In Too Deep

Thirty Three

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She hadn't seen him in twenty three days.

Granted, it had been her fault.

But twentythree days of not seeing Vicious, of not talking to him because they both weren't sure if her phone had been tapped, or her house had been bugged—either way, they were both taking extreme measures to keep each other safe.

To hell with keeping each other safe.

Twenty three days of going to her normal job and coming back home to nothing felt like slow torture. Time didn't stretch faster. Days didn't seem to be moving as fast as she wanted it to. She seemed to be stuck in an endless loop.

Nova asked for more shifts so she didn't have to think about the other life she was missing so much. Everything was annoying and normal people were insufferable to deal with, and she fought against the urges to numb everything and everyone. There were other things that she wasn't able to get rid of, like her need for Vicious. She filled her days busying herself with work and friends in hopes of quenching it. She was doing everything to try and keep him out of her mind, but it wasn't easy when every customer that walked in either dressed like him, or she found herself trying to look for him in them.

She could not handle the radio silence and was not very good at it. She started staking around drug dealers' spots hoping she could catch a glimpse of one of Vicious' gang member, fully prepared on making him tell her where their leader was and send him off with her new contact number, which she had changed and could be the reason why Vicious had not contacted her. So far, she had met no one. And when she had almost gotten herself in trouble with a dealer who had suspected her of being the police, Nova ended up buying drugs from him to convince him that she wasn't. She never went back there again.

She had reached the darkest aspect part of her life when she had decided to drugs could help her cope, and she had sat and thought about it. What if Vicious had someone watching her? What if they had seen her buying drugs? Vicious would come running if he knew she was considering taking it.

He didn't come.

When she took her first and third, it was easier not to think about what she was missing. It helped her, even if it was for a little while. But when she started having blackouts, forgetting conversations and was doing poorly at work—flight with two customers, at the end of the day, she ended up losing her job.

Nova flushed down the pills. It was a bad idea in the first place, and she was never going back down that road again, even if she would wake up with his name on her lips and a mini-orgasm ripping through her sleep. Enough moping. Enough suffering. She knew he wasn't doing this to make her suffer. He was doing it for both of them—so they both didn't end up in prison. When she remembered that, she got her smile back.

It was Sunday afternoon, Nova was enjoying her lunch outside a cafe, the blazing sun shining relentlessly on everyone. She was sipping on her coffee when the waitress walked over to her, asked if she was Nova before she gave her the phone. Apparently, someone wanted to talk to her.

Confused because no one knew she was at the cafe, she pressed the phone to her ear and listened in.

"Hello?"

"949 East Burnside Street. Eastside motel, room number six," the voice rumbled out, and before she could ask what that meant, the phone clicked.

The waitress took the phone back while Nova's face erupted in confusion. Who was that? It wasn't a voice she knew. Despite wanting to forget about the strange phone, she found that she couldn't. She wanted to know who that was. She wanted to know what was in the motel.