His eyes were blank, unflinching in the face of my—potentially unreasonable—fury. “I can’t,” he answered, his voice flat.
“You can’t what?”
He ran his hand over his smooth head in frustration, turning to regard the sea. “Give you a reason. Sense. I fucking got none. All I know is that this”—he turned so he could gesture between us like I did—“isn’t fantasy. It’s reality. Because it’s not nice and easy and good. If it was good, I wouldn’t be a man who knew what life looked like leaving a man’s body, to be the one taking that. And you wouldn’t have darkness behind your eyes, track marks on your arms, and a job that took a little of your fuckin’ soul every time you took your clothes off.” He stepped forward so he could clutch my neck in his hand. “It’s not good. But it’s reality, and it’s inescapable. I don’t fuckin’ want to escape it, no matter how difficult this shit is. I don’t want to escape. I want to save you.”
His words punctured me. Struck me dumb, and I didn’t know which of my raw emotions would win its race to the top.
Anger won.
Which was good.
Safer.
“You brought me here to save me?” I asked shrilly, yanking from his grasp.
“I took you here for you to save yourself. I’ll do anything I can to help with that.”
I let that bounce off me. “Well, you’re twenty-three years too late, buddy,” I said, my voice like ice. “You think it’s just a little drug addiction that damages the image of whoever the fuck you see out of those baby browns?” I laughed. “Yeah, tip of the iceberg. See, I was born damaged. I’ll die that way, and everything in between is gonna make sure I stay that way. I don’t pity myself. There are kids in Africa who have to drink poisoned water and who most likely won’t make it to their twenties. Being abandoned at birth and bounced around from shitty to shittier foster homes isn’t exactly the worst thing that could have happened.” I swallowed. “It could have been worse.” I chased away the memory of the creaking of the door in the darkness and the horrors that happened after the door creaked shut again and the darkness settled deeper into my soul. “I was the one who picked up that needle, I know that. That’s on me. I was the one stupid enough to overdose, and I’ll take all that.” I leveled my gaze at him. “What I won’t take is some perpetually happy biker spiriting me away for God knows why trying to make me better when he has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.”
Lucky’s jaw was granite and not an ounce of humor lurked behind his eyes. It was unnerving, and I found myself almost regretting my monologue. I opened my mouth to do something I didn’t have much experience in doing—apologize.
He beat me to it.
“You know why I’m called Lucky?” he asked.
“’Cause you always win at bingo?” I retorted sarcastically.
“Because the first time I ever shot a gun, it plowed through the skull of some guy in a rival crew. Luckiest shot my homies had ever seen,” he explained in a flat voice. “I was twelve.”
I gaped at him. At the transformation of his attractive face. The strength was still there, but everything else was stripped away and I saw what he’d been hiding, what I hadn’t even made an attempt to see. His demons. His damage.
“Didn’t exactly grow up in suburbia, Becky,” he continued. “I spent the first thirteen years of my life in an area of East LA where you either get a crew or roll the dice with your life.” He paused, eyes far away. “I got a crew. Thought I was hot shit, fuckin’ invincible. The big man with the weight of a gun in my trousers when I hadn’t even shaved.” He shook his head. “Was a stupid fucking kid. My momma hated it, but she couldn’t do much. She was working two jobs to put food on the table, trying to raise my two little sisters and control my wild older one. She loved me, which meant she hated what she knew I was going to turn into. I loved her too. My little sisters. Alexis, despite the fact she got into trouble every time she left the house. Which was exactly why I picked up the piece in the first place. I loved them and knew I needed to protect them. I was the man of the house since my dad was facing life in prison after he fucked up a burglary, shot a cop.” He paused again. “Dad wasn’t a bad guy either, at least not what I remember of him. Just made some fucked-up choices and panicked at the wrong time. He told me before he died that he saw the face of that cop every time he closed his eyes. I didn’t understand it at the time. Not until I earned my nickname and took my first life.” He stared at me, unblinking. “Not until I closed my eyes that night and saw that kid’s face for that night and every fuckin’ night since. Though, he’s not the only face I see.” He swallowed visibly, his fists clenching at his sides.