Losing Streak (The Lane) (19 page)

I clenched my eyes shut once my back was to him and under my breath, I muttered a prayer to saints once forgotten to me.

They weren’t listening. They never listened to me. They didn’t even listen to Mama and she was the one who’d believed so fiercely in them.

“Rosie! Babe! Open up! I need you to—”

Joshua suddenly shoved past, the smell of his cologne and aftershave lingering as if to taunt me. I cracked open my eyes in time to see him fling open the door, that snake-charming smile on his face, venom dripping from his voice as he exclaimed, “Why, Mr. Williams. What a pleasant surprise.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Brandon took a single step inside, his brows bumped together in a scowl. His eyes slid to mine then just beyond me to the wall of shame, where our story was told in one dirty, compromising picture after another. We had no alibis. No excuses. I watched the realization hit him like it had me only days before. There was no talking our way out of this one. No lies to tell to get around it, to grant us the ability to slip away unscathed. We could do nothing but weather the fallout and pray that we came out on the other side. And maybe, judging by the resolved look on his face, he had already decided that before he came. Maybe that was why he had come in the first place. Because losers didn’t fear a loss if they had nothing left to lose.

“Rose.” Brandon’s eyes sought mine and he held them over Joshua’s shoulder. “Babe, you okay?”

“Of course she is,” Joshua announced before I could respond, drawing Brandon’s attention back to him. “In fact, she’s thrilled. Aren’t you thrilled, Rosemary-dear?”

While he was speaking, I’d started moving back toward the expensive leather sofa, prepared to sink into it. I stopped in my tracks and stared at him, jaw dropping open of its own accord, as I realized where this was going.

Joshua wasn’t deterred by my lack of response. Instead, he plowed ahead as though I had replied one way or the other.

“Can I assume you’ve come to congratulate us on the upcoming nuptials?” he asked, grinning like a fox in a full chicken coop.

I sank down onto the sofa in a heap of heavy limbs, both ashamed and mortified.

Brandon’s confused gaze strayed to mine but I couldn’t respond, couldn’t give him anything. There was nothing to give. I didn’t want him to see this. I didn’t want him to know how easily I’d fallen, how quickly I’d thrown my hands up in surrender.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Brandon asked, sparing Joshua a glance, a brief one full of both venom and confusion, a mixture that resulted in a puckered forehead and narrowed eyes. “Rose, what the hell is he talking about?”

Joshua—God, how I hated him, stronger than I’d ever hated anyone or anything before, white-hot and all-consuming—turned and strode the short distance to the side of the sofa where I sat like a stunned and angry statue. When his hand came to rest on my bare shoulder, I wanted to snap at it, to sink my teeth into his flesh and bite down until I tasted blood. I wanted to lock down like a rabid pit bull and shake the meaty appendage, snarling and growling my displeasure. And yet, I did nothing. I just sat there.

I was such a coward.

As if to prove that idea, as if it needed to be proved any more than the ring on my unwilling finger, Joshua’s hand tightened on my shoulder, his fingers biting. I bit back a wince as his voice came out as a throaty snarl.

“Also, it would be best if you didn’t speak to her, Mr. Williams. If you have anything to say to my fiancée, it can be said to me.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him indicate the wall behind us as his voice returned to a normal, conversational tone that didn’t at all fit the circumstances. “After all, there’re no secrets between us, are there?”

He let go of me then and I wanted to sigh with relief that the weight was gone, that he was moving away, but he was moving closer to Brandon and though I knew Brandon could hold his own, my heart still sped up at the sight of the unstable predator stalking toward him.

“And therein lies the problem, don’t you think?”

Brandon tensed, preparing himself for whatever Joshua would do.

“It seems as though we’ve been sharing our dear Rosemary and, while I don’t know about you, Mr. Williams, I have a problem with that. Luckily for Rosemary, I’ve agreed to turn a blind eye to her...wandering ways. I’ll make an honest woman out of her yet.”

