Equilibrium (Marauders #4.5) (4 page)

Bear, his VP, had pointed something else out: the number of scars on Roach’s body. Brick hadn’t thought much of it. Most of them had their scars, but that was until he took the guy’s age into account. Roach had a lot of scars and burn marks for someone his age.

When Eliza was taken, the initial plan had been that Roach would stay behind to protect the people in the clubhouse, but Ahab had protested. ‘Dude, you want Roach with you, and he wants in,” he’d said. ‘If, god forbid, they’ve… done shit to her, he’s the one you want there. He can handle it.’ And he had. When the rest of them had stared in horror, Roach had grabbed a blanket and threw it at Brick, telling him to cover her up. Brick assumed that kids who grew up on the streets both saw and experienced a lot of shit. He’d found out later that Roach had lost a sister, and that he was a recovering drug addict. The latter had made Brick concerned, but so far he hadn’t even seen the kid drunk, and according to Ahab it wasn’t a problem at all. Brick was all for second chances; it was thirds he didn’t bother with.

The ‘uncanny survival instincts’ were probably the reason for why Roach was slightly on edge when he put the cup of coffee in front of Brick.

“Thanks,” he said and took a sip. “How are you settling down?”

“Um, good. Edie helped me find an apartment, so I moved in just before Christmas.” He took a deep breath. “Not that I’m assuming I’ll be here forever, or anything. Just, I like having a place of my own. Looks like I might be here a while.”

“I understand. Sometimes it’s nice to have a breather from the rest of us.”

“Yeah. There’s always a lot of people here, a lot more than in New York. Which is nice, but it kind of means you need a place to wind down.” He nodded to himself. “It’s a great clubhouse, though. Fucking love the stools.”

“Ah, yeah,” Brick chuckled and looked down on the leather seats Vi had decorated a few years earlier. “Vi tattooed them.”

“Mac’s old lady?”

“Yeah. Bear’s kid.”

It looked like he was thinking. “Sorry, but… The one with purple hair?”

“Yeah.”

Vi hadn’t been around the clubhouse much since their second kid, Joseph, was born, so it wasn’t that strange that Roach didn’t know for sure who she was. He hadn’t been to any of the family dinners at the house, either. Which might simply be because he didn’t know they had them. It bothered Brick, though. One of the significant things about the Greenville Marauders was how close they were. He didn’t want to lose that.

“She’s a tattoo artist?” Roach asked.

“Yup. A good one.”

“If she did those chairs, I’m not gonna argue that.”

“She’s usually pretty generous with clearing time for members. She’ll put you on her list and call you if she gets a cancellation.”

“Yeah?” he said with a contemplative nod. “I’ll think on it. Is it okay if I don’t know exactly what I want? I mean, is she good at freehand?”

“That’s when she does the best work.” He emptied the cup and stood up. The kid might be on loan, but he still wanted to make sure he was one of the family. He’d been there long enough to have earned that respect, and so had Ahab. “Don’t know if they’ve told you, but we do these family dinners. You and Ahab should stop by.”

“Um, yeah. I’ve heard about them, but... When?”

“Whenever you feel like it,” Brick laughed. “Tag along with Sisco or Bull, they make good use of my old lady’s cooking.”

He’d put a stop to the dinners for a while when Eliza had just come out of the hospital. About a month later she’d asked why no one had dinner with them anymore, she’d thought it was quiet and strange, so he’d told people they were on again. It had taken another month or two before they were back to normal. If it became too much for Eliza, she told him or Mel and went back to her room, but mostly she stayed for the full dinner—just a lot quieter than she’d used to be.

~oOo~

Roach

He’d mentioned the family dinner thing to Ahab, who thought they should go. So far, the loan to Greenville had been pretty calm. He got up, worked out, did a shift as a bouncer at The Booty Bank, and went home if he didn’t stay the night at the clubhouse. The cartel had been quiet, which they assumed could be a good or a bad thing. Brick had been a pretty distant president, but everyone knew why, so they cut him a lot of slack. Bear, the VP, was on top of things, so he’d been covering for Brick when it was needed.

Everyone had been treating him well. There had been some distance, but he’d expected that. He was pretty cool with Sisco, Bull, and Tommy. He’d been at Dawg’s place with Ahab a couple of times, too. They were old friends and had known each other since they were kids, and it had been cool to hang out with them.

