Page 10 of Phoenix
“Who’s this?”
“None of your business right now, Aiden,” Warren says bluntly to him, to which the younger man grins like he has seen this sort of thing a thousand times before and has learned to just accept whatever Warren says or does. “Don’t disturb us and don’t let Javier know I’m back yet.”
“Sure,” he replies with a casual shrug. “Your uncle left earlier today, and won’t be back for another week; he told me to tell you.”
Warren pulls his lips tightly together and then shuffles me out into a living area behind the bar. I’m shocked by how homely it looks, as if someone has tried to put a feminine touch to such a masculine atmosphere out the front. I notice photographs lining the walls, but I don’t look at them properly, instead, I pull back into the safety of a dark corner.
Hiding away, I watch Warren head over to the kitchen and put the kettle on, cursing under his breath when he notices the dirty cups sitting inside the sink. He looks far too big to live in this cozy little cottage set-up; it’s almost comical. He then moves out toward the couch that sits in front of my dark little hiding place, though his giant frame makes it look more like an armchair for him. He gestures to the armchair to the side of the couch, and I reluctantly take it as an invitation to sit in it.
“Would you like tea or coffee, Jess?” he asks politely.
“Tea please,” I murmur, only because I’m incredibly thirsty.
“Sure,” he says and gets up again. “I’ll have to get some milk from the bar. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Where would I go?” I sigh, to which he nods and heads out toward the noisy front, leaving the room to feel suddenly cold and empty.
Wanting to move away from this uncomfortable sensation, I pick up a framed photograph of a man who looks to be in his thirties, probably not much older than Warren is now. He’s sitting with a young boy, a boy who I suspect is my new host. They’re both perched on top of an old motorbike, both looking extremely dusty, but so happy, I feel a bit emotional. He looked like he was a sweet boy, one you could see was going to break hearts when he was older.
Warren bursts through the door and catches me red-handed, so I shove it back as quickly as I can before rubbing my empty hands together and looking away from his accusatory eyes. I listen as he stomps around the kitchen to begin making drinks for the both of us. He’s heavy-handed, but not purposefully, it’s just a consequence of his size. I wonder if it irks him at all, just as my anxiety frustrates me; my apprehensiveness betrays the life I should be living.
“Thank you,” I utter when he places a plain white mug in front of me.
“You’re welcome,” he replies as he sits down on the couch again, sipping at what smells like coffee. “It’s me,” he says, and I hear a hint of a smile coming through his voice, so I look back up to see if I’m right.
“How old?” I ask, feeling brave when I see he is smiling.
“Eleven; my father would have been around thirty-five,” he says and stares at the photo with a sense of nostalgia.
I look away when I hear that age, an age between childhood and adolescence, when the world is still set out for you to discover. But for me, it was an age of abject fear, a stealing of innocence, and I suddenly feel bitter toward him. Why did he get to have the childhood I was so cruelly denied?
“Who are you?” I finally ask, prompting him to look at me with such intensity, I almost wish I hadn’t said anything. “Really?”
“My name is Warren Flynn, but everyone calls me Phoenix,” he says matter of factly, but I don’t miss the hard swallow of nervousness beneath his beard. “I own this bar but do a little private work on the side.”
“Private meaning you kill people?” I ask bluntly.
My past life has taught me not to skirt around the issue, for trouble will find you no matter how careful you are. He merely shrugs; a rather blasé attitude to wiping away someone’s life.
“Not for a long time now, but yes, I have killed people…if they deserved it,” he explains, “hence why I won’t be killing you.”
“Wow! A hard stone killer with a conscience,” I can’t help saying, “a Robin Hood of assassins. How do you know I don’t deserve it?”
“I know all about you ‘Jessie’ Greene,” he replies with confidence, just as Daddy had with Tammy when he revealed just how much he had been studying us. “You wouldn’t say boo to a goose, let alone do anything deserving of death.”
“What else do you know?” I ask in little more than a whisper, for I’ve barely been living since I returned home. I have to wonder what he’s managed to find out.
“That you were taken,” he says with what looks like sympathy swimming around in his eyes, “at eleven years old. You and your friend, Tammy Baker, were walking home from school when a man in a black Mercedes car pulled up to ask for directions. After your friend gave him such directions, he invited you in for a lift back to your house on top of the hill. You didn’t want to accept, but your friend, Tammy, was tired of walking up that hill in the rain. So, against your better judgment, you got in. Only, when he reached your house, he never stopped to let you out. Instead, he drove away with you, and told you both to call him ‘Daddy’. Some hours later, he stopped to help you go to a nearby restroom, where Tammy tried to get help from the nearest passerby. He caught her and drove away with you both. Just outside of the town’s border, he stopped again, pulled Tammy from the car, told her to go, but then threatened her entire family if she breathed a word of it to anyone else. You, on the other hand, remained in the car; you were forced to go with him alone. You didn’t return home until six years later; a silent, ghost of a person, too afraid to be alone for fear it might happen all over again. This isn’t that, Jess, I am not him, and I won’t do anything that isn’t for your own safety.”
For a moment or two, I simply stare at him, lost in so many thoughts, I have no idea which one to say first. He continues looking into my eyes, patiently waiting for me to respond with something other than silence.
“Well, it’s very easy to find interviews to read for gossip, Mr Flynn,” I finally reply, the bitterness seeping through each and every word. “But Tammy only hung around for the first few hours of my abduction. Neither you nor she have any idea what happened during those six years.”
“Neither am I pretending to, Jess,” he says softly, “that last part about being afraid is through observation alone. You may have got away physically, but mentally? You’re still there, still trapped inside the darkness of your own fear. I can’t blame you, Jess, no one would, but why do you refuse to seek help?”
“To listen to strangers tell me it’s all ok. To hear them say I have nothing to worry about. What the fuck do they know? What do you know?” I snap, letting it all out for a complete stranger to hear. “No one knows how it feels apart from other poor bastards who have had their childhoods ripped away from them! We’re all lost; I may as well have been murdered that day; it would have been kinder.”
“I may not know what it’s like to be abducted, Jess, but I do know what it’s like to have your childhood cut short and to witness things no child should ever have to,” he says rather cryptically before looking at the floor with a long and heavy sigh. “Look, let’s save this for another day. We’re both tired and I need to convince you that you’re safe with me, that I’m doing all this to help you.”