All For 1

  I don't have a name, just a number.

  1.

  A single slash across a keyboard.

  1.

  That's the number of people I know that are worth dying for.

  1.

  The total number of women I've ever loved.

  1.

  The number of weeks I have left to save her.

  All for 1

  All for 1 © C.M. Stunich 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  The For information address Sarian Royal Indie Publishing, 89365 Old Mohawk Rd, Springfield, OR 97478.

  www.cmstunich.com

  Cover art and design © Amanda Carroll and Sarian Royal

  The The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, businesses, or locales is coincidental and is not intended by the author.

  this one is dedicated to The One.

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  This was never supposed to happen.

  I was never supposed to have a heart. I was never supposed to fall for a broken girl under a bridge, a girl soaked in rain and blood. I was never supposed to fall in love.

  I was made a monster for a reason. Love is weakness. Love is the crack in the glass, the tiny sliver that compromises the entire pane. I shouldn't have looked twice at the huddled lump curled on the gravel.

  For whatever reason, I paused that day and I glanced over at her, at this pathetic sobbing creature wrapped in a gray blanket. Her eyes were like dying embers, but her tears were like ice, chilling me to my core.

  Against every instinct in me, I went to her, knelt down. My boots were loud against the gravel as I put a knee to the wet dirt and reached out a hand. My fingers against the side of her face made her shiver and shake, but she leaned into my touch anyway, melted into my hand.

  “Can you help me?” she asked, her voice a rough whisper against chapped lips. My first response was to tell her the truth. I am 1, and I wasn't made to help anybody.

  Instead, I felt myself lean towards her, her breath feathering against my face for a brief instant before our mouths connected. For a split-second, I felt like I was in a dream. But then I remembered that my life consisted solely of nightmares.

  The girl opened her mouth up to me, let me slide my tongue against hers as I moved my hand back to cup her head, fingers tangling in the brunette fall of her hair. It was then, rain falling down around us, dripping between cracks in the wood of the old covered bridge, that the blanket fell open and I saw the blood. I smelled it right away, of course. Maybe that was why I'd stopped to look at her? But no. In my world, blood wasn't a rarity or a surprise, it was inevitable.

  “Help me,” she whispered again, reaching her hands down to my pants and popping the button. I should've stopped her, pushed her away, but I was transfixed. Cracked. Shattered. A broken window.

  Because of some girl whose name I didn't even know.

  I have no name, just a number. I am 1. A single stroke on a keyboard. I'm not worth the time to type anymore than that. A code. A tool. I was made to be used.

  I let the girl unzip my pants, slide her hand down my rigid cock and pull me to her.

  “Help me,” she said again, more forcefully this time, those dying embers in her eyes fanning to flames. “Please.” I kissed her again—hard—and pushed her back. She spread her legs spread wide as I pushed her skirt up, slid my dick into her waiting wetness. Drenched in rain and blood, I fucked a girl I just met under a bridge in the middle of nowhere.

  And then I got up and left. Took care of her crimes. Took care of her behind the scenes for three years before the one and only thing I'd ever been afraid of happened. Her name. My list.

  Her blood. My hands.

  Every night before I fall asleep, I see those icy tears in my mind and I pray to whoever will listen that I'll find a way to save her.

  9:26 a.m.

  My name is Cyrah Alessa Crouse, but it wasn't always. Once upon a time, I was called Rebecca. I try to forget sometimes, but on the darkest nights, I remember. I remember red, lots of red. Blood. There are four significant moments in my life that are stained with red. There's only one of them that I like to remember.

  I unlock the door to my apartment as quickly as I can. This isn't the best part of town, and girls have been known to disappear in the halls of this building. Poof. Gone. Vanished. Never heard from again.

  As soon as the door is closed and locked, locked, locked, I make my way over to the fridge to unload my groceries. If it wasn't for food stamps, I'd go hungry, but at least in this area of my life, things are good. Thriving even. Raw food is cheap, especially when it's not organic, when it's all GMO and covered in pesticides, shipped up from Mexico or something. At least I know how to cook. That's something I'm good at, really, really, really good at. My mom was this harsh little German woman who taught me to make schweinebraten with sauerkraut, and my dad was this big burly dude from South Africa who made chakalaka and pap.

  Oh yeah. I can cook.

  That's why when there's a kitten-soft knock at my door, I don't flinch. I know who that is, but I check the peephole anyway and scan the hallway behind my friend, just in case. If I lived in the Pearl District or Healy Heights, I wouldn't be so worried. But I don't. And neither does Anouk Meijer.

  “I knew you'd be here as soon as you saw I had groceries,” I tell her as she sweeps past me and I shut the door again. Lock, lock, lock. Three locks and sometimes I wake up at night sweating because it might not be enough one day. I'd get a dog, but my landlord's an ignorant butthole who thinks all poor people are dog fighters or animal abusers or hoarders or something.

  Anouk and me, though, we're just unlucky and unloved.

