Los Angeles, California
Club Funk was crowded. Well, Club Funk always seemed to be crowded, especially on Friday nights, but on this particular night, it was even more packed with people than usual. Khia was performing her infamously naughty hit, "My Neck, My Back," and everyone who wanted to get their groove on was, and everyone who wanted to get a little more on than that was, too.
Maria DeLuca was dancing with a friend and some complete strangers. She’d been approached by a few guys, trying to hook her with stupid pick-up lines, but she’d turned them all down. She wasn’t here to get it on like some were, even though Khia was singing that song. She was here to dance.
She’d been dancing for hours, and she was completely exhausted. The sweat was dripping down her body like a waterfall, and she felt like she might collapse if she kept going any longer, but she couldn’t stop.
"Maria, I think we should leave," Liz Parker, her best friend, was saying over the music. Maria could barely hear her. Liz had a quiet voice, and it was easy to confuse what she was saying or not even hear her at all sometimes.
"Why?" Maria asked her. "It’s awesome tonight."
"I know," Liz agreed, "but you look like you’re about to die of heat exhaustion any second now, and . . ." She pointed over to the entrance of the club, and Maria saw them walking in. "That’s why."
They just strolled on in like Club Funk was part of their territory. The two guys smirked as they watched the girls dancing around them, and the two girls immediately lost themselves on the dance floor.
Maria hated them. She hated the enemy. She hated Darkstreet.
"Yeah, I guess we better get outta here," she agreed with Liz, still hating the thought of leaving. "Let’s go."
The two girls hurried and found their other two friends, Kyle VaLenti and Alex Whitman. Kyle was making out with some girl he didn’t even know in the back of the club, and Alex was flirting up a storm by the bar. However, when they learned that four powerful members of Darkstreet had shown up, they left in a hurry.
"Do you think we’re cowards for leaving?" Alex wondered aloud as they made their way down the dark, crowded sidewalk toward the only home they knew.
"No, I don’t think we are," Kyle said. "Dude, we could’ve been committing suicide if we’d tried to take them on with just our fists."
"And nails," Maria added, wriggling her fingers in the air with a grin.
Alex smiled. "I guess you’re right. But we better not let Slick know that we retreated."
"Alex, we didn’t retreat," Maria reminded him. "We just left. Slick never even has to know that Darkstreet showed up there." The truth was, Slick could never know. Their leader was the type who was capable of killing someone if they retreated in battle, in a chance to win a fight with the enemy.
They walked the rest of the way back to the crib in silence. When they reached their destination, Liz, Kyle, and Alex went inside right away, but Maria didn’t. She stood outside for a few minutes just looking at the crib, taking it in with all of her senses.
She couldn’t believe that this was her existence. She used to have so much more.
As she stood out there alone in the cold in the middle of the night, her thoughts began to drift, and her memories began to come to the surface again. Memories of what she had only a few short years ago. She saw a huge white house with a red Convertible and a black Jaguar parked out front and a large, sparkling swimming pool out back. She saw a loving, beautiful mother standing on the porch with her arms out, ready to embrace her daughter as she got off the school bus and came home from her first day of high-school.
And then she saw the next day. She saw the principal coming and getting her out of class. She could almost hear fragments of his speech as he told her what happened.
"Car accident . . . mother . . . dead . . ."
She saw herself after that when they told her that she would have to go live with her father, and she felt her whole body begin to shake and tremble at the thought of living with a man who hit her mother every day and tried to touch his daughter every night before the divorce.
She saw herself running away that night as a clueless fourteen year-old child with nothing but the clothes on her back. She saw herself finding Slick at the crib, and she saw him inviting her in for the night. She saw herself a few short weeks later, grimacing as the tattoo artist put BlackCon on her back and she was initiated into the gang.
"Maria?" Slick’s voice broke the girl out of her thoughts, and she jumped in surprise.
"You comin’ in for the night or what?" he asked her.
She nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I am. I was just thinking."
"You do that a lot, don’t you?" He put his arm around her shoulder and guided her into the crib.
"Yeah," she agreed. "Probably a little too much."
She walked into the lower level and saw that there was a party going on. A few of her friends were acting like idiots, dancing around in an insanely drunken manner, and a few were sitting around laughing at each other’s jokes.
They all looked happy, somehow. Maria wished that she could be happy living with BlackCon, being part of a gang, but she couldn’t. These people, Slick, Liz, Kyle, Alex, everyone else . . . they never had anything better. They were all born into a life of poverty and crime, and the gang life had seemed like the only way to go, the only option. But it pained Maria everyday to think of the life she’d once had, the beautiful life she’d once lived until everything came crashing down in one fatal instant when her mother’s breaks wouldn’t work.
Maria felt tears stinging her eyes as she thought about her mother, and she hurried upstairs before Slick or anyone else could see them. She ran up to the third floor and down to the end of the hallway to her bedroom. Her quiet, peaceful bedroom. It wasn’t glamourous, but it was comforting, in it’s own way. It was away from the noise and the partying, and it was the closest thing around here to a home.
Maria collapsed on her bed, hearing the springs squeak as she moved around and found the covers. She knew that it was weird for any BlackCon member to contemplate going to sleep at night. God, the whole gang was practically nocturnal, but sleep was an escape, and sometimes she just needed to escape from reality altogether.
She was different from BlackCon in that way, and in the fact that she had chosen to be a part of the gang. She was different from them in another way, too, a way that would tear at her mother’s heart.
She was only seventeen.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Dude, did you see how they left in a hurry when we showed up?"
Michael Guerin nodded, smiling. "Of course I did. They ran outta there like a bunch of little bitches."
Max Evans, Michael’s best friend, smiled, too. Max and Michael both really enjoyed being able to have some sort of power over BlackCon. Just seeing them scurry out of that stupid club was pure entertainment.
"They’re so stupid," Isabel Evans, Max’s sister and Michael’s bed-partner, commented. "I mean, did they actually think that we were showin’ up at Club Funk to party?"
"Yeah, they ain’t exactly the brightest things," Tess Harding added. Tess was Max’s girlfriend and Isabel’s best friend. Michael only put up with her because he had to. He really couldn’t stand the girl.
"The people at Club Funk are aight," Isabel said, wrapping her arms around Michael’s waist and linking her thumbs into his belt loops as he walked, "but the music’s shit. Rap ain’t da bomb no more."
Michael let his friends do most of the talking as they continued on to the Darkstreet crib. He could hear rock music banging as he approached, and it was then that he realized how different the two gangs were. It was little things like the fact that Darkstreet liked rock and the fact that BlackCon liked rap that showed how truly unalike the gangs and the people in it tended to be.
That wasn’t why Michael hated them so much, though, and it wasn’t why Max, Isabel, and Tess hated them, either. There’d been a feud going on for years now between the rival gangs, and it didn’t look like it was going to end anytime soon, and Michael would be damned if he let those losers triumph.
Losers. Yeah, they were losers. Seeing four of their members run out of Club Funk only proved that. They were cowards. If it had been Michael, and if BlackCon members had been intruding upon Club Bang, the best rock club in the area, he’d have fought back, whether he was armed or not. Sometimes, one didn’t need guns and knives to fight.
It was at times like these that Michael was glad that he was a part of Darkstreet and not BlackCon.
Max and Tess disappeared into the crib immediately, heading up to their bedroom where they’d probably go at it for a few minutes before heading back down to join the party.
"So, Mikey, you gonna fuck me tonight or what?" Isabel asked, leaning forward to whisper in his ear. Her breath tickled his skin, making him want to shiver.
"What’d I tell you about calling me Mikey?" he asked her in return.
"Whatever, man, just answer the question," she said, unhooking her fingers from his belt loops and running them down lower on his body until she had him in her hands.
"I don’t know, Isabel," he choked out, struggling to keep his breath as she handled him through the denim of his jeans. "That depends. Have you been a good girl lately?"
Isabel leaned forward again. "Oh, no, Michael. I’ve been a very, very bad girl, lately. Very bad."
Michael pulled her around to his front, loving the mischievous smirk he saw playing on her lips. "That’s what I like to hear."
Within minutes, they’d made their way up the stairs and were in their own bedroom, rolling around on the bed and tearing each other’s clothes off.
"FUCK!" Isabel screamed as he entered her without warning. He began to move inside of her, enjoying the mix of pain and pleasure etched into her facial features.
All at once, though, when he was almost to his brink, the door swung open. Michael turned back and saw his leader Nix entering the room. Nix was the type of guy who was so terrifying in appearance that he could compare to the greatest evil of all time, and he could conquer.
"Didn’t mean to interrupt," he said, "but we’re off."
"Off to where?" Michael asked, pulling out of Isabel and covering himself up.
"To the BlackCon crib," Nix answered, opening up the side of his jacket so that Michael could see the gun and the knife hidden inside.
"Nice," Michael remarked. "We’ll be down in a minute."
Nix nodded and closed the door.
"Michael!" Isabel shrieked, slapping him a little too hard on his shoulder. "I was so close! Why we gotta leave now?"
"‘Cause I’m not gonna miss the chance to fight the enemy," Michael replied, stepping back into his pants.
"We fight them every night," Isabel reminded him, "and no one ever wins. It’s just a waste of time. You can’t tell me you’d rather be fightin’ them than,"—she moved her hand down over her body to her throbbing core, inserting a finger inside of herself—"having me."
Michael shrugged. "Sorry, babe. Maybe tomorrow night." With that, he pulled his shirt over his head and headed out the door, slamming it behind him to let Isabel know loud and clear that he wouldn’t be coming back for awhile.
Isabel was . . . well, she was beautiful in a dangerous sort of way, but there was something about her that destroyed that beauty. Maybe it was the fact that she had been touched so many times by so many different people, or maybe it was just the fact that she was so goddamned desperate for him all the freakin’ time.
Michael put on his shoes as he hurried down the stairs. He met up with the rest of the gang just as they were heading out the door. He fell on into the front of the line beside Nix, taking his place as the second in line.
The rock music continued to blare as they marched forward, a sort of anthem to their quest, a sort of sign of their undeniable victory.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria had just fallen asleep when she woke up again, this time to the sound of a door crashing down and windows breaking from downstairs. She sat up in bed slowly, taking her time to wake up again. Whatever was going on down there, she was sure the rest of the gang could handle it without her.
Minutes later, though, Liz came bursting in the door, blood smeared over her shirt.
"Liz, are you . . ." Maria began to ask.
"I’m fine," Liz answered hastily, "but Kyle’ hurt."
"How bad?" Maria asked, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and slipping her feet into her shoes.
"Shot in the stomach," Liz answered. "He should be okay, though. Nothing we haven’t dealt with before."
Liz scurried around the room collecting any kind of weapon she could find, and Maria hurried and did the same, though she was still very not awake. She knew it would be some time before the enemies made their way up to the third floor, and she knew that, when they did, as they undoubtedly would, she would have a hard time fighting them if she didn’t wake up first.
"I’m gonna go try to help Kyle," Liz announced, heading over to the door with a gun in her hands. She checked to make sure it was loaded and glanced in Maria’s direction once, sending her a smile, just in case it was her last. You never could be too sure if you were going to live or not in a gang battle. You couldn’t make plans for a future, because you didn’t know if you were going to have one or not.
"I’ll be down in a bit," Maria called after her best friend as she disappeared out the door, her long, dark hair flowing over her shoulders swinging left and right as she made her hurried exit.
The shouting was dying down below as Maria changed from her red tank top to a black sweater. (There was something about skin that seemed to attract all of the Darkstreet members.) The shots fired were less, but at the same time still many. Maria couldn’t help but smile to herself as she wondered why the cops had never busted either of the two gangs. Everyone in the city knew about Darkstreet and BlackCon and the feud that had been raging between them for more than a decade, but no one chose to do anything about it, because they were and always would be cowards.
Maria picked out her best knife and gun and spun around, preparing to head downstairs. The doorway, however, was blocked. Blocked by the enemy.
The three men stood in the doorway staring daggers at her, menacing grins spreading across all of their faces. Maria recognized all three of them. Their leader, Nix, was probably one of the most recognizable faces around the entire city. One could not forget him and his appearance. He was . . . well, he was ugly to say the least. He had hair dyed a mix of dark red and bright red, making it seem like he walked around all night and day with flames on top of his head. He a tattoo running across his forehead that read "REBEL", and he had more piercings on his face than he had features.
The other two men were the two guys who’d shown up at Club Funk that night. Max Evans was the dark-haired one. He was known as a threat to the BlackCon gang because he had strength, intelligence, and charm, and when he used his abilities, he could cause some serious damage. He was good-looking, that was for sure, but he’d once had the reputation of being somewhat of a womanizer. It was reported that he used to hang out on dark street corners waiting for a prostitute to give him an offer at least three times a week before he met Tess Harding.
Michael Guerin was the other guy. Maria had seen Michael around a lot before, but she’d never actually been this close to him. Now that she was, she understood why people called him "The Hulk". It was clear that his physical strength could not be challenged. It was also clear that he was extremely confident in his abilities. Even though Maria stood with a gun in her hand, he kept his stuck in his back pocket as if he weren’t even worried.
He was intimidating, that was for sure, and she hated that he had the ability to intimidate her.
"I’ve seen you around," Nix said, his voice sounding exactly like that of a snake. He stepped forward slowly, keeping his gun in his hand, just in case he had to use it.
"I’ve seen you, too," Maria replied, trying to act as unafraid as possible. Then, she muttered under her breath quietly, "Unfortunately."
Nix twirled his gun around in his hands. "Fellas, she’s all yours," he told Max and Michael. "Do whatever you want with her. I got better things to do." With that, he left the room. Max shrugged and followed, clearly as uninterested in harming Maria DeLuca as Nix was.
But Michael stayed, and he strolled on into the room smiling, kicking the door shut behind him.
"Nice little space," he commented. "Too bad I’m gonna trash it when I get done with you."
Maria gripped the gun tighter, wondering what, exactly, it was that he was going to do to her.
"So, uh, what’s your name?" he asked, coming closer to her.
"Why do you care?" Maria shot back.
Michael shrugged. "I don’t know. It’s just, in the gang society, you know, everybody knows who everybody else is, and when nobody knows your name . . well, that just means you aren’t really important."
"I am important," Maria told herself more than him.
"Important for what?" He continued pounding down on her. "For sex?"
"I am not . . ."
"You know," he continued, grabbing onto her wrists so hard that it caused her to drop her gun in surprise. "I might be able to use you for that purpose all night long."
Maria tried to stay calm, though she was freaking out inside. She’d heard about this a lot, how guys raped girls a lot of times before they killed them. She’d rather just die right away than go through all of that.
She stood like a stiff board in his arms, hoping that she seemed as confident as he did.
He leaned closer and whispered quietly in her ear, "Tell me you want me to fuck you."
"I want you to fuck off," she answered.
He laughed a fake laugh. "Oh, cute," he said sarcastically. "Just say it, bitch. Tell me you want me to fuck you."
She remained silent.
"Tell me you want me to hurt you," he continued, pushing her down on top of the bed, pinning her small body beneath his larger one so that she was trapped. "Tell me you want me to cut you with this knife,"—he reached over on the bed and picked up Maria’s own knife—"while I’m cummin’ inside of you."
She was really scared, now, scared of what he could do to her, scared of the fact that she was not strong enough to stop him, but at the same time, not desperate enough to call for help. She knew he could see the fear evident on her face, because he started to laugh.
"Having fun yet?" he asked her, lifting her sweater up a little ways to reveal her smooth, flat stomach.
"Please, don’t." She resorted to full-out begging. It was possibly her only hope.
"What? This?" He ran the knife over her stomach lightly, not enough to cause a serious injury, but hard enough so that she could feel it.
"Please, just stop," she said again. "Please." Tears were beginning to form in her eyes. She knew she was weak, and she knew that Slick and the other BlackCon members would frown upon this, but she couldn’t help it. She was just a child.
"Am I hurting you?" he asked her eagerly. "Are you in pain?"
She nodded, biting her lower lip as he ran his fingers over the cut on her stomach.
He grunted. "You don’t know shit about pain."
Something inside of her snapped as he said this, and she felt her strength return again. Her muscles tensed and her eyes narrowed and she growled out, "You don’t know all that I’ve been through."
"Don’t give me that!" he told her. "I don’t give a shit about your life, bitch!" He seemed to be growing very angry very fast. "In fact, you know what? I should just kill you right now." He clenched his hand around the knife tightly and ran the cool metal of it across her bare stomach. "Right now."
Maria looked him right in the eye, and she told him what she thought. "Go ahead. It’s not like anyone would care."
At that moment, though, just when she thought that he really was going to kill her, something inside of him seemed to reverse, and the cruel expression on his face softened. He put the knife back down on the bed and stood up. "What the hell am I doin’ wastin’ my time on you anyway?" he asked himself. "You’re not important." With that, he turned his back to her and left the room almost in a hurry, almost as if he wanted to get away.
Maria struggled to sit up when she was sure that he was gone, holding her wounded stomach as she did so. This wasn’t a serious injury, but she’d still have to stitch herself up.
She walked down the stairs slowly, listening to the sounds of battle fading away more and more by the second as Darkstreet was leaving. She couldn’t help but wonder why Michael Guerin didn’t kill her. He’d certainly wanted to, and, and even though she hated to admit it, a small part of her had wanted him to, as well. Because if he had, there would have been no pain.
No pain . . .
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael arrived back at the Darkstreet crib just as the sun was beginning to rise. He felt defeated. It wasn’t that BlackCon had won or anything. It was like Isabel said, no one ever won these battles. He just felt like he could’ve done more, like he could’ve been the cause of the great gang empire’s fall if only he’d had more fight within him.
He still didn’t know why he’d wasted his time on that girl upstairs when he should’ve been down helping Nix and Max with everyone else. He’d wasted a fight by playing with a girl who was relatively unimportant in the scheme of things.
Michael trudged up the stairs to his and Isabel’s room. Before he even opened the door, he knew that he’d find Isabel inside with someone else. He could hear her all the way down the hallway.
Michael opened the door and stepped inside, discovering that Isabel was with Jonathon, a guy who wore square glasses and plaid shirts. He was the biggest geek in history in Michael’s opinion, but the gang kept him around because he was intelligent, and intelligence was something that Darkstreet was definitely lacking.
"Holy shit, Isabel," Michael said, his voice flat. "I’m gone for half an hour and you go right to makin’ it with Jonathon?"
"Fuck . . . you . . ." Isabel gasped as she thrust her hips up to meet Jonathon’s.
"You’ve already done that, haven’t you?"
"Yeah, and I wish I hadn’t."
"Oh, come on. You can’t tell me that it hasn’t been the best sex of your life."
Isabel smiled, and he knew she couldn’t.
All at once, Jonathon stopped moving on top of her. He turned to Michael. "Hey," he said, "you know you’re kinda ruining the moment here."
"There ain’t no moment!" Isabel shouted, pushing him out of her and off of her. "Just leave, Jonathon, I’m through with you."
Jonathon, looking completely distressed that he hadn’t gotten to finish what he started, gathered up his clothes and put them on quickly, almost running out of the room before Michael could throw him out.
"No offense, Isabel, but you if you were gonna screw someone, you coulda picked someone better," Michael commented, crossing to the other side of the room and turning on the CD player, the sound of rock music instantly filling the room.
"Everyone else was gone. I was desperate, aight?"
"Obviously."
"Whatever." Isabel motioned for him to join her in the bed. "How about you just come over here and finish what you started."
Michael stared at her lying naked in the bed, waiting for him, waiting for his body, and he noticed that she looked dirty, tainted.
It was different with Max and Tess. They honestly were in love with each other, and, though they were not married, they’d sworn themselves many times to each other and only each other. Michael didn’t have that with Isabel, and he never would. He wasn’t even completely sure that he wanted it, but he knew deep down that he really did.
"Call me crazy," he said, "but I’m really just not in the mood."
Isabel seemed offended. "Not in the mood? How can you not be in the mood, Michael?"
He shrugged. "I’m just not." He turned his back to her and started to walk out of the room, leaving the music going to drown out her insistent yelling.
"Go fuck yourself, Mikey!" he heard her shouting. "You sure as hell ain’t fuckin’ me no more!"
He knew that she didn’t mean that. They always had fights like this, and she’d always say that, but she never ever really meant it, and she never ever really would.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~http://www.crashdown.com/fanfic
"We just gotta reassemble. Get ourselves back together and put ‘em in their place," Slick was saying the next day at Julio’s Café, one of the many local restaurants and local hangouts for gangs like BlackCon. Many times, Julio’s had been the scene of one of the vicious battles between the two rival gangs.
"Yeah, puttin’ ‘em in their place is gonna be a little easier said than done," Kyle reminded the group, placing his hand over his stomach, over his bullet wound.
"I gotta agree with Kyle on this one," Alex piped up. "I mean, how many times have we tried to put ‘em in their place before, and how many times have we failed?"
"They failed, too," Slick reminded everyone.
"That’s my point exactly," Alex said. "No one ever wins."
Kyle shifted around uncomfortably in the booth. "They almost won over me last night."
Liz seemed to feel Kyle’s pain, and she tenderly placed her hand over his wound, gazing lovingly into her boyfriend’s eyes. Just looking at Liz made Kyle smile, and, for a brief second, he seemed to lose touch of all reality, and then Slick asked him, "So who shot you anyway?"
Kyle immediately snapped back into the very harsh and very painful reality known as everyday life. "Oh, uh, Michael Guerin, I think."
"Oh," Liz whispered quietly. "The Hulk."
Maria, who’d remained quiet for most of the time, looked up at the mention of Michael Guerin, shaking her head. "I hate him," she said quietly.
"I wanna beat the shit outta him," Slick put in. "He’s such a little bitch."
"Got that right," Alex agreed. "Hey, I’m gonna head on back to the crib, try and get some sleep, you know?" He scooted outta the booth, and Liz and Kyle followed. Within seconds, the café had cleared and Maria and Slick were the only two BlackCon members still remaining. Maria really wanted to leave so that she could catch up on her rest, but Slick was sitting on the outside of the booth, and he didn’t look like he was planning on getting up anytime soon, and Maria didn’t have the authority to tell her one and only leader what to do.
"So, Michael Guerin . . ." Slick was saying. "He, uh . . . he didn’t lay a hand on you, did he?"
"Oh, he did," Maria answered, "but,"—she shrugged—"whatever, you know."
"Whatever?" Slick echoed. "Whatever? Maria, that ain’t right. He should know that no one can touch you." His statement seemed to be the very essence of a paradox as he wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted up the hem of her shirt slowly with his rough hands. "No one but me," he added quietly.
It didn’t take long for him to coax her out back behind Julio’s. He pressed her up against the wall right next to the dumpster and lifted her shirt up all the way, along with the bra, exposing her bare, naked breasts. He put his hands on her, rolling her nipples between his fingers.
"You want me, baby?" he asked her. "You want me?"
"I want you," she told him, though she really didn’t.
He brought his lips down to meet hers fast and hard, and in doing so, he accidently bit her lip. Maria tasted blood immediately, but Slick didn’t stop.
"Damn, girl, you got me so hard," he murmured, pulling away from her. He removed his hands from her breasts only to undo his pants, his cock falling free.
Maria wanted to say something. She wanted to tell him to slow down. She wanted to tell him that the time wasn’t right. She wanted to tell him anything so that he wouldn’t do this.
She wasn’t ready for this. He’d done this tons of times with tons of different girls, but she’d only done this when . . . that had been because of her father . . .
Before she could say anything, though, he slid her pants down and plunged into her, his large member stretching her walls. Maria could hardly keep herself steady as he moved within her, pushing her back into the concrete wall behind her.
It hurt so much. It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. Of that much she was sure.
"Slick, please, stop," she choked out as he continued to thrust, his climax approaching.
"Stop?" He didn’t seem to get it, but his movements slowed down.
She nodded, and he pulled out of her altogether.
"What’s wrong?" he asked her. His question wasn’t one of genuine concern, but of genuine disappointment.
"I . . . I’m not ready," she admitted, catching her breath. She pulled her pants up and smoothed her shirt down, squeezing out from between the wall and Slick.
"Damn, baby, I thought you was ready," Slick said.
"I’m not," she repeated, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.
"Well, aight, if that’s what you want." Though Slick was the leader of a gang, though he’d had sex with half of the girls in Los Angeles and killed more people than he could remember, he wasn’t as heartless as he seemed. He knew not to push a girl over their boundaries, and he knew when to stop. Even though he was the leader of BlackCon and could order Maria to have sex with him if he wanted to, he didn’t, because he respected her decision.
"Sorry, Slick," Maria apologized.
"Nah, it’s fine," Slick told her. "You’ll be ready someday. And until that day, I still got every other fine bitch in the world to keep me busy."
Maria let Slick put his arm around her shoulders again and walk with her back to the crib. As they were walking, she pretended that he was her boyfriend and that she was his girlfriend and that they were actually in love with each other, and she pretended that they were walking back to a fantasy land instead of the harsh reality that awaited them upon their return.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria laid on her bed that entire day, sometimes sleeping, sometimes not. There wasn’t much going on that day. Most everyone was recuperating from the fight with Darkstreet the previous night. It hadn’t been an easy fight, that was for sure. This was worrying Slick and keeping him up all the while when he was supposed to be resting, thinking up plans for the next battle, the next attack. He was worried that BlackCon was getting warmed down while Darkstreet was just getting warmed up.
Whenever Maria did sleep, she saw the enemy in her dreams. She saw Michael Guerin saying the same thing to her over and over again in that harsh, cold way of his.
". . . everybody knows who everybody else is . . . nobody knows your name . . that just means you aren’t really important . . ."
Maria listened to him say that at least one hundred times before she was able to get up and stay up. She hated that she was letting what the enemy said get to her so much, but she had to admit that it really did make sense. She’d been in BlackCon for three years now. She’d been through too many fights to count with Darkstreet, yet many could not put her face with her name if asked to.
She hadn’t done anything monumental for the gang. In fact, she hadn’t even killed one of Darkstreet’s members. It was like she was part of the gang, but, in her own way, not. She didn’t kill, she didn’t do drugs, she didn’t have sex. Just because she was seventeen didn’t mean that she should stop herself from contributing to . . . to her family.
Maria glanced at the clock, running her fingers through her hair, trying to shake her dreams away. She was determined not to be bothered by Michael Guerin’s comments, and she was determined to learn from them.
The clock read 9:06. She’d had no idea that she’d slept so long. She forced herself to get up and head downstairs to eat something and join the others.
"God, we have no food!" Liz was shouting as Maria walked into the pathetic excuse for a kitchen.
"That’s ‘cause we have no money," Alex explained. "If one of us would get a job . . ."
"Hey, you know gettin’ money’s women’s work," Slick said from the living room. He was reclining in his favorite chair, stuffing his face with the last piece of pizza and watching Real World on TV.
"Well, I for one am not gonna go sell myself for ten bucks on a street corner," Liz said, rummaging around the cabinets overhead before finally finding a bowl of soup.
Slick turned around in the chair, looking Liz over. "Elizabeth, with your looks, you could sell yourself for a lot more than that."
Alex smiled, but Liz did not. "You think that’s funny?" she asked Alex, sounding disgusted.
"No," Alex answered, "but he’s only tellin’ the truth."
Liz slapped him in the sibling-like way on the shoulder. "You guys are such jerks," she told both Slick and Alex, though Maria knew she didn’t mean it.
"I agree with Liz," Maria piped up jokingly, making her presence known in the kitchen.
"Hey, wait a minute!" Alex seemed offended. "I am Alex Whitman! I’m the friend! I’m not the jerk!"
"Alex, I was just kidding," Liz told him. "But I wasn’t kidding about this food situation. The place is virtually empty. What’re we gonna do, Slick?"
Slick was absorbed in the television again. "I don’t know," he answered like it was nothing. "Tijuana and Jenna and all them are supposed to be out there this week."
"Well, they aren’t out there," Liz told him. "They’re upstairs playing truth or dare."
Slick sighed. "Idiots," he muttered, rising to his feet. "I got half the mind to kill them."
"Don’t do that," Maria told him. She hated it when Slick started talking about such drastic things. "I’ll take care of it."
Slick seemed surprised. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I’ll go out there and make some money." Maria was already heading back upstairs to get changed into something sexier.
"Maria, wait." Slick’s voice caused her to stop dead in her tracks and spin around to face him.
"Are you sure about this?" he asked her, taking a few steps closer to her. "I mean, you ain’t ever done anything like this before."
"I know I haven’t," she said. "It’s about time I did." She headed back up the stairs before Slick or Liz or Alex or anyone else who cared could do or say anything to stop her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael was taking what some would call a risk that night. He was venturing out closer to BlackCon territory alone, very close to the borderline. Few dared to do that, but Michael was very aware that he could get the best price for his drugs in this area.
Michael made his money and a good share of the gang’s money by selling these illegal goods. Over the years, he’d managed to figure out how to sell anything to anyone, even when they were hopelessly reluctant to buy it. Max said that he had a way of getting inside people’s heads and messing with them, making them think that they needed drugs even when they really didn’t. Many people in the gang admired and respected him for his masterfully perfected persuasion tactics.
He spotted a familiar customer sitting on a bench having a smoke. The guy was homeless, but he always seemed to have money, a sure sign that he stole frequently. He blew all of his cash on pot or cocaine or whatever it was that someone was willing to sell him, though, and that was the reason why he remained homeless.
The man on the bench waved him over. Michael walked over casually and performed the repeated maneuver that allowed him to sell to these people without getting caught. In the end, he walked away with enough money to buy him food for a week.
Michael knew that he wasn’t the smartest of guys on the earth—joining a gang was hardly smart, and he knew that—but he wasn’t dumb enough to waste his life on drugs like as that homeless man and many others were doing. He’d seen what drugs could do the days his parents’ coffins were lowered into the ground.
Michael continued to stroll down the streets like he owned them, keeping an eye out for any familiar face, anyone who might be interested in buying from him again, and keeping on the lookout for anyone who seemed to be a new potential customer.
There were dozens of girls running around wearing barely anything, trying to catch a guy’s attention. Michael sent them smiles as they passed, though he didn’t stop to have at it with any of them. They just didn’t do it for him. They were too . . . Isabel. They were all the same.
Except for one of them. She wasn’t. She stood out like a sore thumb as she stood on the street corner, tempting cars as they passed. It wasn’t that she wasn’t attractive, it was just that she looked completely uncomfortable in what she was doing.
Michael recognized her. She was the girl from BlackCon, the girl whose stomach he’d cut with a knife only the night before, the girl who he’d told wasn’t important. She looked quite different tonight than she had the night before. She’d traded in her jeans and tank top for a black leather mini-skirt and top that revealed a tattoo that read BlackCon on her back, but not the scar on her stomach that he, himself, had inflicted last night. She had boots on that went up to her knees, and her face was covered in the darkest of dark make-up. She looked like the epitome of a prostitute on the outside, but her facial expression showed that she was nothing like the woman she was pretending to be.
Michael walked towards her from behind. "Long time no see, bitch!" he shouted when he was within earshot.
She spun around to face him, clearly startled and angry all at the same time. "Are you stalking me now?" she asked him.
"Hardly," he told her. "I was just in the neighborhood."
"You shouldn’t be," she told him, turning back around so she was facing the street and the people on it instead of him. "If anyone from BlackCon sees you here, they’ll kill you."
"Well, you saw me here," he pointed out. "Does that mean you’re gonna kill me?"
"Maybe it does," she answered without hesitation.
He laughed and stepped closer to her, but she never turned to face him again. "What’re you gonna do? Talk me to death?"
"Do you have something you want?" she asked impatiently, turning around to face him again.
He shrugged. "Not really. I was just dealin’ to the locals, you know. Gotta scrape up some cash somehow."
"I know what you mean," she muttered, "and I guess you were right. I guess I am important. For sex."
He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess you are. Sorta."
She seemed almost offended. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, how long have you been out here?" he asked her.
"I don’t know," she answered. "An hour maybe. Why?"
"Well, if it’d been my girl Isabel who was out here, she’d have been with ten guys by now. How many have you been with?"
She let her gaze drift to the ground, not giving him so much as an answer.
"Lemme guess. None." She didn’t have to answer. Michael already knew. He’d known from the minute he’d seen her at the street corner, looking so unsure and unconfident in what she was doing. "A big fat zero."
"I’m just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself," she insisted.
"Well," Michael said, pointing to an approaching car driven by a man who appeared to be in his late twenties, "that might be your opportunity right there."
The guy rolled down his window and stuck his head out as he stopped at the corner.
"Hi, I’m Maria . . ." the girl started.
Before she could say more, the guy drove away.
"What was that all about?" the girl—Maria—asked.
"Guys like that don’t care about introductions," Michael told her. "They don’t wanna know what your name is. They just wanna set a price and have at ya."
Maria grunted, seeming offended. "God, what a jerk."
"Well, were you honestly expecting to find your Prince Charming out here tonight? ‘Cause if that’s the case, then I might be the closest you’ll find to that!"
"Would you shut up?" Maria shouted, drawing the attention of a few people passing by.
"I hate you!" he shouted back.
"I hate you, too!"
Ignoring the stares from everyone around, Michael turned his back on Maria and started to walk away, muttering "fuck you" as he did so. He was almost set on leaving when he turned back and took one last glance at her. She looked so different than she had only the night before, and not different in a good way. She looked like Isabel. She looked like all of the other girls who roamed these streets at this hour of the night.
Another car was coming to a stop at her corner, and this guy appeared to be much more interested than the last.
Though he hated himself for giving in, Michael went back. Just as she was about to get into the car with that guy, Michael grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. Her eyes met his, and a look of bonafide confusion made its way across her face.
"Go home," he told her.
"What?" She seemed surprised.
"Go home," he repeated, loosening his grip on her wrist.
Maria took one last glance back at the guy in the car and then at Michael again, and then she walked away in the direction of the BlackCon crib, slowly at first and then faster and faster until she was full out running down the streets as best she could in three-inch boots.
Michael ignored the stream of curses and insults that the guy in the car was throwing at him and headed off in the opposite direction, back to the Darkstreet crib. He didn’t know what had just happened, and he didn’t want to, so he chose to ignore it and pretend like it never happened at all.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria arrived back at the BlackCon crib, hoping to sneak back up to her bedroom without having to say anything to anyone, but when she heard the music blaring and the voices of her friends . . . family . . . whatever it was that they were . . . she knew that they were having another party and that sneaking up to her bedroom unnoticed would be an impossibility.
Maria walked inside and began to cough immediately as the smells that drugs and cigarettes emitted filled her senses. Even after being part of a gang for three years, she’d never get used to those smells.
Lucky for her, her friends seemed to be so absorbed in dancing and smoking and drinking that it was beginning to seem that sneaking upstairs might be a possibility again.
She was halfway up the stairs, unnoticed as she hoped to be, when someone grabbed her arm, stopping her. Maria spun around to see that it was Slick who had stopped her. He looked completely wasted and completely stoned, and he couldn’t get his eyes to focus on her when he spoke.
"Hey, baby, whatcha doin’ home so early?" he asked, his voice slurred as well.
Maria opened her mouth to answer, but she found it quite difficult to tell him that she hadn’t been able to do what she’d gone out there to do. She worried that he might look down on her, knowing that she wasn’t as "capable" as some of the other girls.
"How much did you make?" he asked her eagerly.
"Umm . . ." She was hesitant to answer, though she knew she’d have to. "Nothing. I didn’t make anything."
Slick seemed disappointed, though he tried to hide it. "Oh. Well . . "
"I’m sorry," Maria apologized quickly. "I really, really, really wanted to do something for BlackCon, but . . . but I just couldn’t do this."
Slick shrugged, almost as if it were nothing. "Hey, what can I expect from a seventeen year-old girl, right?"
It was in that moment, even though Slick was drunk and probably didn’t know and definitely wouldn’t remember what he was saying a day from now, that Maria was reminded that she was different from her supposed family in a blatantly obvious way.
"I’ll be in my room," Maria told him, turning to head back up the stairs.
"Hey, wait a minute, you’re gonna miss out on all the action," Slick said, tugging on her wrist to keep her from going up any farther.
"Oh, yeah. Sex and drugs and rock and roll. Knock yourself out."
"Not that action," he elaborated. "I mean the fight. We’re headin’ on over to Darkstreet tonight. We gonna take ‘em by surprise."
"By surprise?" Maria wasn’t following.
"Yeah," Slick said. "They ain’t gonna be expectin’ us to show up after the battle last night without Kyle. He’s one of our stronger guys. But we are gonna show up, and we’re gonna take ‘em all down before they even realize what’s hit ‘em."
"You got big plans, Slick," Maria told him. "Look, you guys are all drunk. You’re definitely not in the condition to fight. And, really, it is pretty stupid to go over there without Kyle."
"Baby, it’s quite the opposite," Slick said, running his hands over her bare arms. "It’s brilliant. Now, are you comin’ or not?"
Maria didn’t want to go over to Darkstreet. Not tonight, and not any night ever again. She didn’t want to have to face Michael Guerin again, because, if she did, she’d have to ask him why he stopped her from doing what she’d been forcing herself to do out there on that street corner, and she didn’t want to do that. She’d be best off if she never spoke to the guy again.
"I’m really tired . . ." she started.
"You can sleep when you get home," Slick told her. "Now go get changed and we’ll head on out." It seemed as if he wasn’t giving her a choice in the matter anymore. He was deciding for her. Because he was the leader. Because he was her leader.
"Alright," she agreed reluctantly, heading on up the stairs for a different reason than she had first intended to.
Changing proved to me more difficult than Maria had expected it to be. Almost every shirt she owned showed her stomach in some way, and Maria didn’t want to let Michael Guerin or anyone else see that she’d been hurt.
She finally decided on a regular pair of jeans and a red sweatshirt. When she made it back downstairs, she discovered that the most of the gang, including Slick, had just left and were making their way to the crib already.
Liz was still there, though, making sure that Kyle would be comfortable on the couch while they were gone.
"Don’t get hurt," Kyle was telling her.
"I’ll try not to," Liz told him, "but that can be a kinda difficult thing to do when you’re in the middle of a gang battle, you know."
"Yeah, I know," Kyle said, "but at least try to be safe."
"I will," Liz promised him. She bent down and pressed a tender kiss to his lips, and Maria found herself staring on in envy. Kyle and Liz were so great together. Their chemistry had been hanging around them for years until they finally agreed that it was time to explore a relationship. Maria didn’t have a relationship, though. She had Slick, and they had their . . . thing. She wasn’t sure what they had. Whatever it was, though, it wasn’t a relationship like Kyle and Liz’s, and it never would be.
Liz turned around and saw Maria. "Hey, I didn’t know you were coming," she said, sounding surprised.
"Yeah, I couldn’t really go through with the hooker thing, so I came back and Slick pretty much told me to come along."
Liz waved good-bye to Kyle, and the two girls left the crib, heading off to the Darkstreet crib, trailing the other BlackCon members.
"I really wanna kill somebody tonight," Liz muttered as they walked on.
"Who?" Maria asked.
"Michael Guerin. He shot Kyle, remember?"
"Oh, yeah," Maria said. "But Kyle’s been hurt before."
"But he’s never been shot," Liz pointed out. "This is the closest he’s ever come to dying. Michael could’ve killed him." The anger was growing more and more evident in her eyes as she spoke. "God, I hate him."
"Oh, so do I," Maria agreed. "He sliced my stomach last night."
Liz made a face. "Ow."
"Yeah," Maria agreed. "Michael Guerin is . . . he’s really strange, you know?"
Liz shrugged. "Sure. I haven’t really gotten to know the guy, Maria, and I don’t plan to."
"Well, I haven’t gotten to know him, either," Maria said, "and I don’t plan to, either, but . . . he’s just weird, you know?"
"Yeah, he is pretty unusual," Liz agreed, "but I think that’s ‘cause his parents died when he was so young. Scarred him for life and all."
"How did they die?" Maria asked, curious.
"I heard that his parents died because of a drug overdose. When he was eight. Apparently they were mad high one night and just . . . died."
Maria couldn’t help but almost feel sorry for the guy. She knew what it was like to lose a parent.
"I guess he lived with his aunt and uncle here in LA until he was eighteen and then joined up with Darkstreet," Liz finished.
Maria smiled. "And you said you didn’t know the guy."
"I don’t," Liz said. "I just know stuff about him. And I’m really not interested in knowing any more."
"Oh, I’m not, either," Maria said as she continued the long walk to the Darkstreet crib.
The unmistakable sounds of violence could be heard a good distance away as they approached their destination. When they did finally make it onto the scene, Liz smiled at Maria in case it would be the last time they ever saw each other and charged forward. Maria hung back, casually making her way through the chaos and into the shadows. She didn’t want to take part in this unless challenged. She wasn’t as strong or experienced of a fighter as most here were, and she knew she wasn’t ready to take on anyone like Darkstreet. She was like an extra in a movie. She was there, but she was just there. She didn’t ever do anything spectacular or particularly memorable or honorable by the gang standards.
It didn’t help that Darkstreet was very intimidating. That’s what Maria hated about them so much. They were so arrogant and cocky, and they knew exactly how to intimidate her and make her worry. Michael Guerin had obviously known how to do it. He’d had her begging for him to stop hurting her. Begging.
Maria looked around, surveying the scene. It looked as if Nix and Slick were ready to challenge each other head on, but no one was making the first move. They just stood there glaring at each other until they finally both gave up and moved on. Everyone had been waiting for years now to see a showdown between Slick and Nix. People were saying that it would be the ultimate cruel end to what had been a very cruel rivalry between the two for years, ever since Nix had killed Slick’s sister and since Slick had killed Nix’s girlfriend in return. However, it seemed as if this battle to end all battles was never going to happen.
Alex was taking on Max Evans. Their battle seemed to be a battle more of pure intellect more than physical strength. Each seemed to be trying to determine the other’s next move, trying to devise some sort of strategy or plan for victory. In the battle of intelligence, Alex won by a small margin, but Max still had his incredible physical strength on his side, and that leveled it out so that no one was victorious.
No particular side was winning. No particular side ever did.
As Maria was looking around, she saw someone moving up on the third floor balcony, his body covered in shadows. Maria could tell who he was by his hair, though. No one had hair like that except for the infamous Michael Guerin himself.
He was just standing there, probably smiling, like he was enjoying watching the whole fight play out, knowing quite well that no one would be brave enough to challenge him.
Maria knew she wasn’t brave enough, either, but she sneaked on into the Darkstreet crib anyway, not to challenge Darkstreet’s most valued warrior, but to talk to him.
Maria found her way around the almost empty crib easily. It was almost the exact mirror image of BlackCon’s, only much untidier. She found Michael waiting out in the hallway for her, leaning against his doorframe.
"Had a feeling you’d be comin’ up here," he said. "Face it, baby. You just can’t get enough of me."
"Oh, I’ve already had more than enough of you," she assured him. "I just thought I’d come up here to see what is was like,"—she took out her gun and pressed it against his chest, backing him up into his bedroom as she stepped forward—"to be on the other side, to see what it feels like when the tables have turned."
"The tables haven’t turned," Michael said. He sounded confident, yet he was still backing up as she made her way inside. "If you think you’ll be able to hold me down long enough to slice my stomach, think again."
"I don’t wanna get anywhere near your stomach," she told him, "or any other part of you for that matter."
