Two.
My future. My friends…what else?
Jockey touches my face with a gentle knuckle and my eyes flash open. This time I swallow the nausea and dizzying pain and lash out, catching Jockey’s bloody face with my fingernails. He roars, hand flickering toward me—crack!The back of his hand catches my cheekbone so hard I see stars.
Three.
Him.
I need Liam right now. I need him to show up for me. I need to believe he can. That he will.
“You know, I never fucking liked you,” Jockey snarls.
He’s pacing again, he’s been pacing a lot since we got here, since he knocked me out cold and flung me into his backseat like a duffel bag. He took my phone, and when he shook me awake, made me swallow my screams and march up here. I can only imagine he’s called Liam, and if he has, Liam’s not safe, and as much I want him,needhim right now, I can’t let him get hurt. Or worse—
“You’re toosweet, toofake. No fucking wonder Liam wants you so bad. He always did, right? I could tell. He was always watching you, always ignoring us so he could talk to you. Those little brats are his, aren’t they? Bet.” Jockey’s keyed up. With a swollen, shaking hand he lights a cigarette.
There’s construction going on here, they’ve only just started hollowing out the building, and there are still rusted chairs in broken rows in the theatre below. The carpet in the halls has been torn out, slugged against the walls in giant dusty rolls. Some of the walls are knocked down, and the glass from the projector window is gone. A few construction lights, tall economic structures with generators and hooded square bulbs, shine violently where Jockey has flicked them on.
It hits me, as I force my eyes to stay open, as I force myself to sit up and lean against the wall, that this is a perfect place to kill someone and leave a body.
One.
My girls.
There’s a way out of this.There has to be. I can’t leave my daughters. I can’t leave them alone in this hungry, sharp-toothed world. I can’t be a coward. I can’t run, or hide, or deny my way out of this situation. No. I know what I have to do.
I have to fight.
I blink hard, shake the dizziness off, try, desperately, to quash the pain vibrating out of the base of my skull. Jockey is jittery right now—vulnerable. If I can catch him off-guard, maybe I can do something. Knock him out, or push him down and make a run for it. I scan the projector room: a step ladder, a rusted metal cart, a toolbox…there, a hammer, yellow-handled and evil-looking in the glare of the hall floodlight. If I can lure him close enough, I can take out a knee or something, keep him down long enough to escape…
“I talked to Connor.” My voice warbles slightly. At some point, in the lot or here, my teeth cut into my cheek, and I can’t get the taste of blood out of my mouth. “Your boss.”
Jockey’s eyes flash. He takes a furtive suck on his cigarette. Smoke floods from his nostrils. “Yeah?”
I nod. “He likes you.”
“Shut the fuck up.” But he says it without heat, and something glitters in his eyes. “Those guys—they’re pricks. So fucking up their own asses. They’re from the city. They went to school and shit. They’re book smart.” He lifts one shoulder, drags again. “Fuck ‘em. I didn’t need fucking college. I’m street smart.”
Jesus. Jockey certainly hasn’t gotten smarter these last years. If anything, he sounds duller than ever, whatever brain cells he does have full-up on telling himself he’s a king. “You get caught a lot,” I say, and when he hisses in a breath, eyes narrowing, I quickly add: “But you always get out of it.” I shake my head, as if in wonder. “I don’t get that. How do you do it?”
He grins, then quickly wipes it away. “I know some guys. I make friends easy. There’s this cop over there that likes me. He looks the other way, he gets a cut of what I make.” He shrugs. “People don’t think of just making friends in the right places, but I do.”
More like people aren’t stupid enough to rely on law enforcement over their own criminal ranks. “Shit,” I say, rubbing the back of my hand against my cheek. I grimace. It’s swelling, a dull throb spreading outward from my cheekbone into every inch of my face. “Yeah. I guess that’s the way to do it.”
“Liam could have learned a thing or two from me,” says Jockey with a grin. “I can’t believe you two, man. At least you’re pretty. Fucking annoying, but pretty, even after those kids.”
I grit my teeth, but force myself to look bashful. “Mm.”
“You know, once Liam’s out of the picture, I’ll be the guy looking out for town. For real this time.” Jockey tosses his cigarette butt on the floor and grinds it out with his heel. He moves toward the projector window, looking down over the empty theatre. “I could look out for you too, you know. If you apologize.” He gives me a sideways smile. In the sheer half-dark he just looks manic, off-kilter. But I think he’s teasing.
“Yeah,” I say, giving him a tiny, weak smile. “Yeah. I mean. I guess I’d appreciate it.”
“That it?”
I look up at him.
“I say I’m gonna kill your man, and you just shake it off? You’re a cold bitch, aren’t you?” He chuckles, then pulls out another cigarette and flicks his lighter. It sputters and he curses, cupping his hand tight, half-turned away from me.
