Chapter 43

“Better?” he asks me, raising a brow.

I stare at my cuffed hands. “Not even close…”

Vivisected. On-off-buzz-buzz-on-off. Alan, I miss you.

“Help me catch him, Ashley.” He pauses; his expression is calculated but he needs something too. “I know I’m not a nice guy, but maybe you need someone like me in your corner.”

Alan.

Go away, go away, go away.

My heart aches. “Please…give me the picture,” I plead.

Agent Patt steps within my line of sight, but I only stare at his tie. “If I give you the picture, will you tell me what happened? Will you answer my questions?”

I suck my bottom lip, running my tongue across it as I hold it between my teeth. It’s now or never and never isn’t truly an option. The inevitable is upon me. “Uncuff me.”

The agent’s eyes flicker over me. I know his mind must be racing with ideas on how to make me talk. Trust is a two way street. Show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. He steps toward me, slowly, and cautiously removes the cuff from my wrist. “Well?” he says.

“I’ll tell you. Only, you. In exchange, you’ll give me any pictures you have of him and get me out of here.” My heart is beating a frantic tattoo in my chest, but I gather my courage. I’m a survivor. I hold my hand out. “Give me the picture.”

Agent Patt’s mouth twists with disappointment at the knowledge he cannot win this point from me. Reluctantly, he gathers his folder and hands me the photo of Alan. “You’ll have to tell me what you know first, and then I can talk to my superiors and make a deal. I promise I’ll do whatever I can to protect you, but you have to start talking. You have to tell me why it looks like you’re more involved in this than any eighteen-year-old-girl has any right to be.”

No one else exists as I stare at Alan’s face. I sob and trace the familiar lines of his face. I love you, Alan.

“I’m gonna go get some coffee,” says Agent Patt, his voice resigned but still determined, “but when I come back, I expect answers.” I don’t notice when he leaves, or care. But I know he’s giving me time to grieve in peace.

He walked out of the room and shut the door. This time I heard the lock.

For the first time in five days, I am left alone. I suspect it will be the last time, for a while, Alan and I will have to spend together. With trembling lips, I kiss him.

It seemed to Alan, the nature of human beings revolved around one empirical truth: we want what we cannot have. For Eve, it was the fruit of the forbidden tree. For Alan, it was Ashley.

The night had been a fitful one. Livvie whimpered and trembled in her sleep and Alan’s chest seemed to contract with every sound. He had given her more morphine and after some time, her body seemed to quiet down though there still seemed to be frenzied movement behind her eyelids. Nightmares, he assumed. Without fear of awkwardness or reproach, he felt a compulsion to touch her. He held her close and comforted them both, but he could not get Memphis’s text out of his mind:

How soon would he land in Seattle?

How would he react to Ashley and her broken condition?

How long did he have with Ashley before she was taken away from him?

Taken. Away. Strange, horrible, and foreign words. He closed his eyes and set his mind to reality. You’re giving her away. He opened his eyes. And the sooner, the better.

He couldn’t argue with logic. It had kept him alive for longer than he could remember. He was cold and efficient. He did not dally with questions of morality. Still, he wanted to argue with logic. He wanted to find reason in what he felt to pacify the hardened man inside his head. But he couldn’t. The truth was – he wanted her. The truth was also, it was never meant to be. He pulled Ashley even closer, careful not to crush her ribs or injured shoulder and buried his nose in her long hair, trying to smell her scent.

He had told her he wasn’t her Prince Charming, but what he hadn’t said, was he wished he could be. Once upon a time, he may have been… normal. Before he had been stolen, before the beatings and the rapes and the killing – he could have been something different than what he was. He had never thought like this, never wondered about the roads taken or not taken. His life was lived in the present and without the angst of fantasies. But he fantasized now. He fantasized about being the sort of man who could give, Ashley, all she ever wanted. The kind of man she could…

But you’re not that man, are you?

Alan sighed, knowing the answer. The fantasies of others had never confused him, but his own, left him dissatisfied with the life he’d accepted and even enjoyed from time to time. He wanted it to go away, the longing, and the feelings of regret. He wanted to live for the hunt and kill – it had been the only thing to make sense to him for so very long. Even in those moments of darkness, when his drive had flagged and he questioned the possibility of ever finding Rikko – he had never thought to be anything other than what he was.

