Page 57 of Reacher
“My mother’s care facility wanted her out. She’s uh… she has a mental condition. It makes her violent. Brutal. She uh… she assaulted one too many of the poor people trying to look after her, and it meant I had to look for somewhere better equipped to deal with her issues, and her… uh… violent nature.”
Reacher frowned at me. “Violent like kicking guys in the nuts for no reason?”
I took a moment to catch up with what he was referring to, damn him, don’t stop me now.
“Oh… no, and it was your fault because you were… no, I just… and I’ve apologised for that already.”
Stitch looked from me to Reacher.
“She did that?”
He shrugged, shooting him a sly wink.
“She made it up to me.”
I glared at them both, feeling my willingness to share the horror of my life dwindling with every damn interruption.
“Can I continue? This is hard enough already.”
I caught matching smirks on their faces, but they both nodded.
“You had to move your mother. Carry on,” Reacher prompted.
Jesus. I grabbed the spare coffee and took it with me as I paced.
“You have to understand. These places are expensive, and I mean,devastatinglyexpensive. Like they’ll take your home, and all your savings, and then still expect like nearly two thousand pounds a month for the privilege.”
“Assholes.” I ignored Stitch, and ploughed on before I lost my nerve entirely.
“The thing is… once I’d sold her place, and downsized my entire life, I was still struggling to meet the payments, and… and so I had to resort to other things.”
“Like the deal with Tori.”
I stared despairingly at Reacher. “That’s all you see when you look at me, isn’t it? Some sick accomplice who helped a damaged woman do awful things to innocent men. What’s the point of me even telling you the rest of this? You know what? I’ll… I’ll give myself up to them, and they’ll leave the club alone. I don’t need to put us all through this.” I slammed the coffee on the desk and marched to the door.
“Reacher… if you want me to stop her, I’m gonna have to touch her.”
“Like fuck. Ally, dammit, come back here.” Reacher dragged me back through the door and slammed it, turning the key, and shoving it in the pocket on his cut.
“Asshole.”
“I wasn’t judging you, dammit, I was just asking a question, so will you stop being so fucking prickly, and get on with it.”
“Prickly? Fuck you! This is my life. This is the mess that I know I made of it. If I want to hold stuff back, or I struggle to tell someone like you, you judgy bastard, then I damn well will.”
“You sure you guys don’t need to hatefuck before we finish this?” Stitch was grinning at us, as Reacher deposited me back by the desk.
“Carry on,” he practically barked those words at me.
“Fine! Yes, I got caught up in all kinds of shit, okay? I tried gambling, which just made things worse, of course. Once I’d messed up there, and ended up in so much debt, I was getting death threats, I made a deal.A deal to clear those debts in other ways.”
Reacher snarled, launching himself back up from his chair, his fists clenched.
“Did you sell your fucking body?”
Reacher
Ifshesaidyesto my question, I was going to lose my fucking mind. Would I still want her? Yes, of course I fucking would, but would I want to kill every bastard who had even looked at her?Also fucking yes.
