I run the ball around my neck along its chain, letting the rhythm of it ease through me. Can’t remember the last time I signed my real name somewhere. Contreas. I can’t remember the last time I used it out loud either, other than with him. He gave me that, too. He gave me the ability to use my name, for it to be heard by someone who’d hear it for what it was – me.
The sudden thought that this ball I’m holding shows him exactly where I am settles me. He does. He’ll be able to track it, find me. Yet he’s still not coming to force me into something. This is all my choice. No being pushed. No being made to feel like a bargain we’ve made. No anything other than love and his way of showing that to me. He’s let me run. Really let me go. He’s done everything and then let me find my own way in the safety he’s provided.
Safety.
I frown. That’s not a word he knows for himself.
My mind drifts back to his roof terrace, to the words he used that night when we were in the pool.
“It means I choose you. I choose you to make choices for me.”
“You’ll stay alive for me?”
“As long as you want me here. I can’t promise you’ll enjoy me all the time, but yes, Alice. For you. I’ll stay.”
Shit.
My jacket get zipped up, glove back on, helmet, too, and I spin the bike to get back to him. I can’t believe I’m running – still. I can call it thinking as much as I like. I can try making myself believe he’s not ready for marriage, but he must be. He just wouldn’t offer it if he wasn’t. He would have discarded me, thrown me out without a care in the fucking world because he doesn’t even care for his own life. I might as well be pushing the knife in his heart right now with what I’m doing, showing how much I don’t want him to live.
The whole journey becomes a panic induced mania. I’m riding like I was with him, taking risk after risk to make sure time goes as quickly as it can. Cars blare their horns at me, as the rain starts pouring again. Trucks swerve at my stupidity. I don’t care. I need to get to him, to tell him, to damn well show him what he means to me, what him living means to me.
By the time I reach the outskirts of Manhattan, I’m not even sure if he’ll want or believe me anymore. I ran from him – the one thing he told me not to do. He wasn’t telling me. Or forcing me. He was, in his own way, asking me, pleading with me not to run.
I screech through the main roads, peeling off at junctions and jumping reds to get back to the townhouse. I pull in sharply and abandon the bike, as I pull off the helmet and run the steps to the front door. A maid answers, trying to talk to me as I fall into the foyer.
I look around frantically, searching for him. “Malachi?” Nothing. She follows, still trying to say something to me that I’m not listening to because of my craze. “MALACHI?” Still nothing. “Where is he?” I ask, spinning on her.
“I was trying to tell you, Mam. Mr Jones isn’t here.”
“Where is he then?”
“I’m not sure, Mam.”
“Well, find someone who does. I need him.” I do. Jesus Christ I do, and all this has been a … I don’t know what the hell I’ve been doing, but I need him. I need to show him things, tell him things that come from my heart rather than this bargain we’ve been living. Explain. She’s still fucking standing looking at me. “NOW!”
She scurries off somewhere, and I pace the foyer, trying to think where he might be. How the hell would I know? It isn’t long before she comes back, one of the men that looks after his security with her. He walks closer, flat features giving nothing away.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“I can’t give you that information, Mam,” he replies.
“You have to. I need him.”
He looks me over, letting his eyes linger on my chest. I scowl, and then realise what he’s looking at. Picking up the chain, I run the ball back and forth.
“Does this tell me where he is if you can’t?”
“No, Mam. That tells me where you are.”
I look at the ball, fiddle with the edges of it. “Please. I’ve got things to say and I can’t say it if you don’t help me find him.”
“I’m sorry, Mam. You’ll have to wait.”
I’m not waiting. Me waiting means him thinking too much, and him thinking too much means him sliding into a place none of us want Malachi Jones to slide into.
“If you don’t tell me, he’ll die.” His eyes widen a fraction. “He’ll kill himself. He will, and that will be on you. Tell me where he is before it’s too late.” He stares, then turns, waving his hand for me to follow. We eventually arrive in a security room full of cameras and screens, and he makes me stand off to the left so I can’t see a fucking thing.
“He’s safe enough, Mam. He’s at Mr Rothburg’s penthouse,” he says after a while.
