Equilibrium (Marauders #4.5) (10 page)

“Turn around,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m gonna pull down my pants, and you’re not going to see that. Turn around.”

He turned around and started laughing again.

“And I might fart, and you’re not ever going to mention it—ever!”

“What?”

“It happens when you release the muscles to pee, especially if you’re crouching, so you better shut up about it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of bringing it up.”

He shook his head. If someone had told him six months ago he’d be back at the grave with Eliza so she could pee on it, he’d have told them to get professional help. Not only because it would have seemed very unlikely he’d have anything to do with the little princess, but also because he wouldn’t have been able to imagine Eliza doing anything like that, let alone pee in front of—or behind, as it was in this case—another person.

“I’m gonna get you for pearl necklaces better than my daddy’s, you motherfucker,” Eliza mumbled behind him. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you, you little cunt. Getting it splashed all over your face is the kind of things bitches like you just love.”

He stopped laughing when he realized she was repeating things the big fuck with the tattoo had said to her, and he didn’t know if this was a good or a really bad thing. When she giggled, he decided it was mostly good—or a sign that she was a complete psycho, but he didn’t really think that.

That was another thing he’d noticed about Eliza that he wouldn’t have thought. When she was relieved, or just generally had big outbursts of emotions, she didn’t cry—she laughed. And she didn’t laugh-cry, she flat out laughed. If she cried, she was sad. If she was relieved, happy, or just over something, she laughed. He liked that about her. She had a great laugh.

When he heard her close the zipper on her pants, he turned around. She was still smiling. In fact, she looked like the cat who swallowed the canary, and he couldn’t help it—he started laughing again. For a brief second, she looked surprised, and then she started laughing, too. Once he’d really let go, he couldn’t stop, and it seemed to be the same for her. They were both laughing until tears were streaming down their faces, and Roach had to turn away and lean his hands against his thighs to try to calm down; if he kept looking at her, there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be able to stop laughing.

“Oh shit! Jesus!” Eliza half laughed and half yelled. “I can’t stop. Don’t look at me!”

“I’m not!” He leaned against a tree, still not looking at her. “Oh god! I can’t breathe.”

Roach tried to take a few deep breaths, but then remembered the triumphant look on her face when she zipped up her pants, and he lost it again.

Finally he just sat down, and once they’d both managed to calm down, she came to sit next to him.

“I was wrong about you,” he said.

“How?”

“I’ve always thought of you as Mel’s girl, but you are your father’s daughter.”

“How’s that?”

“You just peed on your rapists’ grave. Don’t think that’s something Mel would do. Your father on the other hand…”

“He would,” she said with a big smile. “So I’m not a princess anymore?”

“Still look like one, but no. Feeling better?”

“Much. Thank you.” She stood up and held out her hand.

“You really think you can pull me up?”

“If you help out, I can.”

He wasn’t sure how much help she actually was, but he got up, so that was something. They’d just barely started back towards the bike when she stopped.

“Oh! Almost forgot.” She turned back. “One more thing.”

With a disgusted fascination he stared as she started to loudly pull back snot and cough it up in her mouth. And she didn’t fucking stop, it went on forever, and he started to laugh again. She flipped him off while still trying to keep the loogey in her bright red mouth. Since the kiss, she’d been wearing lipstick again, and it had never been more obvious than when she stood with her cheeks swollen due to all the spit and snot in her mouth.

“Yeah, definitely no princess,” he said.

Finally she leaned over to spit it out. “Something to remember me by, precious,” she said and dried off her mouth. She straightened he back. “I’m done.”

“I’m very impressed,” he said and put an arm around her shoulders as they started to walk back to the bike—again. He gave her a paper napkin from his pocket. “Got lipstick all over your face.

“Damn. Forgot I had that.” She wiped herself around the mouth. “Gone?”

“Yeah,” he said, still giggling. “I admit, I didn’t think you’d do it.”

“It felt good.”

“I bet it did.”