He’d heard about the family dinners, but he hadn’t sweated that he hadn’t been invited. It was actually more stressful to be invited. He didn’t know what to expect or why he’d all of fucking sudden been asked to come. That it happened just after he’d been caught talking to Princess Eliza seemed a bit too coincidental, and during a total attack of paranoia, he’d wondered if Brick had asked him to come only to beat him up.

When Sisco turned and pulled up on the driveway outside what Roach assumed was Brick’s house, he almost laid down his bike. It was fucking huge.

“This is where he lives?”

“Yeah,” Sisco answered and looked towards the house. “Smells like we’re getting barbecue. Come on. There’s stairs up to the deck on the side of the house.”

Deck. Of course Brick had a deck. With a big grill on it, probably. And Roach was right. Brick was by the ridiculously big grill; Dawg, Mac, Mitch, and Bull were scattered around on chairs and recliners. There was a glass door open and from inside the house he heard women and kids.

So picturesque he could puke.

“Hi, welcome,” Brick said and pointed towards a cooler. “Dinner is done in five. Have a beer.”

“Thanks,” he said and grabbed one. He figured that if he sipped it, he could make it last until he went home. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Through the kitchen, to the right, and to the right of the stairs.”

“Thanks.”

When he entered the kitchen, he was almost attacked by Mel in the same comfort fascism way as Brick had done.

“Welcome! Can I get you a beer?”

“Nah, I’m fine. I need a bathroom. Brick said it was this way.”

“Vi is in the downstairs bathroom with Joseph, but you can use the guestroom upstairs. It’s to the left, down the hall. There’s a sign on the door.”

“Thanks.”

The house had looked impressive from the outside, but the inside was even more… pompous. It was super designed, everything in its right spot, and as much as he liked neat, it was just too fucking perfect.

And pink matching towels in the bathroom.

Roach wondered how Brick was handling all the chick stuff in the house. It would drive Roach insane to live in such an environment.

On his way back to the stairs, a door opened in the hallway and Eliza stared at him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, but she was at least looking at him when she talked to him. She closed the door behind her, like she was trying to hide something.

“Used the bathroom. Is that your room?” he asked with a nod towards he room behind her. “I’m not gonna ask to see it, just wondered,” he added when she kept glaring at him.

“It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything,” she said and opened the door for him to see inside behind her.

The first thing he noticed was the bed. The little princess had a huge four-poster-canopy-monstrosity bed at the end of the room. The curtains were dark pink (obviously), red, and orange with crazy fucking gold patterns on it. In fact, the entire room looked as if a few cans of color had exploded and patterns had been added on later. And just… stuff and dark woods—and gold lamps. Like a medieval royal room, sort of, with a hint of… something else.

“A lot of colors,” he said. “And patterns.”

“It’s Moroccan—kind of,” she mumbled. “Mom and I went there when I was fourteen, and I liked it.”

Travels abroad. Obviously. Could she be more cliché and girly?

“Suits you,” he said with a smile he hoped looked nice and not sarcastic. “I think dinner is about ready.”

She nodded and closed the door again. They walked downstairs together, and she took the seat next to Brick. Roach hesitated for a second, but sat down next to Dawg, since that seemed to be the farthest he could get from any of the children.

This was so not his scene.

Towards the end of the meal, when the worst hysteria settled down, and when Mel stopped trying to make sure the new guests were okay, it became pretty decent, though. At least it didn’t make him want to puke. He couldn’t help noticing how they doted on Eliza; he was surprised they didn’t cut the meat for her.

He knew what it was about, he knew his own head well enough for that, and he hated to fucking admit it, but he was jealous. She’d had everything he’d ever wanted when he was a kid, and he was sure she didn’t even remotely understand how fucking lucky she was. Obviously, that wasn’t something he could say to anyone because she’d been kidnapped and raped, and sure, that was crap. But still, she had fucking everything and every chance to get out of that hole, and from where he was sitting, it didn’t look like she was even trying. It pissed him off.

Once her plate was empty, she gave Brick’s cheek a kiss and left without a word to anyone else. Roach wondered if no one else had actually noticed that she hadn’t eaten much, she’d dropped most of the food in the napkin on her lap, but since no one commented on it, neither did he.
So
none of his business.

