Unchecked (New York Unraveled #2)

Chapter Nine.

RAYNE.

It took me three months to realize that I was irrevocably in love with everything about Evan Saunders. Three months. Because by the end of those three months, I was behind bars again and it was him because of whom my wrists were locked together. It was then that I realized that I wasn't mad at him. I didn't feel any sort of rage towards him for doing this to me. After all, even he got to know about it much later. But then again, how long could I have run from this?
The only thing I felt was crushing guilt and shame. Karen had come to trust me with myself after so long. What would she say? I'd acted offended in front of Evan when he accused me of leaking the news of the first raid. What would happen when he got to know what I really was all about?
I wanted to be a better person and maybe, just maybe, a few years in prison would teach me how to walk on a straight path. I didn't deserve these amazing people's trust. I would keep exploiting it because that's who I was. I would never learn. I deserved the cold, hard floor with three gray walls reminding me of my character. I deserved to be treated roughly and locked inside a depressing place where I could introspect and learn my mistakes.
I was bartending in a loud club that night, searching for potential slackers and adding a bit of heroin in their drinks to get them addicted. Some that came on their own to me were old customers. Some were new who wanted to venture into the unknown. It was one of those new who turned out to be a police officer and caught me red handed. He cuffed my hands in front of my chest and carried me to jail in his jeep. 
I had been sitting against the wall for hours, staring at the ceiling dejectedly by the time some commotion started in the cells adjacent to ours. I could hear screaming and whimpering. The other people from my cell had pressed their faces against the bars to see what was going on but to no avail. Me? I couldn't care less either way.
Finally, the cries stopped and the sound of footsteps ensued.
"Get one of them out. I want this over quickly," came a gruff voice that I recognized all too well.
A man dressed in the blue uniform of NYPD came inside and took the first guy he saw by the collar. By the screams of two other people, I got to know his name was Brad. Brad was dragged to the cell opposite to ours and recuffed with his wrists attached to the arms of the chair and ankles attached to the legs.
Evan came into view. He stalked into the cell like a hungry lion revolving around his prey. He was rolling up the sleeves of his black shirt and if the furious expression on his face wasn't scary, the tense muscles of his forearms were enough to do the work. He was wearing a waistcoat which made his biceps look even more buff. His back was turned to us and when he landed the first punch on Brad's face, each muscle in his back rippled dangerously.
Seemed like I was the only one still sitting calmly on the floor of the cell. Everybody else was pressed close to each other on one end of the room, holding their breaths at the sight of Brad getting used as a punching bag.
"You're gonna tell me one way or the other," said Evan. "If not you, then one of them-" he pointed to us "-will open their mouths. If you tell me, I might let you go more easily. If not..." He let his words trail off into an open threat.
"I- I really don't-" whimpered Brad.
Evan pulled back his arm in a wide arc and punched him four or five times continuously, alternating between both sides of his face.
He went around to his back and his face was finally exposed to us. He was breathing heavily, sweat was pouring down his face and making his clothes stick to his body. I wondered how many times he'd done the same thing in the course of the day.
He pulled Brad's hair back painfully and said in a hoarse voice, "Look up. Nobody is going to save you. None of them-" He stopped when he looked up and his eyes met mine through two sets of bars, an indescribable emotion passing his handsome features.
Suddenly standing up straight, he left Brad and told the guy who'd locked him in to throw him back in the original cell. We were all told to line up against the wall.
It took me a little effort to get up because I couldn't use my hands that were cuffed in front of me and my limbs were cramped from not having moved for so long.
Evan was snarling like a beast, unwrapping the cloth he'd tied around his knuckles. "I want names, precise locations, phone numbers, whatever you have. Who has been giving the drugs to you? Who gives you the orders? Who do you coordinate with?" As he spoke, he met everybody's eyes. When he came to me, he stopped. 
"Whatever you can do to us, they can do worse. Change your questions," I suggested softly.
