“Listen here, you noob cunt –”
“Doll,” Nixon cut in sharply, “just do it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She huffed. I heard her shudder and curse under her breath. “Okay, his mouth is fucked right up. I’ve seen better teeth on a peasant. He was definitely into some heavy drugs.”
“Maybe he’s a transient,” Flynn remarked, eyeing Nixon closely.
Nixon hummed in disagreement. “No, we make sure we don’t get the homeless on the island.”
“There’s a homeless population taking refuge in shoddy boats. He might have come in on one.”
“It’s too expensive here for them,” Nixon explained. “They’re usually circling Salt Springs or along the coast of Nanaimo. We’re too inconvenient.”
“How do you mean inconvenient?”
“I don’t allow any drugs to come in. The island’s clean.”
“Really?” Flynn sounded surprised by that.
“The island’s upmarket for a reason,” Nixon said. “People feel safe here.”
“Good for business.”
“No, good for life. There are families here, and all along the mainland it’s riddled with crime waves and drug abuse. Kids stand no chance growing up in that.”
Flynn was quiet for a few moments before murmuring, “I get it.”
I did, too.
Until that very moment, I didn’t think Nixon gave a fuck about it.
“So, what the hell then?” Doll questioned. “How does a bum access this room with a gun, and why is he shooting at Vixen?”
“I don’t know yet.” Nixon’s fury was palpable. “But I’m going to find out.”
I knew Nixon would.
He would leave no stone unturned.
“No one’s hurting my baby,” he murmured down at me, pressing a soft kiss in my hair. “Not without dying for it.”
As Doll began to question just what happened, I heard Flynn tell the tale. He’d seen the grotty man approach our table with a hand in his pocket. Something about him screamed all wrong, so Flynn had made his way over, his gut telling him something was off.
Luckily – for me – Flynn was close enough to tackle him down the second he withdrew the gun. It happened so fast, he said. He pointed it at me right as Nixon noticed. Nixon lunged for me, shielding me as Flynn tackled the man down and the gun fired at the ceiling. He overpowered him, turning the gun to the man’s head in the process. The man ended up shooting himself by accident.
I couldn’t stop shaking.
I peeked from Nixon’s chest, glancing quickly in the direction of Flynn’s voice.
He’d saved me.
Both had reacted.
Flynn caught me looking at him. His expression softened, and I turned away quickly before I felt any warmth for the man.
What would have happened had he not been there? Would Nixon have been shot protecting me?
I closed my eyes tight and tried to remember Nixon as he lunged to me.
I remembered the horror on his face…and his desperate fear of losing me.
11.
Nixon…
She’d fallen asleep amid their talking. It’d been close to an hour after the shooting. She’d shaken so hard in Nixon’s arms, her adrenaline firing throughout her little body. She always found a way to sleep through intense emotion. It was her body’s way of protecting itself. He’d seen it back when he took her, had seen it every time he was close to cracking into her heart – Vixen simply couldn’t process her feelings. Shutting down was her only defence.
They went over the body closely. The man looked to be in his mid-forties and was fucked up from a lifetime of hunger and drugs. Nixon kept his distance as Doll continued to inspect. He’d even called Hobbs down for a second opinion.
Both Doll and Hobbs had extensive history in law and order, though you’d never know it. They had a good eye for piecing shit together. Better than Nixon could.
When Hobbs learned there was a man firing at Nixon’s woman, his pissy face turned into that of shock. He adored Vixen, had oftentimes cursed Nixon off for stealing her from the world.
“The world didn’t care for her, Hobbs,” Nixon had said once.
“Who are you to decide that, Nixon?” Hobbs responded, astonished by Nixon’s lack of remorse over his actions. “You tore her out of the pages of a life she knew. Her storybook was cut short because of your selfishness.”
Nixon coolly responded, “Her storybook would have been cut short with her dead in a shallow grave on that mountain.”
That shut Hobbs up.
But, yeah, sure, Nixon accepted playing the part of villain. He had never deluded himself into thinking he’d done right when he yanked the girl out of her world and placed her firmly in the centre of his. It was selfish. It was wrong. And he felt absolutely no remorse doing it. He never would, either. Nixon wasn’t that kind of guy. There would never be that glorious moment of reform.
This wasn’t that kind of story.
A tiger never changed its stripes, or so the saying went. Nixon would sooner repent for all the crimes he’d committed before ever repenting taking Vixen in the ruthless manner in which he did.
Carpe Diem, he’d learned once.
And he’d Carpe Diem’d the shit out of it the day he decided she was his. And what a fucked up day that was – he’d never spilled so much blood.
“He’s a transient,” Hobbs said after looking over the body. “I’ve seen this countless times.”
“Flynn said there might be a boat,” Nixon replied, thoughtfully.
“What about the ferry I came in on?”
“I’d have heard about him coming through on a ferry or seaplane.”
“Then it would have to be a boat.”
Thing was, there was no dingy looking boat in the waters around the island. Nixon would have known about it. His men would have sorted that out promptly.
“What was the motive?” Doll asked Hobbs, looking at him like he was the sun in her fucking sky.
Hobbs frowned, looking back at her. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Drugs,” Flynn whispered to himself, his arms crossed.
“He would have been sent to do this.”
“What the fuck did he think was going to happen, though?” Doll ranted. “You’re standing there, aiming a gun at someone’s head, and you shoot. You don’t just walk away from that when all is said and done.”
Hobbs shook his head at Doll. “Haven’t you seen it before, Doll? These guys, they’re desperate, they’re hungry for their next hit, and they’re not themselves anymore. The drug’s eaten them whole. They are slaves to that hit, and they don’t reason the same. They’re victims.”
“Yeah? Well, no one forced them to take that first hit.”
“Don’t be black and white,” he scolded. “You don’t know their reasons, and it doesn’t matter right now. This guy got tricked, and now he’s dead.”
Doll looked shocked by his reaction. Hobbs was fuming for all kinds of reasons. Fuming for the homeless man, fuming for Vixen, and fuming for all the fucked-up drug abuse that wrecked his family during his upbringing.