Rock Chick 04 Renegade (2 page)

Oh crap.

I didn’t figure that was good at al .

He pul ed my gun out of his jeans, released the clip and with a casual, over arm throw, he tossed it wel away. Then he leaned in, shoved the gun in the waistband of my cords, right in front, by my hipbone.

right in front, by my hipbone.

Then he turned, walked away, threw a muscled thigh over his Harley and roared off.

I stared until I couldn’t see him anymore.

Then I pul ed my gun out, lifted up my sweater and checked to see if there was a mark where his hand slid against me.

I did this because it stil burned.

* * * * *

I parked Hazel (my vintage, red Camaro) in the garage behind my house, scanning my mirrors while the door came down just to be certain I was safe. These days there was no tel ing.

I got out of Hazel and did the routine of walking the fifteen feet from the garage to the backdoor. Eyes open, gun at the ready (I had an extra clip in my glove compartment), listening and praying no one was out to get me.

I unlocked the door and walked through the shared back room of my duplex where Nick and I kept our washer and dryer, an extra freezer, tools, old paint cans and the kitty litter which Boo, my cat, could access through the cat flap in my backdoor.

I unlocked that door, unarmed the alarm and flipped the light switch to my retro kitchen. Pink metal cabinets, pink fridge, pink oven door, huge black and white diamond tiles patterning the floor. One wal was brick, the rest painted steel gray. It was cool as shit but not on purpose, only that it had been there so long, it had come back into fashion. I’d bought a high, fifties-style black Formica-topped table with gleaming stainless steel sides and kickass retro stools with black leather swivel seats because the kitchen demanded it.

Boo approached from the other door and began immediately to tel me about his day.

My cat was black with dense, soft fur and yel ow eyes.

He was too fat, unbelievably proud and he was the only clumsy cat I’d ever known. Boo pretended he meant to fal over and miss his leaps from furniture to table or whatever, but he was just not coordinated. At al .

“Meow, meow, meow. Meow meow.
Meoow,
” Boo told me, obviously having a ful day and feeling I needed to be kept apprised of every second of it.

I threw my gun and bag on the table and swiped him off the floor.

“
Meow!
” Boo protested.

“Shut up, Boo. Mommy’s had a very bad day. She did something stupid, then got cornered by a hot guy and now she’s pretty much fucked.”

“Meow,” Boo replied, thinking his news was more important than mine.

To shut him up I gave him kitty treats, feeding him from fingers to fangs.

This made him happy until I stopped giving him treats and he complained, “Meow.”

“That’s it,” I told him, “only three or the vet is going to yel at me again.”

“Meow,” Boo didn’t care what the vet thought.

“Whatever,” I wasn’t in the mood to argue with Boo.

I dropped my cat, walked into the hal and pul ed off my boots.

Nick owned the whole of the duplex; he let me stay in my side for half the mortgage, kind of. Even though I was now twenty-six (nearly twenty-seven), he didn’t like me paying for anything, even my rent. So, I put it in a bank account each month and gave him a check on New Year’s Day every year. He tore up the check so the money just sat there earning interest.

Sometimes you just didn’t argue with Nick.

The duplexes were weird. They weren’t in the greatest part of town, though I thought it was pretty or, at least, part of it was. It was official y Baker Historical District but the not-so-good part.

We were on Elati and had a park in front of our house but there was a subsidized high-rise apartment building on one side of the park and a low-rent apartment building across the park opposite it.

Our house was historical y registered and Nick kept it in great condition, regardless of the ‘hood. He’d redone his side, knocked out wal s, put in a bedroom and tore out his pink kitchen.

I had not redone my side.

So my side was a lot like a loft. Nick had put in a new bathroom for me and I’d carpeted the whole place in a thick, soft gray. The front room had huge arched windows, a brick wal , the other wal s painted a soft lilac and it was enormous. It fit al my fancy furniture including the dove gray velvet chaise lounge that sat by the front window, my sweep-lined lilac couch which flanked a gleaming, square pub set with midnight blue, leather-studded pads on the benches and a blue-gray overstuffed chair and ottoman. My antique, oval, walnut dining table was at the inside wal . The half-circle-backed chairs I’d had re-upholstered in the same dove gray velvet as the lounge.

