Never by Blue Saffire
Preface
Dropping In
Sal
Evanescence’s “My Immortal” plays in my ears as I sit lost in the screens before me. The words couldn’t speak more to my soul. My mind has been full the last few weeks.
I try to force the coding and work before me to distract me. I reach for my shoulder, the flesh there raw from my trying to wash the past away. It didn’t work, it never does.
I still feel filthy. My skin only hurts and serves as a reminder of the pain that radiates within. I close my eyes as the memories try to rush me. My phone rings startling me.
I nearly jump out of my skin. Seeing its King, I rush to answer. The last thing I want to do is alarm him.
I take in a deep breath and force a smile on my lips before I speak, as if he can see me. “Hey,” I sing into the phone.
“Hey, baby girl,” he replies. “I’m on my way up.”
I look at the monitors that have surveillance of the inside and outside of my apartment. Sure enough, I catch sight of King walking into the lobby, toward the old, caged lift. The sound of the lift outside my apartment door reaches me and snaps me into action.
I hang up and go to open my front door. King always calls before he comes up and he never uses the entrance that will bring him straight into the apartment, even though he has full access to.
To be honest, I hardly use that direct entrance myself unless I’m taking my bike out or returning with it. It’s safer to come in through the front. My apartment and building are a rare New York gem, but it’s still New York.
It’s as if King wants to make sure I’m decent or to prevent startling me when he comes by. Either way, I appreciate my stepbrother’s thoughtfulness. Stepbrother. King has been more like a blood brother to me from the day our parents moved us in together, maybe more so.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” I say when King saunters toward me as he steps off the ancient elevator.
“I got some shit I need you to look at.”
I back up and allow him to step in. I close the door and turn right into the bear hug King has for me. He always smells so nice and it’s welcoming. No, comforting. Something I can use today more than he can ever know.
“Cool, do you just need me to look, or should I input any of it?”
“It’s all for input. You can shred it all after,” he replies.
That’s my job. I use my photographic memory to store and encrypt information for the Lost Souls. It’s a little known fact. A fact King wants to keep to himself as much as possible.
Sometimes I think he was relieved when I asked to move away somewhere to be alone for a while. Less questions, less eyes. A win, win if you ask me.
“You want something to drink?”
“Yeah, you got any of that beer I left here?”
“Sure do,” I say and laugh.
He knows I’m not touching the stuff. I’m not that big on the taste. Especially not the brand he likes. Not to mention, I like to be alert at all times.
I go to the fridge and get him a beer before I go back to my desk, where he’s placed three large files. This might take a while.
“Give me a few secs to close out this stuff I was working on and I’ll start,” I say as I quickly finish up the last of the coding and data entry I was working on.
King moves to stand over my shoulder. “Is that the new program?”
“Yeah.”
“How’s it holding up? You think we’ll be able to use it for all the chapters across the board?”
I snort. “Did I code this?”
He palms the top of my head and shakes it as he laughs. “The haircut looks good on you, by the way,” he says through his chuckle.
I reach up and touch my newly chopped-off mane. I thought it would take the eyes off me. I thought it would release the pressure that builds in my skull. It didn’t.
Honestly, I think I get more looks. I’ve been offered business cards of agents that want me to model or act. Not that I trust any of them. This is New York, after all.
“Thanks. I needed a change,” I say.
Again, I appreciate King not making a big deal out of my need for change. Leave it to him to be smooth about my cut. I might keep it.
It does make me feel badass some days. I shrug off the thought and close out of the work I just finished. I reach for the first file and start to look through the docs.
“I’ll leave you to do your thing. You want something to eat? I’m starving,” King says as he moves toward the couch.
“Yeah, I say absently as I flip through the pages.”
I’m lost in absorbing what I’m looking at. My mind takes a snapshot of each page, committing it to memory. I smile as an old memory comes to the surface. The day Cage realized I was able to do this.
Cage patted his pockets, looking around the garage where he was fixing a bike. I was glued to his side to watch him take it apart and put it back together. I was too small to give any real help, but Cage always allowed me to watch.
“Where’d I put that damn paper?” he grumbled to himself as he held his phone and searched.
“555-6822,” I said.
Cage looked down at me and wrinkled his brows. I was shy, so I started to feel nervous. I wasn’t sure if I did something wrong, so I repeated the phone number, and this time gave the address too.
“38 Hudson Ave.,” I finished as I watch Cage’s face.
“What’s that, baby girl?”
“The number and address on the paper,” I said in almost a whisper.
“How do you know that?”
I point toward his office in the clubhouse, where I’d been sitting on his desk as he barked orders and handled club business. The paper he’s looking for was on top of his desk, placed over a stack of other papers. I could see it in my mind as clearly as if I were still sitting there.
“The paper is on your desk. That’s what’s written on it. I saw it when we were in there,” I replied.
Cage grabbed my hand and walked back into the clubhouse. We entered his office and he stopped before the desk. He picked up the piece of paper.
