The man still in front of her stood and asked, “Should I give it some water?”
“Yeah, give me the bottle, I’ll do it.” The larger one sloshed what was left of the bottle of water as he snatched it from the short one’s hand and tipped the bottle over Onyx’s head. Soaking him with the last of the water. “Look at me, I’m a damn preacher, bathing in the blood of the lord, now aren’t ya?”
“What the fuck man.” Onyx growled.
“You don’t deserve water.” The man crouched down next to Onyx, the smell of stale beer and onion chips permeated the air and made Topaz cough again. “You dirty, coon. We’ve been watching your little ranch.”
“Stop by sometime,” Onyx snarled. “Maggie has killer lemon bars.”
“Like we’d go somewhere with all those mulatto mutts.”
“Wow, over two hundred years, no change. Even the Catholics mixed it up and got with the times.”
Why was Onyx pushing back? Taking chances with men who already hated him? Oh God, did he think she was like them. Fearing him, despising him? She had been acting that way. There had been no reason for her to be so cold. Not on a personal level, just private. One based on what had happened in her life. What was happening right now had been a foregone conclusion in her mind. A repeat of her past, played out on a scale so loud, it screamed in her head every time she looked at Onyx. That first day, the ghost before her. She’d wanted so badly to wrap her arms around the stranger. Pray he was Byron coming to find her after he’d been away so long. Growing up, having a life.
The sound of men joking in the lobby made her smile. Red insisted they keep at least one person working at the clinic for emergencies, this sounded like a few friends coming to raid the Band-aide supply after slip and fall.
She’d only popped over with Lyna to bring Brick his takeout order from the Roadside. It had been a slow night and Topaz had wanted to raid the samples for her Nanna anyway. Stepping from the breakroom, she saw him. Standing in leathers next to Hollywood. Heart stopping she wondered if one could use the AED on themselves to restart her now silent heart. Lack of oxygen or blood soon turned into an overload when her heart took off. Racing in a way that made her head light as the world flashed around her. Hope mixed, bringing a whirlpool of pain as the past visions of Byron’s face, smiling at her as he stood lit up in the hallway melded with the present. The space narrowing from his large frame. No. Not his frame this man, this stranger with features, similar, but not quite right. He was older, his eyes knowing of the dangers of the world.
“Hey Hollywood,” Topaz said, rushing past the two men, afraid to turn back.
Once outside, she gulped the air like she’d crossed a desert and found an oasis. The swirl sending her down the street instead of across it to the bar. Her belly rolling, end over end and when she made it to the corner—the meal she’d shared with Brick hit the pavement in hard, acidic bursts of vomit.
‘It wasn’t him, it wasn’t.’ she repeated in her head. Her face warm, but body shivering she tried to find her center. Every part of her wished it was Byron. He would pull her in his arms and she’d smell the sweat from his workout, before he headed into the locker room to shower.
Glancing up the street, she saw the two motorcycles, Hollywood’s and the strangers. The man in leather but no cut. A group of men were piling into the Roadside and she had to push back her emotions. Release the emotional baggage weighing her down and making her want to crawl in bed to cry. The man wasn’t Byron. The love, unspoiled, because it never had a chance beyond the sweet, simple love of youth was not in the clinic.
Bracing herself, she walked up the street and into the bar. “Vanessa, can you get me a water,” she said as she passed the bar.
Vanessa tossed her a bottle, barely breaking conversation from the customer in front of her.
She cracked the lid as she made her way to the bathroom in the back, swishing the water, she spit into the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. “Fuck it,” she said to herself. “Let’s do this.”
There was no break in stride as she made her way back out to the floor and behind the bar. Two shots of forget the past later, and she was dancing for a trucker on a cross country trip who always timed his runs, so the man’s mandated break would come in Turnabout.
“You know I’ve driven by that playground ya’ll built,” the man said jarring Topaz from her past. “Seen the kids playing, going down the slide, you know how easy it would be to blow off one of their heads. Send the little mixed blood mutt’s head flying backward. Hell, might even go for the little redhead just because.”
Bile burned up Topaz’s throat, how could anyone have an issue with a child? Especially the twins, or Maddox, Beno? Harlow? What kind of sick-o would look at a baby innocently playing and imagine their death? Even the son-of-a-bitches they rescued kids from didn’t dream of killing the kids.
“It’d be like hittin’ those ducks at the county fair, remember Glen.” The short one laughed. “Ping, ping, ping.”
“Fuck you, don’t say my name,” Glen barked back.
“Like it’ll matter,” the short one said. “Once we’re through with the two of them.”
“One,” Onyx snipped. “I’d never touch a
