Early Sins (Dangerous Games Book 0) Page 3

  Thinking about how you look like a fucking male model in jeans and a fucking shirt.

  “I thought we were done.” She coughed as she rolled to her side and tried to recover, his voice low and patient as he towered above her.

  “You’re better than this. Now, up. Again. I haven’t called an end.”

  Camille lay out on the ground for a moment, the frigid sky above New York swollen with gray clouds that captured the light pollution, not a star in sight. Her head was pounding, her forearms felt caked in bruises, she knew her hands were scraped and bleeding, and her elbows probably were too beneath the black shirt. She had been nothing more than a network of bruises and scrapes for months, but in the beginning he’d always given her time to regroup, to breathe – she didn’t get that courtesy anymore.

  Smith pulled his leg back to deliver a kick and she rolled to her side, blocking with her arms, before snagging his foot and yanking him with her as she flipped to the other side. She heard him hit the ground and sat up, slamming her elbow into the knee joint. A low hiss of pain was Smith’s only reaction as his other leg came up and over her, wrapping across her neck and shoulders to slam her back to the ground. With a sharp twist to her wrist he broke her hold on his leg and laid back, hyper extending her into an arm bar that made her shout in pain. “FUCK!”

  “Tell me what you did wrong.”

  “Shit, Smith, my -”

  “What. Did. You. Do. Wrong.” His voice was iron, and she couldn’t suppress the tears any longer as the pain spread up to her shoulder. Everything hurt. Everything always hurt.

  It’s for a reason. Don’t forget the goal. There are people that have to die.

  “I took my eyes off you.”

  “Yes. You did. What else?”

  “I didn’t get away from you once I had you on the ground.” He stretched her arm a little more, the pain increasing until a high-pitched whine escaped between her teeth.

  “And why should you always get away?”

  “Because I won’t win if I’m not smart.”

  Smith muttered something to her right and she craned her head to meet his steady eyes. The bastard was barely breathing hard. “Because?”

  “Because no matter how fast I am, or how well you train me, a man will always be stronger than I am, and if I let them get me on the ground I might as well kiss my ass goodbye.” Camille kept the pain off her face, counting in her head to distract from it. An old method, but fuck it, it worked.

  “That’s right.” He released her and rolled backwards to get to his feet. “Now we’re done.”

  “Fine.” She slowly pulled her arm in, not rushing the strained tendons and muscles, but at least the mid-30s temps of January would dull the ache soon enough.

  “I don’t matter, C. No one matters but you. You have to get that through your head.”

  “Right. No friends. No family. I know the spiel. Having people you care about just gives people power over you.” Camille sat up, and he stared down at her, his expression placid even though his cheeks were flushed from their sparring session, and a smear of blood marred the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m included in that, C.”

  “Oh, trust me, I don’t give a shit about you.” Liar liar.

  “Good, then you’re one step closer.” He offered his hand, but she refused to take it. Forcing herself off the ground with what counted as her good arm for the moment.

  “To what?”

  “To being ready.”

  “Fuck you, Smith.” Camille stomped towards her bag, and she heard him sigh heavily behind her. When he muttered under his breath again she rounded on him. “You know I’m fucking ready. You know I am.”

  “You’re not ready yet.”

  “You keep saying that!” She growled and shoved her hands into her white blonde hair, ruining the ponytail, clenching her fists at the roots as if she could hold her rage in check through physical means. “When am I going to be ready? Huh? I knocked out two clips into the target at 12 yards yesterday. Center mass. I run five miles a fucking day. I can put your ninja-ass on the ground, even if you do it to me ten times more often. You said -”

  “I said you would be ready when I told you that you were.” Smith brushed her off, and headed towards his own bag by the rooftop door.

  “I’m ready now.”

  “No. You’re not.” He tugged a towel from his bag and mopped his face with it, pressing it to the corner of his mouth. “Your temper is still your biggest weakness, C. You let it blind you, distract you. When you’re after a target it doesn’t matter if you hate them or feel nothing for them. It doesn’t matter if they get a good hit in, it doesn’t matter if you embarrass yourself and fall flat on your ass. All that matters at the end is who is dead, and who is alive.”

