Come To Me (Owned Book 3) (20 page)

I
sat in the corner watching Lissie, Zoe, and Lenny drink. Lissie and Zoe had water, but Lenny drank enough for the both of them. They weren’t at the usual bar, the one we’d been coming to since the beginning. Maybe it was too hard, held too many memories. Or maybe Joe just wanted the day off. They were at some shitty, hipster-techno mess. Loud dubstep played and strobe lights threatened to give me a seizure.

Still, I watched them.

Lennox was well past her limit. Her funeral dress was riding up past her thighs in a way that normally would have driven me crazy, but now just made me sorrowful. She was hurting and she was trying to drown her soul in alcohol. Lissie attempted to take the drink from her but she cradled it to her chest like a newborn.

Against better judgment, I moved closer.

“Nox you’ve had enough,” Lissie said.

“I can still feel my toes,” Lenny replied. “So no, I haven’t.” At their collective frown, Lenny shouted, but it sounded like whispers against the loud dubstep. “You don’t know! Okay? You don’t know! I’m not a widow.”

“You basically are, Nox,” Zoe said, voice soothing.

“No, I mean, even if he was my husband, I wouldn’t be a widow. I’m…dirty.” Lenny’s face shadowed as the past fell on her cheeks like clouds across a plain. “You don’t call the woman who murders her husband a widow. I did bad things, okay? I called him bad things. I used the fact that he was in an abusive home and that he went to war as a dagger to cut him. I knew he was hurting, but instead of getting him help I just…I fucking…” Lenny signaled for a drink; when the bartender ignored her, she climbed over the ledge. Zoe and Lissie exchanged looks but Lenny had already topped herself off and returned to her stool.

“I’m the reason he’s dead, okay? You wouldn’t call me a widow. He said I was always safe with him, but he was never safe with me.”

“Come on, Nox,” Zoe attempted. “Let’s go home.”

“Home?” Lenny replied, her voice high and almost hysterical. “I don’t have a home! My home is in ashes—literally.” At that Lenny took another gulp of her drink. “I used to think Vic and I would burn up. I used to think we would fall to ashes…” Lennox took another sip.

“You could take a break from Moore Events,” Zoe said, clearly trying to change the subject. “No one would fault you. You just lost…”

Lenny shot her a look. “I don’t need a break.”

“Maybe you should take one anyway.” Lissie gave Lenny a pointed look.

Taking a quick shot, Lenny returned Lissie’s pointed look. “It doesn’t matter, my mind won’t
give
me a break. I wake up, parties on my brain; I fall asleep, parties on my brain. I dream parties. Vic’s… Vic’s…” Lenny struggled with the word, eventually giving up. “Well it just made it worse.”

“Sounds…festive.” Lissie gave Zoe a look, but I don’t think Lenny saw; she was too busy climbing over the bar to top herself off again. When the bartender returned, she shooed him away.

“Well it’s not exactly that…” Lenny cradled her now overflowing drink to her chest. “It’s like, I dream these magical worlds. I have since I was little. Obviously now I know it’s that bipolar shit, right? Parties were the outlet I chose. I guess I could have been a writer, but I was never very good a stringing along a sentence.” Lenny dropped the drink, the glass shattering to the ground. It was so loud in the bar that no one save Zoe and Lissie noticed.

“That’s it, we’re going to get you an Uber.” They both stood and Lennox attempted to stumble after them, her protest dying in her slurs. She grappled with the barstool, nearly falling down. I stood up from the shadows, instinct overcoming sense. Just as I was about to help her, another intervened.

“Woah, there, are you all right?” A man who couldn’t have been older than twenty grabbed Lennox by the hips. He had sun-bleached hair and a tan face with teeth whiter than natural; they glowed under the blacklight. I glared from the shadows.

“I’m fine,” Lenny said, attempting to shrug him off.

“It looks like you could use some help.” Lenny didn’t respond, her eyes glassy and fogged. I knew that look. She was way beyond her limit; she was blacked out. I’d seen it before a few years back when she went out drinking with Lissie and Zoe. Lennox had no idea where she was any more.

It appeared the man knew that as well.

“Well, let’s get you out of here.” He grinned. I stepped forward from the shadows and placed my hand on his shoulder.

“What the fuck do you want?” He sneered.

I placed my hand on his chest. “Let her go.”

“Look man, I found her.”

I glared, clenching my jaw. “A woman is not a dollar to pick up off the floor.”

“Whatever bro.” Ignoring me, he grasped Lennox harder and started to walk away. I grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him back. Angling my right arm I threw a punch. All I needed was one correct hit to the jaw and he fell to the floor. No one noticed our altercation, either because of the pumping lights, the delirious beats, or because they were all simply too far gone in their drugs and alcohol.

Lennox fell into my arms. I lifted her up and proceeded to carry her out of the bar.

You’re always safe with me.

“Vic?” She slurred her words. “Have I died at last?” I ignored her question, stepping out into the cool Santa Barbara night. I set her down on her wobbly feet and she leaned against me. I wasn’t worried about her remembering me; her brain was blacked out.