"Then what do you want me to do?" he asked her. "You want me to hurt you like I did last night?"
"Do you have any idea how annoying you are?"
He continued on like he hadn’t even heard her. "Or do you want me to pull up next to you the next time you’re workin’ your little street corner late at night? Fuck your brains out?"
"I wasn’t . . ." Maria began to protest.
"Oh, but you were," Michael kept on, "and you woulda gone through with it if I hadn’t have stopped you." He began to laugh. "Little Maria. Little innocent girl. A prostitute. What would your mother say?"
"My mother’s dead," she blurted out.
His bravado seemed to diminish in intensity a little bit when she said that. "Really? How did she die?"
"Car accident."
"Gee," he said, "what a lame way to go."
"Oh, yeah?" she shot back. "At least my mother didn’t die ‘cause of drugs!"
He froze in place, an almost saddened expression replacing his confident one. "How do you know about that?"
"Everybody knows, Michael," she told him. "And you see, what I don’t get is why you think it’s okay to sell people drugs after seeing all the damage they can do."
"I do what I have to do to get by!"
"That doesn’t make it right!"
"Oh, yeah, well you know what else isn’t right?" Michael charged forward, pinning her back against the wall and causing the gun to fall from her hands. "You’re not right, Maria. You’re fucked up, you know that? And fucked up people like you tend to die when they come up into my room uninvited."
"But you invited me."
"I hardly consider standing outside on my balcony and invitation."
Maria shrugged. "Whatever. I know it was. Oh, and about this whole killing me thing . . . you won’t do it."
He seemed to be growing clearly frustrated. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"I mean you’ve had every chance to kill me, but you haven’t. And you didn’t last night, either, because . . . well, let’s just face it. You don’t want to."
Michael shook his head vigorously. "Oh, you don’t know how much I do wanna kill you right now. You don’t know how much I just wanna . . "
"Alright, whatever dude," Maria cut him off. "I really just came here tonight to let you know that, from now on, there will be no more slicing of my stomach, no more paying visits to me on the street corner, and no more conversations like these. Does that work for you?"
"That more than works for me," Michael told her. "Now get out."
Maria reached down to the ground and picked up her gun, walking out as casually as she’d walked in. She’d just stood up for herself, even though that hadn’t been her intention coming here, and she felt . . . she felt powerful.
She’d never felt that way before.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael laid up in his and Isabel’s room that night with the door locked so that no one else could enter. Through his open window, he could hear the sounds of battle tapering off and eventually fading away altogether. Isabel was pounding on the door soon, disrupting his momentary peace.
"Michael, I know you’re in there!" she was shouting, pounding on the door. "Lemme in!"
Michael took his sweet time getting up and making his way over to the door, opening it and letting Isabel inside.
"Why weren’t you down there tonight?" she asked him, barging inside and making her way over to the mirror to survey her appearance.
Michael closed the door behind her and locked it again. "I dunno. Just didn’t feel like fightin’, I guess."
"Well, we needed you," Isabel told him, tucking a stray strand of hair back in place. "It wasn’t an easy fight."
"Everybody alright?"
"Yeah. Just a few minor injuries." Isabel turned her attention away from the mirror, then, seeming to give up on her appearance, and focused her attention on him. "You know, Mikey, I really ain’t feelin’ that good right now. It might make me feel a little better if you . . . did some things . . . to me."
"You said I wasn’t gonna be fuckin’ you no more," Michael reminded her.
"Yeah, I know," she said, "but I wasn’t serious."
"You never are."
"Right. So, you wanna make me feel better or not?" She unbuttoned the first two buttons of her shirt, revealing a tremendous amount of cleavage and a black bra. Usually, this site would turn Michael on, but tonight, it just didn’t.
"I don’t think so," he told Isabel.
"What?" she shrieked. "WHAT?"
"I really just don’t wanna do this right now," he told her honestly.
"You never wanna do this!" Isabel continued to shout. "You know what? I might just go find Jonathon again! He’d sure as hell give me what I want!"
"Why don’t you go do that?" Michael suggested.
"I will," Isabel said, buttoning her shirt again and heading for the door. She gave him one more nasty look, shaking her head in disgust as she left the room.
Michael sat back down on his bed after she left, running his fingers through his hair. That girl, Maria . . . She was driving him crazy. He knew that he should be wanting to kill her, that he probably should’ve killed her already, but he hadn’t, and, for some reason, she was right. He didn’t want to.
Michael had never ever given up the chance to kill a BlackCon member, whether they were important in gang standards or not. He didn’t know why he all of a sudden didn’t want to kill the enemy. It wasn’t right for him.
When she’d come up to his room on this night, she’d managed, somehow, to get underneath his skin, just as he’d managed to the night before. No one had ever been able to do that to him before, so he couldn’t understand why she was able to do this now.
He hated her. He hated her so much.
He was immersing himself in all of these thoughts when his door, which he’d neglected to lock for a third time, was opened. Max stepped inside. "I heard you guys yelling," he said, adding quietly, "again."
"Yeah, what else is new, right?"
"Maybe you should go apologize to her," Max suggested.
"No, I’m not gonna do that," Michael said. "Look, man, I know she’s your sister and all, but she can be so stupid sometimes. I mean, she gets pissed just ‘cause I don’t wanna have sex with her."
Max shrugged. "That’s Isabel for you, I guess. But, Michael, you really should consider the apology thing."
"I have nothing to apologize for."
"Well, in her opinion, you do."
Michael sighed. "Look, Isabel and I . . . we’re different than you and Tess. We don’t apologize to each other. We don’t tell each other we love each other every night. We’re never gonna be like you guys. Love is . . . it’s inconceivable to us, Maxwell."
Max shrugged. "Fine, I guess I get your point." He came on into the room and sat down in a chair. "You missed one helluva fight tonight," he told Michael.
"That’s what Iz said."
"I really hate Alex Whitman, you know?" Max continued. "Guy tried to stab me."
"Whitman’s a fag," Michael said. "Dude, he wears glasses. And plaid shirts. And he plays chess."
"How do you know he plays chess?"
"I don’t. I’m just assuming he does."
Max smiled. "I think you’re right." A moment of silence existed between the two of them until Max said, "Oh, hey, by the way, I saw that girl tonight."
"What girl?" Michael asked.
"The blonde girl. Maria DeLuca," Max answered. "I thought you were gonna kill her last night."
Maria DeLuca. Great. One subject that Michael didn’t really want to talk about. "Yeah, you know, I don’t know what happened. I just didn’t kill her."
"That’s strange," Max commented. "Especially for you."
"Yeah," Michael agreed. "But I’ll kill her eventually." He pictured Maria DeLuca in his mind. "I hate her so much."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next night, Maria decided to go out. She was feeling pretty good about things, and she’d also gotten a good night’s sleep after the fight, so she really felt in the mood to go dancing at Club Funk. However, no one else did. Liz was not going to leave Kyle’s side while he needed her, and Alex was still recovering from his brawl with Max. Slick had one hell of a hangover, and he was sleeping the whole day.
Though she could’ve asked someone else to go with her that night, Maria didn’t. She wasn’t even remotely close to anyone else in the gang, and being alone, or as alone as one could be in a club filled with people, for awhile didn’t sound so bad after all.
When Maria arrived at the club, however, she was disappointed to find that Destiny’s Child was playing. She’d been a Destiny’s Child fan until a few years ago when the radio station made her sick of their hit song "Survivor" and therefore sick of the group altogether.
Maria groaned. Her night of dancing was officially nonexistent now, due to the fact that there were no other good clubs in BlackCon territory, except for one that was expected to open up within a few days. She sure as hell wasn’t leaving their territory, either. In the BlackCon area, she was protected because she was part of BlackCon, even though she wasn’t a valuable part. In other areas, she was vulnerable.
Maria was pleased to see that a small Mexican food stand had set itself up right next to Club Funk, probably hoping to attract some customers who couldn’t find what they wanted in the club. The smell of bean burritos and tacos filled Maria’s nose, and she decided to give the food stand a try. Mexican food had become a favorite of hers ever since she’d become a part of BlackCon, as the gang ate at Julio’s café almost every day.
"I’ll have two tacos," Maria told the man when she got to the front of the line, holding up two fingers to make sure that he understood her. The man nodded and shouted something to the two others working. Within minutes, Maria was handed two delicious looking tacos.
She sat down on a bench and began to eat immediately. She soon found that her food was a lot spicier than she had wanted it to be, and she recognized the taste of many, many jalapeZo peppers at once.
"Mmm, hot, hot!" she said with her mouth full, fanning herself as she did so. "Hot taco!"
All at once, someone held out a can of Dr. Pepper in front of her. Maria followed the arm holding the can and looked up, directly into the face of none other than Michael Guerin.
"Oh, great," she mumbled, swallowing the spicy food down as best she could.
"Need some?" Michael asked her, gesturing to the can of pop in his hand.
"No, I don’t," Maria lied. She picked her taco up in her hands and took another big bite, fighting to contain herself as the taste of jalapeZos exploded in her mouth for a second time.
Michael shrugged. "Alright." Uninvited, he sat down on the bench beside her and began to chug his soda greedily. Maria watched enviously, feeling as if her mouth were on fire.
"Why are you here?" she asked him impatiently. "In BlackCon territory?"
"I’m not afraid of BlackCon," he answered at once. "I’m not afraid of any of you."
"Well, why are you here?" Maria asked again. "Just . . . why don’t you just leave?"
"‘Cause I got stuff to do," Michael told her, reaching into his pocket and showing her the drugs he was selling.
Maria shook her head. She would never understand why Michael Guerin still found it okay to sell drugs when his parents had died because of them.
"I’m not really in the mood for a lecture right now on the dangers of drugs, so . . ."
"Look," she cut in, "I thought we agreed never to talk to each other again."
Michael threw his now empty can of soda on the ground and kicked it across the street. "I have the right to back out on an agreement," he told her.
Maria groaned, tossing her overly hot taco in a nearby trash can. "You’re impossible," she said, running her hands through her hair exasperatedly.
"Me? I’m impossible?"
"Yes, you! First, you act like you’re gonna kill me, then you don’t kill me, and now you’re all, like, stalking me!"
"Oh, please, I got a lot better things to do," he said.
"Like what?" she shot back. "Have sex? Sell drugs?"
"Look, I just get a little tired of always bein’ around Darkstreet, okay?"
"Okay, whatever, just . . . just leave, okay?"
"Fine," he agreed, "I’ll go." He stood up. "And I’ll never talk to you again."
"Oh, you can talk to me," Maria told him, "Just know that I won’t be listening."
Michael glared at her for a few short seconds before he turned and walked away, leaving Maria sitting on the bench all alone, almost feeling bad for being so cold to him. Almost.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael didn’t return home until at least noon the next day. He was exhausted, and he wanted to go to sleep so badly, but something kept plaguing him.
That something was in his pocket. That something was something that he could sell to anyone if he wanted to, something that would get him more money than he could count, something that he hadn’t been able to sell to anyone the night before, not even his usual buyers.
He’d seen the look on Maria’s face when he’d shown her the reason why he was in BlackCon territory. She’d looked so disappointed. Not disappointed in him, but disappointed in the fact that he was doing it, that he was still doing it, even after everything with his parents.
Michael met up with Max in the hallway, who was grinning from ear to ear.
"What’s up with you?" Michael asked him. "Tess finally agree to use the cuffs?"
"No, but I’m still workin’ on that," Max replied. "Guess what I did this morning?"
"What did you do?" Michael asked as he continued on to his bedroom, relieved when he opened the door to find that Isabel wasn’t in there.
"I got a job," Max told him, following him inside. "A real job."
"What? Flipping burgers?" Michael joked, throwing his coat down on the floor, all the drugs spilling out of his pockets. He ignored them and sat down in his chair, grabbing hold of a half-full bottle of beer left lying on the floor. It wasn’t cold, but that didn’t matter.
"No, I’m a security guard. Up at the jail."
Michael raised his eyebrows, liking the sound of this. "Ah, convenient. Now, if I ever get busted like I did last May then you’ll be there to get me out."
"You better not get busted," Max told him, "‘Cause I don’t know if I’d be able to get you out. I’m serious about this job, man."
Michael could tell he was. Max Evans had held more jobs than all the rest of the Darkstreet members combined, but he’d never ever felt that he was doing anything worthwhile. Now, possibly, he did.
"I’m happy for you," Michael told him. "At least you’ve got a job."
"You got a job, too," Max reminded him, motioning towards the drugs on the floor.
Michael took another swig of beer. "Not honorable," he commented.
"Doesn’t have to be," Max added.
Michael chugged the rest of the beer, dropping the bottle down on the floor when he was done. "For the first time in my life, this is actually bothering me," he said.
"Why?"
Michael knew why. He knew it was because every time he looked at those drugs or touched those drugs, he was reminded of the look Maria had given him, the look other people probably would give him if they knew what he did.
"I don’t know," he lied. "Look, I’m really tired. I think I’m just gonna get some sleep."
"Alright," Max said, heading towards the door.
"I’m glad you got the job," Michael told him before he left.
"Thanks, man!" Max called as he made his way down the hallway.
Before Michael Guerin went to sleep that day, he forced himself to think long and hard about what he was doing every time he sold drugs to someone, and he made himself remember what had happened to his parents. He made himself watch a little movie in his head of their funeral, and he began to ask himself if he really wanted or needed to do what he was doing.
Before Michael Guerin went to sleep that day, he got rid of every single drug he owned.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The next night, Maria went out again, making sure to avoid any Mexican food stands with spicy tacos. She dropped on by Club Funk again and was terribly disappointed to see that another performer ruined by the insistent and repetitive radio, Ashanti, was performing. She decided to head over to Rolo’s bar, a bar where BlackCon went on a regular basis. Slick said that he liked the girls that dropped on by Rolo’s, and the other men of the gang agreed. Maria didn’t like Rolo’s for the people or for the beer, but she liked the atmosphere, which was surprisingly relaxed and encouragingly carefree.
Maria was sitting at the bar, sipping her soda, and watching the other people in the room, people who were not part of a gang, people who actually had fun in their lives. She envied them for their complete simplicity and wished that she was one of them again, wished that she was just a normal teenage girl in high school, wished that her mother was still alive to make her life better when it was not.
"Contrary to what you might think," came a voice, startling her. "I’m not stalking you."
Maria did not even have to look up to know that it was Michael again, running into her for the second night in a row.
"I just got bored over with Darkstreet so I decided to come over here. You know, you guys got some pretty cool places in your territory," he continued, sitting down beside her on the barstool like he had been invited to.
"But you don’t got Club Bang."
"Club Bang sucks!" Maria exclaimed, facing him for the first time since he had come in. "It’s all rock!"
"Yeah, and your stupid little Club Funk is all rap!" Michael shot back.
"That’s because rap is the best," Maria said, "and everybody in this part of town likes rap."
"Then everybody in this part of town must be brainwashed."
Maria sent him a glare, shaking her head. "Rap’s awesome," she muttered.
"Is this you not listening?" he asked her all at once. "‘Cause you suck at it."
She was growing frustrated and exasperated with him fast. She hated how he intimidated her, even if he wasn’t trying. The thing about Michael Guerin was that he was smart, smarter than he appeared to be, and he knew how to trap you in one of your own arguments, no matter how hard you fought to escape.
"You know, I really meant it when I said that we shouldn’t talk anymore," she told him. "I really meant it."
"I’m sure you did."
"So why do you keep showing up whenever you shouldn’t? Why do you keep trying to talk to me? You hate me, and I hate you, remember?"
"I never said I hated you," he said, motioning the bartender over. "I just hate BlackCon."
"Well, I’m part of BlackCon." She pointed out the conspicuously obvious.
"I’ll have a beer," Michael told the bartender before returning his attention back to Maria. "But . . . you’re different than them. I don’t know how you are, but . . . you are."
"Just ‘cause I’m younger doesn’t mean I’m different."
"Younger?" he echoed in question. "I wasn’t insinuating that you’re different because you’re younger. I just thought that . . ." He trailed off, a new though arising in his mind. "How old are you?"
"It doesn’t matter," she said without hesitation. It was a response that she had grown quite used to giving whenever asked this question. It really didn’t matter how old she was. She’d had to grow up far to fast anyway. Though she was only seventeen, her soul had endured more than its share of pain over the short ages.
"Twenty?" Michael ventured.
"No."
"Twenty-one?"
"Just stop guessing. I’m not gonna tell you."
"Well," he said, "you can’t be that much younger. I mean, it’s not like you’re in high-school or anything . . ." He paused when he noticed the expression on her face, the expression that gave away the truth. "Right?"
She sighed dramatically. "Fine, I’m seventeen, alright? I am seventeen years old!"
He seemed so surprised, almost . . . saddened. "You’re seventeen," he echoed, as if processing the information for himself. "And you’re in a gang?"
She herself was saddened that she was admitting this. "Yes," she said.
The bartender arrived back with Michael’s beer, but he didn’t even seem to realize that it was there. "How long . . . I mean . . . when did you get involved with BlackCon?"
"Why are you demanding all these answers of me?" she asked him. She didn’t want to reveal her life story to this guy.
"I’m not demanding," he told her, "I’m just asking you a question. It’s up to you whether you answer me or not."
At that moment, for some reason, Maria DeLuca wanted to tell him everything. She wanted to tell him that her life and her time with her mother in their beautiful house situated perfectly in their beautiful neighborhood had all been so transient, so short-lived in a sense, and she wanted to tell him that she wanted nothing more than to go back to when she was fourteen years old and somehow stop that car accident from happening, somehow prevent her mother’s death and her own initiation into the BlackCon gang. She wanted to tell him everything, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.
"I was fourteen," she answered simply.
He seemed shocked. "How is it possible to get into a gang at fourteen years old?"
"It’s very possible," she replied, "when you’re fourteen and you look like you’re already in college."
Michael nodded, seeming to understand now. "Oh. I didn’t know that Slick would let you in for your looks."
"Well he sure as hell didn’t let me in for my fighting ability, or rather lack there of."
"So, why did you join this gang at fourteen anyway? What happened that made you think there wasn’t any other options?"
"There weren’t any other options," Maria told him. "This was the only option. This was my only choice."
"Why?"
Maria was about to answer when she found her eyes drifting to the entrance of the bar. She saw a familiar form enter, a form that could only be Slick.
"Fuck you!" Maria shouted, pushing Michael on the shoulder enough to surprise him. She stood up and walked over towards where Slick was standing, hoping that he had not been able to tell that she had been engaging in an actual conversation with the enemy.
"What?" Michael was asking, confused. He followed her as she left, and he stopped talking when he noticed that Slick was there. He understood now.
"Hey," Maria said in the sexiest manner she could manage, slipping into Slick’s arms.
"Hey, baby," Slick said. "I thought you might be lonely."
"I am," Maria . . . lied? Had she been lonely? With Michael?
The answer was flagrantly clear in her mind. She hadn’t been. She hadn’t even wanted to leave him. She’d had to.
"Let’s go," she suggested, leading Slick back outside. As she did so, she turned her head around one more time and saw that Michael Guerin was still watching her. They shared each other’s gaze for a brief moment in which they both understood the other and their actions entirely, understanding with quite a bit of clarity that they would continue this, just not now.
Later.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Later turned out to be much sooner than either of the two expected it would be. Later actually turned out to be relatively soon. However, when they did see each other, it was because of yet another battle between the two gangs.
Michael would’ve preferred to see Maria DeLuca again at that stupid Rolo’s Bar, or even sitting outside a Mexican food stand eating almost unbearably spicy tacos, but he figured that even seeing her because of a fight was better than not seeing her at all. He didn’t know why, but he was so intrigued by everything she’d told him so far.
She was seventeen. How was that possible? How could she only be seventeen and still have to deal with the hectic lifestyle that was the way of a gang every day? And why would she want to?
"Alright, VaLenti still isn’t in fighting condition," Nix was saying to group of guys who’d gathered behind Johnny’s Pub, the main bar in Darkstreet territory, just as Rolo’s was in the BlackCon area. The girls were standing out front, talking about nails and boys and all of the normal things that girls seemed to always talk about, whether they were part of a gang or not. The girls of Darkstreet were not as keen on the fighting as the guys were, but they helped out and pulled their weight in the battles when they were needed.
"It don’t matter if VaLenti’s out or not," Max said. "If they fight anything like they did a few nights ago, without VaLenti, it’s still not gonna be an easy battle."
"Who else they got that’s a threat?" Slick asked Max and mainly Max. "Besides Slick, there ain’t anyone over there to give us any trouble."
The entire group erupted in disagreements. Max argued that Alex was stronger than he looked. "And it’s scary," he said, "the way the guy thinks. He’s so fuckin’ smart, and that’s a problem."
"But he ain’t a threat to me," Nix said. "The only person over there that stands in my way of victory is Slick."
"Then why don’t you fight him tonight?" Michael suggested. "If he’s the only guy who’s in your way, then why don’t you just fight him and win it?"
Nix was silent, and Michael knew.
"You’re scared, aren’t you?"
"I’m ain’t scared," Nix denied, but Michael knew he was lying.
"You are scared," he said. "And so is he. That’s why you guys never fight each other. We’ve been waiting all this time, but . . ."
"Shut the fuck up, Michael!" Nix shouted, loud enough so that a few of the girls were drawn around back. Isabel was by Michael’s side at once, coiling her fingers around his arm. He tried to shake her away, but he couldn’t.
"Imma do it," Nix said to Michael, pure, raw determinate showing in his eyes. "Tonight, Imma beat his ass. You just watch." He turned to the rest of the gang. "Let’s go."
They walked forward in their usual positions, Nix leading the way in, Michael following behind. However, this time, unlike in the past, Michael never let himself believe that they would emerge from this victorious. In the past, he always came back from a fight thinking that they had won, even if they hadn’t, always believing that Darkstreet was the better gang. But now, he didn’t know what to think. He’d just seen the way Nix was crumbling at the very thought of fighting Slick in the battle that would surely go down in history, and it didn’t help that he and Isabel were growing farther and farther apart. It was only a matter of time before the whole group fell apart if somebody didn’t do something.
Michael didn’t want to be that somebody. For some unexplainable reason, he just didn’t want to be that somebody. He was over it right now, over the rush that he used to receive from fighting the enemy, just like when he had sliced Maria’s stomach that night. There was just something else that was on his mind right now, other things that he was feeling besides the crazy feeling of high. He felt . . . pity . . . for the enemy . . . for Maria. He felt sorry for her, joining the gang at fourteen because of . . . because of what? He didn’t know.
He was going to find out.
The fight started out slow. There was much talking, much more than was usually so, between the two sides. Vicious talking. Hateful talking. Darkstreet was using the infamous tactic of intimidation upon BlackCon, but the rival gang was not faltering.
Michael tried to fade away as much as he could, to become an invisible member of the gang, just for this night, but that was a hard thing to do when you were such a valuable asset, a prize, as Isabel had once put it. There were many who wanted to challenge him that night, many who would’ve if he hadn’t been so uninterested.
Slowly, Michael made his way away from the threats, away from the glares, and away from the physical battle that had just begun outside. He snuck inside where few BlackCon members remained. He passed some on his way up the stairs, but no one bothered to stop him. No one even looked at him, afraid that he would think the simple look suggested a challenge. He walked slowly but stealthily, trying to remember what room had been hers. He passed many rooms, but one held an odd sense of familiarity.
The door was already open, and she was inside. She seemed completely unaware that a battle was even occurring outside. Either she was completely unaware, or she just didn’t give a damn.
She was applying make-up to her face, staring intently in the mirror when she saw him standing in the doorway, or rather his reflection. She didn’t bother to stop what she was doing, but the look on her face told Michael that she was at least acknowledging his presence.
"So, you do know that there’s an actual battle going on outside, don’t you?" Michael asked her.
"I do," she answered simply, still focusing on her make-up. "There always is."
Michael couldn’t help but think how true that was. BlackCon and Darkstreet would fight each other every single day of the week if they could, if it didn’t exhaust them so much.
"Why aren’t you down there fighting for your side?" Maria asked him, running a tube of pink lipstick across her lips.
Michael shrugged. "Dunno. I just don’t really feel like being a part of it tonight."
"I never feel like being a part of it," Maria admitted.
Michael took a step into her room, hoping that she didn’t mind.
"Why exactly are you really up here?" Maria asked him when he said nothing. She’d stopped doing her make-up, now, but she chose to look at him through the mirror and not turn around to face him. "Is it ‘cause you really don’t wanna fight, or is it ‘cause you wanted to finish that little conversation we were having the other night?"
"Both," Michael confessed. "Listen, I’ll leave if you want me to."
She didn’t say anything, almost as if she were trying to decide whether to tell him to leave or not to.
"I’ll just go," he said quietly, turning to head out the door in the direction he had come. He was sure that she would’ve been glad that he had left, sure that she wouldn’t say or do anything more when he heard her voice ring out in the air.
"Can I come with you?"
He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around to face her slowly. Her eyes were pleading with him for an escape.
A short time later, Michael Guerin found himself in the park with Maria, having snuck out the back way of the BlackCon crib without being noticed.
"I love this place," Maria commented, making her way across the grass and sitting on one of a pair of swings. "It’s about the only place in this crappy town that’s halfway decent."
"Yeah, I guess I sorta like it, too," Michael said, sitting down on the swing next to her. "It’s kinda . . ."
"Peaceful," Maria finished for him.
"Yeah," he said with a nod. "Kinda peaceful."
"And away from the chaos," she added knowingly.
They sat in a strangely comfortable silence for a short time. Maria’s eyes drifted up, and she began concentrating on a small girl with long, blonde hair and her mother playing together in the sandbox in front of her.
"That was me," Maria choked out finally, still staring longingly at the mother and daughter.
"Huh?" Michael didn’t completely understand.
"That was me," Maria told him again. "That was exactly what I was like when I was little. I had this long blonde hair that my mom would brush one hundred times every day, and I wore these little plaid skirts because my mom thought they were cute." She turned to Michael and smiled. "She made me wear these little black shoes, too."
"Sounds like you and your mom were close," Michael ventured.
Maria nodded slowly, the smile dissolving from her face. "Yeah, we were," she whispered.
"Honey, it’s late. We need to get you to bed," the mother was telling her daughter. "We don’t want you to be tired for school tomorrow."
"My mom always said that," Maria said. "She always made sure that I got to bed on time so that I’d do well in school. And she always made sure that I ate my veggies and fruits before my desert." Tears were beginning to form in her eyes, tears that she was trying to hold in, but tears that were still obvious to Michael.
"Maria, your mom . . ." Michael trailed off, unsure of how to go about asking this, unsure if he was even supposed to. "Maybe you just shouldn’t . . "
"She died," Maria blurted, cutting him off before he even had a chance to finish. She hung her head and whispered, "She’s dead." It was like she had to convince herself that it was true.
Michael didn’t know what to do, what to say to make her feel better. He didn’t even know why the hell he was contemplating making her feel better. He could’ve told her that he understood, because he’d gone through the same thing, but he didn’t, because he couldn’t. His parents, though he’d loved them, they’d never truly loved him the way they should have. They’d loved drugs more than they’d ever been able to love him.
"She and I did everything together," Maria continued, watching as the little girl grabbed her mother’s hand and they walked off together. "I just always thought she was the coolest person on the planet. Even when I started middle school and most girls were embarrassed to go shopping with their mothers, I’d always want to go with my mom to the mall." A single tear leaked from her eye as she watched the mother and daughter round a corner and disappear from site. "We were best friends."
Michael still couldn’t say anything. He didn’t know what he could say.
"One day she was there, waiting for me when I came home from my first day of high school," Maria continued, staring off into space now, "and the next, she was just gone. She was . . . she was dead. And there was nothing I could do to bring her back."
"Maria, I’m sorry . . ." Michael began.
"Don’t be sorry," she told him, looking him in the eyes again for the first time since they’d reached the park. "It’s not your fault. It’s just something that happens." She sighed and added, "Something that should never have happened."
"Is that why you joined a gang at fourteen?" Michael asked her. "‘Cause of your mom?"
She nodded mutely.
"But what about your dad?"
Maria visibly tensed at the mention of her father. "I couldn’t go live with him," she said hurriedly, shaking her head. "I couldn’t."
"Why not?" Michael asked. He knew he sounded nosy, but he wanted to know.
"I just couldn’t," Maria repeated. "He . . . he hurts me."
"He hurts you?" Michael echoed. "Did he hit you or something?"
"No," Maria replied, hanging her head. "He didn’t have to."
The more she said, the more it made sense. Her father hadn’t had to hit her to hurt her. There were other ways, ways that were just as bad, if not worse.
"You mean he . . ."
"Every night before the divorce," Maria filled in, knowing what he was about to ask. "I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. And when I tried to tell mom about it, my throat got all dry and I felt like I couldn’t talk."
"You should’ve told somebody," Michael said.
"I couldn’t," Maria choked out, tears falling down her face freely now. "I felt . . . I felt ashamed . . . dirty. And I felt so scared."
Michael now understood the fear he’d seen in her eyes the night that he’d gone up to her room and tried to hurt her. She’d never forget what she’d had to deal with early in her life. It would haunt her to her grave, he was sure of it.
"That’s why I joined BlackCon," Maria told him. "I couldn’t go live with my dad, and I had no one else. So I just ran away and this is what I found. It’s not beautiful and it’s not nice, but it’s all I’ve got now."
Michael nodded in understanding. "That’s a pretty dramatic story."
A smile found its way to Maria’s saddened face. "Yeah, it is. But what about you? What’s your story?"
Michael shrugged. "My story’s pretty lame actually. It’d bore you to death."
"No, I wanna hear it," she pressed.
He inhaled a deep breath and began. "Well, okay, the short version is, after my parents died, I went to live with my aunt and uncle for years. I hated them about as much as they hated me, and when I graduated, I had it in my head that I needed a new family, that a gang could be my new family. I got into Darkstreet pretty easily, and here I am now."
"Oh," Maria said in consideration.
"I told you it was pretty lame."
"No, it’s not." She didn’t say anything for a few seconds until she asked, "So, how long have you been in a gang anyway?"
"Six years," Michael told her.
"So, that makes you like, twenty-three? Twenty-four?"
"Twenty-three," Michael told her.
"And I’m only seventeen, but I’ve been in a gang for three years," Maria was saying. "God, that’s sad."
"It is kinda," Michael agreed.
They sat in comfortable silence again for another minute or so, until Maria finally said, "Hey, Michael?"
"Yeah?"
"I think we just had a pretty deep conversation."
"Yeah," he agreed, "I think we did."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"You fuckin’ idiot!"
Michael returned to the Darkstreet crib later that night to a bruised and battered Isabel awaiting his return in their bedroom. She threw a vase at him that just barely missed his head and crashed against the wall instead, shattering into a million tiny pieces once it made contact and cascading into the floor violently.
"Did I miss something?" Michael asked. "‘Cause I’m not the one who just through a vase at somebody’s head!"
"Yes, you did miss something," Isabel informed him. "In fact, you missed a lot." She gestured to her beaten body. "Look at me!"
"Yeah, you look like crap," Michael told her, closing the door so that maybe Max wouldn’t hear them fighting and come give him another lecture about how it was important to apologize to women.
"I was fighting!" she shouted. "I was fighting, and where were you, Michael? Where were you?"
Michael took off his jacket, draping it over his chair and taking the gun out of his pocket. He silently set it down on the table beside his chair, avoiding direct contact with Isabel’s eyes.
"Why weren’t you there?" she asked him. "We needed you there, Michael! We needed you, and you weren’t there! Where the hell were you? What the hell were you doing that was so important that you didn’t have time to help fight for your fuckin’ family?"
"Would you relax?" he said. "I was just out for a walk."
"Out for a walk?" Isabel echoed in disbelief. "Out for a fuckin’ walk, Michael?"
"Yeah, I was . . ." Michael tried desperately to think of a believable lie. "I was sellin’," he lied.
"Sellin’ what? Drugs?"
"Yeah. What else?"
Isabel seemed semi-content with this answer. "I guess we do need to make money," she said, "but that ain’t no reason to skip out on another fight."
"I know," Michael agreed. "I’m not gonna do it again." He suddenly felt like he was explaining himself to his mother instead of his . . . well, girlfriend wasn’t really the right word. Instead of to Isabel.
Why should he have to explain himself to Isabel anyway? He didn’t have to explain to anybody in Darkstreet but Nix. Nix was the only one who held power over him. Michael, himself, held the power over Isabel.
"So, how much did you make?" Isabel asked, taking a few steps closer to him.
Michael shrugged. "Average amount."
"Average amount, huh?" Isabel continued to move closer. "Can I see?"
"See what?" Michael asked, trying to sound confused.
"The money," Isabel replied, staring up at him through bruised eyelids. "Can I see it?"
Michael found himself getting uncomfortable again. He knew he didn’t have to explain himself to Isabel, but there was this undeniable risk of getting caught in his lie, of getting caught in a lie involving a BlackCon member, that was really clawing away at him.
"No," he answered simply and sternly. He was hoping beyond hope that she would accept that reply, but he knew beyond doubt that she wouldn’t.
"Why not?" she asked, shifting back into investigator mode at once.
"You just can’t," he told her.
"Show me the money, Michael," Isabel commanded, though she had no right to. "Show me how much you made tonight."
Michael stood still like a statue, trying to think of a way out of this as fast as he could when a thought suddenly occurred to him. There was one thing that Isabel loved, one thing that could divert her attention away from any issue, no matter how pressing it was.
With all of the force he could muster, Michael reached out and pulled Isabel to him, crushing his lips to hers. Her hands immediately found their way into his hair, digging into his scalp almost painfully. Michael let his hands wander lower and lower on her body, from her back, to her waist, to her ass.
Isabel attacked his lips violently, all thoughts of Michael’s disappearance that night suddenly leaving her mind completely. Her hands left his hair and her fingers began to tear away at his shirt, yanking it over his head and throwing it to the ground so that he stood before her bare-chested. She bent down and began to ravish his chest, swirling her tongue around his nipples while letting her hand trail even farther down to sneak down into his pants and grab him in her hands.
He let her do as she pleased for a short time, not at all enjoying the dance that had become so routine between them. He was so over this, whatever it was that they had once had. It wasn’t anything anymore. It was always the same.
Slowly, Michael began to walk, leading her towards the door. She wasn’t even aware of this fact and moved with him until she heard the door open and felt Michael’s hands shove her out into the hallway hard. He slammed the door in her face, loving the shocked expression he saw on her face as he did so and locked it into place.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria ran her hands over the silky material of an orange blouse she’d just spotted in one of the local shopping hot spots, enjoying the smooth, cold feel under her fingers. It was a beautiful blouse. She wanted to take it into a dressing room and try it on, just to see what it would look like on her, but she knew she couldn’t do that. If she did, she would feel even more tempted to buy it than she already was, and she couldn’t be wasting money like that.
"You do know that orange is out, right?" a voice behind her said. Maria turned around slowly and saw Michael standing beside her. She’d grown accustomed to the way he strolled through BlackCon territory like it was his own, and she had to admit that she’d almost been hoping that she’d see him today.
"Where’d you here that?" she asked him.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked down at the ground, a slight hint of red spreading across his cheeks. "Well, you know . . . talk shows," he muttered.
Maria smiled. "I can’t believe that you’d watch talk shows, Michael."
"I don’t watch ‘em frequently or anything," Michael said. "I just tune into Ellen once in awhile."
"Ellen?" Maria echoed in disbelief. "Ellen says that orange is out?"
"Yeah," Michael said with a nod. "She’s kinda funny, you know that?"
"She’s also kinda gay," Maria told him.
"Well . . . I hear that the gays are very up on the new fashions."
Maria laughed a little. For a second, she was taken aback by the fact that she had laughed, for she hadn’t been able to let herself be happy enough to even conjure the thought of it for quite some time now.
"I wasn’t gonna buy it anyway," she told him. "It’s too much money."
Michael leaned down and found the blouse’s price tag. "Fourteen dollars," he commented. "That’s not a lot."
"Well," Maria said, "maybe avid drug-sellers like you have tons of cash to just throw around, but I don’t." She began to make her way out of the door and back out onto the street, knowing quite well that Michael would follow.
"Hey, I’ve laid off the sellin’," Michael told her.
"Really?" Maria found it hard to believe.
"Really."
"For how long?" she asked him.
"Forever," he replied. "I just decided it wasn’t worth it, you know. And besides, my friend Max has got a real job now."
"Well, good for you," Maria told him, surprised that she actually, sort of, in a sense, felt proud of Michael. Selling drugs was sort of like an addiction in itself. Once you started it could be hard to stop, to go from having so much money to having none.
"Oh my God!" Maria exclaimed suddenly, stopping in front of the area’s finest bank. "Look!" She pointed to the building excitedly.
"What?" Michael didn’t seem to get what she was so excited about.
"It’s the bank’s annual employee day," Maria told him.
"So?"
"So?" Maria echoed. "Michael, every year for employee day, the bank has this huge banquet. All you can eat. That kind of thing."
"Sounds alright,"
"It’s better than alright," Maria told him. "It’s the best freakin’ free food you can eat anywhere."
"Yeah, but, Maria, we’re not exactly employees here at the bank," Michael reminded her.
"So what? I crash this banquet every year, Michael. Come on." She headed on inside, motioning for him to follow.
And, of course, he did.
There were so many people in the bank that day for the banquet that they were unnoticed walking inside. People were too busy with their own lives and conversations that they didn’t even take notice of the fact that these two were not employees at all.
"Look at all this food," Maria commented, surveying the buffet table in front of her excitedly. "Homemade food." She smiled. "I used to eat like this all the time."
"I never did," Michael told her. "For me it was a cheese sandwich every night."
A wave of sympathy crashed over Maria’s features, and then it disappeared and she was excited about the banquet again. "Then dig in, Michael."
They made their way around quickly, eating everything that they found appealing and desirable. They didn’t bother to fix a plate and sit down an eat at a table like civilized human beings. They ate right as they walked by, ignoring the questioning glances others were giving them.
"What’re these?" Michael asked when they were towards the end of the long line of food. He held up a plate with a tiny yellow cake on it.
"You don’t wanna eat that," Maria told him. She knew exactly what that was, and she knew that it wasn’t appetizing.
"What is it?" Michael asked again.
"Those are mustard cakes, Michael," Maria explained. "See that yellow stuff that’s been molded into a cube shaped thing? That’s all mustard."
Michael eyed the tiny cake curiously. "Mustard cakes," he echoed in consideration.
"Those things are sick," Maria told him. "I accidently ate one last year without knowing what it was, and I found myself in the bathroom three minutes later puking like a pig."
"Thanks for the visual," Michael said sarcastically. "But, you know what? Maybe I find mustard cakes to be appealing."
Maria tried to keep a straight face as she looked at him, and then she bursted out laughing. "Oh, please," she said, "no one finds mustard cakes appealing."
"Oh, yeah?" Michael seemed determined to prove her wrong. Keeping direct eye contact with her all the while and making sure that smug look of his remained on his face, he stuffed the entire little cake into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, grimacing as he did so. Maria continued to laugh as she watched him, unaware that even more people were now looking at the two of them.
"You’re right," Michael said when he had the entire cake down. "Those things are pretty bad."
The day could have continued like that. It could have, but it didn’t. For whatever reason, it just changed, shifted, in an instant. One minute, Maria was laughing at Michael’s quirky behavior, and the next, panic had erupted.
Two men started shouting for everyone to get down. Maria looked around to see who the source of all of the commotion was, and she saw that two men dressed in business suits who had been pretending to be employees all this time were standing up and holding guns, shouting at the top of their lungs.
"GET DOWN ON THE GROUND, NOW!"
"Maria!" Michael shouted. He grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her down to the ground hard, falling on top of her. Maria watched the commotion unfold as most tried to escape through the front door. A good deal of them succeeded.
"We gotta move!" Michael shouted. He began to crawl on his hands and knees quickly towards the door, staying low to the ground and keeping close to Maria.
All at once, though, a gunshot rang out in the air, piercing the wall directly above Maria’s head. Michael pushed her down to the ground and fell on top of her body once again. The small number of people who hadn’t escaped in the rush froze in place as well as the two men locked the two front doors.
"Everybody go back!" one man commanded, motioning with his gun for everyone to head back into the dining area. "NOW!"
Slowly, they crawled back where they were commanded to. Maria could hardly move. She felt frozen in place, like fear had paralyzed her.
"You’re gonna give us all you got right now!" one man told them. "Money, jewelry, credit cards . . . you hand it over, got it?"
No one could nod, but everyone understood.
Michael handed them all the money he had with him, which turned out to be more than Maria had expected. She, on the other hand, had no money with her. She’d gone out today only to look at clothes and wish she could buy them, and that’s why money hadn’t been a must at the time, but now it certainly seemed that it was.
The men seemed to be growing impatient as they waited for her. She thought that they might walk on by, figuring that she had nothing when one finally yanked her necklace from around her neck and stuffed it in his bag.
Maria pressed herself as closely as she could to the wall as they made their rounds. She could feel and see Michael next to her, but he didn’t appear to be nearly as scared as she was.
Scared. She wasn’t scared.
She was terrified. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before, and she had just sort of assumed that nothing ever would. Now, it was happening, and she had no idea what to do about it, how to react.
When they were done with everyone else, the men started demanding that safes and cash registers be opened, but no one knew how to open them.
"I’m gettin’ impatient, here!" one man shouted, pointing his gun at every person in the room. "You don’t wanna see me when I get impatient!"
"Rick, we better get outta here fast!" the other man was saying. "I hear sirens."
"FUCK!" Rick shouted. "They weren’t supposed to get out, Jake! They weren’t supposed to get out and call the fuckin’ cops on us!"
"We gotta leave!" Jake was saying, panic evident on his face.
Rick shook his head, clearly the final word between the two. "Nah, it’s too late. They’re right outside. I can hear ‘em."
"Then what’re we gonna do?" Jake asked.
"We’re gonna stay in here with all of these people until we got a way out," Rick answered.
"There’s not gonna be a way out," Jake protested. "And what if they start shooting?"
"They’re not gonna start shooting," Rick said. "Not with all these innocent civilians in here."
Innocent. Maria knew she was innocent. She always had been, even though she was part of a gang. But she’d always hoped that somehow she would never become this innocent, trapped in a building with two men who could kill her with one press of the trigger.
It wasn’t long after that that Rick had opened the door just a crack and told the police outside that if they tried anything, he’d shoot every person in the bank until they were all dead. His partner Jake had gone downstairs to the basement and had found some supplies, and he was now bolting up the windows and doors, making sure that there was no other way out.
After that, they sat. Michael, Maria, and the others sat in fear while the two bank robbers paced, thinking of what to do next. When they got bored, they took to moving tables around, pushing them up against the door for extra support. When the tables were cleared out, Maria noticed that she was in a fairly large room, but it seemed too small at the moment, and she seemed far too close to Rick and Jake.
There was a young girl in the corner who had apparently come to eat with her mother, and there was an elderly couple hugging together in the other corner, looking as if they both were about to die of a heart attack.
Maria herself was still sitting next to Michael. He still looked like a stonewall, displaying no fear on his face, sitting in a very relaxed manner.
But she could tell he was scared.
"Michael?" she whispered, turning to look at him. "What’s gonna happen?"
He didn’t answer. He didn’t answer because he didn’t know.
