PANIC

Chapter Nine - RONIN

I close the door behind me as Ford pulls the blackout curtains across the front window of Rook’s old garden apartment. “We’re gonna throw in here, or what?”

Ford glares at me under his slanted brows. “I’d win that fight.”

“Riiiight. Rook came out happy, what’d you say to her?”

He takes a seat on the couch and beckons me to the chair across the coffee table. I follow suit and ease down into the overstuffed chair.

“I told her I consider her a friend and if she needs anything, she’s welcome to come to me for assistance.”

“Uh-huh. That’s all?”

“You don’t trust her?”

“I don’t trust you, Ford. I see the flashes of insanity inside your brain that pass as ideas and I’m worried that you’ve decided to make Rook your next victim.”

He folds his hands in his lap and leans back a little more, giving off an air of being totally comfortable in this setting. “I’ll be truthful, Ronin. I like her. A lot. Maybe more than any person ever. I’m not sure why, maybe because she’s unavailable, maybe because she refuses to put up with my shit, maybe because she listens to me when I give her advice. I’m not sure, but it hardly matters why. The fact is, I like her and she likes me.”

I start to say something but he puts a hand up to stop my words.

“I think we both know what that sick fuck was doing with her. And if you’re still delusional I’ll spell it out for you. I recognize her behavior. She hides it pretty well, but she’s quite easy to control once you know her triggers. I manipulated her all summer when we went running. They were all unconscious reactions, of course, and if I pointed it out to her, she backtracked and did everything in her power to prove she wasn’t under my control. She was something to Jon, but a girlfriend wasn’t one of them. Not from his point of view, anyway. What really happened?” He lets out a long sigh. “Well, we won’t know that until she’s ready to tell us. And that might be never, that might be tomorrow. We just can’t know.”

I have to swallow to keep my dinner from coming back up. I guessed this too, but Ford is seriously involved in that shit, I’m not. BDSM is just a game to me, it’s something I play at. To Ford, it’s a lifestyle. And if he says Rook displays all the characteristics, then I’m gonna have to defer to his expertise. I feel it to be true anyway.

“She will never admit this to you because she has yet to admit it to herself.”

I lean back in the chair and rub my temple a bit. My head fucking hurts.

“She needs serious help. She needs a lot of time. And she needs a lot of freedom. I know she likes you, maybe even loves you, but if you keep her too close she’ll fall back into the same patterns. And do you really want to get her by default?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to make the shooting pain go away.

“She’s running blind right now. She wants to do something, anything to erase what she was. So to prove to herself that she’s not the same girl who put up with that life for three years, she’s ready to jump on just about every opportunity that comes her way.”

“I’m not breaking up with her.”

Silence.

I lift my head and look over at Ford. “I’m not gonna do that. I’ll back off, I’ll give her space, I’ll support her decisions, but I’m not breaking up with her.”

Ford shrugs. “I’m not asking you to. She’ll check out soon, though, Ronin. Write this down. She’s not ready for you. She’s not ready for anyone right now. What she needs is to start over. She needs to figure out who she was before Jon came along if she’s to have any hope of figuring out who she is now.”

“Is that your professional opinion, then? We done here?”

“Not quite. That ex-boyfriend is in town.”

“Who?”

“Wade Minix, a boy from her childhood. Spencer said she lived with him as a teen in a foster family. This guy was her first boyfriend, or love, or something. His mother got worried when the relationship started getting serious and sent her back into the system. After that her status as ward of the State of Illinois goes cold. I figure Jon picked her up soon after. Before the Minix family she was in twelve other foster families.”

“Yeah, she told me this part. Not good ones, either.”

“Not good is an understatement. Almost of all them have been stripped of fostering privileges.” Ford gets up and grabs a folder off the kitchen counter, then takes his seat and opens it up. “Rook Camille Corvus entered the foster care system at age five when she was found wandering the streets of Chicago barefoot in the middle of January. She didn’t speak to anyone for months and when she finally gave up enough information to determine who her mother was, it was too late. The woman had OD’d and was already a cremated body in an unmarked grave. I could go on, but if you use your imagination, I’m sure you can fill it all in. She never got involved in drugs, prostitution, had any illegitimate babies, or did porn.” He stops to laugh. “Until you guys, that is.”

“Fuck. You.”

Ford smiles one of his evil grins. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. But as I was saying, Wade Minix is in town. He hasn’t contacted her from what I can tell. I saw him wave at her at the show up in Sturgis. He followed her all over the strip the day of the show. Then ended up standing in the front row that—”

“What? How come you didn’t tell me this?”

“Because Rook never responded to his wave and never made any move to reach out to him. She ignored him. But I’m telling you now because he’s back. And I think she should reconnect with Wade.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do.”

“Well, Ronin, he’s gonna get his chance to speak to her no matter what you do. Face that fact. He’s here, he’s here to see her, and he’s not leaving until he does. So you might as well just embrace it. Because you can’t stop it, that’s for sure. And if you make a big deal about it, she’ll just do it anyway. And she’ll break up with you because you forced her to make a choice.”

I hate it when Ford’s right. “So I’m just supposed to sit down and shut up? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Yes. This is not about you, it has nothing to do with you, in fact. She likes you, that’s for sure. Otherwise she’d take that money, buy herself a car, and be on the road to anywhere but here. Because that’s just how she works. I call her type the Leaver.”

Ford and his fucking labels. “Yeah, I think you’re right about that. She’s got no fear of the road. I could tell that immediately. What kind of teenager gets on a bus alone knowing she’ll be homeless when she steps off? She’s not afraid to chuck it all and start again.”

“Exactly. And I’ll go one further. She told me she had no intention of getting off the bus in Denver. She was on her way to Vegas but she thought fate was sending her a message via South Park and got off on a whim. No plans, no home, no money, no friends, and no prospects. She stepped into the unknown because of a fucking cartoon. Now she has all of those empowering things and more, how hard would it be for her to just leave now? If you pressure her, she’s gone.”

I hold my head in my hands, trying to stave off the headache with a last-ditch brow pinch.

“Just give her some freedom, Ronin. I’ll keep an eye on her up at Spencer’s place.”

I get up and walk to the door, then stop. I don’t turn and say it to his face, but I say it just the same. “Thanks, Ford. And dude, just so you know, I’m sorry. About… Mardee.” I don’t wait for an acknowledgment, I just plaster a smile on my face and walk through back into Rook’s birthday party.