Page 10 of Rooke
“I don’t know, asshole. It’ll land where it lands. However I get you with it, you’re gonna end up dead. Better you just walk away.”
If there’s one thing I learned in juvi, it’s that you don’t walk away from a fight. No fucking way. It’s stupid, I’m aware that it’s stupid, but my pride just won’t allow it. I take a step forward, and the tweeker laughs. It’s an ugly sound that echoes down the abandoned street.
“All right, man. All right. If this is what you wa—”
I lunge forward, my index and middle fingers bent at the first knuckle, hand outstretched. It’s a quick, sharp movement, a jab that takes the guy by surprise. My knuckles drive deep into his throat, crushing his larynx in one brief, explosive movement. See, this is the thing. These shitheads take one look at me and they see this huge, hulking dude, broad-shouldered and so very fucking still,unusuallystill, and they make assumptions. They think I’m slow. They think, ‘man, this one’s going to come down hard.’ Only problem is that I am actually lightning fast. I’m not what they expect at all. I’m like a goddamn snake when I strike, and it’s usually fucking fatal.
The tweeker goes down. His head makes a sickening cracking sound as it connects with the sidewalk. I suck a breath in through my teeth, shaking my head. “Ooooh. That sounded like it hurt.”
“Fuck…you…man.” He can’t breathe properly, he’s clutching at his throat, and I find myself wondering absently if I’ve done some serious damage. You can collapse a man’s oesophagus if you hit him hard enough in the throat. He can sustain serious damage that will leave him eating through a tube for the rest of his life. Do I care if this bastard needs a tracheotomy right now, though? Is my conscience bothering me in the slightest? That’s a resounding hell no.
“Help me…up, man,” the guy gurgles.
I fold my arms across my chest and I study him for a second. He’s flailing on his back like a bug. The knife he was holding a moment ago is on the ground three feet away, still rocking on its hilt as raindrops hit the blade. No sense in hitting him again. He’s well and truly down and out. I take a step forward, and I hold out my hand. He takes it, and as I’m pulling him to his feet, he does something profoundly stupid. He swings wildly with his other arm, snarling like a wolf, aiming a sloppy right hook at the side of my head.
I let go of him and block his strike, then I’m on him. He should have accepted the help and fucking disappeared. He should have bailed and chalked this one up as a bad experience. Instead, he’s tested my patience. I hit him hard enough to feel bone crack. The tweeker’s legs buckle, but he somehow manages to straighten himself out and remain on his feet. Not for long, though. I slam my fist into his face again, and he slumps to the ground, lights out. I slowly stand over him, and I consider taking hold of a handful of his hair and repeatedly pounding his head against the concrete.
“Rooke?” I look up. Jericho’s right-hand man, Raul, is standing in the now open doorway of the garage, staring at me with his mouth open. “What the fuck, man? You’re kicking the shit out of someone right outside the place? Bad fucking form.”
I spit, shrugging my shoulders. “Some people just don’t know when to leave well alone. This one’s on him.”
Raul sighs, scowling hard. He tosses a black zip-up bag at me, and I catch it out of the air. “Better get out of here before the boss sees,” he says. “He’s not in a very forgiving mood tonight. I’ll take care of this. Go on. Go.”
I leave on foot, ten grand richer, soaking from the rain.
FIVE
SELF-DESTRUCT
SASHA
There’s nothing more frustrating than having to buy a book twice. I was too embarrassed to go hunting through that huge pile of telephone directories forThe Seven Secret Lives of James P. Albrechtafter I left my meeting with Oscar four days ago, so now I’m having to stop in at a Barnes and Noble on the way home from the museum. Good job I’m a fast reader. There are only two days left between now and Friday when book club meets up, and I can’t justnotread the book. Kayla would take it personally, guaranteed, and she’s not the type of person to forgive a slight like that easily. She would assume I hated her choice of book, that I was trying to personally insult her by not only not completing the read but subsequently misplacing my copy as well. All in all, it would not go down well. The thing is, I really hate buying romance novels in bookshops. There’s always some pimple-faced English lit student standing at the register, ready to silently judge you for your choice of reading material when they have such wonderful, awe-inspiring, Pulitzer prize winning tomes readily on hand instead. And don’t get me started on the creepers who lurk around the erotica section of the store, waiting to pounce the moment you pick up something that looks like it might be a little racy. Is a bookstore the best place to ask someone if they would like to come swinging with you and your wife? I think not, sir.
So I find the book, and I buy the book. I sidestep around the weird dude with the long white hair in a ponytail, wearing what looks like a set of white pajamas, and I ignore the judgmental twenty-year-old behind the counter who looks down on me with such pity. I decline the offer of a plastic bag, and I shove the novel into my purse along with the receipt, and the next thing I know I’m standing outside in the cool, calm night air, and I look up to see that the rain that’s been persisting for the past few days has now turned into snow.
A woman with a Santa hat perched jauntily on her head rings a bell, shaking her Salvation Army bucket, smiling at me warmly as she bounces around to Christmas music blaring out of a portable speaker. I give her the change from the book, three dollars and a penny, and I hurry off down the street in the direction of home.
When I get back, I grab some leftover salad from the fridge and I pick at it with a fork as I stand at the kitchen counter, staring at my purse. The book is in there, waiting for me to finish it. I’m about halfway through, but I just can’t seem to muster up the energy to crack it open right now. It’s not like I hate the story or anything. I just…I don’t know. I’m not focused when I try and read at the moment. My mind wanders. I find myself revisiting events in the past instead of seeing the words on the page, and the past is not a place I want to spend my free time. The past is dangerous, full of potholes and darkness. Losing myself there is damaging beyond belief.
Hours later, I’m in bed when I finally pick up the damn book. I can’t avoid it forever, and the couple of glasses of wine I drank as I watched television earlier seem to have comfortably numbed me.
She held the glass in her hand, and pieces of the shattered bottle dug into her skin. Small pearls of blood blossomed out of nowhere, swelling and swelling in size until they were too big, hanging like teardrops before falling to the earth. “Is this what you meant?” she asked me. “Is this the kind of pain that will remind me I’m alive?”
I nodded. The wind whipped and pulled at her coat and her hair, and the blood continued to fall to the concrete below. “I’m not cut out for this,” she whispered, her voice tremulous. I could easily see the tears welling in her eyes. Perhaps I should have given her an escape route at this point, it would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, but I was not a gentleman. And the sight of her emotions spilling out of her, the same way her blood was spilling out of her, for some reason made my dick hard in my pants. “I need you to take me home,” she whispered.
“No, Isobel. No, you’re not going home.” I stepped forward, and, like a mirror of my own movements, Isobel stepped back at the same time. She looked afraid.
“I’m not your property,” she told me, her hand shaking, fingers still curled around the glass. “You can’t make me stay.”
“I don’t need to make you stay. Youwantto stay.”
She swallowed hard. “You’re wrong. I have to get back to—”
“To your husband? The man who beats you senseless every night of the week?”
Isobel flushed, her cheeks reddening against the cold and the sharp sting of my words. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what kind of man—”
“I knowexactlywhat kind of man raises his fist to his woman. A coward. A weak piece of shit who doesn’t deserve the right to walk the streets.”
