Invincible(45)

Then Shane got wrapped up with some fighter that was heavy into crime. Shane taught the guy how to perfect his stance and promised to give it back to Shane when he won a big fight. The guy won a fight and then showed Shane how to hot wire a car. That guy was murdered three months later at a drug deal gone wrong.

Shane taught me and it just stuck there in my mind.

Now it had come to good use. Go figure.

“I’m afraid to go in there,” Rose whispered. “I’m afraid to go anywhere.”

“Hey, no matter what happens, we’re together,” I said.

Rose looked at me. “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight, Wes. I know why you slept outside the door last night. But tonight… sleep with me.”

“I get too close to you, sweetie, and the last thing we’re going to do is sleep.”

Rose grinned. “Yeah, but that’s half the fun.”

“Only half?”

“Hard not to think about everything, Wes.”

I kissed Rose’s hand. “I know, sweetie. Let’s just settle for now. Let the smoke clear out of what happened. Then I can make some calls and figure out what to do next.”

“Which is?”

“I’m not exactly sure. If Aton is no better then I think we need to skip out of here. Out of state. Until he wakes up.”

“He’s not going to wake up,” Rose said. “I know it. If Luke did it… Luke doesn’t mess up.”

“Hey,” I growled. “He f*cked up tonight. He had a plan to take you out and it got f*cked up.”

“That’s because he put people in the middle,” Rose said. “He does that when he’s sending a warning. If he really wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Same for you, Wes. I’m sorry. He’s waiting for something.”

The anger boiled within me. I let go of Rose’s hand and opened the door. I leaned down and grabbed the wires, starting the car again.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“You don’t trust me? Then f*cking leave. Drive until you’re out of gas. Or just go back to him. Rat me out and I’ll take all the heat that’s coming.”

I slammed the door and walked in front of the lights of the car. I skipped the damn cabin and went to the lake. Where it was calm and peaceful, with some moonlight hitting the water.

It hurt when Rose talked like that. And that pissed me off even more. Because it meant I cared about what she thought of me.

Fuck that.

I stood in front of the deck and tried to think about a rational plan. But who the hell was I? I didn’t make plans. I wasn’t part of some family or the mob. I didn’t have a suit and tie and street cred to go out and hustle people down. My job was simple - mash up all the anger and pain in my body and take it out on whoever was put in front of me. When they went down and were out, the crowd cheered for me. Aton paid me. I went home. I drank. I f*cked. I woke up and did it all again.

“Wes?” Rose approached slowly. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“I just want to get out of all this. And if I end up with a bullet in the back of my head, then I at least went down swinging.”

“I know nothing but pain,” Rose said. “Nothing but being pushed around. Hurt. Told what to do. How to act. How to feel. Everyone has had something to hang over me and use me for it.”

“I don’t,” I said. “I have nothing hanging over you. You can go anytime you want, Rose. I’m not holding you here.”

“I know that, Wes. That’s why I’m here. On my own will. And that scares me. But I don’t want to bring pain to you. Or danger.”

“Too late,” I said with a smirk. “That ended when a bullet ripped open my shoulder.”

“That was your fault.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Wes, before everything went crazy the last time… when I told you about my brother and your brother… I confessed to you about a murder.”

“You said you blamed yourself for everyone dying.”

“It wasn’t just that. I’m accused of murder.”

I turned and faced Rose. “What?”

“Really. I’m accused of it. Luke has been protecting me.”

“Care to explain that to me?”

“I tried to escape.”

“What does that mean?”

“I met a guy who could help me,” Rose said.

My blood boiled with jealousy. That was something I wasn’t used to. I made fists and flexed my hands to calm down.

“He had done work for my father before,” Rose said. “He took care of false identifications. Sometimes if my father’s fighters got hurt, they’d need real medical attention. So they’d get a fake ID to get to a hospital and stuff. I don’t know how it worked in the background. I never asked or cared. But I remembered Roc. After my father died, Luke took control of everything and was bad from the beginning. Really bad. He loved to snort drugs and kill people. I knew he’d eventually want to kill me. So I tried to make an escape. I privately started to talk to Roc. See, when Luke took over, he kicked everyone out of the loop. All those contacts and relationships my father made were destroyed. I think Luke liked it. He liked making enemies because he had the size, strength, and power to fight back. All the damn time. Remember how you told me that story about that bully?”