Where Loyalty Lies (3 page)

For a couple of hours we were rushed off our feet until ten when we slowed to a steady trickle that would take us up to lunch when we’d be busy again.

When I had time between cooking food, serving customers, washing up and wiping tables, I found other duties to fill my time, hoping that doing jobs that weren’t technically mine would make up for my being late. Again.

That was the trouble with doing two jobs; I was always so tired that I was constantly running late. I worked at the cafe from seven until three and then I went home and crashed for a couple of hours so that I could go to my second job at a pub from six until midnight. Both jobs paid the minimum wage so it would have made more sense for me to find a normal nine-to-five job with decent pay, but it was impossible to get one of those that paid cash-in-hand and didn’t need a contract.

Just before lunch I ran out of things to do and I leant up against the counter, trying to rest my feet before the rush.

“You’ll do yourself in, if you keep burning the candle at both ends,” Lisa said from where she was perched on a stool behind the till. She gave me a studying look from over the top of her romance novel.

I smiled. I never told Lisa that the reason I was always so knackered was because I had two jobs. For some reason, I thought she would be less tolerant of my lateness if she knew it was because I was working elsewhere rather than going out partying like twenty-one year-olds were supposed to do.

“If I don’t do it now, I never will,” I said. Lisa gave a non-committal shrug and went back to her steamy fantasy.

“Another stable boy?” I asked, studying the shirtless blonde guy straddling a bale of straw on the front cover of Lisa’s book. The look on his face said,
“Sitting in this position shows off all my muscles and don’t I just know it”
.

“Actually he’s the only son of the wealthy Baron Von Smythe in South Carolina and he’s fallen in love with the eldest daughter of one of the local fishermen who’s struggling to feed his family because the Baron’s shipping business is over-running the dockyard.”

I looked at the girl on the front cover and snorted, “Well, that explains why she can only afford to cover herself with a scrap of cloth.”

Lisa studied the cover for a few seconds before shrugging again. “If I had a body like that, then I’d be tempted to only wear a scrap of cloth myself.”

An image of an almost naked Lisa, draped over the lap of the wealthy Baron Boy, threatened to invade my mind and I quickly changed the topic before I couldn’t look her in the eyes without blushing.

“I don’t know why you read that crap. I mean, surely it gets boring reading what’s essentially just the same plot-line over and over again, just with different people? Boy meets girl from a different class, they fall in love despite knowing that it’s against society’s rules and then, when said society does find out and do what they can to tear the couple apart, it just pushes the couple closer together because they know that, as long as they have each other, that’s all they need in life.”

“They aren’t all like that,” Lisa insisted. “Besides, the characters are good.”

“Oh please, I bet the males are all strong, tough guys on the outside but, around the love of their life, they open up and share all their thoughts and feelings. And I bet the females are all doe-eyed and innocent and just idolise the man that they love.”

“Actually, that’s not true; Savannah just told her father that she doesn’t care about his demands and that she’ll live her life how she wants to, with or without his blessing,” Lisa stated, a slight huffiness to her tone.  

I couldn’t help but let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, I bet Savannah’s gonna be a real hell-raiser.”

A sharp look from Lisa told me that I was very close to crossing the line from friendly banter into insulting my boss.

“Ah look, that table needs clearing,” I said, hurrying away before Lisa remembered that the back-up grill could use a good clean.

As I cleared the plates and wiped down the table, I contemplated for the millionth time why Lisa’s reading choices always seemed to irritate me so much. I liked to tell myself that it was because the books promoted such stereotypical characters, that in a modern society like ours we should want more open-mindedness. But, if I was honest, it was because I always felt like any book or film that contained that image of true, perfect love was a real “up yours” at me. They basically pointed out that two people from almost any background could fall in love, conquer all obstacles and spend their lives together. I didn’t care that they were fictional; I hated it being made to sound so simple when I could never get it right.

I knew the reason Lisa read those books was because she liked to dream that, one day, one of the guys from one of those books would march in here, sweep her off her feet and take her somewhere where she’d never have to see a fried egg again. Lisa’s dream was for a guy to fall madly in love with her and spend his life doting on her. My problem was the opposite. Men were crazy about me – crazy being a very appropriate word.

About a month after my fifteenth birthday, I started to notice that men looked at me differently. It was like some invisible switch inside me had flipped and suddenly I went from being a completely average teenager to someone that boys and men of all ages started noticing when I walked into a room. Most guys just looked, but others seemed compelled to come and talk to me. To the devastation of all the popular girls at school, half the boys in our school year asked me to the end of school party, which ironically scared me enough to put me off going altogether. As much as becoming a guy-magnet overnight sounds like a great thing to happen, all it did for me was to send me into a spiral of paranoia. I was sensible enough to know that there was something very unnatural about the sudden and drastic change. It scared the hell out of me and I retreated even further into the protective shell I’d created for myself.

Unfortunately it only got worse as I got older. Being a young teenager had been enough to keep most men at bay but the older I got, the less qualms men seemed to have about hitting on me, even if they were three times my age. It made living a normal life impossible. There was no point in me making friends because they just grew to hate me when they caught their boyfriends or dads looking at me. I couldn’t have a relationship because even if, on paper, the guy seemed perfect for me I just couldn’t get past that fact that his attraction for me didn’t seem genuine. I could never shake the feeling that they seemed almost brainwashed into liking me. On the few occasions when I'd thrown caution to the wind and decided to just try and have a normal relationship, things got sour pretty quickly. The more time I spent with a guy the more his interest would grow until it became obsession. Every boyfriend I’d had had gotten insanely jealous any time I was out of sight, even if I was just doing something like laundry. The arguments were horrendous and when it came to the point where I couldn’t bare it anymore and I would end it, things just got worse. One ex had stalked me so relentlessly that I’d had to up and move just to get away from him and another had actually threatened to shoot me. So after three attempts that had all gone so horrifically wrong, I'd decided that I'd rather spend my life alone than watch whatever messed up mojo I had in me turn another genuinely nice guy into a shadow of himself. I was so caught up in my mental tirade that, when Nicola turned up to take my place, I could hardly believe it was three already.

