Resonance (Marauders #4) (29 page)

“It’s not the same,” Brick dismissed me.

“It’s not that far off. At least not as far as you think. Every choice we make impacts the ones around us as well as ourselves. But events in your life are results of other people’s decisions, too. The only thing you can do is… your best.” I took Brick’s hand again, and this time he just squeezed it. “I’ll do what I can, but give her time. Let her be a mess for a while, she’ll need that, too. She needs to do damage control before she starts sorting the mess out.”

“She seems numb,” he mumbled. “It’s like she can’t feel anything.”

I was glad he’d noticed, it would help if he understood her.

“It’ll come,” I said.

“I’m not gonna like it when it does, will I?” he said with a tired smile.

“No. It’s gonna hurt like hell, tear you apart.”

“Thanks,” he said, and it wasn’t sarcastic. It was honest. “For not sugarcoating it.”

“You strike me as a guy who prefers to be as prepared as possible. And I think you can take it. You love her. I’m not gonna tell you that it’s all that matters, but it’ll get you pretty far. I’ll do what I can.”

Brick nodded and stood up again. “All I ask. Thanks, Shooter.”

*

It was strange to go from the hospital and to work. Really strange. I dealt with people who’d been raped every time I was there, hordes of them, but going from Brick and to work made it even more… not real, it was always real, but… direct or maybe palpable. It was present to me in a way it usually wasn’t. I really hoped it didn’t mean that I usually was detached, but I was starting to suspect that might be the case. I guessed everything became blasé if you were exposed to it often enough.

Towards the end of day it became really real when a young woman, she might just barely have passed twenty, walked into the center. Besides being young, there wasn’t anything about her that reminded me of Eliza, the girl was Asian, but she still did. She looked around as if she expected someone to jump her. I remembered that feeling.

I directed her to the right room, and then I sat back down heavily on my office chair. She was so young, and she’d probably joined the military feeling excited, and now she was at a fucking rape center. It wasn’t fair.

“One of those days?” Helen asked with a smile. I hadn’t noticed her, so she startled me.

“Shit! Didn’t see you there. Um, yeah. One of those days.”

“The last group has started, I think they’ll be fine, so you can leave if you want to.”

“Thanks. I’m just gonna…” I pointed towards my shelf full of binders. “A friend’s daughter has been… raped.” It was surprisingly hard to say it. “I thought I’d get them some names.”

“Not all of our contacts takes civilians, but I’ll make a list for you tomorrow,” Helena said. “And I’m sorry. Young?”

“Seventeen,” I answered.

“Not sure how many of them that take minors, either. I might have a few other names, though. I worked at Women’s Shelter before. I’ll see what I can find.”

“I don’t think there’s any hurry. She’s still in the hospital.”

Helena nodded. “Go home, Billie. Hug your kid and make love to your man. It looks like you need it.”

I did as she’d suggested.

*

The next morning when I woke up, Tommy wasn’t in bed, and once I got down to the kitchen, it was empty, too.

I found Tommy and Felix in the gazebo on the swing, Felix on Tommy’s lap. When I’d left them the day before, they’d been in the garage working on Tommy’s bike, and Felix had barely noticed when I said goodbye.

I sat down next to Tommy and gave them each a kiss.

“How are my boys doing?” I asked, and when Felix gave me an angry eye, I laughed. “Not like that, little man. Just a general ‘how are you doing.’”

“We’re fine,” Tommy answered. “Come on, Champ, you’re gonna have to get used to us asking even if we know you’re fine. It’s the polite thing to do.”

Felix climbed over to my lap. “Can I start school this fall?”

“Yeah. Guess we have to find a house before then so when know what school you’ll start at.”

“I wanna go to the same school as Travis. Do you think I could?”

“I think we can arrange that,” Tommy answered. “Anything you want in the house?”

“A big yard, and a swing like this one.” He looked at me. “What do you want?”

“A room for working out,” I answered. “Daddy?”

“I want a big garage,” Tommy smiled.

“Think we got it down, then,” I said. “We should be able to find a house like that one. If it doesn’t have a swing, we’ll add one.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Just Like That

~oOo~

IT DIDN’T TAKE MORE than a month to find a house, and two months later we were in the middle of moving in. In all honesty, it was Mom who’d found it. The sellers wanted a quick deal, since they were moving abroad. It wasn’t until we’d bought the house that we realized we didn’t actually have much to put
in
it, which had led to shopping trips from hell with Mom. Tommy had some basic things in his apartment, we got some really nice stuff from other members, too, but there was still a lot we had to buy. I had learned to hate IKEA with a passion.

It was at least livable, and even pretty nice.

One of the big perks with the house was that it was in the right area for Felix to go to the same school as Travis, and school was starting just a few weeks later. Which also meant we lived close by Dawg and Edie, really close by. So close that Felix and Travis kept running back and forth between our houses. I’d soon found out that Edie wasn’t much of a cook, so I often had both Travis and Jacob over for dinner. It didn’t take more than a week for Dawg to start showing up, too. I didn’t mind. Initially, I felt bad for Edie’s sake, but then I realized she was aware of her shortcomings in the kitchen.

