This Is a Dark Ride (4 page)

Got to fight. Got to breathe. He’s like Paul. He wants to see you hurt. Don’t hurt for him.

The man’s grip on her throat eased a bit, and she gratefully sucked in air. The pressure resumed within seconds, and Angel breathed in a big gulp of…nothing. Wild panic surged in her, and she clawed at him, desperate for one more breath. The world around her flickered. Her vision was a tunnel now; she saw only his disgusting mouth as her eyelids fluttered and then closed.

“Not yet, bitch. You can sleep later. It’s almost showtime.”

His lips pressed against her ear, and he breathed out and then in. The sound enraged her. He was breathing. She was not. Her arms and legs flailed with all the strength that she could summon.
Fuck you, Paul. Fuck you all. I will live!

“You were right,” he said. “This is going to be a bad night. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to hurt you. I’m going to hurt you—a lot. I promise you that.”

After that, things came and mercifully went in flashes, as though it wasn’t really her these things were happening to. She shrieked and screamed and gritted her teeth, sometimes trying to keep her eyes open, to memorize the faces of those around her and commit to her memory every detail of their features.

He isn’t Paul
. He was Bobby. The asshole with the bottle—his name was Bobby. She heard at least one of the men in the front seat call him by that name.

“Be thankful that you get to die,” Bobby said. “It’s much more tragic that someone like you should live. A parasite. You only take up space. You aren’t fit to breathe. Be thankful I saw fit to end your miserable life.”

Christ, it hurt, oh, it hurt. Angel whimpered and tried to curl onto a ball. One crushing blow to the top of her head and then all the pain was gone. She embraced the blackness.

The icy night air stung her face and filled her lungs, waking her to the point where she was sure she hovered above the car, looking down at the horror through the smoky glass of the car’s sunroof.

He’d killed her. That bastard, Bobby. Her shoes were gone; one of her dollar-store socks slipped off as he tried to get a solid grip on her ankles. He flung the sock out the open car door and pulled what was left of her beaten body from the backseat, dragging her over by the garbage cans.

He’d killed her, and now he covered her with trash. Old pizza boxes and discarded newspapers were tossed casually over her naked body.

For a moment she gazed up at the snow falling on her, and then she closed her eyes. She thought she heard wind rushing by her ears. Flying. She was flying. The ugly city of Chalpin was gone now and so was all her pain. Angel embraced the blackness around her as she soared up into the heavy clouds that spit their snow onto the streets below.

Chapter Three

Brody still held out hope that someone had dropped their wallet, money, some change, anything. There was nothing of any value lying along the curb, only litter, empty plastic soda bottles, and bent cans partially covered with fresh snow.

The green Dumpsters by the bar were all empty, except for a few bags of trash, mostly full of cigarette butts and dirty bar napkins. He gathered up handfuls of long cigarette butts and wrapped them in a napkin. He only had a few smokes left and wasn’t too proud to take what other people had let go out in the ashtrays.

The rusty blue Dumpster near the liquor store held some flattened cardboard boxes, and there was a broken tequila bottle at the very bottom. Brody looked down at the shards of glass sparking in the dim light, wishing that bottle wasn’t broken and empty. Patrone. Hell, he hadn’t been able to afford a bottle of Patrone in years.

He could sell his piano. That thought often came up in his mind. It was worth a lot, but he’d made it this long without parting with his old friend. He wasn’t going to let it go now.

He tried counting the loose change from his pocket again, but his hands were shaking too badly. Most of what he had was pennies, but a quarter slipped from his fingers and fell into the snow on the sidewalk near his feet. He jammed the rest of the money back in his jeans and clawed at the ground, trying to find the dropped coin in the snow. Brody lost his balance and fell, slamming his elbow on the icy cement. He felt nothing for a few seconds, but then pain shot up his arm. He lay there for a while, staring down at the dirty sidewalk, wondering if he’d broken any bones. Gingerly he wrapped his hand around his arm, trying to feel jagged pieces. There didn’t seem to be any damage, and his body was so numb from cold that the pain had already diminished.

With considerable effort he pulled himself onto his knees. The snow around him shimmered beneath the sallow glow of the streetlights. A cold gust whipped down the street, and Christmas lights rattled against the side of the building that housed the liquor store. Christmas was over, wasn’t it? Yeah, it was mid-January now. He’d promised Sam again on New Year’s that he’d clean himself up and get a job.