"I’m gettin’ bored with this," Rick was saying. "Time for some fun." He stood and grabbed one of the remaining dreaded mustard cakes from the table of food and began to walk around, stopping in front of Maria. He smiled mischievously and squatted down, laughing as he stuffed the cake down Maria’s low-cut top. He let his hand linger on her breasts for quite some time as he did so, laughing all the while. Maria wanted to stop him, but she couldn’t. She was worried what might happen if she did.
"I like you," Rick whispered in a snake-like manner before standing up and walking away.
Maria closed her eyes and hung her head when he walked away. She’d never felt so completely helpless in her entire life. Well, she had once, but that had been a long time ago . . . her father . .
"Great," she muttered aloud. "Not only am I being held hostage in here, but now I’ve got a mustard cake slammed down my shirt."
She could almost hear Michael smile. "It’ll be alright," he told her. "I promise you, it’ll be alright."
He sounded so sure of everything, but Maria knew that he wasn’t.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael had never been a big fan of the police. They’d always been on his ass about something, whether it was drugs or fights or drinking, but now, he suddenly found himself on their side. It was funny how the tables could turn so easily and so quickly.
He wished they would help him, but he knew they had no reason to. They’d been standing out there trying to decide what their next move would be for about an hour now, but no one had done anything, and Michael was beginning to wonder if they ever would.
"I don’t like this, Rick," Jake was saying. He was clearly more of the coward of the two men. "We shoulda planned this out more instead of jumping right into it."
"We’re fine," Rick told him calmly. He was sitting down with his legs propped up on a chair, eating a great deal of the remaining food. He still held his gun in his hand, poised and ready to shoot if he had to. "We’ll be outta here soon." He stuffed a whole chocolate chip cookie into his mouth at once and stood up, wiping his hands against his pants. "In the meantime," he said while chewing and making his way across the room, "I wanna have some fun."
Michael wanted him to stop dead in his tracks and not come anywhere nearer, but he didn’t. He bent down in front of Maria again, still smiling with traces of food stuck in between his teeth this time.
"What’s your name?" he asked her quietly.
She looked him directly in the eye, trying to mask her fear, and she didn’t answer.
"What’s your name, bitch?" he demanded of her, louder this time. He slammed his hand into the wall behind her, creating an echoing boom and causing her to jump.
"Maria," she told him quietly, lowering her gaze from his.
"Maria," Rick whispered, running his tongue across his lips and moving his hand up to run through her hair. "Maria . . ." As he let his sentence trail off, he let his hand trail down her body until he was cupping one fabric covered breast in his hand.
"I like you, Maria," he said. "I think I’ve already told you that." He began to knead her breast harshly, causing her to squirm. "Stop," she told him as sternly as she could.
"You’re so . . ." Rick let his hand trail even lower so that it was resting on her stomach. "Nice." He let it drop lower, touching her elsewhere now.
"Please stop," she begged of him. "Please." He ignored her request, laughing and smiling as he continued to touch her.
Michael didn’t think he could watch any more of this. With all of the bravery and courage he could manage, he stood up, causing Rick to stop what he was doing. He stared up at him in shock and stood up as well, meeting his height exactly. His gaze was challenging, and so was Michael’s.
"Keep your hands off of her," Michael told him, making sure he understood.
"What’re you gonna do ‘bout it?" Rick shot back. "What’re you gonna do, huh?"
"I’ll kill you," Michael told him simply. "I’ll throw you down on the ground so hard that your bones echo when they break. I’ll beat you so bad that they won’t even know it’s you when they find you dead."
"I’m sure you will," Rick agreed sarcastically. With an incredible suddeness and force, he reached both hands out and pushed him back down onto the floor. Michael felt himself slam hard against the wall, but he tried not to let the pain register on his face.
Rick kept smiling as he walked away and head back over towards the food table. He kept his eyes on Maria all while he ate.
Maria was silent for a few minutes, but at last she turned to Michael and whispered, "Why did you do that?"
"Why?" Michael echoed in disbelief. "Why?"
She nodded. "Yes, why? He could’ve killed you."
"But he was hurting you," Michael said. "I had to do something."
"No, you didn’t have to," Maria told him. "But you did." She half-way smiled.
Michael shrugged it off as if it were nothing and said no more. He didn’t understand how he’d gotten himself into this situation. He wasn’t truly surprised that he was caught in the middle of an attempted bank robbery. That was the kind of thing that happened all the time in LA, and he was actually surprised he hadn’t been in the middle of one sooner than this. He just didn’t understand how he’d gotten himself into helping the enemy, into wanting to kill people who hurt her.
What was truly frightening was the fact that he’d meant every word that he’d said. If any one of the two guys touched her, he would kill them without a second thought.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It’d been at least two hours, and now people were starting to get even more worried. The little girl who’d come to eat with her mother was crying rather audibly in the corner now, and Maria could tell that Rick was getting annoyed by it. The little girl’s mother was trying to calm her down by holding her tightly and telling her a story, but her efforts did no good. The child continued to cry.
"Would you shut her up?" Rick spat suddenly. The harsh tone of his loud voice only caused the little girl to cry harder, clinging to her mother for comfort.
Rick made his way over to the mother and daughter, ripping the child away from her mother’s embrace. "Kid, what you need to do is shut the hell up, got it?" he said, shaking the girl by the shoulders. "You’re fuckin’ gettin’ on my nerves!"
"Don’t yell at her!" the mother warned him.
"You’re gettin’ on my nerves, too!" Rick told her. "Shut up!"
The little girl began to cry some more when she heard the man yelling at her mother.
"Shut up!" Rick shouted again. "Everybody just shut up!"
"Stop yelling!" the mother told him. "You’re making it worse!"
A look of clear impatience and great annoyance showed up on Rick’s enraged face. "I don’t fuckin’ care!" he shouted. With that, he curled his hand into a fist and swung, hitting the mother square in the face.
Maria jumped at the action. She wanted to go over and help the woman, but she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t even help herself in this situation.
The little girl took this opportunity to get away from the man. She crawled on her hands and knees away from him as fast as she could, heading straight towards Michael. She didn’t make it all the way, though, as Rick stopped her. He pushed her back against a wall not too far away from Michael and Maria, holding her there by her arms. The child was screaming in pain because of his tight grip, but he didn’t let go.
"I told you to shut up," Rick said. "I told you to shut up, kid, but you didn’t." He reached for his gun in his back pocket.
"Michael," Maria whispered, afraid of what might happen next.
"NO!" the mother was screaming, trying desperately to make her way over to her daughter as Rick pointed the gun. "NO!"
The little girl continued to cry and scream.
"I told you to shut up!" Rick repeated, louder this time. "I told you to fuckin’ shut up!" All at once, the sound of his gun going off overpowered the sound of the mother’s screams, and the child’s crying ceased to exist. Maria turned away, closing her eyes as the gun went off. She grabbed onto Michael’s shoulders, holding onto him so tightly that she was sure it hurt. She hadn’t seen what had happened, but she didn’t need to. The shocked silence that emanated in the room and the mother’s sorrowful wailing was enough to tell her.
Maria felt her heart pounding as Rick walked past her and sat down by the food table again. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even care that he’d just killed an innocent child.
"Madison!" the mother was shouting. "No! Maddie!"
Maria still had her face hidden in Michael’s shoulder, but she could envision the scene that lay so close to her. She knew she would find the weeping mother holding her dead child as she bled if she looked up. She knew she would.
Maria could hear her own breath coming out in harsh gasps as the fear radiated throughout her body. She tried to sit up again, but Michael didn’t let her.
"Don’t look," he told her quietly, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer into him. She let herself stay holding onto him, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes. Even as she willed herself not to cry, tears seeped out and began to spill down her cheeks, dripping down onto Michael’s shirt after a short time. She tried to muffle the sounds she made in hopes that Rick would not hear her and get fed up with her as well.
Michael let her cry, and he comforted her as she did so. He held her tightly, and, for some reason, it was the only comfort Maria could find. She didn’t know why, but, suddenly, she never wanted to leave his embrace. She felt safe with him, like he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, like he would protect her no matter what.
"Maddie!" the woman was still crying. "Maddie!"
Unfortunately, Michael Guerin could not protect everyone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
This had been going on for too long now. It had to stop sometime. These guys couldn’t just keep them in here forever. They couldn’t.
Maria had stopped crying now, but she was still holding onto him in the same way that she had been before. Michael had lost all feeling in his left arm by now, but he still didn’t push her away. She needed comfort right now, of that much he was sure.
The mother was not holding her daughter anymore. It’d all become too much, and she’d retreated to the corner again where she’d thrown up several times because of the fact that this situation was so utterly disgusting and terrible. Madison’s body still lay in close proximity to both Michael and Maria though, and Michael was having a hard time forming a coherent thought with the dead child laying so close to him.
There was one thought, however, that was persistent in his mind all the time. This had to stop. This had to stop. Now.
"Maria," Michael whispered, shifting slightly so that he could regain some sort of feeling in his left arm again. She didn’t say anything, and she didn’t move, either, and Michael thought for a moment that she might have fallen asleep. "Maria," he repeated again.
"Yeah, I’m still here," she said at last. "Unfortunately."
Making sure that both Rick and Jake were out of earshot, Michael reluctantly removed Maria from his arms, making sure that he stayed close to her and whispered quietly. "Maria, I’m gonna get us outta here."
Her eyes met his, confused and perplexed. "What?" she asked as if the sentence were foreign to her.
"I’m gonna get us outta here," Michael told her again. "I can fight . "
"Michael, no!" Maria exclaimed a little too loudly. She lowered her voice. "Michael, they could . . ."
"Kill me?" he finished. "Maria, I’ve survived hundreds of gang fights. I think I can take on these two losers."
Maria shook her head. "No, no, no, Michael, I don’t think you can, ‘cause, see, they’ve got guns and you don’t, and they could kill you just like that if they wanted to."
"Yeah," Michael agreed, "but I can throw them down on the ground so hard that their bones echo when they break, and I can beat them so bad that they won’t even know it’s them when they find them dead." He realized he was quoting himself from earlier, and Maria realized he was, too. He smiled, but she did not.
"I don’t like this," Maria told him. "I don’t think you should."
Without wanting to, Michael looked over at the young girl that lay dead on the floor. "I think I have to," he said simply.
Maria followed his gaze, and she witnessed the site of the dead, bleeding girl for the first time now. Michael had been trying to shield her from the image, but he couldn’t any longer.
"Oh, God," Maria gasped in a whisper. She closed her eyes and turned her head to Michael again. "Michael, I just want you to know that I don’t hate you like I should and . . ." She trailed off when she felt his body slip away from hers. She opened her eyes. "Michael?"
He was on his feet and walking away from her. He seemed so close, almost close enough that she might be able to reach out and pull him back, but, at the same time, so very far away.
She knew there was nothing she could do to stop him now.
She watched as everything played out, forcing herself not to take another glance at Madison. She was suddenly feeling extremely sick and utterly exhausted, and she just wanted to die and not feel anything ever again.
But she couldn’t do that, because she heard Michael’s voice, and the very knowledge that he was alive and fighting for her and everyone else in the building was enough to keep her going.
She heard Michael yell out a curse as his fist came into contact with Rick’s face, and she saw Rick fall to the floor. Jake immediately pulled out his gun, but Michael knocked it out of his hands before he could do anything with it.
From there on, it was brutal. Rick wasn’t as stupid as Michael had thought he was. The guy knew how to fight, and even Jake could throw some decent punches, and since no one could possibly help Michael Guerin, he was completely outnumbered.
Rick grabbed Michael by his shirt and threw him into the wall. He hit with a thud and slid to the floor. Rick went on to hit him harder than Maria had ever seen anyone hit anyone else so that blood covered his entire face. With all of his remaining strength, Michael pushed Rick off of him and tried to stand up, but Jake seemed to appear out of nowhere and push him right back down again. He socked him in the stomach hard, causing Michael to shout out in pain and fall on his side, clutching his stomach with his arms.
"Get up," Rick was saying. When Michael didn’t respond, he shouted, "GET UP!"
Michael, or at least what was left of him, forced himself up into a sitting position, but could go no further.
"That was a pretty fucked up thing to do," Rick said, grabbing him by his shirt again and pulling him into a standing position. "You know that? I’m gonna kill you now, ‘cause of what you just did." A smirk appeared on his lips, and he looked back at Maria, who was still sitting where Michael had left her, a look of complete and utter chaos appearing on her face.
Laughing, Rick pulled Michael over to stand in front of Maria. "I’m gonna kill you," he repeated, "and I’m gonna make your bitch watch!" He laughed some more, and Jake joined in, although his sounded forced. "This is perfect!" Rick said. "This is so god-damned perfect!"
Maria looked at the bruised and battered Michael Guerin, "The Hulk", as many called him, and she saw that he was looking at the ground. He would not allow himself to meet her eyes. Maria was sure that he felt like he’d let them both down.
Jake handed Rick his gun, and Rick checked to make sure it was loaded. When he was sure it was, he pointed it directly at Michael’s head. "I’m gonna shoot you until there’s nothing left of you to shoot," he said with a chuckle. "I’m gonna kill you so many times that you can’t even keep up count."
This guy was crazy, and he was going to kill Michael. Michael looked . . not like Michael. He looked like he’d . . . given up.
"Remember," Rick said, placing his hand on the trigger, "she’s watching." He was about to fire when something snapped inside of Maria and she realized that she could not let his happen.
"Wait!" she shouted, shooting to her feet. She saw both Rick and Jake turn their heads to face her, and she knew she had their attention now. "Don’t kill him," she practically begged.
"And why the hell should I not?" Rick asked, facing the gun at Maria now.
"Because if you don’t," Maria answered, trying hard to think of a reason Rick would not want to kill Michael. She hung her head and looked at the ground as she choked out eight words that were painful to say as they escaped her lips. "Because if you don’t, you can have me."
"Have you?" Rick echoed in question. "What exactly do you mean by ‘have’ you?"
Maria didn’t want to have to explain this all to them. She couldn’t deal with saying it all out loud. "I mean you can . . . you can do whatever you want with me, just as long as you don’t kill him," she finally said, forcing herself to look up at them again.
Rick smiled. "You know, I was set on killing your boyfriend here, but this is a rather appealing concept. Don’t you agree, Jake?"
Jake shrugged and was silent.
All at once, Rick dropped Michael, causing him to fall to the floor with a thud. He dropped his gun, too, and made his way over to Maria. He placed one hand on her shoulder and pushed her against the wall and wrapped the other around her so that he could squeeze her ass. She groaned, not because of pleasure, but because of pain.
While Rick began to suck on her neck and press his enclosed erection into her lower body, Maria let herself look down at Michael, who was still laying on the ground, apparently unable to get up. He was looking at her now, too, and she could see by the look on his battered face that he felt he needed to do something, but she also knew that he couldn’t.
She let herself cry as Rick touched her. He laughed when he heard her crying, finding a sick pleasure out of the whole situation. "Am I hurting you?" he asked her, his breath tickling her neck and causing her to shiver. When she didn’t answer him, he asked her again, "Am I hurting you?"
"Yes," she choked out. She couldn’t lie and say he wasn’t. This was the worst way in which someone could hurt her, because she’d been hurt like this so many times before, and it never got any easier to deal with.
"Good," he murmured, lifting his head up. "Look at me," he ordered. "Look at me."
She did as he told her, and she saw an evil so great in his eyes that reminded her exactly of her father.
She cried harder.
"You don’t wanna do that," a voice suddenly said. Maria stopped crying when she realized that Michael was saying something.
"Why would I not wanna do this?" Rick spat.
"Because, it’s rape." Michael was struggling to talk, but he was keeping it as together as he could.
"No, it isn’t," Rick argued. "She gave me her consent."
"Because she had to."
"No, you see, she didn’t have to."
"That’s not the point," Michael continued. "The point is, I know the cops in this town, and I know that they aren’t gonna look too highly upon you raping this girl here."
"I’ve already killed a child!" Rick shouted. "What’s one more thing added to the list?"
"One more thing could mean ten more years," Michael told him. "Look, I’m just trying to help you out here."
Rick looked from Maria to Michael, clear frustration and rage showing in his eyes. Finally, though, he let go of Maria and threw her down beside Michael. "I hate you both!" he shouted as he walked away.
Maria just sat there leaning against the wall for a few seconds, trying to think about all that had just happened, and Michael just lay beside her. He didn’t even look like Michael, though. He was so wounded.
They met each other’s eyes, and Maria wished she could tell him thank you, but she couldn’t even speak. Instead, she reached down and touched his cheek. His blood smeared over her hand, and when she thought about all that they had endured, she began to cry again.
Finally, she was able to stop crying. She still was feeling all of these emotions that she hated feeling—hopelessness, dread, sorrow—but he was there, and he was comforting, and, for some reason, that helped.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"It’s kinda weird, isn’t it?"
"Huh?" Michael hadn’t been paying attention to what Maria was saying. He’d managed to regain a little bit of his strength now and was trying to think up a way to get out of here, still. The sun was setting now, and he was getting more than fed up with all of this. They couldn’t just keep them in here forever.
"You and me. BlackCon and Darkstreet. Stuck here together."
Michael shrugged. "I guess so." Actually, he really hadn’t thought about it too much. He’d mainly just been thinking about the fact that he was stuck here, and he was going to get out, and he was going to take her with him, whether she was BlackCon or not.
"And we’re helping each other," she continued in a sleepy voice. Michael knew it had been a long time since she’d slept. "We aren’t supposed to be helping each other, Michael."
"I know," he said, "but we kinda have to, don’t you think?"
"No, I mean, you could’ve just let him rape me, you know."
"No, I couldn’t," Michael admitted. In his head, he was hearing Maria tell him the story of her life again, all about her father and what he’d done. "But you could’ve just let me die."
"No, I couldn’t do that, either."
"Why not?"
She shrugged. "I dunno."
Michael didn’t know, either. He felt like he didn’t know anything anymore. He didn’t know how he’d gotten in here in the first place (stupid banquet), and he didn’t know why he couldn’t get out. Most of all, though, he didn’t know why he felt this overall need to protect this girl that he was supposed to hate.
"I told people I hated you," Michael admitted. "I told Max I was gonna kill you."
Maria laughed a little. "I highly doubt you’re gonna do that."
"Yeah," Michael said, "I highly doubt it, too."
They both fell silent as Rick crossed the room. The guy was starting to look a little more worn down, and that was a good sign.
He disappeared into the back, probably to use the restroom.
"This is it," Michael told Maria. "We gotta do this now."
"Do what?"
Michael smiled at her. "You’ll see. I got a way with words." He struggled to his feet and motioned for Maria to stand up as well. With her help, he staggered over to where Jake was sitting. He was looking worn out as well, even more so than Rick was.
"Jake, we need your help," Michael told him quietly.
"I can’t help you."
"Yes, you can," Michael pressed. "You can let us outta here right now. All of us."
Jake shook his head. "No, no, the cops . . ."
"The cops will think better of you for it," Michael promised. "Trust me."
Jake continued to shake his head. "I can’t."
"Jake, if you help us right now," Michael said, "I promise you that I will testify in court for you. I promise that I will let everyone know that you didn’t kill that little girl and that you didn’t lay a hand on Maria. It’ll all be pinned on Rick, and you’ll get a year or two, tops."
"I can’t afford a year or two! I have a life!"
"Keep your voice down and listen to me real hard," Michael told him, suddenly feeling like he was in charge now. "You gotta start thinkin’ about yourself, here. If you don’t let us all out and surrender now, you’re goin’ in for more than a year or two. You’ll be in there longer than you even wanna think about. If you really do wanna have a life, you’ll let us out now. You understand me, Jake?"
Slowly, Jake nodded.
"You gonna help me?" Michael asked him, just to be sure.
Jake nodded again and stood up, making his way slowly to the door. They had the door so reinforced that it was taking him awhile.
"You gotta move faster," Michael said, noting the sound of water running as Rick washed his hands. "You gotta move faster, man."
"What the hell are you doing?" Rick shouted suddenly as he stepped out of the bathroom. "Jake, what the hell?"
"Go!" Jake shouted, finally getting the doors open. People hurled themselves through the doors and ran out down the steps to the awaiting police. Michael grabbed Maria’s hand and pulled her quickly with him, just as Rick fired a shot that narrowly missed his head.
After that, a round of shots was fired inside between Rick and Jake. It wasn’t them against the police, now. They were fighting each other.
"Let’s get outta here," Michael told Maria, tugging on her hand and dragging her away from the scene. He didn’t want her to witness anything she shouldn’t have to. He knew she’d seen worse, but, somehow, the knowledge that she was seventeen made him feel even more responsible to protect her, because no one else would.
They left without answering any questions for the police or having any paramedics look at them or seeing if Rick or Jake emerged victorious in their battle, but they left, and that was all that mattered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria wanted to collapse. She felt exhausted and drained, and she felt confused and complex. She wanted to sit down and never get up, and she thought she might be about the most tired person on the planet, but she looked at Michael, and she realized she’d thought wrong. Not only was Michael tired, but he was injured. Greatly injured. There was no doubt in Maria’s mind that he wanted to collapse even more than she did, but an inner obstinance kept him from admitting that he was damaged.
They were walking the borderline now, and Maria knew they would have to split up soon. They couldn’t risk anyone seeing them.
"I should probably be heading that way soon," she said, pointing in the direction of the BlackCon crib.
"And I should probably be heading the opposite way," Michael put in. "I, uh . . I just . . ." He trailed off.
"You just what?"
He sighed and ran his tongue across his lips. "I don’t know," he answered at last. "I guess I just wanted to tell you thank you or something."
Maria couldn’t help but smile. Michael didn’t seem like the type of guy that said thank you very much. That much was clear in his rather less than elegant apology, but it didn’t matter. It meant just as much the same.
"I really didn’t do anything that you should be grateful for. Except the saving your life thing."
Michael smiled, too. "You’re kinda weird, you know that, DeLuca?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I know."
He stood there for a few more seconds, until he decided to head off in his own direction without another word. Maria was thinking about letting him when she realized she couldn’t.
"Thank you." She spoke quietly, loud enough that he could hear her, but soft enough so that no one else would. He stopped in his tracks, but he didn’t turn around. "I really didn’t do anything that you should be grateful for," he said at last, echoing her own words. With that, he walked away slowly, and Maria could only watch him go. "Yeah, you did," she whispered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Whoa." Max was clearly in shock at who he saw entering the crib. "What the hell happened to you?"
"Don’t act like it’s a surprise, Maxwell," Michael said, practically falling down into a chair. "I knew that somebody would give it to me good someday. I had it comin’."
"Who did this?" Max asked.
"I got caught up in a little robbery at this bank," Michael answered simply. "Kinda got a little violent."
"What bank were you at?" Max continued to ask questions. "I mean, the only bank around here closed last week."
"What? Are you investigating me now like Isabel is?" Michael snapped. "Did she recruit you into this little crusade of hers to figure me out? Is that it?"
"Relax, Michael," Max said, throwing his hands up in front of him as defense. "I was just wondering."
Michael let out a deep sigh, realizing that he’d had one of his legendary anger moments. "I know," he said. "I’m sorry. It’s just . . . it’s been a long day."
"I understand," Max said. "Look, I’ll get Tess to take a look at you. She’s pretty good with injuries."
"Thanks," Michael muttered as Max began to walk off down the hallway. "Maxwell!" he shouted when he was halfway to his room. Max turned around when he heard his name, and Michael ran his tongue across his lips, preparing to lie to his best friend. "I was at a bank way down on the south side of town."
"The south side?" Max echoed. "Michael, what were you doin’ hangin’ out where the rich and famous live?"
Michael shrugged. "I dunno, man." He knew it wasn’t the best lie, but the south side was about as far away as one could get from BlackCon territory without leaving the city. "Listen, could you just get Tess now?"
Max nodded and continued down the hall.
Michael, meanwhile, couldn’t even move. He was thankful that most people were out partying at the time.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and he knew that he would have to explain his appearance to someone else, now. Well, technically, he wouldn’t have to explain his appearance to anyone unless it was . . .
Nix.
"Michael, what the hell?" Nix shrieked.
"It’s nothing big," Michael lied. "Just a few scrapes and bruises. Got caught up in the middle of a bank robbery on the south side."
"Looks kinda . . ."
"It’s fine," Michael interrupted. "I’m fine."
Before either of the two men could say more, Tess came rushing out of her room, running down the hallway exclaiming "Oh God!" before she even saw Michael.
"Michael, I’m gonna take care of this," she said, immediately kneeling down beside him. "Max, I’m gonna need some wash cloths and . . . and whatever else we got."
"Got it," Max said as he made his way to the nearest bathroom.
"Michael, you look awful," Tess said.
"It’s not as bad as it looks," Michael lied again.
Tess sighed. "I just can’t believe it."
"Yeah, me neither," Nix agreed. Michael had almost forgotten that the guy was still lingering around.
"What do you mean?" Michael asked them both, confused.
"Well," Nix said, "think about it. This is the first day in history that someone’s gotten the better of Michael Guerin."
Michael clenched his fists at the thought of someone beating him, and Tess seemed to notice. "It’s alright, though," she reassured him. "Happens to everyone."
Michael remained silent as Tess tended to his wounds and Max and Nix watched every second of it. He knew that everyone lost a battle once in awhile, but he never had before, and he was never supposed to.
He hated the thought that he hadn’t emerged victorious.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
She told Liz and Slick and everyone else that she’d been roaming around town all day, but she didn’t mention that she’d been at the bank. They didn’t need to know the truth. Instead, she told them that a fight broke out at a food stand and food was being thrown everywhere. She said she’d gotten hit, and they laughed, because they thought her story was funny. She knew they wouldn’t laugh if they knew what had really gone down.
That night, Maria laid in her bed, pulling her blankets all the way up to her neck, encompassing herself completely. There was a tiny hole in her wall, and there had been for awhile now. Slick said he would fix it, but he never did, so Maria found her room rather cold at times, but she dealt with it, because she had to.
She could not sleep. Even though she was so tired, she could not sleep, at least not peacefully. She’d managed to fall asleep once, but images kept haunting and tormenting her as she dreamt. She saw the Rick touching her. She saw Michael’s bloody face. She saw the little girl, dead and bleeding on the floor.
When she woke up and stayed awake, the images only continued to haunt her, even though she wasn’t dreaming. She saw them over and over again until they appeared in such rapid succession that she couldn’t even distinguish one from the other. They all blurred together like a massive collage of violence and anger and pain.
Maria wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. She laid there for hours watching these images play out before her, and she was certain that she was going crazy.
But, suddenly, they stopped. Maria sat straight up in her bed, clutching her blankets to her chest. She looked around in the dark, searching for her clock. She noticed that it had shut off, so she had no idea of knowing what time it was, of knowing how long she’d laid up there like a crazy person.
Maria flung her feet over the side of the bed, running her hands through her hair. She couldn’t stay here another minute. Part of her problem was BlackCon. She couldn’t be around them right now. She couldn’t.
Maria got up and rummaged around her closet for something to wear. She found a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. It was simple, yes, but sometimes simple was better, and it covered her up.
Maria also found the outfit she had been wearing that morning tossed onto the floor. She’d shed the jeans and the stained shirt the moment she got home. Rick had touched her in those clothes.
Slowly, Maria picked them up and headed out the door. She passed people on her way outside, but no one really cared where she was going and why.
Along the way, Maria passed an abandoned fire made by a homeless person. She threw the shirt and jeans in without a second thought and continued on her way, glad that they were gone for good.
Maria got to the borderline and stopped. What was she doing? She couldn’t believe that she was even thinking about heading into Darkstreet territory all by herself to find the enemy.
She shook her head, mentally correcting herself. He’s not the enemy, she thought. How could a man who helped me as much as he did be the enemy?
Maria gathered up all of her courage and continued on, stepping over the borderline and into Darkstreet’s territory, feeling suddenly almost as vulnerable as she’d felt at the bank. She tried to make herself as invisible and unnoticeable as possible.
When she saw the Darkstreet crib looming in the distance, she thought about stopping right where she was at. She thought about turning around and heading back to the BlackCon crib, but she decided against the idea. She’d come this far, hadn’t she? It would be pointless to turn back now.
Their crib was relatively quiet that night. That was a surprise. The members of Darkstreet were pretty well-known party animals. Stealthily, she stepped forward, letting herself sink back into the shadows. She was suddenly glad she’d grabbed her black coat on the way out. She was sort of camouflaged. Just sort of.
She looked around from her position in the shadows, trying to remember what balcony he’d been standing on last time. Her eyes settled on one particular room as she scanned. His light was on and he was hobbling around inside. She could hear his rock music blaring from inside, too, and she smiled, wondering how someone so different from her was the only person that she felt she could trust at the moment.
As if he sensed someone watching him, Michael looked out his window. He stepped forward slowly, and finally made his way out onto his balcony, scanning the ground below. At last, his eyes settled on her, and his mouth dropped open a little bit as if he were surprised to see her. He only looked at her for a few seconds, and then he turned and left the balcony. Maria watched as he turned the light and the music off, and a few minutes later, he was walking—more or less—out the front door of the building. His long black coat flowed behind him, and he should’ve looked threatening, but he didn’t. Not to Maria, anyway.
He used to look threatening. And intimidating and frightening. But he wasn’t anymore. He hadn’t been for awhile now.
He didn’t say anything. He just joined her in the shadows and walked away slowly, and she followed.
"What time is it?" she asked him when they were a good distance away from the crib.
He lifted his wrist and looked at his watch. "Midnight."
Maria could hardly believe that. "I laid there for six hours," she whispered more to herself than to him.
"What?" he asked, obviously having heard her a little bit.
She shook her head. "It’s nothing," she said. "Well, no, it is something."
"Wanna tell me about it?" Michael asked, heading down into an alley behind and apartment complex.
"I don’t know," she said, following him. She sat down on the ground, not bothering to care what she was possible sitting in. She leaned her head against the wall, wanting to go to sleep, but knowing exactly what she would see if she did.
"Well, then why did you come here?" Michael asked, sitting down on a crate near the wall across from her. He groaned in pain as he struggled to sit, and Maria was reminded once again of what Rick had done.
"I . . ." This was going to be harder to say than she’d thought it would be. "I don’t know how to express what I’m feeling right now. It’s just that . . "
"Come on. Just talk to me, Maria," Michael urged. "I won’t think you’re stupid or crazy or anything like that."
"Well, I’m starting to think I’m crazy," she told him. "I mean, I laid in my bed for six hours, Michael, just thinking about all that happened to day."
Michael nodded in understanding. "The bank."
"Yeah. Have you thought about it?"
Michael shrugged. "A little. I try not to."
"I try not to," she told him, "but I always do, and whenever I do, I just feel . . . just awful about the whole thing."
"You don’t have any reason to feel awful," Michael told her. "It wasn’t your fault that any of that happened."
"That’s not the point," Maria said. "The point is that those guys were . . . okay, I’m trying to come up with some really hideous description here, but the only word that’s coming to my mind is bad. So, please excuse the lame adjective and think about what I’m saying here."
Michael laughed a little. "Okay."
Maria sighed. "Those guys are bad people. They do bad things. I’m . . I’m so much like them."
Michael looked confused. "What?"
"I’m so much like them, Michael," she repeated. "I just . . ."
"You’re not like them!" Michael almost shouted, cutting her off. "Maria, you are not like them at all! You don’t go around robbing banks and sexually assaulting people and killing little girls!"
"But I’m part of a gang, Michael!" she shouted back. "A gang! And gangs are not good. People in gangs kill other people. People in gangs don’t care about whose life they screw up, just as long as they’re doin’ okay! People in gangs don’t have a future ahead of them. All they have is pain and misery, and all they cause is pain and misery, Michael!"
"Well, if you’re such a bad person, then I am, too," Michael told her, "‘cause I’ve done some pretty bad things, Maria."
Maria gazed at him for awhile, and she noticed something on his face, something in his eyes, something that looked an awful lot like remorse. Finally, she choked out the three words that she’d been trying to say ever since she became a part of BlackCon.
"I want out." A single tear leaked from her right eye, followed by another. "I want out so bad, but I can’t get out." She began to cry harder now, totally aware of the fact that she was breaking down. "I wanna lead a good life again. I wanna be a part of something good, and I can’t be. I can’t be, because there is no way out. I’m trapped. I’m trapped and I’m screaming, but no one even hears me."
"I hear you," Michael told her, "and I understand. I’ve been in for six years. I’m twenty-three. I should be doin’ something with my life. I’m supposed to be in law school right now."
Maria dropped her head. "I’m supposed to be a senior in high school right now." She shook her head, trying to shake her tears away. "I know that the age thing really shouldn’t be that big of a matter," she said, "but it is. I mean, I know that lots of teenagers my age are in gangs, but in BlackCon, they’re all older and wiser and . . . and I can’t relate to them on any level at all. Even my friends . . . I can’t . . . I can’t let them in."
Michael gazed at her but said nothing. He probably didn’t know what to say.
"I just feel so isolated and alone and vulnerable. I wanna be able to tell my friends everything that I’m telling you right now, but I can’t, because I just don’t think they’d understand or even care. I don’t know why you seem to care."
Michael shrugged. "I don’t, either, but I do."
Maria wiped her tears from her cheeks and tried to regain herself. "Tell me again that you don’t think I’m stupid or crazy, Michael, because I’m breaking down right in front of you. I’m falling down and I just can’t get up anymore." She sighed. "God, you must think that I’m an idiot, right? I just keep talking all this mumbo jumbo. You probably haven’t understood a thing I’ve said. I can’t even really understand myself right now."
"No, I think I get it," Michael said. "You’re pretty much haunted by that incident at the bank. You think that being in a gang symbolizes all of the stuff that Rick did there. You think that you’re this bad person, even though I know you’re not, and you wanna tell your friends that you feel this way, but you can’t, ‘cause you’re separated from them. Apart. And you want out."
She dropped her gaze to the ground again and nodded slowly, whispering, "Yeah. I want out."
"Well," Michael said, standing up slowly. "I guess that I could suggest running away."
"No," Maria said, dismissing the idea immediately. She knew that running would not help this. "I don’t have any way to support myself. I’ve never even had a job, let alone lived on my own. Besides, I ran away once, and look how that all turned out." She grunted, mentally thinking how stupid she was for leaving that night, just because she couldn’t face her father. She should have told somebody about what he’d done, about what he would have done if she’d been placed in his custody. She hadn’t done that, though, because she’d been so afraid.
Fear. Fear was a turbulent emotion, one that seemed to affect her all of the time, whether she wanted it to or not. Fear was affecting her now, because she was fearing that she was a bad person.
"Well, then I can only think of one other thing that might help," Michael said.
"What?" she asked him, eager to know.
"We gotta loosen you up a bit," Michael explained. "You know? Go out and just have a good time and forget about everything that happened today."
Maria shook her head. "I don’t think that partying is going to help me, Michael. Besides, there’s not even a live band playing at Club Funk tonight."
"First of all," Michael said, "I’d kill myself before I ever partied at Club Funk, and second of all, and second of all, I have this gut feeling that this could really be good for you."
Maria felt herself giving in. She wanted to just go and have fun, but at the same time, she was surprised that she was thinking about going with Michael. A few days ago, she’d barely known him, except for what people said about him, and now she was sneaking around with him and confessing all of her fears and doubts to him and crying in front of him. She’d promised herself to never cry in front of the enemy, because she’d told herself that she hated them so much, because BlackCon hated them so much, but she’d already broken that promise several times in front of Michael.
"What do you say?" Michael asked. "You wanna go hit that new place called Motion that just opened up on your side of town?"
"I’m pretty exhausted," Maria pointed out.
Michael nodded. "Yeah, and so am I, but my body isn’t really hurtin’ me that bad right now, so maybe you wanna take me up on the offer."
She did, and she knew she did. "Alright. Let’s go."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael surveyed the cars lined up along the street, quite impressed. He knew that BlackCon territory was a little nicer and all around richer than Darkstreet territory, but he had no idea that he’d be walking along and spot a red Viper . . with the doors unlocked . . . with the key in the ignition.
"Right here," he announced. "This is it."
"What is?" Maria asked. She was clearly completely clueless about what he was planning on doing.
"The car," Michael explained, casually running his fingers over the top, enjoying the smooth feel. He looked around, making sure that no one was looking that shouldn’t be. "You didn’t think that we were gonna walk all the way to Motion, did you?"
"Well, I don’t know," Maria said, joining him by the side of the car, "but this isn’t our car."
Michael sighed. "Maria . . ."
"Look, I just gave you this whole big speech on how I think I’m this bad person, and if we take this car, then I’m gonna have proof, actual solid proof that I’m this bad person I’m thinking I am."
"No," Michael corrected, "you’ll have proof that I’m this bad person that I know I am, ‘cause it’s my idea to take this car, and it’s me who’s gonna tell you to just get in and not worry about it."
Defeated, Maria let out a long sigh and made her way around to the passenger’s side. "This person was pretty stupid," she commented, opening her door, "to just leave his car unlocked. So, really, it’s his own fault that we’re stealing it."
"We’re not stealing it," Michael told her, sitting down in the driver’s seat. "We’re borrowing it. And, actually, we’re not doing anything at all. I am." He didn’t know why, but he felt the need to reassure her that this was all his doing, that she wasn’t to blame.
Maria reluctantly sat down in the passenger’s seat and closed her door. "Leather," she commented, running her fingers over the seat.
Within minutes, they were flying down the street towards the new club, going well over the speed limit at 90 miles per hour.
"You know, I never even learned how to drive," Maria blurted out all at once as they drove.
Michael gave her a confused look. "You really didn’t?"
"Think about it, Michael. I was fourteen. Fourteen."
"Well, didn’t Slick or somebody ever teach you?"
She shook her head.
"That doesn’t make sense," Michael said. "What if you ran into the cops one day and had to get away? Driving would help you out."
"Slick’s got it in his head that feet are faster than wheels," Maria explained. "I don’t see why he thinks that. I mean, there’s no logic behind it, but, whatever, I guess. I can’t drive. Big deal."
"No, no, it is a big deal," Michael said, putting on the break and pulling the car over onto the shoulder. "Everyone should know how to drive." When the car came to a complete stop, he said, "Alright, switch me seats."
"What?" Maria shrieked.
"Take the wheel."
Maria shook her head vigorously. "No, see, that’s a really bad idea. I’ve never driven anywhere, Michael. Ever. Not even around the block."
"Well, you gotta learn sometime, then," Michael pushed. "Now come on."
She continued to shake her head and protest verbally, but even as she did that, she was sliding over Michael and he was sliding under her, and she soon found herself positioned in the driver’s seat anyway.
"I can’t do this," she kept repeating. "I just can’t."
"It isn’t that hard," Michael told her again, making himself comfortable in the passenger’s seat. He reached for his seatbelt and hooked it, just to be safe.
"It is for me," Maria said, glancing out onto the street at the passing traffic. "It is when you’ve never done it before." She finally tore her eyes away from the traffic and looked back at him. "You know, this street kinda looks busy tonight, so maybe we should just go and drive around somewhere where things aren’t so . . ." She trailed off, and the sound of a car horn honking violently interrupted her. "Disorderly?"
"No, we’re doin’ this now," Michael said, immediately dismissing the idea.
"No, we aren’t," she protested. "Nobody just gets behind the wheel and drives down a busy street."
"How do you think I learned?" Michael shot back. "Driver’s ed?" He chuckled. "Maria, I did the same thing when I was fifteen, and I survived."
Maria sighed dramatically and then ran her hands through her hair. "Fine," she muttered at last. "Fine, I’ll do it. Now, uh, which one’s the gas pedal?"
Michael suddenly wondered what he had gotten himself into. "It’s that one," he said, pointing to the pedal on the right.
Maria nodded. "Right. So, the other one is the brake, right?"
He nodded slowly, wanting now more than ever to jump out of the car.
"And what’s the rest of this stuff?" she asked him, motioning to all of the other gadgets in the car.
Michael leaned over and pointed all of the most important features out to her one at a time, but quickly. "Steering wheel, turn signal, gears, speedometer, mirror. Got it?"
She turned to look at him, sending him an incredulous expression. "You are, like, the worst teacher ever!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah," he agreed, "I know. Now drive."
"This isn’t even my car," Maria mumbled, slamming her foot down hard on the gas pedal. The car did not move. "What’s wrong?" she asked immediately, panicked. "What did I do? Why isn’t it moving?"
"Relax," Michael told her, reaching over and changing the gears so that the car was in drive. "You had it in park."
Maria smiled. "Oh. Duh." Michael held back laughter as he watched her.
"Alright," she said at last. "I’m gonna do this." She focused on the road in front of her and slowly lowered her foot onto the gas pedal, and then she made her first mistake. She slammed down, hard.
She screamed as the car flew forward, and Michael had to contain his own scream. "Get over to the left!" he told her as calmly as he could, noticing that they were inches away from going into the ditch. "Turn the wheel a little!"
She did turn the wheel, only she turned it a lot, and they made a full turn right in the middle of the road.
"I said ‘a little’!" Michael shouted.
"Sorry," she apologized. She’d managed to straighten the wheel back out now, but they were still barreling down the street at an even faster speed than Michael had been going.
"Let up on the gas a little!" Michael told her, noticing a stop light in the distance. When the car barely slowed, he said, "Okay, let up on the gas a lot!"
"I’m letting up," Maria said. "I’m letting up."
"No, you’re not," Michael told her, dreading the busy intersection that was approaching faster with every second. "Holy shit, Maria, just brake!"
She moved her foot over to the left pedal and pressed it down slowly.
"Brake!" Michael shouted again. "Brake! Brake! Maria, BRAKE!"
"It’s not braking!" she shouted. "It’s not braking, Michael!" She let up on the brake all together, and the car coasted through the intersection at a relatively fast pace, narrowly missing hitting another car.
"Just keep driving," Michael said. He found that he was gripping onto the dashboard in front of him so tightly that his hands were hurting.
"Am I doing okay, now?" Maria asked him.
Looking around, Michael noticed that something wasn’t right. It took him a minute to figure out what that was. "Shit, Maria, you’re in the wrong lane! Get over to the right!"
Maria jerked the wheel to the right, and Michael saw a vision them flying into the ditch. "Left!" he shouted. "Go left!"
She jerked the wheel to the left and then abruptly slammed on the brake right in the middle of the road. Luckily, no one was behind them.
"You can’t just stop right in the middle of the road!" Michael told her. "Put on the gas, and let’s go nice and slow the rest of the way."
She nodded and put on the gas very slowly, inching along on the road until a car behind her started honking, impatient, and she started to go faster.
"How am I doing now?" she asked him.
"Better," he told her, catching his breath. "You’re doin’ better."
All at once, Michael could make out a huge truck coming up over the hill at an unbelievable speed. He felt his breath leaving him again when Maria began to panic.
"Oh, God, Michael, look at that thing!"
"Stay calm," he told her, "Just, stay calm!" He was finding it hard to stay calm himself at the moment.
"I can’t do this!" Maria started shouting again. She squeezed her eyes shut and her hands left the wheel. Michael reached over and grabbed the wheel before the car went careening straight into the truck. "Eyes open!" he told her. "Eyes always open! And hands always on the wheel!"
Maria’s hand knocked the gear out of place as she tried to regain some sort of control, and Michael found that the car was now going backwards. "What the hell? Maria! You’re in reverse!"
