Monster (27 page)

I fucked her until she
forgot what her argument was.

I also caught her
singing daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. Like she forgot I was
mulling around. Or like she was comfortable enough with my presence
that she didn't care that I overheard. Several times, it was that
song about smiling. Other times, it was other oldies. Almost
exclusively songs about rising above something or choosing to keep
your chin up despite the hard times. I wondered if that was because
of her mother. If that was the kind of music she played or sang for
Alex growing up.

She
liked carbs more than she liked protein. Always plowing through her
sides at dinner and then picking at the meat with a sort of
disinterest. She forgot to run a brush through her hair until it was
in tangles. She hated action
movies
and wouldn't even talk about watching anything with horror. She said
real life was awful enough, that if she was going to escape for a
while, she wanted to escape into something that made her laugh. So we
watched comedies. She laughed. I laughed at her laughing.

I threw things into my
cart, pausing in the chip aisle and grabbing a bag of cheese curls.
The puffed kind. Which was, apparently, the superior ones. I had gone
my entire life without forming that kind of opinion about snack
foods.

“Man, you got
blood on your sleeve,” a familiar voice said, sounding amused.

I turned, seeing Paine
standing there, one of his arms thrown around his mother's shoulders.

“Heya darlin',”
she greeted me warmly, like she always did, completely ignoring the
blood topic. Like she always did. “I gotta go grab a roast for
dinner. Paine, baby, I'll catch up with you by the register.”

And with that, she was
pushing her cart away from us.

“You don't call
and fucking tell me you're still alive? When you're dealing with
that
son of a bitch?”

Shit. Yeah. That was
stupid.

“Sorry, man. I've
been busy.”

At that, Paine's eyes
roamed over to look in my cart and the sides of his lips quirked up.
“I see that. She worth all the trouble you getting yourself
into?”

“You know the
answer to that,” I hedged, not quite at the point where I felt
like I could admit out loud to someone else that I had less than
professional feelings about Alex. It was too soon. I wasn't the kind
of guy who got feelings about any god damn thing.

“Shoot?” he
asked, a look of hardness going across his face, like he was
preparing for the worst.

“Far as I know
still pissin' off the guys holding him. Saw him once. Alex slipped
him a knife. He has a chance.”

“And...”

“And I'm supposed
to hold onto her until she is not useful to him anymore.”

“How the fuck you
get yourself into this mess?” he asked loudly, making a group
of women at the end of the aisle jump and look over. Paine sent them
a killer smile and they flushed and wandered off. Smooth fuck he was.

“Dunno man. But I
am gonna get us all out of it. Get us out of here.”

Paine nodded. “You
need anything...”

“Ain't getting
you involved in this too. It's bad enough that you've been seen with
me at all.”

“Just sayin'.
Shit goes down, you got nowhere else to turn, you got me.”

Paine wasn't in my
life. Not the dark side. He was in the drinking and chilling and
bitches side of my life. But he knew all about the dark. He shared a
bottle with me on the nights when the blood on my hands wouldn't let
me sleep. He helped me pull Shoot back from the brink of death when
he got his ass handed to him by three pussies who jumped him in an
alley 'cause they knew he carried around bank.

He kept his head in my
business, but his hands out of it.

That was the way I
wanted to keep it.

For him. And his
family.

No matter what shit
went down, no matter if I had nowhere else to turn, he wasn't getting
into my shit.

“I know, man,”
I said though, because he wouldn't give in until he got what he
needed to hear. “Go meet your Ma. I gotta go back and check on
my girl.”

My?

My?

Jesus
Christ. She wasn't
mine.

As if sensing my
internal battle, Paine threw his head back and laughed, the sound
filling the store. “Oh, that's rich. Holy fuckin' shit. I never
thought I'd see the day.”

“What day?”
I asked, feeling my jaw getting tight.

“The day you
caught yourself feelings over some chick,” he clarified, still
chuckling.

“I don't...”
I started, knowing damn well I did.

“Oh, save it,”
he said, slamming a hand down on my shoulder. “Didn't say it
was a bad thing. Just said I'd never thought I'd see the day. Go get
your food and get back to your woman,” he said, moving toward
the front of the store.

“She ain't my
woman,” I called back loudly.

“Keep trying to
tell yourself that, man,” he said before disappearing.

I sighed, finishing the
shopping and driving back toward the house with a heavier feeling
than when I left. Not because I didn't know it was happening. I did.
I wasn't stupid.

I spent a lot of time
with women. Most of that time though usually was spent inside of
them. And then I was gone. I didn't usually stick around to get to
know them. And even if I did... they never interested me.

Alex was interesting.
She was twisted and dark and warped. But at the same time, she was
sweet, and funny (though she didn't think so), smart, and dedicated.

She didn't flinch away
from my dark or try to shine a light into it. Because she was living
in the same depths as I was. We just... got that about each other.