I couldn’t see it, not with his back to me, but I could practically hear the cruel smile that tugged at his lips.

“And she will do it. I don’t know if you’ve realized this yet or not, Mr. Williams, but if you haven’t, allow me to be the first to inform you. Our Rosemary is a bit of a gold-digging slut.”

He was close enough at that point that Brandon’s fist, so quick, a blur of deadly movement, clipped him in the face. A crack resounded in the room and Joshua staggered back, his head snapping to the side from the force, just enough that I could make out the line of blood that dripped from the split in his lip.

He was smiling. Impossibly, against reason, he was smiling. Making that split stretch wider, causing the blood to run a little faster. I watched in morbid fascination as he wiped at it, examining it on his hand as it came away as if it fascinated him as well.

“Oh, Mr. Williams. You shouldn’t have done that.”

The gun appeared in Joshua’s hand so quickly—really, where had he had it stowed?—that it was like a magician’s trick. And there I sat, like a fucking useless statue, watching as Joshua came forward and jammed it into the tender flesh beneath Brandon’s chin, causing it to indent as it bit and dug in. “I thought, perhaps, I might let you live,” he continued, almost conversationally. “Probably not, but there was a chance. Oh, but not now. Now you’ll be saying goodbye to far more than just our dearest Rosemary.”

As though I’d been released from a spell, I moved then.

Slowly at first, then more deliberate, I reached for the drawer of the end table to my left. For a treasure I’d caught glimpses of over the years that was hidden there. I disregarded the deaf saints, praying directly to Mama’s Jesus that it was still there, that it was waiting for me. I prayed that it wasn’t currently in Joshua’s hand, trained on Brandon. That he hadn’t slipped it out when he’d been standing next to me, somehow managing to get his hands on it with both Brandon and I being completely unaware.

I slid the drawer open, slowly, quietly, barely a whisper, and yet it sounded as loud as a deep rumble in the room full of harsh breaths and snarled words. My heart didn’t just pound, it banged violently, making my throat tight and causing my stomach to roll, yet my hand remained steady. Even while I waited with bated breath, anticipating a shout or warning that didn’t come, my hand remained steady and sure.

I almost laughed out loud out of relief.

There it was, perfect and black with a dull shine to it. It seemed to wink at me in the soft light from the lamp above it. It was nestled next to a book of Psalms of all things, like the dark salvation that it was.

I slid it out, checking to see if Joshua had noticed before turning my attention to the clip already loaded. I didn’t bother to see if it was full—knowing Joshua, it would be. He would never have a gun lying around that wasn’t fully loaded. It was just the type of person that he was. The weight confirmed this, heavy and comforting, and I almost laughed again. Simply because I was crazy.

I searched momentarily for the safety, knowing there had to be one, and found what I thought was probably it and clicked it off, a simple slide of a latch that felt promising. I stood and took a step in Joshua’s direction, raising it to aim at his back. Brandon’s eyes, full of wild desperation and a hot, crazed anger, swung to me and widened a fraction of an inch before returning to normal.

There was power there, in that one glance. I felt it down to my bones. I was an avenging angel, coming with death and destruction on my heels. I was the heroine of my own story, the one who would end this. For all his muscles and his plans, Brandon wouldn’t be the one who would finish it. I was the one who would write the final chapter. For better or for worse, it would be me.

“Let him go, Joshua.”

He didn’t turn around.

He didn’t bother to even look at me, so much of a non-threat was I that I didn’t warrant a single glance. The thought, the very idea, pissed me off, filled me with such a deep rage that I couldn’t see around it, couldn’t think around it. He had spent so much damn time terrorizing me, had held those who were precious to me over my head, dangling their fates like dark promises, had put his hands on me, and now with a gun to his back, I was little more than a pesky fly. Lower than a fly. I wasn’t even threatening or annoying enough to shoo at, to bat away.

Fuck him.

