12. Olive

12

OLIVE

T he underside of my skin itches.

My arms are red and inflamed, my nails cracked weapons aching from overuse, but still, I find no relief from the constant itch.

I sit in the middle of the hotel bed with my arms wrapped around my knees as tears run down my face. They aren’t sad tears. They’re terribly, terribly frustrated tears.

My cravings feel like they’re gnawing away at my brain bit by bit, and by morning, I’m afraid there will be nothing left. Just last night I told Alik my drug use was never about the drugs, that I only did it to turn off the noise.

Well, it’s loud. It’s so fucking loud.

And in this seedy hotel, I know for certain I could score.

Maybe that’s what’s making this so difficult. Or more likely, it’s coupled with the fact that I don’t have my medication, and I’m terrified of going to sleep. And that I don’t feel safe here. And that none of my coping mechanisms are available.

My sketchbook is gone.

I don’t have the ability to bake.

The TV… Well, that’s useless.

I stare at the screen now while I rock back and forth, a low mewl pushing through my closed lips. There’s some nighttime, adult cartoon playing that I pay no attention to, but the high-pitched character’s cackle at least drowns out my tortured groans for the people trying to sleep in the rooms beside me, if there are any. A hotel like this isn’t designed for sleep. It’s designed for paid sex and discretion. Still…

I scratch at my raw arms one last time before grabbing my bottle of water off the nightstand and shaking the last few drops into my mouth. The vending machine down the hall comes into my mind, and I climb off my bed almost frantically to get to my wallet, as if M&Ms have any chance of taking away my hunger.

I need to be home. And medicated. And less stressed. And I need to get a sponsor, go to another meeting, see another doctor, something . I feel like I’m walking a tightrope, and it’s only a matter of time before I fall.

I clutch the bills as I hurry out of the room and scurry down the hall to the machines. I’m scanning the candy section, contemplating between peanut or caramel M&Ms, when two large, muscular men dressed in jeans and dark hoodies walk by.

“Three fifteen. This one,” one of the men says with a heavy accent.

I stiffen, the bills in my hand crumbling.

Three fifteen? Room three fifteen?

My heart pounding, I lean over to peek at the men pulling on ski masks before one holds up a key card to my door.

I jerk back, my eyes wide as I take quick, panicky breaths through my nostrils. The bills fall to the floor as I unclench my fist and pat my pockets for my phone, though I already know it’s in the room. There’s no calling my dad or the police to save me.

I need to run.

Maybe the front desk…

No, the guy gave them the key.

I could hide here and wait.

No. They could look. They will look.

I just need to run.

My knuckles protest as I bite down on my fist, my heart pounding so hard inside my chest, the pain in my hand is a nice distractor from it. I summon all my courage to peek around the corner at the empty hall before I dart toward the stairs.

A door to one of the rooms opens a foot to my right, and when I gasp, the beer-bellied man—probably a john—stumbles backward like he’s the one who should be scared.

I hurry the last few feet for the stairs but grind to a halt, nearly tumbling down, when I spot a man blocking the bottom in a leather jacket. His hands are cupped in front of him, his hair is buzzed, and the way he’s standing there blocking the stairs screams gangster.

We lock eyes, and for a moment, I think he doesn’t register me as suspicious. But then his eyes narrow, and he reaches inside his leather jacket.

I spin and lunge out of his sight as he yells something up the stairs in a language I don’t understand. The other two men barrel from my room, ski masks in place, leaving the machines as the only place left to go.

Or…

I jerk my head toward Beer Belly’s room just as he’s shutting his door and barely manage to lunge in time to shove my knee in the gap.

“Stop, please!” I cry, pushing on the door in a panic. When it flies open, I fall inside, my legs wildly kicking to shut it. Loud stomps sound outside, and I scramble to my feet in time to put the chain lock on.

“Are you crazy?” Beer Belly hisses.

“What’s going on?” A woman in a pink wig and lime green lingerie appears, her expression worried, but I ignore both as I backpedal, my gaze racing around the room.

Voices outside the room growl in the foreign language.

“I’m opening the door,” Beer Belly says, his voice raised to be heard through the door. “Take the girl. I have nothing to do with this.”

“No, please!” I reach out my hands to him, but he’s already made up his mind as he heads for the door.

