Sidewalk Flower (47 page)

“You have exactly one minute,” Sam
threatened.

Trissy still hadn’t so much as taken in a
deep breath.
 
She hadn’t flinched
throughout the backwoods, twisted manipulation he was entangled in with their
captors.
 
She was alive, he was sure of
that but he feared she was in shock.
 
It
was better this way, somehow.
 
Her voice
would only have served to break his nerve again.
 
He needed her to be lying there, still and
silent.
 
A non-participant in this
gruesome act he was about to perform.
 

He had less than sixty seconds now.
 
For her life and her love, her trust in him,
he had to do this.
 
He was a sexual
being, addicted to its nuances and the pleasures it brought to him.
 
It was what made him so lyrical and engaged
in his music.
 

Get hard
now.
 
Come on, man, you stupid selfish
prick.
 
Do this for her,
he thought
as he reached into his pants, turning his head to the side so as to not see
Trissy’s fallen face, laying there completely defenseless because of something
he had told her to do.
 

And then he remembered a night, about two
years passed.
 
He had been wasted on
White Lightning.
 
Drunken and at home
alone after just having blazed through a wicked fight with Vangie, he’d done a
very foolish thing.
 

Earlier in the day he’d very purposefully
and dutifully taken an Antabuse pill prescribed to him to aid in quitting the
booze.
 
But Vangie had not seen any point
in his attempt as she had already dug into the satisfaction of seeing him break
to her beck and call.
 
She walked out
after telling him that he shouldn’t waste his time.
 
He was never seeing their daughter
again.
 

The liquor and the medication had toxic
effects when mixed.
 
He’d called Trissy,
panicked.
 
When she arrived, he was
flushed and dizzy, his heartbeat so fast it caused him severe pain.
 
She offered and then insisted on a doctor but
he refused.
 
Eventually, after a
dehydrating sweat and numerous dips into a frigid tub of bath water, he came
down from the self-destructive foolery.
 

And for the rest of the night, she’d held
his head cradled in her arms.
 
No
berating him for the idiot he’d been.
 
No
see-through attempts to say everything would be fine in the morning.
 
She’d just held him.
 

He pushed himself further into the light
grasps of that raw memory.
 
The one where he had been so low and lost, a beggar in the night,
looking for comfort from his friend.
 
He’d needed her then almost as much as she needed him to do this for her
tonight.
 
Feeling the blood start to
slowly flow through his ashamed heart and down through the unrelenting pain of
the blows to his gut, seeping lower, it began to thicken a part of him that
might save the both of them.
 

“Sam, shit!
 
Look, headlights!”
 
Fox shouted to his leader.

His focus remained.
 
He couldn’t lose concentration again, he
already knew his time was nearly up and that it would be impossible to drudge
himself to this place again.
 
Trissy
remained inanimate, like a lifeless doll.
 

 
“J.D., look in the car for a phone.
 
See if she made any calls.”

“Three calls about forty-five minutes
ago.
 
Last one was ten minutes long.”

“She must have made it and then never
hung up.
 
Whaddaya wanna bet those are
friends of theirs?”
 

“I’m bored of this shit.
 
Let’s leave them with a quick parting
gift.”
 

Jaxon overheard most of what was being
said but his brain was thick with concentration and a fear of failing Trissy
again.

However when someone leveled a punishing
blow to his kidneys with the damned pole, he was brought back to their wretched
captors’ realm.
 
He tried staying
protectively covering Trissy but faltered, and then was picked up and tossed to
the ground.
 
Fox and Wade’s boots pressed
down into his throat and pinned his hands to the ground.
 
On his back and unable to move, he watched as
Sam grabbed Trissy from the hood and slammed her face first down on top of
him.
 
Sam then stole the pole out of
Fox’s hands and delivered a final blow to her side.
 
The parting gift was topped off with a
disgusting spew of hateful spit.
 

Neither of them moved.
 
As hard as it would’ve been to imagine a
horror like what had just played out, it was more difficult to believe it was
now over.
 
But after hearing the scuffle
of boots treading quickly and feverishly away from them, he rolled himself out
from under Trissy’s limp, frozen body.
 
He held her tight, searching for shelter, daring another to come at
them.
 
His breathing ragged, he lay on
full alert, through the throbbing pain that shot up his back and to the base of
his skull.
 
No one else was touching her
tonight.
 
No one.

Chapter
Thirty

Her mind hadn’t caught up yet to
accepting they were safe on the other side.
 
The past kept calling and like the silly moth to the flame, she’d
sacrifice her wings for the hope of finding that lurking warmth.
 
She had to be getting close.

“You’re not
coming?
 
Really?
 
This is a joke, right?”

“No, it’s
not, I’m sorry.
 
I’m really, really
sorry.
 
I feel like shit about it.”

“Me, too.”
 

The letdown was fierce.
 
Why was she doing this to herself?
 
She needed to find something good, something
hopeful.

