Page 33 of Road to Ruin
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NIKITA
O’Halloran’s is pumping. A loud Irish fiddle band is playing up on stage, transforming the normally sleepy cop/firefighter bar into a riot of music and laughter. I see Mitch sitting at the bar with Barrows, and I almost decide to turn around and walk back out again. It’s bad enough having to work with Barrows on a daily basis. I sure as hell don’t want to spend any time with him outside the walls of the Parish, when I’m not being paid to tolerate his shitty attitude and his smart mouth. Mitch swivels on his bar stool and sees me, though, and then it’s too late. He’s waving me over and there’s nothing for me to do but go and join them. Shit.
I sit down, and Barrows smirks as he places the beveled rim of his beer bottle to his mouth, taking a swig. He looks like he’s got a very entertaining secret. Mitch nudges me with his elbow, grinning. “What you want? A Coors Lite?”
“A regular Coors is fine.”
“Ohh, look what we have here,” Barrows says, laughing. “Tough girl. Are you sure you can handle a regular beer?”
I give him a stale, unimpressed look. “Shut up, little boy.”
His smile slides right off his face. “You can be a real bitch sometimes, Nikita. You know that?”
“Come on, guys. We’re just here to have a post-work drink and relax, not bicker amongst ourselves. Hey, man, can I get three Coors, please?” Mitch pays the bartender, and the whole time Barrows studiously picks at the label from his now empty bottle, refusing to look at me. Mitch hands me my bottle, holding his own up in the air.
“To really great friends. Right, Nikita?” He’s smiling, but there’s a strange hardness to his eyes when he looks at me. Maybe things aren’t as great between us as he tried to make out earlier on today.
“Right. To really great friends.” I chink my bottle against his, and then against Barrows’s bottle too, though that one takes effort. We’re barely unwilling acquaintances, let alone friends. The band plays on for a couple of songs, making it hard to speak. I finish my first beer, and Mitch gets us another round. Halfway through the second, I’m feeling a little lightheaded. The band eventually stops, and then the three of us sit and chat for a while. Unbelievably, Barrows ends up making me laugh. Mitch offers to get another round in, but I refuse, gathering up my jacket and my purse.
“I told you. Two’s my limit. I have things to take care of at home. And besides, three beers puts me in DUI territory.”
“All right. All right. I’m gonna walk you back to your car, though.” Mitch gives Barrows a loaded look, but my head is really fuzzy. I don’t read into it too much.
Outside, it’s humid and unbearably hot even though the sun went down hours ago. “Where are you parked?” Mitch asks.
I point to the parking lot on the other side of the road, and notice that my hand looks weird. It’s as though there are two of them for a second. “Whoa.” My legs feel kind of weak. Mitch puts his arm around me, taking hold of me.
“Steady there, Nik. I got you. It’s okay.” He helps me across the street, and I begin to realize through the fogginess settling over my brain that something isn’t right. These aren’t the side effects of two beers. I wouldn’t be feeling this unbalanced after six or seven beers. Which means…
I pull my arm free from Mitch’s hold, clearing my throat. “I’m okay from here.”
He huffs down his nose, his eyes narrowing. “No, you’re not, Nikki. You’re obviously drunk. Let me drive you home.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to call a taxi. I don’t want to ruin the rest of your night.” Reaching into my purse, I fish around inside, searching.
“I have your keys,” Mitch says. He holds them up for me to see. “I also have this.” His hand dives into his pocket, and when he pulls it out again he’s holding the small can of pepper spray I always carry with my just in case. Sighing, Mitch takes a step toward me, hanging his head. “I didn’t want it to be like this, Nik. I wanted things between us to be great, y’know? I thought we could…go on vacation together. Live together. Maybe even get married and buy a place together some day. Have kids. But then I find out you’ve been blowing me off? And you went home with that fucking criminal, Kendrick. Fuck, that really made my blood boil, Nikita. You can see where I’m coming from, right?”
Shit. Even with my body compromised, my mind so clearly drugged, I recognize that the man standing in front of me is about to get aggressive. “Mitch, give me my keys. Give me back my keys and go home. We won’t ever talk about this again.”
“That’s your go-to, huh, Nik? Let’s just not talk about it? Not unless we really, absolutely have to. And then you blow me off like I’m some seedy high school pervert loitering around the girl’s locker rooms, waiting to catch a glimpse of you naked or something. Well, I’m not. I’m a fucking catch, Nikita. I have women falling over themselves to sleep with me. But not you. You’re too damn good for me. You think you’re something special.” He hits a button on my car keys, and my car unlocks, lights flashing, the alarm beeping. “Get in the car, Nikita.”
“No. God, Mitch, what the hell is wrong with you?” I turn around, ready to try and weave my way back to the bar, but I slam straight into something…someone…and I reel backward. Barrows laughs, the sound echoing around the abandoned parking lot.
“Jesus, Mitch. You were right. That stuff works quick. Is she going to lose consciousness?”
“No. I didn’t give her that much. Where would the fun in that be? I want her awake for this.”
A little known fact about rape: it is not a crime of love. It’s a hate crime. It’s an act to belittle someone, to hurt them in the most intimate, humiliating, and embarrassing way possible. I already know this is what Mitch intends for me. Not only that, but he’s invited Barrows along for the ride. “You can’t... You won’t…” I say, slurring. My head is starting to spin like crazy.
“Oh, we can,” Barrows says, taking hold of me by the arms. “We really motherfucking will.”
******
TOMMY
The house sits in darkness. I sit inside the dark house, turning my cell phone over and over in my hands, waiting. Even after the day I’ve had, she’s been there, hovering at the back of my mind like a ghost, demanding my attention. The slope of her neck. The curve of her tits. The pale pink, fragile coloring of her perfect fucking nipples. The taste of her pussy on my tongue. Fuck. She’s going to get a shock when she comes home to find me lurking here in the shadows, but so fucking what? I know she’s been thinking about me, too. It’s impossible that she hasn’t. If there’s anything in this life I can be sure of, it’s that a woman is thinking about me the day after I fuck her.
