Leaving was taking a leap of faith.
It was potentially screwing an already screwed situation further.
It was leaving the only person left in the world I cared about.
Someone who said they cared about me too.
And, yes, it was soon.
And, yes, it was nonsensical.
But Breaker meant something to me.
There was even a small voice inside that suggested that maybe he meant everything to me.
But that was all the more reason I needed to go.
To save him.
To save him from trying to save me.
And losing his life or Shooter's life in the process.
I couldn't let that happen.
I needed to go.
I slammed my laptop shut, moving quickly across Breaker's house. I slipped into jeans and my boots, threw on an extra layer under my sweatshirt, half emptied my duffel, and stowed a change of clothes and my laptop inside to make for light and easy travel.
I looked down at my notebooks, flipping one to the last page and ripping it out.
I had to leave. But I also had to leave a note.
If I didn't, he would think Lex got me. I couldn't have him storming Lex's house looking for me. So I grabbed a pen, I sat down, and I said my last words to Breaker.
And I pretended I did this without crying.
But I cried. A lot. Making the words I wrote swim before my eyes.
I grabbed the gun Breaker left with me, slipping it into my waistband like he did, then tore out of the house.
Seventeen
Breaker
I did a quick job for an old friend- roughing up some jackass who kept trying to shake down his store. I was done in half an hour, relatively clean of blood, and whipped my way through the food store.
I wasn't lying when I said we had gone through all of the food. I meant all I had left was a jar of pickles and some stale crackers in the cabinet. She may have been tiny, but she could sock away almost as much food as I could. It was one of the many things I found amusing about her.
She had changed.
After losing her ex. After crying with me. After drinking with me. After opening up a little... she changed.
She let down the walls enough for me to climb over. To get a solid view of what was on the inside. And I wasn't wrong. I knew I wouldn't be. But it was good to have proof.
Alex Miller wasn't just the hollow eyed, determined hacker with a vendetta whose soul spoke in a language of tears.
She was funny and sweet and had a strong tendency to stick her foot in her mouth and then blush like hell because of it. And that temper of hers? Yeah, it wasn't just about shit she found important. The day she was hungover as fuck, she went balls to the wall about a god damn character from a movie.
I fucked her until she forgot what her argument was.
I also caught her singing daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. Like she forgot I was mulling around. Or like she was comfortable enough with my presence that she didn't care that I overheard. Several times, it was that song about smiling. Other times, it was other oldies. Almost exclusively songs about rising above something or choosing to keep your chin up despite the hard times. I wondered if that was because of her mother. If that was the kind of music she played or sang for Alex growing up.
She liked carbs more than she liked protein. Always plowing through her sides at dinner and then picking at the meat with a sort of disinterest. She forgot to run a brush through her hair until it was in tangles. She hated action movies and wouldn't even talk about watching anything with horror. She said real life was awful enough, that if she was going to escape for a while, she wanted to escape into something that made her laugh. So we watched comedies. She laughed. I laughed at her laughing.
I threw things into my cart, pausing in the chip aisle and grabbing a bag of cheese curls. The puffed kind. Which was, apparently, the superior ones. I had gone my entire life without forming that kind of opinion about snack foods.
“Man, you got blood on your sleeve,” a familiar voice said, sounding amused.
I turned, seeing Paine standing there, one of his arms thrown around his mother's shoulders.
“Heya darlin',” she greeted me warmly, like she always did, completely ignoring the blood topic. Like she always did. “I gotta go grab a roast for dinner. Paine, baby, I'll catch up with you by the register.”
And with that, she was pushing her cart away from us.
“You don't call and fucking tell me you're still alive? When you're dealing with that son of a bitch?”
Shit. Yeah. That was stupid.
“Sorry, man. I've been busy.”
At that, Paine's eyes roamed over to look in my cart and the sides of his lips quirked up. “I see that. She worth all the trouble you getting yourself into?”
“You know the answer to that,” I hedged, not quite at the point where I felt like I could admit out loud to someone else that I had less than professional feelings about Alex. It was too soon. I wasn't the kind of guy who got feelings about any god damn thing.
“Shoot?” he asked, a look of hardness going across his face, like he was preparing for the worst.
“Far as I know still pissin' off the guys holding him. Saw him once. Alex slipped him a knife. He has a chance.”
“And...”
“And I'm supposed to hold onto her until she is not useful to him anymore.”
“How the fuck you get yourself into this mess?” he asked loudly, making a group of women at the end of the aisle jump and look over. Paine sent them a killer smile and they flushed and wandered off. Smooth fuck he was.
“Dunno man. But I am gonna get us all out of it. Get us out of here.”
Paine nodded. “You need anything...”
“Ain't getting you involved in this too. It's bad enough that you've been seen with me at all.”
“Just sayin'. Shit goes down, you got nowhere else to turn, you got me.”
Paine wasn't in my life. Not the dark side. He was in the drinking and chilling and bitches side of my life. But he knew all about the dark. He shared a bottle with me on the nights when the blood on my hands wouldn't let me sleep. He helped me pull Shoot back from the brink of death when he got his ass handed to him by three pussies who jumped him in an alley 'cause they knew he carried around bank.
He kept his head in my business, but his hands out of it.
That was the way I wanted to keep it.
For him. And his family.
No matter what shit went down, no matter if I had nowhere else to turn, he wasn't getting into my shit.
“I know, man,” I said though, because he wouldn't give in until he got what he needed to hear. “Go meet your Ma. I gotta go back and check on my girl.”
My?
My?
Jesus Christ. She wasn't mine.
As if sensing my internal battle, Paine threw his head back and laughed, the sound filling the store. “Oh, that's rich. Holy fuckin' shit. I never thought I'd see the day.”
“What day?” I asked, feeling my jaw getting tight.
“The day you caught yourself feelings over some chick,” he clarified, still chuckling.
“I don't...” I started, knowing damn well I did.
“Oh, save it,” he said, slamming a hand down on my shoulder. “Didn't say it was a bad thing. Just said I'd never thought I'd see the day. Go get your food and get back to your woman,” he said, moving toward the front of the store.
“She ain't my woman,” I called back loudly.