Keeping Allie (Breaking Away #3) (6 page)

I’ll take
boring
any day over this.

But I want to keep my mom.

“Allie! Get with it!” Chase snaps. He gives me a gentle nudge and grabs a hairbrush, thrusting it in Mom’s hand. “You need to comb her hair and get her ready, Jackie.”

“Her name is Helen,” I say through gritted teeth. 

Chase’s head jerks back. He frowns. “Oh. Yeah. Helen.”

“Jackie. Helen. Mom. Bitch. Whatever. Call me anything as long as you get Allie out of here safe,” Mom pleads.

Chase reaches for me. I flinch. There isn’t an inch of skin on my body that isn’t scratched, scraped, torn open or bruised. But that’s not why I react like that.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a ragged voice. “Truly, madly, deeply sorry. I couldn’t keep you out of this mess, so I followed you into it. I left L.A. because Frenchie sent me a text that said if I didn’t deliver you, he would. I came back to try to find some other way.”

His eyes flash with anger. “And I failed.”

The touch of his hands on my shoulders feels like I’m transported to a better time. His palms are hard and hot. He’s practically vibrating with tension.

“You won’t fail.”

“I already did.”

“You only fail if you don’t love me.”

He looks at me for what feels like forever, then says, “I can’t kiss you. Just know that I want to.”

And he runs out of the room, boots clacking on the tile like a metronome.

Chapter Eight

“Honey, honey, it’ll be okay,” Mom says in a soothing voice as she combs my hair. The comb yanks my head back. Her hands are shaking. “Sorry,” she adds. 

“It’s fine. You need to make me pretty for El Brujo,” I say, hysteria bubbling up. I look at myself in the tiny mirror on the vanity. I’m sitting in a metal chair with what looks like a needlepoint cushion for the seat. The chair is iron, bent into curls. So is the desk. It’s ornate and beautiful, like something from two hundred years ago. There are perfume bottles and makeup all over the top.

“Hush,” Mom insists. “We’ll get you out of this. I’m doing what your boyfriend says right now, but if he can’t help, I’ll go to Loogie.”

“Loogie,” I say. His name feels weird in my mouth. “Is he...are you...”

A long sigh escapes from her. The corners of her mouth turn down. She looks like Marissa. “Loogie’s my old man.”

“You fell in love with him?” My heart can’t stop squeezing in my chest every ten seconds or so. It’s like it has to remind me I should be terrified. That El Brujo is coming. That Frenchie and Chase have to deliver me to be destroyed.

Like something out of an old Greek mythology movie. Like I’m about to be tied to a stand and devoured by a sea monster.

“I did, Allie. God help me, I fell in love with him.” Her eyes soften as they catch mine in the mirror. I can’t stop looking at her. Her hands are on my shoulders and she gives me a squeeze. 

“Did you ever love Jeff?” I ask.

Her face hardens. “That sonofabitch.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no.’”

Her bitter laugh makes me feel so confused. “I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. And then he started dealing.”

“You knew about that?” Mom gently moves me so I face her. She starts putting powder on my skin. I wince as she hits a long gash on my cheekbone. She winces, too.

“I did.” Her long, weary sigh makes me wonder how much I don’t know.

“And?”

“And he swore he’d stop. The bar was losing money and he needed to make some extra. Jeff wasn’t doing meth, just dealing it, blah blah blah,” Mom explains. She gives me a sharp look. “Was he ever mean to you?”

“Well...”

“Allie! Did he ever...was he....”

“No.” I pull my arm out of her grasp. “Of course not, Mom.” My voice comes out nastier than I want it to. “Remember? He was saving me for El Brujo.”

She goes white as a sheet.

“That rat bastard. He traded you, too.” 

I catch her eyes. She’s inches from me, applying blusher now. “Is that what happened to you?” I ask. 

She’s suddenly as nervous as a jackrabbit. Her hand shakes. She avoids my eyes. It’s hard to do that when you’re four inches from someone’s face.

“Yes. Jeff traded me to El Brujo to pay off a bad drug deal.”

My hands start to shake, too.

“Jesus, Mom. And he faked your death?”

She swallows, then takes a determined breath in. “Yes.”

