And when Lucy and Grudge got back here, they seemed really shaken by what had happened. I heard Lucy crying.
Whispered words.
Angry tones.
I thought Grudge was going to blow the whole town apart, and he spent an age carrying things in and out of the bathroom while Lucy soaked in the tub.
Grudge eventually took Catfish to one side to explain, but somehow, I was excluded.
A state I’m used to.
I guess I don’t need to know what I don’t need to know.
I wish I were back with King and his men, but then I remember how they didn’t like me, at first, because they thought I had brought trouble to Calista. While I would never wish for Rae to have been kidnapped, it was an opportunity to show my value. To earn their respect. And it also gave a foundation for friendship, for them to know I would happily cross lines for the club.
I feel like helping Lucy and Grudge and finding some of the missing club money has shown my value. The friendship part will likely be slow to follow. If it does at all.
Last night, an intense Grudge and highly strung Lucy engaged in high-speed problem-solving mode, and both of them were asking me to do things I knew wouldn’t get them the answers they wanted. What they both needed to do was leave me alone to follow the threads as I unpicked them.
My brain doesn’t work like theirs…all neat and linear. It’s wild, like raw wool that needs spinning into threads that make sense. My superpower is channeling chaos, then seeing patterns.
But because my safety depends on the club’s generosity, I followed their dead ends for three hours until they concededwe’d all think better in the morning after some sleep. Once I heard the click of their light switch, I went to my room with a plan to work through the night. Without Lucy and Grudge and Catfish looking over my shoulder, I was able to do my best work. Alone.
Not once did Lucy or Grudge ask me any questions about myself. And I made a choice that I wouldn’t tell them anything either. It will help me leave less of a footprint here and make it easier to go back to New Jersey.
I get up to check some scripts I have running, but the first thing I see is another email from Federal Agent Dorian Chase, demanding I make myself available to him for questioning. It’s the fifth email he’s sent to an old email address that uses my deadname. A quick online search after the first contact revealed he’s a supervisory special agent within the National Cyber Investigative Task Force. The photograph was one of those professional shots with a pale blue background and an American flag.
He’s nondescript. Brown hair combed neatly. Thick ears. Slightly gormless looking. I bet he chews with his mouth open.
I ignore it, like I did the other four.
Agitation ripples through me. There’s too much noise here. A truck on the street outside. The clang of a water pipe as someone takes a shower. This morning, I heard the muffled sound of Grudge and Lucy having sex down the hall.
For a second, I’m jealous at the ease they have around each other as they fall into established gender roles. Grudge is clearly the protector.
I guess everyone’s idea of peace is different. While theirs looks like finding each other and building a life as the head honchos of a motorcycle club, mine looks like a property of my own.
Once upon a time, I used to think it might be nice to share it with someone I could love and trust. But the way a river can erode rocks, time has worn down the edges of that.
Now, it looks like having a large garden and lots of dogs. I think about Mercury, the husky that belonged to one of my foster families. He had thick fur and a mournful howl and never moved when I clung to his fur and cried into his neck as I processed the grief after Mom died.
Just thinking about him makes me feel better.
My work takes me to places on the internet that the average person never strays. Places that often leave me feeling like I have a layer of grease on my skin.
But as I look over to my laptop, I know two things to be true.
One, what I do is never enough.
Two, I’m fed up with living one step away from a panic attack. On top of the anxiety Rae has already told me I suffer from.
Heavy rock with mournful vocals and screeching guitar solos blasts from the kitchen.
Why the fuck is itneverquiet around here?
“You’re being too hard on them,” I hear in hushed tones in the hallway. I think it’s Catfish speaking.
“And you should be more fucking stressed than you are.” Yeah, that was definitely Grudge.
