The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1)(110)

“You’re upset,” he offered.

I flared my nostrils, exhaling slowly down my nose. “I’m fine. I just want to get a room, get some sleep, and get out of this shit hole. Just like you, I’m sure.”

Mr. Black laughed silently, propping his black suitcase up against the threadbare, heavily stained couch that had been positioned beneath the large picture windows by the front door.

“Not at all. I plan things very well,” he informed me. “I’m right where I need to be.”

“You came here on purpose?”

I was met with stony silence and a flat, indecipherable stare. “Liberty Fields is an historical landmark. Why not?”

I’d been out of the habit of rolling my eyes for well over a decade, but I felt prompted to give the ceiling tiles a once over in this instance. This guy was something else. He was baiting me, being difficult on purpose, and it didn’t look like he was going to quit any time soon. “All right, buddy. Well, I hope you have a stellar Hicksville vacation.”

“I’m here for work, actually.”

If this conversation had been a text message, I’d have given him the big blue thumbs up by now. Being passive aggressive was a nuanced art, and far easier via emoji, especially when you didn’t actually want to start a fight with someone. Mr. Black didn’t seem to care that he was being kind of hostile, though, so why the hell should I? “Let me guess. Playing in an emo 80’s cover band? Vampire coven gathering? Tarantino cos-play convention?”

Mr. Black’s smile was cool and unruffled, though he seemed to be spitting sparks of ice from his eyes. His irises were the color of winter. The color of early morning skies in February. They reminded me of being very, very small. Smoke on my breath and stiff, unresponsive fingers. Stomping my thick rubber soled boots against hard-packed snow, trying to regain feeling in my toes.

It was amazing how visual or auditory cues affected me sometimes. I could be waiting in line to buy popcorn at the movies, and then the next second I was being dragged backward through time, to fifteen years earlier, when my very first boyfriend tried to make me touch his dick in the back of his pick-up truck.

Every time I saw the ocean in person or even on TV, I immediately smelled the peachy, light, fragrant scent of my mother’s perfume, instead of the briny, salty sharpness of the water. My mind played tricks on me all the time.

“I’m a hitman. I took a job here in town,” Mr. Black said nonchalantly. He ducked down, unzipping his suitcase, and pulled out an iPad, which he turned on. The white flare of the screen as it powered up briefly lit up his face before it dimmed. I jabbed my fingernail into the rubbery seam that ran down the side of the public payphone, considering his last statement.

“I hear it pays well. Being a hitman.”

“It does.” He was distracted, not really paying attention.

“So, you roll up on a dark and stormy night. You secure a base for yourself. Then you sneak across town while the place is in chaos, and you...” I made a gun out of my hand, pretending to take aim, “…pull the trigger.”

“Pretty much. Something like that. Though, I’m going to wait until morning. Roads aren’t safe right now. Wouldn’t want to end up being responsible for an accident or something.”

That made me snort. “So you’re going to kill someone, but heaven forbid you cause an accident while you’re at it.”

“If I’m gonna kill someone, it’s because I’m being paid to do it. Not because the roads are treacherous and I can’t control my vehicle.”

Wow. This guy was good. He didn’t even flinch as he spoke of murder. Most people wouldn’t have been able to keep up the pretense. They would have laughed, or winked, or pulled a face, but not this guy. He lied as if he was speaking the truth. Looked like he believed it one hundred percent.

The lobby entryway opened, and a blast of wind howled through the door, pelting the couch and the small, peeling veneer coffee table with rainwater. A short, rotund, sour looking man wearing a cheap, plastic waterproof poncho bustled inside, swaying a little as he fought to get the door closed behind him. Mr. Black didn’t help him, but then neither did I. We both just watched as the strange, oddly shaped figure belted the bottom of the door with his booted foot, slapping his palms against the doorframe, as if he were trying to reshape the woodwork with his bare hands.

“Stupid…fucking…motherfucking…”

The door closed, and the man stopped swearing. He turned around, panting, his wide frame shuddering as he looked from me to Mr. Black and back again. His eyes were a watery blue—inconsistent and weak—and his cheeks were marked with a spider web of ruptured blood vessels and thread veins. “You’re outta luck,” he said, slurring a little. Shoving away from the entrance door, he pushed himself forward toward the front desk, as if he needed the momentum to help get himself there. “No more rooms!” he cried. Instead of raising the hatch in the counter, walking through and lowering it behind himself again, he ducked down and scurried underneath it, growling unhappily as he struggled to heave himself upright on the other side. I crossed the lobby and leaned against the desk, being very careful not to raise my voice.

“I’m sorry. There are rooms available. Your vacancy sign’s lit up in the parking lot.”

“So what? Sign’s always lit up, no matter what.” The man, in his late fifties and reeking like a stale bar rag, flashed me a yellow smile rotten enough to turn my stomach. “Besides, I ain’t had no time to turn the damn thing off. I been run off my feet, checking you people in and out all over the place. Don’t know if you’re comin’ or goin’, none of you.”