“He said that when he took me, the guy with the tattoo, that he’d give me a pearl necklace better than the one daddy had given to me,” Eliza said. “I had a pearl necklace. I guess you think that just proves how much of a spoiled brat I am.”

“Well… Um… Did you get it for your sweet sixteen?”

“Yup. And they were pink pearls.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, that kind of screams spoiled brat.”

Eliza laughed. “Mom has this pearl necklace, and I used to love running my hand over it. They feel really nice in the hand, so she’d wear it when she put me to bed and I played with it.”

“Sounds like a really fucking expensive pacifier.”

She hit him on the chest, but she was smiling. “Yeah, I guess it does. Anyway, I think that’s mostly the reason Dad gave it to me. I was wearing it, I always did, and that guy came up next to me and said that. Then they just grabbed me.”

Roach didn’t think there was much he could say to comment, so he just gave her shoulders a squeeze. He was sure they’d said and done all the things she’d mentioned while peeing and spitting. He figured she’d done it in the right way. He’d been scared there would be a lot of yelling, screaming, and crying, but she’d only seemed relieved.

He shook his head with a chuckle. “You’re one of a kind.”

“I’m pretty fucking fabulous,” she smiled.

“Where’s the necklace?” he asked when they were back by his bike.

“I don’t know. They took it off at the hospital, and I haven’t felt like wearing it, so I never asked for it,” she answered and reached for her helmet. “Maybe I should try to find it.”

“Maybe you should.”

~oOo~

Mel

“Hi, honey. Did you have a nice ride?” Mel asked when Eliza walked into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” she answered with a big smile. “Very cathartic.”

“Did you go to the shooting range?”

“No. Not like that. Cathartic in the laughing way.”

Mel wasn’t sure the word could be used like that, but it sounded like Eliza’d had a good time, so she wasn’t going to remark on her choice of words.

“What are you making?” Eliza asked and leaned on the counter next to her. “And can I help?”

“Sure. I was saving the focaccia in case you came home in time to make it.”

Eliza looked pleased, just as Mel knew she would, and she went to clean her hands and get the ingredients.

“Mom, I got something to ask you,” she said a while later while poking holes in the dough. “My necklace, what happened to it? You know, my pearl necklace.”

“I know which you meant,” Mel said and looked at Eliza.

Eliza looked a little nervous, and Mel didn’t know if it was because she really didn’t know or if she thought it was gone. The necklace had been absolutely soaked in things Mel preferred to not know what it was, even if she had more than a basic idea. Eliza had never asked about it, and Mel had never expected her to. Brick had bought it for her on her sixteenth birthday, and aside from taking it off when she showered, Eliza had worn it every day until she was taken.

“I had it fixed and cleaned. I have it in my jewelry box.”

“It’s clean?”

“Yes. Do you want me to get it?”

Mel almost held her breath after asking the question, and exhaled when Eliza smiled.

“Yes.”

She dropped what she was holding, cleaned her hands, and went up to the bedroom. The necklace was still in the box it had been in when she got it back from the jeweler. She hadn’t been able to look at it, but she opened it now just to make sure it looked okay. It was a Pearls by the Yard Sprinkle Necklace by Elsa Peretti with pink pearls. Mel had thought it was a bit much for someone so young, but Brick had decided that it was the kind of necklace that would look nice on Eliza. It was at least better than the classic pink pearl necklace he’d looked at first, it would’ve looked heavy on her, but this one had suited Eliza. Just a thin silver chain with pink pearls in varied sizes scattered along it. Eliza usually wore it wrapped around her neck in two layers.

When she came back downstairs, she simply put the box on the counter, since she wasn’t entirely sure why Eliza had asked for it. After staring at the box for a little while, Eliza opened it and took the necklace.

“Can you help me?” she asked.