“Let him go, Joshua,” I snarled again, so angry, so full of blind, impotent rage that I could barely form the words, could barely force them up and out. “I swear to God, I will shoot you where you stand, you sack of shit.”

“You won’t,” Joshua shot back over his shoulder, digging the gun in his hand into Brandon’s skin a little deeper, making eye contact with me for the barest of seconds, his eyes full of his glee, before his gaze slid away again. Back to Brandon. Brandon who was still somehow the bigger threat than me, a girl with the gun trained on him with steady hands and determination dripping from her.

The gun felt cool and right there. I didn’t know what kind it was, just that it was small enough to fit in my hand comfortably, but big enough I felt confident it’d do the damage I so desperately wanted to inflict.

It was as if every moment, every dirty, broken, grimy moment, had led up to this minute. Met with each other in order to get me here at the right end of a barrel that would end the king’s reign.

The fault had never been in our stars. Not once. Not ever. The fault had always been with us. From the first bet to the last lie, to every battle, both big and small, that we’d ever lost, we were to blame.

I made eye contact with Brandon again, seeking approval for the sins I was about to commit. Because it was me and because it was him, he gave it without hesitation.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Then I pulled the trigger.

* * *

Nothing happened.

I pulled the trigger and nothing fucking happened. There wasn’t even a click. I glanced up wildly to see Joshua throw his head back and laugh, full and maniacal and clearly delighted. I pulled the trigger again and again, and again and again, and nothing happened aside from Joshua’s amusement growing deeper with every sound between a snarl and a sob that escaped my throat.

He’d been right. I wasn’t a threat. I wouldn’t shoot him. Not because I didn’t have the guts to, but because I couldn’t even work the damn gun to do it.

But Brandon found his opening.

He burst forward with no warning and latched on to Joshua’s wrist with both hands, forcing the gun up and away. Joshua’s laughter died mid-note as he struggled against Brandon’s hold on him. Brandon turned slightly, driving his shoulder into Joshua’s chest, trying and failing to wrangle the gun away completely. Their arms shook and the veins in their necks bulged as they both fought, their strength very nearly matched. They were walls neither could move, neither could gain the upper hand over.

All it would take was the slightest slip on Brandon’s part, and that would be it. Joshua wouldn’t hesitate. He’d shoot to kill.

I tried pulling the trigger once more, feeling wild and panicked. Once more there was no resistance. No sound. Just the empty motion of my finger squeezing desperately and it being met with crushing silence.

“Chamber the round!” Brandon yelled out suddenly, his voice strangled and gravelly. “Chamber the round, Rose!”

I jerked my head up and stared at him, confusion lacing my features.

“Pull the top back!”

Oh.

Oh.

Joshua immediately tried to change tactics and use Brandon’s grip to swing him between us. To put Brandon between him and that suddenly very real threat in my hand. But Brandon refused to go. He locked his legs and arched back, arms now violently shaking from the effort of keeping Joshua’s gun trained toward the ceiling.

I didn’t think. I didn’t pause to reconsider, to wonder if maybe it had all been a sign that I wasn’t supposed to do this. I couldn’t. Instead, I brought my other hand up and grabbed the top, pulling back as hard as I could, surprised at the ease in which it slid toward me.

Then, with one last prayer, I took aim and fired.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The gun didn’t smoke in my hand after I fired it. I know, because I looked. Stared, really, almost transfixed, convinced that it should and any moment it would. Wasn’t that what always happened in the movies? Someone fired a gun and then blew the smoke away. It was how you knew the bad guy was gone and wasn’t coming back. I wondered if I’d done it right, if maybe it was broken.

Brandon moved, just slightly, just enough to catch my eye, and my head jerked up in time to see Joshua drop to his knees, the thud of them hitting the floor as loud as a crack of thunder in my ringing ears. A splash of red, so small, appeared on the back of his shirt where the bullet had entered and it spread, slowly, determinedly, in front of my eyes. A crimson army invading a land of ash-gray.

“Babe.”