  “Cassie stole my EBT card and left on Friday night to party with her boyfriend.” Anouk shrugs her shoulders, her blonde hair dyed a vibrant red today. She changes it all the time, like once a week or something. Mixes the dye up from Kool-Aid packets she gets at the church food drives. Today's color, though, I'm not such a big fan of. Maybe it's because it reminds me of blood? I hate blood. Hate it, hate it, hate it.

  I try to pretend that the color doesn't have any special meaning for me, like I don't care at all.

  “You look like a strawberry shortcake in that dress,” I tell her, gesturing at the pale beige baby doll she's got on. With the bright red hair, the whipped cream white of her skin and the cake brown outfit, it's kind of funny. Anouk smiles at me, but the expression never really reaches her eyes. That's okay. It doesn't hit mine either. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I feel like my eyes are cold. Dead.

  Fuck.

  I have to stop thinking like that. Things will get better. There's nowhere left to go but up, right?

  “I'd gladly take a strawberry shortcake,” she says, flopping onto my couch and running her hands down her face. I know Cassie's a bitch, that I should ask Anouk to move in with me instead, but I like my space, my privacy. I don't want to live with anybody. Not now. Maybe not ever again. “Or a bologna sandwich.” She turns to look at me over her shoulder. “And you know how much I hate bologna.”

  I hold up my hands in a placating gesture.

  “I get it, I get it,” I tell her, drawing some broccoli out of the bag and laying it on the counter. “I'll cook for you, lady. Chill out.”

  “Are you working tonight?” Anouk asks me
, turning around and folding her elbows across the back of the couch. Her face says she hopes like hell I'm not. I cast her the same look right back, telling her that I hate the idea of her stripping for money. I'm not trying to be judgmental or anything, but it's jobs like Anouk's that make jobs like mine.

  “Is it okay if I show you a couple of pictures?” I ask casually and Anouk groans, her pale pink lipstick smearing as she worries at her lower lip with her teeth. But she'll look. And unlike some of the others, Anouk will actually tell me the truth.

  I hate my fucking job, I think as I pull a pair of glossy photos from my purse. But I can't stop. Not now, not with these pictures clutched between my fingers. I tell myself during every job that this one will be the last, but then I get another call, another letter, another desperate mother on my doorstep. One more job. It's always one more job.

  “Have you seen this girl?” I ask Anouk, passing over the pictures, watching as her face registers them with some amount of surprise. Yep. She knows her. They usually do, but most girls won't tell me shit. I'm not one of them; I don't work the club; I can't be trusted.

  “She was so pretty,” Anouk says and a chill hits my spine hard, makes me grit my teeth. Was. That's past tense. I really hate past tense. “Her hair was red as rubies and her eyes like emeralds.”

  “Why are you talking about this chick like she's up and left town?” I ask as Anouk scrubs her thumb across the photo and passes the pictures back to me. She doesn't look up as she does, her gaze focused on the scuffed wood floor beneath her heels.

  “She was working the Open Nile night before last, just dancing.” I focus on the rest of my groceries, on the chicken and the cheese and the rice. I've learned a lot in the last few years. People talk more if they think you're not really listening, especially if the information is as dangerous as this. Most of the girls, they want someone to come and help, but they're scared shitless that if they talk, they'll be next.

  I hate to tell them that whether they talk to me or not, they usually are.

  9:26 a.m.

  There's a man lying dead at my feet.

  I should be freaked-out. But I'm not. It's all part of the job.

  I holster my semi, a Glock 17 that comes standard with the position. It's the same weapon the Portland PD uses, so if there's ever an argument of whodunnit, then maybe the police'll be blamed. Or should I say … credited? The public doesn't cry when a well-known sex trafficker and career criminal is found dead. No, for this corpse, they'll rejoice.

  “Sean Crinard, age thirty-seven, Caucasian male.” I circle the body and then sigh, bending down to get a closer look at the man's face. “Brown hair, brown eyes, goatee. No easily distinguishable marks or tattoos.” I click off the radio and tuck it back into my belt while I wait for approval from upstairs. I'm wearing a camera, so my boss can see exactly what he needs to see while I stand here and examine the man I just killed. It was easy actually. Too easy.

  Some career criminal.

  I narrow my eyes and resist the urge to spit on the man's corpse. My boss would see and he wouldn't like that. It's not like he gives a shit about the dead man in question, but he'd care a whole hell of a lot about my reaction.

  I'm not supposed to be a man, just a tool. And tools don't have feelings like this.

  Disgust. Hatred. Rage.

  I stand up with a whisper of gravel as radio static fills my ears.

  “First target confirmed. Can I get a visual on the second?”

  I turn around and stare down at another man, silhouetted in a shadow of crimson red.

  “Julio Hernandez, age thirty-four, Hispanic male. Black hair, brown eyes, no facial hair. Right arm's covered in black and gray tattoos.”

  “Second target confirmed. And the girl?”

  I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and zeroing in on my pulse until it slows to a more reasonable level. Tools don't care. Tools don't give any fucks about dead girls from the wrong side of town.

  But I do. For whatever reason, I do.

  I move away from Julio and Sean and pause at the foot of the bed where the girl in question lies. Naked. Dead. I try not to look at her ruby red hair or the glassy green color of her eyes.