I gave a shit that she
was breathing.

I wanted to make sure
she kept on doing that.

No matter what that
took.

So I could get more
time with her.

I pulled up to the
house, rounded up the bags, and made my way to the door.

“Alex, open up,
doll. Hands are full!” I yelled, kicking at the door.

But there was no
answer.

Immediately, I felt my
guts clench as I dropped the bags on the front step and reached for
the handle. And it turned in my hand.

It fuckin' turned in my
hand.

The air just... left my
body as I reached behind me for my gun at the same time I threw the
door open.

“Alex!” I
called, moving in. Nothing. No sign of struggle in the kitchen or
living room. I moved to the bathroom. Then the bedroom.

And that was where I
found her clothes upturned on the floor next to the pile of her
notebooks. No bag.

Her bag was gone. I
flew back out to the living room, trying to make that information
make sense.

My eyes landed on the
coffee table to find her coffee cup there from earlier, the contents
spilled slightly over. Like she had put it down in a rush.

Her laptop was gone.

Her bag and her laptop
were gone.

My gun lowered, the
feeling of dread replacing the urgent rush of fear and worry.

Then I glanced back
over to the table, finding my laptop there, a notebook piece of paper
folded on top with my name scrawled across it.

It was then I knew.

For sure knew.

All the pieces fell
into place and the puzzle got glued together.

She was gone.

But she wasn't taken.

No.

She left me.

“Fuck!” I
yelled, throwing the gun down on the couch and reaching for the note.
A part of me didn't want to read it. Didn't want to know what it
said. What could it say that would make it alright that she waited
for me to leave her for the first time so she could slip out? Was
that the plan all along? Was she just fuckin' using me? Letting me
use her body so I didn't get suspicious? So I didn't know she was
going to run off all along?

Mother fuckin' stupid
of me.

I knew better.

I flipped open the note
on a growl.

Breaker,

First. I'm sorry for
the heart attack. I know coming back and finding the place empty must
have sucked. But it couldn't be helped. I swear. This is for the
best. You can't protect me and Shoot at the same time. It's not
possible. You were always going to have to choose. You know that. No
way was Lex going to let you have both of us. That's not how he
works. You need to choose Shoot.

So I am making that
an easy choice for you.

I got word back from
the post. Someone else is taking over. Maybe it will even be done
before you have to worry about Lex being back. I don't know. I wasn't
privy to the plan. All I know is that it is being handled and I was
told I needed to get gone.

This wasn't some
master plan I had been plotting.

This was what I was
told to do.

But even you have to
see it was the only way.

I didn't want to
leave.

And I know you only
said it because I was upset about Glenn and crying all over you- but
you saying you cared about me meant something to me. I care about you
too. You showed me a little bit of what life could be like when I
finally let go of my mom and Lex and Glenn. You made me believe that
I might have something to live for after all. So that is what I am
trying to do- making sure that we all go on living through this.

I'll be okay.

Save Shoot.

Get gone too.

Thank you for
everything.

• Alex
  

Someone
else was in on it. I flew at my laptop, waking it up, and opening up
the dark net Alex had left open. The post came up and I refreshed it,
scrolling down until I found the comment.

Jstorm.

Whoever the new player
was, they were sticking their fucking nose where it didn't belong. It
wasn't their place to tell her to leave me. I could protect her. Now
she was out there somewhere on her own.

She was smart. She was
tech savvy.

But she didn't know
shit about disappearing. About being off the grid.

And she damn sure
didn't know what the fuck to do if she ever thought someone was onto
her.

Maybe this Jstorm
person would help her. Get her on her feet somewhere safe before he
stuck his nose into everything and pissed off Lex.

But there was an
equally good chance of that not happening. Of Alex being all on her
own. And all it would take would be one misstep for Lex to find her.

I had to fuckin' find
her first.

I grabbed my gun,
tucking it into my jeans, then went back outside, ignoring the
grocery bags as I looked around.

I saw her foot prints
in the moist dirt on the side of the house, leading all the way down
the drive. Yet more proof of how unprepared she was. Why run on the
dirt and leave prints when you could run on the gravel and be a
ghost?

God damn it.

I followed them down
the road, seeing them taper off so I crossed the pavement to the
other side next to a downed stop sign and saw them pick up again,
heading into the woods. The woods weren't an altogether bad idea. If
you knew where you were going. If you knew what the fuck to do if you
came across a bear.

Both things that I was
sure Alex knew nothing about. Her prints got deep beside a tree
stump, like she stopped there. So I did too. Seeing a white garbage
bag stuck under the tree. Something was there. Wrapped up in the bag.
Something Alex took with her. Something this Jstorm person must have
put there for her. Meaning Jstorm knew where she was living
temporarily. They knew they could talk her into leaving. They gave
her something.