Bang Bang(8)
Author: Rachel Van Dyken

I had a list a mile long.

Foster parents.

Social security numbers.

IDs

Hell yeah, I’d enjoy that certain assignment, scaring the shit out of people who dared tell her she wasn’t beautiful every damn day. Feeling the knife lodge between the owner of that club’s ribs and smiling as it took his life inch by inch.

Damn, I was mafia through and through.

It was in my blood and for the first time I could remember, I embraced it, because it meant that I could actually do something to make myself feel better about the fact that everything she’d said was true.

I should have done something after she moved away.

Fear held me back.

Rejection kept me locked inside my house.

And bitterness fed the doubt.

“Yeah.” She teetered on the high heels they’d put her in and walked slowly across the pavement to her apartment. It was in a low-income area of the city. Each of the three buildings were two stories. They had peeling white paint and enough stray cats to drive anyone who was allergic into an early grave.

Amy put her key in the lock, but the door pushed open.

“Shit.” I grabbed her as fast as I could and pushed her behind me then put my finger to my lips.

She nodded quickly.

The apartment was dark. I had my gun out in front of me and was ready to raise hell if anything so much as blinked in my direction. The light from the crap TV in the corner was the only illumination to the sad little studio. Her mattress lay flat on the floor, looking like it had been in a knife fight and lost. Two sheets were ripped to shreds and all her belongings were thrown around the room. Clothes were destroyed. It seemed that whoever broke in was either pissed she wasn’t here or pissed they didn’t find anything.

I pushed open the bathroom door and almost got sick as a mouse ran across my feet and hid behind the toilet. The smell of mold and mildew burned my nostrils. Quickly, I shut the door and turned on the lights to the room. They flickered twice before humming to life.

“Coast is clear, Ames.”

She walked in and stared, her eyes widening as she took in the state of disarray, but she didn’t cry. Which was so wrong. Who didn’t cry when every possession they’d ever been given was thrown to shit?

I wanted to comfort her.

But the days of comfort were long gone.

She wasn’t a girl anymore, but a woman, a woman in a very, very seductive piece of clothing that both revolted me and made me stare. I hated myself, hated the situation I’d helped create and hated that I was probably the reason she had no more tears left to shed.

I’d stolen them all.

Because I was a selfish bastard.

“Ames, it’s just stuff. It can be replaced.”

“Right.” She huffed and crossed her arms. “I um…” She kept looking down at the floor, her feet shifting as her cheeks burned redder by the minute. “I don’t have suitcases, the trash bags, the black ones have been with me for a few years…”

I quickly scanned the room and noticed both trash bags ripped to shreds in the corner.

“So,” she continued, “I don’t really have a place to put anything, then again—” she looked up her eyes bright— “it’s probably not the end of the world, since I don’t have much, right?” Her smile was forced.

My heart twisted.

My breathing slowed.

“Ames.” I took a step towards her and set the gun on the one and only table in the room. “Let’s just grab what’s most important and then we can get new stuff tomorrow.”

“I don’t have money for new stuff.”

“I do.” I reached for her. My knees almost buckled when she met me halfway and gripped my hand in hers, our fingers linking like they’d never been apart, my body responding like it couldn’t imagine that reality in the first place.

Slowly, she stepped towards me, our hands were still linked, but she didn’t lean on my chest. “I’ll pay you back.”

“You won’t.”

“I will.” Her eyes flashed as she jerked her hand away.

Smirking I leaned in and tilted her chin towards me. “I can do this all night, sweetheart.”

“Me too.” Her eyes flickered to my lips before flashing again.

I suppressed a groan and released her chin. “Grab what’s most important and then we’ll go to a hotel.”

My voice was gruffer than usual but I couldn’t help it, she made me react. Everything about her had my entire body in knots.

Amy sighed, putting her hands on her hips, then after a minute of staring around the room, she went to the mattress and lifted it.

Underneath was the flattened stuffed animal I’d given her when she was six. It was a stuffed lamb that used to be white but was now a grayish color. She held it to her chest then pulled something else from underneath the mattress, a Polaroid picture of us goofing off right before the incident that changed both our lives forever.

“Ready.” She stood.

I fought hard not to ask her about the picture, about the animal.“Two things.” My voice cracked. “You sure you don’t want to take—”

“What?” She looked around the room. “My clothes are shredded. I’ll grab my bathroom stuff and my textbooks, if they didn’t get destroyed too.”

“Textbooks?” I repeated.

“College,” she snapped. “It’s why I’m poor, it’s not like I do drugs or anything. Every cent goes to spending money on college and textbooks.”

Feeling ashamed I looked down, breaking eye contact.

When she returned from the bathroom she’d taken off all the makeup they’d put on her at the club, her face was fresh, beautiful, and clean. Her hair was pulled back into a loose braid, pieces fell against her soft cheeks, she was stunning. With a huff she put her hands on her hips and looked around the room. Slowly, she kicked up different pieces of ripped clothing. Her knees popped when she bent down to grab a sweater. When she held it up it had a giant hole in it. Amy managed a frustrated sigh and then looked at me, like really looked at me.

In that moment, in that crappy apartment, I fell in love all over again..

Over a girl in a braid.

Shit I was in deep.

“Aright.” I reached for her. “Are you ready?”

“I think so I just need to find something to put over this.” She pointed down and shuddered just as she put her hand over her stomach.

“But all the clothes are destroyed. I’ll feed you — now are you ready?”