Monster (33 page)

Then we were driving.

After that, I was being
hauled up a driveway into Lex's ridiculous estate. I was dragged
through the kitchen, down the stairs, into a finished basement, then
into an unfinished portion of the basement. The hand moved from my
mouth, but only to be replaced with a gag. The arm moved from my
waist to cuff my hands behind my back, the bracelets too tight,
biting into my skin.

And then I was left in
that bathroom. For the better part of a day.

Only to be un-cuffed
and un-gagged and hauled out to see Shooter sitting in the chair
looking very much like he had been there a while and I felt the bolt
of realization that he had been there all along. If only I had gotten
to the door. Gotten his attention...

But it was too late for
that.

And Breaker was there.

Alright. So maybe I
told myself that I was taking my feelings for him and putting them in
a chest deep inside to be opened never. But all it took was one look
at him and the chest burst open and all the feelings slipped out raw
and wet and painful.

Then his words smarted
across my face like a slap.

He was going to leave
me there. I was pretty sure I was a little bit in love with the man
and he was going to... leave me to the man I hated the most in the
whole world. A man who completely destroyed my life in more ways than
one.

I shared my body with
Breaker. I'd bared my soul.

And he was going to
turn his back on me?

But then Joshua walked
into the room and shock replaced the betrayal.

Joshua Kaidisen. Glenn
knew him way back when they were pre-pubescent boys playing video
games and sneaking around the internet looking for dirty pictures.
Back when Joshua wasn't the looker he turned out to be. Glenn had
showed me pictures once of the two of them. Glenn pudgy as a kid,
bespectacled, a shorter version of his adult self. But Joshua had
been the quintessential ugly duckling. He was thin to the point of
gaunt, all arms and legs, making him resemble a skeleton more than a
flesh and blood person. His skin had been ravaged by the kind of acne
that garnered the moniker 'pizza face' for years. And from what Glenn
said, he had been awkward and bumbling with a slight speech
impediment that made him painfully insecure.

See. He was the kind of
guy you were supposed to feel sorry for.

And I had.

Until I met adult
Joshua.

Because adult Joshua
finally grew into his arms and legs. His thinness became a lithe
swimmer's body that he dressed well. His skin got slathered in creams
then lasered to even it out. He saw a professional speech therapist
who ironed out his impediment and taught him perfect elocution.

All good things.

Except with those
things came the most arrogant, intolerable, jackass womanizer I had
every crossed paths with. Which, given my line of work dealing with
cheating bastards, was really saying something.

He was also one of the
best hackers on the east coast. Better than me and Glenn certainly. A
fact that he rubbed my face in constantly. At first I thought it was
just because he was trying to push me to learn more. But, in the end,
he was just a jackass.

It really shouldn't
have come as much of a shock that he got himself involved with the
likes of Lex.

And then he fucking
ratted me out. Which was just... so against everything hackers
believed in. It was us against them. Always. We watched each other's
backs. Without fail.

The rat bastard.

I purged my rage at
him, enjoying the fear overtaking his features as he realized how
jolly well fucked he was. For no reason. Just his own vanity,
thinking he could roll with the big boys. But, in the end, they would
just remind him of the bumbling, stuttering nobody he had always
been.

Then there was
fighting.

And then the room
cleared.

Save for me. And Lex.
Breaker. And Greg.

Then I was at the
receiving end of Lex's anger. Like my mother had been for so many
years. Feeling his fists slam into my face, making my vision into
little white explosions, making the punch Breaker had given me feel
like it had been a love tap.

I was tasting and
spitting my own blood when he got me down on all fours. And there was
no time. No time to get to my boot. To get the heroin. To get it in
my system and start to OD before he put his hands on me.

It was over.

I lost.

And I was going to pay.

I looked up at Breaker
for a second, my heart in my eyes, before I shut that down and
lowered my head, feeling Lex's hands reach for my pants, his
fingertips grazing over my ass in a way that made my skin crawl. The
sick crept up my throat as I heard his zipper move down.

It was one thing to
have willing but awful sex. I had submitted to that with two
different men.

It was a whole other to
have the right to deny sex taken away from you... yeah, there were no
words for that kind of awful.

But then Breaker's
voice was cutting in.

Saying shit he had no
business saying.

Though, in the end, it
saved me.

I was seconds away from
feeling Lex's body slamming into mine. And I knew enough of the
police reports to know how terrible he would make that for me.

Then Lex was away from
me. And the world went BOOM.

Breaker flew at Greg.

And I reached into my
boot and I flew at Lex.

For my mom. And Glenn.
And every woman whose battered, broken body I had seen. And also, for
me. For what he had already taken from me. For what he was just about
to take from me before he was stopped.

I never really thought
much about if I was a violent person or not. In general, I was safe
behind my computer screen. I had never been in fights. I had never
hurt anyone.

But my arm flew out and
the tip of the knife plunged with a force that made my stomach drop
into Lex's eye socket.

The howl he let out
sent a shockwave through my system and I pulled the knife back out,
freezing, unable to do anything but fight down the bile that was
rising in my throat.

