Page 54 of Atlas
“I don’t know it. But I can take you to his place.”
I knock gently on Rue’s apartment door. She opens it a second later looking flustered. She smiles, blowing a few strands of hair from her face. “Hey.” She opens the door wider for me to go inside.
The apartment is small, but she’s made it into a cosy living space with fancy cushions and fairy lights. “Nice place.”
“It’s not much but it’s all mine and I love it.”
She points to a door, and we head through into a small kitchen where a table is set up in the centre. I take a seat, and she goes to the cooker and stirs something in a pan on the hob. “You can cook,” I state with a smile.
“My mum was a good teacher.”
“You and Kasey have different mums?” I ask.
She nods. “Same dad, unfortunately. I was the result of a brief relationship between Mum and Kasey’s dad, Frank. Kasey came a few years after.”
“Do you still see him?” I ask.
“Not if I can help it,” she says, offering a small smile. “He was different when Mum first met him. Worked in a decent joband was generally a functioning adult. He started doing extra shifts to support her, even though they weren’t together. To get through the late nights he started taking cocaine. After that he went downhill. Lost his jobs, couldn’t pay Mum any money. He went off radar for a long time, and when he popped back up, he had Kasey. Her mum had done a runner and left him with the two-year-old. He couldn’t cope.”
“So, your mum stepped in?”
“She helped where she could, but she was barely getting by. She passed when I was thirteen. I went to live with him for a few years and helped raise Kasey.”
“I’m sorry,” I almost whisper. “That must have been tough.”
“My mum was my world,” she admits. “I don’t know how many times I prayed to God to take my dad instead and bring her back to me.”
“It’s a cruel world.”
“Anyway, as soon as I had enough money, I left. He wouldn’t let me take Kase, by then he was using her to make his own cash. But she came to stay regularly.”
“How did you get involved with the club?” I ask.
She smiles, lifting the pan from the hob and placing it in the centre of the table. “I’m a math whizz,” she says with a hint of pride. “I was fourteen and did the books for a few of the businesses.”
“Fourteen!”
She laughs. “Tank, Axel’s dad, was good to me. He gave me cash in hand and knew I needed it to get away from my dad. He never asked too many questions.”
“I’ve been in this club for years and I don’t remember you.”
“You think he was stupid enough to let me round his men?”
I laugh. “Good point.”
She takes my bowl and begins to ladle a chunky soup into it. “What about you?”
“Me?”
She replaces my bowl and fills her own. “Family?”
“The club is my family. I don’t have blood relatives.”
“None?”
I shake my head. “But I’m good with that. I have all I need at the club.”
She sits and picks up her spoon. “I hope you like it,” she says, nodding to my bowl.
