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“Yeah, that sounds great. Where would we go?”
“There’s a place my friend Bronx told me about. There’s a lake and it’s quiet. We could throw some food in a backpack and head out. I have an extra helmet and riding gear.”
She smiled, remembering, “Ashley used to love your Harley.”
He winked. “Because of the rumble between the thighs, baby.”
Her cheeks lit up and she laughed, chagrined. “Please don’t make any references of a sexual nature about my sister. I’m swimming in enough guilt as it is for what we’ve done.”
He sobered and nodded, cursing his slip of the tongue. Way to put your foot in your mouth. “Yeah, good call. I’ll get your gear.”
They geared up and Angel climbed on behind him, circling her arms around his waist and they took off. It was an hour ride from the city and geared in leathers the ride wasn’t too brisk. Bronx told him that he and Dee had come to this place and subsequently conceived their daughter, Ava Jade, so he considered the lake, special. Pyro liked the idea of taking Angel some place that didn’t hold any bad memories for either of them so he was happy to see that his instinct had been spot on.
Angel removed her helmet and shook out her hair as she exclaimed at the beauty. “This is gorgeous. Who knew this was just outside the city?”
The recent rain storm had washed away the dreary skies and replaced it with crisp, clean air as it blew through the trees and danced with the white caps on the lake. Pyro spread out the blanket while Angel unloaded the backpack with their food. It was basic, bologna sandwiches, two beers, and two candy bars but Angel didn’t seem to mind.
“You like it?”
“It’s perfect,” she breathed, a sigh of true happiness following. “I needed this. I can’t remember the last time I had the chance to escape the city. Without a car, it’s hard to go far.”
He remembered those days. Extreme poverty had a way of sticking to you with the experiences left over from your childhood. Pyro had always sworn never to be left to anyone else’s mercy and that included always having enough cash stashed in case he needed to bolt and always having a way to split the scene. Over the years he’d been frugal to the point of miserly so he had more than enough stashed away for a rainy day and his Harley was his only indulgence. “What happened to you after you split?” he asked.
She quieted for a long moment. “I stayed on a few friends’ couches for a few nights but when the cops started coming around, I knew it wasn’t safe. I didn’t know who to trust and I had nowhere to go so I went to the streets.”
Hell, that must’ve been rough for a naive 16-year-old who’d just had her whole life ripped apart. “I’m sorry. I tried to find you but I was so consumed with rage that I admittedly didn’t try hard enough.”
“At first it wasn’t so bad. I found a few people who let me crash at their commune. A month in though and I knew it wasn’t my scene. Not really into sharing, if you know what I mean.”
Ah, true communal lifestyle. Share and share alike. He wouldn’t do so well with that gig either. “Yeah, me neither. How’d you get hooked up with this Benton douchebag?”
“Actually…I met him at the community college where I was trying to get my GED. He seemed nice and he was real sweet to me at first.” She ducked her gaze, as if embarrassed by how stupid she’d been to trust a man like him but he didn’t blame her. Good con artists were successful only if they were excellent liars. “I thought he was different from the guys I’d been shacking up with. I didn’t realize until it was too late that he was worse.”
“We all make mistakes. Trusting the wrong person is always a hard lesson but it happens. You’ll get through this and come out the other side, smarter and I’ll bet you’ll never get snowed by someone like Benton Algiers ever again.”
“I hope so.”
The quiet pain in her voice rocked him. He wanted to comfort her, to draw her close and chase away her demons but he wasn’t sure if she would allow him to do that. He didn’t know what the hell was happening between them but it pulsed like a live wire and that was pretty hard to ignore. “How about we eat? These bologna sandwiches aren’t getting any fresher.”
At that she laughed and wiped away a solitary tear as she agreed. “Good news is, I don’t think bologna goes bad, does it?”
“With all the preservatives they pump into our food, I’m surprised when anything goes bad.”
They laughed together and enjoyed the little picnic, listening to the birds twitter and the wind whistle through the trees as well as the occasional splash of a fish breaking the surface and before too long it was time to pack it in.
He couldn’t remember the last time his heart felt so light. It was a heady feeling and one he didn’t know how to trust but he was going to enjoy it while it lasted.
God only knew what was coming around the corner.
-9-
Angel wound her arms around Pyro’s solid body and closed her eyes as he revved the motorcycle and put them back on the road. As much as he tried to hide it, Pyro was a good man and she was a rotten bitch for doing what she planned to do to him. He believed her — he believed that he was helping her out of a bad situation when in fact, she was delivering him into one.
She was practically feeding him to the wolves.
Angel squeezed her eyes shut more tightly and wished she could change everything but she didn’t know how to do that without endangering Mila’s life. She’d left out huge chunks of her life after Ashley had died because it seemed unnecessarily cruel to burden him with more guilt. Running on the streets had been dangerous, each night filled with umpteen possibilities for death or worse, because the predators roamed the desolate streets at night, looking for desperate kids to snatch up. One night, after ditching the commune, she’d been desperate for a place to sleep and had gone against her better judgment in accepting the invitation of a group of rangy street kids to bunk down with them. They told her, safety in numbers and even though her intuition had told her they were bad
news, it seemed far worse to sleep alone under a bridge. They’d taken her down to their hideaway, an abandoned shoe factory on the edge of the city where a number of street kids hung out. That’d been one of the worst nights of her life. She’d been gang-raped by no less than five guys that night.
And she’d gotten pregnant.
Of course, her first thought had been to end the pregnancy. But she couldn’t do it. Not when she’d been forced to watch as her sister’s unborn child died in her belly. She couldn’t end a life, not when she had a chance to give it life. So she’d briefly found a teen pregnancy shelter and hung out there for a few months but when the rules became stifling she bailed and found her own place with the hopes of finally getting on her feet.
Best of intentions. Funny thing, they never worked out the way you planned.
Just when she’d finally started to see the light, Benton entered her life and the rest was fucked up history.
How could she burden Pyro with that knowledge? He would blame himself even more so than he already did. And yeah, she’d blamed him something fierce for a long time but she couldn’t bring herself to do that any longer. He wasn’t the monster she’d thought he was.
Which brought her back to the situation presently leering at her like a lunatic clown.
I’m so sorry, Pyro. I wish there was another way. God, please don’t hate me.
Mila’s life was on the line. She had to do whatever it took.
Even if it meant betraying the one man who wanted to help her.
***
“You’re quiet. Everything okay?” Pyro asked when he realized Angel hadn’t said much since returning from the lake. “That bologna not sitting well?”