  Dammit.

  “I’m going to Bill’s.” Yanking her hoodie out of the backpack she pulled it over her head before the sweat cooling on her skin made her start shivering.

  “Bill isn’t going to serve you.” The soft laughter in his voice made her blood boil, but she shut her mouth tight so she didn’t prove him right about her temper.

  Again.

  “Whatever, Smith.” Camille grabbed her knife and tucked it into the pouch at the front of her hoodie before zipping the pack shut and swinging it onto her aching shoulder.

  “You know I have to leave in the morning.”

  “Right. Another job you won’t take me on.” She rolled her eyes and grabbed the handle to the door, but Smith slammed his hand on the metal and held it closed.

  “It’s almost midnight. Just come down to the room -”

  “No.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw, and she stared at it, monitoring the rest of his controlled expression for any other tells, any other sign of emotion from him, but after a moment even his jaw relaxed. “Fine, I’ll wait up for you.”

  “No need.” Pulling hard on the door she cracked it open and Smith stepped back and released it, letting her into the stairwell. Camille hated that a part of her wanted him to come after her, wanted him to do something more than just stare at her, but as the door creaked shut behind her she knew he wouldn’t.

  Her misguided infatuation with Smith was painfully one-sided, but she’d grown used to it. Too many months of the man making sure they had two beds in every hotel they moved to. Changing locations every two weeks like clockwork. Making sure she ate, slept, worked out, trained. Stayed focused, so she could walk his path some day. Whenever he decided she was ready.

  Smith killed people for a living. He was a hired gun, a hitman, an assassin. He wasn’t shy about it, and as far as she could tell he’d never lied to her. If he didn’t want to answer her, he simply didn’t. But he had told her little things about himself, when they were in a hotel with only the TV to fill the space, or when they were out to dinner. Little tidbits here and there. Favorite foods, places he’d been, pet peeves, movies he enjoyed, tiny things that filled in the pieces of an ever more complicated picture of him.

  On the other hand, Camille lied to him constantly. And they both knew it. Sometimes he called her on it, sometimes his mouth would just twitch, and he would change the subject. The only question he continuously asked, and she continuously avoided, was why she’d stumbled into Bill’s bar for a gun those many months before.

  Joe Wilson.

  The name was like bile in the back of her throat even though she hadn’t actually spoken it aloud. His face flashed inside her mind like a nightmare, and she slammed her sore knuckles into the wall as she turned the last flight of stairs.

  Yeah, she needed a drink. For the sore muscles, for the memories threatening to surface even as she started to sing in her head to drown them out, and to distract her from the vision of Smith walking across the rooftop like some physically perfect specter of death.

  “Diet Coke?” Miranda asked as Camille slid into the chair Smith usually occupied. Back to the wall, clear view of the door. Best seat in the house, planted just under the glowing Albatross B
rewing sign.

  “Vodka.”

  “Bill told me not to -”

  “God dammit!” Camille stood up and marched to the bar where the man was busy pouring a draft for some asshole. “Bill!”

  “No, C.”

  “Just pour me some vodka, or hand me the fucking bottle and I’ll do it myself.” One of the men stepping up to the bar nudged her and she nudged him back with her shoulder, not giving up her spot.

  “Smith told me no. So, no.” Bill turned around, his shaggy gray hair a ragged, thinning mop atop his head, with the scruff of a shave three days too late coating his cheeks. Tired brown eyes met hers as he slid a beer across the bar to a customer. “You want to drink here, you can have soda, or water. On the house.”

  “Fuck you, Bill. I want vodka. With lime.”

  “I said no.” He dropped his hands on his hips, and maybe when he was a younger guy he had been formidable, but what had once been a six-pack was now more of a keg at his midsection.

  “Fine.” She pushed back from the bar, too tired from the sparring session to waste time arguing. “I’ll just go somewhere else. I know I can find someone who will buy me a drink.”

