Page 56 of A Taste Of Truth
The outline of Dallas looms up from below, and I can see the roads and the freeways beginning to emerge. They come further into view, and then the memories come, too. My father left to bleed out in one of those fucking ally’s this guy’s talking about, and my mother dead two days later – her own life taken rather than the thought of becoming another whore for Franco Greene to play with. “Your family was no better. And I don’t even remember you.”
“You wouldn’t. I wasn’t in Dallas then, but we still ruled those streets.”
“And now what? You rule everything else too?”
“We get what we want.”
I keep looking out the window, refusing to let him see the thought that’s still passing through my mind. What does another life matter? I shouldn’t care who he is, regardless of how calm he’s been on this flight. I guess he could have raped me, or been nastier to me, or made this as impossible as Franco Greene made everyone’s life back then. He hasn’t, though. He’s been almost considerate except for the fact that he’s brought me here against my will.
The constant underling need to fight my way out of this ends up turning my head back to him, shoulders rolling a little to get me ready after this one last chance. “Why not just let me go? You could just pretend you never found me and-“
“It’s too late for that. He already knows we’re on our way home.”
“Well, fuck it then.”
I’m up and scrambling over to him before he knows what’s happening, my hand yanking at his jacket and the other reaching for the gun. He snatches at me, trying to get me off him and onto the ground. That’s not happening today. I’ve got one chance at this, and I’m taking it.
Pain ricochets through my head as he tears on my hair and his body turns, but my legs are clamped around his body so tightly he hasn’t got a hope of getting me off. I brace as he gets up, a loud shout coming out of me as he barges me against the side of the cabin repeatedly. I don’t care, and my own nails rip across his face to show it.
He lurches and growls, enough anger in the noise that I barely see the move that sends me crashing over his shoulder and down to the floor. Either way, the fact that I’m tumbling makes little difference to anything. The metal is in my grip and the moment I land hard against one of the chairs, I spin and point it at him coming for me. It’s all so fast, though. He’s in my face and shoving the gun sideways, his hands working like lightening to point it anywhere but at him.
A shot fires out of the gun in the scuffle, the sound clear and present as it shatters something close by. His surprise gives me the second of time I need to turn, launch, and spin back on him. The eyes widen in my vision, bright, vivid green and fear soaked, like Tommy’s were all that time ago. It makes as little difference to me now as it did then, but he’s just too fast, and too strong.
I’m thrown sideways somehow, the gun kicked out of my hands viciously, and before I know it its quiet again but for the sound of my panting. I kick my feet backwards to get away from him, tears rolling down my cheeks from the pent up anger. That was my shot at finishing this, or at least getting away before a Greene decided to take another Contreas life. I wanted blood – wanted pain and blood to soak up this pristine carpet and all this pretence at perfect around me.
Too late.
It’s over now.
He straightens his clothes and glares at me shaking in the corner of the plane. What was relatively well mannered and decent considering his family, is now a towering wall of hostility and aggression. I shrink back further, scared, lost, and now damn close to finding a way to kill myself because I will not be a plaything for the likes of him. Malachi Jones and his games are one thing, but this past that’s found me again is another entirely.
All I’ve got is hope now.
Hope and memories that he might come for me.
That I might really mean something.
That he’ll save me like I was trying to save him.