There was a closet that separated the living room from the bedroom, though, you could only loosely cal it a

“bedroom”. It was real y a king-sized mattress set on a platform opened to the hal which sat four feet above the floor. I had to climb up three narrow stairs to get to it. There was storage underneath it and big areas cut in around the side wal s of the bed that were above the lowered ceiling of the hal and closet. This was where I kept books, candles and a television set. This was my refuge. A little, feminine cave with fancy cream sheets, a fluffy green and cream patterned comforter and an overwhelming array of pil ows from standard, to European, to bedrol s, to toss.

Then there was the bathroom and the kitchen. The hal was lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves that housed my massive CD col ection. Mostly rock ‘n’ rol .

I loved my duplex and it was al for me. I didn’t have parties because I didn’t have very many friends and none of them I knew wel enough to ask to a party. I didn’t have a rol icking good time in my bedroom refuge because I’d never had a boyfriend.

In my life, it was just Nick and me.

Before that, it was Nick and Auntie Reba and me.

Before that, before I could real y remember, there was Mom and Dad and Mikey and me.

But, when I was six, Mom and Dad and Mikey died in a car crash. Wel , Mom and Dad did, instantly. My brother Mikey died in surgery a couple hours later, though it was the same thing. I’d been with them and survived, even though I’d been in the hospital for three months.

Then I went home to Nick and Auntie Reba.

Auntie Reba was Mom’s only sibling, much younger than Mom. My Dad had no siblings and al the grandparents were dead except my Mom’s dad and, at the time, he had Parkinson’s and was in a home (now, he was dead too).

Auntie Reba and Nick had only been together a few months when my family died. They got married a few months after I got out of the hospital.

Then when I was fifteen, Auntie Reba died. She’d had a routine surgery, al went wel , and then, a couple of days later, she just died.

A blood clot dislodged in her leg and lodged in her heart and then… gone.

Nick, who wasn’t even my real family, didn’t turn me out.

Something happened between us, losing Auntie Reba like that.

The only love I knew growing up (or remembered, real y) was Auntie Reba and Nick’s love for me.

And I knew Nick’s love for Auntie Reba.

He loved her in a way that was indescribable. It wasn’t like she walked on water or was the earth and moon and stars.

It was different.

It was breath.

It was necessity.

She was the last of my blood and she was life to him.

So we hung on to each other. It was the only thing we could do.

Nick put up with me, which was saying a lot. I was a difficult child, an even worse teen, always on a mission to save a broken-winged bird; a shy schoolmate; a forest in Brazil I’d never even see. I didn’t party or get out of control in any normal way, but I was out of control just the same.

I became a social worker which had Nick worried. He didn’t think I needed any more causes.

“Christ, you’ve saved the trees, you’ve made the wilting violet into the prom queen and you’ve marched to take back the night. You can’t save the world, Jules,” Nick said.

“Maybe not, but I can try,” I retorted, ful of youthful bravado.

“Then I hope the Lord saves us al from you
trying
to save us al ,” Nick finished.

After graduating from col ege, I had a few jobs and kept my boundaries. Nick was surprised, he was certain I’d run amok in my quest to save the world.

This unfortunately put Nick at his ease. He’d thought I’d settled down.

Then I got the job at King’s Shelter for runaway kids.

This went wel , for awhile. The kids responded to me and I’d found my niche.

That was until about four months ago when I walked into the Shelter and Roam and Sniff were looking funny.

* * * * *

I walked back into the kitchen opened a bottle of red wine and poured myself a glass in one of my big bowled, red wine glasses. I went back through the hal to the living room and threw myself on the chaise lounge.

Boo jumped up and settled in my lap.

