Lifting the bat with my right hand, I threw open the door with my left, standing back.
Bash and Eliazar turned their heads toward me and froze.
Eliazar lay stomach down on the bed. Bash was on top of him, shoving Eliazar’s face into a dingy pillow while he fumbled to pull down Eliazar’s pants. Bash’s jeans and boxers were already down to his knees. The sight of Bash’s hairy ass in the air while he pushed Eliazar into the mattress had me seeing red.
“Deck, help,” Eliazar cried softly.
Everything happened in an instant. Before Bash could make a move, I raised the bat and brought it down forcefully over his back. For a split second, I thought about going for his head, but I had enough awareness to remember it would be a bad idea to murder the guy.
Even if he deserved it.
The hit across his spine was enough to have him screaming and crunching over onto the floor. I could have done without the flash I got of his tiny limp dick as he keeled over, though.
As soon as Bash fell off him, Eliazar hurried away from the bed like it was on fire.
“I’m sorry, Deck,” he rasped, reaching up to touch his throat. “He jumped me on the sidewalk.”
“Yeah. Chi-chi told Cruz that he gave him the okay.” I pulled Eliazar against my side. “And you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”
From the floor, Bash groaned. “Chi-chi’s not gonna like this,” he snarled roughly. “There’s no place you’ll be able to hide.”
I lifted the bat and brought it down hard across one of Bash’s ankles. There was a satisfying crack of bone. “¡Pedazo de mierda, violador!”
Bash opened his mouth as though to scream, but no sound came out. His face went sheet-white, and a moment later, he doubled over and went still. I assumed he’d passed out from the pain but wasn’t interested in making sure.
“Are you okay?” I asked Eliazar.
His answer was a silent tear falling from one eye. “I’m just glad you came,” he murmured.
“Me too.” I glanced at the floor by the bed and saw a bottle of lube. “Did I make it…in time?”
“Mm-hmm. It would have been better if I didn’t have to feel his prick against my jeans, but thependejowasn’t able to get it up to do anything. No telling what sort of whack shit he has in his system. He was getting pretty pissed right before you showed up.”
It was then I noticed red and purple marks on Eliazar’s face and arms. “You fought him?”
Eliazar shrugged. “As much as I could. Bash has like a hundred pounds on me… Oh, he also had a gun earlier. I don’t know where it is now.”
That surprised me. With as much as I’d been around Chi-chi, I knew he didn’t keep too many guns in the house. Probably safer with all the randos and addicts coming and going. I’d seen dozens of them tweak out and lose their fucking minds. His guystook guns out on jobs. He’d loaned them to Cruz before, but I’d never known Bash to carry regularly.
“Where’s your phone?” I asked.
Eliazar pointed at a denim jacket flung over a bedpost. “Bash’s pocket. He took it away from me first thing.”
I reached into the coat and grabbed the phone near where Bash remained curled over.
“Are you okay to walk out of here? We need to leave before Bash can get up or make noise. I don’t know if the guys upstairs would help him, but I don’t want to chance it.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Eliazar seemed different. I realized it was the first time I’d seen him sober in a while.
We walked up the stairs. Even though it was a bit of a risk to keep it, I didn’t dare put the bat back down.
Nothing seemed amiss. The same four guys were still on the couches, the same video game still blared on the TV.
On our way through the kitchen, I caught Nadia’s eyes as she sat on the counter, sipping from a coffee mug. She looked down at the bat in my hand. Then she hopped off and walked into a back bedroom, shutting the door behind herself.
After we got to my car, I drove Eliazar to Burger King. I knew he’d been running on adrenaline back at Chi-chi’s and wasn’t sure if he’d collapse as the night wore on. He seemed out of it, but in a different way than when he was high. He kept tugging on his shirt. Finally, he grunted in annoyance and pulled the tee off over his head, chucking it onto the floorboard of the car.
