get.
I’m not exactly home for a few seconds. Not all the way unconscious, but not functioning, either.
One of the guards, the younger one, pulls Tommy back before he can do me serious damage.
“Hey, hey, hey, Dr. Holyfield,” the guard says.
I’ve never seen Tommy this enraged. I’m not surprised. But it’s weirdly fascinating to see such an intelligent man so lost in fury. He’s spitting at me. He’s cursing. He’s straining against the guard until the tattoos on his arms are stretched and distorted.
It takes surprisingly long for him to get hold of himself. Eventually, the guard lets him go. Tommy paces, fingers twitching. He shakes himself out, adjusts his shirt.
“Okay. Okay,” he mutters, and I’m thinking he’s calmed down, but just then he darts in and punches me, a good, solid left jab. Blood explodes from my nose.
The guards are worried. They step in to stop him, but he backs away, hands up. “He had that coming. Little punk.”
Blood runs from my nose and more streams of it come rolling down from my head, pooling in my eyes. I’m still trying to get my scattered wits back.
“Who have you talked to about this?” Tommy asks.
I make a mistake. I say, “No one.” But I say it too fast, and he picks up on it.
“No one, huh? What’s ‘no one’s’ name, huh?”
He looms over me and I don’t think the guards will be enough to stop him if he decides to nail me again.
“You guys are going to be dragged into something very heavy,” I say to the security guys. “I don’t think you’re getting paid enough to be involved in major felonies.”
They exchange a glance. I’ve hit home.
“Walk away right now,” I tell them. “You haven’t done that much so far. We can let—”
Tommy nails me again and this one really hurts.
“Whoa,” he says, examining his effort. “That’s going to be ugly tomorrow. Of course”—he moves in close—“a couple days from now, you’ll be good as new, won’t you?”
“Dr. Holyfield, you gotta chill, man, he’s right,” the younger security guard says.
“It’s all recorded, geniuses,” Tommy says. “We already have video of you two. And about the only person who can make that go away is me. So you are already deep in it. But bagel boy makes a good point: You aren’t being paid well enough. Which is why I’m going to give you each, what, let’s say five grand?”
“Each,” the older guard growls.
Tommy grins at me. He reaches out one finger and swipes the blood from my forehead. He sticks the finger in his mouth and licks it.
“Deal,” Tommy says.
And it’s that easy. My life has been bought for ten thousand dollars.
– 26 –
There’s a bell and a button. I stare at them for a while.
It’s late. And I don’t want Solo getting the wrong idea. Me coming to his room. Wearing… what am I wearing? Belatedly I look down and consider the matter.
The gym shorts I sleep in. And the T-shirt. And the lack of bra I also sleep in. And a pair of untied sneakers I slipped into on my way out.
I should have brought Aislin. She volunteered.
But, I don’t know, it just felt wrong. This is about my mother, which means it’s about me. And Solo.
I’m shivering, and it’s not because of what I’m wearing.
I push the buzzer.
He doesn’t answer. I buzz again. Nothing. I press the buzzer and hold it down. I don’t care if he’s asleep, he can damn well wake up and let me in.
The door flies open.
A man—no, more than one man—rushes out. One of them slams me against the wall. I trip and slip to the ground. A third man stampedes by with a heavy step on my once-severed leg.
The door to Solo’s room is ajar. Something is wrong, terribly wrong. Solo isn’t one of the three men.
I climb up and rush into the room. Stupid, really, I probably should call for help or something. I think of this too late.
Solo is in a chair.
The first thing I notice is the blood.
The second thing I notice is the ropes.
“Close the door,” he says in a clotted voice. “Dead-bolt it.”
I do it. Then I rush to him, kneeling down so I can look up into his face.
“Gruesome, huh?” he asks.
He’s wearing nothing but boxers. Thin rivulets of blood have made it all the way down to his shoulders and onto his chest.
“I’ll get help,” I say. But I know that’s the wrong answer.
“No. There’s no help in this place. They’re just shook up because they didn’t expect you.” Solo works his tongue around his mouth. He grunts, and a second later spits out a tooth. “Sorry.”
I run to his bathroom, soak a hand towel in ice-cold water, and run back. Carefully I blot the blood from his head. It’s shockingly red on the white towel. I can’t do a very thorough job because his hair is thick.
I wipe the blood from his face. Forehead. Eyes. Mouth.
I go back to rinse the blood out and as the cold water runs, my brain is racing, then stalling, then racing again, like a very bad driver with a very fast car.
I bring the now-pink towel back and begin to wipe the blood from his neck and chest.
I expect more blood to flow—they say head wounds bleed a lot—but it’s barely a trickle.
I wipe down to the waistband of his boxers.
I look up at him and I’m a little startled. I’m disturbed in about six different ways. I haven’t seen this much blood since it was coming out of me on Powell Street.
I haven’t ever been knocked down, pushed aside before.
I’ve never touched a boy’s body before.
I’ve never knelt in front of a boy before, a boy wearing nothing but boxers and rope.
Rope? “You’re still tied up!”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
I jump to my feet, flustered and scared and overwhelmed. My fingers pick weakly at the knots.
“There’s a Swiss Army knife in my dresser drawer.”
I find it beneath rolled socks. Carefully, carefully, because I don’t trust my trembling hands, I cut him loose.
He stands, turns, faces me, and says, “You looked at the files.”
But I don’t want to talk about it. Because all of that is so horrible and so complicated, and right now he is just so close.
“You—” Solo begins.
He stops talking, too.
We are inches away from each other. If I lean forward, my nose will touch the hollow of his neck.
Somehow we are closer now.
He breathes out and I breathe in.
Closer. My breasts touch the top of his abdomen. A shudder goes through him.
Through me, too.
