Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III (27 page)

I think Cutter forgot I was still sitting there, but I knew when to keep my mouth shut. Even still, Hope nudged me and said, “Blossom, go get washed up, get dressed and let’s get out of here for now.”

I nodded, and went back towards the bathroom to clean it up, Nothing called out to me, “Leave it, Babe. Use the shower in my room. We’ll get it.”

I looked at the red ruin of my shorts and tank, spattered with the man’s blood and the water pooled on the floor, tinged pink with yet more of his blood and didn’t even put up a fight. I did what Nothing asked, and went to his room instead. I was chilled down to the bone, and I was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with how high the air conditioning in the house was turned up.

I took yet another shower; the door locked tight this time, and wondered if there would ever be a time that I didn’t lock the bathroom door in the future. I closed my eyes as I rewet my hair, and sighed out in relief. Thank god Nothing was there, that he hadn’t been knocked unconscious, and that he’d managed to keep his wits.

Two knocks at the door and I nearly jumped out of my skin, “Char you alright?” Hope called.

“Yeah! Sorry,” I called back, “Be out in a minute.”

“No, take your time; I just wanted to check on you!”

“Thanks, sister-mom!” I called back, but I had to force the sarcasm into my voice.

“No problem,” Hope called back and I shuddered and let it go, having a quiet cry to myself in the shower just to get the pent up emotion out.

Chapter 34

Nothing

“She alright?” I asked, and used my gloved hands to shove my shower curtain and liner into the trash bag Cutter was holding open for me. Hope leaned a shoulder against the bathroom door jamb.

“Shook up, probably harder than she’s ever been, that includes her little adventure in the trunk of that whack job’s car. She’ll be okay though. She’s like me, made of some tough stuff, just not quite as Teflon, if you know what I mean.”

I did, being tough was one thing, letting it slide off was another. I finished shoving the curtain with its torn ring holders at the top away, and Cutter cinched the bag closed. The bloody, water soaked towels had gone in first.

“Garbage?” he asked.

“What the fuck I want to keep ‘em for? A souvenir?” I grated then sighed, “Sorry, Captain. I don’t mean to take it out on you.”

“Hey, man, you did good. There’s still more to do, but you followed through and maintained the main objective which was to keep your woman safe. She’s a little scared, a little shook up, but it ain’t nothing she can’t and won’t handle. Now let’s just take a minute, get this mess cleaned up, and get her back to base. We’ll go from there.”

I nodded, surprised I needed the pep talk, but truthfully, I wasn’t like a lot of the rest of the guys. I was used to violence in the way of coming in to mop it up after the shit had already gone down. I wasn’t used to being in the thick of it, or used to being the one to dish it out. That was pretty much new territory for me.

Aftermath I could handle, but this shit? I don’t know… I just didn’t know.

Cutter slipped out past Hope, who handed me the mop, that I had sitting out in the hallway. I started running it across the bathroom floor, wringing it out into the bathtub until I had the worst of the flooding up. The cops had at least let us shut off the shower once shit had calmed down and our uninvited guest was well on his way to the nearest emergency department.

“Thank you,” Hope said, and I nodded.

“Just glad he didn’t knock me out and I had the sense to play dead. Really glad he didn’t have the sense to tap me or finish me off while I was down.”

“Newbie, you think?”

“I honestly don’t know, it isn’t exactly my area of expertise.”

“Yeah, I know it’s not, Galahad. Which is why I’m grateful you didn’t hesitate.”

“Guess it says something that I’m willing to kill for her, yeah?”

“You mean you were shooting to kill?” Hope asked, surprised.

“Out of all of us, Nothing always was a shit shot, so it doesn’t surprise me he missed, just be glad he hit him at all.” Cutter said from behind Hope, returning from his trash run.

“Yeah, fuck you, Cap. Like I said, putting holes in people has never been my thing.”
I’m supposed to be the one patching holes up… not making them.
I thought to myself.

“Yeah, and we never wanted it to be,” Cutter said, all joking gone from his tone, as if it never were. “We tapped you because we liked you, and because you’re an honorable dude. The fact that you can patch certain holes up was just a bonus. We wouldn’t have you any other way, and I’m sorry you got dragged into this shit storm.”

“I’m not,” I said and was surprised to realize I meant it.