“What’s the zip code?”
“29063,” I replied.
His brows threaded. “And you’re telling me this from looking at this paper while you sat on the desk?”
I nodded. “The paper under that one has a number on the top. Invoice 678094,” I answered.
He reached for the other paper. His brows shot up into his hairline as he read the top. He looked back at me with wide blue eyes.
Cage squatted down to get eye level with me. “Can you just remember numbers?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not the numbers. I can see the desk. Like pictures in my head.
“I remember everything on the desk. You have a pen that says Soul Emotions by your mug. The mug says Body and Soul Body Shop.
“You have a picture of Mommy on the right side of the desk, in a wooden frame, but it’s only there when she’s not around. You put it in the top right drawer when she is. It sits on top of the red folder,” I reply, remembering the day Mommy came to pick me up and Cage placed the picture in the drawer as I sat on his desk reading a book.
Cage never let me out of his sight when I went to the clubhouse to watch him fix bikes. I was his shadow. I had several pictures in my brain of the time I spent in his office and the garage.
Cage cupped my little head in his hand and roared with laughter. “I knew you were a genius, baby girl, but this takes the cake.”
“Kodax,” King calls, pulling me from my thoughts.
My smile grows. That’s the name Cage gave me when he learned of my talent. Only those close to me know about it.
“What’s up?” I murmur.
“I asked if you wanted Chinese or pizza,” King says.
“Oh, not pizza. Dude, I got so sick the last time I ate from that one place. I haven’t had pizza since. Chinese is cool.”
We fall silent again. Only the sound of the shredder beside me and the TV King put on in the living room area playing as background noise. My mind has found peace for now.
My big brother is here. I can breathe.
Gutter
I’ve hit rock bottom. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. At this point, I don’t know if I want to live anymore.
I snort into my beer. Trust, I couldn’t even tell anyone how I ended up in this bar in Richmond, Virginia. I got on my bike and rode until I couldn’t anymore.
“You want another one, handsome?” the brunette bartender behind the bar asks.
I grunt my response and nod. She’s been giving me more attention than any of the other patrons here. I’m not much for talking, but I’ve kept my responses to her simpler than usual.
I want to be left alone. I’m not interested in whatever she’s thinking behind those gray eyes she keeps batting at me. I finish the beer in my hand and put it down as she arrives with the fresh one.
“I’ve never seen you in here before. Are you just passing through?” she says this time.
“Yeah.”
Her smile brightens. “Not much of a talker, are you?”
I give her a pointed look. What the fuck does she think? If I’m not saying shit, isn’t it obvious? She lifts her hands as if in surrender.
“All right, cowboy. I can take a hint. Just thought you’d like some fun, no strings attached.”
I turn away from her and look toward the door. Right as I do, a dude with blond locs and a biker cut walks in. He looks around the place before he saunters to the bar.
There are other bikers around the bar, but this guy has a presence that draws the eye. He moves like he owns the place and could give two fucks about who has a problem with it.
He takes a seat across the bar from me and like him, I go about minding my business. I drown my attention in the beer before me. I have so many questions for the being who created me.
At the top of the list, what did I do to piss them off? I had to have offended someone to end up with this fucked-up life. Why have I never had a place to belong?
“Lord, have mercy on my soul,” I mutter as the ache of a lifetime of hurt washes over me.
“You heard what the fuck I said.”
The loud words grab my attention. I look across the bar to see some big guy shouting down at the blond dude. The guy with the locs turns slowly to look at the loudmouth. When he stands, its painstakingly slow, he towers over the guy and says something I can’t hear from here.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I notice five other guys who begin to surround the blond. He’s a big dude, but he’s definitely outnumbered. I don’t know what makes me get up.
Maybe I have a death wish and I’m ready to meet my maker in a filthy ass bar over a stupid bar fight that has nothing to do with me. Or it could be this feeling I have, like fate has something waiting for me if I butt in. Either way, when the blond hauls back and throws the first punch as if he’s not outnumbered, I smash my beer on the side of a stool and get to work with his ass.
Soon we end up in the middle of about ten guys. I’ve stabbed a couple before I drop the bottle and go with my bare knuckles. I’ve just knocked another one out when, through the corner of my eye, I see a guy heading for the blond dude with a knife.
“Look out,” I bark before I move to block the guy and grab his wrist.
I snap the fucker’s wrist with the force of my pent-up rage. The blade drops to the ground as he howls and falls to his knees. With a hand on the back of his head, I bring his face into my knee and relish the satisfying crunch of his nose.
“Hey, these motherfuckers run deep in these parts and apparently I’ve worn out my welcome. If you want to leave here breathing, let’s go,” the blond says as he heads for the door.
I look around and think it over for a split second before I start out the door behind him and jump on my bike. I don’t know why, but instead of heading north, I rode south with the guy in the Lost Souls cut. For the first time in a long time, it feels like I’m going in the right direction.