I kept moving around the gym, working each body part in turn, until I felt like a bowl of Jell-O. But no matter how hard I tried to concentrate on lifting the weight or focus on mental images of Carla in the storage closet, the same snapshots of Corinne tore across my mind's eye. It was goddamn unstoppable. I was drowning in her.
I dropped a weight abruptly. This wasn't working. I needed something more mentally challenging. Maybe someone at the clubhouse would have a bit of work that needed to be done. Running missions always tended to clear my mind. A collections run or a muscle job could be just the ticket to snap me back to the present moment. It was worth a shot, at the very least.
Drenched in sweat, I left the gym and got back on my bike. The sun was just starting to come up over the horizon. I went home to shower and change before heading to the Inked Angels headquarters.
I had my fingers crossed that I'd be able to avoid seeing Growler. I didn't think I could handle that particular interaction at the moment. Motherfucker might smell the damn indiscretion on me. And if he did, there was no telling what he'd do.
Chapter 10
Corinne
As soon as Croak left, I fell into a wretched heap of tears. I wanted to stop them, but I didn't feel like I was in control of my body anymore. The bastard had taken that with him. I couldn't believe he'd just walked out like that. How could he? How could he do that to me? I beat my fists into the bedsheets, but I was sadder than I was angry. I felt so thin and worn out, like an old washcloth that was long past due to get thrown out.
At first, I was so certain that I'd sensed something special, something different between us. And I was so certain that he'd sensed it, too. It felt obvious in the way his eyes said so much to me and the way he teased, the way he moved, like every step had been determined already and we were just playing it out for the hell of it. I really thought he'd been different.
But he turned out to be a son of a bitch, just like my father had predicted every man on a bike would be. I had to admit that he'd warned me, all those years ago, and I'd gone ahead and dove in anyways. I thought it would be different with Croak.
But I was wrong.
My thoughts were spinning around and around like vultures over roadkill, but they weren't getting me anywhere. I laid down and curled up with a pillow clutched between my arms for comfort. Eventually, my mind grew tired and let me drift into a restless sleep.
I woke up a few hours later. Gauging by the purplish light between the window blinds, it was right around dawn. I felt crusty. Maybe a shower would help to rinse away the memories and the bad feelings that clung to me.
I threw off the sheets and padded over to the bathroom. Closing the door behind me, I leaned across to twist the knobs of the shower. I cranked the hot to full blast. I wanted my skin to burn, or get as close to it as I could bear. The hotter, the better.
While I waited for the shower to heat up, I examined my face in the mirror. My neck was a mottled collection of bite marks, kisses, and the soft imprint of Croak's fingertips. In fact, my whole body bore the signs of his touch. I was aching between the legs, but it was a welcome ache, a reminder of how mind-blowing the encounter had been.
I felt like my whole world had been knocked out of place. Everything I thought before was gone, replaced now by thoughts of Croak. All the questions I'd had about why boys couldn't make me want them were vanished. I'd found what I was looking for - raw, primal need, the kind that made me say fuck the warnings and dive into him heedlessly. I'd been like an animal. So much hunger and need in me that I'd never even known was there. I'd told Croak to stay. I'd told Croak I wanted him. And he'd rewarded that with a mouth, fingertips, and a member that were pretty freaking close to magical. The memory of how hard I'd come still made me shiver.
I blinked hard. Steam was filling the room, blotting my face out in the mirror. I let out a sigh and stepped into the shower. The sizzling water took the edge off of my spiraling thoughts, but it couldn't get rid of them completely. No matter how hard I tried to forget about him, Croak stayed rooted behind my eyelids.
He wasn't going anywhere.
I washed my hair, then my face and body. After I had scrubbed as hard as I could at my skin, leaving it raw and red, I stood beneath the stream of water for a long time. I let it beat on my shoulders and back while the sound of it splashing filled my ears. It was like a meditation, where the only important thing was to think of anything but Croak. Funny how hard that turned out to be. I'd spent my whole life not thinking of him, but now that I'd started, I couldn't envision a world where he wasn't a constant. Such a sudden and unexpected turn of events. I wasn't ready for this. How could I have been?