The rain storm still hadn’t arrived so, on the way home, I decided to make a detour to the local shop to pick up some groceries, but after getting stuck behind the same woman and her screaming children down three aisles I gave up and bought what was in my half-filled basket. Experience had taught me that I could easily live off cereal, yoghurts, bread, Doritos and bananas until I could next be bothered to come back.

A couple of minutes away from the door to my apartment building, the rain started to fall. It was sudden and heavy, falling in big fat droplets that splashed dramatically as they landed. I didn’t hurry and openly laughed at the chaos it seemed to cause other people walking in the street. Umbrellas went up and people who had forgotten their umbrellas used briefcases, handbags and shopping bags to shield themselves as they dashed for cover. Anyone would have thought it was acid rather than rain.

I was drenched by the time I reached my building but I’d stopped dripping by the time I’d climbed the ten flights of stairs to my floor. Holding my shopping bag in one hand, I used the other to rummage in my handbag to find my door keys, but as I reached my front door I found they weren’t needed.

My front door was open – not wide open, just an inch so that I could see the tatty cream wallpaper of the hallway. I sighed in annoyance as I pushed my way through the door, kicking it shut behind me a little harder than was necessary. Ben was here again.

Ben was the fifteen year-old son of the lady a few doors down. Over the past four months he’d broken into my apartment five times. The first time, he’d stolen a wad of cash that I’d left on the side. It had been a whole week’s wages from Lisa. After that, I’d made sure that all my money was safely hidden. I hadn’t known it was him at first but, the second time he broke in, I’d returned just as he was coming out of my front door. I’d dragged him down the hall and banged on his door until his mother answered. It had done me no good, though, because after telling her what I’d just caught him doing and what I suspected he’d stolen from me previously, I’d got a reply of, “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” When I’d recovered from my speechlessness, I’d told her that I expected her to control her child or I’d call the police. A spanner was thrown in my threat when she’d told me to go ahead. Ben had smirked at me when I’d given him a severe threat about what exactly I’d do to him if he ever set foot in my place again. I’d never phone the police and somehow the little bugger knew it.

I’d worked very hard not to put roots down. I didn’t have any documentation in my name. No driving licence, no passport, no bank account and no wage slips. Even my rent was kept off the record, cash-in-hand, something that my landlord was more than happy to do if I slipped him a little extra every month. I was untraceable and that’s how I wanted it to stay, so I sure as hell wasn’t going to have my name and address logged in a police computer system somewhere and ruin all my efforts just because of one idiot who had nothing better to do with his life than breaking and entering.

“Ben!” I hollered.

A quick glance in the living room told me that he wasn’t in there. I dumped the shopping in the kitchen, cursing my landlord for refusing me the right to put a dead bolt on the door. I’d offered to pay to have the thing fitted myself but apparently, when you rented somewhere, you weren’t allowed to put up any permanent fixtures, even if you were getting broken into. This was the last straw though. On my next day off I was going to the nearest hardware store to buy the biggest dead bolt I could get.

A walk down to the end of the hall showed that Ben wasn’t in the bathroom or the tiny little box room that my landlord had optimistically called a second bedroom.

A clattering noise from behind the closed door of my own room was enough to push my frustration way up into anger. I actually growled under my breath as I stalked toward my room.

“What the hell do you think you’re....” My sentence trailed off as I pushed through the door and froze in my tracks. It wasn’t Ben. Oh God, I wish it had been Ben. Fear hit me just like it had that night almost three years ago. It was him, the man with the jet black eyes and fangs who’d saved my life.

“No.” The single word escaped my mouth but it was filled with more terror than I’d have thought possible.

My feet started moving before my brain and I stumbled like a new born foal across the hall towards the front door.

I didn’t hear him move but his weight crashed into me from behind, his hand covered my mouth. Instinct overtook and, as my flight option was gone, I tried to fight. I lashed out in a mess of limbs. I could feel my feet, hands and elbows making contact with his body but it seemed to have no effect. The self-defence videos I’d watched online came into my mind. I slammed my elbow into his gut as hard as I could and got the satisfaction of a slight “oof”. I swung my elbow again, this time aiming for his face, but he caught it in his hand. There was a brief moment of movement that only lasted for seconds but, at the end of it, I found myself immobile.

He was still behind me with his body almost pressed up against mine, one hand over my mouth and the other managing to hold both my wrists behind my back in an iron grip. I was upright on my knees and a heavy weight on my calves gave me the impression that he was sitting on them. A desperate whimper tried to escape me, but it couldn’t get past my barricaded mouth.

No
. I would not give him the satisfaction of hearing me cry and beg in the moments before my death. Deep down I’d always known this would happen. I’d known that one of them would find me, despite my best efforts to keep hidden. I gritted my teeth together, closed my eyes and hoped that it would be quick.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” His voice was calm and low with a gravelly tone. “I’ll repeat this as many times as I need to, but the sooner you listen to me and understand me, the sooner I can let you up.”

There was a pause, almost like he was waiting for me to reply, even though I quite obviously couldn’t.

“My name is Holt Altham. I know you’re thinking that I’m here to hurt you but I’m not. Yes, I was there that night but I wasn’t the one that wanted to hurt you. My only intention was to help you. Do you hear me?”