“Yeah, and how’s that?” Cutter asked.

“Because if I weren’t ass deep in it, things could have and would have gone very different for Charity, and that’s a thought I just cannot abide, Captain.”

“There
is
that,” Cutter agreed, but it was the admiration on Hope’s face that caught my eye. She nodded, and it was something that didn’t come out of the irreverent woman very often. She gave me a nod all the while her posture, and the look in her eyes, communicated respect.

I felt like I’d just passed some kind of invisible test, but I couldn’t care too much about it just then. All of our heads lifted because the water had shut off in my bathroom. Cutter held out a hand past Hope and I passed the mop to him.

“Box of gloves under the sink,” he told Hope, as I stripped mine off onto the edge of the vanity. Hope and I traded places, and Cutter said unnecessarily, “Go on, we got the rest of this.”

I slipped down the hall towards my room and thought to call out, “Charity, it’s me, you okay if I come in?”

“Yes, of course,” she called back softly, and I rounded the doorframe to see her sitting on the edge of my bed body wrapped from armpit to mid-thigh in one of my towels, another turban style, wrapped up around her hair.

“How you doing?” I asked.

“I’m okay,” she said quickly. A little too quickly, but I let it slide and didn’t press.

“Cool, you need help packing up, or you got it?” I asked.

“I’ve got it,” she murmured.

“Mind if I stay in here, change and pack a bag myself?”

“No, I think, honestly, I’d like the company,” she said and when she smiled, it was a fragile, tremulous thing.

“Come here,” I uttered and went to her. She met me half way, standing, her arms going around me. I folded her into my arms and sighed, just holding her. I don’t think there was any doubt in my mind at this point that I was in love with her. It just really didn’t seem to be the time to say it, so I just did my best to show it. I held her close to me, breathing in her clean, fresh scent, pressing my lips to the smooth, soft skin of her shoulder.

“I’m okay,” she said, “really.”

“I know, Baby, and I promise, I’m going to keep you that way.” I drew back so she could see the seriousness on my face and in my eyes. She smiled, and pulled the towel from her hair, tossing it towards the dirty clothes hamper in the corner, before turning back to me.

“Then I promise the same thing,” she murmured and held up a pinky finger. I couldn’t help it, I laughed and obliged her, hooking her little finger with mine, bending and kissing them. She smiled and kissed our linked fingers too, and just like that, I think our first ‘thing’ as a couple was established and it was cute as fucking hell.

“I think those jeans are a lost cause,” she murmured and I looked down, they were bloodstained for sure, but I had a few tricks up my sleeves for that.

“Nah, some hydrogen peroxide and they’ll be fine if I can get ‘em soaking in it quick enough.” She arched one golden brow at me and I smiled, “Paramedic, remember? Blood is par for the course, that’s why the uniforms are so dark, even still, blood gets on the patches sometimes. Hydrogen peroxide is color safe and breaks down the proteins in the blood if you can get it on the stain fast enough. Pretty sure you would’ve learned it as a nurse eventually, consider this your inside track.”

She looked at me thoughtfully, and nodded slowly, “Thanks for the tip,” she said softly, but I could see the wheels turning. I let it go for now in favor of changing, and getting this pair of jeans into a tub with a bottle of the aforementioned stuff. They were my favorite pair, so yeah, I wanted to take a crack at saving them.

Charity dressed in shorts and a tank top, the ones she had on earlier today, and shoved the rest of her stuff into her bag. I dressed quickly in a fresh pair of jeans and a clean tee, shrugging into my cut. I took the time and I threw a bag together, tossing my bloodied jeans into my bathroom’s sink and pouring the industrial sized bottle of hydrogen peroxide I kept under it, over the soiled denim. It immediately began to froth, the stains beginning to lift.

“Huh, I’ll be damned, it really does work,” Charity said over my shoulder.

“Told yah,” I said.

“Do you need to do anything else?” she asked.

“Antsy to leave?” I asked, deflating just a little on the inside. I didn’t want her to not come back to my home. I didn’t want this place to be a bad one for her, not when there was a potential to build new, less painful memories in it now.

“Just a little, I’m worried about Faith,” she confessed.

Ah, of course, “Yeah. We’re good to go, just let me throw these in the wash and get it going.”

“Won’t they go sour?”