With a turn of his heel, he went away, not gracing me with any reply.
We heard the whimpers and groans for quite a lot of time from adjacent cells where Evan had moved his torture to. None of us had the guts to speak or even breathe loudly. 
I was so exhausted. I didn't know what to tell him. I couldn't make any indication that we knew each other, scared that someone might get to know and he would get in trouble. He should've known his girlfriend was a criminal, isn't it? He should've known he was sleeping with an outlaw.
It was hours before we were given individual cells. Most of the ones captured had been left, presumably because they didn't have any illegal records to their name. But I doubted they were off the radar. I mean, more than a hundred were caught. The whole drug business was at a standstill and no doubt the gangs who supplied would be banging down their doors to demand what happened.
I was still handcuffed. I wanted to laugh at that because I didn't have the energy to stand, let alone escape.
Somewhere in the middle of the day, Karen came to see me and a train of guilt ran over me at seeing her anguished face.
"You're not eating?" she demanded.
"I'm not hungry," I said.
She paced around for a while, wringing her hands for an excuse to do something.
"Imagining those hands around my neck?" I attempted to lighten the mood.
She whipped towards me. "What is wrong with you? Why can't you stop getting in trouble? I swear to God, one day I'll be dead or far away from here and then who's gonna bust your sorry ass out of jail? Do you ever think about what others have to go through when you so conveniently decide to get into the same shit again and again and again? I'm fucking tired, Rayne! I'm so fucking tired! If I mean anything to you, then please for God's sake stop torturing me like that! It's bloody painful to see you like this."
She fell down on the floor beside me when she was done screaming and buried her face in her hands. Her sobs made her shake all over and I couldn't gather up the courage to try to comfort her. She looked so fragile, as if she might break anytime and it hurt even more to know that I had caused the crack in the armor.
"Leave me to my fate, Karen. You deserve a better friend. Let me stay in jail. Maybe I'll learn something after a few years of serving time," I said.
"Rayne, I'm going to hang you-" 
I cut her off. "I'm no good. Don't you see it? I can't do anything in life. You can keep eliciting promises from me but I will never be anything more than the bitch I am right now. Stop having so much faith in me. I'm not worth it."
"You are," she said softly, wiping her tears with the end of her sleeves, "I love you and I'm not gonna give up on you, no matter how many times you disappoint me. Because that's what best friends are for."
"Go get a better best friend for yourself," I said turning away from her so she couldn't see the tears springing forth in my own eyes, "Leave me alone."
"Nathan is working on getting you out," she said, standing up and dusting off her trousers.
"Tell him to not do that. I need it, Karen. I need to be punished for what I did. Leave me be, at least for a few days."
She didn't say anything. I heard the click-clock of her heels receding into the distance when she suddenly came back and said, "By the way, since we were on the topic of what you can and can't do. Lemon magazine accepted you. You were on the front cover of today's edition."
My red rimmed eyes widened at her and she just smiled in reply. I had gone for auditioning for the magazine but there were so many taller, skinnier girls that I was sure I wouldn't ever get in. Anyway, I modelled for them and let them take my pictures because what the hell, who cares. I had never for a second believed that I would be selected. And she said that I was on the front page, which meant that they liked me the best out of all the selected candidates. 
It caused a slight stir in the lake of thoughts I had ensured myself with. I was convinced I was a good for nothing slob who couldn't spell 'right' if put a gun to my head. I would never be able to do anything in life. But this one incident was making me reconsider things. Could I be more than I was?
The sound of the door whinging open made me look up in shock. Evan was blessing me with his presence. He kneeled in front of me, where I was lying with legs folded and head falling against my shoulder like a rag doll, and took my face in his hands, wiping away my tears with the pad of his thumbs.
I sniffed and looked away, concentrating on the floor beside his thighs. "I'm not telling you anything."
"I just want to know why," he said and there was no rage in his voice like I had expected, only the pain of betrayal.
"Why what? Why I lied to you? Why I am the way I am?" I demanded.