"What? What? What’s that mean?"
The car behind them swerved around them, barely missing a collision. The person driving flipped them the finger as they drove on.
Michael reached over and quickly put the car into drive. "You’re fine now," he told her. "Just give it some gas."
She slammed her foot down on the accelerator again, and the car was flying down the street uncontrollably again.
"Maria!"
At last, though, they reached Motion. Michael felt relief wash over him when he saw the flashing neon lights and heard the reverberating music coming from inside.
"Should I park now?" Maria asked eagerly.
"Uh . . ." Michael didn’t know if that was such a good idea. Even though he knew this, though, he answered, "Sure."
Maria had no idea what she was doing, but she pretended like she did, and she even revealed to him that she was kind of liking the whole driving aspect. "Maybe you could teach me again sometime," she said.
"Yeah, maybe," Michael said, though he didn’t have any plans to let Maria drive again anytime soon. He’d seen his life flash before his eyes one too many times within the last few minutes, and that was enough to make him fearful of a second drive.
After Michael helped Maria park the car in straight, they both got out of the car and surveyed the club. Motion looked like a cross between a rave and dance club and a rapper’s paradise. It didn’t look like they’d be playing the rock music that he liked so much, but . . . what the hell. He wasn’t here to party. His battered body would probably not allow him that. He was here because Maria needed to be, because she couldn’t stay with BlackCon right now, and because she couldn’t very well be nowhere with no one in her state.
"The line’s pretty long," Maria commented, eyeing the winding trail of people that lead from the door all the way back behind the building. It made sense that there would be a lot of people at this place. It’d only opened up a short time ago.
"I’m not waitin’ to get in," Michael said. "I’ll just throw a punch at whoever tries to stop me."
"No," Maria told him. "No more violence tonight. Look, we’ll just wait."
Michael knew he should’ve known that violence was out of the question. He shouldn’t have even brought it up. He could be such a loser sometimes. He felt like apologizing, but he looked at Maria, and she seemed to have already forgotten about it. She was looking at the guy who was letting people in, and Michael could almost see her thinking.
"Unless . . ." she said quietly, trailing off.
Michael sighed. "Maria, I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t we go over all that seduction stuff out there on that street corner awhile back."
Maria looked down at the clothes she was wearing and shrugged. "I guess I’m not really dressed to seduce, anyway. But still . . . I don’t wanna wait in that line any more than you do." She cast another look back at the guy at the entrance. "It’s worth a shot, don’t you think?" She shrugged and headed off in the direction of the front of the line. Michael followed.
"Excuse me," Maria said when she was in front of everyone else. "I was wondering if you could let my friend and I here,"—she motioned towards Michael, who was standing behind her with his hands in his pockets—"inside."
The guy laughed. "For free? You’re dreamin’, baby."
"No, we have money," Maria reassured him. Then, as if reconsidering her statement, she turned back to face Michael. "We do have money, right?"
"Yeah," Michael told her, reaching in his pocket for his wallet. He couldn’t believe that he was about to shell out cash for some club that probably didn’t even play rock music.
"See, we have money," Maria told the guy, grabbing the cash from Michael. "Now will you let us in?"
"Why? So you can bang each other all night?"
Michael held in his laughter, though he knew Maria had a mortified expression plastered on her face by now. "Oh, there will be no banging involved at all!"
"Girlie, you just go wait in the back of the line like everybody else."
Maria, though the people behind her were growing very impatient and beginning to shout angrily, was not at all about to give up. "Listen, buddy," she said, leaning forward and placing her hands on his shoulders. "If you let me and my friend in right now, I might be able to promise you a little banging later tonight. What do you say?"
The guy tried to stand strong for a moment, but then he faltered. "Fine. Just go on in."
"Thank you," Maria said, prancing on inside. Michael followed her once again, ignoring the angry protests of those behind him.
"I gotta hand it to you, DeLuca," Michael said, "that was pretty good."
"I know," Maria said, walking forward excitedly. "See, Michael, I don’t have much, but I do have this one thing that tends to make guys falter, and I know how to use it."
Michael had to agree with that. Even in her regular jeans and T-Shirt, she might have managed to make him give in, too.
"Wow," Maria commented when they’d finally made their way into the club. "Look at this place!"
Michael looked around. It was quite impressive, for a place that played rap and techno. He and Maria were standing on a tall balcony that had stairs leading down to the lower level on either side. The lower level consisted of a huge dance floor lined by tables all around and a few couches in the corners. There was one more level, too, a level that was even higher than Michael and Maria were now. It consisted of one gigantic bar and a bunch of tables and chairs, and it seemed as if the club’s classier group was conjuring up there. There were neon lights and lasers and disco balls and so many other lights that Michael was thinking his might be sick sometime soon.
What am I doing here? he asked himself. What the hell am I doing here?
He looked to Maria, and he knew the answers to his questions.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"That guy thinks he’s cool," Maria commented, pointing to a total loser who was trying to bust a move right out in the middle of a dance floor. A crowd was forming around him, but they weren’t cheering him on. They were laughing at him, but he couldn’t seem to tell the difference.
"But he isn’t," Michael said. "He’s such a nerd."
"I kinda feel sorry for him, though," Maria said, taking a sip of her soda. (She’d insisted on staying away from the alcohol.) "Nobody dances with nerds at high school dances or at parties, so they never really learn how. It’s not their fault that they were given bad teeth and even worse acne."
Michael shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "Don’t you think that if they really wanted to get outta nerd status they’d gethttp://www.crashdown.com/fanfic orthodontic work and dermatology treatments?"
"Lots of them can’t afford it," Maria reminded him. "See, the only reason why I was even semi-popular was because my mom could afford things like that."
"You had acne?" Michael asked, unable to believe that the girl in front of him now had once had bad skin.
"Yes," she said, "and bad teeth and unmanageable hair and everything else. But my mom paid for everything that would help me, and I wasn’t picked on as much as I could have been. I only went through my awkward phase for about a year, though, so I guess I was lucky. What about you?"
"Me?" Michael could barely even remember the days of his childhood now. They seemed so far away and distant. It seemed like the only part of his life he could remember was from eighteen years on, from the day he joined Darkstreet.
"I was never a geek," he said at last. "I was always pretty cool. Kinda the bully for awhile, though."
"Of course," Maria muttered.
"But I grew outta that, just like you grew outta your awkward phase," he said. "But everyone was still pretty scared of me. I was a badass. A rebel, and I wasn’t afraid to pound anybody who got in my way."
"Gee," Maria said sarcastically, "You’ve certainly changed."
"I have," Michael said, "believe it or not. I’m a lot better person now than I was back then."
"Let’s not get talking about what kind of people we are," Maria suggested. "I think I’ve already done enough of that. Now,"—she pointed to the loser out on the dance floor—"I really do feel sorry for the guy, but it’s just hilarious how bad he sucks."
"Yeah," Michael agreed, laughing a little. "He should just quit now."
As if on cue, the guy stopped dancing, took a bow, and walked away, unaware that the cheering that he thought he was hearing was only laughing and taunting.
"Wow," Michael said, "I really have an effect on people."
Maria grunted. "You wish, Guerin." She stared at him for several long seconds, and Michael had to wonder what exactly it was that she was thinking.
"You know what?" she said at last. "You and I need a place to meet so that I don’t have to come sneaking on over to Darkstreet territory again."
"But it’s okay for me to head over into your side of town?"
"Yeah," she replied simply with a nod. "It’s different with you. You’re a guy, and I’m just this little girl, and it’s just not safe for me. And besides, everyone knows that you roam around this city like you own it. All of it. It’d look weird if someone caught me all alone in your territory."
Michael had to agree that she had a point. "Alright, I get it. We can meet on that street corner that you were at that one time. You know, kinda on the borderline?"
"Oh, yeah, the one where I was trying to be a hooker," Maria said knowingly. "I guess that would work. As long as no jackasses try to pick me up while I’m there."
"They won’t," Michael reassured her. "I won’t let them."
Something flashed across her eyes, and it looked a lot like gratitude, but Michael couldn’t be sure.
All at once, the DJ started to switch up the songs, and a high tempo rap song came on over the speakers. A thrilled expression came across Maria’s face, and she stood up. "Oh my God! I love this song!" she exclaimed. "Come on, Michael. Let’s go dance!"
"Uh, that’s alright, you just go," Michael told her, leaning back in his seat and curling his fingers around his drink. "I’m not much of a dancer."
Maria sighed. "Fine." She danced her way out onto the floor and started dancing, and she was soon surrounded by a group of people that she didn’t even know but were liking the way she was dancing and wanted to join.
At first, Michael wasn’t even watching her, but then he allowed himself one glance, and everything changed. With that one glance, his whole world was changed and shaken upside down.
She was everywhere. She was uncontrollable on her legs, and she was wild on the floor, and she was explosive in the center of a forming circle. She was the exact definition of perpetual motion. Her hips swayed, her arms circled, her shoulders shook, her body moved, and she just kept dancing like she’d forgotten about every other trouble and problem in her life.
Michael watched, curiously at first as to why he was watching in the first place, and then intrigued, just waiting to see what she would do next. He was well aware that he was staring, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.
This girl . . . she was hot. He’d always known that, but she was more than just hot.
She was beautiful.
A loud whooping and hollering sound distracted Michael’s attention, and he found moved his gaze around the club for a brief instant. His eyes caught sight of four unmistakable figures who were making their way down the stairs onto the dance floor, shouting so loudly that everyone would know that they’d arrived.
BlackCon. Slick, VaLenti, Whitman, and VaLenti’s girlfriend. They were making their way towards Maria, but she didn’t even know that they were there.
Michael knew he had to leave. He didn’t want to, but he knew he had to. He allowed himself one last glance at Maria and then forced himself to go.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria was so absorbed in her dancing that she didn’t even know that someone was dancing behind her for quite some time, but when she felt someone’s hands wrap around her waist, she spun around in shock.
She had halfway expected to find that Michael had given in and decided to dance with her, and she was halfway expecting to find some complete stranger who thought he could funk it up with her when he didn’t even know her. She was not, however, expecting to find Slick, and that was exactly who she found.
"Slick!" she exclaimed, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. She froze in place, suddenly immobile. How long had he been here? Had he seen her talking with Michael?
"Hey, baby," he said over the music. "Glad to see me?"
"When did you get here?" she asked him, leaving his question unanswered.
"Just now," Slick told her. "Gotta check out the new club, you know. I’ll say, it’s pretty awesome. We weren’t expecting to see you here, though."
"We?" Maria wondered who else was here.
"Yes, we," Liz said, stepping out from behind Slick. "We as in me and Slick and Alex and Kyle!" She put emphasis on her boyfriend’s name. "Look at him! Standing! Walking! Dancing!"
Maria tried to smile. "That’s great," she said quietly. Honestly, it was great, but she was so overwhelmed by their sudden appearance that she could hardly think.
Michael, Maria suddenly remembered. She turned back in the direction of their booth, searching for him.
He was gone.
"Baby, let’s dance." Maria felt Slick’s hands encircle her stomach again, pulling her to him as he begin to move with the music.
It was weird. The whole purpose of this night had been to loosen up, and now that Slick and the others had showed up, she only felt uptight again.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"You need sleep, hun."
Maria yawned, knowing that Liz was right. They’d been out all night, and she was beginning to feel like she could hardly stand on her own to feet anymore.
"You should go home and rest up," Liz suggested.
"I should," Maria agreed with a nod. She didn’t bother telling Liz that she was afraid of what she might dream if she did manage to get to sleep.
"I hate how they just roam around here like this place is theirs," Alex was saying.
"Who?" Liz asked.
"Darkstreet," Alex said, pointing to a few people off in the distance. "They think they’re so great."
"If they were so great, they would’ve defeated us years ago," Slick reminded him. "We’ll put ‘em in their place one of these days. Maybe even tonight."
"Please, not another fight," Maria groaned. She couldn’t stand the thought of more violence. "Slick, you’re becoming addicted or something."
"I’m not addicted," Slick said. "I’m just determined to win. And I’m gonna. Someday."
"I think we should fight ‘em tonight," Kyle piped up. "I’d love the chance to even the score with Guerin."
Maria tensed when she heard Kyle mention his name, but she tried not to show it.
"I’d fight with ya," Alex put in. "I swear to God, I am gonna kill Max Evans some night."
Liz laughed. "Keep workin’ on those muscles, Alex, and you just might."
"Thanks," Alex said sarcastically.
"Okay, so we’re fightin’ ‘em tonight," Slick said, licking his lips as if anticipating the whole ordeal. "I bet we’ll have a real fun time."
Maria sighed. She hated this. She hated all of this so much.
The crib was pretty deserted when they got back. Everyone was either out having breakfast or sleeping off hangovers. Maria headed straight for the shower. She’d been dancing all night, and she felt disgusting and dirty.
She stood there and let the warm water spill over her for what seemed like an eternity. She felt her eyes falling closed, and she mentally reminded herself of the dangers of falling asleep in the shower or bathtub, but she disregarded them and let her eyes shut anyway.
All at once, though, someone pulled the shower curtain back. Maria gasped and held her hands to her exposed body, and she wasn’t at all surprised to see that it was Slick. She wanted to scream at him for opening the curtain and looking in on her, but that wasn’t her place.
"You’ve been in here for awhile," Slick told her. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I’m fine," Maria told him quickly. "Could you hand me my towel?"
He grabbed her towel and passed it to her, letting his eyes linger on her nude body for a few seconds as she did so. Maria turned off the water as quickly as she could and wrapped her towel around herself in a hurry, grateful for some sort of cover from his gaze. It wasn’t as if Slick hadn’t seen her body before. He had, but she still didn’t care for him to.
"I think I’m gonna go to bed now," she told him, stepping out of the shower, a puddle of water instantly forming at her feet. She tried to push past him, but he grabbed onto her shoulders and stopped her.
"I want you," he whispered in her ear, running his hands over her bare shoulders. "God, I want you, Maria." He pressed his lips down hard onto her neck and brought his hands around to cup her breasts. Maria had to restrain herself from running. Why the hell did guys always touch her like this? Why did they think they could?
"Slick," she said quietly, using her hands to remove his. "I’m really tired." She gave him an apologetic look and left the room, practically sprinting down the hallway toward her bedroom. She closed the door and locked it into place.
When she was alone, she let herself slump against the door, sliding down to the floor. She wanted to be anywhere but here right now, anywhere but with these people.
She wanted to be with Michael, and she knew it. She didn’t know why being around him felt so good. Maybe it was because he didn’t treat her like an object he could possess, or maybe it was because he understood her somehow.
Well, whatever the reason was, she wanted to be hanging out with him right now, because he made her laugh, and he made her smile, and he made her believe that things were going to be okay.
"Don’t sleep too long, Maria," Slick said as he passed her room on the way to his. "Remember, we’ve got a showdown tonight."
"Great . . ." Maria held her head in her hands. Didn’t these fights ever stop?
So she’d be tagging along tonight, though she wouldn’t be doing anything important. She’d play the role of the spectator who sat in the shadows and watched as she always did, and she would see Michael again.
But not in the way that she wished to see him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael had been trying to get to sleep for hours now. He’d tried everything he could think of: counting sheep, the forty-winks trick, even trying to tire himself out by exercise, but nothing worked. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her dancing at Motion, and every time he tried to clear his mind, he started thinking about her.
He wasn’t supposed to think that she was beautiful. He could think that she was hot. That was fine, because one would have to be blind not to think that, but he couldn’t think that she was beautiful, because beautiful was crossing the line. Beautiful was venturing into completely new and different territory. Beautiful was meaningful.
She was BlackCon, and, on top of that, she was only seventeen!
Michael was laying there thinking about all of this when Max threw open the door and burst into his room, a look of both worry and excitement etched into his features.
"Guess who decided to stop by?"
"Who?" Michael asked in return, struggling to sit up after laying down for so long now.
"Fuckin’ BlackCon," Max answered, throwing Michael his gun.
"BlackCon . . ." Michael echoed, trailing off. The first thought that came to mind when he heard the very title BlackCon was of Maria.
"Yeah. You comin’?" Max was already headed out the door, and Michael reluctantly got up to follow. He wasn’t sure if he should fight tonight or not. He was very, very distracted at the moment after having all of those dancing Maria thoughts floating around his brain, but he’d skipped out on more than his fair share of fights lately. He didn’t want to give anyone anything to be suspicious about.
When Michael arrived outside, he saw that the fight had already started. He had to hold back a laugh when he saw Jonathon trying to take on Kyle VaLenti, just to impress Isabel. That dude was gonna get the pulp beat out of him.
As usual, Slick and Nix weren’t fighting each other, but they were both glaring at the other like they knew they should. Max and Whitman were fighting each other again, too, apparently unable to back down. But something was different this time. Max was winning. He had Whitman pinned down on the ground and was throwing punches right and left. Whitman was taking it too bad to even try to fight back.
"Alex!" He heard a familiar voice shouting. "Alex!"
Michael shifted his gaze and saw Maria running for her friend. He wondered at first what the hell she was doing, and when he saw her grab Max by the back of his shirt, he knew. She was trying to protect Alex as best she could.
But she was no match for Max. He immediately turned around and threw her to the ground hard, then returned to beating on Whitman. The guy was coughing up blood now, and his entire face had become one red smear.
"Alex!" Maria kept shouting, struggling to get to her feet again.
What the hell am I doing? Michael wondered to himself as he stepped forward, pushing away anybody who tried to get in his way. What the freakin’ hell am I doing?
Maria reached for Max again, and he spun around, prepared to throw her to the ground again, but this time, Michael swung and hit him in the face before he could, sending his best friend flying to the ground beside Whitman with a confused look on his face.
"I’m sorry, man," Michael said immediately, grabbing his hand and helping him up. "I thought you were someone else beatin’ on Tess or something." He glanced quickly toward Maria, wondering if she and Tess could look at all alike and then returned his attention to Max. "I’m sorry, man."
"No, problem," Max said, holding his jaw. "Just take care of her for me, will ya?" He pointed to Maria.
"Yeah, yeah," Michael told him quickly. "I’ll take care of her." He watched as Max left to beat on somebody else, and then he turned to Maria. He halfway smiled before grabbing her by the waist and pulling her around behind a dumpster. They both went hurtling to the ground, and she landed hard on her back. He landed on top of her.
"Sorry about that," he apologized when they were completely out of sight. "I had to make it look a little realistic, you know."
"I know," she said, staring up into his eyes.
As he laid there on top of her, he couldn’t help staring down into her eyes as well, and he noticed for the first time how vibrantly green they were. They were bright and they sparkled and they pulled him in like two gigantic whirlpools that could even make him want to punch his best friend in the face.
They laid there like this for quite some time before Maria opened her mouth and spoke. "Please," she said, "get me out of here."
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, Michael stood up and extended his hand. She took it and he helped her stand up beside him. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t even care to wonder where she wanted to go. He just went with her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Can I drive?"
Michael shot Maria a disbelieving look and shook his head. "No, you can’t."
"Why not?" she asked him. "I did okay last time."
Michael held in his laughter. "Maria, this is my car, and if something happens to it, then I’m paying for it."
Maria sighed. "Alright, I guess I get your point." She curled her knees up to her chest and looked out the window as Los Angeles flew right past her. Michael wondered what she was thinking. Was she thinking the same thing that he was right now? Was she wondering why on earth she was driving around with him? Was she wondering why he was leaving with her?
"So where are we going?" he asked her. "Pasadena maybe?"
"I don’t care," she replied. "Just as long as we’re away."
"Away from what? BlackCon?"
"Away from everything," she told him. She turned in her seat so that she was facing him as he drove, and Michael had to force himself to keep his eyes on the road instead of looking over at her. "Don’t you ever just wanna go somewhere and not have to think about anything at all?" she asked him. "Don’t you ever just wanna leave and just be happy for a little while?"
"Yeah," he replied, thinking back to their night at Motion. He’d been happy then. He was happy now.
He was happy because of her.
Happy? he asked himself. Beautiful? Why the hell am I thinkin’ like this?
"I could never be happy with them," Maria admitted. "Never. They’re my friends, I guess, but that’s because they have to be. And they don’t understand me. None of them."
"I sounds like all they do is stress you out," Michael commented, taking a left that would lead him out of Los Angeles.
"They do," she said, "especially Slick. He thinks that I’m his girlfriend or something."
Michael tried not to be jealous of Slick in that moment. He tried not to think of how Slick was able to touch Maria and he wasn’t. He tried not to think of the things that he might’ve done with her over the years that he could never do.
"And it’s weird," Maria continued. "You’d think that you would add to my stress, but . . . you don’t."
"I don’t?" Michael asked her, curious as to why he didn’t.
"Yeah, for some reason, you just don’t."
Michael hoped that was a good thing. It had to be. "Maybe that’s just ‘cause I’m just kinda here, you know. Just kinda here to help out and be a simple kind of guy."
"You’re not simple," Maria said, studying his features. "You’re actually kind of complicated."
"How so?" Michael was curious again, this time wondering how on earth he was complicated.
"Well, you come off as this complete asshole who only thinks about himself," Maria explained. "No offense."
"None taken."
"But," she added, "you’re really not. I think I probably realized that when you actually cared about what happened when I was younger with me and my dad. No one’s cared before, Michael. And then that ordeal at the bank . . . you protected me. You protected me from Rick, and you protected me from getting hurt, and after that was all over, you helped me get through it. You’re still helping me."
"Okay, so I care and I protect and I help," Michael said, summarizing everything that she’d just said. "You’re saying no one else does?"
"Right," she told him, "and, honestly, Michael, I’m not even sure why you do. I can be pretty screwed up sometimes. Most people would’ve just given up on me by now."
"You’re not screwed up," Michael told her. "You’re just a little complex."
"Same goes for you," Maria said, "but you know what? I think I get you."
"You think you do?" Michael asked her. He wanted her to get him. He wanted to let her in like he’d never wanted to let anyone else in before.
"Yeah, I do. I think I get you, because you and I are a lot alike."
"Uh, yeah, I guess, except for the fact that you like rap and I think it’s complete bullshit."
Maria smiled. "Besides that. Look at us now, Michael. I’m not the only one running away right now. You’re coming with me."
Michael hadn’t thought about that. He’d been so convinced that he was only tagging along with her, just because he needed to be around her, but maybe there was more to it than just that. Maybe he was leaving with her because he needed to, because he couldn’t be around Darkstreet any longer. Maybe he wasn’t leaving just for her, but for himself as well.
"You’re going in the ditch," Maria announced suddenly. Michael looked over to his right and saw that she was right. He’d been so absorbed in his thoughts that he’d started losing control of the wheel for a second there. He quickly straightened the car out and watched as they passed a sign that said "Thanks for visiting Los Angeles! Come back soon!"
"So have you decided where you wanna go?" Michael asked her. "Somewhere not too far away, I hope. After awhile, driving starts to seems sort of endless, you know."
Maria was looking out the window again, her eyes slowly falling closed. "Endless can be a good thing."
Michael had to agree with that. Endless could be a good thing, if, that is, it was and the type of endless where you didn’t have to deal with the chaos of gang life and also got to be with a beautiful girl.
Hot girl, Michael corrected himself. Hot, not beautiful. She can’t be beautiful. I can’t think that.
Despite his mental lecturing, he knew very well that he did think that and probably always would. He couldn’t stop thinking that.
Maria fell asleep in the car as they drove, and Michael finally had to pull over on the side of the road to catch some sleep of his own. He didn’t think he could keep his eyes open for another minute.
Before he fell asleep, he studied her sleeping form. A small smile had formed on her lips now. She looked happy.
He dreamt of her that night, and he was happy, too.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was the brightly shining sun that woke Maria up finally. She forced her eyes open and immediately wanted to close them again. She was in a very unfamiliar car in a very unfamiliar place, and she was so confused as to why she didn’t want to go home.
She slowly looked over at Michael, who was still sleeping despite the bright light of the sun, and she knew why she didn’t want to go home. She was more at peace in this car and in this place with him then she ever could be with Slick and the others.
She struggled to sit up, finding it hard to move after sleeping in such a cramped compartment for so long. She opened the door and got out of the car as quietly as she could, needing room to stretch.
She watched as the cars passed by on the highway, wondering where the people in them were going. Were they going to visit grandparents in Memphis? Were they going to a high school reunion in Tucson? Were they going to Disney World?
Would she ever get the chance to go to those places?
"You’re not planning on hitching a ride out of the country, are you?" Michael had apparently heard her get out of the car and was up himself now.
Maria shook her head. "No, I’m not, and even if I was, I’d just ask you to take me. And you would."
"What makes you so sure that I would?" Michael asked her, stretching his arms above his head and yawning as the last effects of sleep wore off of him.
"Because you help me, Michael," she replied simply, taking a step toward him. "That’s what you do."
Michael laughed a little. "I never thought I’d hear the world ‘help’ attached to my name."
Maria smiled and shrugged a little. "I told you that you were complicated."
Michael stared at her for several long seconds, and Maria couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking. When he did finally speak, he only said, "I wanna take you somewhere. Come on." He motioned to the car with a jerk of his head and climbed back into the driver’s seat. Maria knew she should be wondering where exactly it was that he wanted to take her, but she honestly didn’t care. Just as long as it was away.
They drove for a while, and Maria took notice of the fact that they were heading back to LA. This bothered her for a little while, because LA was not away.
"Michael, where are you taking me?" she asked him finally when she saw familiar buildings and streets coming into view. "Why are we at the borderline?"
"Because," he answered, "I wanna show you something that’s not complicated."
"Well, everything on the borderline is complicated," she told him matter-of-factly. "It’s all sex and drugs and rock and roll, and it’s just this big mass of complicated-ness."
Michael smiled, pulling his car over on the side of the road. "Not all of it." He opened the door and got out, and Maria did so as well. She was immediately greeted with the typical Los Angeles smell. It wasn’t until she’d gotten out of the city that she realized how awful it smelled.
She followed him wherever he went, but she wasn’t quite sure why. He was leading her through some sort of forest, and she was definitely not an outdoors type of girl. But she followed.
She was just about to ask him what the hell could possibly be in the middle of a tree-filled forest when the trees cleared and she walked right into the most exquisite place she’d ever seen.
She saw flowers everywhere, littering the ground in a display of the most beautiful colors and patterns. She saw the greenest of green grass and the clearest, water she’d ever seen. Sparkling water fell from a small waterfall into a tiny lake, creating one of the most peaceful sounds she’d ever heard.
"How did you know about this place?" she asked him, stepping toward the water, bending down to run her fingers through it, just to make sure that it was all real.
"Max and Tess come here sometimes when they wanna be alone," Michael told her, squatting down beside her. "Nice, isn’t it?"
She nodded her head excitedly. "Very." A rush of memories came flying at her as she stared at the place surrounding her. Memories of her mother’s garden, almost as beautiful as this. "My mom had a garden pretty much like this," she told him. "Except, not with a waterfall, you know."
Michael laughed a little.
"She loved it so much," Maria continued, "and I did, too. I love this, Michael. It’s just so beautiful. I wish real life was just as beautiful."
"It is," Michael said quietly, almost as if he didn’t want her to hear him.
They sat in silence for a few seconds until Michael stood up, grabbing her wrist and pulling her up with him. "You wanna go swimming?" he asked her with an almost hopeful grin on his face.
She sighed. "I don’t know. I mean, I’ve got this mascara on, and it says that it’s totally waterproof, but you can never really be too careful with those types of things."
Michael gave her a confused look, and she laughed. "I’m joking. I’ll go swimming, but I haven’t swam in years, so, if I drown, I’m blaming you." She bent down and took off her shoes, watching as Michael did the same. He kept his eyes locked with hers the entire time.
His eyes were really brown. She hadn’t noticed that until now.
"I’m not taking my clothes off, though," Maria announced, "so if you’re trying to seduce me, then you’re outta luck."
"Damn," Michael said sarcastically, snapping his fingers like he’d missed and opportunity. "There goes my plan." He pulled his shirt over his head, and Maria tried not to stare at his tan, muscular chest.
"Maria, I think it’s only fair that, since I took my shirt off, you take off yours."
Maria smiled. "Fine," she said, letting her fingers play at the bottom of the large sweatshirt she was wearing. She loved joking around with him. "Fine, I will." In one swift movement, she pulled her sweatshirt over her head, revealing a white tank-top underneath. "Ta-da!"
Michael shook his head. "You’re impossible, you know that?" He grabbed her hand, a move that surprised Maria but didn’t at all disappoint her. He led her up closer to the waterfall, and she had a feeling what he was planning to do. "Michael, I think I’ll just get in down on that end," she said, motioning with her free hand to the place where his shirt and her sweatshirt lay discarded. "I think that’ll be a little safer for me."
"Maybe so," he agreed, continuing to lead her forward, "but this will be a lot more fun."
Maria was getting nervous now. "No, I don’t think so. I think it’ll just be a lot more, uh, let’s see, deadly!"
"You’re not gonna die," Michael promised her as they reached the top of the waterfall. "Look, it’s not even that high up."
Maria shook her head persistently. "No, it is. It is for someone who’s has a fear of heights ever since she was five, Michael. It is."
"You’ll be fine," Michael insisted. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her to him. "Just hold on to me."
She had to admit that holding onto the very shirtless man in front of her didn’t sound entirely bad.
"I can’t do this," she kept telling him, although she found her arms finding their way to his shoulders. "I just can’t."
"I won’t let anything happen to you," Michael reassured her. She thought she felt his hands rubbing the small of her back, but she figured in the end that she was just imagining it. "I protect, remember?"
She nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know you protect, but if the fall alone just kills me, you can’t very well protect me from that."
As he struggled to hold in his laughter, Maria found herself staring into his eyes once again. Brown eyes. Warm eyes. Not cruel, intimidating eyes that she’d once seen. Warm, brown eyes. Michael’s eyes.
"This can’t be safe," she pointed out the obvious, beginning to weaken in her argument as she gazed at him.
Michael grinned a little, tightening his grip on her. "It isn’t."
All at once, Maria felt herself falling over the edge, the air rushing out of her lungs in the form of a scream. She dug her nails into Michael’s shoulders so hard that she was sure it was painful, and the last thing she remembered as they hit the water was the feel of his arms wrapped tightly around her.
The water was cold, and when Maria came up for air, she was already shivering. Michael still had a tight hold on her, and she was glad for that, because he was warm.
Her mouth dropped open, and she wanted to speak, but she found words almost impossible at this point.
"You . . . you could’ve killed me," she said between shivers. "That was . . . bad."
Michael began to laugh. "Yeah, but it was fun, wasn’t it?"
She began to laugh right along with him. "Yeah, it was. But . . ." She trailed off when she felt him letting go of her body. She didn’t want him to. "But you still could’ve killed me," she finished at last, just as Michael’s hands completely left her body. He grinned as he went under water to wet his hair again, and she tried not to show the effect that his simple grin was having on her right now. When he came up for air, she returned his grin with one of her own.
"I haven’t been swimming for a long time," she told him again, swimming over closer to him, "but I still haven’t forgotten how." She reached out and pushed Michael back down under the water by his shoulders. He hadn’t expected it, and when he finally got to the surface again, it was clear that he’d just swallowed a whole lot of water.
"Take that you homicidal maniac," Maria teased.
"I’m the homicidal maniac?" Michael exclaimed. "You just tried to drown me!"
"And you tossed me off a freakin’ waterfall!" Maria shot back. "I guess we’re even."
"No," Michael said, shaking his head. "We’re not."
That afternoon, Maria got to be the kid she was supposed to be. She got to laugh and she got to smile and she got to have fun, and she did this all with a man she was supposed to hate.
There was once instance that afternoon in which Maria realized that her attraction to Michael was more than just physical. He came up from under the water, surprising her and wrapping his hands around her waist, pressing her back to his chest. She’d been to stunned to even move, and even if she could’ve she wouldn’t. Being with him felt too comfortable. He’d leaned down and whispered in her ear, then, so close that his warm breath tickled her skin.
"I love it when I see you happy."
It was then that the realization came upon Maria that her attraction to Michael was more than physical. It was more than emotional, and it was more than spiritual.
It was all that mattered.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Michael Guerin was talking to himself, something he’d never ever done before in his life for the simple and practical reason that it was incredibly lame. He’d never imagined that he would one day be doing something so lame, but he was now. He had to, because he couldn’t discuss what was going through his head with anyone else. They wouldn’t accept it.
They didn’t need to.
"I love it when I see you happy? Could I be any more obvious?" Michael ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it up even more than it usually was as he paced around his bedroom. "She’s gonna know. She’s gonna know how I feel and she’s not gonna be happy about it." He stood looking out his window, hoping that staring would somehow clear his mind, but it didn’t. He only kept on thinking about her, and his thoughts soon began to intensify.
He thought about her skin. Her smooth skin. She’d been wearing a tank top, true, but she’d come out of the water and right into his arms one time, and he was certain that he’d been able to feel her skin. Even if he wasn’t, he didn’t care. He’d felt her. He’d felt her body pressed up against his for whatever reason, and that feeling was driving him insane.
"I touched her too much," he said, continuing to converse with himself only. "She doesn’t like to be touched." Even as he said this, though, he kept remembering how she’d allowed him to touch her as they jumped into the water and numerous times after that, as well.
"She’s gonna think I was coming onto her. Well, I was, but . . ." He trailed off, silently wondering why she had this much of an effect on him, why the hell the very thought of her was driving him to talk to himself.
"Oh, fuck, the shirt thing," he cursed, remembering how he’d been teasing her about taking off her shirt since he’d taken off his. "Why the hell did I say that? What the fuck was I thinking?"
Michael heard chuckling, and he looked around to see that Max was leaning against the doorframe, apparently quite amused by Michael’s conversation with himself.
"Hey, Max," Michael said, trying to pull together any composure that he had left. "What’s up?"
Max shrugged. "Not much. Headin’ to work tonight. Gonna make the big bucks."
Michael pretended to be happy for his friend. To some extent, he was, but, for the most part, he was just jealous. Jealous that Max was an okay guy.
"What’s up with you?" Max asked, reaching in his back pocket and pulling out a cigarette and his lighter. "It sounded like things were getting pretty intense in here."
Michael laughed a little and tried to shrug the whole thing off. "Yeah, well, that’s me, you know. I’m a pretty intense guy."
Max smirked. "That’s what Isabel said before you guys put an end to it. Now she’s tellin’ everyone your dick’s smaller than her thumb."
A few weeks ago, Michael would’ve hunted Isabel down and fucked some sense into her for her untrue remarks, but now, he just didn’t really care. It was pointless.
"Isabel can go fuck Jonathon’s brains out for all I care," Michael said. "That bitch and I were never really compatible anyway."
Max blew a puff of smoke into the air. "Michael? Since when has compatibility counted in your book?"
Michael was beginning to feel like Max was investigating him. "It doesn’t," he answered. "I just . . . I don’t know, Isabel and I were always different than you and Tess, and I just got sick of it."
Max let go another cloud of smoke and shook his head. "You’re changing, Michael. You haven’t gone out to sell for weeks, you disappear during all of our fights with BlackCon, you’re thinking about compatibility, and you’re up here talkin’ to yourself."
"I wasn’t talking to myself," Michael lied. "I was . . ." He trailed off, knowing quite well that the only way to get Max to leave was to lie to him. "Alright, you caught me," he told him. "I’m writing a novel."
A shocked expression came across Max’s features, and he almost dropped his cigarette. "You’re what?"
"I’m writing a novel," Michael repeated. "A, uh . . . romance novel."
Max began to laugh. "That’s so cheesy, man."
"I know," Michael agreed, "so that’s why I’m trying to keep it a secret. I was up here planning out my next chapter when I heard you laughing."
"Are you serious about this?" Max asked, finding the concept too unbelievable to conceive. "You’re writing a romance novel?"
"I’m completely serious," Michael lied. "You know, I don’t really think I’ve ever been so serious about anything in my life, Maxwell."
Max shook his head. "Crazy," he muttered. "I never knew writing was one of your passions."
"Neither did I," Michael told him, "but, now that I’ve started exploring it, I’ve found out that it’s the most passionate of my passions, Maxwell. Writing. Good old writing."
Max sighed. "Well . . . what chapter are you on?"
"Chapter six," Michael said immediately. "Yeah, chapter six. It’s getting pretty good, I think."
"What’s it called?" Max asked.
"Uh . . . uh . . ." Michael now found himself at a loss for words, and he blurted out the first word that came to mind, the word that had been on his mind for a few days now. "Beautiful."
Max immediately began to laugh again. "Dude! That’s so cheesy!"
Michael joined in a little. "Yeah, I guess so. Now, if you don’t mind, I need my writer’s time to think up the next plot twist, okay?"
Still laughing, and practically choking on his cigarette smoke, Max stumbled down the hallway. "You gotta let me read it when you’re done, okay man?"
"Yeah," Michael told him. "You got it!" He closed the door as Max made his way down the hall and locked it into place. "Holy shit," he cursed quietly. "I am so fucked up."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Across the borderline, Maria DeLuca was talking to herself as well. She hadn’t talked to herself since the first nights after her mother’s death and she’d needed to talk to herself to explain what had happened. She wasn’t embarrassed about it, but she closed her door so that no one heard her and thought she was completely strange.
"Am I crazy?" she asked herself. "He sliced my stomach once. He hurt me." She reached down and touched the scar on her stomach, just to remind herself, but as soon as she touched it, she let her hand fall away. That was a different Michael Guerin. That was the cruel, intimidating Michael Guerin who’d been molded and formed into this hated villain that he’d discarded quite some time ago. "But he cares and he protects and he helps, too," she said, remembering their conversation in the car. "God, why does he do that? He has no reason to."
Maria ran her hands through her hair, wondering how the hell she’d gone from stressing out about whether she was a good person or not to stressing out about a guy.
In her mind, she pictured his naked chest, and she smiled. She imagined the feel of his hands wrapped around her waist holding her close to him, and her smile grew. "He was flirting," she concluded. "That was definitely flirting. And I was flirting, too. I told him I’d take my shirt off, and, yeah, joking, but still . . . flirting."
A knock on the door preceded Liz’s voice. "Hey, Maria, we’re hookin’ up the sound system downstairs and Kyle and Alex are heading down to the borderline to get some beer. They got the best beer down there."
"Great," Maria replied. She didn’t care to discuss beer. She was underage, and she didn’t drink anyway.
"So, it looks like we’re shapin’ it up to be breakin’ it down," Liz continued. "You should come on down, ‘Ria."
Maria made a face, hating the use of that nickname. "I don’t really feel like it, Liz."
"You don’t feel like dancing?" Liz asked shock. "Girl, I know you, and I know that you always feel like dancing. Come on. I’m sure you’ve got some new move up your sleeve."
"I don’t," Maria lied, although she had dozens that she still needed to try out sometime. "Look, Liz, I just really wanna be alone right now, alright?"
There was silence on the other side of the door, and after several seconds, Maria her footsteps traipsing down the hallway. She could imagine the look on Liz’s face, the discourage, disappointed, maybe even hurt look on Liz’s face. Liz always took everything so seriously, and one little snap sometimes was the end of the world to her. She was supposed to be Maria’s best friend, but she could be so goddamned annoying at times. She would get over it, though. She would get over whatever she was feeling right now, and she would go downstairs and grind away with Kyle like there was no tomorrow, and when there actually was a tomorrow, she would come up to Maria’s room and hang out and talk about her boyfriend and about the Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez split, and she would think that everything was normal again, but Maria would always know better.
When she was sure that Liz was gone, Maria once again returned to her conversation. "Flirting . . . it was definitely a mutual flirting . . "
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Michael left the Darkstreet crib. He told Max that he needed an inspiration for the next chapter and that he wasn’t receiving that inspiration in the crib. Max laughed a little and bought everything Michael told him. Typical Max. He trusted too easily.
Michael made his way to the borderline for one reason and one reason only. He didn’t expect her to be there waiting for him, but he was hoping.
Numerous people stopped him, wondering if he was selling again tonight. He told them that he wasn’t and continued on his way, vaguely remembering how, just a few days ago, he would’ve jumped at the opportunity to make some cash for the most infamous of reasons. He could hardly even remember those times now. They seemed so very far away and distant, like he had been a completely different person doing completely different things. He knew he hadn’t done a complete 180 yet—people didn’t change overnight—but he was very aware that knowing Maria had definitely put things into perspective. She was his focus now, and she was different than anything else he’d ever had in his life.
He reached the familiar street corner, and she wasn’t there. He felt a little disappointed. Though he hadn’t expected to find her, he’d been desperately hoping for it.
I knew it, he thought. I scared her away today. I was too obvious. She knows how I feel. She got freaked out. Great. I really fucked things up.
He was standing there thinking about what a mess he’d probably made of things when he heard someone talking behind him.
"You think you can put a bullet in my stomach and just get away with it?"
Michael turned around slowly and faced Kyle VaLenti and Whitman. Whitman was backing off, but VaLenti was staring daggers at him. Michael knew the look that he saw in the man’s eyes. It was a look of pure vengeance. He’d seen it before many times, and he’d even held it in his own eyes on occasion.
He didn’t want to fight tonight. He didn’t know if he could. His injuries from the incident at the bank were much better, (he healed extremely fast) but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to fight yet, and he was exhausted, too. He still hadn’t gotten as much sleep as he needed. And VaLenti was not an easy fight. He never had been.
But Michael couldn’t back down. That wasn’t his style.
"Actually, VaLenti, I was thinkin’ I could," he answered with as much bravado as he could master at the moment. "You see, the plan actually was to put that bullet in your stomach and for you to die."
"Yeah? Well, guess what? I’m not dead." VaLenti’s hands were curling into fists. "I’m back for my vengeance."
Michael ducked just in time to miss a fist colliding with his jaw. When he straightened back up, he threw a punch of his own, but Kyle ducked his as well. Michael swung again, and this time he hit Kyle right on the face. Kyle fell back onto the ground from the impact but soon stood up again. Before Michael could even think about hitting him again, he felt a hand hit him hard on the back of his head. He turned around and saw that Whitman was joining in on the action. Michael sighed and grabbed him by his shoulders, tossing him aside. Whitman wasn’t his opponent. He was Max’s, and in the state he was since Max’s brutal beating, he wouldn’t be a worthy opponent anyway.
Kyle was standing again by now, and he used Michael’s momentary distraction to his advantage, elbowing him hard in the stomach. Michael doubled over as the searing feeling of pain that he hadn’t felt since that day at the bank hit him again. He definitely was not healed completely, and that was showing in this fight.
"That all you got, Guerin?" Kyle taunted, grabbing Michael by his hair to keep him still while he laid a punch right on his jaw. "It’s kinda weak, you know." He hit him again, this time making contact with his eye. "You seem to be tiring out, and I could go on for another four hours." He punched him in the stomach one more time and threw Michael to the ground with a satisfied smile. "Next time I see you," he said, "I’ll kill you." He kept his eyes locked with Michael’s until he and Alex rounded the corner in the direction of the Darkstreet crib.
Michael didn’t know Kyle VaLenti in the slightest, but he was pretty sure that the guy wasn’t just making idle threats. He was pissed off as hell, and he seemed stronger than ever.
Michael ignored the stares of everyone outside. He and Kyle had caused quite a commotion, and now people were looking at him strangely. Anyone who knew him was throughly surprised that he hadn’t won that fight.