“Of course,” Mel answered, and while Eliza held up her hair, she fastened the necklace. When Eliza turned, Mel smiled and gave her a hug. “Always loved seeing that on you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

Someone else who loved seeing it on her was Brick, and his eyes when he noticed it later that evening were priceless. He froze with his fork halfway to his mouth and just stared at Eliza where she was sitting at her usual spot to the left of the head of the table. It was a full table as usual, so he didn’t say anything, but after smiling at him, Eliza leaned towards him. She whispered something in his ear and gave his cheek a kiss. Mel needed a moment in the bathroom to calm down after that. It was probably ridiculous of her, and she most likely read way too much into Eliza wanting the necklace, but to Mel it was a very visible step on the way.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Bye, Sweetums

~oOo~

DURING JUNIOR HIGH, ELIZA had been in the popular clique in school. It had just sort of happened at first, and then she’d liked it. She’d always liked attention, and as one of the popular kids she had everyone’s attention. In the end, it had been exhausting, though.

When she’d started high school, it had felt impossible to care about what everyone thought about her, and she’d started hanging out with some other people. Miriam, her oldest friend, had followed her, and not long after, they’d started The Green Kittens. First as just a fun thing, but then they’d started taking it more seriously. She’d decided that theater was more fun on stage than it was in the school halls. Some of her old friends had asked if she’d switched sides, which she thought was a funny question. Switched sides from what? She didn’t ask that, though. She simply answered that she hadn’t switched sides; she’d just stopped playing the game. That kind of acting had simply stopped being fun for her.

~oOo~

Roach

For some reason most strippers often used flower, gemstone, or seasonal names as their stage name. He wasn’t sure why, but that seemed to be the case at The Booty Bank, at least. When he first came to Greenville and Brick offered him the job, there had been a long lecture on the first shift about how working as a bouncer meant he actually had to work. He’d gotten that, and he didn’t mind. Watching a stripper didn’t do much for Roach. Sure, they had nice tits and all, but it wasn’t like he would forget he was working just because there was some naked broad swinging her hips ten feet away from him.

If members were there as guests, or if the strippers found out there was a party, some of them usually ended up at the clubhouse after a shift. That was Roach’s free time, and on occasion he took one of them with him to his dorm. He wasn’t a monk, after all, and he liked sex. He tried to stick to the younger ones, though. The ones in their thirties got all motherly with him, and that didn’t turn him on at all. It gave him a slightly limited selection, but there were three or four he tended to have a good time with.

One of them was Sapphire. She was a brunette in her early twenties who’d picked Sapphire as her stripper name since it was her birthstone, and she was really interested in astrology. Despite thinking that what month she was born in somehow had an impact on her personality, she was pretty smart and quite fun.

He’d been with her the night before, and when he woke up she was still in his bed. Usually the girls left during the night, since he’d made it clear that that was what he preferred. He’d told them after starting to hang out with Eliza. Even if she still always waited for him at the bar, he didn’t want her to find him with anyone in his bed in case she ever just barged into his room. Eliza was the kind of girl who just barged into places.

Sapphire had apologized when she woke up. He told her it was okay and they left his room together, and she was still apologizing by the time they were at the bar, where he found Eliza waiting for him.

“It’s fine,” he said to Sapphire. “Forget it.”

“Okay,” she smiled and gave him a quick kiss. “See you tomorrow, sweetums.”

When he turned around, Eliza was eyeing him, and he wasn’t sure why the fuck that bothered him so much. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d seen him with one of the girls even if they didn’t stay the night with him. It probably wasn’t even the first time she’d seen him with Sapphire, but there was just something that bothered him.

“Hey, Princess,” he said and sat down next to her. “How have you been?”

“Good,” she said. “Just came from Dr. Flores.”

She’d told him that she was looking forward to the shrink these days, and that she was actually talking to her about serious stuff, which was good. A shrink could push in a way Roach wasn’t comfortable with, and Eliza needed that.

“Good talk?”

“Yes. I told her about pissing on their graves. I made it sound like it was a metaphoric piss, but I’m not sure she believed me. She didn’t ask, though.”

“If she lives in Greenville, she probably didn’t believe you.”

