Page 5 of Empire of Savages
Alex
The rumbleof motorcycles speeding down the street outside my apartment made me shiver—the visceral reaction something I thought I’d kicked after all these years. Curiosity got the better of me, though, and I peered out from my living room window, watching the headlights bounce across the dark asphalt. Was it the Devils or the Hunt? I supposed it didn’t really matter. That wasn’t my life anymore.
Stepping away from the glass, I let the thin drape slide through my fingers and retreated to the safety of my couch. Curling my legs beneath me, I tried to focus on the paperwork littered across the cushions and on the coffee table, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that the end of the quarter was nearing. I couldn’t see a way to get the money together in time for Maddox’s visit. Last quarter, I’d managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat, but I wouldn’t be so lucky this time.
My head jerked up when the downstairs buzzer sounded. Sliding from the couch, I went to the intercom, eyeing the baseball bat I had propped up near the kitchen counter. I liked to have multiple options to defend myself.
Pressing the speaker, I leaned in and said, “Yeah?”
“It’s me,” Bliss, my best friend, said. “Let me up.”
Fuck. “I’m not in the mood, Bliss,” I told her. I could even picture her rolling her eyes at me. “Rain check?”
“Fuck, no. You need some Bliss time.” After a pause, she added, “I have tequila.”
“You’re underage. How the hell did you get tequila?” I asked, giving her the side-eye through the intercom even though she couldn’t see it.
“I know you’re throwing me some side-eye right now,” she replied. “But come on, Alex. Just one drink.”
I glanced over at the mountain of paperwork that wouldn’t magically disappear, no matter how hard I wished for it. With a groan, I turned back to the intercom. “Just one drink,” I warned and buzzed her in.
All I could hear in reply was Bliss’s maniacal laugh as I unlocked the apartment door. Gathering all the bills from the couch and table, I wondered where I could stash the evidence of my financial ruin away from the prying eyes of my one and only employee. I hustled into my bedroom, then shoved the papers under my bed, re-emerging just as Bliss breezed through the door. Wearing her signature frayed, cut-off shorts and an over-sized shirt that hung off her shoulder, she flounced inside, brandishing the bottle of tequila like she’d just won first prize at the local fair.
She pushed it at my chest with a smile, then dropped onto my couch.
I eyed the bottle. “Do I even want to know?”
Bliss flashed a smile back at me, taking off her trucker cap and shaking out her bubblegum-pink hair. “I walked right into the liquor store and bought it.”
I snorted. “No, you didn’t because you don’t have a fake ID and with that hair, you look like a grade-schooler.”
She frowned at me, the expression looking all wrong on her face. Bliss was quicker to laugh than to get angry. She simplyhad one of those personalities. She reminded me a lot of my childhood best friend, Nissa, who—despite being deaf—still had more reason to smile than to frown.
“Fine. I asked some old dude going inside to buy me the bottle.”
Shaking my head, I turned to the kitchen and placed the liquor on the counter. Next, I grabbed the margarita mix from the cupboard I’d shoved it in the last time she’d come over. We’d both sworn to never touch it again, but best laid plans and all that. I threw everything along with some ice into the small blender and hit the button. After pouring our drinks into two glasses, I sat beside Bliss on the couch and handed one to her.
“You shouldn’t be drinking at your age.” My admonishment was without heat. After all, I wasn’t one to talk. I was drinking by the time I was thirteen. Taking drugs a year later. Mostly weed at first, but I’d turned to illicit substances to help me deal with all the shit my father had put me through. As far as I knew, Bliss’s home life had been fine until her father died when she was fifteen. Her mother hadn’t been able to cope raising five kids on her own, and since Bliss was the oldest, she’d been forced out on her own.
“If we didn’t take life’s pleasures, what would be the point of living?” she asked, knocking her glass against mine and taking a deep drink.
I sighed and took a sip too.
Bliss grabbed the remote from the arm of the chair and began scrolling through the channels. “So, what are we watching tonight?”
Before I could tell hernottheBarbiemovie again, my phone started to ring. Picking it up from the coffee table, I glanced at the number, and like some goddamned Pavlovian response, bile rose in my throat.
Clearing the taste from the back of my tongue, I told her, “Pick whatever you want,” then excused myself from the apartment. I stepped out into the small hall that gave me access to the mechanic shop down the stairs, and to the washer and dryer on this level. Rolling my bottom lip between my teeth, I looked at the number, knowing I had to pick it up. Knowing he wouldn’t stop calling, and if I didn’t answer this time, he’d make the trip down here.
“Maddox,” I said.
“Alex, baby,” he replied, his tone cocky. “You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
“I’ve been busy,” I lied. I wished I’d been busy. Business was slow, though, and if it dried up completely, there was no way I could pay back the loan.
“Do you have my money?”
My hand flexed on the phone, and I forced myself to take a breath. To relax. “I still have another two weeks.”