Hidden (To Love A Killer #1) (2 page)

              He was going out as well. That’s what he was referring to, that neither of them was sleeping, a comment that aligned perfectly with the city’s entire reputation.

              Enthralled, though trying to conceal it, Hunter’s gaze floated down the length of him from his broad chest, which was tightly hugged by a thin gray tee, to his long and muscular legs that were perfectly encased in close fitting worn out jeans. Her impression was that her new neighbor was exceedingly hot.

              But if he had anything to do with her he would be in danger. The feeling was unshakable. 

              She allowed him to pass, offering nothing more than a slight smirk that acknowledged his presence, but welcomed nothing further.

              After a moment, when the man disappeared into the stairwell, Hunter realized she had been holding her breath. She exhaled hard then pulled as much air as possible into her lungs. The faint scent of burning cigarettes and sour trash wasn’t helping to clear her head. The desire to be around him, the hope that he would come back, was overtaking her thoughts.

              By now he had to be on the street. It was safe for her to proceed without awkwardly running into him. After descending the staircase to the ground floor, Hunter stepped out onto the street ready for the long and difficult night ahead.

              The Gowanus was easily one of the seediest parts of Brooklyn. Rundown with abandoned warehouses and vacant lots that lined the canal, it was not a place Hunter ever wanted to return to, especially at this hour. It was her best bet, however, for obtaining a weapon. And since it was close enough to her own neighborhood, she could avoid the subway by walking.

              When she had first fled to New York she stayed in the Gowanus, sleeping every night in an old sugar factory with a bunch of other runaways. The gang of kids she had connected with was by far the cleanest. They wanted no trouble, only a safe place to rest. And she had made living there work for nearly two years before she had enough cash to rent an apartment. There were a lot of things from those years that Hunter had tried hard to forget, but the fact that dealers and gangbangers came around wasn’t one of them. She remembered the first time someone had tried to sell her a gun. She had been out looking for pills to take the edge off and help her sleep. Instead of Vicodin, this skinny Latino kid had offered up a hot piece like it was nothing. His rough life had aged him. The lines on his face were unforgettable. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen, but he had looked forty. Hunter should’ve bought a gun back then, but she hadn’t been ready. At twenty she hadn’t been willing to admit to herself that her past could ever find her. Now, at twenty-five, she knew better. The anxiety had crept in and was living with her. Every direction she turned, every face she saw, was a threat hiding, waiting, watching for the right moment to drag her back to New Hampshire.

              The sugar factory was situated across the street just as it had been all those years ago. It’s wide steel door, indented up its center from decades of harsh weather, was slightly ajar. Deep inside, trashcan fires burned brightly, illuminating the clusters of runaways that drank around them.

              She should’ve changed her clothes. She felt exposed, sexual, on display in her black kitten heels, jean skirt that had been intentionally torn at a short angle, and thin tee that hugged her curves, hanging heavy with sweat. She glanced down at her figure. Where would she even put a gun?

              Hunter was growing more and more uncomfortable standing on the sidewalk and peering into the warehouse. Hesitating was awkward, and made her stick out like a sore thumb, but she was apprehensive about going in. It was unlikely that she would run into anyone from all those years ago, but the possibility was nagging at her. That would be the last thing she needed, to explain herself while grubby hands begged for loose change.

              Finally she entered and surveyed the inhabitants as her eyes adjusted to the flickering firelight that bounced off faces and abandoned equipment alike. She didn’t recognize anyone.

              A thug approached her with a swaggering step. He was either young or little for his age. He probably pegged her for just another white girl looking to score coke, or pills, or meth. Or maybe Hunter would get lucky.

              “You wanna party, Ma?” He asked with a little melodic flavor in his tone, classic amongst Latinos.

              “Not exactly,” she replied nearly in a whisper that was alluring, seductive with an edge of darkness.

              The thug pressed his thick lips into a hard line, squinting his eyes and cocking his head slightly. “Keep talkin’, but don’t be wasting my time, Mami.”

              Hunter scanned the warehouse cautiously. They were beyond earshot of anyone, but she wanted to be sure there were no prying eyes. When her gaze fell back to the thug, she was glaring with narrowed eyes.

              “I’m looking for heat with plenty of rounds. I have cash,” Hunter said lowly in a tone like velvet. “I don’t have all night.”

              The thug swallowed what saliva had pooled in his mouth at the first indication of cash. The kid was no idiot, and now he knew she had money. If he was smart, he’d figure around three hundred and if he was nuts he’d picture six. Either way, Hunter knew she was now at a disadvantage. He would surely invite her deeper into the bowels of the Gowanus, either to connect her with the gun she so vitally needed or to rob her. And it would be impossible to know which until she was alone with him. If this thug were desperate, he’d corner and rob her. Hunter had to guard against that.

              “I can get that for you, but not here,” he said with salesman like intonation revealing a hint of worry. He didn’t want to lose her business. 

              “I don’t have time to fuck around,” she said, suspecting he didn’t know he could score for sure.

              As her words hung between them, the thug produced a cell from his hoodie. Hunter didn’t even see him hit the screen. He was already talking into it. 

              “Yo,’ where you at?” He spoke with no nonsense, plowing through logistics and speaking in code. “I got a bitch, got cash for heat, she got one foot out the door. You still holding? We need to do this.” The thug looked her dead in the eye. Hunter could hear the fast talker on the other end, but only as sounds and symbols, no content. “How much you got?”

              “Five,” she said quietly.

              The thug’s mouth twisted into a luscious smile. He didn’t even try to hold back.