"I know why you never told me. I get that. But why do you do all of this? I checked your rap sheet. It's nothing new. You've been at it since you were sixteen. Why?" he asked desperately.
"Because some of us aren't as privileged as the others," I hissed, "Some of us aren't handed down their parent's rich legacy. Some of us don't even have parents, damn it. Some of us never had the opportunity to study and become something in life. Some of us don't have multiple qualities stored in an untapped stash. Some of us have to do this, okay?" I knew what I was saying was downright mean. He had never been arrogant about his money and he hated when people judged him by his wealth. And when he flinched, the coward in me sank even lower.
"You could have told me, Rayne. You wanna go down the illegal road, at least make it lead you to something good. Get a fake degree and apply for a job somewhere. Hell, there are a million things we could've done if you would have just told me," he said.
I chuckled bleakly. "Yeah, right."
"I was crazy enough about you to overlook all the little clues that could have given you away. I'm not as stupid as I've let you believe. If you had told me..."
"I didn't," I snapped, "So let's get over that."
"I can't get you out of here unless you tell me something useful because people out there know you're my girlfriend. If I let you out, there will be charges against me," he explained.
"I can't tell you anything. Stop asking me!"
"You'll be given full protection against those people. They would never even know it is you who led us to them. But I need to know, baby, please cooperate," he pleaded sincerely.
"You don't know what they're like, Evan," I whispered, my voice breaking, "They do unspeakable things to people who betray them. I can face a capital punishment but not them, never them."
"This matter has become bigger than the city, baby. We have almost a hundred people under arrest. One of them will open their mouths and the whole system is going to break down. Tell me so I can get you out without a lot of charges otherwise you'll be deemed a loyal accomplice."
I shook my head furiously. "No, no, no. You don't know... You can't save me from them. They're... They're..." I'd seen what they do to. Those gangbangers were plain cruel. I had, with my own eyes, witnessed some of their 'punishments'. It chilled my blood to think about it. Being a part of it was out of the question.
He flopped down beside me with a sigh. "Remember I told you that my sister was killed?"
I nodded, not able to see where this was leading.
"She was kidnapped by some thugs. The police closed down the case after three days because they had exhausted all their leads. They didn't know what to do."
I put my cuffed hands over his, staring at him with rapt attention, not able to grasp why we were having an emotional confession at that time, in that place. His gaze was directed somewhere far off in space.
"They gave up but I didn't. I kept searching for her and after a couple of days, I found her. I called the police and told them the address but I was so scared that I must have made a lot of racket because next thing I know, they caught me. They tied me down to a chair and made me watch as they raped her. I looked in her eyes as she screamed in pain. I saw the life going out of her when they killed her." He swallowed visibly. "Help arrived. They saved me but they were too late. My sister was dead. I had watched her die and I hadn't been able to do a single damn thing about it. I was just sixteen. I was helpless."
"I'm sorry..." I whispered but it sounded painfully hollow to even my ears. 
He shook his head and pressed a kiss to my temple. "I'm not helpless anymore, RayneBow. I won't let them even pull a hair out of your head, I promise."
I nodded uneasily. I trusted him. I was batshit crazy, I knew, but I trusted him. Though there was one thing still bothering me about this whole scenario. "Why aren't you mad at me?"
"I am. Trust me, I'm hella mad. But I gotta get you out of here first. Then we'll talk about disciplining you," he said.
"Why would you still wanna be with me after knowing I'm everything you work against?" I demanded. 
"This is so not how I imagined telling you this," he sighed and then, unexpectedly enough, he grinned at me. "I love you. I believe in you. I know you're way more than you've let yourself be."
This was my one chance to redeem myself. I wanted to be better, right? Then this was how I was going to have to do it. My crime was big so my punishment would, naturally, have bigger risks too. I wanted to prove to Karen and Evan that I was better, but more than that, I wanted to prove to myself that I was more than I thought I was.