Page 65 of One
I shook my head to get rid of some of the sleepiness when my eyes landed on the cup of water Ally and I had drunk from. Did Boogie drink from it too? I took a deep breath as I tried to remember, and I growled when I realized he didn’t. I grabbed the glass to smell it, but it didn’t smell like anything, and that'swhen I saw the faint amount of something at the bottom of the glass.
This motherfucker fucking drugged us.
I grabbed my sweats as adrenaline helped clear some of my drowsiness. Ally had drunk most of it, and I got the remnants of it, so all I needed was some water and a meal to flush some of it out. I grabbed one of the Gatorades, drinking most of it, wishing we had leftover food to eat, but the Gatorade would help a little.
Once I was dressed, I went to the rooms we had in the basement, where Sarah said she saw him, and hoped that's where he had taken Ally. I didn’t know what the hell he was doing, but if he hadn’t told me and drugged me, then he was doing something really fucking stupid.
It was almost nighttime when I walked down to the basement, and it was eerily quiet. Maybe he didn’t bring her here? If he took her somewhere, I was fucked because I had no way to track them and if Boogie wanted to disappear, he could in a heartbeat. I slowly went down the stairs when I heard his voice.
It was soft and calm as he talked, but no one responded. If it was just him and Ally, then that would make sense, but what the hell was he doing down here with her. The only thing down here was his?—
I couldn’t even finish that thought as I ran down, not caring if he heard me. The rest of the drowsiness left as I rushed, still a little clumsy. His torture room was down here along with the room where he cut people up and if he had done either of those things to her—well I don’t know what I’d do. Did that mean he had really lost it, did we finally lose Boogie to his madness?
I rounded the corner to see him closing a door, and I felt relief and dread at the same time.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I snarled.
Boogie sighed, leaning his head against the door. “Keeping her safe.”
“By hurting her?” I growled, walking up to him, ready to hit him when I noticed Ally in the room, sleeping. “Drugging her?”
Then it all made sense. The disappearing, Sarah saying he was down here and his half-truths up in the room. I knew the asshole was keeping something from me.
“It’s a small price to pay for her safety.” He shrugged like we were talking about the damn weather.
“Fuck, Boogie.” I ran my hand through my hair, now everything was making sense. “She’s going to be pissed.”
“I know, but she will be safe,” he said again, as he slid down the wall onto his ass, looking exhausted.
“Boogie, we can’t do this to her,” I said, looking through the small window at her. “She’s going to hate us.”
“It’s just a few days while we find the assholes and then we can let her go back to Christmas Town.”
“You know they will keep coming after her until her empire is established or until she’s dead,” I sighed, leaning on the wall opposite him and sliding down to the floor too. “She’s a woman, hell, the Mayor went through the same thing.”
“The triplets will come back, and we will keep them with her,” he said, as if he had all the answers. “Plus, the Mayor has an entire family behind her, we will be that family behind Ally.”
“No one fucked with her while they were with her,” I agreed. “But what happens when they have to leave again? Do we lock her up? You know she hates to rely on us. She wants to do this on her own, we said we would let her do this on her own.”
“One of us stays with her.” He glared at me. “Whose side are you on?”
“That's not feasible, you know?—”
“Then we make it work!” he snarled. “We don’t have another choice because I will not go through this again. I will not go through another minute thinking she is fucking dead! If she dies,King… I won’t fucking survive it,” he groaned so gutturally, my heart ached.
“If either of you dies, what does that mean?” I growled, hurt that he would leave me.
Boogie looked away from me. “If we constantly have to defend her, we?—”
“Our job requires us to constantly put our lives on the line,” I clipped.
“You minimize those risks every day,” he snapped.
“Yeah, because I can’t lose you either!” I yelled, flinching and wondering if I might have woken her up.
“She is stubborn, both of you are so fucking stubborn, and this is the way it’s going to go. Each time we get hit like this, it’s a chance I lose either of you and I’m not going to be gambling either of your lives, so don’t ask me to,” he growled.
He stood up quickly, walking away from me without a backwards glance. I took a deep breath, standing up as I glanced at Ally. I clenched my jaw at the memory of the gunshot, and watching her fall backwards. Her fiery hair was everywhere. We didn’t know if she had been shot in the head or in the chest. Those fifteen to twenty seconds were the worst, and the agony was something that might haunt me forever.
