Sidekick Returns (6 page)

I spun to see the speaker, a grimy-looking man standing by the aisle, lazily eating from a large bag of chips, wearing a t-shirt that didn't fully cover his hairy belly.

‘Why don't you get in there, tough guy?' I said, getting on my toes to look over the man's shoulder at the back of the auditorium. There! I spotted Ryder's silhouette standing in the exit. The man caught my attention again by shouting, ‘I would get in there, but I don't have the cute little mask.'

I hurried down the thin concrete aisle, meaning to pass him by. I so didn't have time for this.

Just as I crossed paths with the man with the hairy stomach, he shouted, ‘Who are you supposed to be anyway? The Lone Ranger? You wanna ride my Silver?'

Before I knew what I doing, I snatched the chip bag from the man's hands and crumpled its contents in sharp angry bursts before passing it back to him.

‘Hey!'

‘Hay is for horses, numb-nuts.'

‘
Hay is horse
s? What are you eight—' I let the rest of what he had to say fade into the cacophony of stadium noise as I sprinted down the aisle.

Chapter 6

I stopped when I made it into the tomb-like hallway that ran along the back of the auditorium. I planted my hands on my knees in order to catch my breath as my eyes darted to either side. Where had she gone? I jolted up when I spotted Ryder in the darkness at the end of the longer hallway to my right. She stared back at me from the shadows. Even in the gloom, Ryder was insanely beautiful. Neon blue eyes. Hair the colour of fire. Flawless black skin. Flawless except for the angry webbed tracing of scars that ran over her one cheek. Ryder, the hero, wasn't supposed to care about superficial things like beauty, but she had that side of her face turned to the shadows, making me wonder if she had human frailties after all. Sick guilt ran through my body. It had been my fault. Stupid father and his penchant for blowing up buildings.

I shook off the odd still feeling in the air and walked towards her. The sound of my footsteps echoed off of the concrete walls, throwing me off my earlier strut. Even though my heart was pounding against my ribcage with its little bloody fists, my resolve felt steely. Finally. Finally, I would get my explanation as to what the hell was going on with us
and
maybe, just maybe, an apology. Don't get me wrong, I was totally going to take her back as my mentor, but I figured there was nothing wrong with making her sweat a little.

Ryder remained staring at me. In fact, I was pretty sure she hadn't blinked. God, she was so creepy sometimes … in the awesome-ist kind of way.

I stopped a good distance back from the spot of darkness she had claimed as her own. I didn't have the nerve to go any closer. Heat rolled up to my cheeks as I said, ‘Well, well, well, if it isn't my long lost mentor. Dark Ryder, isn't it?'

Suddenly she pulled out a rappelling gun from her belt, aimed the hook to the darkened ceiling, and pulled the trigger.

‘Wait!'

She pressed the winding mechanism at her belt and shot up towards the shadows above.

‘Ryder!'

I ran the rest of the way down to the end of the hallway and looked up. She was gone. Nothing but an open skylight. I stood frozen in the gloom. Some emotion, both hot and cold, rolled down my body from my scalp to my toes, making my eyes prickle. That had not just happened. That could not have just happened. All the waiting … all the hoping. An avalanche of too big thoughts tumbled through my mind, threatening to crush me. The biggest, scariest one carried the message,
It's over
. But it couldn't be over. If it was over, then that meant I had to face the reality of what my life had become. It wasn't just the living in poverty away from everything I had ever known. It was the living with knowing what my father had done—with what I knew he was capable of—and not being able to do a single thing about it.

No. I shook my head fiercely. No.

There had to be some sort of explanation. I didn't imagine the entire thing. That night at the prison really had happened. Something—

A buzz at my hip jerked me from my thoughts. I grabbed my phone to look at the text. Pierce.

At the restaurant. We still on? You okay?

I had to stop and think about that for a second. In the last couple of hours, I'd had my ass handed to me, not once, but twice, I had become an errand girl from the mob and had accidentally lost their money gambling on my first run, and now my mentor, the keeper of all my dreams, had apparently come down with a severe case of Bremnaphobia. So, how exactly was I?

I blinked the tears out of my eyes.

Super. Be there in five.

