Blood to Dust (41 page)

“Tell me something beautiful,” his lips speak into mine. This time, I don’t have to search my brain for an answer. No words written by someone else can do us justice.

“Us,” I rasp. “We’re beautiful and ugly and broken. . .and whole.”

Four days later, the police finally come to terms with the fact that they aren’t getting anything from us. “Snitches are bitches,” Nate whispered to my neck when they first arrived in his hospital room. I stick to my story that a bunch of teenagers in beanies cornered us in an alleyway, stabbed Nate, cut my finger out when I didn’t want to give them my bag and ran away with our money. We’re just two tourists from America who want to go home and lick our wounds. It’s a crazy lie no one believes, but you can’t force the truth out of people. Especially people like us.

A week later, we’re free. Me sans a finger, Nate with a new, fresh scar on his stomach. Simon hit a spot that’s already heavily covered in ink. His “tainted” side, as Nate calls it. The scar will not be visible under the steampunk clock scribbled on his stomach.

Time.

Our whole lives are ahead of us now.

I need to live mine in memory of my loving brother, who couldn’t handle hearing how much I suffered at the hands of monsters. In memory of my mother, who went crazy with grief. And with Nate in mind. For all the time he lost in prison. While being Godrey’s do-boy. But he’s not a memory. He’s my future.

We walk into the tube station hand in hand, taking the train back to our room to get our stuff and move into a hotel that can better accommodate our new, fragile situation.

The missing finger bothers me; it feels unnatural to do the simplest things, from flipping pages in a book to browsing the touch screen of my phone or even making coffee.

I pluck a free copy of the Metro from a stack of newspapers before getting into the subway, my mind begging for a distraction. We walk the length of the platform silently before I freeze. Camden’s face is smiling back at me from the first page, hugging a beautiful young woman who looks like some kind of a ginger princess. “The Wedding is On!” The headline celebrates. My knees buckle and nausea slams into me once again.

Nate’s nostrils flare and he grabs the paper, balling it in his fist and throwing it behind his shoulder without looking back.

Our train arrives, and he finds himself dragging me inside. This was a bitter reminder of my defeat. This man raped me, killed my brother and ruined my life, and he walked away free of punishment. What’s more, he bribed me with money, and I took it. Because I’m a coward. Because I’m a loser. Because I’m the very lowlife he treated me as. A part of me wants to chase after him, screw the money, and kill him. But a bigger part knows I value my second chance with Nate too much to fuck it up again.

“Camden is still alive. We lost,” I tell Nate, resting my head against the blue seat of the subway and moving my palm across my face

“No, Baby-Cakes.” He pulls my head to his shoulder. “We survived.”

Even the hookers don’t look so down and depressed around here.

Not a surprise, considering they live in a place called Nice. It is nice. More than nice, actually. Sprawled over the French Riviera, this city offers yummy ice cream, a beach with little pebbles—the kind that heat under the warmth of the sun and massage your feet when you walk on them—and yachts. Beautiful, gorgeous yachts you can stare at for hours at the promenade. Across the street, prostitutes stand and wait to be called for by tourists.

Stinking wealth against unbearable poverty.

Flashy against degrading.

They all live here, under the same sun and stars. Strong and weak. Takers and givers. Just like in the US. Just like everywhere else.

But here, I’m not a giver. I’m not a weak one. I’m a fresh, clean face.

I like the little tram that passes through this beautiful city, the street dancers who come out every night, making a show in front of dozens of tourists, and the main street restaurants.

Nice is not nice. Nice is perfect.

There was a lot of debate about where we wanted to live after we got out of the hospital.

We received the suitcase stuffed with cash a few hours after we left the hospital—Camden sent one of his dirty workers to hand it over—and checked into the Ritz. Nate and I called room service, asking for someone to get us a map of Europe and tipped the bellboy fifty quid for his trouble. We spread the map flat over the giant bed, eating greasy pizza and slurping cold beer as we debated the question of where we should live.

In the end, we have shortlisted two places: Spain and France.

I wanted to go to Barcelona. Nate to Cannes.

We drifted off to sleep, still bickering about things like climate and healthcare. Neither of us really gave too much of a damn at this point, we were so high on being with each other, alive and well, and so low on not killing Camden, that nothing else mattered.

At around five a.m. one early morning, Nate woke me up the good old-fashioned way, by licking the length of me underneath the sheets. His huge body bulged out of the covers above me, making it look like I was suffering from the biggest morning wood in history. Sucking hard on my clit, making warm waves wash under my navel, he groaned into me.

“I bought us two tickets to Nice, France. Nice has your name on it.”

“It does?” I moaned, spreading my legs wide to grant him more access. His teeth rubbed against my pussy, creating delicious friction that made my nipples hard and sensitive.

“I did some reading about France while you were waking the dead with your snoring.” His voice was muffled as he spoke into my pussy. The fact that I was moaning loudly didn’t help, either.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Did you know, Cockburn, that the Bay of Nice was named after a miracle that happened in the third century? There was a young Christian woman who was arrested for her faith in Palestine, just across the Mediterranean. Her torturers did everything they could to convert her faith, but she stood her ground.”