Michael was surprised himself. He could only remember losing one fight, and that had been with Rick back at the bank.
Struggling to sit up, he felt the skin around his eye and then wiped a trickle of blood away that had been running from his nose. Damage. It was all damage. Damage from a fight he had lost.
He stood up with the little bit of remaining pride he had left and advanced back to the Darkstreet crib, dreading the reaction he would receive when he arrived back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria was laying on her bed, reading an issue of Cosmopolitan, and she stumbled upon a quiz that was entitled "Is he flirting with you?". Eagerly, she took the quiz, and she only came up with a confusing answer. Very vague and unclear. She smiled to herself, however, when she realized what she was doing. She was doing something girls her age did. She was reading a magazine. She was being girly, and she was thinking about a boy. She was being seventeen. She was being normal.
A short time later, though, she was reminded that she could not be a normal seventeen year old girl for long at the BlackCon crib. She heard a loud chorus of whoops and shouts that undoubtedly belonged to Alex and Kyle. She listened as the volume of the music was turned down downstairs, and she began to wonder what was so important that the members of BlackCon would turn kill the intensity.
"Finally fuckin’ put it to him," Kyle was boasting.
His statement was followed by a round of cheers and congratulations. Maria found herself curious, and she abandoned the magazine on her bed. She took the stairs down to the first floor, catching bits and fragments of what Kyle was saying as she made her way down.
"He was weak . . . pitiful . . . hardly even a challenge."
"I’m so glad you were successful," Liz was saying. "I hate Guerin for what he did to you."
Guerin. Maria immediately tensed at the sound of his name, and she practically rushed down the stairs to join in the conversation.
"What did you do, Kyle?" she asked him at once, fearing the worst. She found it hard to believe that someone might have been able to kill Michael. Michael was the strongest, bravest person she knew, and she happened to know that, though Kyle was strong, he wasn’t in the league of killing Michael.
"I ran into Guerin and beat the shit outta him, nice and quick," Kyle announced to her proudly, "and he only hit me once."
"It was awesome," Alex chirped in. "Guerin didn’t even know what hit him. I’ve never seen him in such bad fighting condition."
That’s because he’s hurt, Maria thought, and tired. He isn’t quite up to fighting standards yet. I know this. I’m not supposed to.
"So, did you . . ." Maria wasn’t sure how she was supposed to ask this question without showing her concern. "How bad did you hurt him?"
Kyle shrugged. "I don’t know. I’m sure he’ll be back in the fight by tomorrow, but I did hurt him. I won. I won this fight."
So he wasn’t dead. Maria felt relief wash over her. "Oh," she said, trying to sound as disinterested as she could. "Well, that’s cool."
All at once, Slick was beside her and he has his arm around her shoulders, hugging her to him. "Baby, I know it would’ve been nice if Kyle had been able to kill him. I know it wasn’t easy, what he did to you."
What he did to me? Maria thought, confused. I can hardly even remember, now.
Concern crashed onto Liz’s features. "Maria, what did he do? He didn’t . . . he didn’t rape you, did he?"
"No, no, he didn’t," Maria reassured her. She was suddenly regretting coming downstairs. "He cut my stomach a little. That’s all. Nothing big."
Slick grunted. "I still want him dead."
"Yeah," Maria said, slipping out of his hold. "Everybody does. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’m just gonna get some sleep. I’m still really tired." She hurried up the stairs to get away from everyone else, slamming the door shut to her bedroom and locking it into place.
She laid up there the entire day, sometimes sleeping, sometimes not, until she couldn’t take it any longer and she snuck out to head to the borderline that night.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
She approached the street corner that night and saw a familiar figure. He was tall and muscular, and his hair was untamed and unruly. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his jacket, because he felt most comfortable with them there, and just looking at him made her smile.
She didn’t know why he was here. Maybe it was for her. She hoped it was.
Maria stepped up behind Michael, and, as if sensing her presence, he turned around and stared down at her. The smile fell from her lips when she saw his face. He wasn’t hurt nearly as bad as he had been a few days ago with the bank incident, but he was hurt. He smiled in return and tried to act brave, but she knew everything wasn’t as it seemed to be. Michael Guerin was feeling anything but brave at the moment.
She grabbed his hand and pulled him back into a secluded and deserted alley gently because she noticed that his knuckles were bruised, too. He sat down against the wall, and she sat down in front of him, reluctantly letting go of his hand.
"It’s not that bad," he told her quietly. "It doesn’t hurt that much."
"I’m sure it doesn’t," Maria said sarcastically.
"It really doesn’t," he said, running his fingers over his slightly black eye. "Kyle didn’t beat me too bad." He paused for a long time and sighed. "But he did beat me."
"Don’t let that bother you," Maria told him. "It’s not that big of a deal."
"No, it is," he insisted. "It is to me." He shook his head with a disgusted expression on his face. "What the hell is happening to me, Maria? A few weeks ago, I thought I was on top of it all. I was convinced that no one could ever beat me, ‘cause no one had ever beaten me before. I fought people all the time, Maria, and I can’t even remember ever getting one single bruise. Is that crazy or what?"
Maria shrugged. "I don’t know. Sounds a little unrealistic to me."
"But it’s not," he said. "If I got hurt, I don’t remember it, ‘cause I always won, Maria. I always won the battle, one way or another, and that’s all that really matters. I never lost to anyone, and I was never supposed to, and now I have. I’ve lost to Rick, and now I’ve lost to Kyle."
"You didn’t lose," Maria tried to tell him. "Look, you weren’t in the right condition to fight anyway. You really just shouldn’t let it bother you." She felt like reaching out and taking his hand again, but she stopped herself.
"I can’t help it," he said, looking down at his bruised knuckles. "It’s just driving me crazy. I feel like everyone else around me is just getting stronger and stronger, and I just keep getting weaker and weaker, and there’s nothing I can do about it."
"You’re not weak."
"No, I am. And the thing is, I’m not really scared, but I’m ashamed. I’m ashamed, and I’m weak."
Maria didn’t know how to get through to him. "Would a weak man do what you did at the bank, Michael?"
"It doesn’t matter," Michael said. "Maria, if I lose my strength, I’ve got nothing else to offer."
"You have plenty else to offer."
"Like what?"
"Like lots of things. Michael, there’s a lot more to you than what’s on the outside. There’s so much more to you than what people see. God, there’s more to you than even you see."
"I could say the same about you," Michael told her. "You think you’re a bad person, Maria."
"Yeah, well, yea for me, ‘cause I’m getting past that way of thinking," she admitted. "In fact, I don’t think I’ve thought like that for awhile now, Michael. And guess what else? I actually allowed myself to be happy quite a bit this week. See how much progress I’ve made?"
He nodded. "Yeah, I do."
"So now we need to work on your progression," Maria said. "That means no thinking that you’re weak, Michael, and no believing that you’re only strength. Got it?"
He seemed a little surprised that she was the one taking control of the situation now and also a little unsure of how to react to help.
"Besides," she added, "only a strong person can deal with all of my whining and complaining."
He laughed a little. "You’re strange, you know that."
She nodded. "I know."
They stared at each other for several long seconds, and Maria found her eyes drifting down to his lips. She wondered briefly what it would be like to feel his lips on hers, but she pushed the thought away at once. She couldn’t be thinking that when she was this close to him. Then she might be pushed to act on her thoughts, and who knows how that would end up.
"We need to laugh," she announced suddenly. "We were happy yesterday, and we were laughing."
"If I wanted to laugh, all I’d have to do was look at your face," Michael joked.
"Oh, ha, ha, you’re funny, Michael," Maria responded sarcastically. "Very funny. Okay, but, seriously, we need to laugh again. There’s this place . . ." She trailed off and stood up, extending her hand to help him up. She was faintly reminded of a few nights back during the showdown with Darkstreet how he’d helped her up in a similar fashion. The simple memory brought a small smile to her lips. "There’s this place up in BlackCon territory," she repeated, "and it’ll definitely make you laugh."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"A comedy club?" Michael shrieked when he and Maria had reached their destination. "A comedy club?"
She nodded excitedly. "Yep. See, I wasn’t lying when I said it’d make you laugh."
"Comedy clubs don’t make me laugh, Maria," Michael told her. "The comedians are always so stupid, and the managers are always so desperate for entertainment that they just hire anybody.
"No, this place is pretty good. They had this guy last time that had me laughing up a storm."
Michael sighed. "I don’t know, Maria. These places kinda creep me out."
"They creep you out?" Maria seemed to be lost. "How on earth do these places creep you out, Michael?"
"Oh, you know, the strange-colored beer, the waitresses with the uni-brows, the weird old couples who come in to get their weekly laughs."
Maria gave him a confused look. "Beer? Uni-brows? Old couples?" She grunted and grabbed on to Michael’s shirt. "Come on, you loser."
Inside, the lights were dimmed, and Michael could hardly see anything but the comedian on stage. Oh, well, he thought. It’s better this way. Now I don’t have to look at any old couples.
"You seen this guy?" Michael asked Maria, pointing to the guy up on stage.
"No," she answered, shaking her head. Her hair brushed against his arm as she did so, and Michael took a moment to reflect on how close she was to him. "They have someone new every week I think."
"I love sex," the comedian was saying, "don’t get me wrong, but not with my wife. With her, it’s just this big hassle. You would think that after ten years, she would finally stop asking me if it was okay to suck my dick." The crowd began to laugh a little, and Maria made a gross-out sound beside Michael. "I don’t wanna hear about this guy’s dick," she said quietly.
"My wife . . . she just doesn’t get it. She’s always insisting on being on top. I keep telling her that it would be nice to change around a little, spice things up, you know, but she’s convinced that we can never throw off the routine. Routine? Sex shouldn’t be routine."
"That’s right!" one man shouted from the audience.
"And she falls asleep," the comedian continued. When he said this, several men in the audience made a disgusted sound. Michael couldn’t help but join in a little, remembering the time that Isabel had been "too tired to even keep her eyes open". With Isabel, that was extremely tired.
"This woman, this woman who absolutely demands to be on top falls asleep on me all the fuckin’ time! If she’s gone saddle me up, she’s at least gotta finish the ride, right?"
"Right!" a chorus of men shouted.
Maria sighed. "God, I didn’t know this guy was only talk about sex," she said.
Michael looked over at her, barely able to make out her features in the dark light. "That’s okay," he told her. "I don’t mind."
Maria sighed again. "Men. All alike."
"So this is my wife in bed . . . she asks me what to do with her hands, she has no clue what to do with her mouth, she doesn’t ever wanna do anything a bit risky, and she falls asleep. But what really drives me completely insane is when she starts criticizing my cock. The first time we had sex, she took one look at it and said, ‘Where’s the rest of it?’"
The crowd erupted in laughter, and Michael found himself laughing right along with them. He even thought he heard Maria laughing a little.
"And then," the comedian continued, "she suggested watering it so that it would grow! It’s not a fuckin’ plant!"
More laughs.
"And it seems like the minute I pop it out at her, she’s wantin’ to cuddle. We’re half-way done, and she asks me to hold her. Baby, I got news for you and all women out there. Men don’t ever wanna cuddle! They just wanna stick their dick in you and fuck you to death, alright?"
"Is that true?" Maria asked Michael.
"Uh, um . . ." Michael thought back to Isabel and all of the other girls he’d been with in her life. "Sometimes."
"One time a week," the comedian went on, "one time a week ‘cause that’s all I’m allowed anymore, and when we actually get goin’, she’s either wanted to cuddle or slumped over her pillow with drool comin’ out of her mouth. Yeah, that’s attractive." He paused as the audience laughed some more, and then went back to muttering, "One time a week. One lame-ass time a week. How many times do you out there have sex a week, huh? More than one, I’m bettin’."
"Five!" one man shouted.
"Ten!" another put in.
"Fifty!" Holy shit.
"What about you two?" the comedian asked, motioning towards Michael and Maria. "You look like a nice young couple. How about you?"
All at once, Michael felt a spotlight looking down upon both him and Maria, and he couldn’t even speak. "Uh, we don’t . . . we’re not . . "
"We are not a couple," Maria clarified.
"Well, you don’t have to be a couple to have sex," the comedian reminded her. "Just ask my paper girl."
The crowd erupted in laughter again, and Michael was relieved when he felt the spotlight taken off of him. He turned to Maria, and though he couldn’t see her very well, he knew she must be smiling.
"That’s was embarrassing, huh?" she said quietly.
"Yeah," Michael agreed. "You know, you don’t seem to be having fun, Maria."
She sighed. "It’s just, I can hear about sex all the time back at the crib. It gets old you know."
"Then we’ll go," Michael told her. He stood up and slid out of his seat, and they left the club the way they’d come in.
Maria had to leave after that. She admitted to Michael that she’d sneaked out of the crib and that she didn’t really want Slick to come looking for her. They said their goodbyes and began to walk off in separate directions when Michael realized he’d forgotten something. "Maria!" he shouted, turning around. She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to face him. "Tomorrow," he said, "same time. Alright?"
She smiled a little. "Alright."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Hey. Where were you?"
Maria sighed and draped her coat over the couch. Questions, questions, questions. Everyone always questioned her on where she was going and why. They always felt they had the right to know. Liz definitely always felt that way.
"Just out," Maria told her.
"You’re going out a lot lately," Liz said. "Is there something I should know?"
Maria had to resist the urge to stomp on up the stairs and get away from her supposed best friend. She was so damn nosy sometimes.
"Liz, stop the motherly act, okay? It’s getting old."
A hurt expression crashed over Liz’s features. "I’m sorry. I was just joking." She sighed and let her gaze drop to the floor. "I think you hate me, Maria."
"I don’t hate you," Maria told her, and she knew that she didn’t. Liz got on her nerves a lot, but Maria could never hate her. "Look, I’m sorry for snapping at you."
"I’m sorry for being so nosy," Liz apologized. "It’s your life. I guess I just want to be a part of it."
"Let’s just forget about it," Maria suggested. "Okay?"
Liz nodded, and two voices began to filter in and register in Maria’s mind. Tijuana and Jenna had soon joined Liz and Maria in the living room, and Maria found herself trapped in their pitiful conversation.
"You’re so lucky you got Kyle," Tijuana was saying as she reached for a cigarette on the table. "I ain’t got no one."
"I don’t, either," Jenna added, "We don’t got anybody and you’ve got this guy that you’re totally in love with."
"It’s so messed up," Tijuana said. "I swear to God, if Jenna and I didn’t have to prostitute, we might actually stand a chance at getting somebody, too."
Liz smiled. "You guys will find someone someday. I promise."
Jenna grunted. "The problem is there ain’t no hot guys in BlackCon, and if they are hot, they’re taken. Like Slick." She cast a glance at Maria and shook her head enviously. "You’re so lucky."
"Slick and I aren’t together," Maria told her. "He just wants us to be."
"And you don’t wanna be?" Tijuana asked in shock.
"I don’t," Maria told her honestly. "Call me old fashioned, but I guess I’m still looking for my Prince Charming, my knight in shining armor, you know." She saw a vision of Michael flash across her mind when she spoke, and she knew she’d already found him, but that it was impossible.
"I get that," Jenna said, "or at least I think I do. I want somebody who wants me for me and not for my body. And I want somebody hot, too."
Tijuana smiled a little. "I know who I want," she said.
"Who?" Liz asked, interested. "Who, Tijuana?"
Tijuana sighed a sort of dreamy sigh. "Michael Guerin."
Michael.
"What?" Liz shrieked. "Are you forgetting that he tried to kill Kyle and that he’d kill you in a heartbeat?"
"Liz, are you overlooking his sex appeal? That guy has got it so fuckin’ goin’ on . . . I’d bed him on the spot."
"That’s sick," Liz said. "He’s an asshole. I hate him. We all hate him."
"Look, I never said his personality was anything to brag about, but you guys have got to admit it: he’s a god."
Jenna laughed a little. "Well, I don’t think I’d go that far, but, yeah, he’s pretty damn fine."
Liz sighed. "Alright, fine, I guess I agree with you guys, but his personality just ruins him. You don’t know how badly I want him dead right now."
Michael? Dead? No . . .
"I think I’m gonna head up to my room," Maria announced, wanting desperately to be away from this conversation. "I’ll see you guys later."
"Wait," Tijuana said as Maria began to walk off. "What do you think about him, Maria? Too hot for words, right?"
Maria felt a complete feeling of uncomfortableness wash over her. "I . ." She mentally tried to think of a way out of this situation, and she avoided their eyes when she spoke so that they couldn’t tell that she was lying. "I don’t know. I don’t even know the guy." With that, she spun and practically ran up to her bedroom. Once inside, she let herself fall onto her bed, wondering why it always seemed like people were talking about either Michael’s death or his sex appeal.
At this point, she was in too deep to talk about either one.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael pulled his car up to the corner and saw Maria on their street corner the next night, sitting on a bench next to some homeless guy. The guy appeared to be flirting with her, and Michael had to laugh a little at the disgusted expression on Maria’s face. When she saw Michael get out of the car, she ran to him with a smile on her face.
"I’m so glad you’re here," she told him. "That guy was so hitting on me."
"I noticed." He took a moment to silently admire the tight hip-hugger jeans and navy blue shirt that clung to her body. Nice.
"Where are we going tonight, Michael?" she asked him excitedly. "Away?"
She sounded so young and so innocent. If Michael hadn’t known any better, he might have thought that, at this moment, just for this short moment, she was a normal teenage girl, and if he’d been able to let himself give into his feelings, he might have felt like he had been on a date with her in some sense.
"Of course we’re going away," Michael told her. "We always go away."
She nodded, keeping her eyes locked with his. For a second, Michael began to wonder if she could see into his soul and see how he felt about her.
"I like away," she told him quietly before going around to the passenger’s side of the car.
They drove until they reached a place in LA that Maria remembered from long ago.
"The carnival," she commented. "My mom used to take me here."
"I’ve never been here," Michael admitted, "but I figured I better check it out while it’s still going on."
Maria giggled a little. "You know, it’s kinda cheesy, Michael."
He was lost. "How is this cheesy?"
"Oh, you know, you at a carnival, eating carnival food, playing carnival games, talking with carnival people."
"How is that cheesy?"
"It’s just so simple, and . . ."
"And I’m not."
Maria nodded. "Right."
"Well," Michael said, "I intend on enjoying myself tonight, whether it’s cheesy and simple or not. How about you?"
"Hell yeah, I do!" Maria exclaimed, practically jumping out of the car. "Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been to something like this?" She did a sort of happy dance as she continued forward. "Now, Michael, you have got to go on the Tapeworm with me."
"The Tapeworm?" Michael echoed. "I think Max might’ve had one of those."
"That’s sick, but it’s not that type of tapeworm Michael. It’s that." She pointed directly to a gigantic roller coaster looming before them. "Doesn’t that look awesome?"
"Uh . . ." Michael could already feel his stomach churning. He had a thing about roller coasters. "Sure."
"We’ve got to go on that," Maria said, still doing her little happy dance, now adding a skip in between her moves, "and the Scrambler, ‘cause I’ve always loved the Scrambler, and that weird zippy thing, and that one whoosh ride, if they still have it, and . . ." She’d been so busy talking that she almost ran into the booth at the entrance where she was supposed to pay when it appeared in front of her. "Oh," she said. "Michael, he needs money."
Michael sighed, pulling a twenty and a ten out of his pocket. "You’re so lucky I pay for you to get into these places, DeLuca."
"Places? No, I think you mean place. Singular. You’ve only paid for me to get into this place."
"And Motion and the comedy club last night," Michael reminded her. "You’re burning a hole in my pocket."
Maria sighed, defeated in her argument. "Fine, you win. Places."
"Here you go," the man at the booth said, handing Michael a five back as change. "You have a nice night, now." He smiled big, and Maria practically ran into the park. "That guy was so creepy," she said once they were clearly past him. "God, he looked like a clown or something!"
"A clown?" Michael echoed in confusion. "What’s so bad about clowns?"
"Only everything," Maria said as she found a spot in line for the Tapeworm. "The big red Rudolph nose, the weird make-up, the curly orange hair, the polka-dot pants."
"You have a fear of clowns, don’t you?" He couldn’t hardly believe it.
"I have a fear of a lot of things, Michael," she said, "clowns included. It’s a very strange but serious fear." She pulled him forward in the line as more people were loaded on to the roller coaster. Michael stood in line with her, watching as the people on the ride were tossed up and down and around and around on that roller coaster. He could hear their screams, and he even thought he heard a few children crying.
"Uh, Maria," he said when they were close to being let on. "You know how you have this fear of clowns? Well, I’ve kinda got a fear, too . . . of roller coasters."
She turned around and stared at him, a shocked expression on her face. "You mean that you’re actually afraid of something?"
"No, not afraid," he lied, still trying to keep up the notion that he wasn’t afraid of anything, "just nervous."
"Roller coasters make you nervous, huh? That’s kind of funny."
"No, it’s not, especially if you’ve had an uncle who retold a story at least a thousand times about going on a roller coaster and getting stuck upside down. The blood was rushing to his head for three freakin’ hours, Maria! I just really don’t think I should be going on this with my twenty-three year old body, Maria. I’m gettin’ old, you know."
Maria grunted. "Yeah, right. Twenty-three is hardly old. Besides, you owe this to me."
"Why?"
She gave him a look. "Because, a few days ago, I let you launch me off a waterfall."
"That doesn’t mean I owe you," Michael protested as the guy at the gate motioned for them to get onto the ride.
"Come on, Michael." Maria grabbed him by his wrist and pulled him into one of the cars right at the front. "Look, it won’t be that bad." She pulled a safety bar down in front of them both. "Look at this. Safety equipment and everything."
"It doesn’t mean any of this is safe," he reminded her.
Maria began to laugh a little as the train filled up the rest of the way. "I still can’t believe that you’re afraid of this, Michael."
"Not afraid," he corrected. "Nervous."
"Oh, right. Nervous."
The coaster started off slow, and that was good for Michael. He was okay until it started picking up speed. "How fast does this thing go?" he asked Maria when he saw a loop in front of them that definitely had the possibility of making him sick.
"I don’t know," she shouted back over the noise of the ride. "If I remember correctly, though, it’s pretty fast!"
"Oh," Michael groaned. "Great."
Maria let out a scream of happiness as they confronted the loop at an incredible speed. Michael kept his mouth closed and held on to the safety bar as tightly as he could.
"Oh, there’s this huge drop coming up, Michael!" Maria shouted as the roller coaster hooked on to a chain and began the ascent towards the top of a hill. "You’ll love it."
"I’m sure I will." Michael took one quick look down at the ground when they were close to the top and immediately wished he hadn’t. "Maria, aren’t you afraid of heights?"
"Yeah," she answered, "but not as long as I’m secure in this little . ." Her sentence was lost in more shouts and whoops and hollers as the roller coaster plunged straight down. For a minute, Michael felt like his insides were being ripped away. He’d forgotten what it was like to be on a roller coaster, especially one that was this wild.
When the ride finally ended, Michael hurried off. He definitely wasn’t one for roller coasters.
"Wasn’t that awesome?" Maria was so happy as she bounced off the ride. She still had a huge smile on her face, and that was enough for Michael. She was happy, so he was happy.
"It was, uh . . . not as nerve-wracking as it could have been, but still . . "
"Well, we didn’t get stuck, and you didn’t throw up, and you’re twenty-three year-old body’s still doing fine, right?"
Michael took a quick look at his arms and his legs. "Right."
"Good," Maria said. "Then I’d say we’re ready for the weird zippy thing." She grabbed Michael’s hand and started pulling him in the direction of another ride. The zippy thing. That sure as hell didn’t sound tame.
"Great . . ."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They spent some time waiting in line for the weird zippy thing and the whoosh ride, but when they were all over, Michael discovered that they’d been kind of fun. Not as crazy as he’d thought they would be and not as wild as they could have been. And he’d even had fun.
After that, he’d caved in and bought Maria a large popcorn and cotton candy. The girl really was burning a hole in his pocket, but he didn’t care. She was worth every cent and more.
"Michael, is this the sixth or seventh time you’ve played this?" Maria asked him as she ate away on her popcorn.
"I dunno," Michael answered quickly as he tossed a ball forward and watched his horse advance greatly. He’d discovered this horse game fifteen minutes ago and hadn’t been able to stop playing it since then.
"You’re obsessed."
"No, I just don’t like to lose."
"Obviously. Oh, Michael, look! You are sort of winning!"
Michael glanced up only quickly, careful not to break his focus. "Come on!" he shouted, really starting to get into this. "Come on!" He threw more balls than he could count, and each time his horse moved forward. "Hell yeah!" he shouted when he crossed the finish line first. "That’s what I’m talking about!"
Maria laughed. "Michael, I’ve never seen you so passionate about something."
He grinned. "Then you’ve obviously never seen me in bed."
She slapped him on the shoulder playfully as the guy manning the booth handed him a big stuffed panda bear. Michael looked at the bear and grunted. "All that for this?"
"I think it’s cute," Maria said, seizing the panda from him. "Oh, look at his little eyes. He looks like he got beat up."
"Yeah, that’s real cute."
"I think it is. What should we name him?"
"I don’t name stuffed animals," he told her.
"Why? Is it too cheesy for you?"
He shrugged. "Something like that."
"Well, newsflash, Michael: You’re at a carnival, and that makes you cheesy. So help me out here."
Michael sighed. He couldn’t believe that he was doing this. Going to a carnival. Riding rides. Playing games. Trying to figure out a name for some stupid stuffed bear. And having fun while he was doing it.
"Uh, George," he suggested.
She shook her head. "No, that’s too common. I’m thinking Hector."
"Hector?" Michael shrieked. "You wanna scar him for life?"
Maria rolled her eyes. "Hector is a very sophisticated name."
"He’s your bear," Michael said. "Your call. But don’t blame me when he comes home crying because all the other bears tease him."
"You’re such a loser," she joked. "Come on, we gotta get to the Scrambler."
"The Scrambler?" Michael wasn’t too sure about that. "I think my cousin broke his back on the Scrambler one time."
She shook her head and sighed. "Michael, don’t get nervous on me again. We are going on the Scrambler one way or another." Right after she spoke, the sound of thunder echoed throughout the air, followed by a crash of lightning. "Unless it starts storming," she added.
Almost at once, it started to rain hard. Maria shrieked as she started to get wet trying desperately to cover up her hair. People started to run in every direction, and someone bumped into Maria, knocking her popcorn and cotton candy out of her hands and onto the ground.
"Let’s get to the car!" she shouted over the rain and the noise the other people were making.
They started running back to the car, and the rain started coming down harder. Michael heard Maria laughing and turned back to see that she’d just ran into some little girl and knocked her onto the already soaking wet ground. She kept going, and when they reached the car, they both climbed in eagerly, wanting to be out of the cold rain.
Michael took one glance at her and noticed how drenched she was. Her clothes were completely soaked and were clinging to her body now more than ever. It was too bad she hadn’t been wearing a white shirt . . .
"Oh, great, I bet my mascara’s running," she said, pushing her wet hair back from her face.
"It’s not," Michael told her. "You want a jacket?"
"I wouldn’t mind," Maria replied, rubbing her hands over her arms in an attempt to warm herself up a little bit. Michael reached back into the backseat and found his jacket. "Here," he said, slipping it over her shoulders. His hands brushed her arm as he did this, and he felt every inch of his body begin to heat up. He hoped she didn’t notice the effect she had on him.
"Thanks," she said meeting his eyes. They stared at each other for quite some time, and Michael even thought about kissing her, just to see what it would feel like, just to see how far into heaven it would take him.
But he didn’t, because there was still a part of him that, for whatever reason, believed he couldn’t.
He took her home late that night, and he thought she seemed a little reluctant to leave.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria smelled alcohol the minute she opened the door to the crib. The place reeked of it, and the people staggered around because of it. Maria’s plan was to go upstairs unnoticed, but someone was waiting for her when she stepped inside, and for once it wasn’t Liz.
"Where the hell have you been?" Slick asked her. He was clutching a glass of alcohol in his hand, and he was holding it so tightly that it looked like he was going to crush it with his bare hands.
"Just out," she told him.
"Out where?" he prodded.
Maria couldn’t understand where this was coming from. "It . . . it doesn’t matter!" she said a little too loudly.
"You’re always out," Slick said, taking a step towards her. "Where do you go, Maria?"
"I don’t have to tell you!" she shouted, fully aware of how loudly she was talking this time and not caring. "I don’t have to tell you anything!" She couldn’t believe how defiant she was being. She’d never spoken like this to Slick before. She’d never even thought about it. No one had. He was the leader.
"Yes you fuckin’ do!" Slick shouted back. The anger and rage was evident on his face and in his eyes, and when he crushed the glass in his hand, Maria knew how upset he was. Glass shattered, some falling to the floor, some embedding themselves in his hand.
"Slick, just calm down," she told him. She was starting to become scared. She couldn’t remember ever being scared around Slick. Maybe a little uncomfortable, but never scared. "Look, I was just out dancing, okay? That’s where I’ve been going."
"Alone."
"Yes, alone. Sometimes I like to be alone."
"You always like to be alone!" Slick shouted. "You never like to be with me, Maria! You never let me touch you anymore! Why don’t you let me touch you, Maria?"
She didn’t want him to touch her because she wanted another man to touch her. She was well aware of that. She wasn’t sure if she should feel ashamed about wanting to feel Michael’s hands on her or not, but she didn’t.
"You said you would be ready someday, Maria!" Slick continued to shout. He put his hands on her shoulders, pushing her up against the wall right next to the door. "When are you gonna be ready?"
His hands hurt. They dug into her shoulders hard. "Slick, you’re hurting me."
"I wanna touch you!" he shouted. "I wanna touch you right now!" He let one of his hands trail down her stomach farther and farther until . . .
"Stop!" Maria shouted, pushing him away with strength she didn’t even know she had. "I don’t want you touching me, Slick!"
He almost seemed hurt, but he still seemed mad. Then he noticed something that Maria was wearing for the first time. "What’s that? Who’s jacket is that?"
Maria looked down at her arms and she realized that she was still wearing Michael’s jacket. How could she have been so stupid? "It’s . . . I don’t know. I found it. That’s all." She lied.
"And what’s that?" Slick asked, motioning towards the panda bear she’d brought home with her from the carnival. She’d wanted to keep it only because Michael had won it.
"I thought it was cute. I bought it," she lied. "Not everything is this big conspiracy, Slick." Although this was, in a sense.
Slick shook his head. "I . . . I don’t know wha-what’s going on." He began to stumble a little bit. God, he was so drunk. "I just wanna touch you." He fell forward, practically on top of her, pressing his erection into her stomach. "You want me, huh?"
She gave him a sickened look. "No, I don’t." It felt good to say it.
He didn’t seem to get it. "You want me inside of you, don’t you?" he said, leaning down and whispering in her ear.
Maria pushed him back a little, his drunken body offering no resistance. "You’re disgusting," she told him coldly before sneaking out from underneath him. She made her way up the stairs as confidently as she could and didn’t even stop when she heard a thud that was undoubtedly Slick’s body falling to the floor. She didn’t care. Someone would find him soon and take care of him. They always did.
Maria set Hector the panda bear down on her bed. She smiled when she looked at him. He made her room look just a little nicer, and she was glad about that.
She didn’t take off Michael’s jacket as she made her way to her sorry excuse for a vanity and took out a brush, running it through her damp hair. She looked at herself in the mirror for awhile, and she decided that she was kind of pretty. Maybe Michael might think so.
Slick had just put the moves on her again in a very derogatory sort of way, and all she could do was think about Michael.
Though she didn’t want to, Maria at last slipped Michael’s jacket off. She found some dry clothes that would be suitable pajamas and put them on, discarding her soaked jeans and shirt on the floor beside her bed. She put his jacket back on when she was done changing, though, because it was warm and it was comforting, and, in a way, it was him. Just a little bit of him, but still, it was him.
She fell asleep in that jacket of his holding the stuffed animal he’d won, and she dreamt about him that night. She dreamt that he thought she was beautiful, and she wished he really did.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael went straight up to his bedroom when he got back to the Darkstreet crib that night. Max was working his new job as a security guard, so he didn’t have to stop and tell him what chapter he was on in his novel. His non-existent novel. Nix didn’t stop him to talk, either. He was still trying to get over the fact that Michael had lost two fights in the past week.
He heard voices coming from inside his room.
"It won’t zoom."
"Make it zoom!"
What the hell? he asked himself opening the door. He wasn’t expecting to see Isabel completely naked on the bed, fondling her breasts and Jonathon taking pictures of her.
"Well, this is pretty sick," he said, speaking only to Isabel.
"Get the fuck outta here, Mikey," Isabel told him, pressing herself up into her own hands. "We’re busy."
"Don’t you mean you’re busy? It doesn’t look like Jonathon’s doing much."
"He’s taking the pictures," Isabel said. "He’s gonna use them to get off later."
Michael glanced at Jonathon, who was smiling like the complete idiot that he was. "Yeah," Michael said again, "this is sick."
"Well, if you wouldn’t have stopped fuckin’ me, you wouldn’t be missing out right now," Isabel reminded him. "Jonathon! Are you getting that thing to work?"
"Isabel, I’m not missing out on anything," Michael told her. "I’ve pretty much got a front row seat."
"Yeah, and you know you like what you see," Isabel said, still working her breasts with her fingers. "You know you miss it."
"Actually, I don’t," Michael told her, taking a seat in his chair. "You see, Isabel, you think you’re this goddess or something, but you’re not."
"If I’m not, then nobody is. Jonathon! Is that thing gonna zoom in or not?"
Jonathon took one look at the camera and then back at Isabel, shaking his head. Isabel sighed and stopped touching herself. "All that for nothing, huh? That sucks. Speaking of sucks . . . hey, Jonathon! Take it out and come here!"
"Hey, here’s a thought," Michael interrupted. "Maybe you could do this, uh, I don’t know, in your own room?"
"This is my room," Isabel said matter-of-factly.
"Was," Michael corrected. "It’s all mine now, so get out."
Though Isabel was perceived to be this tough hard-ass girl, she was surprisingly willing at times. She’d always been the submissive one, something that had always disappointed Michael.
"Fine," she said, giving him the nastiest look she could manage. She stood up and grabbed Jonathon by the arm, pulling him out the door without even dressing. "By the way, Michael," she shouted when she was halfway down the hall, "I am a goddess! I wish you luck finding someone half as splendid as me!"
A picture of Maria flashed across his mind. He’d already found someone who made Isabel into nothing.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria started to both scream and laugh when she felt Michael’s hands wrap around her waist. "Don’t do it, Michael!" she warned him. "Don’t do it!"
Seconds later, she was in the water. When she came up to the surface, Michael was laughing. "You think that’s funny, huh?" she asked him. She reached out and tugged on his leg, causing him to lose his footing and fall into the water as well. "How funny is it now?" she asked him when he came back up to the surface.
"Still funny," Michael replied, seeking her out in the water. He grabbed onto her waist gently and lifted her up into the air again. "You’re so light, DeLuca, I could just keep throwing you like this and not even get tired." Maria soon felt air flying past her and then water surrounding her body once again. Truthfully, she let Michael do this. She let him get a hold of her and throw her into the water, and then she’d wait for him to come find her again, because she loved the feel of his hands on her body. She loved it when he held her, even if it was only for a brief instant.
She’d come out to the secluded forest area with him tonight without a care in the world. Slick had asked her where she was going, and she had ignored him. For once in her life, she felt like she was in control. It felt so good. And Michael felt so good.
When she came up to the surface, she saw that Michael was inching his way over to her, taking his shirt off as he did so. She felt paralyzed in that moment. She couldn’t stop staring at him. She didn’t know if this was lust or what, but it was taking over her.
Lust didn’t take over. This wasn’t lust. This was something else.
"Don’t tell me you’re just gonna stand there and let me catch you," he said as he got closer. The paralysis left Maria and she reminded herself that she had to keep Michael chasing her just a little bit.
"Well, I am at a slight disadvantage," she said, swimming away from him slowly although she only wanted to be closer. "I’m not as tall as some people are, and my feet don’t touch the bottom."
"My feet don’t touch, either," Michael said, "in the deep parts, I mean."
"Yeah, well, my feet hardly touch anywhere," Maria said, taking Michael’s momentary distraction as a time to swim away. "So, as you can see, this little game of ours isn’t really fair."
Michael was a fast swimmer, and he caught up with her in no time. Once again, he wrapped his hands around her waist. He held her a little longer this time, and, for awhile, Maria wasn’t even sure if he was going to let her go. When he did, she soared.
After about an hour of this, they got out of the water and sat down on dry land. It was a cold night, and Maria knew that, since she was soaked, she should be cold, but having Michael next to her made everything warm.
"I’m so glad we decided to come here tonight," she told him. "Everything’s pretty awkward back with BlackCon."
"How so?"
Maria sighed. "Oh, you know. Just Slick. He’s been all weird around me the whole day ‘cause of last night."
"Last night?" Michael echoed in question. "What happened last night?"
"He was just really drunk," she told him. "He kinda freaked out on me. He didn’t know what he was saying."
"Did he hurt you?" Michael’s concern was evident on his face, almost written permanently in his features. Maria felt touched.
"No," she cleared up, "no, he didn’t. But anyway, that’s one reason why things are awkward. Then there’s Liz."
"I hate her," Michael growled. "No offense. I know she’s your best friend and all, but . . ."
Maria grunted. "Oh, please. She’s my best friend because she has to be. I really don’t care if you hate her or not."
"So why are things awkward with Parker?"
"She’s just annoying," she told him. "She’s always either talking about Kyle or about you."
"Me?" Michael seemed shocked. "Why the hell is Parker talking about me?"
"Because she hates you about as much as you hate her," Maria told him. "You shot Kyle, remember?"
He nodded. "Okay, so she’s got a valid reason. Who else talks about me over there?"
Maria laughed a little, feeling like a teenager in high school gossiping to one of her friends. Except, this friend was a guy . . . a hot guy . . . a guy she wanted to the extreme . . .
"Everyone talks about you," she said. "They either want you dead or in bed it seems."
Michael laughed a little. "Now, I’m assuming that the girls are the ones who want me in bed, right?"
Maria shrugged. "Who knows with that bunch."
Michael laughed harder.
"So as long we’re sharing information," she said, scooting in a little closer to him just so that she could feel his body heat. "Does anybody talk about me over at Darkstreet?"
"Once in awhile," he replied. "They don’t want you dead or anything. They just want you . . . well, you know."
"Yeah, I know," she told him. She ran her fingers through her hair and then looked at her nails, all chipped away and broken. "I don’t know why they do, though. It’s not like I’m drop dead gorgeous or anything."
Michael was silent for a brief moment, and then he quietly said, "Don’t be too sure about that."
Maria wasn’t sure what to say to that. She wasn’t even sure if she was supposed to have heard him. "I’m diggin’ the whole compliment thing," she finally said. "Keep ‘em comin’, Michael."
Michael chuckled. "Why don’t you send one my way?"
"Okay," she agreed. "You have really cool hair. I’ve been meaning to tell you that for awhile now." She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that he was so hot that every time she saw him, she felt like she was going crazy. She couldn’t bring herself to let him know that he was making her dizzy just by sitting next to her without his shirt on.
"Most people think my hair’s stupid."
"Most people are idiots."
They sat together talking for quite some time, and Maria couldn’t remember anything feeling so natural and comfortable in her life before. When she was with Michael, all of her troubles and problems just disappeared. She couldn’t even think about anything but him.
She was desperate to get closer to him.
"I’m kinda cold," she told him quietly as the wind began to pick up, even though she wasn’t.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. He opened his arms, and she scooted closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and resting her head against his chest. She smiled when she heard his heart beating.
She felt so happy. She felt like he was her boyfriend, even though he wasn’t. She felt like he was her knight in shining armor who came every night to rescue her from the terrors of a gang life. It all felt unreal.
"Are you tired?" he asked her later as he began to lay down on the ground, still keeping her in his arms.
"A little," she replied, shifting so that she was laying directly on top of his body, her arms still wrapped around his neck tightly, unwilling to let go.
"Do you want me to take you home?"
"No," she answered, her breath almost coming out in a whisper. "I wanna stay with you."
Later that night, she fell asleep in his arms while one of his hands buried itself in her hair and the other caressed her back. It had to be the coldest night of the year so far, but she felt so warm and so safe knowing that Michael Guerin cared about her. Even if he wasn’t crazy about her like she was about him, he cared about her.
That had to mean something, right?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael felt her right when he woke up. She seemed to have molded herself to his body overnight. She was hanging onto him so tightly, and he was pretty sure that this could not be good for his circulation, but he didn’t care. He laid there with her for an hour, refusing to move until she woke up, refusing to disturb her. When she did wake up, she made no effort to leave him for quite some time. At last though, she did let go of him and sit up and yawn, but she still stayed close to him. She stood up and stretched her arms above her head, revealing a tiny patch of her smooth stomach as she did so. Michael wanted to reach out and run his fingers across her skin. His fingers were itching with the desire.
It took them a long time to actually get moving and leave their away place. They headed out onto the borderline, and Michael wanted to put his arm around her, too, just to feel like he was her boyfriend, just to show that they were a couple, but there was only one problem: they weren’t.
"Look at that," Maria commented as her eye caught sight of a beautiful dress in a display set up in a store across the street. "Michael, look at that!" She ran across the street, cutting through traffic and barely missing being hit by a car, and Michael followed her. "Look! Isn’t that beautiful?" she exclaimed when they stood outside the store’s window.
"I don’t know, Maria. I’m not the best judge of fashion," he said. Even as he said this though, he looked over the dress. It was long and gold and low-cut and it shone like the sun. He could just imagine what she would look like in that dress, the way it would cling tight, the way it would adjust itself to form the shape of her perfectly perfect body.
"I wonder how much it is," Maria said. "You don’t find things like this around here." She hurried in the store and found one of the workers. When she asked how much the dress cost, though, a look of sadness flashed across her features. 189 dollars. It was far too expensive.
"Damn," she muttered as she left the store. "I guess I’m not rich enough for that place. The only nice store in Los Angeles, and it’s too nice for me."
Michael found himself looking over his shoulder at the dress in the window and then back at Maria over and over again as he walked away. Maria deserved that dress.
189 dollars, he thought. Where the hell could I find that much money?
He told Maria to meet him back at the street corner by 4:00 in the afternoon. She didn’t ask why. She just agreed.
He’d have the money and the dress by then.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
When Michael arrived back at the crib, he saw exactly what he wanted to see. He saw Isabel sitting on the couch in the living room . . . counting her money.
"That’s a nice wad of cash, Is," Michael said, sitting down beside her. "Where’d you get it? Not that I care."
Isabel gave him a look. "Not that I care to tell you, but if you must know, I was workin’ the mean streets last night. What can I say? I’m good."
"So how much did you make?" he asked her. "Fifty? Sixty?"
"Two-hundred."
"Two-hundred?" Michael shrieked. "Isabel, how many guys did you fuck last night?"
She shrugged. "Lost count. Why? You jealous?"
"Not at all. Look, I was just thinking, maybe you might feel like giving me your two-hundred dollars. What do you think?"
Isabel gave him a halfway disgusted and halfway confused look. "Why the hell would I give you anything?"
"Because," he answered, "by the gang standards, I have complete control over you."