The day before, Brick had left a box of things for the kitchen, and at the same time he’d asked me if I could come by and talk to Eliza. She spent most of her time in her room, and she avoided talking to people. The shrinks weren’t making any difference, since she wasn’t talking to them, either. Brick seemed to think I had some magic fix just because I’d been raped, but I knew those didn’t exist, and there was no way in hell I’d make Eliza think that was the case. It took work, a lot of work, and it was tough. I didn’t mind helping her if I could, though, so I’d gone to see her.

And she was a mess—a real mess. She looked more dead than alive, and the stark difference between the girl she was now and the girl I remembered from before was heartbreaking. The one who smiled like the universe had kissed her.

She didn’t want to talk, though, she’d wanted to learn how to use a gun, and I hadn’t seen a problem in that. She’d wanted to be able defend herself, and just the fact that she felt like she still had something to defend was encouraging. There was still fighting in her.

“Can we do this again?” she asked on our way back from the shooting range.

“Whenever you want,” I said. “Or we could just decide that we do it once a week, every Thursday, and stick to that.”

It would be too easy for her to not call and ask for it, so setting up a set day of the week meant she had to actively skip it rather than to just not call me. I’d been in her shoes; I knew how to work around lethargy.

“So?” Brick asked as soon as Eliza was up the stairs. “Where were you?”

“Shooting range. She wanted to learn how to use a gun.”

He stared at me. “She didn’t talk?”

“She talked, but not about what you think. Listen, there’s no way to hurry this along. I got her out of her room, she wants to learn to defend herself, and that’s a good thing. One step at a time.”

“Okay,” Brick said after a few seconds of thought.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Why the fuck does that matter?” he snapped.

“It matters, Brick. You’re no help to anyone if you’re a mess yourself.” I gave him a hug. “She’ll get there. It’s going to take time, but she’ll get there. Stay close by while giving her a lot of room at the same time. Let her fall, just make sure to help her up—know what I’m saying?”

He nodded.

“And remember, this is her fight. You can help her, but you can’t fight for her.”

“You’re just full of wisdom,” he mumbled with a huff.

“Yeah. I grew up among clichés. Sometimes they say what needs to be said. I’ll do what I can, too. If nothing else, she’ll be a mean shot by the time I’m done with her.”

*

When I came home—or the house I was learning to call ‘home’—I found Tommy sorting his movies into the new bookshelves from IKEA. He’d been in the middle of building them when I left, and he’d been in a shitty mood, but he seemed better now.

“Where’s Felix?” I asked, after giving him a kiss.

“At Dawg’s.”

“You know you’re going to have to get the guest bed built by tomorrow, right?”

Dwayne was coming to visit us. He wanted to see the new house and spend some time with Felix. He’d thought it best to come before Felix started school so they could get some quality time just the two of them, while Tommy and I were at work. I’d agreed, but mostly because I knew I’d have to learn to trust others than my Mom or Dad to be able to take care of Felix. He was going to school, and starting with Dwayne seemed like a good way to give it a try. Or rather to get used to it.

I wasn’t convinced it was the best time for out of town visits, but Tommy claimed things were calm at the moment. But a nagging voice at the back of my head kept saying that it had seemed calm the morning of the day when shit went down, too. He’d told me some of what was going on, and hearing that I’d been smack in the middle of a cartel war was unnerving, to put it mildly. Some other things he hadn’t told me, but I’d figured it out anyway. Cartels meant drugs, so that was what they were involved in. That or guns. Or both. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, or if I felt anything at all.

Being in the middle of a crisis with people meant you saw them either at their worst or at their best, depending on what kind of a person they were. I’d seen the Marauders at their best. They’d closed ranks, looked after each other, and trusted each other. I respected them. I might not respect what they were doing, but I respected them as group and as the individual people they were. That had to be enough.

“I already did,” Tommy said, and I wasn’t sure what it was he was referring to.

“What?”

“I fixed the guest bed before I started on this.” He turned towards me. “Wanna test it?”

“Okay,” I laughed. “Now?”

“The kids just left. I think we’ve got at least an hour.”

Not twenty minutes later, Tommy was on his back, and I licked my way up his stomach, through the hair on his chest, and up to his left nipple—giving it a slight bite.

“Come on, Munchkin,” he groaned. “I need to get inside of you.”

I was just as ready as he was, so I took his cock in my hand, held it against my opening, and slowly descended until I was sitting on his hips with his dick all the way inside me. I rolled my hips slightly, and Tommy groaned, clenching my hips in his hands.

“Damn, babe. Do that again.”

I did as he’d asked, and he closed his eyes with another appreciative groan.

“I love your cock,” I mumbled. “You always feel so perfect inside of me.”

Instead of answering, he sat up and slid his arm around my waist.

The last few months, he’d never gotten around to shaving his head, which meant his hair was longer than it had ever been. I liked that, because it meant I could hold on to his hair to keep in place when he was giving me head or kissing me. His hand was tangled in my hair, too, and he pulled me back and kissed his way down my throat. After a light bite on my collarbone, soothed with a lick, he continued farther down to my breast.

