Seasons of Change (12 page)

“So if this is about Jake instead of me, why aren’t you over at his place, bothering him while he’s at work, asking
him
these stupid questions?” I ask, gnawing on my lower lip.

“Because we know that you know how important it is to answer truthfully and to tell us
everything
,” Ryan points out.

“Who is this ‘us’?” I ask after a beat. “Why is the chief so interested in the nocturnal habits of his crew? I never took him for a pervert, but I guess people never cease to amaze,” I say sarcastically.

“Bitch, don’t you dare talk about the chief that way,” Ryan explodes and grabs hold of me from across the table, squeezing my arm until it hurts.

I’m fairly sure that there’s going to be a pretty impressive bruise there. I sit in my seat, frozen. After a few moments, the heat in his eyes dims to a low glimmer, but I can still see it there, flickering just under the surface.

“You need to start watching that smart mouth of yours Aimee,” he threatens between hard breaths. “You don’t want to end up with someone slapping the smile off of it, do you?”

“No.” I shake my head and manage to bite back further comment. I know the rules with the Bleeding Angels. I know better than to unleash my sarcasm on them. Sarcasm stings, but a shot to the heart can kill, and that’s exactly what they’re capable of doing.

“Good. So why don’t you act like the good girl that I know you are and tell me what happened last night? Is Summers trying to get you to leave town with him before he’s patched?” Ryan asks. It’s said as if he’s just throwing an idea out into the mix, but the intense look on his face tells me that he knows exactly what he’s saying. He’s clear on how close to the mark he is.

I almost laugh at how wrong they’ve got things. If only Jake was trying to encourage me to leave town with him rather than the other way around. If only he wasn’t so hell-bent on being a hero, no matter the consequences. “No,” I reply truthfully. “He wasn’t asking me to leave town with him.” I don’t say anything else immediately, not trusting my voice.

“Good.” Ryan nods approvingly, like I’ve done well to follow his orders. “Now, are you going to tell me what went on in that room?” he asks, challenging me with his eyes, and I can’t avoid squirming under his gaze.

I know that I’ve used up a few of my lives already with Ryan and I don’t know how much longer he’s going to let me get away with it for, so I do the only thing that I can: I tell the truth. “Jake and I spent the night together,” I admit, feeling the blush start to make its way up from my chest all the way up my neck, setting my cheeks on fire.

“You and Summers?” Ryan spits out, as if the very idea offends him. “I thought you had better taste than that.”

“Really? And who in your opinion would be more appropriate for me to have slept with than Jake—you?” I ask. My laugh turns from shocked to strangled as I see the emotions cross Ryan’s face, and I realize that’s
exactly
what he thinks.

“You could do a lot worse Winters,” Ryan says, his voice back to the weediness that I’m accustomed to. “You need someone that can look after you, someone that will make things easier for you and your mom.” He nods slowly, like he’s expecting me to join in. But I don’t; I just sit there, staring at him.

“I don’t need anyone to look after me. I’m doing just fine, Ryan, but thanks for your concern,” I tell him, my tone heavy with the bite of acid.

“You’re a smart girl Aimee. Be smart now,” he warns me, and I wish that there wasn’t such an edge to his voice.

“And the smart thing would be to accept help from you? The people that destroyed my family? The people that killed my father and took my mother away from me? Explain to me, Ryan, how exactly would that be smart?” I ask, resting my head on my hands as if I’m paying rapt attention.

“Because it would be such a shame if something were to happen to your mom, after all she’s been through,” Ryan says slowly. “I know how much you care about her, how much you would hate for anything to happen to her.” He spreads his hands with a nonchalant shrug.

“What are you saying?” I ask, all the fight suddenly leaving me as I feel my body turn ice cold.

“Like I said: you’re a smart girl. Figure it out.” He smiles wolfishly and I press my palms on the table to steady myself.

“What do I have to do?” I ask, closing my eyes for a moment as I try to gather my thoughts.

“Stay away from Summers,” Ryan says, his voice commanding. “He’s going to be a patch pretty soon, and we don’t want anything to interfere with that. Not you, not anything. Stay away from him, don’t call, don’t swing by the body shop, don’t communicate with him in any way. Believe me, if you do, we’ll know about it. Take care of your Mom, keep working here—” He gestures around us at the empty diner. “—And just let things play out the way they have to,” Ryan advises, standing up. “And who knows?” he says suddenly. “Maybe one of these days I could take you out for a drink, show you that the Angels really aren’t as bad as you seem to think we are?” he asks, shrugging his shoulders.

I don’t say the first thing that comes into my head about how the Angels are exactly as bad as I think they are—how all they’ve done is destroy this town and anyone in it that has the balls to stand up to them. I don’t say that I would rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than go out with him. I don’t say that I would never let him touch me in a million years. I don’t say any of these things, because I’m still reeling from the thinly-concealed threat that he had let fall onto the table.

“Be seeing you Aimee,” Ryan says, and it sounds more like a threat than a promise.

I remain sitting in the booth long after the bell rings as Ryan walks out of the diner. After a few minutes, George appears next to me and he lays a big hand on my shoulder. It’s that simple act of kindness that just pushes me over the edge. The tears that I have been holding in for so long start spilling out over my cheeks and I can’t do anything to stop them.

“Ah, baby girl,” George says, awkwardly taking me in his arms to give me a bear hug. “Don’t cry Aimee, don’t cry.” He rubs my back and I sob into his chest, not even trying to contain my tears. I’m not sure how long we stay like that for, but eventually the tears dry up and George takes a seat opposite me, where Ryan had been sitting. It might as well have been a universe apart.

