Adler (The Henchmen MC 14)

It felt like forever since I had been in my own bed. Sure, it wasn't some luxury mattress, but at least I knew there weren't any cumstains on it, any creepy crawlers lurking, any mysterious smells in the fabric.

That was the life I chose, one on the road. It was a life I was good at too.

But sometimes, you missed a little normalcy. The Chinese food place you knew would be decent. The right water pressure that actually got the shampoo out of your hair. The familiar sounds on the street below. The same channels on the TV.

It had been a while since I was home for more than a couple days put together.

And even securing this paycheck wasn't going to send me home for some R&R.

No.

This paycheck meant I would have to hit the road again.

To find other scumbags.

Ones that I wouldn't be paid to find.

Ones that had proved more difficult to locate than the schmucks Geoff threw my way when everyone else failed.

But after that, maybe I could take a week off. Catch up on some shows. Pretend to be a telemarketer. Maybe I'd even cook my own meals for a change. It'd been a while.

It would be nice to just be a person for a bit.

Not a bounty hunter.

Not a woman on a mission.

Just a person.

That'd be nice.

"Christ," I groaned, throwing my forearm over my eyes.

Since when did I want to be normal?

That wasn't me.

Not for a long time.

Not since I was sixteen.

Not since my world was turned on its axis.

Not since I became someone new.

Someone who thrived on late nights, early mornings, adrenaline, caffeine, the chase, the catch, the thrill of taking a fuckhead off the streets, being a part of putting them in cages where they belonged.

I had no use for normal.

Normal was for other people. People who didn't know the ugly in the world, who weren't intimately acquainted with it, who hadn't rolled around in the muck of it. Both willingly and un.

People like me, we didn't get normal.

We got crazy, chaotic, unpredictable, and - to an extent - unfulfilling.

So we found out little ways to make it count.

Me and my bad guys.

It was as close to satisfied as a girl like me got.

There was a knock at my door, making me sigh, trying to shake out of the doom and gloom in my head, something I wasn't often prone to wallowing in.

"Wrong room," I called, hoping they'd just piss off so I could... what? Continue being a Debbie Downer all by myself?

"Let me in, duchess. My sink is dripping. It's drivin' me fuckin' insane."

"You've been in the room all of ten minutes, and you're losing it already?" I asked, folding up.

"Got a short fuse with annoyin' shite. Let me in. I come bearing mini bottles of liquor."

"You know the way to a girl's heart," I declared, moving across the room to slide the lock, pulling open the door to Adler, four mini bottles dangling between his fingers.

"Fuck," he hissed, head angling upward like he was looking for some kind of patience from a higher power. "Ya always go walkin' around like that?"

"Pretty much," I agreed, taking a step back, the cold air making me nip like crazy, something painfully obvious through nothing but the lightly ribbed material of my white wifebeater.

"I've been livin' across the street from that not knowing this very vital piece of information."

"Less talking, more twisting bottle caps off," I demanded, pretending not to be affected by the words even if an odd fluttering sensation moved across my belly.

"That ass should never be covered up," he informed me as he followed me into my room. I could feel his eyes glued there, my plain black panties being of the cheeky variety, doing little to cover up anything other than the vital bits.

"I know. It's a crime we have to wear pants," I agreed, reaching out for the Johnnie he held out.

"That a tattoo?" he asked, eyes pinned to my inner forearm, previously hidden by my shirtsleeve.

I looked down at it, something that had been etched into my flesh since the day I turned eighteen.

Five bullets.

"How come only three are colored in?" I shrugged it off, hoping he imagined it was just an aesthetic thing. "Ya got any more? Can I check?" he asked, eyes lit up.

"Sorry to burst your bubble. It's the only one I got," I informed him as I took my whiskey, seeing the scars criss-crossing his hands and fingers almost skin-tone with age.

I had a scar on my leg from a tree branch snagging my leg a decade ago that was still whitish. How old could he have been when he got those? Surely barely more than a kid.

What kind of kid had scars like that?

Fighting scars.

"You have any?"

"Yep."

"You gonna show me?" I asked, clinking my bottle to his before taking a sip.