East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) (26 page)

Stinky-Breath stood ahead of me, looking all
tough and fucking macho. That's when I thought I remembered him.
That guy standing outside The Ritz when Conall and I had visited
Alexandra. But, even today, I can't be sure it was him. The mind
plays tricks when pain is involved...

How long had they been planning this? Since
Conall had done whatever was done to that Mob-Boss that had Alex?
Since I'd arrived in the UK? Since Conall and I saw each other for
the first time here in England?

Again the pain seared
through me. Again I almost passed out. And, again, I didn't. I spat
at that fucker. There was blood in my saliva. Of course there
was,
because you fucking broke my ribs,
you twat!

He wiped the bloody spit off his face. He
looked at it in his hand now, pointed at me, and said, "You going
to fucking pay for zhat, you fucking bi — "

"Hey, dickhead."

Who is that? I know that voice. Where do I
know that voice from?

Burly Macho dude turned. He really was an
ugly fuck.

The rest happened so fast:

My attacker had a gun behind his back, in
his belt. He reached for it. But it was hardly out when I heard the
gunshot — not from his gun, someone else's! — and saw the back of
Dirty Fucking Scumbag's head pop with redness and blood and squishy
shit all over the room and floor!

I screamed.

(Yes, I'd been held down by four men, one
ready to do his shit with me, but I only screamed after someone had
put a cap in this bozo's head and saved me. Go figure.)

That fucker fell, a sack of potatoes,
backwards. Before he hit the ground, his dull head thwacked the
table on which I was lying, right between my legs, spattering some
blood onto my knees!

I looked up. I was looking at an angel, a
real angel. All motion stopped, and only later did I realize that
this was the sensation of waterfalls of relief pouring over me.

It was the old man
from
Smokey's
!
Still in his denim jacket and tweed flat-cap. The one who'd told me
to take care of Conall...

A gun smoked in his hand
and he looked at me with all the care in the world. Then, slowly,
carefully, and fucking
badass
as hell, he aimed it up at that first ass-wipe on
my right. The one holding my right ankle... (The ankle with those
god-awful panties dangling from them.)

"You know I'll fucking pop you if you don't
let her go," said the old man. The dude let me go, put his hands
up.

But Clint Eastwood here popped him anyway,
in the kneecap!

"Sorry, I lied."

Then all hell broke loose:

The other men went fucking wild. They
charged for the old man, but they didn't get to him. Then there was
Trey! Thwack! A crowbar! Bam! To the head! One guy down! Trey
pummeled that fucker so hard that I'm sure I saw brains on the
wall. "Doing OK, Leora?" I heard him say as he beat the shit out of
one of the dudes.

Doing OK? Huh?

I crawled back, fell off
the table and landed on my ass and kept crawling. More guys jumped
in. The dude I'd seen outside the gym. Then Smokey! Fuck me, even
the guy who'd called Conall "bup" was here! The one with the
spiderweb tattoos on his neck —
Keith?

There were cricket bats, crowbars, so much
swinging, people groaning. More gunshots! I blocked my ears and
screamed in fear.

I craned my neck around the table. I saw one
of the fucker's faces before something cracked his head. More men
came in — bad men! How many of these dudes were there!?

But we were winning! Trey
was such a monster, Kung-Fu King or some shit. And that "Spiderweb
bup Keith" guy was smiling as he held one loser up against the wall
and beat the crap out of the guy's abs.
Yeah. Break your own fucking ribs you asshole!
The dude bled from his mouth, then dropped like so
much lead.

And I felt — goddamn it — I
felt fucking
good
about it!

My mind drifted. Suddenly it all hit me. Now
that the threat was dying — As World War III broke out around me, I
fell back against this little corner of the room I'd found and I
started to shiver. And I was, for the first time since they'd taken
me, totally and utterly...afraid.

Where are you, Conall?