I don’t think. I just panic. My eyes land on the framed photo on the wall by the door, and I yank it off to smash it over the man’s head, glass crunching from the impact.

He falls to his knees, raising his hands with a snarl, but I grab a wooden chair next and jam one leg against his head again and again while the woman screams. When I drop the chair, blood spills from a gory indention in his skull.

My eyes bug. “I’m sorry.” I reach my hand out as a kick to the door, followed by shouts, makes me jump from my skin. I whip my head between him and the woman while shuffling toward the window. “I-I’m so sorry.”

He’s not dead.

He’s just hurt.

I had to stop him.

Now the men after me won’t kill him. They’ll know he wasn’t on my side. I might’ve just saved his life.

Yes, I saved his life.

And hers too.

That had to happen.

I thrust open the window while looking back at the wood splintering from them kicking the door. Any second, they’ll be in the room.

Breaths come so fast that I must be hyperventilating. I peer out the window and cry out at the dumpsters too far below, beneath the fire escape out of my reach. My eyes follow the narrow ledge beneath the window that leads to the fire escape, my stomach sinking all the way to the cold concrete ground.

What choice do I have?

I climb out the window, carefully planting one foot on the ledge—no more than a few inches wide—and then the other. Frightened tears leak from my eyes as I shift my feet with my palms flat against the wall, trying to pretend like they’re stuck with glue so I’ll feel safer. I don’t have time to hesitate. Or to go slow. I don’t have time to be careful.

The door to the hotel room makes a loud bang as it bursts open. I watch at the window in terrified anticipation as I shift faster along the brick. When my foot slips, I pancake myself to the wall to keep from losing my balance, a desperate sob bubbling from me.

I’m only feet from the set of ladders making up the fire escape, but it feels like it may as well be miles. I’ll never make it in time.

I’m going to have to jump for it.

Right on cue, a ski-masked man sticks his head out the window. “Making work simple, huh, bitch?” He laughs, amused at my predicament instead of angry like before.

His accent… What is it?

It isn’t Irish.

He points a gun out the window, his smile never wavering. My eyes widen at the gun just before I jerk my head to the fire escape.

Now or never.

A scream rips from me as I shove off the wall toward the ladder, my arms stretching desperately just as the gun goes off. My fingers find metal and grasp with a grip that takes all my strength to summon, and the extendable ladder flies down with my weight propelling it.

I screech as bullets fly my way, clinging to the ladder for dear life, but when the ladder lurches to a stop, my grasp slips.

There’s never been a time in my life when I’ve felt so close to death. I’ve come close, but barreling to the ground, my arms and legs flailing as I reach for the imaginary to latch on to, I feel as though death locks me in its icy grasp and squeezes until I’m suffocating.

My eyes clamp shut as I land, but when a firm, protective embrace registers instead of the unforgiving flat concrete, I open them. Alik stares down at me, his strong arms cradling my trembling form.

His lips lift into a grin. “Talk about timing, huh?”

When the gun blasts again, he rushes us behind a dumpster and lowers me to the ground while I just stare at him in shock.

What is he doing here?

How did…?

He caught me?

He caught me .

He saved me.

“Alik,” I whisper, the tremble in my voice as pronounced as the one in my hands.

He pulls a gun from his waistband then creeps around the dumpster.

I reach for him. “Be careful.”

There are three of them. Three against two. One, really.

My back slams into the dumpster as Alik’s gun fires, and I press my palms over my ears.

Movement up ahead catches my eye, and when I spot the man in the shadows, his gun pointed right at me, I scream, closing my eyes so I don’t see the bullet coming. Gunshots rain, but no pain follows. When I open my eyes, the man is lying on the ground twenty feet away.

“Pavel!” the man in the window shouts, his voice pained. He spits something in another language before firing at the dumpster in rapid succession until his gun clicks.

Alik runs to the man he shot and drags his body to us while I shift onto my knees, wondering if there’s something I should be doing.

Alik doesn’t look at me. His eyes are wide, his lips parted as he removes the ski mask from the man who was blocking the stairs.

He stares at the man, wasting time it feels like we don’t have, and I can’t quite figure out why he stopped shooting when the other man did.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, darting my eyes between him and the man. “Did you know him?”

