Pacifier

⚡ Van 🥀

I stopped outside her bedroom door, listened to the slam reverberate.

"Fuck," i hissed, trying to hold in my frustration, trying to keep the violence concealed from Ismay who I knew would be listening from behind that closed door. "Fuck!" i tried not to raise my voice but I didnt try hard enough, all gritted teeth, hands clutching my hair as I leant up against the wall and tried to calm down.

But I couldn't calm down, too conflicted by all that I'd just seen.
All that she could make me feel all at once, standing there in just her underwear and a school blouse, eyes smouldering with the smoke of her cigarette.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to let Camille anywhere near her, but then what choice did I have.

It was afterall more preferable, far more preferable, to see her like that than to see her sitting straddling Meghan, lips locked and learning all the things I wanted to be the one to teach her.

"Fuck," i groaned again, kicking off from the door, dragging myself away from the hallway and into the balcony to take an empty bottle from an empty table and smash it against the wall outside.

I saw the shadow of Blakes up against the opposite wall, hood up, on the phone, when he looked up his eyes reflected the light from the Balcony and I saw the small smile which meant that everything was going as it should have been.
Or at least as much as he could find out.

I lit up a cigarette and watched him for a minute longer before he hung up and wandered over, lighting up a cigarette of his own. I looked around at the empty street, the terraces were watching, probably waiting for us to slip up, so we slipped inside and sat down at the back booth where we usually did. He pulled his hood down and exhaled smoke, leant forward. I watched his lips form a slow smirk.

"Its fine mate, he says its all fine," he said, "he didn't say much mind, if Rubys called the police like he can't afford to say much,"

"She won't have, not yet. She won't get home until tomorrow morning," nodded, "but thats good, as long as its all fine, as long as he doesn't call again after tonight. By this time tomorrow they'll have tapped all our phones, if he calls us they'll understand, no matter how vague he is..."

"Am sure he knows that mate, he does this all the time right?"

"He's the only person I'd trust with this," I nodded sucking in a long drag on my cigarette, trying not to think about Larrys sister and the fear she might have felt before she worked it out... If she'd worked it out yet at all, "

"Did he say anything about her?" i asked on a long exhale. It wasn't so much that I was concerned about her, Della had always been tougher than Izzy, it was that I knew Sam. I knew what he did for a living. I knew exactly how he'd have gone about this job.

Ben just smirked.

"He said she tried to kill him," he split a grin when I choked on a laugh. "With a fuckin kitchen knife... Hes pissed with yous for that, shoulda warned him like," he mocked the lads accent and inflections with a grin and I laughed, stubbing out my cigarette, already a little more relaxed.

"Course she fuckin did," i grinned, "she's a bottleman int she, what was he expecting..." i shrugged, licked my lips and laughed before pushing myself up. "In which case Blakes... You and me have got somewhere to be," i said nodding to the door, watching as the understanding dawned upon him and he nodded, almost solemn as he shrugged his coat back on.

"This is gonna be one of those nights isn't it," he sighed, pushing his hair from his face as the two of us left the Balcony, locking the doors behind us.

As we wandered out into the street, coats caught in the wind, flaring behind us, i turned my head to check one last thing.

That Izzys curtains were closed, that her light was off and she was sleeping.