Cado (22 page)

“Yes, go ahead.”

“Well…um…” I started to blather on about Jacob and how I felt I wasn’t being a very good girlfriend. Meanwhile I was plotting. Simple was usually best with these kinds of things. I could just slip into the other box once it was his turn to talk, do the dirty deed, and leave without anyone being the wiser. It was actually quite brilliant.

When I was finished confessing my overdramatized tale, the priest began to speak just as I planned. I opened the door, stepped softly out onto—

“Tiffany! Hey!” Jacob’s voice caused me to jump about a foot. I whirled around to see him striding confidently towards me. “I saw your car out front and wondered what you were doing in here.”

I rapped on the door of the confessional. “I gotta go, father.” I hurried towards Jacob and linked my arm with his, turning him back the way he’d just come. “I went for a drive, saw the church, it was so beautiful I couldn’t help but to stop in to see what it was like.”

Jacob gazed around us as he walked. “Hmmm… yeah… I guess it’s nice.” He narrowed his eyes at the stained glass depicting a smiling God looking down from Heaven before jerking his gaze away. We were silent the rest of the way to our cars.

As I followed Jacob home, him in his car and me in mine, I had an epiphany. I couldn’t go on with Jacob the way that I had been. He didn’t love
me
because he didn’t know the real me. Karma hadn’t just been a dancer’s name for me… It’d been a way of life.
It’s who I am. I’ve lost sight of who I truly am.

That night a packed a small bag, left Jacob a note trying to explain myself without leaving any kind of incriminating evidence, and I finally headed towards a warmer climate. It had been a long time coming.

Leaving Jacob behind, cutting all ties…I didn’t know if I was happy, but I was certainly relieved.

You got the peaches, I got the cream. Sweet to taste, Saccharine…

Internally I was cringing. Not that I had a problem with
Def Leppard
. It was just that the song I was currently being forced to dance to was played out as a stripper song. I’m sure in the 80’s or whenever it had first come out all the dancers loved using it as a part of their sets. Now…well now it was ridiculous.

I dropped to my knees when the chorus came around again and whipped my hair in yet another cliché move.
This is demeaning.
But when I’d made my way down to Miami after running out on Jacob, I’d gone into hideout mode, just in case. Jacob and I hadn’t been together all that long, but with his police connections it wouldn’t be that hard to track me down. I didn’t want to be found. So there I was dancing in a dive bar, a place so grungy that I was afraid of what kind of diseases I was picking up from dancing naked—probably some flesh eating bacteria. Or maybe leprosy? Which was technically a flesh eating disease, right? Who knew? Who cared?

“Destiny.”

I crawled towards the biker who had called my new stage name. Frankly, I hated it. It felt wrong to go by anything but Karma, but it was too risky. What if Jacob found me and then started to piece together the deaths from when I’d been in Pittsburgh and now similar deaths surrounding me in Florida? I really didn’t want to end up in jail. The biker, about mid-thirties, dark hair, dark complexion, cute, waved a stack of bills at me. “How ‘bout a private dance?” He winked, obviously wanting more than just a dance. And oh baby, was he going to get it.

I massaged my breasts and bit my lip. “Sure, babe. Meet me in the back as soon as this song’s over.” Rape, murder, you name it and that bastard had done it. I was going to enjoy giving him exactly what he deserved.

As the final beats of the song played, I pulled myself to my feet and made my way to the back of the bar. I didn’t have to worry about covering up; this was no gentleman’s club by the loosest definition. No pasties, no G-strings, just
LIVE NUDE GIRLS NOW
, just like the sign promised. It was the equivalent to a fast food place but of the strip club scene. You got service quicker, the girls were cheaper, and most would feel crappier about themselves when all was said and done.

I eyed the MC leather cut that my target was wearing. I’d dealt with guys like him before. It wasn’t the clubs that were bad. Just like any group, there were good and bad seeds. This guy was rotten to the core. I knew I had to be careful. I didn’t want to draw the attention of any of his brothers. For one, I couldn’t take on more than one of them at once, and two, I wasn’t bullet proof. I was going to move on to a new establishment after the night was over anyways, just to be on the safe side.

“Follow me,” I said as I walked past biker boy. He palmed my ass and squeezed, hard. I gritted my teeth and forced a laugh out of my throat. I just had to lure him out of the club. Once I was in the private room with grabby hands then I could pretend that I’d give him whatever he wanted sexually if he came with me.

I led him into a small booth and shut the door behind us. He immediately sat, pulling me into his lap so I was straddling him. His mouth went straight to my breast and I shuddered with revulsion. “Hey!” I pushed at him, stumbling to my feet. “You’re going to get me fired!”

“Come on, baby. Don’t be giving me that shit. I’ve been to these kinds of places before. How much for a taste of that sweet pussy? You’re lucky I’m willing to pay at all.”

“I can only dance for you here. Buuut…” I trailed off letting him finish the thought for himself.

“Bullshit. My brother just got head from a stripper here. She wasn’t worried ‘bout gettin’ fired and she only charged fifty bucks.”

“And she probably gave him fucking herpes,” I snapped. That part was probably true. “You want to fuck me then you play it my way. I’m not some cheap skank and this job is how I get clients. I’m not standing on the corner like a common hooker so don’t treat me like I am.”

Biker boy quirked a dark eyebrow and raised his hands. “All right, baby. I’ll play along but just because you’re so fuckin’ hot. Where you wanna go?”

“Hotel a few blocks from here. Meet me there after my shift is over.”

