One Safe Place (42 page)

Evita was on the fourth floor. Psalms moved quickly up the stairs. Psalms encountered a Russian on the third floor as fearsome-looking as he was. The man was shaken from the explosions, but was ready for battle and surprised Psalms. He lunged down the stairs bringing all his weight down on Psalms' shoulder. His shoulder
dislocated, and the pain ripped through his upper body as his head hit the wall hard enough to put a hole in it. His head exploded in pain. He shook it off, but the pain in his shoulder was like a hot poker branding his flesh. Psalms went in to warrior mode, spinning hard and quickly bringing his other elbow around against the man's jaw. The power of the connection slammed the man's face in to a horrid position against a rail as it snapped his neck. Psalms lifted the large man up, injured shoulder and all, and threw him down the stairs.

In the room, Evita was getting some revenge. She had bitten her nails over the weeks to remain sharp and pointed. She sliced the face of Elliot as an eagle's claws tear the skin off a fish. Though he was bloody, she kept slicing his face as if her fingers were eagle claws. She had lost her mind and control. She could have escaped from being anywhere near Elliot, but she was in a daze. His bleeding face looked like a
Rocky Horror Picture Show
prop.

She went for his eyes, and self-preservation alerted Elliot to fight back. He stood up to fight against her slicing nails. He grabbed blindly for her and charged her.

Psalms ran through the door with a gun aimed and ready to shoot. Elliot and Evita were tussling as if she were a salmon evading a bear's teeth.

“Stop!” Psalms yelled.

Elliot stopped, but Evita kept squirming. Elliot held Evita's hair, forcing her forehead to his chest, but kept her teeth away from him. He twisted her tight enough to let her know he could snap her in two. Her naked, tattooed ass faced Psalms. Elliot held her tight by her hair and around her waist in front of him. He squeezed her violently and smiled at Psalms with his broken teeth.

“You whooped my ass that time you knocked me off my motorcycle.
I have never forgotten that, and I'll be damned if I let you put a bullet in me.”

“Do you know why?” Psalms asked.

“What, did I screw one of your girls? Was that the reason you tried to kill me? It was just pussy.”

Psalms moved closer, keeping the gun trained on Elliot's face. Evita held still as fear laced her face, and Elliot used her as a shield.

“Well, here we are for a little reunion. I just took this one's little pussy and played with her little dick and had fun.”

Psalms' face twisted, not understanding.

“What, dude, you don't know that your woman is a freak of nature?” Elliot laughed at the same time he tried to turn Evita around.

“Nooooo,” she screamed. Evita thrust forward toward Elliot's body, as if launching her body like a sprinter out of the blocks. It threw Elliot off his feet forcing him to go backward. He was against a patio door window. Because he was holding her tight, they both fell through and Evita kept charging as if she were Superwoman trying to take off and fly. The two of them hit a wood rail and broke through. Both Evita and Elliot sailed off the deck jetting down to the water. Psalms rushed forward, but he was unable to grab Evita.

The sounds that Evita had heard and that told her where she might be were of freighters and their fog horns passing through the Puget Sound. She knew the house was on one of the islands across from Seattle, and near a bluff. Psalms saw nothing but dark water and waves crashing against the shore as Evita and Elliot fell. He heard Elliot yelling, but the volume faded, and then there was no sound other than a splash.

Psalms ran down the stairs and out of the house, down the flights
of stairs that led to the water, leaping six and seven stairs at a time. Once at the water, he already had most of his clothes off. He jumped in and swam in the cold ocean water. He was going to find Evita.

He found her body in the shallows near big rocks. She was dead. Her body was broken, as she had landed on the rocks. He had to swim around the rocks to bring her back to shore; it was a struggle. He swam past a dead floating Elliot. He walked out of the water with Evita in his arms. His shoulder burned from the dislocation. His muscles were seizing from being in the cold water for over ten minutes. He felt another pain overshadowing his physical pain. EL'vis and Suzy Q made it down to the water. Psalms continued to carry Evita's body in his arms. He could see her whole pelvic area was mutilated from landing on the rocks. Psalms would never know the center of Evita's troubles. His body was trembling with chill, and his soul was numb with feeling some guilt from not being able to save her. He saw Suzy Q and El'vis, but walked away with her body as if he didn't.