Footsteps coming from the other direction, Alik answers my question with a shake of his head before pulling on the ski mask and crouching against the dumpster, his gun at the ready.

“You son of a bitch!” a man shouts. It sounds like the one from the window. “Come out and die like a man, motherfucker.”

I grab Alik’s sleeve, afraid he’ll do something stupid like listen, but he shrugs me off.

“Ali—”

When he turns and points the gun at me, I freeze with my mouth open, my heart stopping.

He must realize what he’s doing because his eyes flick to the barrel before he lowers it and presses a finger to his lips.

I nod my understanding and shrink back.

“Fine,” the man with the accent says. “Have it your way, coward. But know, I’m going to be fucking your girlfriend while you take your last breath.”

My arms cross at that, and I take in a breath as quietly as I can, arching my chin to the sky.

Please, Alik.

Please don’t die.

Please win .

As the man nears, Alik pounces from behind the dumpster, tackling him. Someone yells in that foreign language from above, but they don’t fire, not with their friend so close to Alik while they fight on the ground. I crawl closer to peek around the dumpster to watch Alik lift the man’s head then slam it to the ground.

Shots fire as he creeps back to me.

“We have to go.” When he extends his hand, I take it, but he doesn’t make it easy to keep up with him as we make a run for it down the alley where the first man came from. My head keeps whirling behind to see if the last man is there, though in truth, it feels like he’s everywhere. He’s hiding in every shadow, behind every object, that gun pointed at our heads. It’s similar to how I’ve been feeling since going to the police station except so much more real.

Once we’re in Alik’s car and he’s pulling away, I still search the street, the alleys, the car windows for the man who wants so badly to kill me and worse. And also, because of me, Alik.

“I’m so sorry,” I say when we’re far enough from the danger to breathe. I choke on a sob. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“You’re in shock. Try to calm down. Everything is okay now.”

“No.” I shake my head, my hands trembling so badly, I ball them into fists to try to get it to stop. “Everything is not okay. They’re never going to stop looking for me. And now they’re never going to stop looking for you either.” I close my eyes as tears fall. “You should have let them kill me.”

When the car slows, my eyes burst open, and I look around. Alik pulls the car onto the side of the road while my spine straightens.

“What are you doing?” I swing my head around. “They’re looking for us. We can’t just stay?—”

Alik’s strong palm presses to my mouth as he leans over me. I lift my hands to his but lower them when he raises his brows at me.

My body begins to calm at his touch, obeying his silent command. I’m suddenly aware of his scent, and with each quick inhale, it brings me deeper under his rule.

He holds me so firmly, so possessively that something occurs to me.

All the things those men wanted to do to me… All the ways they wanted to hurt me… Alik could do that too. Just because he’s the one who saved me from the castle doesn’t make him a knight. It damn sure doesn’t make him a prince.

This should scare me. It should.

Instead, it warms my previously chilled blood. It loosens my coiled muscles.

When my muffled protests cease, he gives me an approving tip of his chin. “Are you going to be quiet?”

I nod as much as his hand will allow.

“Do you promise?”

Again, I nod.

His eyes lower to my cheekbone as he smooths his thumb over it before pulling his palm away. “Good girl.”

I point my eyes to the center console, not out of shame or fear, but because I don’t want him to see how dizzy his approval makes me. If he looked into my eyes, I know he’d see a sparkle.

“I know tonight scared you, but I promise, you’re safe with me now. Everything is under control… You did everything I told you to, so even if my life was in danger like you say, it wouldn’t be your fault. But it isn’t, and neither is yours as long as you keep doing everything I say. Understand?”

When I nod, he just stares at me, so I clear my throat. “Yes.”

His lips quirk at the corners, and he lowers his gaze to my mouth. The air shifts, giving away his brewing lust even if his eyes hadn’t. My lips burn under his gaze, and I sit still, waiting.

If he had any idea how badly I wanted him, how often I thought about it… What would he do?

When I squirm, he blinks like he’s coming out of his head and clears his throat. “Good.”

He faces forward and pulls back onto the road, the tension in the car a thick fog.

My head rests against the seat, and although I’m still shaken, I feel better than I did before the men showed up at the hotel. Even knowing they’re out there looking for me, I feel safer with Alik.