***

Thirty minutes later, I arrived at the restaurant, out of breath, sweaty, and still wearing the windbreaker. I had tried to run the entire way, but will alone does not a marathon runner make.

I stood in front of the restaurant and inhaled deeply. One thing I was starting to learn about myself was that I did not like to feel things … well, bad things in particular. In fact, I'd almost always rather crack a joke or jump a motorbike through a circus ring of fire than feel things. Maybe I got that from my father, except he'd rather try to conquer the universe than feel things. Nope, I couldn't think about what had just happened with Ryder. What it meant … it was too … too … nope. The dream was still alive. Nothing had changed. I just needed to talk to her … in a room where she couldn't escape.

I plastered a smile on my face and swung the door open. I was wiping the sweat from my cheeks when a voice asked, ‘May I help you?'

I peeked through my fingers. ‘Hey!' I gasped. ‘I know you!'

The man closed his eyes briefly and shook his head.

‘You're that … that stuffy gay guy who didn't want to let me into that other restaurant.' This wasn't the first time I had met Pierce without proper date attire. ‘Remember, I was wearing that turban with the pink jewel in the middle?' I asked, swirling a finger around my head.

‘I do not enjoy being referred to as
that gay guy
.'

I dropped my finger as heat flooded my cheeks. ‘I am so sorry.'

‘Do you see me referring to you as that strange blonde girl who doesn't know how to properly dress herself?'

‘No,' I said, unable to meet his eyes.

‘You are horrible.'

‘I said I was sorry!' I shouted before I caught myself and lowered my voice. ‘I'm still learning how not to be offensive. I've been given a lot of free reign in the past.'

‘You are speaking as though I care. This way,' he said, waving me forward into the restaurant that looked like a catalogue shot for import furniture from India. Then he muttered, ‘For the life of me, I cannot understand what that beautiful man sees in you.'

‘Depending on the day, you and me both,' I replied, slapping him on the shoulder. He glanced at the spot where I had touched his jacket as though there might be visible contamination left behind. ‘I'm really not so bad once you get to know me,' I added.

He sighed heavily. ‘Enjoy the meal that is about to be wasted on you.'

I smiled at Pierce whose eyes were following the host as he walked away. ‘Wow,' he said, moving his gaze back to me. ‘Did he really just say what I think he said? I'm going to go talk to him.' He started to get to his feet.

‘It's my fault.' I waved him back down. I didn't want Pierce to go anywhere. Just seeing his sculpted face with his nerdy yet stylish glasses was enough to melt away some of the hurt still lingering in my chest.

‘I just can't figure out why Fredrick is always so mean to you. He's normally the nicest guy in the world.'

I slumped in my chair. ‘Fredrick? He has a name? Am I supposed to ask people their names? Like all the time?'

Pierce's expression softened in a way that made my insides clench. ‘Are you having socialite problems?'

‘Ex-socialite, thank you very much, and yes, it is a cold, confusing world.' I pulled my hair away from my face, ignoring the smell of alcohol I seemed to be giving off. ‘I liked it better when everybody liked me.'

‘I like you.'

I met his gaze and smiled. Dammit, my eyes were doing that strange prickly thing again. ‘Stop it. It's hard enough for me to act cool in this windbreaker without you saying stuff like that.'

‘Are you okay, Bremy?' Pierce's eyes moved over my face and outfit. ‘I mean, really okay?'

I slumped in my chair. ‘I'm not sure you want to know the answer to that.'

He sighed. ‘Probably not, but … but your nose.'

My nose! My hands flew to pyramid face. That's why it hurt so much. I had forgotten about Lee Lee's fist. ‘Is it really bad? Do I look awful?'

He made his cute grimace again. ‘Did you ever see that Brady Bunch episode with the football?'

‘No.'

‘That's probably for the best.'

Just then a man walked up to our table and gave Pierce a friendly pat on the back.

‘Chris,' Pierce said with a smile before turning to me. ‘Bre—Brenda, this is Chris, a photographer from work.'

Chris faced me then startled a bit. ‘Oh! Are you alright?'

‘I'm fine,' I said, flinging my hand up to cover my nose. ‘You know … bagel accident.'