Isabel narrowed her eyes and slipped her money into her back pocket. "The only time you had control over me was when I was handcuffed to the bed." She got up and started to walk out of the room, but Michael stopped her.
"Isabel, wait. Maybe we could make a deal."
"Why the hell do you need this money so bad?" Isabel asked him twirling around wildly to face him. "It’s my money, Michael! I earned it."
"Yeah, you let some guys bang you. That’s earning it."
Her fists began to clench. "Do not piss me off, Michael, or I swear to God . ."
"Relax, I’m just trying to make a deal," he told her, taking a few steps forward. "Look, Isabel, if you give me this money, then I’ll make it my top priority to fuck you."
Isabel seemed to be thinking about it momentarily, but then she shook her head. "No. No, ‘cause the last time I thought you were gonna fuck me, I ended up on the other side of a closed door."
Michael smiled, remembering how Isabel had been so easily distracted.
"It ain’t funny, Guerin. It’s cruel."
"Well, I won’t be cruel this time," Michael told her. "I’ll be completely fair with you, Isabel. Now, come on." She still seemed hesitant, but as he stepped closer, she seemed to be dropping her guard more and more by the second. Sex was Isabel’s biggest weakness. She craved it. Too much.
"You remember what it feels like, don’t you?" Michael asked her. "You remember my hands? You remember my lips?"
Isabel smiled a little bit. "Yeah, I remember something else, too."
Michael smiled back. "Yeah, you do. So, what do you say? Sex—great, hot sex—in exchange for the money. We got a deal?"
Isabel sighed. "Yeah," she said, reaching in her back pocket. "We got a deal." She handed him the money and threw herself into his arms, rubbing herself up against him. "Now fuckin’ do me."
Michael eyed the money, just to make sure she’d given him the full amount and shoved it in his back pocket, grinning as he did so. He pushed Isabel away from him, and she knew.
"But you said . . ."
"I lied." He cut her off as he walked away.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
She waited for him, and he came. He told her that he couldn’t stay long. Nix was having some kind of meeting, he said, and he was expected to be there. She understood, though she couldn’t hide her disappointment.
He told her he had something for her. She couldn’t hide her surprise either when he handed her a large bag stuffed with tissue paper. He seemed a little embarrassed as he handed it over to her, and she suspected he was because he’d never given anyone a gift.
This had to mean something, too, didn’t it?
He told her to meet him back there that night around 9:00. He left in a rush as well before she could even open her present. She watched him go, and when he was gone, she reached into the bag and pulled out a sparkling gold dress, the one she’d been admiring earlier that day, the one that had been way out of her price range, far too nice for her.
189 dollars. He’d paid so much for this. How? Why?
Michael Guerin was full of surprises.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Slick knocked on Maria’s bedroom door. She knew it was him because it was loud and it was hard and it was drawn-out. That was the way Slick always knocked.
"We’re goin’ out," he told her, "all of us. You should come."
"I really don’t want to," Maria told him honestly. She’d never dreamed of being so to the point with Slick in the past.
He sighed. "Fine. But everyone else is going." He was silent, as if waiting to see if that would change her mind, but it didn’t in the slightest, so, finally, he left.
Maria waited for about ten minutes and then took a check of the house, just to make sure everyone was gone. When she was certain that she was alone, she went back up to her room and took the bag out from under her bed. She took out the gold dress, rubbing the material against her skin. In a sense, she felt like she was feeling Michael, because this was the gift he’d purchased. For her.
Why?
Maria stripped herself of her clothing until she was down to just her undergarments. She carefully slipped into the dress, cautionary as not to tear or rip the fabric. She didn’t want to damage this dress in any way. It was the single nicest thing she owned, and it was from Michael. That was everything to her.
It fit her just right, just the way that it should. Maria smoothed the dress down over her stomach and turned to look at herself in the mirror. She smiled when she saw herself. For the first time in her life, she saw herself how others saw her. She saw beauty. She was beautiful. At least for tonight.
She curled her hair for the first time in what had seemed like forever, letting it fall around her shoulders and frame her face. She took more time on her make-up than usual, trying hard to make sure that every little detail was perfect. She wanted to look as perfect as possible tonight.
A short time later, she started with the accessories. She dug deep in her closet and found a pair of marvelous gold sandals that she hadn’t worn for a long time, faintly remembered that her mother had worn shoes like that. She searched her room and found the perfect necklace, one that fell over her chest, accentuating the low neckline. She smiled, wondering how Michael would react when he saw her tonight.
She stood staring at herself in the mirror for a long time, loving that, right now, she loved herself, and then, she turned her back to the door, so she didn’t even see it open. She was too busy thinking about other things to hear anything else than her own thoughts, but she felt something else.
It wasn’t Slick. It wasn’t Liz. It wasn’t anyone from BlackCon, and it most definitely wasn’t Michael.
She turned around slowly, an invasion of fear cascading throughout her entire body when she met his eyes and saw him again.
"Maria!" he exclaimed excitedly with a huge smile on his face. "Come and give Daddy a hug."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael was a little surprised when he didn’t see Maria on the street corner. She was nearly always there before he was. He shrugged it off, though, and reminded himself that he was five minutes early himself. She’d be here soon, and when she was, his heart would stop. He would start feeling things that he only felt when he was with her.
He stood at the corner and waited.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"What are you doing here?" Maria demanded of him. "Why are you here?" She felt her fear doubling and tripling in its amount, threatening to engulf her completely. She stood strong, unwilling to let it.
"Honey, you don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you," her father started. "Three years, Maria. Three years, and now I’ve finally found you."
Maria felt herself starting to shake with the knowledge that, all this time, her father had been looking for her. "Just leave," she told him sternly.
He put on a fake show of hurt at her words. "Why do you want me to leave?"
"Leave!" she shouted.
He shook his head. "I can’t do that, Maria. You mean everything to me."
She knew that wasn’t true. Her body meant everything to him. It always had, even when she’d barely had one.
"I don’t want you here," she said, fighting back her tears. She couldn’t let him see all the pain that was returning just by him being there.
Her father acted hurt again. "But I want to be here," he said, stepping forward into the room. Maria stepped back. "I want to be with you."
Oh, God, Maria thought. It’s all happening . . . again. She recognized the pattern. He had always told that he wanted to be with her before he . . .
"Maybe we can talk," she suggested. "Maybe we can go downstairs and talk." She knew she had to get out of this room. It was too small.
He shook his head. "I don’t think we should," he said, reaching for the door. "I think that we should stay right up here, Maria." Ever so slowly, he closed the door and locked it into place, smiling as if he enjoyed the fear that was so evidently showing in her eyes. "We have a lot to catch up on."
"You’re crazy," Maria told him.
He laughed a little and then started walking forward, his eyes looking over her body, her very different body. She kept backing up until she ran into the wall. A tear leaked out of her eye as she realized how trapped she was.
"I like your dress," he said finally, reaching out a hand and running it over the material right around her stomach. She shivered and tried to back away at his touch. "Where’d you get it?"
A few more tears leaked out, and she didn’t speak. She didn’t think she could.
"I think I know who it was," he said, stepping in closer, so close that she could feel his breath. "I think it was that boy that you’ve been running around with."
"What?" Maria shrieked, suddenly finding her voice again. "You’ve been watching me?"
Her father shrugged. "Here and there. Now, Maria, that boyfriend of yours, I don’t believe that he’d like it that I’m here."
Maria narrowed her eyes, staring daggers into him. "He’d kill you."
Her father laughed. "Well, he would try. Did you forget that I played football, Maria?" He laughed hard. "Did you forget how strong I am?"
She’d never forget. She’d never forget how he pinned her down onto the bed so easily with just one hand while he violated her with the other.
"I don’t think he’d like it," he continued, "if he knew that I was doing this." All at once, he ran his hands around back and grabbed onto her ass. He smiled even bigger than he usually did when he noticed her discomfort.
"Stop!" Maria shouted. "Stop it!"
"Don’t you love me?"
"I hate you!"
He chuckled. "Don’t lie to yourself, Maria. You’ll always love me."
She was starting to feel almost sick to her stomach. "Get away from me," she told him.
He didn’t. Instead, he moved one hand up to cup one of her breast. "I bet you your boy wouldn’t like this either, Maria. But I don’t care." All at once, he forced his lips onto hers. Maria squirmed in discomfort and tried to push him away any way that she could, but nothing worked. He was too strong.
"Let me go!" she shouted through sobs when he pulled away. "Get away from me!"
"Don’t cry, honey," her father said, all at once throwing her down on top of her bed and falling down on top of her. "Daddy’s gonna make it all better."
She cried harder as he let one hand move downward, underneath her dress as the other one held her wrists above her head. She literally screamed as he began to touch her. "STOP! STOP!"
He didn’t stop. He never had.
"I love you, Maria," her father told her, removing his hand at last. He began to undo the buttons on his shirt until he was out of it completely. "I know you love me, too."
"I hate you!" She shouted over and over again. "I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!"
"Stop yelling," he said. "You’re not supposed to yell at your parents, Maria."
A torrent of sobs racked her body as the realization came to her that this man was her father and that he always would be, and no matter what, she would never ever be able to truly say that she wasn’t his daughter.
"It’s time to catch up," her father said. "We have a lot to do." Without warning, he violently tore open the front of her beautiful dress.
Maria cried harder than she’d ever cried in her life and called out the one name of the one person who would help her now.
"MICHAEL!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael looked around, fearful. It wasn’t his own fear. Of that much he was sure. He wasn’t afraid.
He felt fear twisting around in his gut, pounding away at his brain, throbbing in his fingertips. Something wasn’t right.
Glancing at his watch, he noticed that it was 9:05. Maria . . .
Michael took off down the street, first at a brisk walk, then a jog, and then a full-out run. Something wasn’t right, and he had the strangest feeling that it involved Maria somehow. He felt like he could feel what she was feeling, even though he couldn’t. It was all intuition.
He felt the fear growing and developing more and more as he ran, and he pushed himself farther, faster. He blew by anyone who was in his way as he hurried to the BlackCon crib. His lungs burned and his legs ached, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t let anything happen to her.
He heard screaming when he entered the house. Distinct screaming. Maria screaming.
No one seemed to be home. She was alone and defenseless against whatever was terrifying her so. He charged up the stairs and followed the sound of her screaming and crying to her bedroom. The door was closed and locked. He pushed on the door as hard as he could, slamming his weight against it over and over again. Finally, he kicked down the door.
He came upon a horrific sight in the bedroom. There was Maria, and there was a man, a much larger man. A gruesome man. He was sitting on top of her, pinning her down to the bed. He was in the process of undoing his pants, and he’d ripped the front top half of Maria’s dress open.
But he wasn’t too late.
"Michael," Maria choked out. "Help me!"
Michael felt his heart break.
"Well, well, well," the man said, standing up and re-zipping his pants, "I can’t say I didn’t expect you to show up. Always cleaning up her messes, aren’t you? Always fighting for her because she can’t?"
"Who the hell are you?" Michael asked him, wondering why this guy was talking like he knew him.
"Who the hell am I?" the man shrieked. "Who the hell am I? I’m the girl’s father!"
Her father? Her father? The same father who had . . .
"Oh God, Maria . . ." He rushed to her side, pushing her father out of the way.
"Help me, Michael," she kept saying over and over again, sitting up and grabbing onto his hand. "Help me."
"It’s okay. I’m here." He took her into his arms and held her, momentarily forgetting about the other man in the room.
"Help me."
"I’m here."
The man—her father—coughed loudly as if to remind them of his presence. "We were in the middle of something, young man," he said. "I’d suggest you leave so we can finish up."
Michael reluctantly let Maria go and stood to face the other man. "I’m not going anywhere."
The man laughed. "I know what this is all about. This is jealousy. You’re jealous of me. You’re jealous because it’s gonna be my dick in her cunt tonight."
Michael curled his hand into a fist and swung, hitting the guy in the jaw and catching him by surprise, knocking him backwards against the wall. "I’ll kill you!" he shouted, hitting him again and again. "I’ll kill you! I’ll fuckin’ kill you if you lay one hand on her!"
All at once, Maria’s father blocked one of his punches, catching Michael off guard. He threw Michael to the ground hard and crouched down over him, throwing a few punches of his own.
"You think you can kill me?" he asked him with his ridiculous smile still plastered on his face. "You think you can keep her safe? You’re nothin’, boy!" He hit him again, and Michael was starting to feel the effects.
A rush of images came flooding at him . . . Rick, Kyle, and now this . . images of victory lost.
With all of his strength, Michael pushed the larger man off of him. He rose to his feet, but so did Maria’s father, recovering very quickly as well.
Rick, Kyle, this . . .
Victory . . . lost . . .
Before Michael could react, he felt two hands on his shoulders, pushing him backwards into Maria’s mirror. He felt glass shatter beneath his back, tiny shards of glass embedding themselves in his skin.
"Michael!"
He heard Maria, and that kept him going. He pushed the larger man away from him straight back into the wall. He hit his head with a bang.
Michael could barely stand. The sharp pain of the glass in his back was almost too much.
"Michael! Behind you! There’s a knife behind you!" Maria was shouting. Michael looked back and, sure enough, sitting on her vanity just a few inches from where he’d collided with her mirror, there was a knife. He reached for it, but her father kneed him in the stomach, causing him to drop to the floor when his fingers were merely inches away. Michael felt exhausted. He didn’t even think he could stand. He’d been hurt way too much lately, and his body couldn’t handle this right now.
"This is pathetic," Maria’s father was saying as he stood towering above him. "You’re not even givin’ me a decent fight, and here you were going on and on a few minutes ago about how you were gonna kill me."
"I will kill you," Michael promised him. "Lay one hand on her, and I’ll kill you."
The man laughed, heading over to the bed, to Maria. "You’ve grown up, honey," he was saying. "You’re so beautiful." She backed away from him as far as she could, a look of complete and utter terror on her face. Her father reached out his hand for her . . .
Out of pure determination, will, and what he was well aware of was love, Michael forced himself up, charging forward and knocking the other man to the ground before he could touch her.
"Run, Maria!" he shouted, holding her father down. "Get out of here!"
"Michael!"
"Run! Maria, run! Maria!" Before he could say more, he felt a shard of glass being twisted around in his back. He screamed in agony and stood up, preparing to run out with her.
But he could barely stand. "Maria, go!" She was on her feet and heading towards the door, and Michael was ready to follow her when he felt something cutting through his stomach. Something sharp and something painful that caused his mouth to drop open and his eyes to grow wide the moment it made contact with him.
A knife.
"Perhaps it’s me," her father said, "who’s gonna kill you."
He fell to the floor, looking down at his stomach to see a knife sticking through him, the blood already seeping out.
"Michael!" She was calling to him.
He wanted to scream, and he wanted to cry, but, most of all, he wanted to get up and keep going for Maria.
But he couldn’t. It was all too much. He tried and he tried, but he just couldn’t.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria brought her hand to her mouth in shock as she looked at Michael. "Oh my God," she whispered. "Michael!"
"He can’t help you now," her father said. He was approaching her, looking rather bruised and battered himself, but nowhere near as badly as Michael was.
"Maria . . . run . . ." Michael choked out.
She knew running wouldn’t work. Her father was fast. He would catch up with her. She searched around the room frantically for the heaviest thing she could find, and she found a lamp. She picked it up and hit him over the head with it before he had a chance to react. He stumbled and seemed dazed, but not at all unconscious the way she’d hoped he would. She hit him again, harder, and this time blood began to flow from his head. She hit him again and again until he fell to the floor in an unconscious heap and until the lamp was broken into nothingness.
Before she’d even had time to think about what she’d just accomplished, she remembered Michael. She knelt beside him on the floor. He was laying on the floor on his side with a knife sticking through his stomach and several large shards of glass poking into his back. He was holding his wound and rocking back and forth a little, a twisted look of agony written across his features. When he saw her, he reached out for her hand and gazed up into her eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked.
Maria started to cry even more when he asked that question. Why did he always care about her? He was laying on the floor probably dying, and he only cared that she was okay.
"I’ll be fine," she promised him, even though she wasn’t sure she would be.
He smiled a little. "Good."
Reluctantly, she let go of his hand and stood up, reaching for the phone beside her bed. "I’m gonna take care of you," she told him quietly between cries. "I can do this." She dialed 911 quickly, cursing when her fumbling, shaking fingers hit the wrong buttons on the first try.
"911 Emergency."
"Yes, I need help," she whimpered. "He’s hurt."
"Who’s hurt?"
"My . . . my friend." She glanced over at her father’s unconscious form and then back to Michael. "He was protecting me."
"What happened?"
"He . . . he was stabbed. In the stomach. He’s hurt really bad."
"Where are you now?"
Maria relayed the address to the operator quickly. "Hurry," she begged of them. "Please, you have to hurry."
"We’ll have someone over there right away."
"Maria . . ."
Maria dropped the phone when she heard Michael saying something. "What? What is it?" she asked, kneeling down beside him immediately.
"He’s . . . he’s waking up." He motioned with his head to the other figure in the room. Maria looked around and found a large ceramic unicorn that Liz had gotten her for her birthday last year. She’d never really liked it. She hit her father over the head with it to ensure that he stayed knocked out this time. She didn’t know if she was going to kill him with all of this hitting or not. She didn’t really care.
"We should get out of here," Maria said. "In case he wakes up." She quickly grabbed Michael’s jacket from where it was still sitting by Hector the Panda Bear and slipped it on quickly, just so that she didn’t feel so . . . open. She helped Michael to stand, and they slowly made their way out of the room.
"It hurts," he was saying as they made their way down the stairs. He began to fall, and she couldn’t support his weight. She fell right along with him, sitting down right beside him on the stairs. He groaned when his back hit the stairs, sending the shards in a little deeper.
"Michael . . ."
"The police," he said, cutting her off. "Call the police, Maria."
She shook her head. "That can wait." She needed to make sure that he was going to be okay. "Oh, God," she said, wiping her tears away with her hands. "Michael, I’m so sorry."
"It’s not your fault."
She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t.
"It’s mine," he said. "This is the third time . . . that I’ve lost."
Before Maria could say anything to comfort him, she heard the sound of sirens. Seconds later, around six paramedics rushed inside. "We’re up here!" she shouted from the stairs. They hurried up the stairs and took Michael away from her. They hooked him up to medical equipment and put him on a stretcher so fast that Maria couldn’t even comprehend what was going on.
They let her go with him, even though she wasn’t family. They must have sensed that he was all she had.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The first time that she noticed that his blood was on her hands was when she was sitting out in the hallway of the emergency room. She looked down at her hands and she saw his dark, crimson blood, the same blood that had been flowing from his wounds.
It was on her hands.
She went to the bathroom and washed her hands, but it wasn’t coming off.
It wasn’t coming off.
She forced herself to do something while the doctors took care of him. She called the police. She told them that there had been a man and that there had been a fight, but she didn’t tell them that it had been her father. They didn’t need to know that she was connected to him in any way.
After that, she went back and she waited, and that was probably the biggest mistake. She just sat there, and she started thinking about things too much. She thought about her father. She thought about what he’d tried to do, what he would have done if Michael hadn’t shown up. She started remembering every horrible night before her mother had been wise enough to divorce that man. She remembered her small, innocent, vulnerable body, and she remembered her father placing his hands on her and telling her not to scream. Her memories coalesced with the present, and an uncontrollable wave of sadness washed over her body. She started to cry, and she started thinking about Michael. She started thinking about the knife in his stomach and the glass in his back and the pain on his face, and she convinced herself that it was all her fault. She hadn’t been strong enough. She never was.
"Miss?"
Maria looked up, her eyes shimmering with tears and traces of them flowing down her cheeks. One of the doctors who had been working with Michael was standing beside her now.
"I have good news," he said. "Your friend is going to be just fine."
She breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God," she whispered.
"He took a pretty bad beating, though," the doctor continued, sitting down beside her. "I think it would be wise for you to report whatever happened."
She nodded. "I did. I did."
"I also think it would be wise for you to go home and get some rest," the doctor continued. "Your friend won’t be awake for some time yet. You could come back and visit him tomorrow when he’s feeling better and when you’re rested up."
Maria nodded. "Okay," she said. "I will." Inside, though, she was doubting if she would. How could she face Michael after all that had happened, after all that she’d done to him?
She had done this. It was her fault entirely, because she was weak and delicate and always so vulnerable . . .
It was just like her father had said. He always did this. He always cleaned up after her messes.
Maria stood up and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "Thank you," she told the doctor before making her way towards the exit.
Once outside, she wanted to turn and run back to the hospital. She was so alone, and there were so many people out that could hurt her. She tried to make herself invisible as she walked, and she avoided eye contact with anyone she passed. She didn’t want them to know that she was there, alone.
The police were on scene when she arrived back at the BlackCon crib. Slick and the others had arrived back, too, but they weren’t being allowed inside. They looked completely confused.
"Maria!" Slick shouted when he saw her. "What the hell is goin’ on?" He must have noticed the blood on her hands or something, because he suddenly changed his tone. "What happened, Maria?"
A small crowd had begun to form around Maria, and they were all asking questions at once.
"Where were you? What did you do?"
"Why are the police here? Do they know about the gang?"
"Why is there blood on your hands?"
Maria opened her mouth, and they all fell silent, eager for her explanation. "There . . . there was a man," she stuttered. "He came upstairs and . . there was a fight."
"A man?" Slick echoed. He seemed genuinely concerned. "Did he hurt you?"
Maria met his eyes, and then looked at Liz, Kyle, and Alex. She didn’t want them to know that she’d been hurt, emotionally hurt. She didn’t want them to know how afraid she’d been, how scared she was, and how weak she’d always be.
"No, he didn’t," she lied. "He tried, but . . . he didn’t."
"Who was he?" Liz asked her.
Maria knew exactly who he was, and she hated him. "I have no idea," she lied again.
"Well, whoever he was, he got away," Kyle told her. "They’re looking over your room right now for evidence, and they won’t let us in the house."
He got away. She should have called them earlier.
"I’m sure they’ll find him," Liz reassured her, placing her hand on Maria’s shoulder.
Maria nodded. "Yeah, they will." She wasn’t so sure, though.
"And you’re okay?" Slick asked her.
"I’m fine." She kept lying. "It was nothing."
She answered questions for the police. She gave them a description. She did everything they asked, but she never let on that the man they were looking for was her father.
They let them back into the house after that. Maria went back up to her bedroom despite others’ wishes. Liz helped her clean up the mess in there. They shampooed the carpet and got the blood off, and they started on repairing her broken mirror. Though Maria was grateful for her friend’s help, she was even more grateful when she left. Right now, she needed time to herself, even if the thought of being alone was frightening.
She took Michael’s jacket off and stood before herself in the fractured mirror. A few hours ago, her gold dress had been exquisite. Now, it was torn. A few hours ago, her make-up had been perfect. Now, it was smeared. A few hours ago, her hair had been bouncy. Now, it had fallen. A few hours ago, she had thought she was beautiful. Now, she thought she was revolting.
Maria tore off her expensive gold dress. Before this, she’d only been able to think of the fact that Michael had bought it for her, that he’d paid 189 dollars for it, for her. Now, she could only remember her father’s hands as they yanked away the material to reveal her body.
She tore the dress into little shreds and then opened up her window, throwing the shreds outside and watching as they landed in a mud puddle. Then she went into the bathroom and showered for an hour. It took her quite some time to rid herself of Michael’s blood on her hands, because, even when it was gone, she could still see it there.
Maria crawled into her bed early that next morning. She could hardly stand to be in her room, because, every time she looked around, she saw a battle playing out before her, a battle between Michael and her father. Every time she shifted in her bed, she felt her father shifting on top of her. Every time she looked down at the carpet, she saw a hint of blood that might never come out. Michael’s blood.
Maria didn’t sleep. She laid awake thinking about her life. She thought about all the times that people had told her that she was beautiful and never really meant it. She thought about all the times they touched her without her permission and consent. She thought about the way they would smile and she would not.
Her father, Rick from the bank, Slick, and everyone else who had ever shown any intention of wanting her when she never wanted them . . . they all blurred together until she could separate one being from the other.
That night, Maria realized that she had never been a bad person. She’d always been the victim, and she would always continue to be, because she was weak, delicate, and so very vulnerable.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Can I come in?"
Maria didn’t want to talk to Slick, but she figured she should. "Sure."
He tried twisting the doorknob. "It’s locked."
Maria reluctantly stood up and unlocked the door, letting him inside. "Sorry about that," she said.
"That’s fine." He walked around her room, taking a look at her damaged mirror. "You’re gonna have to get a new mirror," he commented.
"Yeah." The glass from that mirror had hurt Michael.
Slick’s eyes drifted down to the red stain on Maria’s carpet. "So, how bad did it get in here last night?"
She didn’t want to talk about last night. "It was nothing," she told him again.
"And you fought him? All by yourself?"
Did he suspect something was off in her story? "Yes," she lied, feeling bad about not giving Michael the credit he deserved. She would have, if she could have.
"Good for you." Slick sat down on her bed and motioned for Maria to sit beside him. She did, feeling a little uncomfortable and uncertain. She tensed when he put his arm around her, pulling her to him. "I know things between us have been a little rough," he said, "but they’re gonna get better. Okay?"
"Okay," she replied, still wanting out of Slick’s hold. She knew he was only trying to do something nice and sweet, but she didn’t want anyone holding her right now. The only person she wanted to hold her was Michael, and she doubted he wanted to after what she’d done.
"I’m sorry, too," Maria told him. "For calling the police. I didn’t mean for them to find out anything about us."
"They didn’t find out anything," Slick told her. "They were focused up in your room, and you don’t have any drugs or weapons up here."
Maria felt relieved. At least she wasn’t going to be responsible for the downfall of BlackCon.
"We’re all goin’ to get some breakfast at Julio’s," Slick told her. "You think you wanna come?"
"Yes," she said immediately. She didn’t want to be here alone. "I’ll get changed real quick, okay, and then I’ll be down."
He nodded in agreement and left her alone to change.
Maria really felt like being alone that day, like not having to talk to anyone or deal with anything, but she knew she couldn’t stay in that house alone. He would come back and find her, and Michael would not be there to protect her this time.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
For four days, Maria surrounded herself with people but was still very alone. For four days, she pretended that she was okay and cried in the shower so that no one would hear her. For four days, she didn’t sleep at all because she was afraid to. For four days, she made sure that she was never left alone, and for four days, she wondered about Michael. She thought about going to see him, but she never did. She was sure he would hate her for being so weak.
One evening, she was laying up in her room. One minute, she was looking at her brand new mirror, thinking of how the last one was shattered, and the next minute, her eyes were drifting closed before she could do anything about it. She was so tired.
She woke up a short time later and sat up straight in her bed. She listened, but she heard no noise.
Why was there no noise? Why couldn’t she hear laughing from downstairs and talking in the hallway? She always heard noise. Why was there no noise now?
Maria sprang out of bed and ran out her door. She looked back and forth down the hallway. No one. She ran into Slick’s bedroom. "Slick!" she called. "Slick!" He wasn’t there. She ran into Liz’s bedroom, calling for her. She wasn’t there, either. Kyle and Alex were gone. Everyone was gone.
Maria ran down the stairs so fast that she almost tripped and fell. She searched the kitchen and the living room. She tore through every closet, and, still, she found nothing. Worst of all, she checked the front door and found that it wasn’t locked. Anyone could be inside. Her father could . .
Maria started back up the stairs, but she turned back around and headed back downstairs before she made it to the top. Her father would go looking for her in her room. He would know where to find her.
She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling utterly panicked. She knew she should run out the front door and get out of the house. She knew that was the sensible, reasonable thing to do, but she could hardly get her feet to move in that direction, terrified that if she opened the door, her father would be on the other side waiting for her.
So she continued to tear through the house like this, not getting anywhere. All at once, though, she felt two hands on her shoulders. She spun around to face her attacker, her breath catching and her fear skyrocketing.
She saw Michael.
He stared down at her with his comforting brown eyes and held onto her with his warm hands, and she couldn’t even speak for a moment. She stared up at him as her fear disintegrated, taking in the fact that he was standing in front of her. He was really there. His wounds were healing and he was standing and he was there . . .
"Michael?" she whispered in a question. She wasn’t even sure if it was him. Maybe he was just a figment of her imagination.
Suddenly, he pulled her to him and she flung her arms around him, holding onto him as tightly as she could. He was real. Nothing imagined and conjured could feel this right.
He pulled away after a long time and took her hand in his. "Come on," he said. "Let’s go upstairs."
They went to her room. When Michael stepped inside, he didn’t even take a look at the blood stain on the carpet. He seemed completely comfortable and at ease. It was so Michael-like. He was so strong about everything.
"I’m so glad you’re here," Maria told him, closing her door. Right now, Michael was the only person in the world she would feel comfortable with in a room with the door closed.
"You wanna tell me why you were tearing through the house like a maniac?" he asked her right away. "You looked pretty scared."
"No, I wasn’t scared," she said, letting go of his hand. She sat down on the bed, and he stood by the door. She let out a deep sigh and admitted everything to him that she hadn’t been able to admit to anyone else for four long days. "I was terrified." She looked at the stain on the carpet. "I’ve been terrified ever since that night."
"I would think so."
Maria took in a shaky breath, on the verge of tears. "The police didn’t get him," she told Michael. "I called them too late, or they arrived here too late or something, because he was gone, and they haven’t found him yet. And I am terrified that he’s gonna come back."
"He won’t come back." Michael sounded so sure.
"You can’t know that."
"Yes, I can. He knows now that, not only does he have me to deal with, he’s gotta deal with you, too. That was pretty good how you just smashed that lamp over his head like that."
Maria smiled a little bit. She’d forgotten what it felt like to smile. Leave it to Michael to make her feel at least a little happy, though. He’d been back in her life for all of two minutes, and things were already starting to feel a little better.
"How are you doing?" she asked him, standing up. "You’re the one who had a knife in his gut."
Michael shrugged and stepped closer to her. "I’m okay," he said. "I heal fast, so it’s not that bad."
Maria knew that a stab wound could not be considered something that wasn’t that bad. "Can I see?" she asked him.
Slowly, Michael lifted the bottom of his shirt up to reveal a long and jagged scar on his stomach. She reached out and touched it gently and felt guilt rising up inside of her when she looked at it.
"I’m scarred," he said, his voice almost a whisper.
Maria gazed into his eyes and lifted up the bottom of her sweatshirt to reveal the scar on her own stomach. "So am I."
Michael gazed at her scar and reached out to trace it with his fingers as well. "I did that," he said.
She immediately regretted showing him that, reminding him of what he’d once been like. "That was a long time ago."
He shook his head. "No, it wasn’t."
Maria pulled her shirt back down, covering the scar on her stomach. Michael did the same, but that didn’t hide the fact that it was still there. "It is my fault, Michael," she told him, "that you got hurt."
He gave her a confused look. "What?"
"I know I was the victim. But that’s the problem. I’m always the victim, the poor, pitiful victim who can’t protect herself."
"Maria . . ."
"I hurt you," she told him simply, letting her gaze drop to the floor. She knew it was her father who had put that knife through him, but that didn’t change anything.
He stepped closer to her and placed his hand on her cheek, forcing her to look into his eyes. "You could never hurt me."
She stared into his eyes, and she let all of her emotions just poor out. She let herself cry in front of him again, because he was the only person who would understand her tears. "I hate feeling like this," she sobbed.
"Like what?" he asked, wiping away her tears with his thumb.
"Like, I don’t know, like confused," she answered, running her hands through her hair. "Like confused and angry and guilty all at the same time." She went and sat back down on her bed again, trying to collect herself. She didn’t want Michael to see her like this, but she couldn’t help it.
"I was so happy," she said. "Just a few days ago, I was so happy, Michael. Things were going really good for me, and I was just starting to feel a little like a normal seventeen year old girl when my dad comes back, and now I’m terrified of every single thing, and I can’t sleep, and I can’t stop crying, and I just wanna be happy again." Her tears fell harder and faster, and Michael sat down beside her, putting his arm around her and pulling her in to rest her head on his shoulder.
"It’s gonna be okay," he whispered in her ear. "I promise you, it’s gonna be okay."
"I hate him!" she shouted, gripping onto his shoulder a little harder than she should have. "I hate him so much!"
Michael buried one of his hands in her hair and rested his chin on top of her head. "I know you do," he said. "It’ll be okay."
Maria felt her tears diminishing and her sadness dying off as Michael held her. Just being in his arms made her feel better. It was the only place on earth she wanted to be. "How can you be so strong?" she asked him. "How can you keep going?"
"I don’t know," he replied honestly. "I guess I kind of feel like I have to."
Maria took in a shaky breath as the last of her tears fell. "Well, I’m done being weak. I’m gonna be strong now, too." She pulled away from him a little and sat up straight, looking into his eyes. "And I’m gonna be happy again."
"That’s right," he said. "Anytime you want, we can just go away."
"Away," she echoed, gazing into his eyes. "I love away." As she spoke, the realization dawned on her that she wasn’t just talking about some place, some place that wasn’t BlackCon. She was talking about Michael, because, when she was with him, he always managed to take her away. Michael was away, and she loved away.
She loved Michael.
"You look tired," he commented.
"I am. I haven’t slept, really. I’ve been too scared."
Michael placed a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. "You should sleep."
She nodded, never breaking eye-contact. "I know."
He glanced towards the door and then back at her. "Do you want me to leave?"
"No!" she almost shouted. "No, please, stay." She grabbed onto his hands, holding them within her own. "Could you just stay and hold me until I fall asleep?"
He nodded his silent agreement and stood up, pulling back the covers so that she could get in. He walked on over to the other side of the bed and crawled in behind her, wrapping his hands around her waist and pulling her closer to him. She turned around in his arms and snuggled deep into him, breathing in his scent as a familiar but recently lost feeling of comfort overtook her, a feeling that she only felt when she was with Michael.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He held her tightly and watched as she closed her eyes. He listened as her breathing became heavier and sleep drew nearer to her. He watched as her lips curved upwards slightly and she smiled.
"Michael?" she whispered, barely awake.
"Yeah?"
Her smile grew. "You’re my hero."
He felt shock and disbelief engulf him. Her hero? How could he be her hero? He wasn’t worthy of that. She’d been told by everyone she knew that he was a monster. How did she ever start to think of him as her hero?
How did he ever fall so deeply in love with her?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Images . . . violent, painful images . . . his smile . . . his hands . . screams . . . a knife . . . pain . .
Maria awoke with a start, shooting straight up in the bed. She held her hands to her chest and gasped for air desperately, the realization hitting her like a bullet that it was only a dream.
"What is it?" Michael asked her, sitting up beside her at once. "What’s wrong?"
She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the images that were permanently stored in her brain. "It was just a dream," she told herself more than him. "It was just a dream."
His hands encompassed her body, and she fell back into him, leaning her back against his chest. "Please hold me, Michael," she whispered. She needed to feel him. The reassurance that he was there was the only thing that was keeping her going right now.
"I’m holding you," he said, rubbing his hands across her stomach as if to inform her of that.
"Hold me tighter."
He tightened his hold on her, rocking back and forth a little to calm her.
"Please don’t leave me, Michael," she begged of him. She knew her desperation for him was obvious, but she didn’t care. She needed him.
"I’m not leaving," he reassured her. "I’m right here." He took her hands within his own, entwining her fingers with his. "I’m not going anywhere," he told her, bending down and murmuring the words against her cheek.
Maria felt a shiver run through her body as his breath tickled her skin. He felt so good. So safe and warm and so . . . right.
Slowly, she turned around in his arms, keeping her hands locked within his. She met his eyes, and she was lost. She forgot about everything else. She forgot about her father, she forgot about her weaknesses, she forgot about all the pain, and there was only Michael Guerin.
She could feel her passion burning inside of her, and she saw it in his eyes. It ran so deep that it hurt. She couldn’t remember ever wanting something so bad that it hurt.
He brought his face closer to hers, tightening his grip on her hand. Maria let her eyes fall closed, and let her uncertainties disappear.
His lips touched hers, and a flood of euphoria smashed into her. She had never felt anything so perfect.
As the kiss intensified, Maria let her hand wander up into Michael’s hair, pushing and pressing his lips down harder onto hers. She felt his hands moving up her sides and then sliding around to caress her back, pulling her closer to him, almost as if her were trying to meld their bodies together. That wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
He drew back a little then, and looked at her. She snaked one hand up his chest, already missing the loss of contact. Her touch should have hurt him, for he was wounded, but it didn’t seem to. When he felt her doing this, he crushed his lips to hers again, tracing her bottom lip with his tongue before submerging it into her mouth.
Her hands ran up and down his chest and burrowed themselves in his hair while he withdrew his mouth and kissed a trail down her cheek and to her neck. She moved her head to the side, giving him more access. She couldn’t stop a soft moan from escaping her lips as he brought his lips down to her skin, sucking it into his mouth. She could hardly breathe. Everything was so much, but she needed more.
His hand slid around to her stomach, lingering just below her breasts as if he were uncertain. She took his hand in hers and led it upward until it came into contact. Obviously surprised by this, his head came up and he stopped kissing her. He opened his mouth as if to ask her a question, but she arched herself up into his hand as he did so, and he soon seemed to forget about his question. His lips began to devour hers again as one hand held her to him, the other touching her gently.
They were a mass of arms and hands and lips until Maria heard laughter not far off in the distance. She pulled away abruptly, much to Michael’s surprise. "They’re back," she told him hurriedly, rising to her feet and pulling him with her. "You have to leave."
As they ran through the house, Maria remembered what she’d said just a short time earlier.
"Please don’t leave me, Michael."
It didn’t seem that he had a choice now.
They reached the back door just as Maria heard the front door open. She met Michael’s eyes and let her hand fall from his as he left in a hurry. She shut the door just as she heard Liz’s voice.
"Hey!"
Maria whirled around and faced her friend, still a bit surprised. "Hey, um . . where . . . where were you guys?" She found herself fixing her hair as she spoke, knowing that it must be a complete disaster.
"We headed out to Motion," Liz replied, taking her jacket off and setting it on the counter. "We were gonna ask you if you wanted to come, but you were asleep, so . . ."
Maria nodded. Thanks for leaving me a note, she thought sarcastically.
"So I’m just gonna go back to sleep," she told Liz, already making her way up the stairs. "Later."
She went back up to her room and crawled back under the covers. She almost thought she could still feel Michael there, and she wished he was. He’d had to leave in such a hurry. She wanted more time with him.
She smiled to herself as she thought about him. She thought about kissing him, she thought about touching him, and she thought about how happy she would be if he was always around.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Where the hell have you been?"
Michael had expected this. The questions. The interrogation. This was the first time he’d been back to BlackCon since the night he was stabbed. He’d been gone for four days.
"Relax, Isabel," Michael said, sitting down on the couch. "I had some stuff I had to do. That’s all."
"We were worried!"
Max and Tess joined them downstairs soon after hearing the yelling. "Have you completely lost it, Michael?" Max asked him right away.
Michael was getting fed up with this. "I left for a few days! That doesn’t mean I’ve lost anything!"
"Do you know how pissed off Nix is right now?" Tess joined in the conversation. "He was planning a huge fight this weekend, but we had to delay it because you weren’t fuckin’ here!"
"It isn’t that big of a deal," Michael told her. "You guys just need to let it go."
"I’ll let it go," Isabel said, "if you tell me what was so important that you had to leave, just like that, without tellin’ anyone."
Michael searched his brain for excuses. He couldn’t tell them that he had been out selling. They knew by now that he wasn’t.
"What are you not telling us, Michael?" Max continued with the interrogation when he didn’t answer. "What’s goin’ on with you?"
"I’m sick of this," Michael said, rising to his feet. "I don’t have to tell any of you anything."
Tess shrugged. "Maybe so, but I’m sure Nix is gonna wonder. What’re you gonna tell him?"
Michael ignored her question. "Get outta my way," he said, pushing past Max on his way to the stairs.
"Fuck you, Michael!" Max shouted.
At that, Michael spun around and let his fist collide with Max’s face. He watched as his best friend stumbled backwards from the impact clutching his nose and blood began to flow. Tess was by his side at once, her hands bracing himself on his back, glaring daggers at Michael. They all stared at each other like this in silence for a long time, ignoring the crowd of people that was forming downstairs because of the commotion. Finally, Isabel broke the silence. "What about my money?"
"Isabel, don’t start with me," Michael warned her.
"What’s goin’ on down here?" Once voice was all it took for the crowds to break into parts. Nix made his way down the stairs, keeping his eyes locked with Michael’s. "You’re back," he commented, "and you just hit your best friend in the face."
Michael ran his hands through his hair, making it spikier than ever. He was feeling like they were all ganging up on him. He was feeling like an outsider, and he’d never felt like that before.
"I think you’ve gone crazy," Max said, standing upright and wiping the blood from his nose. "You’ve hit me twice in the past two weeks."
"I didn’t mean to--"
"Whatever, Michael," he said, cutting him off. "I’m tired of your bullshit." He took Tess’s hand and led her past Michael. They started up the stairs, but Max stopped midway up, turning back to Michael. "By the way, good luck with that novel of yours."
He knows, Michael thought. He knows something, at least.
"Tell me what’s going on with you, Michael," Nix ordered, "‘cause, honestly, you are really makin’ me mad right now."
Michael wanted to punch him in the face to and tell him to forget about it, but punching Nix was different than punching Max.
"I just . . ." he started, stuttering, ". . . I was . . ."
"Don’t give me any crap."
"I . . . I was . . . nowhere . . ." He couldn’t let him know the truth. That he’d lost another fight. Third one in about two weeks.
Out of nowhere, Nix hit him in the stomach, unaware that he was hitting his stab wound. Michael doubled over, holding his hand to his stomach, unable to mask the pain on his face.
"What the fuck? That didn’t even hurt!"
Nix was unaware of how much it did.
"Michael, what’s wrong with you?" Isabel asked him, coming closer to him. "Are you hurt?" She reached out her hands and lifted up his shirt before he could stop her, revealing the jagged scar. The bruises on his face had healed, but that would always be there now, a reminder of his victory that never was.
"What happened?" she asked him.
He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want to tell her or Nix or Max or anyone. It’d been humiliating enough to have Maria witness his defeat.
"Got in a fight, down at the south side," he lied. "I don’t know what happened, but they beat me. Guess I’m not sleepin’ enough or something."
Isabel seemed more disappointed than concerned. "I can’t believe they beat you."
"It’s not that big of a deal," Michael lied again. "I just didn’t want anyone to know." Embarrassed and ashamed, he turned and made his way up the stairs slowly, still feeling the pain from the impact of Nix’s fist.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The phone rang, but Maria didn’t bother to pick it up. She was too busy thinking about what had happened with Michael to waste time with communication. It was doubtful, anyway, that whoever was calling wanted to talk to her anyway. After three years of living with BlackCon, she still couldn’t remember anyone calling for her. Not once.
That’s why she was so surprised when she heard Liz calling up to her room that the phone was for her. Maria made her way down to the kitchen, taking the phone from Liz. "Hello?"
"Ms. DeLuca?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"This is Deputy Wood. I was calling to let you know that we captured the man that attacked you a few nights ago, the one that you described to us."
"Oh, yeah, him. You found him?"
"Yes, we did. When we questioned him, he told us that he was your father."
Maria tried to laugh it off. "He seems kind of crazy."
"Yes, I suppose so. Well, we thought you would like to know."
