Boosted (In The Fast Lane) (15 page)

There went Brody’s plans to retire. “Before he died Sergei
owed me money. Twenty thousand dollars. It was for his car.”

“That is between you and Sergei.”

Shit. Of course they would say that. Still, being out twenty
grand was better than being dragged to death in the desert. “I have another
question,” Brody said. “After this, I’m not sure I want to steal cars anymore.”

The man with the knife waited for him to say more, then
said, “I thought you had a question.”

“What happens if I don’t want to steal cars for you?”

“I don’t think you want an answer to this question.”

One of the others lit a cigarette. He offered one to Brody.
Even though his breathing was still labored he accepted. It might help calm his
jagged nerves. He took a deep drag from the cigarette and held it in his lungs.

“Your clothes. What happened to them?”

“Just lost them along the way.”

“We don’t have any to offer you. We will take you home
though.”

“First. Give us a hand,” one of them said. Brody helped them
put the bodies into the car. They stacked the three of them into the back seat.
One of the hit men then open the gas tank and started messing around with it.

“We should leave now,” the one with the knife advised.

Brody followed him back toward town. The other two followed
as licks of fire began to rise up in the town car. None of them seemed
particularly worried about anyone in the town seeing them. In his two trips
there Brody hadn’t seen a single sign of life. It was a modern ghost town, long
ago abandoned for some unknown reason. The car exploded and the bodies turned
to ash behind them as the Russian mob escorted Brody home.

TWENTY

The Ghost

After Brody had convinced the Iranians to leave her
apartment, Hannah continued to cry for what must have been an hour. She never
did end up calling the police. She was too distraught to speak. She no longer
even cared about her own safety. They could come back if they wanted. Without
Brody by her side it didn’t matter. She thought she would never be able to
recover.

Eventually she was all out of tears. She sat silently on the
floor as the sun began to set. Long shadows draped her in darkness. She
couldn’t decide what to do next. She would eventually need to function again.
She would need to go to school. She would need to eat. She would need to
experience human interactions. First, she had to get herself up off of the
floor. It was a daunting task and one that she wasn’t quite ready to undertake.
She managed to at least sit up. It was more significant progress than she
thought she would be able to achieve when Brody first walked out the door.

When she finally did manage to stand up she felt dizzy and
confused. It was more than just a head rush. She was still coming down from the
adrenal rush of having her life threatened. She became so light headed that she
had to sit down again, this time on the bed rather than the floor. She held her
head in her hands and tried to regain her sense of awareness. She tried to
think of something she could do to help Brody but nothing came to her. He may
even be dead already. The thought was too much for her to bear.

She sank into a state of mourning. There would be no other
time for it. No wake, no funeral, no memorial service. He’d be a forgotten man,
a casualty of the underworld. At best he would be buried in a potter’s field.
The reality was probably far worse. It was not the fate that he deserved. He
was a good man, despite his criminal past. He had proved that on his last day
by coming to save her.

She thought of ways that she could remember him and things
that could be done in tribute to his sacrifice. She barely knew anything about
him, even after thinking about him constantly for the past week. She didn’t
know where he’d come from or what he’d done in his life besides steal cars. She
had only ever considered his future. It was a future that had always included
her. And now it was a future that would sadly never be realized. Maybe there
was some way to find out about his past. Track down his family or his old
friends. It would be hard without even knowing his last name. It was even
possible that Brody wasn’t his real name at all.

She decided to take a shower. Perhaps she would be able to
wash away the sorrow. She stripped down and turned on the shower. She didn’t
step in right away though. Instead she leaned on the sink and stared at herself
in the mirror. She considered how much she had changed in the past week. In a
way she felt as if she had finally matured. She had always been smarter than
most and carried herself in what most would consider to be a “mature” way. But
emotionally she had not grown up yet. She had never experienced this kind of pain
and loss. She continue to examine herself until the steam from the shower
fogged over the mirror.

The shower helped to at least breathe a little life into her
being. It also felt good to rinse of the dried tears that had streaked her
face. She spent a long time under that steamy spray of water. The water was too
hot and her skin turned red. It was exactly the type of harsh cleansing that
she needed. She washed off all the guilt and shame of letting Brody leave
without putting up more of a fight. The one thing she couldn’t wash away was
the regret that she felt.

When Hannah got out of the shower she laid down naked on the
bed. The comparatively cool air felt like ice against her overheated skin. She
began to shiver. She would have cried again if her tear ducts hadn’t already
been depleted. She now felt numb, almost as if she were in a comma. The sun had
now set below the horizon and the room grew dark. Hannah felt as if she lay
inside a sepulcher. She may have slept, she may not have. She was no longer sure
of what was a dream and what wasn’t.

That made it all the more confusing when her phone rang and
she heard Brody’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Hey babe. I’m okay.”

She was sure that she was dreaming. She was positive. She
closed and opened her eyes several times in succession, trying to snap herself
back into reality. No matter how hard she tried though she was still on the
phone and it was still Brody’s voice that she heard.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here,” she managed to squeak out.

“Look, I’m in rough shape,” he said. “I can’t really move
around too much. And my car is back over at your place. Do you want to come
over?”

“To your place?”

“Yeah. I’d like to see you.”

“I’d like to see you too.”

“Great.” He told her the address and dictated directions.
Hannah was in such a daze that she nearly walked out the door wearing only her
purse. Brody probably wouldn’t have minded but better to throw a set of clothes
on for the trip.

She crossed the city and came to Brody’s apartment building.
It was completely impersonal and nondescript. It was the type of place where no
one knew or cared about the names of their neighbors. One could live
comfortably while maintaining relative anonymity in a place like that. It
seemed like the perfect fit for someone like Brody.

