Panic (7 page)

A lump starts forming in my throat, my face goes hot, and I can feel tears. Actual tears starting to form. I have to breathe deeply for several seconds to shut down my body’s visceral reaction to his words.

“And,” he continues, “I want you to know that I care about
you
. I care enough about you to leave this conversation here in this apartment when you walk out that door and go back to Ronin. I want you to make your dreams come true and I’ll do whatever it takes to help you. That is the only way I know to express… love. But I will never kiss you.”

I look up and meet his gaze.

“I will never do anything physical to ruin what you have with Ronin. I would just like you to
talk
to me. Be honest when I ask for it, trust me, and be my friend. Is that too much?”

A little laugh comes out at Ford’s question. “Of course not. I’d love to be your friend, Ford.”

He pulls his hands back and smiles. “Good. Then we’re done here. Just send Ronin in, I won’t keep him long.”

“I thought you wanted me to talk about Clare?”

“Why would I make you do that?” He grins and that chin dimple appears. “Why would I make you talk about her? On this night, of all nights? I only want you to be happy, Rook. If I had information you needed to know about
anything
, especially about Ronin being a lying, cheating piece of shit, believe me, I’d just tell you straight up. He’s not, by the way. Ronin is a pretty straight shooter despite being the most convincing liar I’ve ever come across. I am not playing games with your feelings, I’m not trying to trap you and force you to interact with me or fuck up your relationship. I want you to
want
to be my friend. I want you to
want
to trust me, and come to me for help. I have no desire to corner you into doing anything. I just want to be the safe guy, like you said this morning. The person who will point you in the right direction and you can feel comfortable taking my advice.”

“A friend.”

“Yes. A friend.”

I let out a deep breath. I can actually picture myself doing all those things with Ford. I like Ford. And if I don’t have to worry about him making a move on me, I like him even more. “Thanks, Ford. I’m not sure why you’re so interested in helping me, but… I’m glad you are.”

“So we’re straight with this now? No more weirdness?”

I nod. “OK, yeah. We’re good.”

“Great. Happy birthday, Rook. Next year we’ll finally get to take you out in public and celebrate like grownups.”

“Asshole.”

But I laugh on my way out.

Yup, Ford is one weird dude. I’m just glad he’s on my side.

Chapter Nine - RONIN

I close the door behind me as Ford pulls the blackout curtains across the front window of Rook’s old garden apartment. “We’re gonna throw in here, or what?”

Ford glares at me under his slanted brows. “I’d win that fight.”

“
Riiiight
. Rook came out happy, what’d you say to her?”

He takes a seat on the couch and beckons me to the chair across the coffee table. I follow suit and ease down into the overstuffed chair.

“I told her I consider her a friend and if she needs anything, she’s welcome to come to me for assistance.”

“Uh-huh. That’s all?”

“You don’t trust her?”

“I don’t trust you, Ford. I see the flashes of insanity inside your brain that pass as ideas and I’m worried that you’ve decided to make Rook your next victim.”

He folds his hands in his lap and leans back a little more, giving off an air of being totally comfortable in this setting. “I’ll be truthful, Ronin. I like her. A lot. Maybe more than any person ever. I’m not sure why, maybe because she’s unavailable, maybe because she refuses to put up with my shit, maybe because she listens to me when I give her advice. I’m not sure, but it hardly matters why. The fact is, I like her and she likes me.”

I start to say something but he puts a hand up to stop my words.

“I think we both know what that sick fuck was doing with her. And if you’re still delusional I’ll spell it out for you. I recognize her behavior. She hides it pretty well, but she’s quite easy to control once you know her triggers. I manipulated her all summer when we went running. They were all unconscious reactions, of course, and if I pointed it out to her, she backtracked and did everything in her power to prove she wasn’t under my control. She was something to Jon, but a girlfriend wasn’t one of them. Not from his point of view, anyway. What really happened?” He lets out a long sigh. “Well, we won’t know that until she’s ready to tell us. And that might be never, that might be tomorrow. We just can’t know.”

