Devil of Dublin: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance, page 30
So. Many. People.
Images of those I’ve lost flicker behind my eyes, dim and grainy, fighting to get a feeling past the hydrocodone. But the painkiller does its job, and within moments, I’m fuzzy and numb again.
When the coast is clear, I shove my hands in the front pocket of my hoodie to keep all my shit from falling out and scurry across the street. Cars and trucks are lurched on the curbs, overturned in the ditches, and abandoned with doors wide open in the middle of the lanes. I try not to think about how many of those cars might still have people in them as I reach out and pull open the Burger Palace door.
When I walk in, I half-expect to see flaming banners and demons slaying people on horseback, but it’s just the entire miserable town of Franklin, crammed inside and yelling at each other.
God, it’s loud. People who’ve lived here their whole lives are shoving fingers in each other’s faces, arguing about who was next in line. Babies are crying. Mothers are crying. Toddlers are screaming and running around like wild animals. And everybody smells like liquor.
I sigh and begin to make my way to the back of the line when I notice that my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Frazier, is standing at a cash register. It’s her turn to order, but she’s too busy cursing out Pastor Blankenship, who’s behind her in line, to get on with it. I’m sure Mrs. Frazier wouldn’t mind if I—
I slip in front of her at the cash register, hoping she keeps screaming long enough for me to order.
“Hi, and welcome to Burger Palace!” A girl wearing a Burger Palace cap and polo shirt beams at me from across the counter. “May I take your order?”
I glance down the line and notice three more employees, all sporting the same exaggerated grin.
What the hell are they giving these people? Molly? Crystal meth?
“Uh … yeah.” I keep my voice low. “I’ll have a soda and a large fry.”
“Would you like to Apocasize that?”
I blink. Twice. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Apocasize it!” She gestures up at one of the digital screens behind her, where an animated thirty-two-ounce drink and bucket of fries are holding hands and skipping around a fire. “It’s not like we have to worry about carbs anymore, am I right?”
My eyebrows pull together. “Uh … no, I guess not.” I hear Mrs. Frazier call Pastor Blankenship a cunt behind me and know I’d better wrap it up. “Sure, whatever. How much does that cost?”
Perky Polly on Molly taps her monitor a few times. “That’ll be forty-seven fifty.”
“For a soda and fries?” I blurt.
She shrugs, never letting her smile slip.
“Jesus,” I mutter under my breath as I dig in my hoodie pocket for some cash.
Price-gouging pieces of—
I set the contents of my pocket on the counter to sort through them, and with that one simple, absentminded gesture, all holy hell breaks loose. Perky Polly leaps across the counter, clawing at my little orange prescription bottle, at the exact same moment that Pastor Blankenship swipes one long arm out to grab it. Their fists collide, knocking the plastic bottle to the floor, which I manage to get a foot on before it can roll away. But, as I kneel down to pick it up, Mrs. Frazier launches herself at my back and sends us both crashing into the counter.
The entire crowd surges forward, pinning us to the stainless-steel surface as they push and pull and claw at the salvation in my fist with greedy, desperate hands. I scream as one of them rips out a chunk of my hair. I hiss as another rakes her nails across my cheek. I bite and elbow as many others as I can. Howls and grunts and frustrated curses pour out of me as I struggle against the mob. The weight of them is crushing, pushing me down. I curl into a ball on the floor, clutching the bottle to my chest with both fists as I wince and take their beating.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stops. The ringing in my ears registers a moment later. Someone fired a gun. Or a freaking cannon from the sound of it.
The room goes quiet, and the crowd freezes, but I don’t look up.
It could be a trick. It could be somebody just trying to distract me so that somebody else can snatch my pills. It could be—
I wince as the hot metal muzzle of a gun sears my temple.
“I’ll be taking this.” I hear the stranger’s voice just before a firm hand wraps around my upper arm and yanks me to my feet.
I stand in a daze and face my attackers. They don’t even have the decency to look ashamed. In fact, they don’t look at me at all. Their eyes, a few pistols, and at least one rifle are all trained on the person holding a gun to my head. They’re not mad that he’s about to kidnap me. They’re mad that he’s kidnapping my pills.
“Who the hell are you?” Mr. Lathan, our former postman, growls from the back of the crowd. One of his eyes is squeezed shut as he stares down the length of his rifle, ready to fire.
My abductor shrugs as he walks me backward toward the door. “Doesn’t really matter, does it?”
I watch the glow of anger in everyone’s eyes cloud over with despair as they take in the meaning of his words.
Today is April twentieth. Nothing matters anymore.
I don’t struggle. I don’t even turn around and look at him. I let him drag me behind the building and pray that, whatever he does, he does it quick.
So much for not drawing attention.
I realize along the way that I’m limping, but I can’t seem to pin down the location of my injury. And my mouth tastes like blood, but it doesn’t hurt. And my body feels all floaty and light even though I just got jumped by half the town.
Damn, this hydrocodone is some powerful shit.
I giggle at the absurdity of my situation as the gunman behind me guides me toward a parked dirt bike with the heel of his palm on my shoulder.
“What’s so funny?” His voice is soft, just like his touch as we come to a stop.