Like most of the promises he’d made over the past however many years, that wasn’t going very well. Maybe he just hadn’t tried hard enough, but it had been harder than he’d thought it was going to be. It seemed like he should be able to do it for Sam. Hell, the way he felt about Sam it seemed as if he should be able to do anything for him.

The woman at the clinic said you couldn’t stop using for somebody else. You had to do it for
you
, because
you
wanted it. She had gone on to explain that your first reason for wanting to quit could be for someone else, but until you reached the place where you wanted it for yourself as well, you were not going to be successful. She’d shared that little pearl of wisdom in the same bored monotone that she spoke of everything else, except that one had stuck with Brody.

If it was true, that probably explained why he was having such a hard time quitting, because in all honesty he didn’t give a shit. He felt better when he was high than when he wasn’t, and if it was up to him, he’d be high all the damn time. Sam was the
only
reason he was trying to quit. Brody had yet to get to that place where he wanted it for himself, and if he looked at things honestly, he highly doubted he ever would.

He’d keep trying—but only for Sam.

Sam was something special, a rare find, a precious diamond in a sea of shit. A man big enough to snap him in half but who was more docile than a kitten, a guy who was flat-out gorgeous, who could have had anyone he wanted if he wasn’t so shy.

If someone would have ever told Brody that there was a man out there like Sam, he never would have believed it. Never could he have imagined meeting someone like Sam Marcello. Brody knew the truth. It was he who was the lucky one, because he did not deserve the love that Sam lavished on him.

Sweet Samson, who had come to Brody damn near a virgin. A virgin where it mattered as far as Brody was concerned. Sam’s muscled ass fit Brody tighter than his leather stage pants once had, but it was Sam’s shyness, his sweet, good-hearted wholesomeness that had really set him apart from the rest.

Brody had immediately sensed Sam’s fear that he was just one of many. Initially Brody had manipulated him through that fear, made him believe Sam was lucky just to kneel at his feet and service him. Brody had seen the broken, lonely boy inside of the big, strong Sam. He’d homed in on that boy, knowing Sam would be easy prey. Brody hadn’t expected to fall for him. Strong, beautiful Sam, who had willingly surrendered his body while stealing Brody’s heart.

Sam got off on being dominated, and while Brody got off on dominating him, he knew there was something more that Sam needed, something Brody couldn’t give him, something Sam probably didn’t even recognize he needed. Sam needed softness. He needed tenderness and warmth, needed to be held and reassured.

Brody had tried, but he couldn’t give Sam that. Sam’s appeal was his innocence, and Brody loved to bruise that innocence. Loved to tarnish Sam’s cleanliness and sometimes get a little rough when he was fucking him, but he really didn’t want to hurt Sam. The marks Brody sometimes left—red handprints on the pale skin of Sam’s ass—they weren’t meant to be marks of pain, just…ownership. Sam was his. He’d never really hurt Sam. Never.

Not like that plumber or electrician or whatever the fuck he was. Sam didn’t talk about him much, but Brody had heard enough and he could guess the rest. That was the reason the boy inside Sam was broken. Poor Sam had just been a kid, and that plumber was a grown-ass man who shouldn’t have done a high-school boy like that. Brody knew that man was the reason Sam always wanted to be hurt. Rough sex was the only thing the kid had ever known. All you had to do was look in Sam’s eyes and you could see he needed more than that. Brody wished he had that in him to give, wished he could learn to be more loving and patient. Why was it so damn difficult? There was not a doubt in his mind that he loved Sam, so why couldn’t he be what Sam needed?

If they split up—then what? Brody couldn’t stand the thought of life without Sam, and what would Sam do? Go from club to club, getting picked up, used, fucked, and then discarded.

That fucking plumber, he’d messed Sam’s mind up good, made Sam believe he loved him. Brody sort of felt bad for Sam’s mom since he’d heard that story about the plumber. Sam had told his mom he was gay, told her he loved the guy and he was going to be with him. That plumber hadn’t stuck around too long before he just tossed Sam out. Alone, estranged from his mom, his whole fucking life…left poor Sam all mixed-up and twisting in the wind.

