Indulgence (375 page)

“Gabe started shouting, tried to get away from Miles. Master
shot him. Master kept me safe.”

A half grin spread on Kirk’s face and I closed my eyes. I
wanted sleep to reclaim me with that image in my mind, one tiny moment of
satisfaction within the storm of chaos and pain. Through the haze of drugs, I
told the story I was given.

But my body shook, a hand patted my cheek.

“She’s hurt and high on pain killers, Ross,” Kirk yelled.

“Best time to get an honest story.” Ross leaned over me
until I could smell the coffee on his breath. “Anything else I should know.”

“Alan took me.”

“From your room?” He scoffed, “He’s not even here today.”

I shook my head. “Brought me here. Drove the truck.”

Ross looked to Kirk, and Kirk nodded at me. “You wanted her
information.”

Ross made a growling sound in his throat. “She’s still
hallucinating.”

“I’m not.” Well, maybe I was, but not about what I
remembered. “Extended cab pickup. Blue lights inside. I remember.”

“What color was the truck?”

“Isn’t the blue light enough. Alan had the lighting
installed two months ago.”

Ross ignored him, staring down at me. His hand moved and I
twitched away.

“I don’t remember anything else about the truck. There were
two other men. One with black hair held me, another in the front seat. I never
saw his face.” I pushed out the information as fast as possible, unsure I could
fight unconsciousness any longer and fearful of what Ross would do if I fell
asleep without permission. I bit my lip then looked to Kirk wondering if I
should bring up the dark haired man.

“I need to finish her back,” Clarence said. I could have
hugged him for the interruption. “We’re not going to get anywhere right now.
She needs rest.”

Ross scowled at the doctor, then shoved his pants in his
pockets and backed away. “We’ll talk later then.”

“Thank you, Sir.” My eyes closed and I felt the bed flatten
under me again, so they could roll me back to my side.

*****

I woke up stretched out on the couch back in Kirk’s apartment;
I was half propped up against his chest, nestled between his legs.

“Hey, Sugar,” Kirk whispered when I readjusted myself.

I looked up, managing a small smile despite my swollen face.
A pain poured deeper into my chest that the pain meds couldn’t touch, but I
wasn’t ready to voice it. I didn’t even want to think it.

There was a thud on the door and I froze.

“It’s Miles,” the voice outside announced.

“Come in,” Kirk yelled.

I glanced back at Kirk as the lock snapped.

“He’s holding on to all of the master keys until we get
things sorted.” He kissed my forehead, putting my current concerns at ease.

Miles entered with a case of beer and a small black box.

“For you,” he handed the box to me. I squinted at first then
opened it, discovering some kind of chocolate mousse cake. “According to what
Alley tells me numerous times a month, chocolate fixes everything.”

I felt Kirk’s chest shake as he chuckled. His fingers
drifted through my hair.

Then, Miles slid the case of beer across the table. “That’s
for you. I figure she has pain pills so you’ll need something.”

“Thanks, Miles
,
” Kirk said.

I dipped my finger in the mousse and licked it off. “Yes,
thank you, Sir.”

Miles shook his head and disappeared into the kitchen while
Kirk lifted forward so that I sat leaning half-sideways against the back of the
couch. When Miles came back, he slid a spoon into the black container and
dropped a bottle of water on the coffee table before taking a seat next to it.
“Everything is taken care of—for now. Alan is with the others in lock up, but
no one is really talking. He hacked into our system today and forced through an
old feed, so they wouldn’t be caught on camera dragging her into the room
downstairs. It’s also curious that he was the one on duty when Morton was
passing drugs to the girls.”

“A diversion,” Kirk said. “Just how deep does it go?”

Miles cocked his head. “I wouldn’t count on being able to
trust anyone outside of this room right now.”

He leaned toward me and I closed my eyes, savoring a bite of
the rich chocolate cake. “I don’t know anything but chocolate, Sir.”

Miles chuckled and ripped open the beer case, handing one to
Kirk, and taking one for himself.

But I did know something else. I stabbed the cake with my
spoon and twisted to face Kirk. I opened my mouth, then chickened out, biting
my lip, but both men were already watching and waiting.