Chris slowly turned back to Pierce, eyes dragging slightly behind. ‘Anyway, I just wanted you to know, I've been assigned to cover the museum with you this Friday.'

‘Oh, great,' Pierce said. ‘Looking forward to it.'

Chris nodded and turned to leave. ‘Nice meeting you, Brenda,' he said with a small wave. I couldn't help but notice he was now looking anywhere but my face.

I cocked my head at Pierce and said, ‘So, whatcha working on?'

‘Oh, it's nothing, just this charity masquerade ball thing at the museum. All the media's going to be there. Not sure how it managed to get so much press.'

‘Sounds mysterious.'

He nodded but didn't elaborate.

A moment passed between us. I knew he was waiting for me to tell him about my night, but I was finding it a little difficult to get the words out. Supposedly, we were here to talk about Ryder. Pierce had agreed to use his resources to help me figure out what was going on with her. I guess he felt a little obligated after we had saved him at the prison. But we both knew it was more than that. We had gotten off to a bad start in our relationship, what with all my lying and his philosophical objections to vigilantism, but I had to believe that Pierce wanted to see if we could make this work as much as I did. Aside from his overwhelming physical appeal, Pierce was the kindest person I had ever met. A man of integrity. Something that had been sorely lacking in my life. The one thing I knew for sure was that I could not lie to him again, or I'd lose him completely.

I cleared my throat. ‘So, here goes.' I launched into a recap of my evening. At about the halfway point, I noticed Pierce wasn't saying much. Actually, he hadn't said anything at all. I left off the part at the end with Ryder, not because I was keeping it from him, but because I would not be the type of girl who seduced men with her tears. Once I had finished, I took a moment to really study his reaction. Candlelight flickered over his features … his very, very still features.

‘Pierce?'

‘Let's order some drinks,' he said, putting a finger in the air.

I chewed my bottom lip. ‘That was too much, wasn't it? Maybe I should have saved some truth for dessert.'

‘No. No … the mob?' he asked, raising his eyebrows. ‘The crime-fighting thing you have going on wasn't enough?'

‘Well, granted, it wasn't my master plan for things to turn out this way. But I'm fairly certain I didn't do anything illegal, aside from placing the bet. Is that even illegal?' I suddenly noticed that my words were coming out really quickly, but I couldn't seem to slow them down. ‘I really think Mr Pushkin sent me, because, you know, I'm a girl, and he wants me to give him some intel on what Lana's up to. She still cares. I could tell by all the spitting. It's kind of cute really.' I made a grab for the glass of water sitting in front of me and took a hurried sip.

Thankfully, the server came to take our order. I settled on a pasta dish, hoping it might suck some of the alcohol out of my bloodstream. I needed to be on my toes. After the server left, Pierce and I sat for a moment in silence, me picking at the tablecloth, him twirling the stem of his wine glass between his long fingers.

I waited for him to say something, but he still wasn't moving much. At least he was blinking.

‘Pierce?'

‘I … I need a moment.'

‘Okay,' I said, straightening my fork on the table. ‘I suppose it's too late to end with, and then I woke up to discover it had all been a dream?'

‘Little bit.' He examined the empty plate in front of him for longer than I would have liked. ‘It's not so much—' He stopped and shook his head.

‘What?' I asked. ‘Tell me.'

‘I don't really—' He stopped again, growling with frustration. ‘Okay, here it is. Bremy. I'm a simple guy. I spend most nights in my apartment reading. I floss twice a day. I want a quiet life with maybe a white picket fence.' He paused, swallowing hard enough for me to see. ‘I lost my parents too soon.' Pierce's parents had been killed by a psychopath named The Menace a few years back. Ryder eventually stopped him and put him away for life, but not before he had racked up a whole slew of victims. ‘I can't lose somebody else that way. You constantly putting yourself in danger …'

‘Pierce, no. I'm not—'

He held up a hand and ploughed on. ‘I don't want to admit this to myself, but the truth is, I worry that you might be too much for me, and I might be too little for you.' His brow furrowed. ‘I didn't mean little. Did I say little? That was probably a poor choice of words. I—would you please stop leering?'