Eventually, the water stopped being comforting. I wrenched the knobs to the off position and stepped out. I took my time toweling the water from my body, then wrapped a towel around my chest and put my hair up in another.
A yawn ripped over me as I walked into my bedroom to get dressed. Despite having slept for a couple hours after Croak had gone, I didn't feel rested at all. My sleep had been filled with half-formed dreams that didn't make any sense.
I stepped into my closet and pulled on a pair of black panties and white denim shorts. I hooked a strapless black bra around my chest, then scrounged around for a t-shirt. I found a faded blue v-neck, which went over my head. Stripping the towel off of my hair, I coiled it up and dabbed at my wet locks as I walked back into my bedroom.
"Hello," an unfamiliar voice said as I entered.
I screamed.
A man was standing in the doorway leading from my bedroom out into the main living area. He was of medium height and build, but a grotesque stoop made him look shorter and more menacing. His hair was cropped close. Large chunks of it were missing, showing ugly scabs and scars along his scalp instead. The wounds looked fresh, as if he'd hacked at his own head just before barging into my apartment.
He had on dirty jeans and a long sleeve shirt caked in dust. But scariest of all was the gleaming knife in his hand. That didn't look dirty at all.
It looked ready to kill.
I backed up into the wall behind me. I wanted to look around for something I could use to defend myself, but I didn't dare take my eyes off of the man. His face was twisted into an agonized leer. He looked like he was suffering tremendously, like whatever pain he was feeling had driven him crazy. Spit slithered down his chin from his slack jaw. Even from across the room, I could tell that the pupils of his eyes were dilated wide open.
"Who are you?" I asked in a trembling voice.
He gave me a somber tilt of the head. "My name is Ricardo. Your father and I are … business partners," he offered with a shrug of his shoulders.
I immediately remembered what Croak had told me about the man named Ricardo. He'd lost his cool a little bit … .
The man in front of me had done far more than lost his cool, however. He looked like he was high out of his mind on some substance that, whatever it was, should immediately be banned from being used by humans. Something was eating him up from the inside. Snot, dried blood, and powder were crusted around his nose, and with his free hand he kept scratching at himself.
"What do you want with me?" I said quietly. Ricardo was taking slow steps in my direction. He held the knife horizontally, aimed straight at my chest from where he stood a few yards away.
"We're gonna take a little trip, yes, a field trip, yes, yes," he said. His voice lurched high and low, from a deep rumble to a baby voice and back again, like there were different personalities fighting for control of his body. He was dangerously unstable. I felt my heart hammering in my chest. My legs were twitching with manic energy. I wanted to run, flee, to get as far away from this drug-crazed loon as I could.
"To where? Why?" As I talked, I slid my hand down the wall behind me so that he couldn't see. My hair straightener was just an inch or two below my grasp. I pressed the button to turn it on and waited. Just get a little bit closer, you son of a bitch, I thought to myself.
"Your father is, yes, a bastard, yes" he snarled. "Taking my money, my money, how fucking dare he!" Saliva flew from his mouth and his hand squeezed at empty air. I bet he wished it was my dad's throat. Even though he was pretending, his knuckles still turned white from the effort in his clenched fist.
"What do you want with me?" I asked again. "Tell me why you're here."
"I'm the one asking the questions, you cunt," he roared. "I have the knife! I make the rules! Now shut the fuck up!" He sprang towards me with the knife outstretched on the final syllable. I ducked, grabbed the heated straightener, and clamped down on his free hand with the prongs. I heard a sizzle and smelled the rank stench of burning flesh.
Ricardo howled in pain. As he did, he brought the butt of the knife slamming into my temple where I crouched below and behind him. I couldn't get out of the way in time. My vision went fuzzy, then dark.
He had me.
# # #
I woke up in the passenger seat of a moving car. It took a flew blinks to get my eyes working properly. When the focus adjusted, I saw that there were tall thickets of trees flashing by on either side of me. I looked to my left and saw Ricardo hunched over the wheel. He still had the long machete in his fist. The straightening iron had left an ugly, rectangular burn on the back of his knuckles. The skin there was bubbled and inflamed.