My worries lay beyond the night, to what would become of Lennox now that I was “dead”. I’d thought I was doing everyone a favor by faking my death. I’d thought they would be safer.

“I told you to put Cocoroons in your pantry.” Seven thumbed his lower lip, displeased. “When I got there, the pantry was on fire. Tell me the truth, did you even bother to buy the Cocoroons?”

“Are you serious?” I asked, refusing the shot Seven bought for me. We sat at a motel bar. Seven had paid for the room and I was trying to stop the rising debt toll.

“Have you tried a Cocoroon, Vic?” Seven dropped his shot, signaling for the next. “They’re delicious.”

“I owe you my life,” I said, getting to the point. My leg wasn’t infected and that was largely due to Seven carrying me out of the building and washing it out. “I owe you the lives of my loved ones, and I imagine that’s a pretty big fucking debt for The Boogieman.”

Seven grinned, his pearly whites looking more like canines. “I only have one thing I want from you.”

“That’s it?”

“No one said it was small.”

I saw the outlines of Lissie and Zoe just as a car pulled up outside the club. I settled Lenny against the wall and melted into the shadows, waiting for them to notice her. When they put her into the car, I watched it disappear around the corner and a thought crystalized itself in my being. I could never leave Santa Barbara, not as long as Lenny lived and breathed.

S
hrouded by bushes, I sat beneath the window of Lissie and Zoe’s apartment. It was early but winter had shortened the night so the moon was out. This had become my weekly routine, stalking Lenny like some peeping tom.

“What have you eaten this week, Nox?” Zoe’s voice drifted through the shutters and down to me.

“Chocolate chips and soda.” Zoe didn’t respond, but from Lenny’s next response, I could guess her facial expression. “What, Zoe? Are you gonna tell me that chocolate chips aren’t nutritionally dense?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you,” Zoe said, her tone sharp.

“Well, my thighs would disagree with you,” Lenny spat. “They’re feeling pretty dense.”

“If you’re going to stay with us,” Zoe continued, “I’m not going to let you eat yourself into an early death.”

“Why?” Lenny’s voice sounded closer, so I could tell she had stood up. “What the fuck do I have to live for anymore?”

“That is so goddamn selfish, Nox. You have me, you have Lissie, you have Grace, you have your
goddaughter
, you have the business you built from scratch.”

Every atom, every cell, every goddamn thing in my body wanted to climb up and look through the window. I yearned to see what was going on with Lenny, but I didn’t have the right to do that, not any more. I had forfeited that right. I was only sticking around to make sure nothing mortal befell Lennox.

She was in pain, but she wasn’t dying, and so I had to stay crouched and listen. I heard the sound of shuffling and hard, stomping footsteps.

“Fuck this, I’m going to Grace’s.”

“Nox…”

“It has barely been a month, Zoe.” Lenny sounded on the verge of crying. Her tears would drown me. “I get it. You’re strong and shit. What if Lissie died? Are you telling me you would be eating kale and Brussels sprouts?”

“Of course not. That’s not what I’m saying, and you know I haven’t been making you do that. I’m saying it has been
more
than a month and you haven’t had any liquid besides whiskey and soda. Your diet is candy and chocolate. You need to start crawling back. You have people who are willing to help pull you up.”

Her words were whispers, but the wind caught them. “Maybe I don’t want to be pulled up.”

I was about to stand up and throw everything I’d done away, just so I could pull Lenny to me, when a face across the street caught my attention. There was nothing entirely remarkable about the person. Maybe that was the point.

“Well how the fuck do I do that?” I exclaimed, limping across the room to get away from Seven.

Seven ran a hand through his long blond hair. Buzzed on the sides, there was something elegant about it, which was a complete fucking contrast with the rest of him. “I don’t want to put ideas in your head.”

I squinted and raised a brow. “Sure you don’t.”

“You’re a ghost, Viccy boy, and there’s nothing more powerful than that.”

I
went to a pawn shop and bought the best quality gear I could, considering it was a second hand store and I only had a few grand on me. I was dead now, so that meant money was a little hard to come by.

The gold I’d built with bodies and bullets was resting until I told it where to go. I was dead, though, so that meant someone had to get it. Of course I wanted it to be Lenny, but I’d died saying I couldn’t give a shit about her. That had been the point, the reason for everything. Before I gave it to her, I had to be certain Seven’s plan would work. Otherwise bestowing all of it on Lenny was a big red flag.

She would be taken care of. She would get it all, eventually.

After getting the gear, I set up shop at an abandoned storefront. I was a ghost now, and like other ghosts before me, I wouldn’t be at peace until I completed my final mission. Seven wasn’t explicit on how he wanted it done, but he was bloody fucking right that it wasn’t small.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” Three days in this fucking motel room and maybe I was going stir crazy. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right.

“Yep, Ashton Kutcher is right behind the shit-stained curtains. This has all been one giant fucking prank.”

“You need to get new material,” I said, rubbing my leg. It was pretty much healed—well, as healed as a man like me in my job could expect.