Wind Therapy - A.J. Downey Page 0,81
then, “That’s fine, you don’t have to talk to me, you just need to stay on the line. Do you know where you are?”
Marisol took it like a champ, talking to my best friend who was clearly being her bitchy self on the other end of the line while I put on clothes, scooped up my burner and put out a mass text to the guys.
Tic-Tac, Glass Jaw, and Dump Truck answered. I picked Tic-Tac and Dump Truck to get their asses up and meet up with me, texting them the coordinates my regular phone was spitting out as to where Mallory was at.
As my best friend, I knew what a pain in the ass she could be, and it frustrated me that we were at odds over Marisol, but there was a reason Mal was my platonic hetero life mate. Reasons I wish I could put into words, but there just weren’t any.
Marisol, to her credit, helped me help my best friend without complaint, at least for right now.
“Tell her we’re on our way and let me get hooked up,” I said, and Marisol nodded.
“Yeah, honey. He’s on his way, just a few more seconds and I’ll give you back to him. Just hold on a minute. Yeah,” she rolled her eyes, “I know I’m the last bitch you want to talk to but right now, I’m the bitch trying to help you out so spare me for the moment, yeah?”
I pressed the button on my Bluetooth, and it connected and suddenly my bestie was in my ear, “It’s not that I don’t like you, no… it’s just that you’re a fucking child.”
“I’ll let you tell her that the next time you see her and I’m not helping you out if she tries to kick your ass, now hang tight. I’m on my way.”
Marisol handed me my phone and got up on her knees to press a quick kiss to my lips.
“Be careful,” my woman, my queen, intoned, and I nodded.
“Mav, where are you?” Mallory asked and she sounded like she was slipping.
“Mal, baby, stay awake,” I ordered and hauled ass to get to where she was.
I had no idea what the fuck was going on, but when I got to the coordinates, I was determined to find out. Tic-Tac and I had met up on the road, and when we pulled up, Dump Truck was already there – efficient bastard. That’s one of the things I liked about him the most.
“Okay, we’re here,” I said into the phone. “We’re here, baby, you just need to tell me where you are.”
“Third floor, apartment 3B.”
“3B!” I called for the benefit of the other two and pointed at a doorway that looked like it led to some stairs up. We were in Pioneer Square, and nobody but some seriously rich motherfuckers lived here. The building was not only a historic one, since the viaduct had come down, but they now possessed multi-million-dollar views as a result.
“What the fuck she got herself into?” Dump Truck growled and I knew he was only half-pissed at Dahlia, the rest of his ire stemming from the need to haul his big, half crippled ass up three floors worth of stairs.
“Dunno,” Tic-Tac answered for me. “Whatever it is, fucker’s gonna wish he’d never been born.” To punctuate his statement, he threw down his fist, the steel collapsible baton he held in it telescoping out to its full length.
“Hold up,” Dump Truck said, pointing. “Cameras.”
“Boys, put your party dresses on,” I said and we each shrugged out of our cuts, turning them inside out and shrugging back into them, wrapping our lower faces in bandanas and balaclavas to shield our identities.
“Gonna have to move fast,” Dump Truck said. “Place like this is bound to be alarmed, closed circuit maybe, but any security is bad news for us bears.”
“Stay down here,” I told him, and he gave a nod.
“Me and stairs does not equal fast,” he agreed.
“Tic-Tac, let’s go.”
We surged across the cracked and crumbling asphalt to the door to the stairs leading up into the rest of the building. It was wood and ancient, framing a large glass pane with the street number for the building gold leafed onto its front. It fit the building, looking all classy and historically accurate, but it didn’t do shit about keeping us out.
“Mav, he’s waking up,” Dahlia said in my ear, the alarm clearly telegraphed through her voice.
“Man, move, we gotta move.” I slipped through the portal left behind by