"Yeah, um, thanks. Thank you for letting me know." Without even saying good-bye, Maria hung up the phone. She didn’t want to talk about that man. There was a reason why she’d abandoned the use of his last name and took to her mother’s after the divorce. She didn’t want anyone knowing who she came from.
"So they found that guy?" Liz asked when Maria was off the phone. Apparently she’d been listening in and figured it out.
"Yeah," Maria said. "They found him."
"I thought you’d be jumping for joy now that he’s off the streets and in custody."
Of course she was happy about it all. Knowing that her father couldn’t get to her, it was a wonderful, safe feeling. "I guess . . ." she said, thinking of Michael briefly. "I guess I’ve just got other things on my mind."
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Look, I think I’m just gonna head out for a while," Maria told Liz. She slipped on her jacket and then took it off again, figuring that if she saw Michael, she didn’t want to be so conservative. She waved good-bye to Liz, putting on her shoes as she made her way out the door.
She passed many guys on her way, guys who gave her suggestive looks and kept their eyes on her far longer than necessary, but, for the first time, she ignored the way they looked at her, because there was one man who looked at her and made her feel special.
That one man was sitting on a bench at their street corner when Maria arrived down at the borderline. He wasn’t doing anything special. Just sitting, and waiting.
Waiting for her.
Looking around to make sure that no one from BlackCon or Darkstreet was around, Maria stepped forward. Even if someone had been around, that wouldn’t have stopped her. Not now. Not with this crazy desire running through her veins that she’d been feeling ever since the night before.
She stood before him, waiting for him to look at her. He didn’t for a long time, and she worried. Was he uncomfortable around her now?
Finally, his chocolate brown eyes met her emerald green ones, and she was lost. She wanted to speak, but just looking at him was making her feel dizzy—dizzy in a good way—and words were seeming impossible.
He stood up slowly and walked across the street, obviously expecting that she would follow. He started making his way to their away place, pushing his way past trees and bushes and whatever else was lurking in there that was any sort of obstacle.
She followed.
He stood by the water, and she moved to stand beside him. He stared at her for quite some time before speaking.
"We should talk."
She nodded in agreement. "We should."
His lips crashed onto hers at once, and the idea of talking was completely abandoned.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael bent down and pressed his lips to Maria’s shoulder gently as she sat in his arms under the stars. She fell into his embrace, and he was grateful for her closeness. He had not even had time to think about this, to think about what it would feel like to kiss her again and touch her again and hold her in his arms again. He had been so busy dealing with everyone from Darkstreet that he had not even gotten to imagine how euphoric he would feel because of her, but he was sure that if he had imagined it, it wouldn’t have come close to feeling like this.
Her skin was like porcelain. Her lips were like velvet. He was well aware of the fact that his skin had become calloused and rough over the years, that his lips were not of the same velvet that hers were, but that didn’t seem to matter to her. Whatever it was that he had, she wanted it. She wanted him.
"I don’t know what’s happening," Maria said quietly as Michael rubbed her arms, trying to generate some sort of heat into her on this very cold night, "but I feel really good. Really happy." She turned her head to the side a little, resting it on his shoulder. "I feel that way whenever I’m with you."
"Why?" he couldn’t help but ask.
She shrugged the best she could while in his arms. "I don’t know. It’s like, I just forget about everything else. I can’t think about anything except for you." A few seconds after she spoke, she laughed lightly, embarrassed. "Sorry," she apologized. "That was stupid."
"No, it wasn’t," he told her, bending down and whispering in her ear. "I’m glad to hear it, actually. Now I know that I’m not the only one who can’t think straight, can’t focus on anything. Except you." As he spoke, the reality of the effect that she was having on him, the reality of what loving her was doing to him, hit him. "Right now," he said, "I should be thinking about what Nix thinks of me, and I should be apologizing to Max, but I’m not. Because I just can’t. And I don’t want to."
"I get that," she told him. "Just last night, I was running through the house terrified because of my dad, remember?"
He nodded. He remembered. How could he forget? He could never forget the fear and panic that had been written across her face and etched into her eyes.
"They called today," she told him. "The police. They called today, and they told me that they found him, and that’s great, and I’m happy about that, but I still can’t keep myself from thinking about you and about us for two seconds at a time."
Us. Michael liked that word. He’d never been part of an us before. He’d always been an I, a me, a solo person, a complete individual. No attachments, no links. He had friends like Max, and he had worthless causes like Isabel, but he’d never had anybody who he’d felt so connected with. He’d never had anybody who he felt was a part of him. Until now. Until Maria.
"It’s getting late," she commented, gazing up at the sky.
"I have to go soon," he told her sadly, locking their hands together.
"No," she said, turning around in his arms to look at him, her face begging with him. "Please don’t go."
"I don’t want to," he said, "but I have to. Nix is gonna be wondering where I am."
She sighed and hung her head. She seemed so disappointed, and he understood that. He was disappointed, too. He didn’t want to leave her, but he felt that, right now, with Nix and the others being as suspicious as they were, it would be smart to seem at least a bit loyal.
Loyal. Loyalty. The words were foreign to Michael. He was a traitor to Darkstreet. He knew that. He’d spent years hating the enemy. Hell, he’d even given speeches about their death from time to time, and now he was sitting in the middle of some secluded forest with a girl who was supposed to be the enemy, a girl who many had expected him to kill a long time ago just for the hell of it. He was in the midst of a romantic atmosphere playing out a romantic scene with her, and he was loving every second of it.
He was loyal only to her.
It took them quite a long time to part, and when they finally did, Michael immediately missed the feel of her body, her warmth seeping into him. He missed running his fingers across that porcelain skin of hers and kissing those velvet lips.
He would see her again soon. He had to.
Nix was waiting for him when he returned to the crib. He didn’t look mad or angry, but he did look confused. "I don’t know what’s going on with you," he said when Michael was beside him, "but I think it’s got something to do with this losing streak you’ve been on."
As much as Michael hated talking about losing fights and losing battles, he did welcome the distraction. As long as Nix and the others thought that Michael’s behavior had something to do with his lack of victory, they wouldn’t suspect anything else.
"Yeah," he answered. "Yeah, it does." It wasn’t a complete lie. In a sense, it was the truth. He’d lost the battle with Rick at the bank trying to get himself and Maria out of there. He’d lost the battle with Kyle because he had been out looking for Maria. He’d lost the battle with Maria’s father because he’d been protecting her. It all had to do with Maria in the end, so what he was telling Nix was sort of the truth, in a twisted sense.
"But we need you back," Nix told him, placing his hand on Michael’s shoulder. "We need you back and we need you stronger than ever, because we’re expecting BlackCon to show up tomorrow night. Without you in the game, we’re not as strong."
"There’s gonna be a fight?" Michael asked.
Nix nodded. "Yeah. You’re in, right?"
Michael nodded right away. "Of course." He didn’t add that he wasn’t in it for the actual fighting part anymore. He was in it to see Maria.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
News was circulating through the BlackCon crib when Maria got back that there was going to be a fight tomorrow night. Maria heard talk of it right when she stepped into the door. Apparently it was to be one hell of a fight now that Kyle was back and stronger than ever. Some were starting to believe that it was going to be the final battle. Maria wasn’t that deluded. She knew it wouldn’t be.
She walked up the stairs, calling or Slick. She wanted to know if this fight business was true or not. If it was, she would be expected to gather up any weapons she had and get in the best shape she could in such a short amount of time by getting plenty of rest, even though she never fought anyway.
"Slick!" she called, heading down the hallway towards his bedroom. "Slick, is this fight stuff true?" She stopped at his door when she heard sounds coming from inside. Moaning. Groaning. Occasional screaming. "Slick?" No answer.
Curiosity got the best of Maria and she opened up the door to his room, just to see who he was with now. If it was Tijuana, she wouldn’t be surprised. That girl was always desperate for somebody. She wouldn’t turn down Slick even if he . .
Maria stopped dead in her tracks when she saw who Slick was with. Liz Parker. The same Liz Parker who was supposed to be devoted to Kyle.
"Maria!" Liz shrieked when she spotted her best friend. She immediately pushed Slick off of her and smoothed her hair down, covering herself up with the blankets. "What are you doing here?"
"I’m sorry," Maria apologized. "I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just . . . I . . the fight . . . I . . . I’m just gonna go." She turned and headed out of the room in a hurry, practically running down the hallway to her room. That was a sight she never wanted to see again. Liz and Slick going at it. Not only did it look completely uncomfortable and unnatural, but it was sad. Liz and Kyle had always been so perfect for each other.
Liz knocked on Maria’s door a few minutes later and came in, uninvited. She was fully clothed now, but she was still sweating, and she looked exhausted from the sex she and Slick had been having. "I guess that was kind of a shock, huh?" she said.
Maria nodded, picking up a magazine and starting to flip through it. Anything to distract her from what she’d just walked in on was a good thing and definitely needed.
"I, um . . . I don’t really know how to explain it," Liz continued.
"You don’t need to explain it," Maria assured her. "Trust me, it was pretty self-explanatory."
Liz shook her head and sighed. "No, it’s not, Maria. I don’t even understand it myself. Why would I do that with Slick when I have Kyle?"
"I don’t know, Liz."
"I love Kyle," she told herself more than Maria. "I love, love, love Kyle. But . . . there’s just . . . something’s missing."
"Like what?" Maria had to pretend to be interested. She honestly wouldn’t mind if this conversation stopped right now.
"Like passion," Liz answered. "Like this outrageous, crazy passion. I guess I was looking for that with Slick, but . . . nothing." All at once, something hit her, and her mouth dropped open. "Oh my God!" she exclaimed. "Maria! I’m so sorry! You and Slick! You guys are a couple! I can’t believe I . . "
"Relax," Maria told her. "Slick and I are in no way a couple. He may think we will be someday, but we won’t. Liz, I understand why you did what you did. You were looking for passion. That’s fine with me. That might not be fine with Kyle, though."
Liz sighed again. "Passion. That’s so lame. Everything about me is lame and stupid, Maria. Especially my love life."
Maria didn’t quite understand. "But I thought you guys were happy."
"We are," Liz said, "sometimes. Maria, let me tell you something. You will be the luckiest girl in the history of the world if you can be happy with someone in this gang."
Maria smiled inwardly, thinking to herself about how happy she was with Michael, about how happy she was with someone that was not part of this gang at all, but part of the other gang. The supposed enemy gang.
God, her life was so crazy. Everything with Michael was so crazy.
She was loving every second of it.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The battle that next night was a brutal one, just as many had said it would be. There were more weapons being used this time. Most of the time, both BlackCon and Darkstreet fought hands on—most of the time—but this time, gunshots were ringing through the air, one right after the other. People were getting hurt. Maybe some people were even dying.
Maria was living. She and Michael had found each other and escaped from the chaotic battle. They flung themselves into an alley only a few feet away from the raging battle and flung themselves into each others arms. Before Maria could even form a coherent greeting, Michael’s lips were on hers, kissing her passionately. She let her hands find their way into his hair, urging him to kiss her harder.
His hands were doing marvelous things. Simple things, but marvelous things. They trailed up and down her sides, once in awhile slipping back to slide across her ass.
For the first time in her life, a guy was touching her, and she wanted him to.
"How can they not know?" Michael asked her, pulling away for air. "How can they not know about us?"
Maria smiled and shrugged. "I don’t know," she said, trailing a hand down his cheek, feeling a days worth of stubble. "Maybe they just don’t care."
"Maybe." He came in again, pressing his lips to hers. She felt his tongue tracing her lips, and she opened her mouth wider in invitation. One of his hands snaked up her sides and cupped one of her breasts through the fabric of her tank top. She had to suppress a groan at his touch.
"I love this," Michael told her, releasing her mouth for air again. "I love how we can just get away with this and they have no idea."
"I know," she agreed, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt. She wanted his clothes gone, and she wanted him to know it. "I love it how you’re all romantic with me one minute," she told him, stretching herself up to nibble on his earlobe, "and the next, you’re making me completely crazy."
All at once, Michael’s lips were on her neck, sucking the flesh into his mouth. "That’s gonna leave a mark," Maria murmured. She felt him smile against her skin when she said that, the thought of leaving a mark on her appealing to him.
A gunshot rang out in the air, followed by a scream. It might have been Liz who screamed. It might have been someone Michael cared about.
The gunshot didn’t even register with them.
"We have got to get out of here," Maria told him in a breathy voice as he sucked harder on her neck, pushing her farther back against the wall. She loved doing this with Michael, and she didn’t want to stop, but the smell of trash coming from the dumpster sitting right next to her was really starting to kill the mood.
"Where do you wanna go?" Michael asked her, his breath tickling he neck. "Carnival? Comedy club? Maybe one of your rap dance clubs?"
Maria hit him playfully on the shoulder. "Rap is awesome," she said. "I’ll take that with me to the grave."
Michael stopped kissing her and pulled back, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close to him. "And I’ll take it with me to the grave that rock and roll beats all. Now, where do you wanna go, DeLuca?"
There was no doubt in her mind where she wanted to go. She’d been thinking about it all morning and all afternoon. "Do you have money?" she asked him with her sweetest smile.
"Yes, I have money," he replied, "because you never do. Why?"
"Because," she said, "I wanna get a hotel room."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Where the hell is Michael?"
Max looked around when he heard Isabel ask the group where Michael was. It was raining now, and it was foggy, and the fight was still tapering off, but he could see very clearly that Michael Guerin was nowhere in sight.
"He isn’t here," he told Isabel.
"Where is he?" Isabel asked him, like he was supposed to have all of the answers.
Max reached up and touched the cut on his forehead. He and Whitman had been fighting again that night. The dude had come with a vengeance for his brutal beating the time before. They’d fought hard, and Michael hadn’t fought at all.
"I don’t know," he told Isabel. In reality, he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t know what was going on with Michael, but it was his own problem. He was through trying to reach the guy, trying to understand what was up with him, and he was done with the stupid lies. Fuckin’ novel . . .
"I thought you said you was gonna convince him to fight tonight!" Isabel shouted, turning to Nix now. "I thought you said he was in it!"
"Apparently he wasn’t!" Nix shouted back. "Don’t go fuckin’ blaming me, Isabel!"
"You’re our leader! You’re supposed to---"
Max placed his hand on her shoulder to calm her down as best he could. The last thing they needed right now was a fight between themselves.
"I don’t know where the hell he is," Nix told everyone, mainly Isabel. "We’ll deal with it when we need to." He wiped some blood from his hand and turned, continuing on his way towards the crib.
Isabel sighed and shook her head, watching him go. "We need to deal with this now," she muttered so that only Max could hear her.
Max agreed with his sister, but he remained silent. He didn’t want to get involved with this right now, not when his life was actually going somewhere. He had Tess, and he had his job, and that was enough.
Besides, he knew he could rely on Isabel to figure out what was up with Michael someday.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The moment Maria stepped into the hotel room, she felt like she was living the high-life. Michael had shelled out the big bucks for this room. It was said to be one of the nicest rooms there was to offer, and it was certainly living up to its rave reviews. The bed was a gigantic canopy, the bathroom was a practically a spa all by itself, the pictures that hung on the walls were valued at around 2000 a piece, and they had a view of almost the entire city from their balcony.
"This is so awesome," Maria commented as she stood outside on the balcony, overlooking the city. The cold, evening wind was blowing hard, but Michael was standing behind her, holding onto her tightly, and he made the wind almost nonexistent. "I love the south side of LA." The south side of LA was the only part of the city that Maria actually enjoyed being in. It was where she had lived back when her mother had still been alive, back when life was simple.
"Yeah, I could get used to this," Michael agreed, stroking her stomach with his fingers.
"I wish we could stay." She knew quite well that they could not stay. The south side was for sophisticated, classy, rich people, and they didn’t fit that description.
At one time, she had.
She wanted to thank him for brining her there, for taking her back to a time when all things had been wonderful, and for making her feel so happy, but he was kissing his way down her neck to her shoulder, and this was enough to distract words from finding their way across her lips.
Turning in his arms, she pushed him back into the room, crashing her lips onto his. He kissed her for a long time, making her high on the sensation, and when he finally did pull away, she had to hold back a complaint at the loss of contact.
"This is crazy," he almost whispered, running his fingers through her hair. "You and me. It’s crazy."
"I know," she agreed, smiling as she thought about how much she’d hated Michael a few short weeks ago. "I know, it is."
"We’re supposed to hate each other," Michael reminded her. "We’re supposed to hate each other and . . ." He trailed off.
And I love you, her mind screamed.
"It’s crazy," he repeated finally. He leaned forward and kissed her again, pulling her body as close to his as he could. They were so close that Maria felt as if she could feel the passion racing from his body into hers as her own passion did the same. Her body and soul were on fire as she collapsed onto the bed and as he fell on top of her.
He pulled away for a short time, leaving her with that feeling of lost contact once again, and they stared into each other’s eyes. It was dark in the room, but Maria could see so much in his eyes. She saw a side of him that she had only rarely seen. She saw a side of him that was so vulnerable and innocent, and she saw herself in his eyes, and she was sparkling, shimmering, because that was the way he saw her.
Without giving it much thought, Maria trailed one hand down Michael’s chest, reaching the bottom of his shirt. She snaked her hand up under the material and caressed the skin of his stomach, inching his shirt upwards. Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he assisted her in removing his shirt, letting it fall to the ground.
Seconds later, he was kissing her again, softer this time. The desperate want and desire had diminished slightly, and he was kissing her now as if she were delicate, fragile, easily broken, like he didn’t want to damage her. She was barely able to kiss him when she felt his fingers undoing the buttons to her shirt. He undid them painstakingly slowly, taking his time as if he were not sure whether he was allowed to do such a thing.
"This is very, very illegal," he told her quietly as he brought her shirt down over her shoulders and arms, letting it fall to the ground on top of his own.
She smiled and leaned forward a little so that her breath tickled his lips as she spoke. "Break the law," she encouraged him, making sure that he knew that this was what she wanted. What she needed.
He wasn’t hesitant from there. He didn’t seem to worry about damaging her. She assured him that he wouldn’t.
He gazed at her as she lay under him, completely naked and exposed to him, and he touched her so gently and so passionately all at the same time that Maria thought for a minute that she died and gone to heaven, because this had to be what it would feel like.
This was the first time that somebody was touching her when she wanted him to. It was so different from all else. It was everything to her.
He groaned as she began to remove his jeans, taking him into her hands. He closed his eyes as she handled him, and she noticed he was shaking. She loved the effect she had on him.
Maybe this was everything to him, too.
His lips mated themselves to her, to her lips and to the rest of her body. His hands traced every inch of her body over and over again until she was sure he had it memorized.
"Michael . . ."
She loved him so much. She wanted the whole world to be him, because then the whole world would care about her and protect her and maybe even love her.
"Maria . . ."
He stopped when she began to guide him to her entrance, and he locked his hand with hers, entwining their fingers. He stared into her eyes again, and he opened his mouth slightly. For a few seconds, he could only look at her. He couldn’t speak. And then he did.
"You’re so beautiful."
Beautiful. People said she was beautiful. She never knew whether to believe them or not, but she believed Michael. He thought she was beautiful.
He kissed her gently again as he entered her slowly, and he kept kissing her as a wave ecstasy and euphoria overtook them both a short time later, and though she could not be sure, as she fell asleep that night, Maria DeLuca let herself believe that Michael Guerin was in love with her.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
He awoke and felt sublimely happy.
She was laying in his arms, her head and her hands resting on his chest. The sun shining in through the window caused her hair to sparkle like spun gold, and she was sleeping with a smile on her face. She looked happy, too.
He didn’t have it in him to wake her up, so he just laid with her, holding her for the longest time. He tried to memorize everything about her, every little detail, every curve and bend, every sparkle and shimmer. Maybe someday he would really write a novel, and it would be all about her. Beautiful.
She began to stir after about a half an hour later, burying her face into his chest and wrapping her legs around his. Soon, her eyes began to flutter open. "Hey," she said sleepily, smiling.
"Hey," he echoed, caressing her back. He couldn’t stop touching her.
She seemed content with just being in his arms. She didn’t bother to move or to speak, and he was content with that as well. He had never ever just held a girl like this after making love to her. Hell, he had never made love to anyone before this. This was all different and new for him, too. It was strange, but he was enjoying it.
"Touch me."
He ran one hand over her stomach, tracing the scar which he had placed upon her, and up to brush across her breasts at her quiet request and then leaned in to kiss her again the way he had never kissed anyone before.
He kissed her and he held her and he touched her the rest of the morning, never once getting out of bed and parting with her.
They both knew, though, that they would have to go back eventually. Back to a harsh reality. This fantasy couldn’t last forever.
He watched her as she dressed, unable to keep his eyes off of her. She blushed self-consciously under his gaze and continued dressing, seeming more than a little reluctant to put her clothes back on.
He was drowning in her, but he wasn’t gasping for air. He was begging to stay submerged.
It took them forever to leave. Every time they were anywhere close to leaving the fantasy, they found their way back in. She would pull him away from the door and fall down on top of the bed again, begging him to kiss her. He would throw the sheets over them, hiding themselves from the rest of the world for a little while, and they would make their way over to the door later. He would gaze at her for a brief instant, fascinated, and crush his lips to hers, pushing her back against the doorframe. Several people would pass by and give them strange and disapproving looks at their open displays of affection, but Michael wouldn’t even notice.
"They’re wondering where I am," she said in a breathy voice as he pulled her back into a secluded alley and attacked her neck with his lips when they were at the borderline. "I think," she added quietly. "I think they are. I have to go back. I have to lie to them, ‘cause . . . me being with you . . . they’ll think that’s wrong."
"It’s not wrong," Michael told her. "Just crazy, remember?"
She nodded and thrust her hips up into his slightly. "Right," she said. "Crazy."
"You’re seventeen."
"We’re from rival gangs."
He smiled and pressed his lips to hers, pulling back and whispering quickly, "If this is crazy, if we’re crazy, check me into the fuckin’ asylum right away ‘cause I really don’t mind."
Maria laughed a little. "You are by far the strangest person I have ever met."
"So I’m strange and crazy and . . . what else am I?"
"Complicated," she reminded him. She slid her hands up under his shirt. "And I gotta say, you’re rather fine, too."
She was turning him on, fast. Maria aroused him like no one else did. All she had to do was look at him and he was at the edge of the universe. His heart was beating out of control and he had a hard on that was almost unbearably painful.
She reached down and began to undo his jeans as he kissed her, pressing her back hard against the wall as he thrust himself into her hand. He wanted her so badly. He felt like he couldn’t resist.
"God, I hope my mom isn’t watching me right now," she said quietly, undoing her own jeans and sliding them down her waist to give him access. "Me gettin’ screwed in an alley . . ." She trailed off, and Michael stopped. Maria didn’t deserve to get fucked in an alley. That was something that he had done with Isabel and with many other girls. Maria deserved what they’d had the night before, the romance thing that Michael had never thought he’d be capable of.
"We shouldn’t do this right now," Michael told her, suddenly reminded that there were actually other people out and about, too. If they peered too far down into this alley . . .
He buttoned his jeans again, and she did the same, though it was a difficult thing to do. He saw the look of disappointment on Maria’s face and in her eyes, and he was well aware of the fact that she had wanted this.
"Tonight," he told her. "Nix was planning on having everyone head on out to Club Bang to party for awhile. I won’t go. The crib will be empty and . ."
"And I get your point," she cut him off. "I’ll be there."
They parted at last, and it wasn’t easy. Michael was certain that he could have spent the rest of his days with that girl—with that woman—starting from that very second, and he wished he could have. Instead, he watched as she walked away, watched as she turned around and smiled over her shoulder with those pearly white teeth of hers that were white enough to be on a Colgate commercial, watched as her hair fell over her back like a scene from a shampoo advertisement, watched as her hips shook in the form of every guy’s fantasy. He watched, fascinated, and wondered why she would pick a guy like him.
He was well aware of the fact that he was lucky.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Liz was hurt. When Maria arrived back at the crib, Liz was laying on the couch holding her hand to her side. Maria asked her if she was okay, and she told her that she had been shot at the fight the night before. She didn’t ask where Maria had been, so Maria didn’t bother to give her an excuse.
No one else really seemed to care. Kyle was so worried about Liz that he couldn’t even think about anything else, and Alex was worried about everyone. He was running around trying to take care of Liz as best he could, but he was not a doctor, and the medical supplies they had at the crib were extremely meager.
Even Slick didn’t care. He saw her, and he gave her one of those nods that he gave people when he didn’t want to talk, and Maria was happy with that. Not talking was fine. The less talking, the better.
She went up to her bedroom and laid down, closing her eyes and thinking about Michael, thinking about everything that had happened. She tried to remember the little things, like the way his lips trembled when he kissed her, like the way his stomach muscles quivered as he moved inside of her. She had never seen him so open and so vulnerable before, and though she knew he cared about her, she had never believed that he would treat her like he had, being so careful and so gentle as not to harm her in any way.
Thinking about Michael only made the ache inside of her grow. She had wanted him back in that alley, and he had left her hanging.
That was why she would be seeing him tonight, one way or another, whether it was in Darkstreet territory or BlackCon territory or neither of the two. She would see him. He would satisfy her ache. He always would.
Slick came into her room right as she was drifting off to sleep. "I wanna talk," he told her. "About . . . things."
"I can explain why I didn’t fight last night," Maria started immediately. She had this whole excuse planned out to perfection. "I just thought that I should . ."
"No, I don’t wanna talk about that," Slick told her. "I, uh, was really wishing that we could talk about what you saw going on between me and, uh, Liz."
"Oh," Maria said. She hadn’t been expecting this. Slick never talked about any of the girls he fucked. Maybe he thought that she would get hurt by it. She wouldn’t.
"I don’t really know what happened," he began. "We’d had a little too much to drink, and she just came up to my room and we . . . I’m sorry."
"It’s okay," Maria told him. "It’s fine."
"Are you sure?"
"I’m sure," she said, hiding her smile as she thought about the reality of this situation. Slick was the one who was coming clean, and she wasn’t. He knew nothing about her relationship with Michael, that crazy relationship.
Slick breathed a sigh of relief. "Good."
"Have any girl you want," Maria told him. She really could care less who Slick was screwing around with. It didn’t even matter to her at this point.
"Any girl?" Slick echoed in question. "Even you?"
She should have seen this coming. Slick hadn’t come up here to apologize for what he had been doing with Liz. He was coming up here to see if she was ready. Everything was always about this with him.
"Slick, I just don’t think that’s such a good idea."
He looked a little disappointed, but he tried to cover it. "That’s fine," he said. "Someday, right?"
She gave him a look that he interpreted as a ‘yes’, but she never actually promised him someday. She waited until he left the room and then fell back on her bed, completely exasperated with him. He was an okay guy sometimes, but when he started wanting her so bad like that . . .
The technicality of it all was quite funny, though. Slick was the leader, and he was asking Maria for her permission, when she should be asking him for his. She felt strong and she felt powerful and she felt so overwhelmingly happy and in love that it was suffocating her . . . in a good way.
Michael made her feel all of these things.
Michael made her feel beautiful.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Nix’s idea for a night of fun at Club Bang was a good idea. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to it. It had been awhile since the whole group had just gone out and torn it up for awhile. Even those who were injured from the fight the night before were determined to go.
Isabel was hoping that this night would patch things up between the group. It seemed like there had been this chasm set up between all of them ever since Michael started acting the way he did. They couldn’t afford that right now. They needed to stay unified if they were ever going to take down BlackCon and end the rivalry.
End the rivalry. That phrase just sounded odd. The rivalry was looking like it would never end at this point.
So everyone was preparing for a night out on the town that night. Everyone but Michael. He stayed up in his bedroom, making no effort to come down. Max and Nix didn’t make any effort to go up and ask him if he was coming or not. At this point, they probably didn’t even care.
Isabel did, though. Even though she hated to admit it, a small part of her still cared. She didn’t exactly care about Michael, but she cared about what was going on with him.
Before the gang headed out, she headed up to Michael’s room, (which she still believed should rightfully be her room) and she found him laying on his bed with his eyes closed. She thought that he was asleep for a short time and contemplated interesting and hilarious ways to wake him up, but his eyes snapped open just as she decided to go get a glass of ice cold water and throw it over him.
"What do you want, Is?" he asked her, straight to the point.
"Just wonderin’ if you was comin’ tonight," she answered.
"Comin’ where?"
"Club Bang. Nix’s idea for a fun night out."
"Oh, yeah," he said. "Probably not."
"Why not?" she asked him. This was strange. Michael had never ever distanced himself from the gang like this before. What the hell was going on with him?
He flung his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up. "I don’t know," he answered with a shrug. "Don’t really feel like it, I guess."
"You don’t feel like it?" she echoed in question. Something was definitely up. There was more to this than Michael was letting on to. The one reason that Michael hardly ever missed out on going to Club Bang was because he always felt like getting a little freaky with the girls there, and the girls always felt like getting a little freaky with him.
"Yeah," Michael said. "I just don’t feel like it." He made his way over to his CD player, turning it on loud enough so that if Isabel had even tried to talk to him, he wouldn’t have been able to hear her.
Knowing that Michael was not going to listen to what she had to say or answer any of her unanswered questions at this point, Isabel slammed the door shut and made her way back down the hallway, back out to the gang that Michael was suddenly almost refusing to be a part of.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
She came over like she said she would. They tried the talking thing for awhile, but the fact that no one else was around soon became too much, and his hands were on her, undressing her and carrying her up the stairs to his bedroom where he let his passion take him over and let himself make love to her again.
She laid beside him, her slick body pressing up against his, burying her face in his chest as he ran his fingers through her hair.
"Best sex of my life," he told her.
His comment ignited a little laugh from her. "Really?"
"Really," he said. He had been with lots of girls, but none of them had made him feel like Maria did. He had never loved any of them.
"The best sex of your life is with me?"
He nodded forcefully. "Damn right it is. See, girls like Isabel . . . they’ve done it so many times that they can’t think of anything new to do. But you . . " He trailed off when he felt her grabbing onto him beneath the blankets. "Fuck," he cursed. If it had been any other girl, it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but it was Maria, so it was.
"Do you think it’s weird?" she asked him.
"What?"
"Do you think it’s weird that we hardly even know each other?"
He hadn’t thought about that. They had not known each other for a very long time, but it seemed like he had known her for all his life. It seemed like his life hadn’t started until he met her.
"We know each other," he told her.
"I know we do," she said. "God, I feel like I know you better than anyone else, but . . . my point is that things are crazy to begin with, and the more I think about, the crazier it all seems. Me and you. I don’t know if I’m making any sense, here, but I just kinda gotta wonder how it all worked out this way. I mean, why did you come up to my room that night, Michael? Why did you waste any time with me when Nix and Max didn’t even bother?"
He hadn’t really thought about that for awhile now. "I don’t know."
"And why did you protect me at the bank, and why did you take the time to teach me how to drive? Well, I mean, you really didn’t teach me, but, you know what I mean. Why did you even care?"
"I don’t know, Maria," he said. "Why did you let me protect you, and why did you let me teach you how to drive, and why did you let me care?"
"That’s not fair," she said. "You can’t answer questions with questions, Michael. That’s not the way it works."
He smiled and leaned in, pressing his lips to hers. She kissed him back passionately, burrowing her fingers in his unruly hair and moving so that she was laying on top of him.
"I’m serious," she said, pulling away suddenly. "You can’t answer questions with questions, Michael. It’s in the handbook."
"What handbook?"
"It’s my own personal, made-up handbook, alright?"
"Yeah, well I have a handbook of my own," he told her, stroking her back, "and it says that answering questions with questions is perfectly fine."
She sighed and shook her head. "You are impossible." She laid her head down on his chest, and within minutes, she was asleep. Michael glanced at his watch laying on the table by the bed and saw the time. It was late. Or early. Depending on one’s point of view. Maria could stay an hour more probably, but nothing beyond that. Darkstreet would be arriving back.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Isabel tried to have fun at Club Bang with Nix and the others. She pretended to be partying for at least two and a half hours until she could pretend no longer. Whatever was up with Michael was eating away and consuming her. She had to figure out what it was, and she had to figure out now.
She told Nix she was sick and that she was heading back home to get some rest. He believed her, and he and the rest of the group continued to bump and grind as she left.
He’s probably stressed, Isabel reasoned. But what the hell does Michael have to be stressed about? Maybe it’s ‘cause he ain’t makin’ money sellin’ now. Is he even sellin’ anymore? Maybe he’s ashamed ‘cause he’s been losin’ so many fights lately. Maybe he’s worrying about losing again. Maybe he’s . . .
Isabel went through all of the possible reasons as to why Michael might be acting so strangely as she made her way back to the crib, wondering which one of them was right.
She entered silently, trying to match the silence of the house. She didn’t hear Michael’s music playing anymore. That was strange. The guy liked his music, especially when he was by himself.
Isabel crept up the stairs, cursing quietly when a board squeaked underneath her feet. She couldn’t let Michael know she was home. He was never going to willingly tell her what was going on, so she’d have to do a little secret looking in on and him and find out for herself. He couldn’t have any idea.
His room was as silent as the rest of the house. He was probably sleeping, but Isabel didn’t resist the urge to look in on him anyway. She opened the door slowly and quietly, opening it just slightly. She was prepared to find Michael in his bed, asleep.
He was in his bed, but he wasn’t asleep. And he wasn’t alone.
He was holding someone, stroking her golden blonde hair and her bare back. He was holding someone and they were both naked.
Michael Guerin had . . . he had made love to someone. And now he was holding her like she was special, important, beautiful. He never did either of those things.
Isabel looked away, shocked by this discovery. Michael was . . . well, he was in love with someone, because he was holding her, and it was clear just by the very atmosphere in the room and around the couple that he hadn’t just fucked her. He had made love to her. He had made love to her because he was in love with her.
This was . . . shocking didn’t even seem to fit the description.
Isabel took one last look, just to make sure she was seeing things right, and she realized she was. Michael and the girl . . . the girl . . . She looked sort of familiar. Not so familiar that Isabel could pick her out in a crowd of a thousand, but she did look familiar.
Isabel looked harder. It was strange, but the girl almost looked like a girl from BlackCon. She had that long, blonde hair and that pale, perfect skin and those full lips. She was beautiful.
Beautiful. There was only one girl in BlackCon who most everybody considered to be beautiful. But she was nobody . . .
But she was laying in Michael’s arms.
Maria.
Isabel closed the door in a hurry, eager to get that image out of her brain. But it followed her. Images of Maria followed her. How could Michael do such a thing? How could he betray Darkstreet like that?
Isabel hurried quietly to Jonathon’s room, which had lately become her room as well and collapsed on the bed. What was she supposed to do with this information? Was she supposed to keep it to herself or was she supposed to tell Nix?
Out of all of the things that she had suspected might be wrong with Michael, she had never expected this. She had never expected that he was in love with . . with the enemy!
Maybe, though . . . maybe he wasn’t in love. Perhaps Michael was only using this to his advantage. Maybe Maria was his way inside of BlackCon. From the inside, he could destroy.
Isabel prayed that this was true. (She’d never prayed in her life before, but she was praying now.) She prayed that this was all some plan that Michael had come up with, some plan to emerge victorious once and for all.
An hour later, she heard Michael open the door to his room. She heard him talking to her, although she could not make out what he was saying. She heard him say her name, though. Maria. She was right.
He kissed her, and she left. Isabel watched out her window as the nobody girl snuck off to the place where she belonged. She still couldn’t believe this.
She had been thinking wishfully when she had been praying. This was not a plan at all. Michael Guerin was truly and deeply in love with this girl, with the enemy.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
About an hour after Maria left Darkstreet arrived back home. Michael was downstairs watching TV when the arrived home. He asked them if they had fun, and they nodded, but they didn’t waste time talking to him.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew that he had distanced himself from the rest of the gang, but for some reason, that didn’t bother him.
Nix did sit down beside him though. "What’re you watching?" he asked.
Michael shrugged. "I dunno. Third Rock from the Sun or something."
Nix nodded. "You shoulda come with us tonight, man," he said. "It was awesome."
"Yeah, I bet it was," Michael agreed, adding on silently in his head, but I bet it wasn’t half as awesome as it was up in my bedroom.
"How’s Isabel?" Nix asked.
Isabel? "What do you mean?" he asked.
"How’s she feelin’?" Nix elaborated.
"How should I know?"
"I just thought you might’ve talked to her, asked her why she came home."
Michael was completely confused. "What the hell are you talkin’ it about?"
"Isabel got sick. She left early and came back here."
Michael felt a feeling of panic and alarm suddenly rise up in his chest. He bolted up off of the couch and ran upstairs to Jonathon’s bedroom, where he knew he would find Isabel.
Holy shit, this was not good.
Isabel was in bed, staring up at the ceiling.
"Hey," Michael said. "I didn’t even hear you get in."
"Nope."
"How you feeling?"
"Aight."
"That’s really weird. I must’ve fallen asleep or something, ‘cause I didn’t even hear you."
"Must have."
"You probably came straight up to your room, then," Michael continued. "Right?"
She turned to look at him for the first time since he had opened the door to her room. "Right," she said.
Michael felt relief wash over him. If she had come straight up to her room, then she had probably gone straight to sleep.
He and Maria were safe and secret for another day.
"Alright," he said. "I’ll let you rest." He closed the door and headed back down, joining Nix on the couch again.
"What was that all about?" Nix asked.
"Nothin’," Michael lied. "Just had to piss like a bitch, that’s all." Lame excuse. He knew it. Oh well.
Nix gave him a weird look. "Alright, whatever." He motioned towards the TV and stood. "Tell me what happens."
When Nix was gone, Michael let himself breathe a sigh of relief. That had been close with Isabel. He and Maria would have to be more careful in the future.
At least nobody knew anything.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria met Michael on the street corner that next night. She knew that he had something to tell her from the moment he met her eyes.
"What’s wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, "but, uh . . . we’re gonna have to be more careful." He placed his hand on her shoulder and led her into a secluded alley.
"What are you talking about?" she asked him, still confused. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened," he said, "but something almost happened. When we were together last night, Isabel came home."
"What?" Maria shrieked. "I didn’t even hear her!"
"I know. I didn’t, either."
"Does she know?" Maria felt panic rising up inside of her. If anyone knew, she and Michael wouldn’t be able to be together anymore. Something bad would happen. Something bad was bound to happen if somebody found out.
"She doesn’t know anything," he reassured her. "She wasn’t feeling well. She went up to her room to sleep. That’s all."
Maria breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," she whispered quietly, "but that was too close. We can’t let anyone find out, Michael."
"I know. Like I said, we just gotta be a little more careful."
"We shouldn’t even look at each other in public."
"Well then when are we supposed to look at each other?"
"When we’re not in public."
Michael sighed, sounding disappointed. "I guess if that’s what you think is best . . ." He trailed off. "It’s just . . . I kinda . . ."
"You kinda what?"
He sighed again. "I kinda was planning on takin’ you to Motion tonight. But, public, so . . ."
Maria felt her own disappointment grow. Things would be so much simpler if this wasn’t so complicated, if this was just a normal relationship.
One thing was for sure. This would never be a normal relationship. It never had been, and it never would be.
But that was okay.
"I hate this," she said. "We shouldn’t have to sneak around like this."
"I know."
"I really, really wanna go with you to Motion tonight."
He hung his head and shrugged. "It’s alright," he said, but something in his voice told her that it wasn’t quite alright.
"Fine, you know what? Just screw it," Maria told him finally. "Screw Darkstreet, screw BlackCon, and screw this whole gang thing. We’re goin’ to Motion tonight."
"Are you sure?"
"I’m sure. We’re together now, and people who are together tend to do things together, so let’s go."
He smiled and kissed her, taking her hand and leading her out to his car.
"Can I drive?" she asked him.
He gave her a look and shook his head, and she reluctantly climbed into the passenger’s seat.
"Why can’t I drive?" she asked him as he started down the road.
"‘Cause, honestly, Maria, you suck."
"I only suck at driving ‘cause you suck at teaching!" she retorted. "Just take the wheel, Maria! Oh, yeah, like that’s gonna work."
"It worked for me."
"No, you know what? I don’t think it did. I think you did take Driver’s Ed, and you’re lying to me."
"Have I ever lied to you before?"
She tried to think back, but she couldn’t. "Well, you know, I don’t exactly keep track, but you probably did when we hated each other."
He started laughing when he heard her mention the word hate. "Can you believe we used to hate each other?"
"No, I can’t."
"Can you believe that I was thinkin’ about killin’ you one time?"
"Can you believe that I wanted you to kill me?"
He gave her a look. "You did?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I just didn’t wanna live."
"What changed?"
She smiled a little. "I started not hating you."
They arrived at Motion a short time later. The line was even longer than it had been the last time they had been there, and Maria was not in the mood to wait in line.
"Okay, I am not waiting in that line," she told Michael. "Think I should work my magic?"
Michael looked first at the long line, then at the guy letting people in, and then back at Maria. "I don’t know," he said. "Maybe we should just wait."
She smiled and grabbed onto his shirt, pulling him closer so that his face was mere inches from her own. "Jealous?"
"I’m not jealous," he said, though it was obvious he was lying. "I just think that we should wait in line. It’s the polite thing to do."
Maria shook her head. "You see, Michael, the problem with your little story here is that I know you, and I know that you never do what’s polite." She tugged on his shirt, pulling him forward to the very front of the line.
"Hey," she said to the guy up front, immediately recognizing him as the guy who had let them in after much deliberation during their last visit to Motion. "Do you think that you might by chance let me and my boyfriend in?" She put on her sweetest smile, but the guy was unaffected.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because," she said, leaning in, "I’m pretty."
"Beautiful," Michael muttered from beside her.
"Forget it," the guy said.
"Please, please, let us in," Maria begged. "Please."
"Why? So you can bang each other all night?"
Maria recognized his question from last time, but this time she had a different answer. "Maybe."
Michael stifled his laughter. "Look, just let us in," he said.
At last, the guy up front gave in and let them in, apparently not even caring anymore.
"Maybe, huh?" Michael asked her quietly once they were inside.
Maria hit him playfully on the shoulder. "You men are all alike, aren’t you? You can’t go one day without it."
"That’s right. I can’t," Michael admitted. "Can you?"
"I could if I had to."
"But you don’t have to," he reminded her with a mischievous grin.
She smiled in return and kissed him. "But you know," she said, "I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be that public. So you might just have to settle for a little dancing." She took his hand and started pulling him to the dance floor.
"I think I already told you that I don’t dance."
"No," she said, "you told me you weren’t much of a dancer. That means that there’s a little bit of a dancer in you somewhere."
"No, there’s not," he said. "Scratch what I already said, ‘cause I am a really bad dancer."
"You can’t be that bad."
"Maria, I dance the way you drive."
She gave him a look. "Alright, just for that little remark, you’re dancing for sure."
Seconds later, he was standing in the middle of the dance floor as rap music blared from all sides of the club around him. "What the hell am I doing?" he asked himself more than Maria.
"You’re dancing," Maria reminded him. "Come on. Start breakin’ it down." She started to sway her hips in front of him, but he didn’t even start to move.
"Come on, Michael," she urged. "You’re out here now. You’ve gotta dance."
"I don’t really know how."
"Of course you do. Just let loose a little bit."
He shook his head. "No, I don’t see that happening."