I turn to answer him and almost choke on my own spit. The words dry up in my mouth as I stare into the mossy-green eyes of a guy not much older than me. A tall, gorgeous guy who should be on a poster in my bedroom, not kidnapping me from Burger Palace.
I expected my captor to be some middle-aged, beer-gutted, gray-bearded, bald guy, not … this. This guy is perfect. It’s like his parents were so rich that they went to the doctor and selected his DNA from a menu before he was conceived—high cheekbones, straight nose, soft eyes, strong eyebrows, and full lips that he’s chewing on absentmindedly.
But the rest of him doesn’t look rich at all. He’s wearing a white ribbed tank top under a blue floral Hawaiian shirt, his jeans have holes in them, and the disheveled brown hair tucked behind his ear looks like it hasn’t seen a pair of scissors in years.
Mine, on the other hand …
I run my fingers through my hacked-off locks, suddenly feeling super self-conscious about my frumpalicious appearance.
My captor raises his dark eyebrows a little higher, indicating that he’s still waiting for me to tell him what’s so funny.
I think about the painkillers that made me giggle, which causes me to remember all the other stuff I pulled out of my pocket along with that little orange bottle. “Shit!” I gasp, frantically patting my lower belly, feeling for the contents of my hoodie pocket. “I left all my money on the counter in there! And my keys!” I grimace and pinch the bridge of my nose. “God, I’m such an idiot.”
“You still got those pills?” The boy pulls back one side of his unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and shoves his handgun into a brown leather holster.
“Uh … yeah …” I wrap my fist a little tighter around the plastic bottle.
“Good.” He flicks his chin toward the dirt bike behind me. “Get on.”
“Where are we going?”
He lets his shirt fall back into place and pins me with a look that I can’t quite read. It’s been so long since I’ve seen somebody display anything other than the swollen red eyes of despair, the gnashing teeth of mob rage, the panicked twitchiness of fear, or the distant stare of sweet, drug-induced numbness that his calm, focused demeanor confuses the hell out of me.
“Shopping.”
I pull my eyebrows together as he strides past me.
“Shopping?”
The stranger stops next to the dirt bike and shoves a black helmet onto his head, ignoring my question.
“A helmet. Really?” I snort. “We only have three days to live, and you’re worried about safety regulations. You’re not one of those lifers, are you?”
Lifer is a term the media coined months ago to describe those disgustingly optimistic members of our society who simply refused to believe that the end was near. You used to be able to tell them apart by their stupid, smiling faces and cheerful greetings. But, now, they look just like the rest of us—mad, sad, scared, or numb.
“I’m not a lifer. I just have shit to do, and it’s not gonna get done if my head is splattered all over the asphalt.” The boy straddles the black-and-orange machine and turns his masked face toward me. “Get on.”
I consider my options. I can’t exactly run back into the restaurant and ask for help. I’m in no condition to fight. I might be able to toss the painkillers in one direction and run as fast as my beat-up legs will go in the other, which could work if all he wants is the pills. But then what? Limp home and survive on pancake-syrup soup until the four horsemen of the apocalypse come to get me?
Yeah, I think I’d rather be kidnapped.
Join Rain and Wes as they take the ride of their lives in this emotional, gripping, end-of-the-world romance, available here:
mybook.to/prayingforrain
BOOKS BY BB EASTON
44 CHAPTERS ABOUT 4 MEN
Inspiration for the Netflix Original Series SEX/LIFE.
THE 44 CHAPTERS SPIN-OFF SERIES
Darkly funny. Deeply emotional. Shockingly sexy.
SKIN (Knight’s backstory, Book 1)
SPEED (Harley’s backstory, Book 2)
STAR (Hans’s backstory, Book 3)
SUIT (Ken’s backstory, Book 4)
THE RAIN TRILOGY
Intense, immersive, end-of-the-world romance.
PRAYING FOR RAIN
FIGHTING FOR RAIN
DYING FOR RAIN
GROUP THERAPY
Hilarious, heartwarming psychologist-client romcom.
DEVIL OF DUBLIN
A dark mafia romance steeped in Irish folklore.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BB Easton is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 44 CHAPTERS ABOUT 4 MEN, the hilarious, steamy, tell-all memoir that inspired the Netflix Original Series, SEX/LIFE. Within the first month, SEX/LIFE was viewed by 67 million households worldwide, making it the 3rd Most-Watched Netflix Original Series of all time.
BB was a stressed-out school psychologist and mother of two when the inspiration to write 44 CHAPTERS ABOUT 4 MEN struck. Through that process, she rediscovered her passion for writing, became dangerously sleep-deprived, and finally mustered enough courage to quit her job and become a full-time author.
BB went on to publish four more wickedly funny, shockingly steamy, and heartwarmingly autobiographical books in the 44 CHAPTERS series: SKIN, SPEED, STAR, and SUIT. Since then, she's been hard at work writing fictional stories that appeal to her love for us-against-the-world romance, including a dystopian trilogy (PRAYING FOR RAIN), a psychologist-client romantic comedy (GROUP THERAPY), and a dark mafia romance (DEVIL OF DUBLIN).
You can find BB procrastinating in all of the following places:
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BB Easton, Devil of Dublin: A Dark Irish Mafia Romance