I kept rising and falling down over his dick, rolling my hips to make it reach all the best spots. At the same time, Tommy was playing with my breasts and touching as much of my body as he could reach. When his fingertips stroked along my spine and down to my ass, I tore myself from his lips and groaned. My thighs were trembling, not from exhaustion, but because he felt so good inside of me. I was getting closer, and it made it harder to focus on what I was doing with anything but the movements of my hips.

“Tommy,” I moaned.

“Yeah,” he panted. “Just like that.”

When my entire legs started trembling, he grabbed my ass, lifting me up and slamming me back down over his dick. Again and again, until I felt the tight coil inside of me getting ready to release. I let go of his lips and leaned back to make the tip of his dick rub over the perfect spot inside of me.

“Oh, god, Tommy, please.”

“Just like that, oh fuck, Billie, just like that.”

“Fuck, Tommy.”

“Yeah, come on, let me hear it. Just us two here, and I wanna hear you come all over my dick.”

I came, and I was loud. I kept screaming his name along with a few curse words, feeling myself squeeze his dick with my insides, gushing wet.

“Fuck, babe. Oh, shit, I love hearing that.”

By then he was holding me close, his arm back around my waist, and he was fucking up and into me. Relentless pounding, and it meant I was getting there again—or that it possibly just wouldn’t stop—reaching yet another peak.

Tommy flipped us around, holding me down, and kept slamming his hips against me, and his dick as far inside of me as it could reach. Then I felt it, the twitches in his dick that told me he was coming, too.

We lay still, feeling the last of the orgasms ebb out, and then he fell down next to me, just to immediately pull me closer.

“I love you,” he mumbled. “I like this, having our own house.”

“Me, too. It might take some getting used to, but it’s looking better and better.”

After a deep sigh, he turned towards me. “We should probably get dressed before the kids catch us naked. Don’t think Dawg and Edie would appreciate that.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re doing the exact same thing when we have their kids over, so it’s probably just a matter of which set of parents they catch naked first”

~oOo~

THEY WERE AT THE airport, just Felix and him, and they were waiting for Dwayne. The only time Felix had met him was when they’d been to the zoo together, but they’d talked on the phone a few times since. Or, not a few times, pretty damn often, and the last time they talked, Felix had insisted that his uncle came to celebrate his birthday. He was a few days late, since he couldn’t get time off exactly on Felix’s birthday, but Dwayne had said it just meant Felix got to celebrate his birthday twice.

“There he is!” Felix yelled and started waving. “Uncle Dwayne, Uncle Dwayne!”

“Hey, kid,” Dwayne said as he lifted Felix into the air. “You didn’t bring your mom?” He winked at Tommy when he said that.

“No, she’s at home making dinner. We have a cake, too. For tomorrow. Did you bring my present?”

“Yes, I did. It’s in my bag.” Dwayne gave Tommy a hug. “How’s my little brother?”

“Good.”

Felix talked most of the drive home, and once at the house, he pulled Dwayne through the house to show him his room. Travis, who’d apparently seen the car, came by ten minutes later, and the two kids kept Dwayne occupied until the dinner was ready.

After dinner, Tommy grabbed two beers and took Dwayne out to the back yard after promising Felix and Travis they could play with him tomorrow again. That he’d be there for the entire second birthday party.

“How the fuck did this happen?” Dwayne asked. “A year ago, you were single and all about your club, while I was engaged with a steady job. Now you have a house with a back yard, a
very
steady girlfriend, and a six-year-old kid.”

“You’re still engaged and have a steady job,” Tommy answered with a shrug. “How’s that going, by the way?”

“We broke up.”

“What? When?”

“A month ago.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“Thought it was better to tell you in person. It wasn’t a big deal, to be honest.”

Dwayne and his fiancé, and Tommy was embarrassed to admit he couldn’t remember her name, had been together for about three years. He’d just barely met her, and about the only thing he knew about her was what she looked like and that she worked as something fancy on Wall Street.

“What happened?”

“I realized I hadn’t seen her in two weeks and… I don’t know.” He went quiet. “I had no idea where she was most of the time, she picked up calls in the middle of the night, some other suspicious things, and then I realized that the idea of her cheating didn’t bother me much.”

Tommy tried to imagine Billie cheating on him, and a red-hot rage rose in him just by thinking about it. So he nodded.

“That should bother you.”

“I know. We broke up.”

“Was she? Cheating on you?”

“I don’t know,” Dwayne shrugged. “And I don’t care. She’s moving out, and I don’t even know to where or to whom.”

Amelia, Tommy recalled, her name was Amelia. It probably didn’t matter anymore, though. Billie interrupted them when she came outside with a phone in her hand.

“Dawg called. They’re all on their way to Wrench for a kid and women free evening to get ready for the second birthday party tomorrow. He said you should bring your brother and some steaks.”

Wrench had bought a house earlier that year, and since he didn’t have an old lady or any kids, and wouldn’t ever bring any women in general to his place, they’d started hanging out there when they felt like a pure guys’ night.