Page 87 of Fury

“Do you have any maxiskirts with high slits?” came the loud, nasally voice from the center of the store.

A voice I knew.

My pulse sprang in my neck as I lifted my eyes from my computer screen at the front where our two cash registers were lined up on a high platform. From my perch I had a great view of the entire store.

A short blonde woman on high heels, in her late thirties, waved a long skirt on a hanger at Beth, my best salesgirl. Beth led the blonde to a set of racks further down the aisle.

Luckily, today I wore my brown contact lenses, but I took the oversized aviator sunglasses that rested on my head and slipped them down over my face. Why take any unnecessary chances? My long black hair was now streaked with green and blue and shaved on the sides. New tats swirled around my upper arms. Would she recognize me?

She’d barely spoken to me my last year at the club, but I knew her. Anne Marie, the old lady to one of Med’s men. She was friendly, she was smug, she was arrogant. She was everything I’d never wanted to be. And here she was shopping in my corner of Chicago, Illinois.

Was Ann Marie here on purpose or was this simply a coincidence of fate? Had they found me and sent her in as a preamble to the slaughter or to make me some sort of deal? Did she have friends or relatives in Chicago? I couldn’t remember. Was her old man, Scrib, in town too?

Scrib. Scrib had carved up Finger’s face.

My breath shorted as Anne Marie swept out of the dressing room wearing a tight cheetah print maxi skirt Beth had found for her. She smoothed the material down her thigh as Beth adjusted the cropped top at her swollen middle. The outfit wasn’t right for her body type, and I was sure she knew it, too, but Anne Marie always got what Anne Marie wanted.

I steadied myself and scanned the store window. People passed by on the busy sidewalk. Cars and buses cruised up the street. No men in leather stood on the street from the sweeping view I had of the outside. I shifted my weight and returned to my work at the computer. I wasn’t going to run and hide. And anyway, there were a number of customers in the store. I couldn’t just take off and leave Beth on her own. I took in a quick breath and focused on the computer screen, returning to the emails detailing upcoming deliveries.

“Ashley will take your purchases. Thanks again.” Beth’s sweet voice snapped me to attention as the cheetah print skirt and the striped crop top slid on the counter in front of me. Beth left me with Ann Marie.

I shot her a quick smile and rang up the two items. “That will be sixty-seven twenty-three.”

She snapped a credit card on the counter, her long, glossy, French manicured fingernails glinting in the overhead lamp. I slid her card through the machine, handed her the receipt the register spit out, and she signed, her dangling earrings swinging.

“You finished or what? Let’s go already.”

My blood froze in my veins. My throat constricted at the sound of that deep voice. A heavy set biker stood in the entryway of the store, a little boy at his side. Scrib was here with his son, Logan.

I used to babysit Logan. Feed him, read to him, give him baths. I’d give him popsicles when he had a fever and sing to him. Once he even insisted on my spending the night at their house. Logan had to be eight or nine years old now.

Anne Marie rolled her eyes as she tossed the pen on the counter toward me and grabbed at her receipt from my hand. “Don’t ever get married. Husbands are always trying to tell you what to do.” She turned to her old man. “I’m done! Geez, would you relax?”

My lips curled into a small grin as I handed her the shopping bag. I opened my mouth to thank her, but shut it quickly. I’d been lucky my appearance had thrown her off, but maybe my voice would spark a memory.

She snatched the bag from my hand and sauntered over to her husband. Logan stared at me.

“You got what you wanted?” Scrib asked his old lady, throwing a glance at me.

I paid no attention, pretending something I didn’t understand had just appeared on the screen.

“Yeah, I did,” Anne Marie said as he pushed back the door for her.

“Logan, let’s go!” Scrib bellowed in that demanding voice, and my stomach cramped. But it wasn’t just the voice of a stressed out parent. The last time I’d heard it, he’d been jamming his cock into me, holding my wrists over my head.“Come on, come on, yeah, bitch. This is how it’s done.”

“Look at that lady!” Logan’s clear voice rang out.

“What lady?” asked his father.

“Her!” Logan pointed straight at me, and my eyes darted to him like arrows, my heart hammering in my chest, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end.

Scrib shot me an impatient look, but this time his eyes lingered. Ann Marie glanced back at me, flipping her hair from her face. Scrib’s head suddenly slanted as he took me in, and my breath burned in my throat.

“She’s got the same green and blue hair like the magic witch in my comic book!” said Logan.

“Yeah, yeah, she does,” his father muttered, guiding his son out the door by the shoulder. The three of them stalked off down the sidewalk.

“Twenty, nineteen, eighteen...” I counted as much to keep my breathing steady as to time when I should look up from my screen once again, in case they or anyone else was watching me. “...two, one, zero.”

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