Maria stopped dancing and thought about the situation. Getting Michael to dance was going to be impossible.
Unless she managed to persuade him.
"Michael," she said, "how about we dance a little closer." She took two steps towards him so that she could wrap her arms around his neck and press her body against his. "Do you see that happening?"
Slowly, he wrapped his arms around her waist. "Possibly."
She started moving, and he did, too. Slightly. "Don’t think about it so much," she told him. "Just move with me. You know how to move with me, don’t you?"
"Damn right, I do." He started moving more, grinding his hips into hers. She rolled her head back and suppressed a groan when she felt him pressing into her.
"See?" she said. "It isn’t that difficult." She swayed her hips in a circular motion, moving her body painstakingly slowly over his. She felt him tighten his arms around her waist, and she knew she was having an effect on him.
He continued to move with her, making her feel like she was losing her control. Michael Guerin could send her spiraling towards ecstasy so easily that it was insane.
"You lied to me," she choked out, finding it hard to speak.
"What? When?"
"Just now," she told him. "You told me you were a bad dancer."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria passed by Michael the next day. He was casually strolling along in BlackCon territory, most likely looking for her. He met her eyes, and she had to look away. If she looked at him for too long, she was sure that she would run up to him and throw herself in his arms, and seeing as how Slick was with her, (He had insisted on taking her out to Julio’s for breakfast), that didn’t seem like a good idea.
So she could only pass by him and hope that she would see him that night, but that didn’t happen, either. Again, Slick was taking up her time, insisting that they party at Club Funk for awhile. Maria had the feeling that he was trying to work his way up to the getting-laid status. Let him work. That wasn’t happening.
So she went an entire day without even speaking to Michael, hanging on to that brief glimpse of him she had caught when she had passed by him. She hadn’t realized until now how much she depended on him. Seeing him, talking to him, being with him had become the part of her life she lived for.
She got up early that next morning, took a shower and did her hair and put on some cute clothes that she hadn’t worn for quite some time. She told Slick that she was going shopping, or rather looking at things she could never have, and he volunteered to go with her.
"You don’t have to," she told him. "It wouldn’t interest you. I’ll be back, okay?"
He nodded slowly, a skeptical look on his face. "Okay."
Maria ignored the skeptical look and left the crib, making her way as quickly as she could to the borderline. She couldn’t explain it, but she had the strangest feeling that Michael would be there, waiting for her.
And he was.
"Hey," she said, smiling.
"Hey. I didn’t expect to see you here."
"Then why are you here?"
"I was hoping to see you here."
She smiled again.
"So, I, uh . . . I kinda thought that I might take you somewhere," he told her suddenly.
"Take me somewhere?" Maria echoed. "You mean, like a date?"
He shrugged. "Well, yeah, like a twisted kind of date."
She was confused. "What are you talking about, Michael? We’re not gonna go to some rodeo or something, right?"
"We’re not going to a rodeo," he reassured her. "Look, I think you might like it. Just come with me." He held out his hand, and she took it, wondering what Michael was planning now.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael couldn’t believe that he was taking Maria where he was going to take her. This really had to be the strangest kind of date anyone had ever been on. But he knew she would like this.
"Where are we going?" she kept asking him as they drove. Her curiosity was making her especially excited.
"You’ll see," he told her.
They kept driving farther and farther away from both BlackCon and Darkstreet territory. Maria gave him a confused look. "Where are we going?" she continued to ask.
Michael smiled to himself as he drove on.
Things started changing after that. The environment became cleaner. The streets became safer. The air became breathable again. Things became nicer.
"You’re taking me to the south side?" Maria observed in question. "Michael, no offense or anything, but I don’t think you have money to be hanging out in the south side right now."
"We don’t need money for where we’re going."
"Michael, I lived here. I happen to know that everything takes money."
"You sure about that?" He took a right turn and drove a little farther, finally pulling into a parking lot next to a building. A flash of familiarity crossed Maria’s features as she recognized where they were. "Michael . ." she whispered, trailing off.
He got out of the car, waiting for her to get out as well. When she sat frozen in place, he walked around to her side of the car and opened the door for her, taking her hand and helping her out. "Michael . . ." she whispered again.
When she saw the building looming in front of them that was plain as day a high school, not her high school, but a high school nonetheless, her eyes watered a little, and she smiled.
"I call it the Normal Day date," Michael told her. "I told you it was kinda twisted."
She shook her head. "No, it’s not, Michael," she said. "It’s great. It’s really great."
He started forward toward the entrance of the school, taking her with him. "How exactly do you plan on getting in here, though?" Maria asked him.
"I checked it all out yesterday," he explained. "The thing about these south side schools is they’re nice, but they have this lack of security thing that I’m planning on taking advantage of."
Maria laughed. "This really is crazy, Michael," she said. "Sneaking into a school? How many people do that?"
Michael placed his hand on the door and looked at her. "Ready?"
She nodded excitedly, and he opened the door, revealing a flood of students on the other side hurrying to their next classes.
"Just kinda lose yourself in the crowd," he instructed, "but don’t lose yourself from me."
She followed him down the hallway, taking in everything. "Look at this!" she commented. "Lockers and students and teachers! I haven’t been around any of this since I was fourteen!"
"Wanna know how long it’s been since I’ve been around it?"
She laughed and continued to follow him down the hallway. He knew knew exactly where he was going.
"Now I did a little research yesterday," he said, "and this class is supposed to have a substitute today." He opened a door to a room marked Rm: 114, and they entered inside just as the bell rang. "So this might be a good chance for us to just blend in."
Maria looked around the classroom, noticing that there were many historical pictures on the walls, along with a sign that read HISTORY IS LIFE.
They each sat down in a desk in the back of the room beside each other, getting a few weird looks from some of the other kids. Michael looked down at what Maria was wearing and realized that she had worn a shirt that showed her stomach, and in south side schools, that was strictly prohibited.
"Are they new?" someone asked quietly.
"Look at her shirt," another commented.
"Look at his hair!"
"I can’t believe this," Maria told Michael quietly. She shook her head and smiled at him. "You are crazy."
"Alright, class, my name is Mrs. Storren and I’m subbing for Mr. Collins today," the elderly woman who was supposed to pass a decent sub began. "If you would help me out with the attendance . . . Abby Boran?"
A girl in the front seat raised her hand, and Maria and Michael sunk lower in their seats. They wouldn’t be on that list, and though the possibility of that old lady noticing this was slim, it didn’t hurt to try to make themselves invisible.
When she was done taking attendance, Mrs. Storren or whatever the hell he name was instructed that the class was to read chapters eight and nine in their textbooks. Maria glanced at Michael, and before she could say anything, Mrs. Storren was asking her where her textbook was.
"Uh, I left it in my locker," Maria lied. "Is there an extra anywhere?"
Mrs. Storren searched the closet behind her and pulled out an extra textbook, motioning for Maria to come up to the front and get it. "Do you need one, too, young man?" she asked Michael. He nodded.
Maria was holding in her laughter when she heard Michael being called ‘young man’.
When they both had their books, they both pretended to read for a short time. A couple of people turned around and asked if they were new students, and Maria always answered the same. "Sorta."
It didn’t take long for the substitute to lose herself in a book and forget about the class entirely. Maria scooted her desk close enough to Michael’s so that she could lean over and whisper in his ear, "Let’s wreak havoc."
Michael gave her a confused look, and to show him what exactly it was that she meant, she leaned forward in her seat, causing her jeans to gap out in the back, revealing a large amount of skin.
"I’m not crazy," Michael whispered back. "You are."
Maria smiled and laughed softly. She was obviously feeling daring and rebellious. Maria didn’t feel like this too often, so he would have had to be crazy not to take advantage of it.
He scooted his desk even closer, placing his hand on her bare skin, letting it hover just above the line of her jeans. "You’re really crazy," he said again before plunging his hand down the back of her jeans.
Maria took in a sharp intake of air when Michael’s hand slid through her panties and made contact with her ass. This caught the attention of the girl in front of her, and she spun around, taking one look at what was going on and giving Maria a disgusted look.
As Michael’s touches grew more intense, Maria’s sounds grew louder and her laughing intensified. More and more people turned around and gave them those same disgusted looks and then immediately returned to reading the assigned chapters.
When Michael started sliding his hand around to the front, though, Maria was unable to suppress a full-out groan, catching the attention of Mrs. Storren.
"What are you two doing?" she shrieked, causing Michael to immediately remove his hand. The whole class started to laugh, and Maria turned the brightest shade of red. Michael laughed right along with the rest of them.
"To the office right now!" Mrs. Storren ordered.
Maria stood up slowly, adjusting her jeans a little, and Michael followed her. They left the classroom, and Mrs. Storren led them down the hallway in the direction of the office.
But there was no way that Michael was letting this end now. He and Maria hadn’t even made it through one class period yet.
"Hey, Mrs. Storren?" he said. "There’s something I gotta tell you." She turned around and looked him straight in the eye with an angry glare, and he had to contain his laughter. "We don’t go to this school!"
They both started laughing, and he grabbed her hand and ran with her in the opposite direction of the office, ignoring the shouting and the questions from Mrs. Storren. They ran through the gymnasium and auditorium, passing by a man who seemed like he could be the principal. Finally, they disappeared into a tiny, dark room that Michael guessed was the janitor’s closet.
"Michael, I think we’re both crazy!"
"I think you’re right!" He leaned forward and crushed his lips to hers, slipping his tongue into her mouth at once. Her hands were undoing the button on his jeans immediately, and his hands were crawling up her shirt.
"I really feel like I’m in high school," Maria said, easing Michael’s jeans down over his hips.
Before anything more could happen, the door to the janitor’s closet swung open and the man they suspected to be the principal discovered them with a look of horror on his face. Maria immediately smoothed her shirt down, and Michael pulled his pants up.
"What are you two doing?" the principal asked them. "And who are you?"
"Um . . . we’re on a date," Michael told him honestly.
"A twisted kind of date," Maria added.
The principal gave them a confused look. "Why are you at my school? What are you doing here?"
"What does it look like we’re doing?" Michael retorted.
"OUT!" the principal shouted. "GET OUT OF MY SCHOOL NOW!"
"Chill," Maria told him, slipping out of the closet. "We’ll go."
The principal forced them out, and a crowd of students in the hallway watched in confusion. Michael’s eyes caught sight of a poster he had not previously seen. It was advertising a dance that night. When they were out of earshot of the principal, he leaned down and whispered in her ear. "You know, we might just have to come back here tonight."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That afternoon, Michael took Maria to see a movie. It had been forever since she had gone to a movie theater and saw a movie. It felt so good to go again.
He took her out to eat, too, at a buffet. He really didn’t have the money to be doing all of these things, but he didn’t seem to care.
The whole afternoon, Maria kept asking herself the same question: Where did I go right?
Later that night, they went back to the same school where they had managed to wreak a lot of havoc. Security was just as nonexistent as ever, and they got in easily. They slipped past the entrance to the dance without paying, unnoticed thanks to Michael’s skills in this area.
It was dark in the gymnasium where the dance was being held, and Maria was thankful for that. Less chance of getting caught. Again.
A few students seemed to recognize them from their earlier display. They seemed about as disgusted as ever, but they said nothing.
A slow song kicked on not long into the dance, and Maria took Michael’s hands, leading him out to dance.
"I know you can dance," she told him, "so you’ve gotta dance with me."
"But Maria, slow dancing’s different than fast dancing."
"That’s right. It’s easier." She looped her arms around his neck, burrowing her fingers in his hair, and he held onto her waist. "All you have to do is kinda sway."
He held her close to him, staring into her eyes. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.
But she wanted to speak. She wanted to tell him that this had been the best day of her life, that she had loved every little thing about it, that she loved him.
"You gonna take me back here when it’s time for prom?" she joked as the song came to an end.
He smiled and kissed her softly, his lips barely brushing hers.
A fast song started up, and kids started to break it down the only way they knew how. Maria watched them and shook her head. Partying at Club Funk had taught her some moves, and these kids were in a desperate need for teaching.
"Come on," she said to Michael. "Let’s show them how to break it down."
They made their way into the center of a circle that had formed since the song started, and Maria started moving when she felt Michael’s arms wrap around her waist. The small crowd looked on in shock at the way they were dancing, but a few of the more daring ones started getting into it after awhile.
"Hey!" somebody shouted all of a sudden. A flashlight beamed down on Michael and Maria, and Maria had to squint her eyes due to it’s shine. "I thought I told you to get outta my school!"
"Great," Maria groaned. "The principal."
"I can have you put in jail for this!" he shouted over the music.
"Can he really?" Maria asked Michael.
"I don’t know. But we better not stick around to find out."
She sighed. "Fine." She followed Michael out of the school, ignoring the idle threats from the principal as they made their way over to the car.
"I was just starting to really get into it," she muttered, climbing in the passenger’s seat. "Stupid principal."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Isabel knew when Michael left early that morning with no explanation as to where he was going that he would not be coming back for a long time. He was with her, with Maria. Of that much, Isabel was sure. He was never with anyone else.
What surprised her the most was that no one else seemed to know about Michael’s affair. They didn’t even seem to have a clue.
"Isabel, what’s wrong?"
Isabel turned her head to see her brother striding through the cluttered kitchen area towards the refrigerator.
"Nothing," she said, returning to look out the window the way she had been.
"Obviously something is." Max took out a slice of cheese and ate it plain. Isabel hated cheese, and this usually would have sickened her, but she didn’t even care on this occasion.
"He’s wrong," she said. "What he’s doin’ is wrong."
Max sat down beside her. "I’m lost," he said.
Isabel sighed, exasperated. "Are you blind, Max? Can’t you see what’s going on with him?"
"With who?"
"Who the hell do you think?"
Max gave it a moment of thought. "Are you talking about Michael?"
"Yes!" Isabel shouted. "Can’t you see what he’s doing, Max?"
"I . . . I don’t know . . . I don’t know what he’s doing," Max stuttered.
"Well I do!" Isabel shouted. "I do know and . . . and that’s what’s wrong."
"What’s he doing?"
Isabel dropped her head, avoiding her brother’s questioning gaze. These really weren’t her questions to answer, but she couldn’t keep this to herself any longer. Somebody had to know.
Michael’s betrayal had to be exposed.
"He’s got someone," Isabel told him. "Some chick. Been doin’ her for awhile I suppose."
"You jealous?"
"No," Isabel lied.
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Well, why is it so wrong that Michael’s doin’ some girl?"
"‘Cause she’s the reason why he’s been so weird lately," Isabel explained. "Max, he ain’t just doin’ this girl. He’s in love with her."
A shocked expression crashed onto Max’s face. "Michael? In love?"
Isabel nodded.
"How do you know?" he asked.
"I saw ‘em," Isabel explained. "A few nights back when I came home from Club Bang. I saw ‘em up in his bedroom. He was holding her, Max. He never holds anyone. He never held me."
Max laughed a little. "I never expected Michael to be in love."
"Either did I."
"Why is he keeping it a secret from us, though?" Max asked.
"Well, that’s the thing," Isabel said. "The girl he was with was someone he probably shouldn’t have been with."
Max looked confused. He said nothing, and Isabel went on. "He was with that Maria girl from BlackCon."
"WHAT?" Max shrieked. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. Heard him say her name and everything."
Max looked completely thrown for a loop. "I can’t believe it. He betrayed us?"
Isabel nodded solemnly. "Yep. I’ve known for a few days now, but I didn’t know what to do about it."
"I know what to do about it," Max said. "We have to tell Nix and everyone else. We can’t just let this go."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
That night, Michael and Maria drove around the south side, each refusing to go home for a little while longer. They drove to the residential areas, the areas Maria missed seeing the most. Michael even offered to find her house, but Maria didn’t want that.
They parked the car by the side of the road and got out, deciding instead to walk down the deserted residential streets and catch a little fresh air while they still could.
"Look at these houses!" Maria exclaimed. "I almost forgot how big they were!"
"Wouldn’t it take you forever to clean a place like that?" Michael wondered aloud, staring at the hugest house they had encountered yet.
"Well, you just hire people to clean it for you and it’s all good," she told him. Her eyes caught sight of something in the backyard and her mouth dropped open. "No fair!" she said. "These people have a hot tub!" She looked up at Michael. "I never had a hot tub, and I always wanted one. Too bad they’ve got this fence thing up or I’d just run right back there and get in."
"Still feeling rebellious, huh?"
"Very."
She glanced toward the door of the house and walked forward. "I’ve never even been in a hot tub," she said. "It’s so unfair." She stepped up on the porch and examined the inside of the house. "I don’t think anyone’s home," she concluded.
"Maria, don’t you think that people this rich are gonna have an alarm system?"
"They probably do, but,"—She placed her hand on the doorknob and turned it, delighted to know that it was unlocked—"you don’t always have to break into a house to get to the backyard."
"You are feeling rebellious," Michael said, stepping forward. "I like it. Let’s go." He gently pushed her into the house and followed, closing the door behind him. "Are these people serious?" he asked when he was inside. "They got all this expensive shit in here and they don’t even leave their doors locked?"
"Here’s a little thing I’ve learned: Most rich people are really stupid. Now, that’s excluding me and my mom of course."
"Of course." Michael wandered off down the hallway a bit, surveying an expensive grand piano.
"Michael, we’re not here to look at pianos, we’re here to get in that hot tub," she reminded him, tugging on his arm.
"Alright, just a minute," he said, heading towards the stairs. "Lemme just look at the rest of the house first."
Maria sighed and grabbed his arm before he could make his way up the stairs. "Would you rather look at this house," she asked him, "or me, in a hot tub . . . naked?"
"Oh, forget the house!" Michael was immediately on his way back down the stairs and heading out to the backyard. "Let’s go!"
While the hot tub was filling up, Maria focused her attention on Michael. "Too many clothes," she said, slipping her hands under his shirt and bringing it up above his head, throwing it to the ground. He let her undress him, biting his bottom lip when she grabbed him through his boxers.
When he was completely unclothed, he got in the hot tub, letting the water settle around him. "Well," he said, "there’s you,"—He motioned to Maria—"and there’s a hot tub,"—He motioned to the hot tub—"so how about the naked part?"
She smiled mischievously stepping back from the hot tub a little and lifting her shirt slowly above her head. Then she slid her jeans down her legs just as slowly, torturing Michael sweetly and keeping her eyes locked with his the entire time. She unclasped her bra and let it fall to the ground and hooked her fingers in her panties, taking them off and letting them pool around her feet. She stepped out of them and over to the hot tub and to a mesmerized Michael Guerin, climbing into the warm water beside him.
"It’s hot," she commented on the water.
"Yeah it is," he agreed, but he wasn’t taking about the water.
Gradually, she found her way into his arms and began to kiss him, wrapping her legs around his hips. He trailed his hand back behind her body to cup her ass.
"I know this illegal," he said, pulling away for air, "but I really don’t give a damn."
She smiled. "It won’t be illegal tomorrow," she told him.
"It won’t?"
She shook her head. "Nope. My birthday."
"Oh, so you’ll be turning eighteen. Legal."
"Yep."
"Well, that’s good, but, you know, there is something about you being illegal that really turns me on."
"You know, I can’t be sure, but I think I’ll turn you on no matter what." She found his hardened cock in the water, placing it at her entrance.
"You know, I think you’re right."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria arrived home late that night. Slick was sprawled on the couch with a beer in his hand watching TV. When she stepped through the door, he said, "That was sure a long time to shop."
"Yeah," Maria agreed after a minute’s hesitation. She had almost forgotten that her excuse to leave had been that she was going shopping.
"See anything you like?"
"Yeah, but it’s all too expensive," she said.
"Did you have fun?"
She nodded. "Yeah, I did."
He stared at her for a long time, and she wondered if he knew. Had she made some kind of mistake? Was her shirt on inside out? Was her hair really that messed up? Was it written all over her face?
"I’m gonna go to sleep," she told him. Before he could say anything more, she headed up the stairs, eager to get out of the line of his gaze.
She encountered Liz and Alex and Kyle on the stairs. Liz was trying to walk on her injured leg and Alex and Kyle were helping her.
"Hey," Liz greeted her. "Look! I’m getting better."
"That’s great," Maria said, putting on a smile.
"Have fun shopping?"
"Yeah," Maria replied. She let her mind drift to other places, remembering the crazy sex she and Michael had experienced. "Oh, yeah," she said with a smile.
"You look happy," Liz commented.
"I am," Maria said. "Really happy."
"That’s good," her friend said. "You deserve to be happy, Maria."
"Thanks." Maria made her way up the stairs still smiling. Was it that obvious that she was that happy?
This had been the greatest day of her life, and tomorrow was promising to be another great day. Another great day with Michael. Her birthday.
It was strange. She was in a gang. She had endured many things that no one should have to endure, but she was starting to believe that she was the luckiest girl on earth.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael left the next night, too.
"Where are you going?" Isabel asked him.
"I’m gonna go shop around for a new jacket," he said, but she could tell he was lying.
"You don’t need a new jacket."
"I want one," he said.
"How long will you be?" she asked him.
He shrugged. "An hour probably. Why?"
"No reason." Now she was the one lying. There was a reason.
She watched as he left, and then she made her way upstairs to Max and Tess’s bedroom. She found them going at it and apologized, and they immediately quit. Max and Tess were the type that valued privacy. Isabel couldn’t have cared less.
"We gotta do this now," she told mainly Max.
"Do what?"
"What do you think?"
He nodded, getting it now. "Right. Are you sure?"
"Yeah, he just left."
"What if he left to meet her?"
"He didn’t," she assured him. "He said he was only gonna be gone an hour, and he’s always more than an hour when he’s with her. He wasn’t lying. I can tell when he’s lying."
Max nodded. "Alright."
"We gotta go now," Isabel incited. "We can’t waste no time."
"Okay, gather everyone up," Max said. "We’re takin’ care of this now."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The moon was out. It was so bright. If you looked long enough at it, it would seem like the sun, only in a dark sky instead of a light one.
Maria was analyzing the moon when she heard shouting from downstairs.
"THEY’RE COMING! GET THE WEAPONS! NOW!"
Maria went out into the hallway and saw people scurrying to their rooms and to closets collecting weapons. Even Liz, with her injured leg, was running to her room as best she could.
This panic could only be the result of one thing. Darkstreet. They were here.
That meant that Michael was here.
Maria almost felt . . . excited. Everyone else was probably afraid, nervous, or apprehensive . . . something along those lines. She was looking forward to it.
She could just see it now. Michael would find his way to her room. They would close the door and lock it, and while everyone else was tearing each other’s throats out, he would be making love to her.
She checked her hair in her mirror and straightened out the covers on her bed, even though they were soon to be messed up anyway. When she was satisfied with herself and with her room, she made her way downstairs slowly, avoiding all of the violence and destruction that was taking place as Darkstreet stormed their crib.
No one fought her, but whenever she passed anyone, they gave her these looks, these hateful looks. For once, they were acknowledging that she existed, in a hateful way, of course. She let it slide and concentrated on finding Michael.
She looked for him in the kitchen and living room area where most were fighting. She thought he might be fighting with Kyle, but he wasn’t.
He wasn’t anywhere. Why wasn’t he here?
"There she is, Slick!" somebody shouted suddenly. It was the voice of somebody powerful and important, and when he spoke, everyone stopped fighting.
It was Nix.
"There," he said, pointing to Maria, "is the girl you think is your bitch!"
"She is my bitch!" Slick shouted back.
Maria wanted to protest, but she was still trying to figure out why so much attention was being focused on her.
"If she is, then why is she out fuckin’ my right hand man?"
Maria felt her chest tighten. They knew. Somehow or another, they knew.
"What?" Slick looked to Maria for answers, but she didn’t give him any.
"Why don’t you tell them, Maria," another voice broke in. Isabel Evans stepped through the clutter of people slowly and took her place right in front of Maria. "Why don’t you tell them that you’re in love with Michael Guerin?"
The room fell completely silent, and all eyes scanned Maria. People shook their heads in disgust. People from BlackCon.
Maria turned and ran up the stairs, tripping over a body as she did so. She didn’t look to see what it was. She just got up and kept running.
She was almost to her room when someone reached out from behind her and pushed her to the ground.
"Think I’m gonna let you get away with this?" Isabel towered above her. "That’s my man you’re playing with. My man. Always gonna be my man."
"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Maria tried.
"Don’t give me that shit!" the other girl shouted angrily. "I saw you with him. All lovey-dovey and shit. Why . . . why did he choose you? Why did he choose a nobody?"
Maria hated that word. She hated it with every part of her being. With every sense of power she had left, she got to her feet and stared Isabel in the eye. "Fuck. You."
Isabel threw her back into her bedroom, causing her to hit the ground hard. She got up as quickly as she could, suddenly aware of how painful it was to fight.
"You shouldn’t have said that," Isabel said, "‘cause I’m really pissed now. Really, really pissed. And when I get pissed, I tend to be a little violent." She reached into her back pocket and took out a gun, turning it around several times in her hands. "Well, more than a little violent."
"You don’t have to be," Maria told her. She was feeling afraid for her life now, and all of her remaining bravado was disintegrating. "We could work this out."
"We?" Isabel laughed a fake laugh. "Honey, this isn’t about you and me. This is about BlackCon and Darkstreet and this fuckin’ betrayal that exists between us. It makes me so angry. I just wanna . . ." She trailed off and walked forward, pointing the gun at Maria. "I just wanna cause some damage, you know? You make me so damn angry! I just wanna . . ."
Before she could say more, Maria took action. She brought her leg to Isabel’s stomach, kicking her hard and sending her flying backward. The gun fell from her hand and out into the hallway.
"I dun need a gun," Isabel said, standing up. "Nice try, sweetie, but I got news for you." She punched Maria’s mirror hard, shattering half of it. She picked up a shard of glass with her now bloody hand and smiled. "Glass works just as well."
Isabel lunged at Maria and pinned her to the ground. She tore the glass through Maria’s shirt, slicing her stomach just slightly right over the place Michael had sliced it when things had been different.
"You’re just jealous!" Maria shouted. "You’re just jealous because he loves me! He loves me!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Isabel shouted. "It’s your time to die! I don’t wanna hear you talkin’!"
"He loves me!" she said again. "He loves me and I love him!"
"Shut up!"
With all of her remaining strength, Maria pushed the other girl off of her, getting to her feet and running out of the room.
"Help!" she screamed as she ran down the stairs. "Slick! Liz! Somebody! Help!"
Nobody came.
Maria tripped and fell on the second floor. She felt Isabel behind her. The girl grabbed her wrists and pulled her up so that they were face to face. "I told you, it’s your time to die!" She threw Maria backwards into somebody’s bedroom, laughing when she hit the floor with a thud.
"What is wrong with you?" Maria asked her.
"What’s wrong with me?" Isabel asked. "Honey, I’m just fine. You, however . . you could use some help. Thinkin’ that you can get away with what you was doin’. You dreamin’."
She hit her several times, causing her to cry. Isabel smiled and laughed in satisfaction. "I love this!" she shouted joyfully. "This is great!" With Maria virtually helpless, she took her time in turning over a bookshelf and then let it fall down on top of her. Maria screamed out in pain when the object hit her body.
"Michael deserves punishment," Isabel said, staring down at Maria. "Your death is just that." She smiled again, completely happy with herself, and left, closing and locking the door.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"I done good work," Isabel was saying as she made her way back down the stairs.
"Well, the fight’s tapering off, so I say we get outta here," Max suggested.
"Not yet." Apparently Isabel had one more trick up her sleeve. Max smiled, thinking about how manipulative and devious his sister could be. She was really showing Michael.
Isabel pulled a match out of her pocket and struck it as Max, Nix, Tess, and others watched. "His punishment," she said as she threw the burning match into the living room starting the couch on a small fire.
Darkstreet left. Their mission was completed.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael concealed his birthday present for Maria in his coat pocket. He’d bought her a necklace. It was a nice necklace. It said Maria on it and everything. He was sure she’d like it.
The crib was strangely silent when he got back. Everyone must be sleepin’, he thought. He stepped inside, and the eerie quiet continued. This was strange. No music or anything.
"Hello?" he called. "You guys?" He heard footsteps walking above him, and moments later, Jonathon came down the stairs with a tissue in his hand, blowing his nose.
"Where is everybody?" Michael asked him.
"They went out," Jonathon said. "I’m not feelin’ well, so I didn’t go."
"Oh," Michael said. "Well, I’m just gonna . . ."
"Find a new jacket?"
"No. Look, I think I might head back out myself, then." This was the perfect chance to see Maria again. With everybody out, they wouldn’t even know that he disappeared for a few more hours.
"Okay, see you later," Jonathon said.
Michael turned and started for the door when Jonathon’s voice stopped him dead in his tracks.
"She’s beautiful."
Michael turned around and looked at him, confused.
"Really beautiful," he said.
Michael was going to just ignore the freak completely when it hit him.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Jonathon knew.
He saw the smirk pulling on the freak’s lips, and he knew something else, too.
They all knew. They weren’t just out right now. They were . . .
Michael spun around and raced away as fast as he could in the direction of the BlackCon crib.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
His heart raced as he ran. His lungs burned.
He saw them approaching from the direction he was heading, and he charged toward them. Toward the family who now betrayed him.
They stood tall and proud. Those who were not injured stood taller than others, but they all stood proud. Nix was leading them all, and he was flanked by Max and Isabel now. They smiled when the saw Michael, and some began to laugh.
"I’ll kill you!" Michael shouted. "I’ll kill all of you!" He ran by Nix and pushed him to the ground, knocking Isabel over with him. He kept running then, unable to waste any more time.
He was only on the borderline, and he heard sounds. Sirens.
Oh, God . . .
When the BlackCon crib came into view, Michael saw what he had been afraid to see.
Flames. Bright orange and yellow flames, swirling around and around, taking everything they could find.
There were fireman working on it and paramedics standing nearby, taking anyone who needed help. People were standing around, watching the destruction take place, and some were crying.
Michael looked around for Maria. He couldn’t find her. Where was she?
He heard wailing, and he saw Liz Parker standing by a few others, crying her eyes out. He ran up to her, taking her by the shoulders. "Liz!" he said. She wouldn’t stop crying. He shook her hard. "Liz! Where’s Maria?"
"She’s . . . she’s inside!" she choked out. "She’s inside and they can’t get to her! She’s inside!"
Michael wasted no time. He spun around and rushed forward, pushing past fireman and whoever else got in his way, telling him that it wasn’t safe. He placed his jacket over himself as much as he could and ran through the front door, which was completely engulfed in flames. He felt the fire biting at his skin through his clothes, and it hurt like hell, but he made it inside, throwing his jacket on the floor and letting it burn. He crawled up the stairs, avoiding any sort of flame and ignoring the stinging sensation in his hands and arms and legs and everywhere else where the fire had touched him.
"Maria!" he shouted. He could hardly hear himself. The burning of the fire was so incredibly loud. "Maria!" He started to cough after inhaling a large amount of smoke.
Flames started to bite at his foot, and he realized that the fire was working its way up to the second floor now, too.
"Maria!" he shouted through coughs. "Maria!"
He started crawling through the second floor hallway, pounding on and opening doors. "Maria!"
Finally, he came to one that was locked. "Maria!"
"Michael!"
It was faint, but it was a reply. And it was Maria.
Michael stood up, coughing as the smoke invaded his lungs and pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. He stepped back at ran at it, but it still didn’t open. "FUCK!" he shouted. He stepped back and ran again, and this time the door crashed down.
Maria was inside, struggling to get out from under a heavy bookcase. "Michael!"
Michael grabbed onto the bookcase and struggled with it for several seconds before lifting it off of her and turning it over so it fell to the ground beside her. "Are you okay?" he asked her.
"I think," she said, struggling to sit up. She tried to put pressure on her leg and grimaced. "But my leg . . . I think it’s broken."
Michael bent down and scooped her up in his arms, cradling her against his chest. "Try not to breathe in the smoke," he instructed. "Okay?"
She nodded and buried her face in his chest as he carried her down the hallway, coughing continuously as smoke filled his own lungs.
"We have to get out," he said. "Maria, how can I get out?"
"Front door and back door."
Michael looked at the gigantic wall of flames in front of him now, separating the second and third floors from the first, separating him from the front door and from the back door. "That’s all?"
She nodded and coughed a little.
"Okay, alright," he said, trying to remain calm. He headed up to the third floor, the only floor that wasn’t burning at this time. "We’ll find another way out," he reassured both himself and her.
She shook her head. "There is no other way out."
"There’s windows," he said, carrying her into her own bedroom. "We’ll be fine." He surveyed the damage to the mirror briefly and closed the door.
He set her down by the window, holding her close to him. She clung on to him tightly, almost knocking him over, but he stayed strong for her.
"Look," he said, "they see us up here. They’re gonna use that ladder thing and get us out."
"I always liked those ladder things."
Michael tried to smile, busying himself with smoothing Maria’s hair down instead of thinking about the fire down one floor.
"How did this happen?" he asked her.
"Isabel."
"Isabel," he echoed. A small part of him had known it. "Shit." He glanced out the window, not happy with the progress they were making. How long did it take to raise a damn ladder?
She ran his hands over his skin, noticing for the first time that he had been burnt badly. "Your skin," she commented. "You’re hurt."
"I’m okay. It’s fine," he reassured her, although it honestly hurt like hell.
She looked up into his eyes, and he saw that she was crying. He ran his fingers over her cheeks, wiping away her tears. "Don’t cry," he said.
"I’m scared."
"Don’t be scared," he said. "Just think about something else. Like our away place. That’s nice, huh?"
She nodded a little, resting her head on his shoulder.
"And the carnival," he continued, keeping an eye on the happenings outside. "That was fun." Still no progress.
"And yesterday, our little visit to the south side," she added. "That was the best day of my life."
"Mine, too."
"But today isn’t," she said, "and it’s my birthday."
He ran his hands up and down her back, trying to comfort her. "Yeah, I had a present, but it was in my jacket, and my jacket’s downstairs. Sorry about that."
"It’s okay." She pulled away and looked up into his eyes, trying to contain her tears but failing. "Michael, I’m still scared."
"You don’t have to be scared," he reassured her. "We’re gonna be fine."
She shook her head. "Michael, there’s some stuff in this house that . . stuff that’s really dangerous when it’s near fire."
"It doesn’t matter," he said, although he was certain it did. "Look, just don’t think about it, alright? Think about good stuff, okay? Look, they’re comin’ up for us. Just a little bit longer, okay?"
She nodded and went back to resting her head on Michael’s shoulder, not looking out the window. Michael watched as the ladder was raised up ever so slowly. Couldn’t the damn thing go any faster than that?
"I love you, Michael."
He’d barely heard her, but he knew what she’d said.
He pulled her away from him a little so he could look into her eyes. "Why are you saying that? Why are you saying that, Maria?" he asked her.
She began to cry harder.
"Why are you saying that like you’ll never get the chance to say it again?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t.
"We have our whole lives," he told her, finding that it was hard for him to keep his own tears in check at this moment. "We have our whole lives to tell each other that. We can say that when we’re forty. We can say that when we’re eighty. Why are you saying that now?"
All at once, there was someone outside the window. Michael opened up the window quickly, momentarily letting Maria go.
"We’ve gotta go one at a time," the fireman said. "Safety precaution."
"Okay, take her," Michael said without even thinking, moving Maria over so that she was in front of the window.
"No, no!" she protested. "I’m not going without you!"
"Maria, go!" Michael said. "Just go!"
She was shaking her head in protest and saying, "No, no," over and over again, but she was allowing Michael and the fireman to help her onto the ladder.
"You’ll be safe now," the fireman told her, but even as he spoke, Maria’s eyes were fixed on Michael. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her eyes still shimmered with tears.
He could hear the flames. He could smell the smoke. He could almost feel the urgency.
"Maria," he said as the ladder started to lower. "I love you, too."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria kept her eyes locked with Michael’s as the ladder grew closer and closer to the ground. He was just standing there in that window. He didn’t even look like he was afraid.
A rush of images hit her hard and fast.
Michael, teaching her how to drive . . .
Michael, holding her while she cried . . .
Michael, swimming with her in their away place . . .
Michael, dancing with her . . .
Michael, kissing her . . .
Michael, touching her . . .
Michael, making love to her . . .
Before she knew it, she was on the ground, and the fireman was helping her away.
"He’s up there," she said. "You have to---"
A large, loud explosion cut her off. She fell to the ground, and the fireman fell beside her, shielding her body with his own. She closed her eyes, but she heard chunks of debris hitting the ground.
When she stood up, she looked up at the building to the window where Michael had been standing.
He wasn’t there. And neither was the window. And neither was the building. It was all fire.
Maria looked away, somehow knowing what they hadn’t told her yet, but not wanting to believe. She fell down on her knees and wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. Her eyes were too dry.
Michael Guerin was always the hero.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
They worked on her leg and gave her crutches. They said they would help her walk. She didn’t think anything could help her walk at this point.
The fire was gone now, and so was the building that had once served as the BlackCon crib. All that remained now was a pile of rubble and a search for survivors.
A search for Michael.
They looked for him for a long time. Maria didn’t watch them. She didn’t think she could take it if she saw . . .
"Sir, we found a body," a man was saying quietly, but not quietly enough so that Maria didn’t hear him. "Several have identified it as a Michael Guerin."
Maria closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t cry and shivered. She’d known it. A part of her had known that they would not be finding Michael in this search for survivors, but she’d been hoping they would.
She stood up, putting all of her weight on the crutches. She almost fell right back down, but she refused to. She had to be strong right now. Michael would want her to be.
Nobody came up to her and said, "I’m sorry for your loss," or anything like that, and for that much she was grateful. She couldn’t deal with that right now. Sympathy. She had to be strong. Sympathy was not strong at all.
She found Slick, Liz, Alex, Kyle, and some others sitting behind an ambulance together. When they saw Maria they all stood up, but none of them rushed forward to give her a hug or anything.
Before Liz could give Maria her sympathies, Maria spoke.
"I can’t do this anymore," she told them. "I just can’t. I quit." She turned around slowly and walked off with the crutches in the opposite direction, leaving them to think about her surrender, her white flag.
She made it all the way to the borderline ignoring the throbbing sensation in her leg. She didn’t shed one tear. She had to be strong.
She found herself making her way to their street corner without giving it much thought. She looked forward and saw a man standing there with his back to her, a tall man with dark, brown, untamed hair.
"Michael," she whispered. "Michael . . ." She threw her crutches to the ground and ran forward as fast as she could, not caring that the pain was radiating throughout her leg. Michael . . .
She grabbed onto him and turned him to face her. "Michael!" But when he turned to face her, he wasn’t Michael at all. He was someone very different.
"I’m sorry," she apologized. "I thought you were someone else." She shook her head, shaking the thoughts away. "I thought you were . . ." A single tear spilled over her cheek, followed by another and another and another until they were irrepressible. She fell to her knees with her head in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. "I’m sorry," she kept repeating over and over again. "I’m so sorry."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria DeLuca got on a bus that night. She collected money from strangers and got on a bus and rode off without even looking to see where she was going. She rode for a long time, and they finally dropped her off in some small town in Nevada. It looked nice enough.
She went inside a restaurant and applied for a job, and after explaining her situation and all that had happened in the past couple of days, the manager told her that she could have a job and a place to sleep at night for a few weeks.
She worked for a week as a waitress at a café quite similar to Julio’s, only without the violence. She never got big tips. She wasn’t as friendly as she should have been, but how was she supposed to be friendly when she was waiting tables on crutches and when the only person that mattered to her was gone?
She saw a school bus pass by one day, and a thought occurred to her. She couldn’t change what had already happened, but she could change what one day would.
This was how Maria found herself in the center of a local high school’s gymnasium on her stupid crutches with over 300 kids staring at her, wondering what this woman was going to speak about.
"This isn’t a lecture," she started. "This is my life. It’s complicated, but it didn’t have to be. I was happy when I was young. My mom and I lived in this nice house in this nice neighborhood, and I had lots of friends, and I did good in school. I was really happy. But then my mom died. I was fourteen, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I couldn’t go live with my dad ‘cause . . . well, ‘cause he’s not really a nice guy. So I ran. I ran away from home. I ran away from my happiness, and I joined a gang. I joined a gang.
"They’re called BlackCon. They’re . . . they’re not good people. Granted, there might be a couple of them who have the chance to be somebody, but the majority of them are . . . they’re dangerous. Their lives are dangerous, and by joining them, I made my life dangerous. I lived with them for three years. For three years, I wasn’t happy. I hated my life. I hated all the fights. I hated all the drinking, all the smoking. I hated it all. But most of all I hated . . I hated Darkstreet.
"Darkstreet, they’re this rival gang. Everyone from BlackCon hated them. I don’t know why. I don’t know how the rivalry between the two gangs even got started. But we were enemies. They were my enemies as far as I was concerned. I just hated the way they could intimidate me. They made me feel small. I didn’t like feeling that way.
"But then one day things changed. One person who was supposed to be the enemy wasn’t anymore. I hated him, too, at first, but I started to get to know him, and he . . . he’s really complicated. His name is . . . was Michael . . and I loved him so much. He cared about me in ways that nobody has ever cared about me before. I could tell by the way he looked at me that he cared. I don’t know why, but he did. And he helped me. I went through a lot of stuff. I started thinking that I was a horrible person. He helped me through it. He always did.
She felt tears stinging her eyes as she went on. "And he protected me. Whenever I needed him, he was there, fighting for me. Literally fighting for me. He got hurt really bad a couple of times. He got beat up. He got stabbed. But he never stopped protecting me. I know it hurt. I know he was hurting, but he was always worried about me. He always asked me if I was okay. I even told him once that . . . that he was my hero. Laugh about it if you want. I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s completely true.
"Michael changed my life. He made me happy again. I woke up every day and just thought about seeing him and being with him. He was the reason why I lived.
"But Michael isn’t living anymore. He died just last week in a fire. A fire started because of the rivalry between our two gangs. I was . . . I was in the building . . . I needed someone to help me and protect me, and of course Michael came." She started to cry. "He saved me like he always did, because he’s my hero. He saved my life but he couldn’t save his own. I’m here today and he’s not, and I don’t get that. I don’t understand it. Why didn’t he save himself? Why was I that important to him? Why did he love me?"
She wiped her eyes and tried to regain her composure. "I wish Michael and I had been a normal couple. Then he would still be here. I hate the fact that I ever got involved with BlackCon, and I hate the fact that he was a part of Darkstreet. I wish I could change things, but I can’t, so there’s really no point in wishing.
"I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love again. I mean, I’ll get married someday to some guy, some really nice, really fun guy, and I’ll have kids and be a mom, but there will never be another Michael Guerin. Ever.
"I’m not gonna ask for questions, ‘cause I think I’ve pretty much told you everything I can. But I do want you to know that I’m only eighteen. I should be in school with you guys right now, but I’m not. I never will be.
"So, that pretty much wraps it up. But remember, this isn’t a lecture. This is . . . was my life." She tried to meet the eyes of every person in the audience.
"Please don’t make it yours."
THE END
Story Notes:
Very AU with lots of character interaction and development. I have absolutely NO knowledge of what I’m writing about, so let me know how I did with some KIND feedback, okay? Thanks!
Disclaimer: Most characters are not mine, but all of the situations, conflicts, and plot twists are.
Disclaimer: Most characters are not mine, but all of the situations, conflicts, and plot twists are.