That's when the hands
scooped me up. His hands. Conall's arms lifted me like a forklift
and he walked me out of there. Men being absolutely
plastered
on either side
of us. We eased out of there like something out of a
Die Hard
movie.

Get the fuck out the way you pricks. My
knight is here!

I buried my head into his
chest as Trey and Smokey and all the guys who I would, from that
point on, call my brothers forevermore, paneled the living bejeezus
out of these...
horrible
, despicable,
pieces of
shit
.

Good
, I thought.
Good.

It wasn't over.

Conall put me in the back of a car, covered
me in warm, fleecy blankets. Doctor Gehrig was there.

Conall's voice: "Leora... Leora, can you
hear me?" He slapped me lightly on my cheek. "Leora, baby, can you
hear me?"

No, I couldn't, not really.
It all hit, it had all hit at once, the pain, the warehouse, what
might have happened. What
had
happened, actually? The world spun, lights filled
my eyes like drunken fireflies.

"Leora, Doctor Gehrig will take care of you,
OK? I will be back."

He would be back?

And then he was
gone.
No! Conall!

I caught his figure in the distance, walking
back into the warehouse. Swaggering. Fists clenched.

My eyes closed...

An explosion woke me up again! How long had
I been out? A conflagration of flames towered above the once-upon
warehouse, and Conall was now walking toward me, away from the
flames. Blood on his brow, sweat covering his face, blood on his
knuckles, the fire back-lighting his magnificent body as he got
closer.

I couldn't hear very well. Shock?

All the men were there now, just outside the
car. The men who'd saved me. Little ol' me. One of them lit a
smoke, another held a cricket bat to his shoulder with a smile. The
old man — Clint Eastwood! — shook Conall's hand. There were lots of
nods.

"OK, get the fuck out of here now. I'll take
care of the rest," said Trey. "Conall, leave!" Trey hugged him. No,
none of that manly shit, a real fucking hug!

"Go!" said Trey. He pointed forcefully to
the car, then looked around to see if anyone was there. I saw him
get on his phone, but the door closed before I could hear
anything.

When Conall got back in the car with me I
looked at his eyes.

That was the first time —
the
only
time —
I've ever seen him cry.

"I thought I'd lost you," he said, grabbing
my hand, tears welling up in his eyes. One of the tears broke
loose. Just one.

"Me, too," I said.

"Did
you...
kill
those
men?" I remember asking Conall.

"No," he said, "the fire did it."

Conall was by the window when I woke up in
the hospital. When had I passed out?

He rushed over to me, fear and hatred
burning behind his eyes. He clutched my hand and sat next to me on
a small stool. "How are you?" he asked.

How was I? Damn it, I hadn't even thought of
that. I was just glad to be alive, and glad to see him, and glad to
be in a bed...

But his question made me
think of it. And then my head hurt, and my ribs, and —
oh God
— my arm felt like
it was ready to fall off. "I've been better," I said. I felt a lump
in my throat as I'd said it. My eye felt a bit swollen as
well.

I looked away.

"Did they...?" I couldn't finish it, but my
look gave it away. I really couldn't remember.

"No. No. We got there in time. They only had
you for a few hours."

"A few
hours
?" The abrupt question made me
cough. "God, and I feel nauseous."

"That's just the painkillers. It could've
been..."

"What, worse?"

"Sorry, it's callous to say that."

"No, no...you're right." I thought back, the
memories too vivid for me to remain comfortable. "It could've been.
But you got there in time."

I touched his hand. He pulled it away...

He got up, forcefully, looked out the
window.

Uh-oh, here it comes.

"Have you figured out why they took you?" he
asked.

"Not fully, but I can imagine. They said
something about contacting you so, I guess, ransom of some
sort?"

He turned to me, thoughts raging...

"Not some sort.
Exactly
the sort. You
know, if they'd... Even if one drop of blood had fallen on your
lips or even on your... You'd have been on antiretrovirals for a
month, puking your lungs out — "

"Conall, please." I put my hand up,
coughed.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just..."

