Another patron of the restaurant came walking through the door then, a girl about my age with a long blond ponytail and French-manicured nails. She was giggling into her cell phone and carrying a plastic takeout container of to-go food. I watched through the plate glass window as she walked jauntily down the sidewalk, her ponytail bobbing, so at ease, so unencumbered that it made my stomach twist into a tight, painful knot.
She disappeared around the corner, out of my view, and I turned my attention back to Caleb. “Are you saying that if I don’t help you, you’re going to arrest me?”
“I’m saying that if you don’t want to risk your entire future, if you don’t want to end up with a record because of some bad people who have somehow convinced you they’re good, then you should talk to me.”
“They haven’t convinced me of anything,” I said. Panic was rising inside of me now at the thought of being arrested. It was fucked up, but I knew exactly how the criminal justice system in this country worked. They could accuse you of whatever they wanted, and if you had no money for a good lawyer or bail, they’d scare you right into taking a plea deal.
A criminal record would follow me everywhere, would make it impossible to get a job, to start a life. I wouldn’t be able to do anything.
“It’s your choice,” Caleb said. “Please, Olivia. Don’t throw everything away for something I know you don’t believe in, something I know you don’t want to be a part of.”
You could hurt him.
The thought flashed through my mind, ugly and raw. Colt. I could hurt him. In fact, I could probably destroy him. I could go back to Loose Cannons and beg for my job back, and then I could do whatever Caleb and the FBI wanted me to do, could give them whatever information it was that they were looking for.
I could get Colt’s club shut down.
But for what?
Spite?
That had never been my style. I’d seen what spite could do to people. It changed them into alcoholics or crazies or – even worse -- damaged them so heavily that the guilt ate them alive until they were nothing more than a shell.
“Please, Olivia,” Caleb said. “I know you don’t want to sacrifice your freedom over people you don’t respect, for a place you don’t even like.”
His words hit me in the face, underscoring for the millionth time in my life how much power people with money or status had over someone like me, who had nothing and no one.
That’s not true.
You have Declan.
You’ve found him.
You can go to him.
The thought filled me with strength, and I tipped my chin into the air. “I’m not helping you.”
“Then I’ll be forced to –”
“Do what you have to do,” I said, cutting him off. My hands were curled so tightly at my sides now that my nails pressed into my flesh, and the place on my arms where I’d cut myself last night began to throb. “But leave me the hell alone.”
Then I pushed back out the door and onto the street.
I forced myself to walk slowly and not run, even though everything inside of me wanted to. I made it to the next block before I bent over and dry heaved into a garbage can, praying Caleb wasn’t watching.
A few minutes later, I boarded the city bus that would take me to Declan’s apartment complex, the adrenaline still coursing through my veins and wiring me with nervous energy. I tried not to make eye contact with the man sitting next to me, who was eating a salami sandwich and gawking at me, his eyes moving over my body lasciviously.
I wanted to get up and move, but there were only a couple of empty seats left on the bus, and they were in the back where some guys my age were spread out playing dice. They looked like the kind of guys who might be even more trouble than the man next to me.
So I bided my time, breathing a sigh of relief when man got off the bus, and relaxing even more as the houses outside began to change from broken down and ramshackle to shiny and modern.
The people on the bus began to change too, and by the time we got to Declan’s street, the bus was filled mostly with businesspeople in suits or skirts.
The bus let me off at the end of Huckleberry Street. The street was on a hill, and it rose up in front of me, twisting and turning between the two cobblestone walls that flanked it on either side. The apartment complex was modern and sprawling, with multiple brick buildings built into the hill, each building dotted with balconies that looked out across the valley.
You should have called him first, Olivia, I told myself as I took a deep breath and started up the hill. What if he’s not home?
I pushed the thoughts out of my head and trudged up the hill, scanning the buildings for number 102. They were all clearly labeled with cheerful looking brass numbers, and I felt an almost overwhelming wave of happiness rising in my chest at the thought of Declan living in such a nice place, at the thought of him getting out, of somehow being able to stop the cycle we’d both been in.
Maybe he’d have some advice on how I could do the same.
When I got to building 102, I closed my eyes for a second and wiped my palms on my jeans.
This was it.
I was about to start up the walk when a vibrating sensation came from inside my purse. My phone. Well, the phone Colt had given me. The phone you stole from him.