Phoenix Dead (New Adult Dark Romance) (The Vampire Years) (20 page)

"Robles?" The yard man looked to the guy doing all the talking. A quick nod from Robles and the yard man was back out the door.

"Other business?" Robles repeated as he started to circle me. "They look like they just walked off a zombie movie."

It was true. Neither of us had cleaned up before leaving the house. We both had Danny's blood on us. The tidy goth circles that had ringed Chris's eyes last night had thinned and spread to hollow his eye sockets. I could feel the smeared remnants of my own makeup on my face.

"But, sweet culo," Robles said and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "I bet you clean up real nice, chica."

"That's why I'm here." Danny stepped further into the shed. There was a small pile of KA Bar knives on a battered banquet table. He slid one through his belt loop and then sank into a ratty recliner a few feet from a rusted out filing cabinet.

"You want me to clean her up?" Robles laughed. "Oh, chica, me and you, steaming hot shower, me rubbing soap all over that tight body of yours." He smoothed his hand suggestively over my stomach, trying to scare me or see if I meant anything to Danny/Lazaro. The only reaction he got was from Chris -- a step forward that was immediately checked by one of the two door men.

"Primo," Robles said, looking over his shoulder at Danny. "It's not even my birthday."

"Clothes, another car." He threw a pointed look at Robles. "Money that's mine." He reached out, towards where the filing cabinet met the shed's wall, and wrapped his hand around shadow. He pulled a rifle back, rested it across the arms of the recliner as he examined it. I knew from Elliot that it was an M24. Bolt-action, so it was slower to fire than a semi-automatic but deadly precise in the right hands.

"You got any ammo for this?"

"Just what's in the chamber."

"Couple Ninas on top, then."

"How I like all my girls," Robles laughed and threw me another look before he disappeared into the far end of the shed. He returned a minute later with two 9mm pistols and a box of ammunition for each.

Robles waved his hand at one of the door men. "Lalo, clothes."

Lalo came bag with a black garbage bag and the three of us were ushered to a busted out motor home on cinder blocks with more black bags duct taped to where the windows used to be.

"Can't invite you into the house," Robles half-apologized to Danny as he opened the motor home's door. "One look at her and
mami
will have my dick in a noose."

Most of the motor home's interior had been torn out. There was a sink and an open toilet. There were pillows and blankets on the ground and a fat little box of a television hooked to a battery. The smell of meth and marijuana permeated the air.

Danny dumped the bag of clothes on the floor. Chris bent and started sorting through, handing articles of clothing to whichever one of us the piece would fit. Chris had spent the last four years changing in front of other people and he quickly stripped down to his underwear.

Now that he wasn't performing for Robles, Danny was slow to move. The pain flaring in his right shoulder made that arm next to useless. I went to assist him but he brushed me away. "Just get dressed."

Taking my "new" clothes and a dishrag, I went over to the sink and filled the basin with water. I stripped my jacket and top off. The bra with its dried blood would have to remain in place until I could rinse it out. There were no underclothes in the pile.

I washed the blood and old make-up from my face, moved on to my chest and arms as I listened to Chris help Danny. My lover attending my lover and me closed off from both of them. It wasn't quite what Oscar had been aiming for, but it hurt all the same.

When the blood was off me, I moved away from the sink and put on the faded jeans and thin, pale yellow t-shirt. The elegant but impractical suede boots were traded for canvas sneakers with small holes in them. The outfit wasn't much different from the one Army had cut from me. Aside from my underwear and bra, the only thing I didn't swap out was the velvet necklace with its little bird's skull that Chris had fastened around my neck last night.

Chris and Danny were at the sink, arms and chests bare, jeans hugging their lower bodies. Danny leaned against the wall of the motor home. The cool mask of invincibility Danny had worn with Robles was put aside as Chris cleaned the blood from Danny with careful strokes. I watched for a moment, before a small flare of jealousy ignited at the almost domestic intimacy of their movements.

Clean, they finished dressing and I preceded them out the door. Robles was standing outside and caught me by the arm. He fingered the pendant at my neck. "
Muerte hermosa,
I'd die in your arms."

Danny brushed Robles' hands from me. "If you're done flirting, you want to find me a car?"

"Patience, primo." Robles held up a key chain and glanced at an old, hunter green station wagon one of the yard men was putting a newish tire on.

"And the money?"

Robles handed Danny a greasy paper lunch sack. He eyeballed me one last time. "You want to leave her here, ease your load a bit, I'm willing to help you out."

"Then
mami
would have my dick in a noose." Except for the tone, Danny might have been joking, but it was clear he was growing tired of Robles' banter.

"Reina's been itching to have it in-"

I interrupted with a "TMI," and walked over to where they were lowering the station wagon back to the ground. Chris followed. He waited with me alongside the vehicle while Danny finished talking to Robles.

"Can you hear them?"

"Yeah." We were alone, the yard man having returned to the front of the house. "Just mundane shit."

I looked at Chris to catch him staring at my throat. He saw me watching him and offered a shy smile, the first smile I'd seen since before we had peeled out of the hotel parking lot last night.

He nodded at the necklace. "I'm glad you got to keep something."

I had no doubt that he meant it in the sweetest way, but my chest tightened in guilt. I was the only one who had kept anything and I was the cause of everything they were losing.

Danny joined us then, gesturing at Chris to take the front passenger seat. I climbed into the back. Danny started the car, pulled it forward to let it idle next to the house. A woman emerged. She had shoulder length hair, dark brownish red. Large breasts topped a tiny waist and shapely ass. My guess it was Reina --
mami.
The woman with a noose and two dicks.