The vibe changed when they went out on the deck and sat down there. It was a bit like being at the clubhouse again, and more relaxed. He still had a third of his beer left, so he figured he’d get by without having to say no to a second one. They all knew of his problems, he was sure, but them knowing at the back of their heads, and him having to remind them about it by declining a beer were two different things.

He got a bit miffed when Eliza came sneaking from some other door out to the deck and sat down on the ground next to Brick’s chair. Without commenting on her presence, Brick handed her a cigarette while still talking to Dawg.

She was stoned. It took Roach longer than usual to see it, but she was, and he wondered if no one else noticed or if they just didn’t care. He was leaning towards the first. They weren’t looking for it, so they didn’t see it. He mentally shrugged. It wasn’t his business, and he wasn’t going to stick his nose into that beehive.

Roach actually soon forgot about her, and the next time he checked, she was gone.

CHAPTER THREE

She Died

~oOo~

AS FAR AS ELIZA could remember, the first time she flat-out disobeyed her parents was when she was ten years old. She was reading a book called ‘Cuckoo in The Nest’ by Michelle Magorian, and when her dad told her it was time to turn off the lights, she did.

But only long enough for her father’s steps to disappear, and then she turned the light back on and continued reading. She just couldn’t stop, and that book was the reason she’d become interested in theater. It was the first time she’d ‘sneak-read,’ but it wasn’t the last.

And she was never caught doing it.

~oOo~

Mel

A few weeks earlier, Eliza had told Mel she didn’t think she needed to see Doctor Flores anymore, and as great as that could’ve been, it wasn’t. Not at all.

Sure, she was smiling, charming, and to the naked eye she was her old self—but she wasn’t. There was definitely something desperate in her happiness. There were other things, too, like how she was really distant at times, and Mel was pretty damn sure she’d smelled pot. She’d told Brick, and he’d dismissed it: ‘No one in Greenville would be stupid enough to give or sell pot to her, and I think we’d know if she was leaving Greenville.’ He also figured she was around pot smokers every time she was at the clubhouse, so it wasn’t strange if she smelled of it.

Mel still wasn’t so sure. It was like there was an invisible wall between Eliza and everyone, and that wall gave a bleak projection of the old, happy Eliza. Like… like she was putting on a show.

They’d been warned about it, that this stage could come, and it was very important they made sure she didn’t hurt herself. Mel wasn’t overly worried about Eliza engaging in damaging sexual behavior, though. The only people she met were the club and The Green Kittens, which were all girls, and aside from that she just barely left her room. But there were other ways to hurt oneself.

Since Brick seemed to be in as much denial as Eliza was, Mel had talked to the counselor on her own. She had one of her own, since she didn’t want to put Eliza’s in a weird position, and had been told to just keep an eye on her. It might be something Eliza had to go through, but if it got out of hand they should discuss further steps. It was pretty much the same as usual, that they had to give Eliza time, and Mel understood that, she just didn’t understand how the hell she was supposed to take a step back and watch as her daughter was still clearly fucking miserable. And it was equally frustrating to have a husband who was just happy whenever Eliza flashed him a smile—apparently that rule also applied for daughters, not just other women. She’d really thought he was smarter than that, but he was probably as much in denial as Eliza was. His guilt had been killing him, and to him Eliza’s new fake sparkling mood was a sign he didn’t have to feel as bad as he had been.

The only
real
fight had been when Eliza had asked him for a job, and he’d agreed. So now Eliza was cleaning the clubhouse. Mel didn’t have a problem with having a daughter with a job, even if it was cleaning, but it was so damn obvious she was up to something. Brick had spent the night after the fight at the clubhouse. Mel hadn’t been able to look at him without wanting to punch him, and she’d told him as much.

The next day he’d entered her office with flowers in his hand, and she’d felt like slamming the damn flowers over his head—repeatedly. They’d fought a little more, and it had continued for two days, every time they were sure Eliza wasn’t anywhere nearby. In the end it wasn’t even about the damn job, it was how he refused to
see
that something was still really wrong. Eliza wasn’t okay, and the past months Mel had been pretty much alone in the struggle to yank her back to… just anything but the empty husk version of Eliza she now had as a daughter. An endeavor that wasn’t made any easier by Eliza avoiding her.