“Go. We'll take care of all this,” Suzy Q said to Psalms' back. He walked up the long flights of stairs, and away in to the night.

I
t has been two weeks. I still have to sleep on the other side of my bed. I'm trying not to turn on my injured shoulder, because if by chance I do fall asleep, hopefully, I won't wake myself in pain. I haven't slept.

Pinned to my back is Gabrielle. I feel her glued to me since I came in that night. I think she's becoming one with my skin, and her breasts at my back are trying to connect to my heart. Every night and day since, she hasn't let me go pee without her holding my dick in her hand to assist me. I know she is worrying about me.

She saw my tears. I have only shed tears once; when my grandfather passed. Okay…I shed tears when I walked out of a room after my birth mother's lawyers handed me documents of deposits after I signed papers to leave her alone and to never try to see her again. Crying in front of Gabrielle hurt me to the core, because I had been hard about the things I didn't have to be, when you love someone.

I told Gabrielle everything that had been going on with Evita, the complete story about the kids, and the Russians, and Elliot. I told her everything current, except about any death I may have been a part of causing, but I didn't lie to her. She asked to be left out of the loop on anything like that. Although I know about her misguided endeavors, which could have brought about a loss of life, we respect certain things as off-limits to protect each other.

Gabrielle has told me Evita will be with me with every breath I take for the rest of my life, and she is perfectly okay with that. She found a picture of Evita and me on a beach in Spain, and Gabrielle had it blown up, and framed. The picture hangs on a wall in my place.

I could not imagine a woman being so sure of herself, and not threatened, but Gabrielle is cool about it. It says something about what I didn't know about love. It says a lot about how I don't know about women period, or at least as much as I thought I knew. She is rare.

Even though my grandfather told me many things, until you have experienced life and love stories for yourself, they don't matter. I know now that until you have practical involvement living in love and applying all that is associated with love, you don't know anything, and each encounter will leave you with more questions. I have treated love like an educated fool, but surely I have acted uneducated in how I have responded. My grandfather said, “It's not about what you do know about a woman. It's about what you don't know that should drive a man to love her hard enough to know what she truly needs, what you need, and how to give and appreciate receiving.”

Gabrielle smiles and looks at me in a way I now admit makes me weak. I'm in love, and I didn't know that, but I do now.

I loved Evita, and I knew that, but in love…no. I loved her, but I cared for her well-being more than the thought of being in love with her. In life, I wonder how many of us get it confused? How many think jealousy, or appearances, and maybe someone's attributes of gaining and controlling equates to loving them? I was to be Evita's one safe place where she could have one faithful friend.

Being in love with Gabrielle is my one safe place.

I see Gabrielle's drive to improve herself, and her becoming aware of her gifts, no longer influenced by what used to go inside her mind and body. She is making a new life of awareness, not only for me, but for her. She sees herself being happy with or without me. If I was her emotional pacifier, it is over now. She used to think she needed me, but she has grown to understand she wants me, and she only needs herself to be whole.

In some ways, maybe Gabrielle and I both relied on each other in passionate ways to free our minds so our asses would follow. In some ways, maybe we both relied on each other's intellectual challenges of wanting to solve the problems of the world as one. There is nothing wrong with all that. Yet our personal world is the most important world. Our world should be about loving those who love us. Our world should strip away how smart we are, and strip away refinements so we can be primal and spiritual with each other. In our world, we should treat ourselves to things as if we didn't have a dime.

I have learned a lot about myself. Number one, I have no control, no power to change others. Learning how Evita putting herself in to a rat trap of evil, made me so angry with her. At the same time, I miss her. I loved her in a special way, but I could not change her. I couldn't.