I have to swallow to keep my dinner from coming back up. I guessed this too, but Ford is seriously involved in that shit, I’m not. BDSM is just a game to me, it’s something I play at. To Ford, it’s a lifestyle. And if he says Rook displays all the characteristics, then I’m gonna have to defer to his expertise. I feel it to be true anyway.

“She will never admit this to you because she has yet to admit it to herself.”

I lean back in the chair and rub my temple a bit. My head fucking hurts.

“She needs serious help. She needs a lot of time. And she needs a lot of freedom. I know she likes you, maybe even loves you, but if you keep her too close she’ll fall back into the same patterns. And do you really want to get her by default?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to make the shooting pain go away.

“She’s running blind right now. She wants to do something, anything to erase what she was. So to prove to herself that she’s not the same girl who put up with that life for three years, she’s ready to jump on just about every opportunity that comes her way.”

“I’m not breaking up with her.”

Silence.

I lift my head and look over at Ford. “I’m not gonna do that. I’ll back off, I’ll give her space, I’ll support her decisions, but I’m not breaking up with her.”

Ford shrugs. “I’m not asking you to. She’ll check out soon, though, Ronin. Write this down. She’s not ready for you. She’s not ready for anyone right now. What she needs is to start over. She needs to figure out who she was before Jon came along if she’s to have any hope of figuring out who she is now.”

“Is that your professional opinion, then? We done here?”

“Not quite. That ex-boyfriend is in town.”

“Who?”

“Wade Minix, a boy from her childhood. Spencer said she lived with him as a teen in a foster family. This guy was her first boyfriend, or love, or something. His mother got worried when the relationship started getting serious and sent her back into the system. After that her status as ward of the State of Illinois goes cold. I figure Jon picked her up soon after. Before the Minix family she was in twelve other foster families.”

“Yeah, she told me this part. Not good ones, either.”

“Not good is an understatement. Almost of all them have been stripped of fostering privileges.” Ford gets up and grabs a folder off the kitchen counter, then takes his seat and opens it up. “Rook Camille Corvus entered the foster care system at age five when she was found wandering the streets of Chicago barefoot in the middle of January. She didn’t speak to anyone for months and when she finally gave up enough information to determine who her mother was, it was too late. The woman had OD’d and was already a cremated body in an unmarked grave. I could go on, but if you use your imagination, I’m sure you can fill it all in. She never got involved in drugs, prostitution, had any illegitimate babies, or did porn.” He stops to laugh. “Until you guys, that is.”

“Fuck. You.”

Ford smiles one of his evil grins. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But as I was saying, Wade Minix is in town. He hasn’t contacted her from what I can tell. I saw him wave at her at the show up in Sturgis. He followed her all over the strip the day of the show. Then ended up standing in the front row that—”

“What? How come you didn’t tell me this?”

“Because Rook never responded to his wave and never made any move to reach out to him. She ignored him. But I’m telling you now because he’s back. And I think she should reconnect with Wade.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do.”

“Well, Ronin, he’s gonna get his chance to speak to her no matter what you do. Face that fact. He’s here, he’s here to see her, and he’s not leaving until he does. So you might as well just embrace it. Because you can’t stop it, that’s for sure. And if you make a big deal about it, she’ll just do it anyway. And she’ll break up with you because you forced her to make a choice.”

I hate it when Ford’s right. “So I’m just supposed to sit down and shut up? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yes. This is not about you, it has nothing to do with you, in fact. She likes you, that’s for sure. Otherwise she’d take that money, buy herself a car, and be on the road to anywhere but here. Because that’s just how she works. I call her type the Leaver.”

Ford and his fucking labels. “Yeah, I think you’re right about that. She’s got no fear of the road. I could tell that immediately. What kind of teenager gets on a bus alone knowing she’ll be homeless when she steps off? She’s not afraid to chuck it all and start again.”

“Exactly. And I’ll go one further. She told me she had no intention of getting off the bus in Denver. She was on her way to Vegas but she thought fate was sending her a message via
South Park
and got off on a whim. No plans, no home, no money, no friends, and no prospects. She stepped into the unknown because of a fucking cartoon. Now she has all of those empowering things and more, how hard would it be for her to just leave now? If you pressure her, she’s gone.”