Wind. There was plenty of that right now, and it felt like it was blowing straight out of Antarctica. He shivered.

Brody didn’t have a coat on. He’d been outside over an hour, and it finally registered in his hazy mind he’d forgotten to put it on before he left. No wonder his arms were numb. He wished Sam would have at least left him enough money to buy some cheap wine. The man seemed to think going to the methadone clinic was going to be magical. Brody only wanted to feel normal, and for him, at this point in his life it took either heroin or booze to do it. He really didn’t want to get high right now, but he was tired of feeling sick.

There was a bright glow up the street. The sign on the pharmacy lit up like a lighthouse beacon, calling to him. They’d have pills there. He didn’t have a gun, but there were knives at home in the kitchen drawer. How hard could it be to rob a pharmacy? It wasn’t a bank; there weren’t any guards.

It would be a whole lot easier to go in the liquor store and steal a bottle. He could just hide it under his coat. No, he hadn’t worn the damn coat. All he had on was a thin ribbed T-shirt, and there was nowhere to hide a bottle without it being seen.

He looked back at the drugstore. Oh, they’d have pills there. Pills— No, wait…he had pills. A few Vicodin that his buddy Benny had given him for helping him clean out a unit in an apartment building downtown. He had a few sleeping pills too. They didn’t interest him all that much, but at least when he started feeling like he needed
something
, he’d be able to close his eyes and shut away that feeling.

He stood up unsteadily and made his way down the sidewalk toward home, his mind focused on those three white pain pills he’d left lying on the dresser. There were a few wine bottles in the bedroom. Some of them probably had a swallow or two left. Something to wash those pills down would be a nice touch.

At the corner of his apartment building he stopped for just a second to rest. He leaned against the rough brick, his empty stomach cramping. He couldn’t throw up; there was nothing to throw up. It was hard to remember the last time he’d eaten. Yesterday, possibly, but he couldn’t be sure. His memory wasn’t very good anymore.

Looking at the narrow space between the buildings, he saw all the garbage cans lined up against the side wall. Maybe there was something in one of them. Maybe someone had cleaned out their medicine cabinet and got rid of old prescription drugs or threw away a vodka bottle that wasn’t quite empty yet. A few Vicodins would hardly get him through the night. He needed more. Brody made his way down the alley and began opening the lids, ripping open bags, and looking for treasure among the trash.

Something lay on the ground in front of one of the cans. He picked it up and examined it. The light back here wasn’t real good, but it appeared to be a sock. It was dark and squishy in his hand, still slightly warm, and he smelled the rich, coppery odor of blood. Brody let it fall to the ground at his feet and stared down at the red smears on his fingers.

Something wasn’t right here. He didn’t need to be in any new shit. He had enough problems. As he quickly turned to go, he saw something protruding from a piece of frozen cardboard and some old newspapers. A bare leg.

His breathing quickened and his stomached churned. His first instinct told him to go—just get the fuck out of here. He didn’t need this, didn’t want this…

But he didn’t go. For whatever reason, he couldn’t leave. No one deserved this, to be dumped out here like a bag of garbage.

A mannequin, it’s just a mannequin, he promised himself as he moved the trash away from it. People died around here every day, but he didn’t want to come face-to-face with that, didn’t want to find a body.

She wasn’t a mannequin. It took him a minute, but he recognized her. One of the working girls from up the street. One he’d taken notice of, the newest one, a pretty, sad-eyed girl who looked like if life was fair, it should have been nice enough to give her something a little better than being a prostitute.

He squatted for a better look, his eyes focused on her face, slack and relaxed like some sleeping fairy-tale princess. In this light, with her eyes closed, she looked more like an angel than a whore.

Dark hair framed the face of the angel in the snow, full lips, her mouth slightly open, and yet she was so very still. His gaze slid down her body. She was all pale skin and lush curves, lying bruised and broken. She was completely naked, except for a little sock on one of her feet. Blood splattered the snow around her.

He sat back on his heels, the scene before him blurring. This was real, it was really happening. Despite everything being sort of dark around the edges in his mind, this was actually happening. A body.
Fuck. Fuck, fuckity-fuck! Shouldn’t have left the apartment
. This was way worse than letting Krieger stay in and piss on the blanket. Sam was gonna shit.