“Why? Why didn’t you run away, or tell the police or—”

“Because he said El Brujo would come get me anyway, and kill my daughters. Or do worse things to you and Marissa than kill you.” She settles her hands on my shoulders so gently her fingers feel like feathers. 

All my questions die in my throat.

“But,” she says, as if we’re just talking about a church service, or a PTA ice cream social, “El Brujo didn’t want me. Said I was too old. He gave me over to the Mephists. I don’t know what they got in return.” She frowns. “Funny. I never asked. They needed someone with nursing experience, and there I was.”  

Mom’s work as a nurse’s aide. Geez. I’d forgotten.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Anything connected to drugs and men with power never does, Allie.” Mom sighs as she plugs in a curling iron and presses the on button. The light blinks red, over and over. I know it will turn green. Then it will be hot enough to curl my hair. 

To make me pretty.

To make me
ready
.

My long-dead mother is primping me like we’re having a princess party and I’m a little girl.

Except this princess party doesn’t end with a pretend tea and a Disney movie.

It ends with my being ravaged by a guy who is so powerful and delusional, he thinks I can cure his AIDS.

I start to tremor and grab the edge of the vanity for support. My chest stops moving. I can’t take air in. I can’t let it out. Any idea that I’m going to make it out of here disappears. Chase is going to fail. Nothing he does will get me out of here. 

“Honey?” Mom says, grabbing my shoulders. She twists me around. I go limp.

Her hands cradle my face. My eyes can’t focus.

El Brujo. I’m being sacrificed to pay a debt. Jeff’s debt. He
groomed
me for this.

I start to retch. Mom rushes to find a trash can and sticks it under my head. Nothing comes up, but I keep gagging. She rubs my back, between the shoulder blades, and makes sweet, soothing comments.

It’s like that one time in third grade when I got the stomach flu.

Except it’s nothing like that.

The curling iron sends out a sickly scent of burned hair as the light turns green. I look at my reflection in the mirror. I’m wearing the bra and panties. My skin is so damaged I look like I’ve been tie-dyed in blue and black and purple.

Mom grabs the curling iron and starts working on my hair, making giant ringlets. “We need to stall,” she whispers. “I don’t know what Chase is doing, but we need to make it look like were getting you ready.” She holds the curling iron up, my long strand of hair wrapped around it like a garrote. Like she’s choking the curling iron. 

“What if Chase can’t get me out of here, Mom?” I whisper, the question so quiet I can barely hear it in my own head.

“Then I’ll die trying,” she says with a vicious sound of determination. “You know that, Allie. I was dead once,” she says with a funny snorting sound. “I’ll die for real before I’ll let that butcher lay one finger on you.”

Chapter Nine

Ten minutes later and I’m ready. Mom makes me stand up and looks me over. She spins me and I stare at what I guess is me. All of this is starting to feel like I’m separate from my body. The whole situation has gone from being surreal to something else. Something I can’t describe. The mirror isn’t lying, right? 

I look like something out of a bad teen horror movie. Mom has done her best with makeup, but I have big bruises poking out from under the foundation and blush. Huge circles under my eyes, one of which is swollen half shut. A long scratch winds down from right above my temple, under my jaw, and along my neck. I still have all the now-healing scrapes from falling off my bike.

My eyes look dead. Haunted.

How long ago did I fall off my bike? The time Chase took me back to his little shack feels like a different life. I start to ask Mom, but she bends down and whispers in my ear.

“If we can’t get you out of here, you go down fighting. Bite his dick off. Rip his balls with your finger nails. Knee him. Scratch him, do whatever you have to. Make El Brujo suffer for being evil.” She hands me a tiny black plastic thing that looks like fingernail clippers.

“What’s this?” I see our reflection in the mirror as she puts it in my palm, then nervously looks back at the door. No one’s coming. It’s closed.

“A switchblade.”

“A
what
?” I roll it over in my hands. So tiny. So lightweight.

She takes it back and pushes a button.

Snick!
A one-inch serrated blade comes flying out of a slit.

“Holy shit!” I exclaim.

“Allie,” she says in a chiding mom voice. “Language.”

I start to raise one eyebrow but it hurts too much. “Mom. You think having a bad mouth is my biggest problem right now? If there’s ever a good time to say
fuck shit goddammit cocksucker
, it’s now.”

She makes a snorting sound and shakes her head. Sliding the blade back into its little spot, she points to the trigger to make sure I know how to make it work. “I guess you’re right.”

