Page 7 of Going Dark

I can admit to being shocked. Hell, maybe I'm in shock and that is why all of this seems so surreal. I knew Alex...no, Ace, I can't really call him Alex anymore. He isn't the same boy that left this neighborhood, pulled my pigtails, and beat up neighbor boys for me because they called me 'a girl' in one of those tones. It has become blindingly obvious that I don't know who this man is anymore.

I was aware that Ace had a violent career; any solider has to be prepared to not only handle that violence but meet it head-on at any given time. I understand this. I just didn't understand how...hands on it would be. I guess I always assumed that he would be sitting in an airplane shooting at people like on a video game. I never really stopped and thought about him having to know how to kill someone with his bare hands - face to face.

Since the police came and his friend, Jim, kind of took over he hasn't left my side. The Sheriff wanted to take both of us downtown and talk to us separately. It was settled that we would all go across the street to my house because it wasn't shot all to hell with dead bodies everywhere. The Sheriff wasn't thrilled. He doesn't like Ace very much. From the beginning, you could tell by the way he was talking to him it was going to be a pissing contest. The guy even referred to Ace as 'flyboy'. I think his exact words were something along the lines of him knowing how 'flyboys' like Ace operated, bringing bad things to the people who love them, tearing up towns, and flying off into the sunset like nothing ever happened.

A small part of me agreed with the Sheriff so I kept my mouth shut. I couldn't tell if the guy was talking about me or Ace's mom when he was referring to the people that love him. I tried to maintain a certain distance but Ace wasn't having it. By the end of the conversation Ace had told the guy he was just jealous because his fat ass couldn't fit into a plane and made a bigger target to hit from above and I wound up in his lap.

In fact, I kept my mouth shut pretty much the entire time. As soon as the blue and red lights hit the room Jim looked at me and told me not to say anything. So I didn't. Every question they asked me I would either let Jim or Ace answer. And didn't that just piss the Sheriff off. Good enough that he threatened to arrest me for aiding and abetting a murderer, which I assume he was talking about Ace and not the other guys.

That had three large, pissed off men growling the room quiet. Ace actually moved me off his lap so he could stand in front of me while Jim and the dark mother fucker who just recently took his helmet off and seems to be Jim's shadow also steps in front of me. Some words were said and then Jim and the big guy took the Sheriff outside I haven't seen any of them since. I think they might have killed him. I wouldn't be sad about it. He's a dick.

"Baby," Ace doesn't put me in his lap again but comes to sit beside me. "I really wish you would say something. I'm freaking out a little bit that you aren't saying anything."

A high, strained laugh jerks out of me. He's freaking out about me not talking but not the ten men he killed that are littering his mom's shot-up house. At the sound of my laugh, he takes my face in his hands and forces me to look at him. I try to pull away from him but he won't let me.

"Don't pull away from me, Evie." I go still. I'm not afraid of him. Neither one of the people he is, Alex or Ace, doesn't scare me. I stop because the way he says it is dark and dangerous and I feel my body reacting in ways it shouldn't. Scary ways.

We both hear Jim come back into the room and I want to thank him. I know from watching and from being around Ace that if these men don't want you to hear them coming you won't, so the fact that he made noise to alert us was a kindness. I push Ace's hands down and seeing Jim he finally lets me. But he doesn't let me go. He turns my hold on his wrists so somehow he ends up holding one of my hands in his.

Jim sits on the other side of my coffee table and gives me a kind smile but I'm not fooled. This man may seem kind and concerned but he's even darker than Ace and the big, scary bastard in the corner. The fact that he can give the illusion of a soft, gentle man is way scarier than the other two in the room who aren't trying to hide it.

"I can tell you don't trust me, Miss Spencer." Greenish blue eyes assess me like a big cat watches a mouse.

"Should I?" I wrap my blanket tighter around me. It's itchy but I don't have one fuck to give. Its purpose is not so much to keep me warm and comfortable as it is to hide me and keep what is happening inside where it is mine to deal with.

Jim's lips quirk up at the tips. "Ace does."

"And I'm still waiting for you to give me a reason for me to trust you when I'm not even sure if I trust him."

That gets me a dry laugh and a head nod. I've never felt like something so small in my life. This guy is going to eat me but first, he is going to tear me to bits. After he's done playing with me.

"That's not entirely true is it now, Miss Spencer? A woman like you doesn't shoot a person dead for a man she doesn't trust. Does she?"

Holy shit, this guy sees right through me. I mean he is picking up on things in my head I lie to even myself about. Ace is off the couch and giving Jim some weird hand signal that makes Jim stand up and follow him out, leaving me in the room with tall, dark, and I-can-kill-you-with-my-eye-lasers. Every man who has come through my door tonight has been carrying big, gnarly-looking guns; except for this guy. He handed his off to one of the other men. Probably because he wants to kill someone with his bare hands and bullets are too quick and easy. This guy looks like he thinks of death as an art form and he's fucking Picasso.

Jim and Ace finally come back in and I swear the guy hasn't blinked the entire time they were gone. Jim carries a file under his arm when he comes back and takes his seat in front of me again. Ace doesn't sit but stands right beside of me.

"Ms. Spencer, I'm afraid we need your help. I know you care for Ace, that he's been a friend of yours for a long time, and the men who came tonight aren't going to stop. We need your help to catch them."

He's being too soft-spoken again, trying to mollycoddle me into getting me to do what he wants.

"Why don't you just cut the bullshit and tell me what it is you think I need to do for you."

Jim looks over at Ace and again the two men silently communicate. I wonder if it's where they have been together for so long or if they're that close because of the situations they've been in together. Jim finally smacks the folder on the table and opens it. Inside are pictures of three men that he lays out on the table.

"These men were in my team. They were under my protection. They're all dead." He spreads more pictures out and I can see men lying on the ground, bloody, with bullet wounds in them, most in the head. I shove those back under the ones of the three men alive. I'm not stupid. He doesn't have to tell me someone is killing men from his team and Ace was on some list. The pile of dead guys and the rain of bullets kind of gave it away.

"I thought Ace retired. Does this have something to do with his past? Someone from his past?"

"Hell if I know. Technically we are all 'retired'. The team was officially dissolved and my men went back to the lives they left." He pauses to look at the men in the pictures too. "Then two days ago someone came to kill me."

"I'm guessing that ended like Ace's ended since you're here talking to me."

"I never let my guard down. Once you've honed that particular skill it never goes away. It just so happens that the men who came didn't realize that and it cost them their lives but two of my men's who were not as alert. One of them had a family who was also killed. A wife and daughter. All dead in a matter of seconds."

"I'm not sure what I can do to help you. I don't know anything about these men and I didn't see anything so...," I spread my hands to show him I have nothing that will help him.

Jim's eyes flit to Ace's. His hand, warm and strong, moves to my shoulder. "They have my phone Evie." The way he says it sounds so solemn but I don't understand why it is so important that the bad guys have his phone unless it is about his mom and sister.

---