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Damage Control. This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? Dealing with the past. Finding peace.
One day I hope to find it for myself, too.
Amber…
Yet, leaving my part time jobs is another matter. I pretend to agree to everything Zane says, to agree I can’t juggle so many gigs and focus on my apprenticeship, too, and leave it at that.
He wouldn’t understand, plus he’d be pissed, and it’s frightening how much I want to stay. To learn more, have an income and a roof over my head, and almost believe I have friends, a family of sorts.
I’m a sucker for this illusion. It’s what’s kept me sane all these years, this dream that I’d have a home one day, and that I’d stay.
Which is why I’m saving money. I need to be ready for whatever life throws into my path next. For once, I want to stay on my feet. Is it too fucking much to ask?
It’s in the middle of my shift at the café when Jason calls me. I forgot I even gave him my new number, and the bad feeling churning in my gut when I hear his voice cuts clear through my worries about Amber and the future.
“J? You okay?” he yells into the phone, and I wince, pulling it away from my ear. “Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you. Calm down.” I put the cell back to my ear. “What’s going on? Why the hell are you shouting?”
“Sorry. I’m in the waiting room in St. Mary’s. It’s packed full of people, like you wouldn’t believe.”
“St. Mary’s? Why?” I glance at the tables and the few customers, then at Megan who’s leaning back on the bar, observing. I turn my back and head for the door.
“We got another one down. A girl this time, Mia. It was him. Simon Gomez.”
“You can’t know that.” Yet my stomach is knotting up.
“They saw him, man. But nobody will testify.”
Dammit. “Why would he do this?”
“Think, J. Why did he beat you up back then?”
“Crazy bastard said I was on his turf.”
“You know Kaia died right?”
The pimp controlling the neighborhood, the one that kept Simon back until now.
I stumble as I go down the steps to the street and barely catch myself before I fall. “What? When?”
“Ten days ago. The night Mikey was beaten. Then he caught Kyle, and now Mia. He’s got drugs circulating, and he wants us away. As you said, a crazy bastard.”
Fuck, fuck. “Mia should tell the police. She—”
“You should do it, J. She’s just a kid, and tomorrow she’ll be back on the street. Can’t afford it, but you… He won’t even know who ratted him out. I doubt he remembers you after three years.”
But maybe he does.
Jason doesn’t know the whole story. Nobody does but me. It’s personal all right. Simon wanted more than just vacation of the premises. He wanted me to join him.
And as a first step, he demanded I go down on him. When I refused, he tried to force me. I was exhausted from hunger and a bad cold that wouldn’t let up. But I fought back, and I have the fucking scars to show for it.
He didn’t get his way. For a man like him, that has to be something memorable.
“This is a shitty plan,” I mutter, “and you know it.”
“Yeah, well, it’s the only plan we got, baby,” Jason drawls and disconnects.