I take the blade and push the button.

Snick!

Whether I can remember what to do when a grown man is on top of me trying to rip me open is a completely different issue.

“I don’t want to be right,” I say, my throat slick with unshed tears. I can’t cry right now. I just can’t.

“Allison Cassidy Boden. You listen to me.” Serious eyes meet mine as she turns to me, hands on my shoulders, her body transmitting energy to me. It’s like I’m a battery being recharged. Her warm, smooth palms slide against my upper arms. 

“When this all goes down, it’ll happen fast. You hear me? I’ve been at raids before on compounds—”

“Raids?”

“Where Loogie and his guys go to get what someone stole from them. Chase has the same burning look in his eyes that Loogie gets when someone fucks him over. When someone takes what’s
his
. You got yourself a boyfriend—” 

“Ex-boyfriend,” I insist.

She smiles, but the grin doesn’t meet her eyes. “You keep thinking that, honey. That man loves you with a deep intensity. They all do.”

“They?”

“Bikers. Chase is Galt Halloway’s son, and if there’s anyone in the world who’s determined to get what he wants, it’s a Halloway.” She smirks. “Trust me, I’ve seen what they’re capable of. Heard Loogie rant and rave and go off about ‘the fucking Halloways’. Chase is coming back here, and he’s getting you out.” Reaching for my bra, she slips the knife under one breast. I roll my shoulder and it nestles in place. 

I don’t feel safer.

My stomach still feels like it’s stuck permanently on the spin cycle of a washing machine. I know she’s right. Deep inside, I do. I have to believe that Chase is going to get me to safety. I have to believe that he still loves me.

I have to.

There is no other choice.

“But when this happens,” she says, making me look at her. “When the wheels go into motion to get you out of here, you’re going to need to make split-second decisions that will define whether you live or die.”

The shaking gets worse.

“I know.”

“I don’t think you do, Allie,” Mom says, stroking my cheek now. “You’re broken. Exhausted. Beaten and sore and fuck those fuckers who did this to you.”

“Mom,” I chide. “Language.”

She laughs, but her face twists suddenly with fear and tears. I grab her in a hard hug just so I don’t have to see that look on my own mother’s face. I can’t stand it.

“Sorry,” she mutters into my neck.

“No. It’s fine,” I say. We’ve swapped roles. I’m comforting her and she’s the one falling apart. Except she isn’t about to be handed off to a guy with AIDS to pay back the drug debt of a dead man.

Jeff’s lucky he’s dead already, because if he wasn’t, I’d make it my sole mission in life to hunt him down and murder him. Slowly.

But I think Mom would beat me to it.

With Chase right on our heels.

“No, it’s not fine, sweetie.” She wipes her eyes with the pads of her fingers, her eyes glittering with intensity. “Chase told you to watch for a man who looks like him. Older. He’s got a plan, and the guys to help him perform it. You need to do whatever people tell you to do, at the same time you keep your head and decide what’s right in the moment. I can’t stress this hard enough. If you let the fear paralyze you, you will die.”

You will die.

Those last three words ring out in my head as Mom stares at me, willing something into me by the force of her look and her words.

“You can do this,” she says softly. “You got this. And I’ll be there doing whatever I can to get you out.”

“If I get out—”

“
When
you get out.”

I nod. “Right. When I get out, I’ll see you again, right?”

“Oh, hell yes you will, honey. You and Marissa. Nothing will hold me back.”

The snap of boot heels on tile makes my stomach start agitating again. Frenchie walks in.

“Better. She looks a lot better, Jackie. Good work.” He’s holding something pink and fluffy in his arms. A glittery thing is dangling from his fingers.

“Thanks,” Mom says, acting like she’s friendly to him. Frenchie needs to think she’s one of them. Until now, she has been. “Jackie” is one of the weapons in the fight to save me. 

Chase is the other.

He tosses the giant puffball of fabric in his arms onto the bed. It looks like a big cone of pink cotton candy. Then he throws something silver from his hands on top.

“Change of plans,” he says. “El Brujo wants you to wear these.”

Mom walks over and shakes out the fabric. It’s a dress. Like a prom dress. The prom I never went to. David was at a robotics competition the weekend of the dance, and no one else would have asked me. I didn’t go.