Monster (28 page)

What?

Supplies.

Money?

Survival gear?

Either was good. Either
meant she had a better chance of getting gone.

I wondered how long she
had been on her feet. If there was some other plan. If she was
supposed to get her supplies and meet a cab or bus or train
somewhere? Was she still in the woods?

There were too many
leads and not enough time to follow any of them down before she was
gone for good.

I got back onto my
feet, following the footprints until they disappeared into the
dead-leaf underbrush.

Fuck.

I made my way back to
the house, going straight to my computer and bringing up the post,
addressing the stupid fuck Jstorm.

Hope
you're happy, fucker. You just signed her death certificate.

Maybe it was a little
childish. Maybe Jstorm would never see it. But it needed to be said.
It needed to be put out there. She wasn't safe on her own. If
something happened to her, I wanted Jstorm to know it was on his
head.

There was a refreshing
of the page and a reply was made on my comment.

She
follows instructions, she's safe. Worry about Shooter and yourself.
I'm dealing with Lex.

I
didn't bother to reply. If they were that cocky, they were stupid. If
they were stupid, there was no reason to argue with them. It would
lead nowhere.

I sat there, watching
the afternoon lead way to evening and the darkness blanketing the
world

She could still be out
there. In the woods. At night.

It was cold at night.

She didn't even have a
fuckin' jacket.

My phone rang in my
pocket and I fumbled for it with a surge of hope. She had my number.
The burner wasn't left behind. It hadn't escaped my notice that
neither was the gun. She had it, she had my number. If she really
found herself in a bad place, she would call.

“Yo.”

“Breaker...”
Lex's slimy voice said into my ear, making the hope plummet with a
sickening crash.

“Lex,” I
said, trying to force my voice to be casual. Nothing was wrong.
Nothing was off. Everything was going according to his plan. I was
just his puppet like he wanted me to be.

“How's my girl?”

“She eats like a
teenage boy,” I supplied, hedging. It was true. It would ring
true to his keen ears.

“Well,
you won't have to worry about feeding her for long. I will be back
the day
after tomorrow and I need you to bring her to my house.”

His house.

Fuck.

God damn it.

How the hell was I
going to get myself out of this?

“Alright, Lex.
What time?”

“Breaker, my man,
you sound stressed.”

“Anxious to get
onto my next job.” Killing your sorry ass. For Alex. And Shoot.
Any myself.

“I understand. As
I said, just another day and a half. Seven in the evening should work
for me.”

“Right,” I
said, shaking my head at myself.

Janitor. Used car
salesman. Guinea pig trainer. I shoulda made a career change by the
time I turned thirty. Before it was already too late.

“You will drop
the girl and get your friend in trade.”

“Wonderful.”

“And the rest of
your money, of course.”

Money I had every
intention of using for fireplace kindling. I didn't want his fuckin'
money.

“Right.”

“See you then.

“Yep.”

I threw the phone on
the couch, raking my hands down my face, trying to think of any way
out of the shitstorm of a situation.

I didn't show up, Shoot
died.

I did show up without
Alex, we would probably both die.

But at least we would
do it together.

Seemed like an almost
fitting end to two lifetime criminals. Two people no one knew well
enough to miss. Except for Paine and maybe Alex if she ever learned
what happened.

She said she cared.

She said I gave her a
reason to believe life was worth living.

Fuckin' A.

It wasn't just that she
was an important piece on the chessboard we were playing with Lex. It
wasn't just that she was an innocent thinking she could make it on
her own like a five year old running away from home.

I just... I fuckin'
wanted her back.

If
I lived through the week, I wanted her there with me, getting the
fuck out of this shit town once and for all and building a new life.
I wanted her there. In my bed. Across from me eating dinner, trying
to bite her tongue about how
much
more comfortable it would be to eat in bed. Laughing with me and
Shoot
over
some stupid comedy.

If I lived, she had
somehow become part of my future plans.

And I didn't even know
where the fuck she was.

God damn it.

And I only had a day
and a half to figure out where she was and come up with a plan that
didn't ensure bloodshed and death. Well, at least not ours.

I got up from the couch
and made my way out to my truck.

A day and a half.

Either way, I was
walking into Lex's house in less than thirty-six hours.

Come what may.

Eighteen

Alex

Okay. It was cold. Like
cold cold. The kind of cold that seeps into your bones and makes you
feel like you'll never get warm again. It was also dark. And the
woods were creepy as hell. And with just a map with a line drawn for
where the woods would break to a side road, I was not feeling super
confident that leaving was the right choice after all.