“Meow,” he said to me.

“Quiet, Mommy’s thinking,” I told him and then slid my finger under his jaw and rubbed.

He purred.

I looked out the window and, even though I didn’t want to, I remembered.

* * * * *

Roam, Sniff and Park were my boys, we were close. It took months but I worked hard and got them to trust me.

They’d been on the street for years but none of them was over sixteen. I’d rounded them into the Shelter, going day in and day out to 16th Street Mal , where they hung out, and talked to them. I got a lot of kids from the street into the Shelter, then into counseling, then to reunions with their parents (if it worked), then family counseling, then home (if it real y worked).

Roam, Sniff and Park were never going to go home.

They told me about their homes. Their homes were evil and there was no way I’d finagle that kind of reunion. So, I just worked at keeping them clean, safe, fed and educated.

That day, that, shitty, awful day when I arrived at King’s, I noticed Park wasn’t there and I knew that Roam and Sniff knew something.

I cornered Sniff, the weakest of the pack, and asked where Park was.

“Dunno,” Sniff said.

Park had a crush on me, I knew this and used it. It’s not that I thought I was al that, even though Auntie Reba and Nick told me I was, in Nick’s words, “extraordinarily beautiful”. He said this because he loved me. I did have a mirror, though, and even though I didn’t think I was the hottest of the hotties, I was nothing to sneeze at. I had Dad’s black hair but, on me, because I wore it long, it had a bit of wave. I had Mom’s violet blues eyes and pale skin and Mom’s curves too. I wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants but no one was going to hand me a bag to put over my head either.

To be honest, I had a crush on Park too, but obviously not the same kind as he had on me.

He was funny, sweet and smart as hel . He made me laugh so hard my stomach ached and he looked at me in a way that made me know I was making a difference.

I was beginning to realize I wasn’t going to save the world but I sure as hel was going to save Park, even if it kil ed me. I knew I should have boundaries but I loved that kid. I loved al three of them.

Park knew I’d be at King’s that day. He wouldn’t miss a chance to see me.

“Sniff, no pudding cup for you if you don’t spil ,” I threatened.

Sniff liked his pudding cups.

“Dunno, Law. Just, not here.”

The sacrifice of the pudding cup was a surprise and heralded bad tidings. Sniff knew something was going on and Park could be problematic. He was too smart for his own good and needed chal enges to keep his active mind moving, especial y moving away from a life that was pretty much shit. He got in trouble a lot, searching for adventure and release and a way to get away from it al . I had my hands ful with him; I had my hands ful with al three of them.

I grabbed the material of Sniff’s overlarge sweatshirt at his arm and dragged him to Roam.

“Let’s go boys. We’re finding Park.”

They came with me mainly because it meant they could ride in Hazel.

We found Park, it took hours, we searched al his places, and there were a fair few, but we found him.

I’l never forget it.

The syringe was resting in the al ey by his lifeless hand.

Bad dope.

He was stiff, rigor mortis had set in. His eyes were open, his usual y beautiful skin was pale.

I took one long look at him and then shouted, “God dammit!”

Sniff puked.

Roam put both of his palms to the top of his head, his eyes never leaving the dead body of his friend.

I cursed a bit more (okay, maybe a lot more) then crouched low by Park and stared at him.

It didn’t even look like him. I’d never met a person with more life than Park. Seeing him lifeless was like looking at another human being.

I dropped my head and cursed some more.

Then I pul ed out my phone and cal ed the police.

When I was done, I stared at Park again.

After awhile, when the vision of him was burned on my brain, I closed my eyes and found the vision of him was burned on the insides of my eyelids.

That’s when I knew what I had to do.

It just came to me.

I got out of my crouch and looked at Roam.

“Who sold him the stuff?”

Roam was black, tal , gangly and when he fil ed out, would be a looker. Sniff was white, overly-thin, short and had acne. Park had been Mexican-American, medium height and already handsome, if he’d reached an age, he’d have been a knockout.