  That had never been a challenge.

  Turning on her heel she headed directly for the door. She heard Bill shout something behind her, an edge of panic in his voice, but she ignored him. She needed a fucking drink. Or five.

  Just then Derrick, the bouncer, stepped in front of her and blocked her path as he pointed back over her shoulder. “Bill wants you to stay.”

  “Bill doesn’t get to tell me what to do. Get out of my fucking way.”

  “What are you going to do little girl? Just turn -” Before Derrick could finish speaking she slammed the heel of her hand into the tender place just below his sternum, turned and nailed his kidney with an elbow shot, and then kicked him behind the knee to send him to the floor. He collapsed into a crouch, groaning and breathing funny. The guy was easily twice her size, but she’d put him on the ground in a matter of seconds.

  Fuck Smith, he didn’t know what she was capable of.

  She looked over her shoulder to see Bill pushing his way through the other patrons who were casting glances her way, or blatantly staring, and she paused with her hand on the door as he started yelling.

  “C! Jesus Christ! Sit your ass down and stop making a fucking scene.” He turned and waved at the other patrons, most of them regulars. “All of you get back to your drinks, dammit, I’m too old for this shit!”

  “I’m not here to drink soda,” Camille said as he got closer.

  “If you will sit your ass down, and promise not to run off and do something stupid enough to make Smith want to shoot me, I’ll get you a fucking vodka.”

  “With lime.”

  “Fuck, fine, with lime. Go. Now. Back to your table.” He was a little out of breath, and Derrick climbed off the floor to return to his stool, cursing under his breath at her as he rubbed his side. Bill shook his head. “I swear, why he took a live wire like you under his wing, I’ll never understand.”

  “Keep the vodka coming and I’ll play nice all night, Bill. I won’t even put your bouncer on the ground again.” She smiled at him as she walked back to the Albatross Brewing sign.

  “Fuck off, C,” Derrick called after her, and she raised her middle finger over her shoulder.

  Bill followed her, muttering curses. “You know, I could just call Smith. Tell him where you are, what you’re asking for.”

  “He knows exactly where I am, and are you sure you want to bother Smith?” Camille met Bill’s eyes, letting a small smirk lift the edges of her lips as she kept her gaze steady. With anyone else in the world she’d flash some skin, flirt, play the dumb blonde, but with Bill it was always better to play the Smith card. He was scared of Smith, hell, most people who had met him were scared of Smith. He walked around like he owned the world and didn’t give a shit that he did. No one questioned him, no one challenged him, and Bill definitely didn’t want to call him. Regardless of the bullshit order Smith had left with him.

  “If he gets pissed off, you’re taking the fucking heat for it.” Bill pointed at the chair she slid into. “Stay right there. I’ll call you a taxi when you’re ready to go, and don’t touch anyone else.”

  She shrugged and sat back, noticing the random glances of people as they eyed up the tiny blonde girl who had just kicked the bouncer’s ass.

  That’s right, fuckers, don’t mess with me.

  A rush of bravado thrummed through her veins at their reactions, just as Joe Wilson’s image flashed in her head again, turning the feeling sour even though she pictured firing round after round into his face. Too many bad memories. She cradled her head in her hands, trying to picture something else, anything else.

  “Derrick wouldn’t have hurt you, you know.” Miranda set the vodka down in front of her a little harder than necessary, a bit of it slopping over the side onto the scarred wood of the table. She raised her eyes to the young waitress, her dark hair bound in a high ponytail.

  “That was his second mistake, Miranda, the first was trying to stop me.” Camille took a drink from the glass, reveling in the way the burn slid down her throat to bottom out in her stomach. “If he was smart, he would have just let me walk out.”

  “Bill says he’ll serve you, no need to be a bitch about it.”

  Camille laughed quietly and leaned back, setting the glass back on the table. “Look, Derrick asked me what I was going to do about him stopping me. I showed him. If that makes me a bitch, I guess I am.” She lifted the glass and poured the rest of it down her throat. “I’d like another vodka. With lime this time.”