“Look, I
understand you probably hate me right now.
 
But I have to play by different rules than you, Trissy.
 
You don’t have a little life hanging on a
thread being dangled in front of your every move.”

It was true, she didn’t.

“I didn’t ask
you for an apology and I didn’t ask you for an explanation.”

“Well, I am
asking for your forgiveness.”

“Why is she
doing this?
 
I don’t understand it.
 
What did I ever do to her?”

The thought of Vangie finding out about
tonight would have knotted her stomach if not coming on the heels of something
so horrid.

“It’s not her
fault.
 
It’s mine.
 
And you’ve done nothing wrong.
 
Okay?
 
I just have to deal with this until…”

“Until what?
 
Jaxon?
 
Huh?
 
Until what?”

“I don’t
know, Trissy.
 
But Maryellie needs
me.
 
So, I guess until she doesn’t
anymore.”

“I understand.
 
I’m still going, you know.”

“To see Gramma, right?”

“And to Duketown.”

“Can it
wait?
 
Maybe in a few weeks things will
be better and I can meet you there.”

“No, it can’t
wait.
 
And in a few weeks, we’ll be
getting ready for the tour.
 
I have to do
this now.”

“Maybe I can
send Benny with you.
 
I don’t want you on
this trip alone.”

“Ben doesn’t
know anything about this.
 
You’re the
only one who does, and Gramma.
 
I’d
prefer to keep it that way.
 
Look, I’m a
big girl.
 
I’ll be fine.”

“No, dammit,
I should be going with you.”

“But you’re
not.
 
That leaves me.”

“Trissy…”

“Don’t worry
about it, Jaxon.
 
I’ll be fine.”

When would her voice come back so she
could tell him that now?

* * * *

Silence filled the moist, cold
ground.
 
It had been a couple minutes and
Jaxon slowly began to accept that Sam and his band of devils were gone.
 
He didn’t care why they’d left.
 
They were gone and aside from a terribly pain
filled
beating,
he and Trissy had survived and
narrowly escaped something that would have ruined them forever.

He’d just been studying the numerous
injuries to her face when he noticed a stream of light flash and then
disappear.
 
But the small hills in the
lot made it difficult to make out much from his position.
 
He made like a cloak and hovered predatorily
over her.
 
Taking in a breath for
strength, he prepared to tuck her under him then slide beneath the carriage of
the car.
   

* * * *

Meeting Stefan in the hallway had been a
blessing in disguise.
 
The locust storm
in his eyes had to have told Stefan they were needed and the where’s or why’s
didn’t matter.
 
Stefan had quickly
dismissed the two inebriated girls who’d come up the elevator with him,
allowing them into his room to sleep off their alcohol haze and followed him
out to his truck.

 
On
the ride, he had no idea of what to say, especially when Stefan nearly flipped
on him.

“Well fuck, you’re absolutely sure we
want to be here?
 
If they came here
together, Lucky…
 
Look, I like you but if
you’re dicking around with Jaxon where Trista’s concerned, I should warn you
I’m gonna have his back.”

“Screw you, Stefan.”
 
He was over this entire ordeal and all these
people.
 
Let them hear what was really on
his mind.

“Hey, you wanna go—we’ll go.
 
Right here, right now,” Stefan said as they
parked.
 
His tattooed hands looked like
they’d smashed a few faces in but the darks of his eyes as he glared made it
clear he’d fight dirty.

“The only place I wanna go is to find
Trista.”
  

“Good.
 
Kill the lights.”
 
In the
distance, he could see a lone car.
 
“Lucky, way, way over there, far side closest to the tree line, that’s
my Saab.”

“You’re sure?”
 
But, it was familiar, even at this
distance.
 
They were roughly a few
football fields away.
 
But that
definitely looked like the car Trista had taken off in earlier.

“Yeah, man.
 
Jaxon asked if he could borrow it
tonight.
 
Said he needed to go clear his
head, hit the road for a while.”

“Yeah, Trista said the same.”
 
Why had that come out of his mouth?
 
He should lock up his thoughts.

Stefan’s raised brow made him wonder if
he was about to flip again.

“Look man, all I care about is making
sure Trista’s okay.”

“This place is too freaking quiet.
 
Who knows what could be out here.
 
I might have to kick Jaxon’s ass
myself.”
 
Just then, realization dawned
on Stefan’s face.
 
His eyes popped.
 
“Fuck, this probably isn’t a good sign.”

“Come on, Stefan, hurry.”

They were up and over the chain link
fence in a matter of seconds, sprinting over the paved asphalt and the
weathered, white-painted lines marking spaces.

The black sky hedged along by the never
ending tree line made it difficult to get their bearings but nature and the
woods didn’t intimidate him.
 
Together
they raced through the hilly overflow lots to get to Stefan’s car in the
farthest, most secluded backwoods area.
 
He’d bet money that’s where Jaxon had taken Trista to “clear their
heads”.