Huh. She stood back, her blinds snapping into place. Alone on a Friday night. That must be a first for him.
She stood there for some moments, listening. It was silent on the other side of the wall. She tossed back her wine, then moved into the kitchen and poured herself a third glass. Or was it a fourth?
Shrugging, she set the bottle down on the counter with a satisfying clink. She wasn’t going anywhere. If she wanted to get soused in the privacy of her own home, then that was her right. She had tomorrow to sleep in, after all, and all afternoon to recover before her date with Brendan.
EIGHT
North woke up sweating with a curse on his lips. Sitting up, he swallowed his gasps and ran a hand through the loose strands of his hair.
He dragged his hand down his face to his chest, stopping directly over his heart. He pressed his palm there, where it pounded with frenzy beneath his perspiring skin. Moments like this reminded him of before. Of all those nights in his cell. Sometimes he’d wake to the sounds of men crying, being beaten or assaulted. His cellmate was neither friend nor enemy, but the same couldn’t be said for everyone else. For other inmates, nights were the worst. The longest. When the strong preyed on the weak.
He lifted his hand from his pounding chest and dragged it over his face. He should be over this shit by now. He wasn’t locked up inside there anymore. He didn’t have to look over his shoulder. He didn’t have to stand silent witness as others were broken.
His breathing gradually slowed and evened. He shifted on his bed, the mattress creaking slightly. The sheet slid low on his hips, rasping against his skin.
He slept naked. That was the luxury of being a free man. He could sleep naked. Walk around naked. Eat leftovers in front of his fridge buck-ass naked. Walk in his backyard and stare at the moon without a stitch on if he wanted. He had the freedom and privacy to do whatever he desired in the confines of his own property. So why the fuck did he still have nightmares?
Suddenly his bedroom felt claustrophobic. After flinging the covers back, he rose from the bed and walked downstairs. The nightmares were the same in that they always varied.
Sometimes it was Katie, sobbing, wild-eyed and shell-shocked in her ripped-up dress. Sometimes he was with Knox and they were beating on Mason Leary, North’s knuckles stinging and covered in blood. That was a common-enough nightmare. Leary under him, taking his punches and blows, but then the bastard would transform into someone else. Often it was Katie. Sometimes it was his brother. Sometimes North himself.
Other times he dreamed of the riot at the prison—the one that nearly killed him and left his face cut up. At the time, he’d thought he would die in that riot. The swell of writhing bodies had been like a storm around him and he thought surely it was the end. But it hadn’t been. He’d survived.
Scarred, but not dead.
The worst days actually came after the riot. Knox was gone; paroled. Reid, the leader of their crew, escaped Devil’s Rock, abandoning North, too.
The crew he ran with was weaker, more vulnerable to the other gangs in the prison. It was a testing period, to see how North and the remnants of Reid’s crew could stand up to attacks without Reid or Knox. North had survived. At a price. There was always a price.
He pulled open his fridge and grabbed a beer. Shutting the door, he turned and headed out back. After opening the back door, he stepped outside into the night. Dry air crackled around him as he walked through the yard, indifferent to the sensation of his bare feet crunching over dry grass. A slight wind stirred his hair and rolled over his exposed skin. He took a long pull on his beer. With a sigh, he stretched his neck muscles and looked up at the night, at the blanket of darkness studded with stars. He’d never seen a view like this from his prison cell. He was always shut in before dark fell.
He stood there, slowly nursing his beer, enjoying the sensation of air moving over his body. Freedom. As close as he could get anyway.
Gradually a prickly sensation worked up his spine. He knew better than to ignore it. Paying attention to that sensation had kept him from getting shanked in prison. He wouldn’t ignore it now even situated in the seeming safety of Small Town, USA.
He turned slowly on his bare heels, his sweating beer clutched in one hand as he surveyed his yard. He missed nothing in the flat expanse of grass—he probably needed to mow again—or in the quiet slats of fence boards staring back at him. His gaze drifted upward, scanning his house and then drifting over to his neighbor’s house.
That’s when he saw it. Not it. Her. Faith.
He watched her outline standing in the upstairs bedroom window. The blinds were open and she was backlit from a source of light somewhere in her house. Again, he couldn’t make out her features, just the long shape of her.