“No need to confirm the suspicions. She said it sounded like a good thing. In case you were worried.”

“I was a little worried, yes.” That was when he noticed it around her neck. “Hey, is that…?”

“Yes,” she said with a big smile and held out the longer of the two strands on her pearl necklace. “Mom had it.”

“That’s… actually pretty nice. I thought it was a, you know, regular pearl necklace. But that’s really nice.”

“Thank you.”

“Suits you,” he said.

“Same way as my room
suits
me?”

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you? But no, suits you like it suits a girl who’s all cute but can still make an impressive loogey.”

Eliza let go of the necklace and blushed a little.

“Anyway, I got my cleaning clothes on today. Thought you might wanna clean the kitchen.”

He looked at her tight pink pants and flowery blouse and shook his head. Cleaning clothes?

“Okay. Just need to have my coffee, but you can start emptying the fridge and the freezer if you want. I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Emptying it?”

“Yeah. Throw away anything that’s old.” He watched her jump down from the stool and he had to ask. “Sorry, but cleaning clothes? That’s your cleaning clothes?”

“If they’re clothes I clean in, they’re cleaning clothes, right?”

“Can you even bend forward in those tight pants? And what do you call those?”

“I call them Cigarette pants. Or Capri, I guess. And they’re not that tight. They’re stretchy.”

“Whatever you say, Princess. Get cleaning, I’ll be there soon.”

“You said I wasn’t a princess anymore.”

“If you’re wearing a blouse with flowers and pink pants, I’ll call you princess.”

“Whatever,
sweetums
,” she said and flipped him the bird with a big smile.

Whether her outfit could be considered cleaning clothes or not, she cleaned, and she did a good job. When they were done, Roach could even consider cooking in the kitchen, something he’d never done before, since he’d thought it was absolutely disgusting. He’d been the only one having a problem with it, though, which was why no one had done anything about it. It could simply be that he never thought something was clean until he’d cleaned it himself, because the kitchen wasn’t as bad as he’d expected when they started. Bull came when he smelled the bleach to see what they were doing. He seemed pretty pleased, and helped Roach moving the fridge, freezer, and stove so they could clean underneath and behind them.

Afterwards, the three of them were back at the bar, having a smoke and a coffee when Brick came inside.

“Why does it smell of bleach?” he asked.

“Roach went a little crazy in the kitchen,” Eliza answered.

“Did you kill anyone in there?”

“No, but if she keeps calling me ‘sweetums’ I might,” Roach answered, and Bull laughed since he’d found it hilarious since the first time he’d heard Eliza use the nickname.

“Isn’t ‘Sweetums’ the big hairy thing on the Muppet show?” Brick asked, which made Bull laugh even harder, since he’d made the same observation. “With the flopping lower jaw.”

“I wasn’t the one who started it. Take it up with Miss Silicone Tits,” Eliza said and jumped down from the stool. “We ready to go? I wanna take a shower before Billie picks me up.”

“Yeah.” Brick put an arm around her shoulders. “Say goodbye to sweetums.”

“Bye, sweetums. I’ll see you.”

“See you, Princess.”

“Who’s Miss Silicone Tits?” Bull asked, once Brick and Eliza were out the door.

“Sapphire. It was nothing.”

“Just be careful,” Bull said, shaking his head. “Especially in front of Eliza.”

Roach had kind of hoped he was imagining things, but if Bull was pointing it out, he might have a problem.

“She fell asleep, so she was still there this morning.”

“They don’t fall asleep by accident,” Bull laughed. “And if you’re not interested in more you should make it really fucking clear to her, or you might be in shitloads of trouble. Either way, you need to be careful with Eliza.”

“I am. And it’s not like that. She knows it’s not.”

“Even if it’s not like that, it might hurt to see you getting close to someone else.”

“Fucksake! I’m not close to any of the strippers. It was… fuck. I’ll deal with it.”

“All I wanted to hear,” Bull said and got up. “Take care, sweetums.”