I hold my head in my hands, trying to stave off the headache with a last-ditch brow pinch.

“Just give her some freedom, Ronin. I’ll keep an eye on her up at Spencer’s place.”

I get up and walk to the door, then stop. I don’t turn and say it to his face, but I say it just the same. “Thanks, Ford. And dude, just so you know, I’m sorry. About… Mardee.” I don’t wait for an acknowledgment, I just plaster a smile on my face and walk through back into Rook’s birthday party.

Chapter Ten - ROOK

“Did you have a nice birthday, Rook?” Ronin unzips my dress and I wriggle out of it, just an itty-bitty bit drunk. He laughs as I wobble. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Once the dress is gone all I have on are my panties. I watch helplessly as Ronin hangs the gown up. “This was the best birthday of my life. And thank you so much for the camera. You did not have to do that for me. But I love it. I’m gonna start filming tomorrow and I’ll never stop. Ever.”

That camera is like something else. It looks like a mini-version of the cameras the film crew use for the show. I have no idea how to use it but how lucky am I? I have a film team at my disposal to teach me. I smile at this as Ronin guides me over to the bed and pushes me until I sit down. Once I get some momentum going it’s hard to stop and I end up lying all the way back.

“I’m drunk,” I say, laughing.

The lights go out and then Ronin’s bare skin slips up next to my own. “I know. It’s a good thing we had mind-blowing sex before the party.” He nuzzles into my neck and pulls me close to him, just like he does every night. “I love you, Rook. I hope you know that.”

I sigh into his perfect muscular chest and then trace my fingertips down the length of his stomach. “I know that.”

And that’s it for Rook. My night is over.

I wake early, dying of thirst. I swallow down my cotton mouth and disentangle myself from Ronin.

“Where’re you going, Gidget?” he asks groggily.

“Water,” I croak.

I get up, slip on a dirty t-shirt draped over a chair near the window, and pad out to the kitchen and grab a bottled water. I gulp it all down and then fill it back up with the tap water and do it again. My gaze wanders over to the dining room table and I spy my presents. I have no memory of carrying them upstairs, but here they are.

I got a bunch of stuff. Some clothes, girly hair accessories, and some sapphire earrings from Elise and Antoine. A journal and two tickets to the opera from Ford and his pet. Spencer gave me a custom-painted black leather biker jacket with zippers. It has Gidget painted down one arm and Blackbird down the other. Like each of these men have made a claim on me. The back of the jacket is a giant blackbird logo with the words
Shrike Fucking Bikes
painted inside a red circle that surrounds the bird.

Even Veronica got me a gift. A gift certificate for a free tattoo at her shop up in Fort Collins.

But it was Ronin’s gift that touched my heart.

The camera. A camera I can make movies with. I open up the box and start unpacking. It’s got interchangeable lenses. I don’t know a whole lot about camcorders, but I do know that it’s not normal to be able to change lenses on them. Which means this camera is a BFD. When I check the clock it’s only five fifteen AM. I do a search for my phone and find it on the little table over my the front door, and then call Ford.

“Miss Corvus, we do not have a date this morning.”

I laugh. “I know, Ford. But I’m looking at my camera that Ronin got me and I want to start filming now. I have things to capture before I leave this place. Can you come help me set it up?”

“Did you charge the battery last night?” he asks with doubt.

“Um, no,” I say, disappointed.

“OK, well, I’ll grab a camera and bring it to you. How’s that?”

Happiness overtakes the disappointment. I guess he’s serious about this friend stuff. “Thank you.”

“Meet me on the terrace in fifteen minutes.”

I wash up, change into some jeans and one of the Shrike Rook shirts Spencer made for me, and then pull on my red Converse shoes. I keep waiting for these things to fall apart, but they never do. They have holes in the top near the toe and there’s even a little hole in the bottom of the left one. So my feet totally get wet in the rain. But I don’t care. Besides the backpack I left my last foster home with, these ratty shoes are the last thing I own from my life before Jon. I take it as a sign that the old me is still around. Somewhere.