TEN
ROADTRIP
FIX
Sera slept. Dreaming. Twitching in her seat as I drove. She clearly hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but about a hundred miles past Wichita her exhaustion had claimed her, and her eyelids had fallen shut. I’d thought about turning on the radio, but then decided against it. I wasn’t planning on stopping at all until we reached our destination, so this was probably going to be the only rest she got. Disturbing her, on top of frightening the shit out of her, kidnapping her and forcing her to be my unwilling co-pilot, seemed a little unfair.
I’d stuck to the speed limit and observed the road rules as we’d traveled for hours, the sky turning from overcast and grey, to clear blue, to bruised orange, then red, and then dipping into darkness. The roads were quiet. Barely more than a handful of vehicles passed us as I headed east. Eventually, we hit Memphis, and on and on I kept driving.
At around one in the morning, my cell phone, clipped into the mount on the dash, lit up, signaling an incoming call. Even the rapid, bright flashing of Monica’s name on the screen seemed angry. Great. I shouldn’t answer it. She was bound to yell at me, and even on the other end of the telephone line that was bound to be loud enough to wake Sera. Monica had a set of lungs on her to rival a UFC announcer. How long could I keep avoiding the woman, though? Time was running out. She’d sworn she’d come and find me if she had to, and I wasn’t about to put it past her. She’d done crazier things in the past.
One-handed, I connected headphones into the cell, stuffed the buds in my ears, and hit the green answer button.
“Yeah?”
There was silence for a second, then Monica replied. “Yeah? Yeah? That’s how you answer your phone to me?”
Oh boy. “I’m driving, Monica. Is this important, or can it wait?”
“No, it cannot wait. My god, what the hell’s gotten into you, Fix? We’re working on a deadline here, and you’ve just…I don’t even know what you’re doing. You’ve gone rogue!”
“How the fuck have I gone rogue?”
“Language,” she chided, tutting under her breath. “If you listened to my voicemails, or actually picked up your phone every once in a while, you’d know this is important. You dealt with the Halford issue, correct?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t about to explain to her what had happened right after Franz had fallen down dead, or where I was headed now. That was just an invitation for an ear chewing.
“Our other client wants to know if we’ve completed work and we’re ready to accept the rest of our donation.”
“Just tell him we need a little more time.”
“Forty grand, Fix. We already took half. He’s getting impatient. Making noises about getting a refund and taking his money elsewhere.”
I whistled quietly through my teeth. “It doesn’t work like that. We’re not J.C. fucking Penny. He can’t just get a refund.”
“Then you’d better do the work, Fix!” Monica’s frustration travelled down the phone very clearly.
Monica and I had never discussed the fact that we shouldn’t talk about accepting money for killing people over the phone; it was just common sense. Our client’s fees were tailored to match the level of danger and risk the job entailed. Fifty grand for a low risk mark. Seventy for low rent gangbangers and criminals. Ninety for well protected, violent and hazardous individuals. Monica assessed each mark carefully and quoted a price based off the information she gathered, so for her to have assigned a forty thousand dollar price tag to my outstanding job clearly indicated how quickly she intended me to take care of it. I had the other manila envelope in the glove box, waiting to be assessed. I couldn’t do it now, though. I just couldn’t.
“I’m on the road for the next few days,” I said quietly, cracking my knuckles. “I can get to it in a week. Maybe ten days.”
“No can do, Fix. This matter’s time sensitive for the client.”
“I’m sure you’ll handle him for me, Monica. You always do. I’ll call again in twenty-four hours.”
“Fix! Twenty-four hours is—”
“Twenty-four hours is the best I can do,” I snapped, grinding the words out. Monica knew my moods. She’d witnessed first hand how quickly I could snap if pushed too far. Even I knew I was frightening to be around once the darkness grappled hold of me. I usually did whatever I could to avoid sinking into that pit of anger and turmoil, but the last day and a half had tried my patience beyond measure. “Be careful,” I warned. “Give me a day. Also, give me a fucking break. Don’t text or call me again. I need time to work this out. I’ll be in touch.”
“Fix—”
I hung up the phone, stabbing at the cell phone screen so hard I nearly knocked the damn thing out of its cradle on the dashboard. Motherfucker. Working alone would have been much, much easier than having to deal with Monica. She was hyper emotional, stubborn as an ox, and demanding as fuck. God, it would have been great never to have to argue with her again, or field her constant, prying questioning. But then again it was better to keep the admin and the muscle separate. People were twitchy around me. It had nothing to do with who I was as a person, what I looked like, how I acted or behaved in front of them. Most people had a crisis of conscience when they looked the man they’d asked to murder someone in the eye. They expected judgment from me. Their own guilt convinced them that they saw it written all over me, and they couldn’t deal. When they met with Monica, they were faced with a sympathetic, understanding, kind middleman. There was a safe, reassuring code in place during all conversations. There was usually a safe, friendly place to meet. There was usually a glass or two of whiskey to calm the nerves. Monica was a disconnect between action and consequence, and that suited most folks down to the ground. Typically, they didn’t want to have any idea who would be committing the act. They just wanted to get it done and move on with their lives, while someone else, somewhere else, lost the privilege of living theirs. So Monica was a necessary, annoying evil. I was stuck with her.
