Chapter 74

 

“Sorry I took so long…”

Jumping apart, Troy and I spun to look at Quinton standing in the door.

Glancing down at the floor, Quinton cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“I was afraid you were packing to move in permanently.” I tried for a light playful tone, but failed miserably with my shaking voice.

Quinton looked from me to his brother and then back to me again. “Uh, I could come back in a bit…”

“No, I need to get back.” Troy gave me a quick once over and then moved over quickly to the door. “Call if you need me.”

He was out the door so fast neither of us had a chance to say anything. Setting his bag on the floor, Quinton looked at the closed door and sighed. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important.”

Did he? I wasn’t sure. “You didn’t. We were just talking.”

I avoided the doubting look he gave me and moved out to the kitchen. Chances of there being any sort of food was slim to pretty much never, I knew, but looking in empty cupboards was a great way to avoid having to talk about any of his brothers. “We’re going to have to get some groceries, or …” I opened the small freezer on the top of the fridge, “we’ll be on an ice cube diet.”

A chuckle came from behind me. “It’s all taken care of. Raf is going to bring us at least one good meal a day while we’re here.”

I can’t even describe how happy that made me. Turning around, I squinted at him. “Didn’t trust the food on my side?”

“Actually, I’ve had some pretty tasty things when I’ve been here lately, but Mitz cornered me when I was coming out of my room.” He shrugged. “When she offered, I wasn’t going to offend her and say no.”

I paused for a moment to check out how much of the small doorway he filled, which brought the next thought, where was I going to put him to sleep? My couch was what they called a three quarters size, meaning there was no way he was going to fit on it. “Can’t have an offended Mitz,” I finally replied.

“So, are we staying in tonight?” He looked around slowly, the look of hesitation on his face.

I tried not to grin. “I need to go check up on someone.” I hoped he would blend in a little better than Troy had when we’d gone to the club looking for Wanda.

Relief filled his face. “Lead the way.”

Going over to the closet, I reached in a grabbed my knife off the shelf. Strapping the leg strap to my ankle, I tucked it in and pulled my pant leg down. When I turned around he was grinning. “What?”

With the silly grin still on his face, he pulled his pant leg up to show me the knife strapped to his.

I went over and opened the door. “Just goes to show we’re both smart.” Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I dialed Crissy. If she didn’t answer it could turn out to be a long night tracking her down, the girl had no definite home address and randomly picked one hidden location after another to call home for no more than a week at a time.

I couldn’t even begin to explain Crissy, she was either the most screwed up person I know or a friggin genius that knew things the rest of us wouldn’t be able to live with. I’d met her about five years ago, when she was trapped in an alley with a bunch of punks harassing her. I persuaded the pukes to back off and leave her alone. For the record, I didn’t mean to break that one guy’s nose.

Since that day, we had spent a lot of time together, I’d even managed to get her to stay at my place a few times. There were times she seemed perfectly normal, then other times not so much. She could see things, or this is what she told me, I’d never been able to substantiate any of these things though. Each to their own, right?

Unfortunately, she had a knack for being in the wrong place at the worst possible time. At least ten times I’d had to go to her rescue when she found herself in some kind of predicament that would scar most people for life. Gang wars, robberies, hostage situations and trapped in automated buildings during power outages to name a few. For this reason, I always followed my gut feelings when I felt I needed to check up on her. It usually meant something was up.

After trying the third time, I was ready to give up and start going to every odd place I’d found her in the past, then my phone rang and her number came up. “Criss, I was just starting to worry.”

“Daxx,” she whispered into the phone.

I stopped walking, knowing that tone all too well. Quinton almost walked right over me. “What’s wrong?”

“There are so many of them now. I don’t know what happened to change the balance but I am freaked out totally and I just don’t think I can do this anymore.”

I could barely hear her by the end of the sentence. “Criss, hold the phone near your mouth.” I constantly had to remind her of this. “Where are you?”

I could hear rustling and had to wonder where the hell she was crawling into this time. “I stopped by the club earlier, thought maybe you would be around. You’ve been missing a lot lately, Daxx.” More rustling, like paper being crinkled. “I couldn’t take it tonight. So many…”

“Crissy. Where are you?”

Quinton now stood in front of me and the concern on his face reflected what I was feeling.

“Safe for now. No one sane would look for me here.” She giggled.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to stay calm, having learned a long time ago that if you raised your voice to her, she shut down. “I thought maybe we could hang at my place. I have so much to tell you about what’s going on.”

“Ohh, you know, don’t you? That’s why you’ve been hiding too.”

I looked up into the deep brown eyes glaring at me to hurry up and tell him what was going on. “I haven’t been hiding, I’ve been away.”

“Where did you go? Somewhere…” She stopped talking and I couldn’t hear any sounds for several seconds. “Daxx, could you maybe find a few minutes to come and get me? I think they’re looking for me.”

I cursed to myself. “Happy too. Where are you?”

“The recycling dumpster behind the old fish place.”

I knew I shouldn’t be surprised, but she had managed to do it to me again. “Stay exactly where you are, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Okay. Bye.”

She hung up before I could say anything else. Nodding down the street, I looked up at Quinton. “We need to hurry.” I started walking, knowing he wouldn’t have any problems keeping up to me.

“Who was on the phone?”

“A friend.” I was close to jogging and he didn’t even look like he was walking fast, some things just weren’t fair. “She’s a little unusual, but harmless.” I didn’t know if that was even the right word to describe her.

“Is she in trouble?”

I grinned. “Crissy is always in trouble, without even doing anything.” As I picked up the pace, I hoped that this time it was just one of her paranoid problems and not a real one. My plate was already close to over-flowing, I didn’t know if I had time for anything else.