“The black-haired guy who came down to tell you that Ross
was coming back….”

Kirk raised an eyebrow and nodded slowly.

“He’s in on it, too.” I shuddered, pulling my knees closer
to my chest. Every single movement hurt, especially my attempt at curling up
into an unbreakable ball. Behind me, Kirk sat, pressing his body against me,
holding me together before I had the opportunity to fall apart. “I don’t think
I was supposed to be alive to tell you that.”

Miles jumped up. “And what the hell were they planning on
doing with a missing slave and her dead body?”

“They’d already set her up,” Kirk growled. “Alan called us
down and alerted us about the suspicious patron, who then gets caught with Kat.
She tries to link Silver with it—”

“And Silver had already tried to run.” Miles ran his hand
over his short hair and paced around the couch. “If she disappeared it would
have confirmed the suspicions that she was involved with the breech. And if you
weren’t paranoid enough to have installed a damn alarm on your door… we
wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”

I looked back to Kirk and nearly dropped the cake onto the
floor. Paranoid. I was thankful for his paranoia but if he was a mole like Gabe
said, he was paranoid for good reason.

Kirk raised his eyebrows briefly and rubbed my side. “We’ll
have to round up Mitch, but with Gabe gone, and so many of the group getting
busted, I think our best hope is that anyone else involved either gets wise
enough to fall back in line or stupid enough to get caught.”

Taking another bite of cake, I hoped to lose myself again.

Miles shook his head and stood. “Ever wonder why we do all
of this?”

Kirk made a sound in his throat but didn’t really answer.
“Are you thinking about getting out?”

“Thinking like that would get me killed. Don’t get me wrong.
I love playing with the girls, but I don’t like seeing them hurt.”

I lifted my head, giving him a half-hearted smile.

“I better get back downstairs and find out where our last
little rat has run off to.” Miles took a swig of beer and squeezed my shoulder
lightly before he left.

After the door closed and locked, I twisted to see Kirk.

“Enjoying your cake?” he asked.

I nodded, taking another decadent bite. I wanted to ask him
about what Gabe had said, but I was afraid I didn’t want to know the answer. I
didn’t want to know the whole story. If he was a mole, who was he working for?

There was already too much going on.

Instead, I finished the last bit of cake and snuggled
against his chest again. Fuck the rest of the world and everyone else in the
building. I didn’t care who he was working for or why as long as I didn’t have
to leave the couch.

The Wall Behind the Truth

I felt the heavy metal of the gun in my hand, so heavy I
couldn’t lift it.

I couldn’t remember why I even needed the gun then I
heard footsteps behind me and spun around.

“Gabe.” I shook my head. “You can’t be here.”

“Why is that?”

“Because, I…” I looked down at the gun in my hand and raised
it to his head.

“You’ve already shot me,” he said, closing the gap
between us.

I took a step backward, the gun shaking in my hand. I
felt a wall at my back, leaving me nowhere else to go.

Silver
, a voice in my head shouted, and I shook it off.

“You’re just a piece of meat. Only difference between me
and your snake of a Master is that I don’t muddle your role in the world.”

The gun clattered to the floor and I pushed off the wall
attempting to get past him. He grabbed my arm and I spun to the floor.

Silver
. I heard the voice again but couldn’t find anyone
else in the room.

I dragged myself across the floor on my back, as Gabe
dived at me. Pulling my body under him and pinning me down with his knee. His
hands ripped off my shirt, and warm drops of blood landed on my skin.

Gabe’s forehead opened up, until blood poured onto my
body. I screamed, trying to push him away. I covered my face with my hands
trying to block the flow of blood, but I tasted it in my mouth and felt it in
my eyes and nose. Rolling down into my ears.

I was going to drown in his blood.

“Rose”

I sat up, gasping for breath on the couch in Kirk’s
apartment. He sat behind me, his arm braced around me. He touched my face as I
calmed.

“Don’t call me that.” My voice cracked with emotion and abuse.

“I’m sorry,” Kirk whispered. “You wouldn’t wake up.”