~oOo~

Eliza

The smiling trick I’d discovered about two months earlier was even more effective than I’d imagined. A sweet smile, and they left me alone. Mom was still keeping an eye on me, so I was kind of avoiding her, but Dad was a piece of cake. My old clothes, regular smiles, going out to see ‘friends’ now and then, and a few nights on the couch watching a movie with him—and I was home free. With emphasis on the ‘free.’ It felt good, and it let me deal with things my own way.

I’d been worried someone would notice I smoked pot, but I’d even gone through a family dinner stoned, and no one had noticed. They were probably so used to seeing stoned people they didn’t even notice it anymore, and they’d mostly seemed pleased that I was smiling, talking, and giggling. It was a lot easier to fake things when I was a bit buzzed and had a filter to reality, and it was such a relief.

Except Mom, of course, but there was just no goddamn pleasing her.

The main problem had been that I couldn’t buy pot; there wasn’t a dealer in Greenville willing to sell it to me, and I wasn’t really prepared to go out to find them anyway. But then I’d realized the clubhouse was full of pot and other interesting things. Also, I knew most of the hiding places. I’d grown up in that clubhouse, I knew all the rooms, where the hiding places were, and getting a master key wasn’t hard—or getting a copy of it.

I’d suggested to Dad that a small job might be good, just something to do to earn some money, ‘Maybe help cleaning the clubhouse?’ I’d suggested with a sweet smile. And Bob’s your uncle, I was in. He’d told me to stay the fuck away on the weekends when the worst parties happened, and I really didn’t mind that. It was more collecting laundry, empty the trash, stuff like that, and if the rooms were way too yucky, I left it to the sweetbutts—after searching them, obviously. It was what I was there for, after all, and with the job, I had a reason to be in the rooms, and I could do it when no one else was around. I wasn’t an idiot; I never completely emptied a hiding spot. I just took a few grams here and a pill there, all neatly collected in my small plastic bag of relaxation.

So, that was what I was doing on a Wednesday in March—looking for stash holes under the guise of collecting laundry. I’d spent the morning cleaning the bar, to make it look like I was taking my job seriously, while I waited for people to get out. The calmest time at the clubhouse was after lunch, when most of the overnighters had woken up, but before the garage closed. I was in Roach’s room, and I was frustrated. I hadn’t been able to find a single one of his stashes, and it bugged me. Most of the guys had pretty elaborate hiding places, and more than once, I’d found a couple in each room, but fuck all in Roach’s. It had become a matter of pride—I was damn well going to find it.

“You’re not going to find anything.”

I took a deep breath and grabbed the sheets before standing up. Roach was standing in the doorway to the bathroom. I hadn’t heard him, and he must’ve been in there for a really long time, perfectly quiet. Fuck, fuckety, fuck.

“Hi,” I said with a big smile. “I was just going to take your sheets.”

“Oookay, whatever, just stop poking around in my shit while trying to find my stash. It pisses me off, and you’re not going to find anything anyway.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, and with a firmer grip of the sheets, I tried to leave the room. But just as I passed him, I felt his hand at the back of my pants when he pulled out the bag. “What the fuck!”

“This! I’m talking about this.” He leaned closer to me, and I felt trapped, in panic, and pissed off. “Those wide smiles and big baby blues aren’t fooling me, Princess, so don’t even try.”

“So what?” I said and tried to take the bag from him, but he kept it out of reach. He was a lot taller than me, and I didn’t want to stand too close to him. “I’m eighteen, not a child, so what’s the big deal with me doing the same things as you guys do all the time?”

“They’re doing it for a completely different reason than you are. That’s the big deal.”

“Oh, please! Do you really wanna play the ‘who’s the more immoral’ game with me?”

“Let’s!” he hissed, and I realized that when he wasn’t smiling he looked… mean. “You’re lying to your dad and are stealing drugs from your family to get away from what
you
think is a miserable existence. Your turn, Princess.”

“Stop calling me that! And what the fuck do you know about my existence? Who are you to judge? You think you’re so smart, that you know anything. You don’t know shit about me! You see one thing and think that’s all there is about me.”

