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And then Shoot was offering me his hand. And I remembered the knife.
He took it with the barest of smiles at his lips. Just a ghost of a grin with a light in his eyes as he tucked it into his shoe much like I had done.
Then everyone was gone.
And, somehow, the train car was more full of tension than it had been with three bad guys in it.
Because Breaker looked like something had shattered inside him.
He wasn't that kind of man.
The kind who used his strength against women.
And he couldn't reconcile this reality with the idea he had of himself.
Well, he was just going to have to get over it.
It was over.
Hopefully it never had to happen again.
But even if it did, I could never blame him for it.
“What the fuck do you mean you gave Shoot a knife?”
He took the stairs casually two at a time to match my run.
“I mean I took one of your pocketknives out of your pantry and put it in my boot. And when I fell... I handed it off to Shoot.”
Breaker stopped at the top landing, blocking my way, looking down at me. “Say again?”
I felt myself shrug. “I figured if he got himself into a situation... it would be good for him to have... something.”
“He's good with a knife,” Breaker said, looking over my shoulder. “Almost as good as he is with a gun.”
“And with a name like Shooter, I imagine that is pretty good.”
To this, he nodded. “You may have just saved his life, Alex,” he said, his blue eyes soft.
“It was the least I could do seeing as he was ready to give his life up for me,” I said, moving upward so he had to step back for me to walk past. It was starting to feel claustrophobic in the warehouse. I needed to get out. Get away. Breaker led me out to the car, opening my door for me, when I finally blurted out something I had been wondering since he said it. “Why would you send Shooter's dad scotch?”
Breaker snorted, his eyes warming a little. “Shoot's dad is a boozer. Always has been. Mean fuck when he drinks. Which is all the time. Used to beat the shit out of Shoot. As soon as he could afford it, he started sending his old man cases of expensive scotch every month.”
“Why?”
“It's just his own little 'fuck you' to him I guess. Knows the bastard would want to turn it down, but he can't 'cause he's an alcoholic, so he drinks it all. Gives Shoot some kind of sick satisfaction.”
“I like Shooter,” I said, getting into the seat and looking over at Breaker who was just standing there, holding the door open, his face a blank mask. “You'll get him back, Breaker.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw as he slammed the door and made his way around the truck.
The entire ride back to his house was in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Which we probably should have been sharing. Comparing notes about what happened. See if we both picked up on the same strangeness of the whole encounter.
If Lex knew what I was doing, why was he having Breaker keep me? Why wasn't I in the fallout shelter in the woods getting all kinds of tortured? Why was I being given more time to do more damage? It made no sense whatsoever.
The rocks crunched under the tires of the truck, snapping me out of my thoughts as his house came into view.
Breaker got silently out of the truck and made his way up to the door, leaving me to follow behind him.
He needed to snap out of it. Hell, if anything, shouldn't he be happy I wasn't like... seizing and foaming out the mouth right about then? Hello... we should have been celebrating the fact that I was able to breathe another day. But, no, he was being all sulky because he had to put a hand on me.
Granted, my jaw was killing me, but I wasn't telling him that.
Sometime halfway into the ride, the adrenaline slipped away, taking with it whatever was keeping me blissfully unaware of pain. The throbbing came back stronger. Anytime I tried to open my mouth, it sent a shooting pain up my mandible and into my temple.
But still. It wasn't something to be all broken up about.
Breaker went in and went right to his liquor cabinet, taking out two glasses, and pouring into one. He raised the second one to me and I shook my head. I wasn't much of a drinker. And I definitely didn't drink whiskey straight from the bottle.
“I'm gonna go... get cleaned up,” I said instead, needing to get out of the dusty clothes, needing to wash the whole experience away. And also, needing to give Breaker a few more minutes to get himself back together.
I showered, changed back into the tee Breaker had given me earlier, then stopped to check out the damage to my face.
It was darkening. A bluish-purple four inch mark at the line just above my jawbone. With any luck, it wouldn't get much worse. He was already going to have a hard enough time looking at me.
I walked back out to find him sitting on the couch, the TV on low and his gaze was fixed on it, but he was looking through it. He had a rocks glass on his thigh, his hand wrapped around it, it's amber liquid half-filling it.
With a sigh, I made my way toward the living room, picking up his laptop as I passed and sitting down beside him.
There was still no response on the post so I set to work adding some more details, reports, making an even clearer image of Lex and his dealings.
Then I moved the laptop back onto the coffee table, still open, and turned to Breaker. He was still staring at the TV.
I reached over, taking the glass out of his hand and he let me, then put it back on the coffee table.
