I’m sitting across from a woman who can’t stop weeping. She goes on and on about unpaid parking tickets and that she’ll lose her job for this, but she didn’t make enough to pay the tickets. She starts to hyperventilate and mentions medicine. That’s the only time the officer outside the bars looks over at her. They remove her from my cell, saying they’ll get her meds.
Someone else comes in and sits next to me. Her face is bruised on one side. “Hey.”
I stare at her and say nothing. My arms are folded across my chest and I’m leaning against the wall thinking of ways to castrate Jon Ferro. He knew my past and what this would do to me.
The woman is no more than a girl, barely eighteen, with big round eyes and baby fat on her cheeks. Her face doesn’t have that angular look that comes around twenty-two years old. Her dark hair is long and in a messy ponytail.
She sighs and rests her back against the cold cement wall. “Are you in for the night? I hope I am. He needs time to cool off. The only bad part is the lice soap, but the rest is okay. Plus it’ll give him time. I can’t be around him when he’s like this. He’s usually great, but on nights like this one, I’m better off staying here. I’m not making my call. Hey, you look familiar.” She talks without taking a breath and stares at me the entire time.
“We’ve never met,” is all I say.
She nods and continues, releasing a tidal wave of words. I sit and listen to her life, to her story, and feel nothing but pity. She’s like Maggie and me. She has no one that cares, no one to listen to her voice and find solace in her touch.
I don’t know how long I’ve been there but by the time they call my name, the young woman was taken for a shower and lead to her cell for the night. Imagine wishing for a cell instead of going home. It makes me want to cry, and there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it. I can’t even take care of myself.
The cell door slides open and makes the most god-awful sound. “Hallie Raymond, collect your things at the front desk and go home with the friend who paid your bail. If you screw up, he’s going to be the one who pays for it, so best behavior.”
I nod and make my way to the front desk. It feels like I haven’t blinked for ages, but I do when I see Bryan. As I walk up behind him I notice the way he breathes, the way his shoulders hunch forward like he’s being guarded—or in pain. I stop behind him and watch for a moment. His hips are narrow as always, he hasn’t lost much weight, but his hair doesn’t shine the way it used to. His breaths are shallow and short, like he’s been running. A horrible feeling drips down my spine as I stare at him.
At that moment, Bryan feels my eyes on him and turns. He has that playful grin on his face. “If you wanted to wear cuffs, I have some. I would have been happy to—oof!” I crash into him with the full force of my body and hold him tight.
Bryan is shocked at first. His arms take a moment to close around me, and after they do, he holds me. I feel his voice, the warm stirring of breath, as he whispers in my ear, “Let’s get out of here.” He releases me and I nod. That’s when he tells me the last thing I want to hear. “There are reporters out front.”
“What?” My jaw drops in horror.
“I’ve made arrangements to leave through the back, but there will be someone. There always is. Everyone is going to know what happened by morning.” Bryan takes my hand and leads me after an officer that ushers us through a room with filing cabinets and out the back of the police station to a black Hummer. I’m shoved inside, but not before a flash goes off and I looked straight into the camera.
Bryan shoves him back, but the shot was already taken. He climbs in after me and says, “Drive.”
“I’m not your fucking chauffeur, Bryan. Say please.” A guy about my age, with dark hair that hangs in his face, is in the driver’s seat. Oversized sunglasses obscure his eyes.
“Fuck you, Trystan.”
Trystan rolls his eyes and pulls away in his oversized, environmentally irresponsible machine, aiming at stray reporters, as he exists the parking lot. “People would be nicer to you if you were nicer to them. That’s all I’m saying.” Trystan is quiet but I feel his eyes on me. When I look up he answers what I was thinking about. “Jon didn’t do this to you.”
Slowly, my chin tips up and our eyes meet in the review mirror. “Jon Ferro is a dead man. He knows what this did to me. It was the worst thing he could have done.”
Bryan takes my hand and weaves our fingers together. “It wasn’t Jon. Please wait to kill him until tomorrow.”
“I could kill him now. Bryan, I took care of Campone and I can take care of anyone that messes with Maggie or me. I’m not a child anymore,” I hiccup and shiver as the past and present slam together again. My brother starved to death. He died in my arms and I was too dumb and small to know any better. I say I was an only child because it’s easier than telling people that story, but the Ferros know everything. They’re like roaches that can seek out every lie in every dark corner of your soul. “I won’t be decimated by Jon. Fuck him.”
Trystan and Bryan exchange a look, but no one says anything. Bryan pulls me into his arms and holds me until we pull up in front of an ancient motel. Gross is the best way to describe it. I bet they rent rooms by the hour. Trystan tosses Bryan the room key. “Stay put until I find out what happened. I think I already know, although the details are sketchy.”
I shake my head, “No, I can’t. Maggie is back there and she needs me. And Neil—”
Bryan sighs, running his hands through his hair. After he does it, he shakes his hand by his side. “Maggie will be all right. And Neil is a douche. Besides, he knows I took you for the night. Apparently you told Maggie I was blackmailing you because she tried to nail me in the temple with her heel.” That makes me smile. “Oh, you think that’s funny?” Bryan tickles me and leans in close. Those green eyes sparkle for a moment before the haze returns. “Come on Raymond. I plan on using you until you forget who you are.”