Evita apparently wanted to be kidnapped, for reasons only she would know. It had to be that she wanted more attention, but she got more than she bargained for and a raw deal. The woman Evita thought would help set up the abduction sold her straight up to a slave ring to support a drug habit. As if anyone with a long-term drug habit can be trusted.

Mintfurd was able to trace the credit card of the former Supersonics basketball team minority owner who kidnapped Evita. The
information led to people he dealt with, and most were criminals. Elliot and the former Seattle Sonics minority owner did business before and it all connected. The sex-slave ring just happened to feed back to Elliot by way of the female guard and her niece who were in to the sex-slave circuit.

We traced money transfers that happened through the former owner's cell phone while he was on Bainbridge Island across from Seattle. From there it wasn't hard to GPS to locate the house. Surveillance of the house for only a half-day and we knew we had the right place. Why would a local judge and his wife, and other wealthy business associates, catch a ferry to come to an isolated mansion that had security thugs watching the house? The local police were turning their heads for sure. A nice payoff was being placed in the right hands.

When we went in, we had no idea what we would find, but we figured Evita was there, or already dead. We used heat sensors to know that too many people were in isolated places that were not coming out.

It was not just about rescuing Evita. We have to be about doing the right thing for people who cannot fend for themselves. Street intel told us young women and teenage boys were disappearing, and being used up as human sex toys, and then returned to the street hooked on drugs.

I'm lying on the shoulder I don't usually sleep on due to my shoulder dislocation, but pain is worth the freedom for those who seek it, and people should not have their freedom taken from them. Most of us, in our comings and goings, believe the police are protecting us from the boogeymen.

While we hear about an ugly world, most of us get to drive by and watch it from a distance on a TV. Let the boogeyman step on
your porch, and then you'll know who has your back. The police and their backers don't care about you, and your problems. People like Darcelle suffer through threats and intimidation. A civil court, a police department, or a lawyer cannot help many people when an ugly world slimes them. I've been able to help people who couldn't drive by and get out of the way of a bully, who got hit front and center, and I will continue to help when I can. I said it before; I believe in justice, I just don't believe in a justice system set by laws put in place by unjust men. Add to that, any justice that comes from the hands of someone who receives money or favors will sooner or later deliver an excess of deceitfulness laced with prejudices fulfilling an unjust self-righteousness.

I try to save lives. I do the best I can. I honestly do. I love my crew. They are smart, and they are about doing the right thing.

Suzy Q may take some pleasure out of hurting people, but never from the sheer fact that she's out to hurt someone. It's always because it's the only thing that can be done. Suzy Q does what she does well. She grouses about being good at her job. My team—Velvet, Mintfurd, Suzy Q, EL'vis and my newest, Zelda—they let me lead, but will step up and get in my face or have me rethink or think deeper with less emotion when I slip up.

I love my best friend, Tylowe; he keeps me grounded and helps me to be a regular guy. He loves his family, and he laid it on the line to protect them. To protect these kids could have caused his own demise. I often sensed that Tylowe might have struggled with the warrior thing that happens in life for some of us, but for most, hardly ever. My man Tylowe was an athletic stud growing up, but life can mellow you out after you get off the playing field of chasing women, and the playing fields of athletics. Tylowe did his man thing quite well. I'm proud of him.

He and his wife, Meeah, are now raising kids again. They are giving instead of taking away as many do. We could have, but we didn't, do DNA tests to see who the children's father is. In the end, it doesn't matter, because they are in a safe place away from strife and greed.

We looked at the great-aunt frontward, backward and sideways, and it was as she said: the mother, Queen, had placed the kids in her care. She was caring for them very well. Tylowe and Meeah have a small cottage house on their lakefront property, and they are fixing up so the great-aunt can live there for as long as she likes. Tylowe is shipping all her things to Seattle. It also helps to have a live-in sitter for when you want to go and live a little, and spend some time lovin' your spouse.