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from that conquering stain. He hadn’t cried out; he wasn’t even making a noise now. But he was shaking, his whole body violently trembling, as a fine sheet of sweat broke out on his neck. It seemed to glisten in the lights overhead.

“Rose.”

I reached for an emotion. Any emotion. There was none. I wasn’t even numb. I just was.

“Rosie!”

I jerked, squeezing the trigger a second time in my surprise. This time someone did yell out, a shocked yelp that made my blood turn to lead and sit heavy in my veins. Before any kind of panic had a chance to fully set in, however, Brandon raced toward me, dodging Joshua’s body now sprawled on the dark floor, and grabbed me up with one solid arm. He crushed me to him, his free hand wrapping around mine and unclenching my fingers from around the handle of the gun.

When he pulled it away, I let him, though some wild, irrational part of me wanted to resist. Then he yanked my face into his chest and buried his in my hair, his breath ragged against my scalp. It was as if he thought I was too delicate to see the sight in front of us, as if I hadn’t been the one to inflict the damage. I wanted to tell him that the grip he had on me was too tight, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t tight enough.

I took a breath that hurt. “Shit.”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. You’re fine. We’re fine. We’re okay,” he chanted in a shaky voice. Over and over again, he repeated it. The words blurred until they became almost indistinguishable, an endless loop that blended together until it was just one word. “Okay, okay, okay.” I didn’t stop him. I let him rock me with it as I clutched at his shirt with steady fingers.

“Mama?” I finally asked, when he paused for breath. “Is she—”

“Fine. She’s fine. When you didn’t show up that night or the next, we knew something went wrong and got her and MacBain’s wife and kid in the car and sent them on. MacBain’s wife called him when they got there and everything is fine. Aunt Bonnie and your mama are getting along great.”

I nodded, so relieved I could have sagged with it, only to jump a second later when the door burst open, smacking against the wall behind it. But it was only Jackson there, panting, his eyes a little wide as he looked from Joshua’s body, at those gaping wounds like eyes, and the base of his skull now stained crimson to match his shirt, to me and then Brandon, and I felt my heart lurch.

“Right. Okay. Better than I expected. Awesome.” He whistled low. “Which one of you did it?”

“Does that really matter?” Brandon snapped, his arm tightening around me impossibly, as though he expected the question to undo me.

I pulled back just enough to look Jackson in the eye.

“Me.”

“Right. Yeah.” He nodded and then broke out into a grin, a grin that was so much closer to the old one. “And here you were talking all that shit about coming in here and saving her, Williams.”

“Shut up,” Brandon snapped. “The fuck is wrong with you?”

Jackson only grinned wider and laughed. “The fuck is wrong with me? Dude. My sister just handled shit. Forgive me for being a little fucking proud.”

Brandon shook his head.

“Where’s Rice and Jared?” In response to my questioning look, he responded, “Apparently Joshua expected something. They were downstairs, set up like guards. MacBain and Jax kept them busy while I came up.”

“I don’t know if you saw it, dude, but Charlie? He is not all talk. He took Jared down fast,” Jackson said, running a hand through his hair. “Almost felt sorry for him, actually. I’ve always liked Jared.”

“And Rice?”

His hand fell away as a dark look crossed his eyes.

“He’s alive. Left him where we found him on the second floor.”

He didn’t need to say any more.

“I’m going to prison.” A wild burst of laughter almost escaped my tight throat, but I shoved it down. “We’re all standing here discussing who’s doing what and where and ignoring the fact that I’m going to prison.”

“No.” Brandon’s voice came out fierce and gravelly. “Fuck no, you’re not. You’re gonna go grab the shit you want from your room.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing there I want.”

“Not anything?”

I didn’t even have to think about it. “No.”

“Fine.” He released me, reluctantly, and pushed me lightly toward the hall that led back to the bedrooms. “You need to at least change your clothes, though. Wash your hands. It’s not going to be—you’ll have to do it again. Probably a couple of times, just to be on the safe side. Do you have like a—?” He made a motion of scrubbing his palm with his other hand.

