Page 31 of Shadow Man

There’s that cue again, and whether it’s the evening, the moon, the beer or my laugh, this time I bite.

“Do you think it’s the same men who made you fly to Miami with the coke?”

She drains the last of her beer and wipes her mouth. “Yeah.”

“Is it to do with your cousin’s debt?”

“Something like that...” She glances back at the bar again. “This is just more of his heavy-handed persuasion tactics.”

“Persuasion for what?”

“To get me to suck his dick in exchange for a debt extension.”

My stomach lurches in horror.

“What did he do to you in the SUV, Vi?”

“He tried to sell it, but I wasn’t buying.” She rolls her eyes at me, but she keeps tugging at the hem of her dress in a mirror movement from earlier. The crude details are all there, from her subtle shift in position to the re-crossing of her legs.

The strength of my reaction catches me off guard.

When will they ever stop?

“Men are so fucking talented at making your refusal to screw them the greatest imposition in the world,” she carries on with a grin, as if it’s not affecting her as much as I know it is. “It’s like you just stabbed their mother and spent all of their—”

“What if they never gave you an option?”

My admission slips out, and hangs heavy and dirty next to the moon.

Vi looks shocked. More shocked than she should be when a Colombian drug lord is moving in ever-decreasing circles around her with the same intention.

“Is that what he did to you? Is that why you’re running?”

Not him.

Never him.

“Listen, you know you don’t have to talk about it if—”

“You know what the real imposition is?” I interrupt, staring up at the moon again; fixing on a single point to give me the courage to say it. “It’s not the act or the pain so much—most of the time you can just shut it out. You can visit a place that’s all rainbows and unicorns while your soul is busy getting dissected. It’s what happens afterward that destroys you. It’s the shame, the disgust, the hurt, the confusion; the nightmare that’s just your reality with black cloths thrown over it like someone died. And pieces of youdiddie. Pieces you’ll never get back again. Pieces that you never knew were part of your jigsaw in the first place. Months go by, and everything worsens. You end up so far inside of yourself you can't find the door anymore…” My breath is coming out in sharp gasps. By the time I realize I’m crying my tears are dripping off my chin. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, rocked to the core by what I’ve just confessed. I’ve never said any of this out loud before. Not to Eve, my therapists,him… Instead, I’ve broken the seal to a total stranger. “I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

“Shhhhh, Anna, it’s okay.” Vi pulls me into her arms, and I go willingly. They aren’t the arms I want around me, but it’s the next best thing.

Her compassion is a key. It’s not so much the floodgates she opens as the Niagara Falls. I cry for all the words I couldn’t say; for everyone I pushed away. I cry for sailing too close to the rocks of a man who is as much damned as he is beautiful. For the rash of feelings sealed so tight inside me, it’ll take more than his gun to shoot his way in.

“You know what you need, right?” says Vi, stroking my tears into my hair.

“A Delorean time machine?” I lift my head and swipe my eyes, catching the edges of her wicked grin through the fuzziness.

“I’ll be right back.” She jogs inside and remerges with a bottle of tequila. “The old cures are the best.” She replaces my half-drunk beer with the bottle. “Three sips. Three questions. And then we never have to speak of this again.”

“Fine by me.” I take a swig while holding her gaze, the alcohol searing the back of my throat. “Wow,” I croak, spluttering like a teenager after stealing her mom’s vodka. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“It’ll be a sweet, sweet death, I promise,” she says, laughing at my reaction. “I grew up on this stuff… Does he know you left him?”

My smile vanishes. I nod, and take another sip, not bothering to correct her assumption. He’s notthe bleakest chapter in the story of my life, but if I make him the villain, he’s easier to hide from.

“Can he trace you here?”

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