Page 89 of Ballistic

The the absence of her closed in on me with a suffocating reality as I entered the empty room. I couldn’t even look at the bed, or the chair where she’d sat by the window.

I picked up the extra burner phone, to see if perhaps she’d made a call, but the log showed not a single one—not even a cab ride.

She’d literally walked out of my life.

A cold certainty settled over me, at the same time a vile black poison crawled beneath my skin, infecting my veins with something dark and painful. Something that promised the kind of anguish I’d not felt in years.

I rubbed the back of my head, willing it away, but like an old friend, it’d become familiar with all my tricks and evasions.

With a swipe of my hand, I knocked the fifths from the table, sending them shattering in a firework of broken glass onto the floor. The intoxicating scent of whiskey filled the room as the liquor seeped into the carpeting. I shoved the whole table over and threw the chair across the room, her chair, and it slammed against the wall, leaving a hole in the drywall.

Hands braced on the underside of it, I flipped the bed onto its side, watching the mattress flop against the nightstand, sending the lamp crashing onto the floor. In a matter of seconds, the apartment stood trashed and destroyed.

Clutching my temples, I pressed my back against the wall and slid down to a sitting position onto the floor.

She was gone.

* * *

I’d somehow fallen asleep on the floor and awoke around three in the morning with a stiff neck and my face smashed into the carpet. Eyes swollen and tired, I got up and stumbled down to the car, where I fell into the driver’s seat. Drunk on exhaustion, I pulled out of the lot and drove the streets again, head swirling and dizzy, like I’d downed some potent liquor. A thin sheen of sleep glazed my eyes, giving a slight blur to my surroundings, but the lights in my rearview mirror were unmistakable. I pulled the car to the side of the road, and when the lithe form exited the vehicle and sidled up to my door, I didn’t know what the fuck to do.

Nancy bent forward enough that I could see she’d undone her top down to the cleavage, as usual. “You look like shit.”

We had this game, she and I, that’d started when she’d busted me for weed a couple years back. In exchange for being let go, I’d given her the best orgasm she’d ever had. I’d later learned that she was married and a sex addict—attended meetings and everything to help curb her cravings—so after that first encounter, she’d put herself on a mission to get that same high. Every so often, she’d pull me over, and we’d fuck like rabbits—wham-bam on the hood of a car, in an alley, whatever got her most excited. She liked the chase, the fact that I’d never fall into some serious shit with her, but more than that, she liked the idea that she could pull me over any time of the day to get her fix.

Eyes glued to the steering wheel, I shook my head. “I can’t do this, Nan. Not today.”

“That’s twice you turned me down. I’m starting to take it personally.”

“Not personal. I’m in a bad place right now.”

“Which is exactly why you need to be in a good place.” Long, blood-red fingernails scratched down my arm, and my knuckles turned white, clutched to the wheel. Used to be a time she’d drive me wild with those nails, but in that moment, the sensation made me want to crawl right the hell out of my skin. “I can take you there. You know I can.”

I could damn near feel the threads snapping inside my head.

“Why do you do this, huh?” Brimming with resentment, I glared back at her, and the last bits of thread slipped as I finally lost control. “You got a husband. A fucking beautiful house in the suburbs. A perfect life. And that’s not enough for you. Why?”

She pushed back from the car, her brows pinching in confusion. “’The hell happened to you?”

“Answer the question. Am I nothing but a piece of shit to you? A fuck toy? A story you can go back and tell your little suburban bitch friends about, how you slummed it up in Detroit with some thug, while your husband was at work?”

“Fuck off, Dax. Go get some sleep.”

“No, fuck you! Fuck you, and fuck your perfect life.” I exited the car, and she kicked back a step, but I still accosted her, staring down at her small frame.

“Back off. You don’t want to do this.” Her eyes held a world of warning, but not enough to make me follow her command.

“I’m tired of being some portable dick you can fuck whenever you get bored.” I eyed her up and down and forced a mirthless laugh. “Hey, you know what? I saw a bum up on Mount Elliott with a crack pipe. Maybe he’ll give you a rim job if you let him off on a warning. Better yet, you might get more gangbang for your buck by hitting up the crack house on Canfield.”

Eyes flickering with hurt, she backed herself toward the cruiser behind her. “You’re an asshole, Dax. Want to know why women treat you like a fuck toy? Look in the mirror.”

She got back into her vehicle, turning the lights off as she hit the gas and drove off.

I stood on the side of the road, wishing I felt some measure of remorse, all the while telling myself what a rotten prick I was for not feeling a damn thing.

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Dax