She came up to the door of Brody’s apartment. Now she was
the one doing the knocking. She heard him moving around inside. Hannah still
couldn’t believe that he would be the one to actually open the door. It was all
some sort of trick designed to give her false hope at the lowest moment of her
life.

And yet when the door opened it was the expected ghost who
stood in front of her. Brody looked half-dead, which was actually better than
Hannah had been expecting. His face was bruised and his lip was fat. He stood
with a hunch as if every muscle and joint in his body were rebelling against
him. His eyes were blackened and bloodshot. The most important thing, however,
was that he was there. In the flesh. It was him.

“Come on in,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

She did more than that though. She was so excited to see him
alive that she nearly tackled him. She threw her arms around his neck and
kissed him. She pressed her face hard against his, so hard that he had to
subtly push her away.

“What happened?”

“It’s all settled. They won’t be bothering us anymore.”

“But your face…”

“It’s a small price to pay.”

“You need to take care of that. Come on.”

She took him by the hand and led him inside. It was a
spacious studio with very little furniture and almost no personal effects. It
was the type of sparse, Spartan existence that she was expecting though it
lacked the gritty quality that she had envisioned in her head. He did not live
in a hovel or a slum. If anything, Brody lived a solid, simple middle class
life. That is when he wasn’t stealing luxury cars and holding a gun to the head
of an Iranian warlord, of course.

“Do you have any hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol to
sterilize those cuts?”

“Umm, I don’t think so,” he said, as if the notion was
ridiculous.

“Do you at least have some ice?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

“Okay. You lie down. Give me one second.”

Hannah want to the corner of the apartment where the
kitchenette stood. She found that there was a tray of ice in the freezer. Who
knew how long ago it had been filled. She searched for something to put the ice
in. Some sandwich bags or a thin towel. Finding no good options, she took off
her shirt and dropped the ice cubes in the middle she wrapped it up until it
was something resembling an ice pack. It would have to do for now.

She came back over to Brody’s bed. He looked up at her
coming toward him in her bra and smiled.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said. “We need to get you healed
up first.”

She put the ice pack against his bruised cheek bone.

“Hold that there,” she said.

Brody held the ice pack against his face. He looked up at
her with a look of submissive affection. She could have done whatever she
wanted to him at that moment. He was in a state of complete vulnerability. She
didn’t know what had happened to him today, but she knew that it must have been
something incredibly traumatic to break his previously indomitable spirit.
Hannah even began to think that perhaps there was something that bruised Brody
than his skin-deep wounds.

“So it’s over?”

“Mostly,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t even know. I’m alive. But I’m not out yet.”

Hannah nodded. So it wasn’t over yet. He would have to
continue to work for these people. She got the sense that this time he didn’t
have much choice in the matter either. He had gone from an independent
contractor to an indentured servant. That had to be it. Hannah was convinced
that it was this, and not the beating and torture that he had endured, that had
him in such a low state.

“It will all work out,” she said, not sure if she believed
it herself.

“Let’s not worry about it right now,” he said. “How was your
day? Good?”

His nonchalance made her laugh. It was unexpected and it
felt good. It was only about an hour before that she thought she would never be
happy again, let alone let out a cathartic laugh such as this.

“It was terrible.”

“Oh no. Why’s that?”

“I thought I lost you.”

Brody smiled. “Nope. You’re not getting rid of me that
easily.”

Hannah was beginning to feel better. The sorrow of the day
and shock of the night were starting to wear off. “I like your place,” she
said.

“Thanks. Sorry it’s not much. I don’t have company over very
often.”

“Stop being modest. It’s great.”

She leaned down and kissed him.

“I’m glad I got to see it.” She kissed him again. “And I’m
glad I got to see you.”

She leaned down to kiss him again. This time he put his arm
around her to hold her close. She got down next to him on the bed and they
shared several more kisses. In between they would look each other deep in the
eyes. Brody set the ice pack aside. He didn’t seem to want it in the first
place. He placed his hand on her bare skin. It was cold from the ice and it
chilled her through the whole of her torso.

She wasted no time taking off his t-shirt and shorts. She
saw that there were cuts and bruises all over his ribs, chest, and legs as
well. It was even worse than she had first thought. She began to kiss each of
these bruises and contusions. He winced each time her lips made contact but did
not try to stop her. She kissed all around his body, tasting the faint metallic
tinge of dried blood and the salty flavor light sweat. He turned over onto his
stomach and Hannah made the same trek with her lips over his back as well. She
ran her hands over his tense muscles and did what she could to ease them. She
kissed the back of his neck and then licked and nibbled gently on his ear.

He turned back over and took her in his arms. They kissed
again and he held her close. Brody unclipped her bra and tossed it aside. Her
nipples brushed softly against his chest as she hovered over him. She could
feel his cock growing against her thigh as she straddled him. Luckily what he
had been through earlier that day hadn’t seemed to affect his abilities as a
lover. He cupped her breasts and rubbed her nipples with his thumb.

She wiggled out of the pants she was wearing and let her
panties go with them. She rubbed her body over his cock. Her breasts, her
abdomen, the outside of her pussy. His cock was now standing fully at
attention, just waiting to be inside of her. She thought briefly about teasing
him a little bit and holding off. Ultimately she decided that she had been
through enough that day already. Instead she positioned her pussy above him and
began to lower herself down.

His cock felt even better than ever. It fit her more
perfectly than she had remembered. She had had him inside her last night and
yet it seemed like an eternity ago. It was like a different lifetime for both
of them. It almost felt like her first time again, not only with him but with
anyone. It wasn’t just the first entry that felt new. Each time she went up and
then down was like her pussy was being rediscovered.