The Vacuum

Part 7

Caution: smut coming!

"Tell me you're not a deep question sort of bitch when you smoke?" Mac muttered as he watched her little hands roll the joint with ease. He took a sip from the beer she had brought out for him and watched her large eyes focus in and out.

She'd changed when she had gotten home. The top was an... improvement. He wasn't as tempted with it at least. It was a huge red t shirt that looked like a men's size. The shorts however did not help him at all, leaving her long naturally tanned legs exposed and curled up against her chest with her boots half unlaced and hanging around her ankles, gapping open. Most women he would think looked disgusting like that, like they weren't trying to please him so fuck them. Alex still looked...something that wasn't disgusting.

Alex let out a little smirk and shook her head negative. They were sitting on the rock porch outside of her house, the deep of night filling the space around them with only the fire pit as illumination. "I'm more of a forget the big questions kind of bitch." She told him before her little pink tongue darted out to lick the edge of the paper, green eyes looking up over at him with a sort of rebellion that he was pretty sure he had stomped out a long time ago.

He scrapped his middle finger under the nail of his thumb as she held it up in front of her for her own inspection. She rolled a good joint he would give her that. He had given her some of his weed from the bag she had saved for him instead of the one that he'd laced. He'd let her have tonight, just because she'd saved him at least one night in the police station. Just tonight, he told himself over and over again.

Mac leaned back in the chair as he watched her take a long hit. She didn't cough, didn't show any signs that it was even remotely alien to her.

Alex blinked her eyes slowly, letting them stick closed for a fraction of a second before reaching over her folded legs to hand the joint over to him. "You were right," She said as he took it. "That's awesome."

Mac reached out and took it from her, flicking his wrist to push his shirt cuff away. He nodded and watched as the too large t-shirt she had changed into before he came fell to the side over her shoulder, revealing the puckered skin of a burn he had seen in the car. "That a cigarette burn?" He knew it wasn't. It was far too big.

Alex looked down at it as if for a moment she had forgotten it was there. She reached with her opposite hand and pulled the shirt up to hide it. "Cigar." She told him.

Mac frowned as her eyebrows drew together, remembering something. "Boyfriend? Dad?"

"No." She muttered, rubbing the spot and kneading her fingers into the fabric over it.

Mac frowned. "What about the rest?" He wanted to know...wanted to know how to scare her, he told himself. "You do got more." A person who burned you purposefully didn't stop there. He knew that.

Alex looked up at him as he took a hit himself, cherry burning around the frames of his hooded blue eyes in the night. "Torture." She finally said in a dead panned, end of conversation tone.

Mac leaned back in the chair with sadistic interest, watching her watching him. "What kind of torture?"

Alex closed her eyes and leaned her head against her shoulder, stretching her neck as if trying to grasp at or wrestle with her own memories. "All kinds." She said slowly. She opened her eyes again as he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. She gave a sad little smile. "You know how much a persons life is really worth?" He frowned. "Here, not much. In fact, most of them are actually in dept. Mortgages, credit cards, medical depts. To most people or banks, it would be cheaper to kill them off. But when an American photographer or journalist gets taken...a lot. Enough to fund a small army. When you have six of them...you're golden."