Blood Brothers Page 0,78
thought again, and got in his car to drive home.
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT WHEN THE LOW-GRADE urge for a cigarette buzzed through Gage's brain. He'd given them up two years, three months, and one week before, a fact that could still piss him off.
He turned up the radio to take his mind off it, but the urge was working its way up to craving. He could ignore that, too; he did so all the time. To do otherwise was to believe there was solid truth in the old adage: like father, like son.
He was nothing like his father.
He drank when he wanted a drink, but he never got drunk. Or hadn't since he'd been seventeen, and then the drunkenness had been with absolute purpose. He didn't blame others for his shortcomings, or lash out with his fists on something smaller and weaker so he could feel bigger and stronger.
He didn't even blame the old man, not particularly. You played the cards you were dealt, to Gage's mind. Or you folded and walked away with your pockets empty.
Luck of the draw.
So he was fully prepared to ignore this sudden, and surprisingly intense desire for a cigarette. But when he considered he was within miles of Hawkins Hollow, a place where he was very likely to die an ugly and painful death, the surgeon general's warnings seemed pretty goddamn puny, and his own self-denial absolutely useless.
When he saw the sign for the Sheetz, he decided what the hell. He didn't want to live forever. He swung into the twenty-four-hour mart, picked up coffee, black, and a pack of Marlboros.
He strode back to the car he'd bought that very evening in D.C. after his plane had landed, and before he'd paid off a small debt. The wind whipped through his hair. The hair was dark as the night, a little longer than he usually wore it, a little shaggy, as he hadn't trusted the barbers in Prague.
There was stubble on his face since he hadn't bothered to shave. It added to the dark, dangerous look that had had the young female clerk who rung up the coffee and cigarettes shivering inwardly with lust.
He'd topped off at six feet, and the skinny build of his youth had filled out. Since his profession was usually sedentary, he kept his muscles toned and his build rangy with regular, often punishing workouts.
He didn't pick fights, but he rarely walked away from one. And he liked to win. His body, his face, his mind, were all tools of his trade. As were his eyes, his voice, and the control he rarely let off the leash.
He was a gambler, and a smart gambler kept all of his tools well honed.
Swinging back onto the road, Gage let the Ferrari rip. Maybe it had been foolish to toss so much of his winnings into a car, but Jesus, it moved. And fucking A, he'd ridden his thumb out of the Hollow all those years ago. It felt damn good to ride back in in style.
Funny, now that he'd bought the damn cigarettes, the urge for one had passed. He didn't even want the coffee, the speed was kick enough.
He flew down the last miles of the interstate, whipped onto the exit that would take him to the Hollow. The dark rural road was empty-no surprise to him, not this time of night. There were shadows and shapes-houses, hills, fields, trees. There was a twisting in his gut that he was heading back instead of away, and yet that pull-it never quite left him-that pull toward home was strong.
He reached toward his coffee more out of habit than desire, then was forced to whip the wheel, slam the brakes as headlights cut across the road directly into his path. He blasted the horn, saw the other car swerve.
He thought: Fuck, fuck, fuck! I just bought this sucker.
When he caught his breath, and the Ferrari sat sideways in the middle of the road, he thought it was a miracle the crash hadn't come. Inches, he realized. Less than inches.
His lucky goddamn day.
He reversed, pulled to the shoulder, then got out to check on the other driver he assumed was stinking drunk.
She wasn't. What she was, was hopping mad.
"Where the hell did you come from?" she demanded. She slammed out of her car, currently tipped into the shallow ditch along the shoulder, in a blur of motion. He saw a mass of dark gypsy curls wild around a face pale with shock.
Great face, he