He rubbed his crotch and groaned. “That’s hours away.”

“Buy me off for the night and I’ll go with you now.” I leaned over him, trailing my hand down my stomach, and paused. “I’ll make it worth your while.” I backed up and cupped my breasts, jostling them for his rapt gaze.

“Fuck, all right.” He stood and approached me, his dark eyes moving up and down my naked body. He grabbed me by my neck and pushed me up against the wall, grinding himself against me. “I can’t wait to be balls deep in your pretty little cunt. I’m gonna fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk when I’m done.” He released me abruptly and strolled out of the room.

I stared after him with narrowed eyes. Killing him was going to feel amazing.

At least I had clothes on for round two with biker-boy-grabby-hands. I was pretty sure he had an octopus in his family tree somewhere and I was beginning to think I’d bitten off way more than I could chew when I chose him as a target. After all, I was a tad out of practice. At least I’d been keeping up with some of my martial arts and self-defense classes as a workout.

“Hey! Stop!” I forced yet another fake giggle out of my chest. “Don’t make it obvious or—”

“Oh, what, babe?” Biker boy snaked an arm around my waist and then up to grab my breast. “No one is gonna say shit to us.”

I managed to disentangle myself from him and broke into a sprint. Fuck the hotel. We were alley bound. It would be easier that way anyways. The heavy tread of his boots was close behind me.

Just as I got about halfway into the small alley he caught me and spun me around. “What the fuck you doin’?” he rasped.

“I don’t feel like paying for the hotel any more. Fuck me here.”

“Here? I want more than a quickie, babe.”

I pulled away from him again and ran my hand down my body, rotating my hips slowly. “The thrill of getting caught out here is hot. Don’t you think so?” I swayed my hips as I moved towards him. “Come on, it’ll be so fucking hot.” I dropped down in front of him and popped the button on his jeans. He gripped my hair and while he was distracted I pulled a knife from my boot, pressing it behind him. When his pants dropped, I rose up and stabbed. The knife slid nicely between his ribs, and I twisted. Blood bubbled up from his mouth, red and frothy as he dropped to the ground.

He was still breathing when I pulled his body behind the dumpster. I decided to slit his throat for good measure. Once I was sure he was dead and wouldn’t be coming to exact revenge upon me, I wiped my knife off on his shirt and strode casually back towards the street.

“Chance after chance after chance,” a voice spat at me from the dark. “And still you end up killing. You should have been put down long ago, and you would have been if it were up to me.”

I whirled around to see Michael standing beside the dumpster, his white wings flexing ominously. My eyes widened. “You—I—” If Michael was real then— My head buzzed, the very sight of him almost short-circuiting my brain.
He’s not real. He can’t be. No. That’s not right. Nothing is right.

“Ah, brother. Did you really think you could keep her hidden from me this time? I knew I could count on you to lead me to her eventually. As always, I just had to sit back and wait.” Lucian appeared behind Michael wearing a black tailored suit, his midnight wings unfurling behind him in a silent challenge.

My forearm started to burn, bright gold symbols illuminating the dark alley. The gold exotic lettering spread in quick secession, covering all of my skin that I could see, and I suspected all of my body. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. It was then that I realized what had been done to me. I’d been made to believe, forced to think that Lucian and all the rest of my memories—my very real memories were a part of my coma-induced dreamscape. But I’d never been in a coma. Michael had tampered with my mind and my life. He’d tried to mold me into someone else, and planted Jacob firmly in my path as well, which hadn’t been that much of a stretch since I’d already fucked him. My mind, my memories, even my emotions had all been manipulated by Michael in the hopes that I wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

“You can’t have her, Lucian. You’ve known this since the beginning.”

“I can and I will,” Lucian snarled in return. “Because you’ve made another crucial error. She was still running from me before and probably would have kept on going, but you pushed her—fucked with her mind. She won’t take very kindly to that.”

Lucian was right. But he’d fucked with my mind too. I dug my nails into the brick, needing the support. The gold illuminating my skin was beginning to fade, a good sign. “I’m tired of everyone else trying to control my life—lives. Free will, remember? I’m a human not an angel, anymore…I’ll make my own damn choices.”

Michael took a step towards me, his features threatening and dark. Lucian yanked him back by his wings, laughing. “Uh-uh, brother. You’ll never lay a hand on her again. I have a feeling she won’t be praying for your assistance this time either.”

I glared at the two men, one dark and one light. I hated them both equally in that moment. “Tell me, what’s the point to any of this is?” Michael said nothing and Lucian inclined his head. “What is the point to any of this? Human existence? The world? Life?” I was met with marked silence that only fed my ire. “Tell me! What is the point to any of it? If I’m doing it wrong, if Lucian is doing it wrong—then tell me how to do it right! Tell me what the purpose of my life should be! I save good people by punishing the bad. I do things other people can’t or aren’t willing to. I protect. I help. What should I be doing instead? Looking the other way? Letting the world be a worse place than it already is? What good do you do, Michael? You and all of the angels?” I laughed darkly. “I remember what it was like to be one of you, and I don’t remember any of us doing anything miraculous. Show me the damn miracles, Michael. Show me!”

Michael’s eyes blazed with indignation. “You were never one of us. You were not born angel, you were made.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t deserve to be in Heaven! You, Michael! You don’t care about any of us. What happened to forgiveness being divine? What happened the moment Lucian made a mistake? He was cast down from Heaven. For what? Because he loved me. Love isn’t something dark. It shouldn’t be punished. At least not the kind Lucian has for me.”