinda planning on dying,’ does it?”

No time at all. The real killer was all the time they would waste arguing about it afterwards—time she’d spend distracted from the goal of getting her ass safely home. “You’re an asshole, you know that?”

Shipp laughed. “Of course I am. If I was a nice guy, you wouldn’t come around anymore.”

“Doesn’t explain why Alya puts up with you.”

“She loves me. That makes up for damn near anything.”

Oh, that was a dangerous fucking thought. Like waving a prime cut of steak under the nose of a starving dog. “Now you’re just bragging.”

Shipp sobered, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “Shit, Finn. It’s no kind of life to live, not knowing how true that is.”

That summed up his existence: no kind of life. Even those few, bright years when Trix had painted his dull world in colors had been a kind of torture. He’d never been good for her, and the more she shined, the more he’d hated himself for hurting her.

He finished the whiskey and stared at Shipp over the edge of the glass. “Anyone who finds love in the sectors is beating the odds. Count yourself lucky.”

“Is that really what you think?”

Christ, Shipp would get along with Dallas. He even sounded like an O’Kane—high on pixie dust and fairy tales. You could point out all day long that life was a shithole full of shit people who’d step on your face to get out of the muck, and those bastards kept on grinning like the world was made of rainbows.

“Maybe it’s not as bad here as it was in Five,” Finn said. “But don’t tell me you haven’t seen ugly things out there. The world hasn’t been a decent place since the lights went out, and you’re not old enough to remember that.”

“No,” Shipp conceded, “but Alya does. You get her waxed up on a little of O’Kane’s finest, and she’ll tell you the truth—the real truth.” He leaned forward. “The lights went out, but they also came on. The ugly shit isn’t new, Finn, just out in the open now. That’s better, don’t you think?”

He almost disagreed before he remembered Logan Beckett. Sleek. Civilized. Evil wrapped in the illusion of decency, and a far greater threat than Mac had been even at his craziest. Because Mac couldn’t hide the rage seething beneath his skin.

Beckett could. And if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t see him coming.

“You’re right,” Finn said. “This makes it easier to know what you’re up against, at least.”

Shipp grunted and nodded as he finished his cigarette. “I thought of a reason you should make a plan. I managed to get my hands on that car you wanted, but it’s basically a shell. Needs a lot of work. You might want to consider coming back and making that happen.”

It felt like a hundred years had passed since the afternoon he’d spent under the hood of one of Shipp’s latest restorations. Helping the other man put the final touches on the newly rebuilt engine had been the first good feeling since Trix slipped from his life. A few hours where he’d been building something instead of smashing it into pieces.

The lingering satisfaction had faded almost as soon as he crossed the border back into Five. More of Fleming’s messes to clean up. More lives to ruin, people to kill. Destruction was in his blood. He was good at it. On his worst days, he liked it.

The idea of having a car of his own had been a stupid fantasy, but Shipp’s words weren’t about the car, not really. They were a peace offering. A rope thrown to a drowning man. Whatever went down with Dallas O’Kane, Finn had someplace to go. People who would welcome him. All he had to do was turn his back on the mess he’d made and let it be someone else’s problem.

Not so hard. He’d been doing it all his life. “Maybe we can take a look at that car tomorrow.”

“It’ll give us something to do while the boys make their run out to Four.” Shipp reached under the table and came up with a new, unopened bottle of whiskey. “Tonight? We drink.”