Beside me, Sera’s legs tensed, locking out in front of her. Her body went rigid, her back curling away from the seat beneath her, and her fingers twitched violently. Fuck. Had she heard the phone conversation? No. No, when she whimpered, I knew she was still dreaming. Worse. By the looks of things, she was drowning in the depths of a nightmare.
It was one thing allowing her to sleep, to rest and recuperate, but letting her suffer through something harsh enough to make her body twist and contort while she was unconscious was something else entirely. I shouldn’t have cared. I shouldn’t have given a fuck, but…
I turned on the radio, swiftly adjusting the volume control so that the sound of some rocky, upbeat hipster song filled the cab of the truck. It was enough to draw her from her sleep. Her body bowed, flexing, before she blinked blearily, turning her head as she took in her surroundings, no doubt remembering where she was. Her expression was hard as flint when she pushed herself up in her seat, blowing out a long, unsteady breath down her nose.
“Where are we?” Her voice was softened by sleep, but there was an edge to her words that said she was still very unhappy to be locked in a moving vehicle with me.
“Just passed Meridian.”
“How long until we get to Fairhope?”
“Another few hours. We’ll get there just after dawn. You’ll probably have enough time to pass out for a couple of hours before your sister needs you.”
Sera’s relief was obvious. Her hair fell in soft waves around her face, framing it perfectly. I’d been with many attractive women before, but there was something different about her. Something that made my chest feel tight. Her features were fine and delicate, and at first glance gave her the look of someone who needed protecting from the world. But the sharp, intelligent, piercing way she looked at me altered all of that. She didn’t need protecting. She was capable of taking care of herself, and was ready and able to do so at a moment’s notice. Perhaps that’s why I found myself drawn to her so much; she was uncontainable, raw, and bold, and she wasn’t afraid of me in the slightest. Silly, silly girl. If she’d had any idea what was good for her, she would have been terrified.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she murmured, angling her body away from me.
“Like what?”
“Don’t play games, Fix.”
“I’m not playing anything.”
She tutted, shaking her head. “You were looking at me the same way you looked at me the other night.”
“You mean, right before I sank my cock inside you?”
Most girls would be embarrassed or annoyed at my directness. They’d shy away from the mere mention of what took place between us. I was kind of looking forward to a coy reaction from Sera, but I was shit out of luck. She eyed me fiercely, setting her jaw, her gaze unwavering. “Yeah. Right before you sank your cock inside me,” she confirmed. “Right before fucked me senseless, made me come harder than I ever have in my life, and turned my whole fucking world upside down.”
Ha. So much for me being direct. Looked like Sera was the queen of direct. “I can’t help it,” I told her, alternating my attention between her and the road. “I was fascinated by you. I still am.”
“Well, don’t be. You lost the right to make eyes at me the moment I walked into that building and watched you kill that guy.”
“What you saw doesn’t change anything, Angel. You were attracted to me back in that motel room. I saw it on your face. I smelled it on your body. I felt it when I slid my hand down the front of your panties and discovered how wet that beautiful pussy of yours was. An attraction like that doesn’t just go away.”
Her lips parted into a half-snarl. “You can’t be serious. Of course it does! I’m not insane. The moment I saw what you did, any and all attraction I felt for you went up in smoke.”
“False. You still can’t stop looking at me, thinking about what happened between us, and you hate yourself for it. You don’t want to want me. You don’t want to know that I’ve been inside you, and that when you close your eyes you can still feel me inside you, but it’s the truth. Deny it all you want. I know it’s true. You hate me, hate who I am, but there’s a very large part of you that wants me to fuck you again, Sera. My dick’s the best you’ve ever had.”
Her eyes were the size of silver dollars as she stared at me, her face growing paler and paler by the second. “You really think you’re untouchable, don’t you? You think no one can resist you, regardless of the fact that you’re a monster.”
“No. I don’t think that. I think most women would have killed themselves trying to get away from me by now, no matter how great the sex was. You haven’t tried to get away, Sera. You’ve thought about it. I’ve seen the look on your face. I let you keep that phone in your pocket just to see what you’d do, and you haven’t tried to ask anyone for help. The truth of the matter is that you’re not horrified by what I’ve done. You don’t care that I’m punishing the bad guys, even though you know you should. And you can’t tamp down the need you feel every time you fucking look at me, because I can read it all over your body. Look at your hands right now, pressed flat against your thighs. You’re palms are sweating, and all we’re doing is talking about sex.”
“Well…I don’t want to talk about sex anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because! Because it’s fucking pointless!” She was flustered. Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes were shining a little too brightly.
“Okay, okay. No sex. What do you want to talk about instead?” I asked her, trying to bite back a smile. This was more fun that it should be, but it was her own fault. She presented herself in such a tough light. Unbreakable Sera. If she wasn’t so determined to maintain her cool, then it would be far less fun watching her lose it.
“I don’t care. Anything,” she said, folding her arms across her chest.
“All right. Tell me what were you dreaming about just now.”
Silence.
I knew I’d asked the wrong thing the moment the words left my lips, but it was too late to drag the question back and reclaim it now. The truck was already swamped with tension. Sera looked straight ahead out of the windshield, and for a long, long time she held her tongue. Whatever she’d been dreaming about, it must have been terrible for her to shut down so abruptly. It was done, though. There was no going back. I could practically hear her grinding her teeth together again.
“How about we don’t talk at all?” she murmured.
And so that was that. The remainder of the journey to Fairhope took place in silence.