Page 23 of Dirty
When I did nothing, Sixsmith’s face contorted into a rictus of pure, uninhibited fury. I waited for the piercing, burning agony that would accompany having my throat slit from ear to ear, but it never came. Instead, pain flared along my jawline, as Sixsmith slashed to the right with the blade. A moment of shock claimed me; he’d cut my face?
The knife clattered to the floor, and then Sixsmith’s hands were tearing at me, ripping at my clothes. The NASA t-shirt I was wearing ripped, the sound filling the kitchen, and then he was tugging at my bra.
I thought I’d known fear before. There had been countless moments in my life when I’d been so claimed by my own fear that I thought I’d never be able to surface from it again. At least not whole. But now, with Sixsmith greedily staring down at my exposed body, I experienced a level of fear I hadn’t even known possible.
The smell of copper flooded my nose. Something wet and warm was flowing down my neck, but it wasn’t until I caught sight of the bright crimson droplets hitting my bare breasts that I realized I was bleeding so badly. Sixsmith lifted his right hand, and it was shaking. I was never going to forget how terribly his hand shook as he reached out and tentatively cupped my breast. I was marble, solid and immoveable. What was he doing? What…how could he… why? My skin was crawling, a thousand insects burrowing into my pores, as Sixsmith sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. He wasn’t shouting anymore. His anger had evaporated, leaving behind a strange, rotting silence that coated me like grease. Sixsmith stared. Not at my face, but at my chest. I needed to cover myself up, hide myself away from him. He shouldn’t be looking at me the way he was looking at me. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all.
My father was no longer standing in the kitchen with me. He’d gone somewhere far away, withdrawn into himself, and all he seemed to register now was the fact that he was holding my breast in his cupped hand. Slowly, he moved his fingers, and he rolled my nipple between them.
My mind was fragile. It was going to snap in two. I couldn’t…I couldn’t even…
“Daddy?”
Amy stood in the doorway to the living room. Her pajama bottoms were twisted around her body, as if she’d been tossing and turning in her sleep again. She’d never been a very good sleeper. Her eyes were wide, her face ashen, drained of all its usual color. There were tears streaming down her cheeks—silver ribbons of abject grief and horror.
“Daddy, what are you doing?” she whispered.
Sixsmith recoiled like he’d been stung, his hand pulling back from my skin. The anger returned in a flash, contorting his face once more. I hiccupped—the strangest reaction to what had just taken place—then I was grappling with the torn material of my shirt, trying to cover myself, hands frantic and trembling.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sixsmith spat between gritted teeth. “You’re meant to be asleep.” Rounding on me, he lifted his hand and whipped it out, striking me so hard across the face that I stumbled, my legs giving out underneath me. “Get her to bed. And get this mess cleaned up. You’re a fucking disgrace.”
The mess, of course, was my own blood. Large, round, fat spatters of red stained the floor, and a good amount of it had run down the length of my body and pooled at my bare feet, collecting between my toes. I hiccupped again, pressing my palm to my burning cheek, biting the urge to burst into tears myself.
The back door opened.
The back door closed.
Sixsmith was gone.
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 thisisimportant. 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.”