In the beginning, when they started calling him Cockroach, he’d been okay with it. When that became the shorter ‘Roach’ he’d mainly been relieved it hadn’t been ‘Cock,’ but even Cock would’ve been better than sweetums.

~oOo~

Brick

“Who’s Miss Silicone Tits?” Brick asked Eliza once they were at home.

Eliza shrugged. “One of the sweetbutts. At least I think she was a sweetbutt.”

“She was with Roach?”

“Yeah. It’s fine, Dad. I just thought it was funny that she called him that.”

Brick didn’t think she was fine with it at all, and that was the first sign he’d seen that Eliza might see Roach as something more than just a guy she’d been hanging out with. She must’ve noticed his looks because she sighed and rolled her eyes.

“It’s
fine
. It was nothing.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not like I don’t know he has sex.”

“Okay.”

“Think you could say something else than just ‘okay’ in that suggestive way?”

“Fine?”

“You’re an ass,” she smiled.

“I could have her fired.”

That made her laugh. “I love you, Dad, but no. It’s not a problem, and even if it was a problem, which it’s not, it’s not her fault.”

Brick couldn’t tell the members they couldn’t have sex—at least he didn’t think he could, he’d never tried, but he doubted it would be a popular decision—but he was worried Eliza might get hurt if Roach… Yeah, he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to worry about Eliza possibly falling in love with Roach. To some extent, it might even be better if she saw that side of him. It might stop things before they got out of hand. Brick just hoped it wouldn’t be too hard for her. Besides, she’d said it herself, she was aware Roach had sex. As far as Brick could tell, and he didn’t keep score or anything, Roach wasn’t as active as some of them, but he’d seen him with a few of the girls now and then.

When Billie arrived twenty minutes later, Eliza was still upstairs. Out of all the old ladies, with the exception of his own, Billie was probably the one Brick liked the best. It wasn’t just because she’d saved Mel in a spectacular fashion. Once in a while, he dared to think about what it would’ve been like if Mel had been taken, too. It wouldn’t have been possible to get back from that. It’s quite possible he would’ve just put a bullet in his head no matter how fucking cowardly that would’ve been.

When Eliza had refused to even leave the house, he’d asked Billie for help. She’d once told him she’d been raped, and he’d figured that she might understand things Brick couldn’t. It had worked. She’d managed to get Eliza out of her room, and they still went to the shooting range a couple of times a month.

“Hey, Shooter. She’s taking a shower. Want a coffee while you wait?”

“Sure,” she said and sat down by the table. “I’ve been thinking she might want her own gun.”

“Eliza?”

“Yeah. We’ve been trying different guns, and I have a pretty good idea of what she likes. Maybe not now, but for her birthday or… whatever. Thought you might want to buy it for her. I don’t think she’d carry it with her, but I think she’d like the idea of having one of her own.”

“That’s… It might be a good idea. If you think she can handle it.”

“We’re going through gun safety all the time, and I could make it more specific about how to safely carry a gun. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about her keeping it in her bra or some stupid crap like that.”

“I didn’t think so,” Brick laughed and put the coffee in front of Billie. “I’ll think about it and let you know when I decide.”

Truth was, if Billie thought Eliza could handle it, he’d feel safer, too, if he knew she had a gun, but he wanted to know for certain she was absolutely stable before she did. He had a feeling that Eliza could be one of those women who simply pulled a gun at a bitch like Miss Silicone Tits if she was bothered by how they behaved.

~oOo~

Eliza

It bugged me a lot more than it should have, and I didn’t like it. I’d known he had sex, I wasn’t an idiot, and that actually wasn’t what bothered me, it was how that… Barbie type…
bitch
had acted all possessive and kissed him before calling him
Sweetums
. How fucking stupid was that nickname? And it felt like more than sex, and I wondered if it was more. If he was, like,
with
her. I kept wondering what she meant when she said ‘See you tomorrow,’ as if they had a date or something.