Page 89 of Eagle
I took another sip of coffee before setting my cup down and deciding to go investigate. I was barefoot, so the only sound I made climbing the stairs was the occasional creaking of the old wood beneath my feet. Once I reached the top, I paused for a moment and listened. I didn’t hear anything as I counted four closed doors. I assumed they were all bedrooms, with the exception of maybe a bathroom. I walked directly across from the stairs to the first door, wondering as I turned the old metal knob why all the doors were closed.
A first glance revealed that it was just an empty room with filthy windows and torn and faded wallpaper. The hardwood floors were badly scratched, and the air was stale. I backed out and closed the door and moved on to the next room, where I found the same thing. The third door opened to a tiny bath. As I reached for the fourth doorknob, I hesitated. If there was a critter in there, I didn’t want to let it out. So I made some noise to warn whatever might be inside of my impending entrance, and then opened the door slowly. The first thing I saw was the opened window.
That’s odd, I thought. I could see the fire escape right outside. It was not an unusual sight, considering that many older homes had them. I frowned as alarm bells began to go off in my head. What if the noise I’d heard was an intruder? With my hand still wrapped around the knob, I went to step back, but the door was suddenly jerked open, and I was catapulted into the room.
I screamed with surprise and landed hard on the floor, and when I glanced up my blood turned cold.
Mandy!
Her maniacal smile disfigured her face and warned me that she wasn’t in her right mind. Her appearance was disheveled, as if she hadn’t changed or combed her hair in a while, and the makeup around her eyes was smudged. She slammed the door closed and stepped closer to me until she was standing directly over me.
“I told you Max was mine.” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own. “I heard you two fucking all night!”
Oh, my God! She’d been here this whole time?
“You’ve had enough time with him, whore! It’s time for you to go!”
“Mandy—”
“Don’t talk!” she hissed. “I’ve been waiting to get you alone. This couldn’t have worked out better.”
My eyes went to the gun that I now realized was in her hand. I remembered that Eagle had said that the one she’d had at the shop had not been real, but I could tell right away that this was a different gun.
“Get up!” she ordered, moving back to give me room. When I didn’t move fast enough, she grabbed me by my hair and yanked me to my feet. Her eyes ran over me distastefully. “Take his shirt off!” She started to pull at it.
I heard stomping up the stairs, and I realized that my scream must have woken up Eagle. If Mandy heard him coming up the stairs, she didn’t acknowledge it. She was intent on yanking my shirt off as I struggled to keep it on.
“Take it off, whore!” she screamed.
The door flew open, and Eagle stepped inside the room, shirtless, barefoot, his jeans undone, with a gun in his hand. Mandy reacted by grabbing me and placing my body in front of hers and putting her gun to my head. I watched Eagle’s cold eyes narrow on her, his jaw tensed as he assessed the situation.
“What the fuck, Mandy? Let her go!”
She shook her head and pressed the gun harder against me. “No! I had you first! Once she’s gone, I’ll have you again!” Her voice rose as the situation began to overwhelm her, and I knew that she was crying. “I heard you! Fucking her all night long!” she accused.
“And that’s all it was,” Eagle said in a calm voice. “Just fucking. She means nothing to me. You hear me? You’re the one I want. It’s always been you.”
I felt Mandy’s body relax slightly against me as she listened to Eagle’s calm, soothing voice. I knew what he was doing. He didn’t want to hurt Mandy. He wanted to get her help. But I also knew he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her if forced to.
“She’s wearing your shirt,” she accused in a pained tone. “Make her take it off.”
“It’s just a shirt, baby.” He took a step closer, never taking his eyes off her. “Lower your gun. If you kill her, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. What will happen to me?”
Mandy tensed up, untensed, then tensed up again. It was obvious that she was trying to make sense of Eagle’s words and couldn’t make up her mind about what to think.
“No! I don’t believe you. You’ll have them lock me up again. I’m not crazy!”
“Never said you were.” Eagle kept his tone calm, kept Mandy’s attention on him. “Let Leo go. She means nothing to me. She’s not even a good fuck. Once it’s just you and me again we—”
“No!” Mandy cried out. “She means something to you, I know it. I heard some of the things you said to her. I let you have the night with her, and now she has to go! For good!”
I decided to take a chance and said, “I’ll leave, Mandy. I swear. You said it yourself. This is a pattern between you and Eagle.”
Silence, and then she asked softly, confused, “A pattern?”
I could hear the frown in her voice. Eagle and I made eye contact, and I could see his concern, mixed with something else—fear. Was he afraid for me? “Don’t you remember what you said that day in the office?” I asked, hoping to refresh her memory. “You said Eagle breaks up with you so he can fuck other women. That once he’s fucked them out of his system he always goes back to you.”
“Yes...” Her voice drifted off as she thought back to that day. “I remember now.”