  “Greer Coburn, age twenty-one, Caucasian female. Red hair, green eyes. Severe lacerations at the wrists and ankles. Injection marks along the inner elbows.” I feel the skin on my face tighten, my hands curling into fists. “Cause of death unknown, but there's not a lot of blood. If I had to guess, I'd say overdose.” My breath hitches, but I struggle to keep it controlled. “This one didn't last long.”

  “Yup, that's her,” my supervisor says, his voice tinged with regret. He's not a number, a tool, just an employee. He's allowed to feel things for this girl. Me, I'm not. I'm not allowed to feel anything at all. “Damn it,” he curses under his breath before he remembers that I'm still listening. “Sorry about that. I just hate to see it end like this. Anyway, good work, 1. You're finished for now. Enjoy your day off.”

  There's a bit of static before the hotel room goes silent, leaving me alone with the three dead bodies.

  I pause for a moment before stepping over to Greer's face and closing her eyes with two, gentle fingers.

  11:47 a.m.

  “Come on, Damian,” I say, standing outside the club with my arms crossed over my chest. “Just let me in. You know I'm not gonna cause any trouble.”

  “Huh.” Damian shakes his head at me and takes a few puffs on his cigarette. “Yeah, sure thing, Cyrah. Ain't gonna cause no trouble? Your breed of trouble's the worst kind. The boss says he doesn't want you sniffing around here no more.”

  I sigh and glance over my shoulder. The breeze is cold today, cutting right through my coat, blowing debris across the nearly empty streets behind me. This time of day, this area's all but dead. But at night … I shiver. I don't come around here at night, but a lot of friends do. Even though they shouldn't. Even though a lot of them go missing and never come back.

  But these assholes are making a serious mistake. They think they're choosing the unwanted, the friendless, the alone. I make a habit out of befriending these people. When they go missing, somebody knows. Someone notices. Me.

  “Greer Coburn,” I say, shaking the photograph at Damian. He doesn't even bother to look my way. “She was here on Saturday, dancing. She didn't come home that night and nobody's seen her since.” Damian mutters something rude under his breath and snatches the photo from me. He's the doorman for the Open Nile on the weekends. He'd have to have seen her.

  “Yeah, I saw her. She came to work and then she went home. I ain't her daddy. She's a grown-ass woman. Just let her do her thing. Not everybody can make honest money like you, Cyrah.” Damian tosses the picture back at me and I catch it, narrowing my eyes on him as he gives me a once-over and licks his lips like he sure wishes things were different.

  “Thanks,” I snap, even though all I want to say is fuck you. I've learned there's a big difference between being tough and being stupid. I'm all alone out here with Damian. Sure, I've got a gun and a TASER tucked in my purse, a knife in my pants pocket. But in this line of work, I don't take chances.

  I turn and walk away, scanning the streets as I pause on the sidewalk and let the wind tickle my curls against the back of my neck. Fuck. Another glance down at the picture and I get a feeling in my stomach. Every time I get that feeling, a girl winds up dead. It's barely been thirty-six hours since Greer was last seen, but I'd bet what little I have that she's already gone.

  Tears prick my eyes and I close them tight. I don't cry for my girls. Never. If I do, I'll never stop and then what good will I be to anybody?

  I stuff the picture into my pocket and decide to check out some of the local hotels. With any luck—and a few greased palms—I'll come up on another lead there.

  1:29 p.m.

  One of the favorite hang-out spots for scum bags in this town is the Daily, a fleabag motel where they drag my girls—some willing, some not so much—and then get them hyped up on crys
tal. Some of them like it and ask for more, some ask to leave. None of them ever make it out alive.

  I'm walking across the street, my purse hooked over one arm, my heart sinking heavy and hard inside my chest. I hate when I get this feeling, like I know a job's already over before it even gets started. I might think Greer is dead, but nobody will believe me unless I find a body.

  I sigh.

  Sometimes I never do. Sometimes the best I can do is tell the families that I think their daughters-nieces-sisters-mothers-cousins-friends are already gone. At that point in my investigation, it's a relief knowing that they're probably dead. Nobody should have to live through the constant torment these girls go through for an extended period of time. If we—I—can't find them, their next best bet is to leave this world as fast as they can go.

  I step up on the curb at the same moment the door to the lobby opens.

  My mouth goes dry and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.

  “Ohmygod.” The sounds tumble from my lips in a single syllable, goose bumps crawling all over my skin as my purse falls to the pavement.

  It's … him.

  1:30 p.m.

  I step out of the hotel lobby and find myself face-to-face with a girl.

  No. Not a girl. Not just any girl.

  It's her.

  The one I saved, the one I love, the one I was never supposed to meet again.

  And this, this is the last place I’d ever want to run into her. Reaching up my right hand, I disconnect the tiny camera and mic from my shirt and clutch it tightly them in my palm. There’s no way I can let my superiors see or hear Cyrah. No fucking way.

  I am 1; I am the job.

  But this woman, she transcends that, and I’d die to protect her.

  It’d be best for both us, however, if today is not that day.