“I know,” I tried to lean back or find a more comfortable
position, but the slightest movement set everything ablaze again. “I’m pretty
sure I could hear you.” I took a deep breath and let it all fall out—tears
broke free, and I buried myself in Kirk’s chest and cried.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. I heard it over and over through
my sobs.

“I shot him.”

“No—”

I jerked away and looked into his eyes. “I can tell your
story, but I shot him. He was just standing there and I shot him.”

“He deserved it.” Kirk brushed my hair back and leaned his
forehead against mine, but whether or not he believed that, the ramifications
of what I had done would be up to Ross.

“Is that what everyone else thinks?”

“Close enough.”

“Why is Miles covering for me?”

“Because he saw what happened. He saw what I saw when we
busted in, and he understands. He said if it had been Alley, he’d have done the
same thing.”

Adrenaline and a wash of emotions shook my body, and I
twisted to lean sideways against the back of the couch and face Kirk. “What are
they going to do to you?”

“Nothing,” he shook his head, “I’ll probably get the ass end
of the stick for a while, but that’s it.”

Even then, I didn’t like the thought of him taking the blame
for something I had done. I had caused him enough trouble. “What if they knew
it was me?”

“If they did, you’d already be dead.”

He handed me a glass of water and an oval white pill.

“I get glass now?” I said, forcing a smile and hoping it’d
lighten his mood a bit.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’ve had the whole
apartment twice. That included the glasses and knives, and everything else in
the room.”

At the moment we both started trusting one another,
everything fell apart again. “I want a bath.”

“It’s probably going to sting.”

“I don’t care. I need it.”

He nodded and slid his leg around me so he could stand. “Sit
here while I run it.”

Kirk returned a few minutes later and gently lifted me from
the couch.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and inhaled his scent.
Safe again.

“I’m sorry, Silver,” he said again.

“Stop apologizing. You saved me…” I paused. “You and your
damn alarm. Still afraid I’d run?”

“I didn’t put it on today.” He slowly lowered me into the
tub. “But I’m glad I had it on today. Miles texted me right after he talked to
you, so I could account for the first time the door opened. I called him the
second time, but there was nothing on the monitors and you had already
disappeared.”

He guided me as I sank down into the warm water. The welts
burned as they hit the water, but it soon receded to a tolerable level. “We got
lucky,” he whispered, “By the time I got back, Miles had managed to narrow it
down to the seventh floor since there’s a record of elevator stops.”

“I promised to protect you,” he whispered. “I showed you the
cameras; I said he couldn’t get to you.”

My eyes became heavy again. “It’s not your fault. You still
managed to find me.”

“You did pretty well with your story to Ross,” he said,
changing the subject.

“Especially while drugged out on pain killers, eh?” My eyes
fluttered closed and I struggled to open them again.

“No sleeping in the tub,” Kirk said, but I felt him adjust
me to make sure I couldn’t slip under the water.

I took a breath and held it for a second as the drugs
encouraged my curiosity and wore away at my worries. “What’s your real name?”

Kirk stared back for a moment, “Why would you ask that?”

“Just a feeling. You know, ‘which of these things doesn’t
fit in?’ And since you didn’t just deny it, there must be something to it.”

I heard him swallow then he took a long, slow breath.
“James.”

It was true. The room may as well have dropped to the ground
floor. “I think I like James more than Kirk.”

“Me, too.” His voice was low but thick with emotion.
“Although sometimes, I don’t think I can remember who he is.”

“You don’t have to remember, he’s just who you are when
you’re not trying to be someone else.”

“Apparently I’m not trying hard enough,” he brushed his
fingers against my neck, “since you picked me out in a couple of weeks. You’re
going to make me paranoid that everyone expects something.”

“I live with you.” I took a deep breath and my chest shook.
I didn’t want to tell him, but I had to. “Gabe knew.”

His soft grasp on my body turned to stone.

I swallowed, trying to find my voice and enough energy to
explain. “He whispered it so only I could hear it. Said I was sleeping with the
biggest mole, and if I didn’t do what he said, you’d be dead within an hour.”