Page 34 of Flash (Iron Thunder MC 2)
“I taught a few classes as a substitute teacher in the local elementary school. That way, I was picking up credits for my course and earning a bit too. In the evenings, I waitressed. One of us had to earn the money to keep the house running. Very quickly, I realized it wasn’t going to be Billy.”
“But you didn’t want to leave him.” His voice was almost an accusation.
“I couldn’t. I was too…weak. I just wanted to give him a chance.”
Flash clenched his jaws tightly, like he was beginning to lose his patience.
“It had been several months of this. Billy earning nothing and me working extra hours and picking up extra shifts so we could make ends meet. He was just more interested in drinking.”
“Was he violent? Did he hurt you?”
“Yes. Sometimes. When he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. I got into the habit of just locking myself in the bathroom when he returned home in the early hours of the morning. We had a nice bathtub and I slept in it while he slept in our bed.”
Flash shifted in his chair. He didn’t like where this story was going, but he had to hear it. He wanted to hear it.
“One day, it was a Sunday, I had a few hours free in the morning because one of my sub jobs got cancelled,” I continued. “I decided to clean up around the house because lately I hadn’t had the time for that. I found a…a shoebox…in the wardrobe. I’d never seen it before.”
Flash was focused on me. He was studying every inch of my movements, my facial expressions, everything.
“What was in the shoebox, Allegra?” he asked. His voice was deep and sombre. Almost like he already knew what I was about to say.
“Drugs. There were drugs in there. A quantity of drugs I’d never seen before. I was so scared when I saw it. I panicked. I couldn’t think. I didn’t want to believe it was Billy who put it there.”
I looked up at Flash. I was pleading with him to believe me. I wanted him to understand the kind of person I’d been before I left town and went on the run. I was naïve, and I was stupid, a girl who made silly decisions.
“So what did you do? Did you confront Billy?”
“No. I was so afraid. I wanted to get rid of it. I just didn’t want those drugs in my house. So I…I…flushed them down the toilet. I wasn’t thinking.”
I expected Flash to be surprised, to say something. But he didn’t. He just sat there in silence, watching me. Like this was exactly what he would have expected me to do. I stared at him in silence for a moment and then decided to continue.
“I called him after that.”
“Billy?”
“Billy.”
Flash let out a deep grunt and rubbed a hand over his face. He knew that me flushing away the drugs was the wrong move to make. But I didn’t know that. Not back then.
“And what did he say?”
“He was hysterical. He was so angry, and a little afraid, I think. I told him I panicked and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t thinking. I demanded to know if the drugs were his. I thought maybe…maybe he still cared about me and he would tell me everything, and we could work through it together.”
“And what did he do?”
“He returned to the house, mad with rage. He was flinging things. Breaking things. He slapped me right across the face so hard that it stung for hours.” I thought I would choke on the words, but I didn’t. Those scenes were playing like flashbacks in my head. Back then I was scared. I had never been more afraid in my life. I thought Billy would kill me. But now I was enraged. I couldn’t believe I let a man treat me like that.
Flash stood up from his chair with a jerk.
“I’m going to kill him,” he growled.
“That wasn’t all. He said I owed him now.”
“Owed him?”
“Yeah. Ten grand. He said he was holding the drugs for someone else and I would have to pay it up. I didn’t have ten thousand dollars. I barely had a few hundred.”
Now the tears pricked my eyelids. I wrung my hands together while Flash paced around in the kitchen in silence.
“He threatened my family, said he would hurt everyone. He said he’d hurt me or worse if I didn’t get him the money.”
“So you ran?”
“It was the only thing I could do. I just left that night. Packed a few things in a bag and got in my car and never looked back. But I knew he was chasing me. It’s been almost a year I’ve been on the run and he’s come close so many times.”
Flash stopped pacing. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen and staring at me now. There was a fire in his eyes. If I were Billy, I would be afraid right now. I’d run for my life.