“Not worried about that, I can always re-wash them later.”

I shouldered my bag and Charity shouldered hers, we met Cutter and Hope in the hall, my soaked jeans dripping I shouldered my way through and into the garage, Cutter and Hope moving aside to oblige me. I dumped the jeans into the wash, added detergent and started up the machine.

“We good?” I asked the Captain about the bathroom and he nodded.

“We’re good.”

“You want to take your Jeep or you want to leave it here and ride with me?” I asked.

“I’ll ride with you, if that’s okay.”

“It’s more than okay.”

“Gimme your bag, Nothing,” Cutter held out his hands and I tossed it to him without a second thought. He slung it over his shoulders to ride along his back. Guess Hope had ridden over here on her own.

I hit the garage door opener and asked, “Front door and back slider locked?”

“Yep,” Hope answered me.

“Cool. Let me back the bike out and you can get on,” I told Charity. Cutter and Hope went to their bikes, sitting at the curb. I fired mine up and backed it out of the garage, Charity climbed on, her gym bag riding along her back in an imitation of what Cutter had done with mine.

“Hold on tight,” I told her, and once the garage door was down, I pointed us towards the end of the drive, put her in gear and pulled smoothly into the street behind Cutter and Hope. We rode swiftly, back to Cutter’s place and pulled into the tree and shrub lined circular drive, backing our bikes into the line of them parked around the outer edge of the drive.

Charity had hopped off to allow me to back in, and with a swift peck on my mouth, had made a beeline to the house’s front door. It opened, Marlin, standing there with a frightened Faith tucked into his side. Faith cried out as soon as she saw her sister and in a flash, she and Charity were a tangled mess. Faith sobbed and Marlin stood grim behind his woman. We made eye contact, and something new and different passed between us. He nodded and I nodded back. No words needed. We’d done what’d been required of us to protect the ones we loved and it was a mixed bag. As shitty as it was to hurt or even kill another human being, we were two men on top of the world that the ones precious to us were
safe
and there wasn’t anything more we could really ask for. It was simple, for as complex as it was.

“You good, bro?” Marlin asked me as I ascended the steps. I held out a hand and he grasped it. We pulled each other in and bumped shoulders.

“I’m okay,” I said, unwilling to go as far as ‘good’ given the circumstances, “What about you?”

“As well as can be expected, was wondering if you could watch my girl and yours while me and a couple of guys handled some business.”

I nodded, “Not a problem.”

“Good deal,” he said.

“Need me to look at any of those?” I asked, giving a chin lift to the impressive array of bruises blossoming across half of my VP’s face.

“Maybe when we get back,” he said and called out, “Pyro! Gator! Let’s roll, guys.”

I moved aside and let them file past me, Hope joining in on hugging Faith and uttering to her sisters that we should all move inside. Cutter and Hope corralled the girls, while I brought up the rear, shutting the front door on the roar of three bikes starting up.

“Guys heading out on clean up?” Radar asked, coming down the stairs and I put my finger to my lips, indicating the girls who were settling on the living room couch.

“Shit, sorry.”

I lifted a shoulder in a shrug and Cutter dragged his eyes away from the trio saying, “’S okay, man.”

I sighed and went around the couch to find a place to sit nearby, but far enough to give the women their space. Charity met my eyes above the heaving shoulders of her sister and I gave her a small smile. She gave me a single nod and mouthed ‘thank you’ and I gave a slight shake of my head, a ‘think nothing of it’ sort of thing. Her lips lifted a touch and fell, and she went back to focusing her full attention on Faith, the most fragile one of them all.

I hoped like fuck that a solution was reached and soon, because it wasn’t fair for these girls to be living like this. In fact, it was a damn fucking shame.

Chapter 35

Charity

It was late and it was quiet, we were all still on the couch, the television playing some random movie quietly, but I don’t think any of us were watching. At least, not really. I was sitting, bare feet propped on the coffee table, Faith’s head in my lap, stroking her hair. She’d fallen asleep.

Hope was sitting on the floor, staring at Faith, and Nothing? Well, Nothing was sitting nearby watching me. Meanwhile, Cutter, Atlas, and Radar were in the dining room, piled around glowing laptop and computer screens. They were talking softly, but I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention, though Hope was listening, looking over her shoulder every once in a while and frowning.