Before my eyes, I
watched a screaming, bleeding Lex take a right hook to the side of
his face and fall unconscious to the ground.

Then there was Breaker,
yelling at me, dragging me toward the staircase.

We had barely made it
into the finished side of the basement when a battered Greg came
barreling through with Lex hanging off him only half conscious, going
to the side of the bar and opening a door into a small white panic
room.

I almost laughed as
Breaker dragged me up the stairs and into the kitchen.

I had half-expected
some kind of war to be going on. But all there was was confused
chaos. Anyone we encountered looked through us like we weren't even
there. So we just kept moving, Breaker pushing the door to the
outside open, and we knocked over a still living, breathing, laughing
Shooter.

I felt a wave of relief
that made all my air whoosh out of my system at the sight of him. I
barely knew him. Had literally shared only a handful of words with
the man. But he was good. He was willing to sacrifice himself for me.
He offered me his pinkie for support. And he and Breaker loved one
another like brothers. That was enough for me.

I was so happy to see
him alive, I felt tears stinging my eyes.

But then we were
running again, watching Lex's property start to break into wild fires
from whatever the hell kind of explosives were planted all around.

We had just gotten to
the truck when I saw Jstorm.

One look was all I
needed.

I knew.

It could have been
anyone in a hood.

But I knew.

You could have knocked
me over with a feather when a hand reached up, pulled off a hood, and
revealed a woman who had to have been younger than me. Or at least,
she had one of those faces, eternally young. Sweet. Delicate. Except
she wore her eye makeup heavy and her lips red and her tattoos were
bright and colorful against her pale skin.

We got into the car,
driving away, me watching Jstorm in the rearview mirror.

“Fuck,”
Breaker growled as we all did the weird
'there was a loud noise,
you instinctively duck'
thing despite being in an enclosed car.
The ground underneath the truck seemed to shake for a long time even
as we kept driving away.

Jstorm turned her head
toward our retreating car and though we were too far away to see, I
was sure she was grinning.

I found myself smiling
back as we drove out of sight.

My mission in life was
to take down Lex Keith.

There was a poetic sort
of justice for it to be a woman to be the one to finally do that
deed.

Maybe it didn't turn
out the way I had planned- selling off his information to someone who
would do him in for their own personal reasons.

It turned out better.

Two women who didn't
know each other from Eve conspiring to, in the end, blow his world to
pieces.

I fought the laugh and
lost, putting a hand over my eyes and letting the weird hysterical
sound roll through me.

“Doll,”
Breaker's voice called, firm, making me turn my head and look at him.

“Yeah?”

“How the fuck do
you know Janie?”

“Janie?” I
asked, my brows drawing together. It was just a... plain name for
someone as badass as she obviously was.

“Janie. From
Hailstorm.”

“Hailstorm?”
I asked, my face dropping. Hailstorm. The survivalist camp full of
ex-military who did all kinds of odd jobs- hits, jumpers, corporate
espionage. You name it, they dipped their toes in it. And they were
good. Like... really good. They were also, like the Henchmen MC and
the Mallick family, not in Lex's pockets.

“Yeah, doll. That
was Janie... Lo's like... favorite pet,” he said, making an
image of Lo pop into my head. A fake image, because like... nobody
knew what Lo actually looked like. I pictured him big and mean with a
scar down his eyebrow. Don't ask why. That's how I viewed him.

I swallowed. “That
was Jstorm, Breaker,” I told him, and her SN finally clicked.
Jstorm. Janie from Hailstorm. Holy shit. Was Hailstorm in on my
mission to take down Lex? That kind of made sense. They did stuff
like that sometimes. Just for the greater good. And they were known
for using bombs. I guess it was all the ex military in their ranks
that made them like the big booms.

“Speaking of
Hailstorm,” Shooter's voice broke in as he moved to lean up
between mine and Breaker's seats, holding an arm out, pointing out
the windshield and up the hill.

Where Hailstorm was
smoking.

“The fuck?”
Breaker said, jaw getting tight.

“Shit,”
Shooter said, but an accent slipped into the word, dragging it out,
making it sound like “sheeee-it”. Making it sound
southern. I turned my head slightly, looking at the side of his face,
wondering about him, wanting to know his story. “What did we
get ourselves into here?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Fuck if I know,”
Breaker said, shaking his head. “But we ain't hanging around to
find out. We'll drop by my place, get some cash and supplies and get
the fuck out of here,” he said, sounding all bossy and I felt a
familiar tug of desire in my core. Bossy Breaker. There was nothing
better.

“Drop by my place
too,” Shooter said, shrugging when Breaker sent him a
disbelieving look. “Been in these clothes for a week, man. Need
to grab some shit if we are bugging out.”

“Fine,”
Breaker said through gritted teeth.

“Oh, can we stop
at the motel I was staying at?” I asked, looking between the
two of them who were both looking at me like I was crazy. “What?
You can get cash and 'supplies', whatever those are. And he can go
get clothes? I can't stop and pick up my laptop? It cost me four
thousand dollars, Breaker. Four
thousand
. Plus, I'd like you
to scare the hell out of the creep who runs the place,” I added
with a nod of my head.