Topaz didn’t say a word while she shoveled the food in. She ate everything on her plate. The food hitting her empty belly like the doors to a concert hall had been opened to thousands of screaming fans. They hadn’t eaten anything since they were taken. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.
With a full stomach, she smiled up at the waitress when she came to clear the plates. “Thank you, that was good. I promise when our friends come to pick us up, we’ll pay for the food.”
“Like I said before, it’s on the house. You guys helped us out, now I want to return the favor. Do you want a refill on your coffee?”
Topaz nodded.
She refilled their cups then left them alone.
“We need to get rid of that pickup?” Topaz glanced at Onyx.
“No, let the thing stay right where it’s at. Let’s go outside after we finish our coffee and wait for Freaky and Mountain. Did Roadkill give you an ETA and if they got ahold of them.”
“Um, it had to be less than an hour, or she would have sent someone from the compound.”
“Right,” he said with a nod and finished his coffee, eyeing her to do the same.
“Okay, I’m with you.” Topaz got up and followed Onyx to the door. The limp looked deeper as he stepped and her heart hurt for how bad it bothered him. Wrapping her arm around his arm, she tried to help him a little with her body’s weight.
He stopped. “What are you doing Topaz?” he asked looking down to her.
“Lean on me, I can help. You’re hurt.”
He nodded, but didn’t say a thing.
She did take notice that he leaned a little into her and it felt good to be able to help him. What they had been through had awakened something in her. She didn’t look at Onyx anymore and think of Byron. No, she was looking at him in a whole new light. He was Onyx and she was falling in love with the guy. For the last year, she’d prayed he would be an asshole, a jerk, anything to make her not think of Byron and what she had lost. Instead, he’d been kind to her, messing with her to try to break a shell and not to fuck her. Just to be treated as a human, a man and it hurt her heart that he believed she saw him as anything different than that.
Leaning against the side of the building, they waited.
Onyx kept rubbing his left thigh with a balled fist to loosen or move the pain. The whole time his eyes scanning the area, any sound from a truck or crunch from a boot.
Topaz turned to Onyx. “Are you worried that ACT-UP will find us?”
His lips thinned in anger. “No. Something tells me old Glen and Stimpy were trying to impress this ‘Carpenter’ guy. They may have told him or one of his lackies where they were, but someone would have to notice they were gone. Then if they went to the cabin, they won’t know if we were in the cabin or if the dumbasses drove off because they fucked up. Even if they think we were on the run, we drove for an hour so we’re a ways away from them. I think we’re okay.”
“What are you mad for?” Topaz was confused.
“I’m only mad about what they did to us. Eating, resetting, knowing I’m going home allowed my mind to process. It’s hitting me like a ton of bricks. I can see them swing—” A violent shudder tore through his body and when she leaned in to console him he pushed her away. “Right now, I don’t want to be held I want my pound of flesh and it’s not there for me to get it the way I want. I’m not angry at you for anything. I’m sorry it came across that way?”
“No, you just seemed angry.” Topaz pushed forward, not wanting him to go down the trail of pain and touched his face with the back of her hand, his skin still cool from the icepack, but his eye was less swollen.
He leaned down, cupping her jaw and kissed her gently. His tongue stroked along hers, deepening a connection setting her heart off with heavy thuds. Topaz got lost in the kiss until he stopped and pulled away from her. Had it been one sided? She wondered as he stared down at her. His dark eyes distant.
“I need to keep my head in the game. I wish they would hurry.”
“It won’t be long,” she said taking a step back. “Roadkill said they were in the area.”
“Yeah, she did. But did she talk to them or were they on their bikes and didn’t hear the phone?”
“That’s a possibility.”
A loud rumble had both of them breathing a sigh of relieve as a pair of motorcycles crested the ridge of the highway.
It took everything in Onyx to not drag Topaz into the middle of the road and toss her on the back of a bike like a pony express horse. Instead, he took Topaz’s hand in his and squeezed.
“Thank the lord,” he said as relief washed down his back. Never in a thousand years would he have thought the sight of Freaky and Mountain rolling into town would bring him joy. He grabbed Topaz’s hand, squeezed and repeated the praise. “Thank the lord.”
Stepping away, she headed toward the street. Lifting her hand, she flagged the two bikers down as if the men couldn’t pick them out in the one shady place in a town with less buildings than there were houses on his block growing up.
Freaky and Mountain pulled up to them and shut off their bikes. Freaky dismounted, running his fingers through the flop of brown he sported as he walked up to them. “What the hell happened?”
“Fucking ACT UP