Yet, in just three and a half weeks with Livvie, most of which, she spent locked in a dark room, it all seemed to be evaporating. It was stupid, naïve, and dangerous. A person was incapable of changing fundamentally in such a short period of time. He wasn’t different. And yet, he felt different and not even logic could alter that. If it hadn’t been for the memories, those awful, fucking memories of Dezok, beating and raping him. If he hadn’t seen Livvie, covered in blood, bruised and shuddering in that biker’s arms – he wouldn’t feel like his entire world was caving in on him.

God! What he’d done to make them pay. It had been the kind of rage he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He didn’t regret it either. He’d savored the look on those biker’s faces as he’d plunged his knife deep into Tiny, and his blood sprayed Alan, the walls, everything.

Revenge! That was his purpose.

It felt good to have a purpose. He was certain he’d feel the rush again. He’d feel it the second Rikko’s eyes dawned with realization and it would carry through until Rikko took his last, gasping breath. Alan shivered. He wanted to feel the satisfaction of that moment. He wanted to feel it more than anything. He wanted it more than he wanted the girl.

She’ll hate you. Forever. She’ll want vengeance.

“I know,” Alan whispered into the darkness of the room. Unable to resist the numbness sleep offered, he let himself be carried into the dark.

The boy refused to bathe.

“Alan, I will not tell you again! You stink! You stink, horribly. It’s been days and you’re still covered in blood. Someone will see you and then you will have real trouble on your hands, boy.”

“I am Alan. Dog! I’ve ripped my master to pieces. I’ve tasted blood and I like it! I will not wash it off. I want to wear it forever, as a badge of honor.”

Memphis’s dark face became drawn, eyes narrowed. “Bathe. Now.”

The boy squared his young shoulders and glowered at his new master. Memphis was handsome, much, much, more so than Dezok, the trained whore in him was stirred by this. Memphis was also much stronger than Dezok, capable of more damage, but the boy would not allow himself to be afraid, to cower before a man set on being his new master. He was a man now, a man! He could make his own damn decisions about when he’d wash the blood from his face.

“No!”

Memphis stood. His eyes were hard and menacing. The boy swallowed deep and hard, and despite his best efforts, he could not deny the fear he felt. As Memphis approached, the boy quelled his desire to shrink away. Memphis’s calloused hand landed firmly on the back of the boy’s neck and squeezed with enough force to make him wince, but not enough to trigger his fight or flight instinct.

Memphis leaned and growled into the boy’s ear, “Wash yourself now, or I will strip you down and scour your skin until you would never dream of defying me again.”

Tears stung the boy’s eyes. Not because he was in pain, but because he was suddenly very afraid and wished Memphis was not angry with him. He had no one else. He was still young, unable to truly fend for himself. His race and appearance put him at a sharp disadvantage with the locals. Unless he wanted to be a whore again, Memphis was all he had.

“I don’t want to.” He pleaded with a whisper. The hand at the back of his neck loosened a little and the boy screwed his eyes shut to stave off the threat of tears. He refused to cry.

“Why?”

“I want to know he’s dead. It was over so fast, Cultris. It was over so fast and he… he deserved to suffer! I wanted him to suffer, Memphis. All the pain he put me through, all those things… I wanted him to feel all those things. If I wash away the blood…” The boy’s eyes pleaded with Memphis.

“It will be like it never happened?” Memphis said, softly.

“Yes.” It was a choked sound.

Memphis sighed. “No one knows how you feel more than I do, Alan. But you cannot continue to defy me; you cannot continue to act like a petulant boy! You are not Alan any longer. Wash. I promise you, Narwet will still be dead when you are finished.”

The boy pushed away from the grip on the back of his neck. “No! No! No! I won’t do it.”

Memphis’s face went from cautiously warm to stone cold. “Have it your way, Alan.” His grip on the boy’s neck intensified and as he winced with pain and tried to struggle away from Memphis's, his other hand came down with a meaty thud across the boy’s face.