  “I like you better when Smith is around, he keeps you in check.” She huffed under her breath. “I don’t know what the fuck made you so angry at the world, but you need to chill the fuck out.” Miranda rolled her eyes and scooped the glass off the table to head back to the bar and get her a refill.

  Clenching her fists under the table Camille dug her nails into her palms, trying her best to stay calm, to let the vodka work its magic in her bloodstream. If Miranda knew even half the shit that she was angry about, she’d run from the fucking bar. She’d leave the fucking city. The East Coast. But soon there would be one less reason to be angry, one more ragged piece of shit cleared from the earth.

  The next glass of vodka appeared, with a lime, at the edge of the table, but this time Miranda kept walking.

  ‘Good,’ Camille thought to herself as she pulled the full glass towards her.

  No friends. No one to miss you if you disappeared. Those were the rules, and Smith’s voice was a constant companion. All his little lessons playing on a loop inside her skull, but he was right. She didn’t need friends. She needed another three or four glasses of vodka, and then she needed to pour herself in a taxi so that when she finally got back to the hotel she’d be too drunk to pick another argument with Smith, too drunk to think about Joe Wilson or any of the others. Hopefully too drunk to dream.

  Bill was pissed two hours later as he helped her into the taxi, barely glancing at her, and shouting at the cabbie that he better take her straight to where she was staying. Then he’d made her say the address, and say it again, and then he’d handed the man cash and slammed the door. When she finally stumbled back inside the hotel she was assaulted by the noise in the lobby – a collection of tourists talking too loud, drunk and shouting over each other. Fuckers. Shifting her backpack higher on her shoulder she marched straight to the elevator and released a breath when the doors closed her in with the silence.

  It took her more than a few tries to get her room key in the door, but it finally worked and she almost fell into the room. Shit. Maybe she’d had too much.

  She dropped her pack on the floor and leaned against the wall, waiting for the world to stop tilting to and fro like a carnival ride.

  “C?” The rumble of Smith’s voice came from the bedroom area, and then he appeared in the half-light from the window. Dark ha
ir mussed, t-shirt rumpled, soft black pants hung sinfully low across his hips.

  “Go back to bed.”

  “You’re drunk.” He growled and rubbed at the back of his neck. “I told Bill not to serve you.”

  “He and I had a conversation.” Camille could hear the slur in her voice, and she wanted to stand on her own feet to face him, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to stand up straight.

  “I swear, C, if you hurt Bill -”

  “Not Bill. Derrick. The bouncer.” She waved a hand at him as his expression darkened. “He’s fine, I barely touched him. He tried to tell me I couldn’t leave.”

  “Where exactly were you planning to go?”

  “A different bar.”

  “To do what?”

  “Get drinks the old fashioned way.”

  A flash of anger moved over Smith’s features, and she was sure it was only because she’d woken him up that he’d let that much surface. “You promised me you wouldn’t do that anymore.”

  “I didn’t say I was going to go into the alley with some guy, I said I was going to get a drink out of one of them. I can do that without sucking someone’s dick.”

  “Jesus, C…” He sighed and pushed off the frame of the bedroom door, dropping heavily into a chair by the little table. “Do you have to be so vulgar?”

  “Don’t be a pussy, Smith.” Her stomach twisted around the alcohol and the complete lack of food. She should have at least snagged a protein bar before pouring that much vodka down her throat.

  “You act like this and you wonder why I say you’re not ready for a job.”

  “Fuck you.” She stepped off the wall and had to steady her balance before she pointed at him. “You don’t know shit about the life I’ve lived, you don’t know shit about just how prepared I am.”

  “Acting like this isn’t helping your case.”

  “Go back to bed.” Camille spat, and before he could respond she spun on her heel and half-stumbled into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. The light buzzed on to reveal the clean space, cluttered only by their few hygienic items, but the sterile nature of it was not a balm to her anger. It boiled under her skin, making her tense for action that there was no outlet for. The lingering grime of sweat still coated her so she flipped the shower on to warm it up, the water sputtering before it picked up a steady flow.