“Nail brush?”

“Yeah, sure. That. You have one of those?”

“Yeah.”

“Use it. Hurry.”

I went. The walls around me were little more than blurs as I whipped through my White Witch Suite of a room, tearing my clothes off and snatching up new ones before skidding into the adjoining bathroom. The water from the faucet burned my hands as I scrubbed, first with soap, then with soap and the nail brush, and then with soap again. I scrubbed until my palms prickled with it, waiting still, for some kind of emotion to crash over me, maybe drive me to my knees. Instead, the nothingness continued to echo in my chest.

“I think you’re good.”

I jerked my head up at the sound of Jackson’s voice and met his eyes in the mirror.

“You think?” My voice was even and his lips turned up in a crooked smile at the sound of it.

“Yeah. You should probably leave at least a layer of skin. Otherwise it might look suspicious.”

And somehow I snorted.

Brandon met us in the hall when we emerged. “Take your sister. No.” He shook his head at me, as if he knew I’d been about to argue. “Don’t start. Not yet. Just go with Jax. Jax, take her to MacBain’s. You guys get there and be visible. I want people to see you.”

“What about you?” I asked, standing between him and Jackson. I resisted slightly when Jackson snagged my elbow and attempted to pull me toward him. “What are you going to do?”

“Just go. I’ll meet up with you.”

He must have known I wouldn’t listen that easily, without an explanation, because he crossed the space between us and bent over me, capturing my lips with his and clutching my face between his hands, ignoring Jackson’s exaggerated throat-clearing. Then he pulled away and pushed me toward Jackson.

“Go. Don’t take your time. I’ll see you in a few.”

This time I didn’t put up any kind of fuss, as much as I wanted to. Not with his eyes so hard and determined and his shoulders rigid with it. I let Jackson pull me away, down the stairs and through the warehouse, where we met up with MacBain.

Together the three of us headed back toward the Lane, toward the lights and the voices, and we allowed ourselves to be swallowed up by the shallow sea of stumbling people. We didn’t speak until we got to Molly’s, and even then it was only for MacBain to ask what we wanted to drink and for Jackson and I to answer “Beer.” Then we settled into a booth, faces grim, our drinks growing warm in front of us, and we waited.

The clock above the bar ticked away, drawing our eyes there almost against our will as we watched seconds turn to minutes and those minutes slowly add up until a half hour had passed. More than once I opened my mouth, maybe to ask a question, maybe to make a statement, but I’d close it before even a sound had escaped. What was there to say? What purpose would noise serve at this point, aside from filling the silence?

The minute hand inched ever closer to the hour mark, and without saying a word, Jackson put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. The gesture felt unnatural and awkward, but I went without hesitation, burying my face in his side, his chin digging into my crown. There, in the darkness of his shirt, surrounded by a scent I’d never realized was so familiar until that moment, I allowed myself a ragged breath, but no more.

I don’t know how much more time passed when the bell above the door sounded, causing me to jerk up and whirl in my seat. Brandon stood framed in the doorway, the lights from the Lane illuminating him in a way that made him look almost ethereal. I shoved Jackson over, clambered out and threw myself at him, knowing he’d catch me.

“I told you guys to be visible,” he remarked off-handedly as he gripped me tight. He started to pull me out onto the street, and I could hear Jackson and MacBain file out behind us, a parade of coconspirators.

I don’t know how we had missed it before—or maybe the others hadn’t—but the night was full of the sound of sirens wailing, drawing a crowd as people staggered out of the bars around us. Confused and excited voices rose, every pair of eyes pulled in the same direction as they pointed and gasped and wondered out loud what had happened.

“What is it?” a man asked from somewhere close by. I twisted in Brandon’s grasp, attempting to see who it was, if I knew him. “Is it occupied?”

“I think so,” someone else responded. “It was in use at any rate. Saw cars go in and out.”