              “That’s right,” Hunter went on. “So no fucking around, no run around. This shit should go down smooth and easy and be over before I know it.”

              “I got you, Ma. You’re taken care of.” The thug turned his back to wrap up the call relaying their location to his contact, then returned his cell to his hoodie. “No time at all, Mami. They’re coming through, around the block. We got five minutes, tops. Let’s go on out.”

              The thug walked towards the steel door as firelight lapped his back and cast ten foot shadows on the wall. Hunter followed, anxious to be back in her apartment already, stroking her lazy cat and maybe feeling a moment of peace.

              Outside, a streetlamp overhead buzzed horribly. The thug must have been familiar with it because he walked, stepping with swagger, to the corner. There he lit a cigarette. Eventually Hunter joined him, heels clicking as she made her way up the sidewalk.

              “You got some asshole bothering you?” He asked, punctuating the question with a burst of smoke.

              “You could say that,” she responded, unable to meet his gaze.

              “Don’t hesitate,” he said.

              Now she couldn’t look away. He had her full attention.

              “You see the motherfucker, shoot. Don’t hesitate. You hesitate, he gonna kill you, probably with your own piece. I seen that shit a million times.”

              It hadn’t been until this very moment that Hunter thoroughly considered the practicality and morality of killing someone. Could she do it again? Could she take a life, steal it away from someone? A wave of darkness washed over her at the thought, gripping her tightly in horrific memories.

              She had always wanted simply to be left alone and no longer be hurt. Hunter shook the thoughts from her head.

              She was fully prepared to assert herself if it meant holding a gun in her hand to command power, to threaten, to get them to back off. But now as she was listening to this skinny Latino kid in the heart of the Gowanus ghetto, she realized she was going to have to kill these people, kill everyone, all the way back to the farmhouse.

              A Cadillac crawled down the street, headlights blaring. It was dull, rusted, and beat up, Hunter noticed, as it rolled to a stop in front of the thug. Hardcore rap emanated from within. The thug leaned on the open window, talking across the passenger to the driver. There were guys in the back as well. When the thug straightened up, tossing his cigarette butt against the side of the sugar factory, everyone but the driver got out of the car.

              “Get in the front,” said the thug as he opened the back door and climbed in himself.

              Her anxiety was sky high at this point, and her heart beat so loudly she could hear it in her ears. The passenger’s side door had been left wide open by the last guy, so Hunter lowered herself carefully into the car, being sure to avoid eye contact with the enormous black man who was sitting behind the wheel. The door shut with a slam under the weight of her nervous arm. Hunter clenched her purse with a death grip. She was terrified this transaction wouldn’t through and that she would be robbed or beaten or raped.

              Suddenly she noticed, looking outside, that the guys were standing around the car, walling off the activity within. It made Hunter’s heart race, no witnesses. She tried to remind herself this was for her protection as well as theirs.

              “This piece is hot, bitch, you know what that means?” Asked the man behind the wheel, as he looked at her sideways, eyeing her like a piece of meat. “Whatever you spray, cops will trace and know exactly what piece it came from. And if they trace it back to you that means every cop this gun killed is on your head, because you holding it, see? In that event, what you gonna say?”

              “I’d never mention you or your friends,” said Hunter meeting his gaze.

              “You’re smart for a white girl,” he said before leaning forward, pinching the glove compartment open, and revealing the piece.

              It was darkly black with a muted finish. It looked heavy, like it would be difficult to control, aim, fire. Yet it excited her. She felt as though a great weight had been lifted from her chest. She was finally able to breathe. She drew in air. It filled her lungs, rejuvenating her at long last.

              Quickly she unzipped her purse and grabbed a wad of cash, five hundred exactly, the daily maximum the ATM had allowed.

              “Count it, Tiny,” the black man said.

              The thug reached up and took the cash as instructed.

              Hunter couldn’t take her eyes off the gun. She grabbed it. Holding it in her hand, she remembered. Bits came flashing back. The sharp metal tang of a barrel in her mouth, the sounds of her own blood curdling wails, cowering as a hard barrel pressed viciously into the back of her head. That was the side of the gun Hunter had been on. Never like this, in her hand, offering the possibility to protect her. This was very different, and she liked it.  

              It felt cold in her hand, providing sweet relief from the sweltering humidity. It was as heavy as it looked. She angled it, viewing the left side then the right, as the thug in the back seat murmured numbers through his inhales and exhales more and more loudly until he reached, “five hundred”.

              “Let me show you something,” said the black man as he took the piece and demonstrated for Hunter with great care how to flip the safety on and off, then followed up by showing her how to extract the clip and check to see if there’s a bullet in the chamber.

              When he passed it back to her, he smiled. He seemed warm, concerned almost.

              But there was nothing left to say or do. Hunter popped her door open once the piece was safely tucked into her purse, and climbed out of the Cadillac.

              “Thanks, man,” she said over her shoulder.

              Walking down the sidewalk, Hunter faced the realities that lay ahead. It was as though finally having a weapon in her possession, a way to fight back, enabled her to comprehend the magnitude of the danger that lay waiting.

              Someone had been in her apartment. They had found a way in through the deadbolt or the locked window. They could have waited for her or trashed her apartment. They could have done anything. They chose to scare her instead. That was what they had wanted. To remind her she had freedom only because they were allowing it. They could come back at any time to take her, or to torment her. Something she knew they took far more pleasure in. That song had been intended to torture and mock her, to degrade her, to humiliate her into becoming as small as she had once been. It was the song that had played every time he held her down, face crushed against a mattress nearly cutting off her air supply, brutally assaulting her.