He stared at me for a few seconds, and I could see his jaws working.

“I’m smart enough to not steal Mexican Viagra when I’m trying to escape reality.” He slammed the bag against my chest and took a step back. “It’s the dark blue pills, I suggest you avoid them.”

I could feel the threatening lump in my throat, and I swallowed it down—
forced
it down. There was just no fucking way I’d cry in front of this douchebag, and he was going to have to change his own fucking sheets from now on.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I said again as I stuffed the bag down the back of my pants.

“Maybe not. Just get the fuck out and stay out, or I’ll tell Brick why you really wanted this so-called job.”

I stared at him. “You’re not going to tell him now?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I like him, and I don’t want to be the one who tells him his precious baby girl is just like every other junkie who does whatever it takes for the next fix, even if it’s lying and stealing from her family. I just hope I’m far away when that shit blows up in his face.”

“I’m not a junkie,” I protested.

“Yet.”

“Fuck you,” I mumbled. It didn’t really have the force I would’ve wanted it to, but I knew that if I let things out, I’d start crying, and that wasn’t going to happen.

He sighed. “Listen, if you wanna deal with it, instead of escaping from it, I’m game. I’ll be here.”

I took another step back in horror. Deal with it? Did he mean… What did he mean? Like dealing with it, as in… sex? Was he saying I had to have sex with him or he’d tell Dad? Fuck that!

“There’s no way in hell I’d let you touch me.”

“Jesus christ, I’m not a monster. I wasn’t going to touch you, and I don’t want to. I mean actually
deal
with it and stop pretending you’re okay when you’re clearly not. I meant talking. If you wanna talk, I’ll listen.”

“I’m not pretending.”

“Yeah, you are.” And now he was smiling, but it still wasn’t a nice smile. “It’s all fake, and we both know it.”

I eyed him. I wasn’t really thinking about talking to him, not in a million years, but I was wondering how he knew.
What
he knew.

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever you like. I can deal with whatever you throw me, but don’t you dare lie to me by saying you’re fine. You’re not fine, you’re fucking drowning in ‘not fine.’ But until you’re ready to come back to the living, take your bag of chemical happiness and stay the fuck out of my face, because that’s something
I
can’t deal with.”

“I’m alive,” I said, and I ended with my back against the door when he leaned closer again. “I’m not drowning.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re choking on all the shit you’ve got bottled up inside of you, and you’re trying it force it out of your head with the shit you have in that bag. Because you’re terrified of what will come out if you start poking around in your own mind.”

I felt naked. No one had ever talked to me like that, and most definitely not since I’d been taken. And no one had been more right. I
was
terrified.

He stepped back again and motioned for me to leave. When I’d opened the door, I turned around again.

“I’m alive,” I repeated. It felt necessary to point that out.

“Yeah, but having a heartbeat doesn’t mean you’re living. Like I said, let me know if you want to do something about that.”

It felt like being slapped, or as if he’d just reached into my chest and ripped out my heart. Or worse: like he’d seen inside my head and seen all those…
things
in there. The things I didn’t want to think about, things I
hadn’t
thought about, but he’d somehow known about them anyway—the things that terrified me. In a few short minutes, he’d exposed every fear I’d had, and hadn’t thought anyone had known—
could
know. But he had. They were all true, and especially that last thing. I wasn’t living, I was simply existing, and most of the time I was trying to escape from that, too.

Fucking asshole.

I glared at him, “You don’t know shit about me.”

Then I left.

~oOo~

Roach

He watched the little princess as she hesitantly walked towards him. It had taken her over a week, which was probably too short for her to actually want to deal with anything, so she was most likely still pissed and planned on telling him what an ass he was.

He hadn’t really thought she’d take him up on his offer, though, and in all honesty he was pretty relieved about it. Besides a few bad experiences and a drug addiction to forget about them—in her case probably not an addiction yet—they didn’t have
shit
in common, and he was not good at dealing with people like her. Most of the time he couldn’t stand them. She might’ve grown up around bikers, but those had been there since she was born and were mostly a lot older than her. And he was sure no one had talked to her like he had, but he’d been pissed. Then he’d felt bad and told her he could help, which he had regretted the second she’d left his room. So he was pretty glad it didn’t look like he’d have to own up to those words.