I forced myself not to growl when she stuck her head in the window, letting her breasts rub against Chris's arm as she leaned into the front seat to hand a small box and a pair of scissors to Danny. Danny passed both items to Chris.

She glanced at the box. "
De mi madre
..."

"Of course, beautiful." Danny threw her a wink and a smile and I felt another flare of jealousy that didn't fade as we pulled back out onto 10th Street.

Trying to distract myself from the desire to rip the woman's throat out for merely being, I reached over the seat and retrieved the box. White box, pink letters, picture of a woman with thick brownish red hair.
Perfect 10 - Chestnut - Warm Skin Tones.
I looked at Chris's hair. Tanned and blond, lithe muscles -- he was Mercury in cleats on the football field. The idea of changing anything about him was disheartening.

Frowning, Chris lifted the scissors. "And these?"

Danny didn't say anything, just took them from Chris and handed them back to me.

"Oh, Rapunzel..." Chris cast a mournful look at the hair cascading over my shoulder.

It earned him a low growl from Danny. "It'll grow back - probably." Catching my gaze in the rear view mirror, Danny spoke to me. "You, lie down on the seat. You can look at the ceiling or the floor, that's it. I don't know how de la Royo finds you, but I don't plan on drawing a map for him."

I obeyed - almost. I kept my eyes on Chris instead, who was still staring at my soon to be much shorter hair.

I let my gaze drift at last to the ceiling. "Do you think the cops are looking for us, too?"

Danny answered with a firm, "Yes."

"Oscar would have disabled the video this time. Leaving the exit door alarm engaged was an accident. So how do they know who was there?"

"The blood," Danny answered. "Any Phoenix cop that's worked homicide or been within a hundred feet of a murder scene has a DNA profile in the system. From me, they have you, and from you -- Chris. So, yeah, the cops are looking for us and so is..." He hesitated, his voice dropping to an almost superstitious pitch. "...de la Royo."

"Why no news reports?" Chris asked. "Or does Robles just not watch TV?"

"For all the department knows, I'm still undercover. They're not going to release the story - not yet. They won't even do an APB or bolo until they get desperate."

Chris started to say something more but Danny raised his hand. For now, there would be no more questions, just orders and grim silence.

***

Looking up at the ceiling gave me too much information. I knew we were heading south. I knew the utility poles and occasional palm tree were spaced out at greater intervals. We were out of Phoenix, probably almost out of Ahwatukee. I rolled onto my stomach and stared at the back of the front seat for the next forty minutes.

The car slowed, turned and came to a stop. Danny got out, telling me to stay down, and then he opened the door by my head. "Look at me, Lee. Just me."

I pushed up onto my elbows and looked at him.

"You have any idea where we are at?"

About ten minutes before, we'd gotten off what I assumed was I-10 by its direction and the steady wind bump of passing semis. Above us, I could hear a plane, relatively big and low altitude, telling me we weren't far off from an airport. "North side of Casa Grande," I offered.

He blinked, his mask slipping a little, but he didn't confirm my guess.

"I feel every little difference." I shrugged, trying to explain it better. "The way the road curves, its surface, which side of the car is hotter because the sun is shining direct on that side."

Brushing my explanation aside, he picked the scissors up from the floor and handed them to Chris. "I'm going to get some supplies. Don't leave any of her hair in the restroom."

Chris responded with a reluctant bob of his head. Danny stood up and motioned me out of the car. We were parked about two feet from the outside bathroom door of a gas station/party store. It wasn't a national or local chain. The paint on the walls and door were peeling and the lock was busted.

I waited by the door, watching Chris get out and circle the station wagon. He went into the restroom first, and I followed him in. He stopped and turned to me.

"You're limping." I bent and ran my hand around his knee. It was swollen. "I don't understand, when did you sprain it?"

He didn't answer, but I saw the same shadow of vulnerability he'd shown at the dance. "Hey," I tried. "You know my big secret now-"

He shook his head. "It's nothing. Quit stalling, Rapunzel, so we can get this over with."

I faced the mirror, and watched his reflection. Mindful of Danny's warning, he put some wet paper towels in the sink and tied the first thick strand of my hair in a loose knot. He caught my gaze on him in the mirror and offered me an apologetic frown before the first snip. For the first few minutes, the only sounds came from the scissors and the rustle of clothes.

He tugged at me, tying the knots and it reminded me of last night - before I'd officially dragged him into hell. He had tugged my hair in the parking lot, controlling me. The tugs had been followed by licks and small bites.

Behind me, I could hear his breathing deepen. He shifted closer to me, until the little tug was enough to make me innocently brush against him. He was almost done, just one band of hair, narrower than the rest, remained. He tied it off, cut it and slid the scissors into his back pocket.

But the hair didn't land in the sink with the rest of the cuttings. I turned, still wedged between his body and the sink, to find him looping the strand and then easing it into his front pocket. Reaching up, I took his face in my hands and stared at him for a second.

"Don't you hate me?"

A rueful laugh followed by a moment's silence before he shook his head. "Last night, at the ball, I didn't know how I was going to live without you." He put his hands on my hips and leaned against me. He rubbed his cheek against mine and then kissed near my ear. "That hasn't changed, Lee."

From outside, I heard the station wagon's door shut. "Danny's done."

"Yeah." A slow nod and then he kissed me again, this time on the mouth with a slow, lingering sweetness. "I'm not afraid of you, Lee. And I don't care if there are a dozen de la Royo's. I'm not going to stand aside and let anyone else hurt you."

I blinked, crying my first blood tears in front of him - in front of any human. He thumbed it away, kissing me one last time as he did so. When he broke from me, he gathered up the wet paper towels that held my hair.