I’m brought back to the “here and now” with a thud, realizing that customers could walk in at any minute to find me a hot mess of tears and George out the front where nobody is used to seeing him. “The shift,” I say lamely, about to stand, up but George plants his one big hand over my two smaller ones.

“I’ve put the Closed sign up for now. You looked like you needed some time,” he says gruffly. “Besides, truckers won’t be in for another hour at least,” he notes, looking at the over-sized clock on the wall, and I know that he’s right. “So why don’t you tell me what that was all about?” he asks, settling himself back in the booth for the story.

“He told me...He told me to stay away from Jake,” I tell him, and I register the shock on his face.

“From your young man? But… but why? What’s it to them?” George asks, his big bushy eyebrows coming together in a deep frown.

“He’s going to be patched soon,” I explain, and George nods—he already knows that. “And I guess they don’t want anything interfering with that.” I shrug, feeling a little stupid that I don’t have a better answer for him than that.

“And what if you don’t stay away from him? Surely you two can see each other without them finding out?” George asks. He doesn’t yet understand why my reaction to Ryan’s order has been so strong.

“They’ve been following us,” I tell him, and his eyebrows spring up again in an expression of shock that would have been comic if the circumstances weren’t so intensely horrible. “They know everything. They knew I was at his place last night, and he said they’ll know if I try to contact him,” I tell him, feeling the hysteria start to rise up my throat. “They said they’d hurt my mom.” My voice small as I press my eyes shut, trying to stop the tears from slipping out.

“
Los hijos de puta
,” George says under his breath, and if I hadn’t been on the verge of a nervous breakdown I would probably agree with him. They really are sons of bitches. “Aimee, I’m sorry,” he says, shaking his head, and in those three words he confirms exactly what I have been thinking. There really is no other choice; I have to do what the Angels have told me. There’s no work-around, there’s no way to avoid doing what they want. I remind myself of what everyone in this town has always said to me: “The Angels get what they want, one way or another.” It really was true. They’ve left me with no choice: either I lose Jake, my best friend in the whole world and so much, so much more than that now… or I lose my mom, the only family I have left, the person that I know dad would want me to protect over and above everything and everyone else.

“Me too, George,” I say through gritted teeth as the pain makes me feel I’m being stabbed in the heart. “I’m sorry too.” I let my head sink onto the table and my body is overcome by sobs.

That night George and I make an executive decision to close early. It’s not like Dick would even realize. As George had said, if he took his head out of his ass long enough to get anything done, it would be a miracle in itself. I walk home in the dark in a daze, thinking over the conversation I had with Ryan, replaying it over and over again in my mind. But re-running our little chat doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change the words that he said or the undeniable fact that he was threatening to hurt the only member of my family I still have. And I know that I can’t let that happen.

I take my cell from my pocket out of habit to dial Jake’s number, but I stop abruptly with my finger hovering over the call button. What was it that Ryan had said? If I call him, they’ll know. It could easily be a bluff; as far as I know, the Bleeding Angels haven’t advanced to phone tapping yet. They're just your run of the mill criminals, rather than masterminds of international espionage. But was I willing to run the risk that they weren’t joking? Was I willing to put everything on the line because Ryan may have just been trying to scare me? I already know the answer: no.

Instead, I choose another contact and wait for the call to go through. I’ve been calling her over and over again, but Suzie doesn’t pick up her cell. I don’t know why I think now might be any different. And it’s not—all I get is a recording of a perky, younger version of the Suzie that I saw the other night in The Hideaway telling me to leave a message after the beep.

“Hey Suze,” I say, “I just wanted to check up on you, see how you’re doing.”

I’m simply repeating the same things I had said in my previous five messages that she hadn’t returned yet. “I really need to talk to you, so call me when you get this, okay?” I ask, wishing that I didn’t sound so plaintive and needy.

She hasn’t shown up for her past two shifts and I’m starting to wonder if she’s ever going to show up again. George had pretty much said that if she didn’t make an appearance (and an apology for leaving us high and dry) in the next couple of days, then she wouldn’t have a job to come back to.

He knows as well as I do that the waitressing job is the only thing that has been keeping her grounded since her mom left. It’s given her a routine, a reason for getting up in the morning, a sense of achievement as she was earning her own money. But Suzie had always opted for the easy option. If there was a way to pass a test at school by not studying and cheating instead, then that’s what she would do. If there was a way to earn money without working a 9 to 5, by maybe selling a little weed on the side, that’s what she would do too.

I have no doubt in my mind that if she had found a way to stay afloat and gain protection… to live in this town without having to really deal with anything by dating an Angel, and getting so high she doesn’t remember what she does, then in my head I’m pretty sure that’s what she would do. I wish that it wasn’t true, but Suzie has proved me right more often than she has proved me wrong.

I take another look at my cell, checking that Jake hasn’t tried to get in touch with me. But there’s nothing—no messages, no calls. Maybe the Angels had spoken to him as well, I reason with myself. Or maybe he was pissed with me for sneaking out in the middle of the night. Or maybe he felt awkward about the whole thing and didn’t know how to make things right between us.

Or maybe he doesn’t care
, the little voice pipes up.
Now that he’s got his end away, perhaps he doesn’t really care about you at all
. I know in my heart of hearts that’s not true, and all I want to do is run over to the body shop and talk to him, see him, hear his voice, touch his face.

I stop walking and give myself a little shake, forcing myself to get to grips with what is going on. That is not an option. I can’t do any of those things. The only thing I
can
do is to stay away from him. I can’t even bear to think about what will happen if I give in to what I want rather than doing what I’ve been told.

Come on Aimee
, I tell myself,
just man up and get this show on the road
. I nod, agreeing with the voice in my head for once, and carry on trudging home in the dark.