“I think it was that guy who owned the speakeasy,” another chimed in. “Rich ol’ fucker.”

The windows of the building glowed like embers in the dark. Like the flickering eyes of some great, dying beast.

“Damn. Think I heard he had a garage underneath there. Fire reaches that and it’ll be a blaze like that old paper mill went up back in the eighties. He won’t give a shit, though. Not if he’s rich. Insurance will pay for it. Hell, he might have set it himself for that reason.”

The castle was burning and the kingdom was watching and didn’t care.

Slowly our quartet was joined by the other players in the game, Jackson steadfastly ignoring Luke’s and Bri’s presence, and our group was the only one that wasn’t buzzing with chatter. We stood shoulder to shoulder, and we watched silently, listening to the speculations around us. We didn’t mourn. We didn’t even celebrate. We just observed. First as the fire trucks struggled to control the inferno and later when the single cop car came rolling down the street in the opposite direction, a single occupant in the backseat. As if he sensed our presence, Jared turned for the briefest of seconds and he and Brandon exchanged a stoic nod.

Jackson leaned across me and asked before I could.

“Said he’s gonna tell them it was Rice,” Brandon replied in a low voice, watching the car’s retreating taillights until we couldn’t see them anymore. “That Rice just couldn’t take it anymore.” He looked over at Jackson, mouth set in a firm line. “He’d been just as unwilling to be in the shit he was, but still did it. Right up till the end. Said maybe doing this would make up for some of that.”

“But won’t Rice say otherwise?” Jackson asked, his voice coming out a little strained. “I mean, why would he go along with it?”

“Rice can’t say otherwise.”

“He...”

“I tried,” Brandon replied and I felt his grip on me tighten just for a second. “Didn’t expect for it to go up that fast. I barely got Jared out. Only managed to because he was still in the garage.”

“Ah.” Jackson scratched the back of his neck then glanced back toward the activity. “Can’t say I’m that torn up about it.”

I wanted to scold Jackson for it. Part of me wanted to reach over, maybe grip him by the ear and tell him that wasn’t the boy I’d raised speaking and I wanted that boy back now. I held my tongue, however, and merely reached over and gripped his stiff fingers in mine. Because we’d all changed. Every one of us. And while knowing Rice didn’t make it hit me in the gut oddly, a part of me marveled at the poetry of it. Cameron Rice had gone down with the master he’d given everything to. I wasn’t sure if he could have even managed to go back to a life that didn’t involve Joshua King.

The street began to clear after a while, once the flames no longer danced quite as high or wild. Some went back to the bars. Others stumbled toward the places they’d parked. They’d be back, of course. Probably tomorrow night. Maybe they sensed that something major and substantial had shifted tonight and the place they spent so much time had been changed, probably forever. Maybe they even suspected the stony-faced group outside that tiny, mostly dark bar had a hand in it. But if they did, they didn’t thank us. They should have. We might very well have saved them too.

The street had almost cleared completely before MacBain turned to us.

“They’ll be asking questions, ye know. Maybe not right away, but eventually it’ll come around.”

Brandon shook his head. “Chief Daniels will be willing to go along with whatever Jared says. He won’t look any further. He’s gonna be just as glad to be out of it.”

“Ye think?”

“He’s right,” I said, eyes still on the glow surrounding the building so much of my recent life had been wrapped up in. “Daniels had a thing for prostitutes. Joshua used it against him for years. He’d supply them and remind Daniels constantly that if he continued to look the other way, they’d keep coming. If he didn’t, Joshua would ensure that they came forward. He had enough against the girls that they would have, even if that meant getting into trouble themselves. Daniels will go along with it and he’ll make sure everyone else does too.”

“So what do we do now?” Jackson asked after a minute, nodding toward the Lane at large.

“We keep another bastard king from moving in,” MacBain said with a grunt. “There’ll be one that tries. Ye wait and see. There’s always men like Joshua King waiting for their opportunity.”

“Ray of sunshine, that one,” Jackson muttered.