Well, no. That's not
true. It was the right choice. For Breaker and Shooter. My leaving
didn't make things simple. Breaker was going to have to come up with
some excuse for where I was. Or find a way into Lex's to get Shooter
back before Lex called him. But that was something I had confidence
they could handle. They were professionals. They got themselves into
and out of situations all the time. They would be fine.

Or, at least, that was
what I had to keep telling myself or I wouldn't have the will to keep
pressing on. As it was, each step sent a stab into the vicinity of my
chest.

Which was something I
was trying to ignore.

I was just starting to
lose faith in Jstorm (whilst cursing myself for being such a fool)
when the line of trees finally broke and there was, at last, a paved
side road. No houses that I could see. Or businesses for that matter.
Just a road. My instructions ended after finding the road. So I
figured that meant I was on my own.

Which was fine.

I had been on my own
all my life.

I was used to it.

Until Breaker.

God
damn it.

I
pushed that thought away. It wouldn't help. It wasn't going to help
me press on, thinking about how nice it was to not have the weight of
every decision weighing on me. To know I could share it- hash it out-
make a mutual decision.

Just
a short stay with Breaker and my life had changed so much. Hell, I
didn't even have to wonder about what I was going
to eat because Breaker cooked. He let me try once and I succeeded in
somehow turning a box of angel hair pasta into one giant, doughy glob
of disgustingness that even I couldn't palate and I had been
surviving on sodium-laden ramen and old Chinese for longer than I
cared to admit.

Breaker had just
laughed, tossed the pasta, and made a fresh batch that came out
annoyingly perfect.

I knew I had only
gotten a small view of his life. A life when he was home which, he
admitted, wasn't often. He was off on jobs all the time. In town. Out
of town. All around the country. I only got to see vacation Breaker.
I didn't see him coming in covered in blood. I didn't see him coming
in covered in gashes and bruises. Things I knew happened frequently
because his body had more scars than I could count. I didn't know
what it was like to worry about him not making it back.

I got only a small view
of his lifestyle.

But I feel like I got a
full view of him. As a person.

And I liked what I saw.

Too much.

I've never known much
about relationships between people. I had never been given the
opportunity to get close with another person. And maybe that could be
blamed for the irrational, overwhelming connection I felt to him.

I knew nothing about
love. But it took six kisses to get from his mouth to his ear. Nine,
ear to collarbone. Sixteen, collarbone to hipbone. And sometimes,
when he was tired, he was ticklish right there in that hollow. No, I
knew nothing about love. But I swear all I wanted to do for the rest
of my life was lie on his chest, stealing his warmth, feeling him
trace shapes into my hip. I wanted to slip my fingers in between his.
There were seventeen scars on his hands. I wanted to know the story
of every last one.

If that wasn't love...
well, then I didn't know what was.

It didn't matter that
it was too soon.

It didn't matter that
it flashed brilliant and then I had to extinguish it before I even
got a chance to bask in the heat. It didn't matter that I would never
feel his hands on my skin anymore, hear my name shiver off his
tongue. It didn't matter that I would walk around missing him and
what we had forever.

All that mattered was
that he got to go on breathing. Go on receiving kisses. Giving
warmth. Making perfect pasta. Even if it was for other women. Maybe
especially if it was for other women. Women like me. Women who never
knew a touch that sent currents through their body. Women who didn't
know how nice it was to have someone to bounce ideas off of. Women
whose lives would be forever changed just by knowing him briefly.

That
was why I was doing what I was doing.

Because the world
needed men like Breaker.

I wasn't going to let
the world lose him.

I would throw myself in
front of Lex first.

I sighed, standing up,
and moving down the side road. I had no idea where I was. Where the
road led. If I would be happened upon. If there would be anywhere for
me to stop and warm up.

It was getting late. It
was impossible to tell how late, given the season and the fact that
it was dark by five. But I felt like I had been walking for hours. I
probably had if the aching in my legs was any proof. But I wasn't
familiar with the area where Breaker lived. So I had no idea where
the road I was following might lead. Back into town? Which wouldn't
be a good thing. I needed to get as far away from town as possible.
First, because of Lex and his goons. Second, because if I knew
Breaker (and I was pretty sure I did), he would be looking for me
too.

I reached into the bag
that Jstorm left me, fumbling for the burner, powering it up, and
checking the time.

Seven thirty.

I sighed, forcing my
legs to keep moving despite the intolerable soreness.

And just when I was
thinking it would be better to slip back into the woods unseen and
lie down for a while, I saw the neon green motel sign.

With a groan of relief,
I pushed my legs to close the distance, throwing open the door to the
office and praying there was availability.

“Hey there
darlin',” a man's voice greeted me from behind the desk.