“Tough lady.” I felt my thighs quivering against his head uncontrollably, my limbs turning into jelly. Oh, God. So close.

“She reminds me of a little storm I know. When her torturers realized that she wouldn’t cave, they beheaded her. As was the custom after such an execution, her body was put on a raft and sent across the sea.”

“Assholes.” I threw the covers off of his body, my fingers twisting in his hair. I rode his face with my eyes shut, feeling my mouth watering with pleasure.

“They, too, remind me of some people we know. Logic dictates that her body should’ve been desecrated by seagulls. Logic dictates that her beautiful head wouldn’t have made it past Greece before it would have rotted under the sun. But logic doesn’t live where there’s love. The myth is, angels took over her raft and guided it across the Mediterranean all the way to the Bay of Nice. Her body arrived pristine and untouched. A miracle, stronger than the circumstances and the sea.”

I came hard against his lips. My angel wanted to take me to the French Riviera. I wasn’t going to argue. I’d follow him to the stairs of heaven or the pits of hell.
Doesn’t matter where we go, I’ll always enjoy the ride.

“The young woman became a martyr, Saint Reparata, the patron of saint of the Cathedral in old Nice,” he said as his face rose up from below to meet mine, his lips glistening with my passion for him. I placed a soft kiss against the hot flesh of his neck.

“What happened to the angels?” My voice was hoarse with sleep.

“They named the bay after them,” he whispered. “But the angels aren’t the point. They didn’t give two shits about the glory. All they ever wanted was to see the girl through her journey and give her peace.”

“I love you so much.” I clasped his face, noting that the space where my missing finger once was, was starting to heal. I survived the world’s greatest torture under the arms of powerful men, but it was this broke guy from Stockton who managed to snatch my heart and soul, and I know that he is the only person who can ever break me.

I also know that he never would.

“My martyr, my storm, my passion. . .” He kissed every inch of my face. “My Cockburn,” he finished on a rumbling laugh.

I hugged him, his cheek against mine as I inhaled his unique scent.

“No, seriously. My cock fucking burns. I need to shoot a load. Spread your legs, Country Club.”

I smile at my neighbor from across the hallway. We live in an antique building on Rue Segurane, close enough to everything we care about. The gardens, shops, restaurants and promenade. Chris and I take long walks every evening and drink our coffee every morning on our balcony overlooking the jade Mediterranean Sea.

“Bonjour, Mademoiselle Cockburn.” Auralie, my old, friendly neighbor doesn’t even bother locking her door after she closes it silently, so as not to wake up the young students who party all night down the hall. I smile back and nod, bending down to pet her old Yorkshire terrier. Despite her friendliness, Auralie, like the rest of my neighbors, refuses to communicate in English. Not because she doesn’t speak it. She’s knows it fluently, I suspect. It’s a matter of principle.

“
Ç
a va?” her sweet voice enquires. She always speaks extra slowly for Chris and me. We’re still learning, and if I may add—we’re terrible students so far.

“
Jamais mieux.” My lips smack. Never better.
Never
.

I skip down the stairs like a giddy four-year-old on Christmas morning, sticking my earbuds in
, La Valse D’Amelie
providing a soundtrack to this beautiful summer day.

All my favorites. Recreated, with
him
.

My gift waits for me one block from where we live, and I can’t wait to unwrap whatever it is that he’s wearing. Holding my long, yellow summer dress just above my ankles so I won’t trip over it, I charge to one of the places I call home nowadays.

Throwing the door to the coffee shop open, I thunder into our place. We called it
Le Journal Rouge
. The Red Diary. We bought it because it looked like crap, but inside, was a soul in the form of a library with hundreds and hundreds of books. In English, French and Spanish. In Hebrew, Mandarin and Arabic. Tourists come here and tuck their favorite books into our shelves like it’s the Western Wall, their wish is to immortalize their love for their favorite novels. Here, we share beautiful words and heartbreaking art.

Customers love sitting here between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. when everything else is closed for the afternoon rest. They drink our terrible coffee and read our wonderful books.

My boyfriend lifts his eyes from the coffee machine and bangs the filter holder into the trash. He wipes the steam wand clean with a dishcloth then throws it over his shoulder. Leaning forward, his elbows resting on the counter, he takes my hands in his. People look at him weirdly here in Nice. He stands out even more, with his size and sinister tattoos. He doesn’t care. He never did.

“What can I get you?” My palms disappear inside his and he brings them to his lips, planting kisses all over my knuckles, halting a few more seconds on the one without a finger.

“Do I look too demure in this dress to say something crude like ‘your eleven inch dick’?” I giggle into the yellow strap of my dress.

“Yes, you do,” he confirms, looking around like he is searching for someone. It’s early in the morning, hence why the shop is busy as hell. There are a lot of people sitting around on the sofas and barstools, sipping coffee and eating pastries. “Meet me in the restroom in two minutes.”

I don’t ask questions. I don’t even want to know how he is planning to neglect his station as the barista. What I do know is that the quickie we had this morning is not going to cut it. I need more of him, now.

“Now less talking, more showing me that fine ass as it walks its way to the restroom. Move it, Cockburn.”