I could see it. I could practically hear
it:

They took you because of me. It's my fault.
We need to be apart.

"
Don't
say it!" I said, preempting.
Damn, it hurt my neck to put so much force into my words!
"
Don't
tell me
we're better off apart. OK? Just...
don't!
"

He shook his head, turned back to the
window. "Whether I say it or not won't change the truth of it, will
it?"

The room spun. My bed crashed. "Conall, I
won't say that nothing those bastards could've done would've been
worse than not being with you. Because — "

A flashback hit me:

...if Mr. Villiams does not reply to our
demands, vell, maybe ve vill have some fun vith you...

I shook my head, tried to
focus. "It
would
have been worse. If those guys had had their way with me, yes,
I don't think I would've taken that shit as well as Alex has. But
it
didn't
happen.
That's what's important — "

"No, it's not!" His voice was heavy, angry.
It was the first time he'd raised his voice to me... "Leora, I'm
sorry," he said, gentler now. But the conversation would have to
wait...

"Oh my fucking God!" cried Kayla. She ran
into the room, quickly followed by Alex and, shit, even Dani was
here! Kayla hugged me, and, holy cow, that friggin hurt when she
did it.

"Oh, sorry! Are you in pain?" she asked.

I had to laugh at the
statement, and even
that
hurt!

"What happened?"

"My God!"

"And how did you get out?"

"And — "

The girls all spoke at once. Their words
were like random tennis shots and, oddly, made me smile. Until I
noticed that Conall had walked out. And he wasn't by the
window.

The girls kept talking, but I wasn't
listening anymore. All I could hear was Trey's voice inside my
head:

Conall talks with his fists when he's
worried.

"Love?" said Dani. The other girls had gone
out for some coffee, and Dani, mysteriously, had chosen to stay
behind. "Look, just so you don't find out later..."

Oh, fuck, here it
comes...
"Dani, I
know
already. I figured it
out."

"Huh?"

"So you slept with Dorian, it's fine. I
figured you would."

She looked disgusted. "Huh?"

"Didn't you?"

"Of course not! He's yours! Well, was, but
anyway, I wouldn't. I told you I wouldn't!"

"Damn it, I'm sorry, it's just that, when
you called me and asked me all those questions..."

"Yeah, um, well, two things — "

"Dani, am I gonna feel worse than I do
already after you tell me?"

"Well, no. I thought you might, but seeing
as you thought it would be OK if I slept with Dorian then you
probably wouldn't mind that Jackie did."

"Who?"

"You know, the girl who's been covering for
us all the time?"

"Oh, right! Ew, isn't she like sixteen or
something?"

"Well, that's legal shagging age in this
country."

I tried to shake my head, but I couldn't.
"Yeah, but she looks fifteen, at a stretch. Urgh, that's
disgusting."

"Right, well, Dorian had
been hitting on me, like, a
lot
, and I knew Jackie was into him
so, I checked with you. I confess, it had been a ploy to get him
off my back and onto hers. So I told her she should go for him when
I found out you and Mr. Dreamy had sorted things out."

I laughed. Yip, you guessed
it,
hurt
!

"I can't believe I let that guy touch me," I
said.

"Yeah, well..." Her mind drifted. "Let's
just say I've done worse. Much worse. Like, bottom of the barrel
and into the cellar, worse.

"Anyway, the second thing?" I said.

"Oh brother."

"Yes?"

"Troy and I are dating, just FYI."

My jaw dropped. I stared at her.

"Leora?"

"Um, right, you said Troy, right?"

"Yes..." She blushed.

And,
damn it
, I laughed! Thank goodness
she laughed as well! "I know, I know... Anyway, he's cool. I like
him. He's
so
far
from my usual type of guy but...he makes me feel different." She
gave a wistful (and a little embarrassed) smile.