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clawing need inside.
    But that was exactly
the reason it needed to stop.
    “Stop,” I
said, my voice a strange mix of shaky and strong.
    Breaker exhaled a
breath that made my hair dance around my face. But his hand slid
away. “Killjoy,” he accused, pushing me away and stepping
out from behind me. He went to the door, letting me think I was
getting off scot free. But then he turned back. “Got nothing
but time to wear you down,” he said and it sounded like a
promise. “You're gonna tell me what the fuck you got yourself
into.”
    Then he was gone.

Five

    Breaker

    What the hell was wrong
with me?
    I never should have put
my hands (or mouth) on her. No matter what information I was trying
to get out of her. She was small and scared and very seriously
contemplating her own death.
    And I screwed with her
head even more.
    It wasn't an excuse
that she was fuckin' drop dead gorgeous. Maybe not in the modern way-
all ass and tits. She was classic- long legs and perfect bone
structure. Couple that with those doe eyes, that sharp tongue, and
that temper...
    Fuck.
    Walking out of the
building, I took off on foot, leaving my truck parked out front of
the warehouse. It wasn't my place. Plenty of kids liked to use it to
drink and fuck and fight. But when my truck was out front, they knew
to take their fun elsewhere. It was a dead fuckin' town. There were
plenty of other abandoned buildings to break into.
    I walked up to the door
of the tattoo shop on the corner, slamming my fist into the metal
frame until the glass wobbled ominously. It was almost dawn. The
place had been closed for hours.
    “Better want to
fuck or fight if you're showin' up at this hour,” a voice
grumbled from inside a few seconds before the door pulled open.
    And there was Paine.
    And, yeah, that was his
real fuckin' name. On his birth certificate and everything. It was an
ironic twist of fate that he was a tattoo artist.
    He was around my age,
three inches taller, and built just about as strong. He was mixed-
light skinned but black with startling light green eyes. Shirtless,
his entire body was covered in dark black ink up to his jawline.
Bitches liked him- partly because he was good looking and partly
because he knew exactly what lines to feed them to get them out of
their panties in under fifteen minutes.
    He
took one look at me and sighed. “Drink?” he asked,
already moving back in to the shop, past the
tattoo rooms, and down a hall that led to his apartment.
    Paine liked nice shit.
The inside of his studio apartment had been completely redone. Walls
skimmed then painted a deep blue. Floors refinished and stained a
dark color, just shy of black. The kitchen (which he didn't use) was
all state of the art- white subway tile and white cabinets, white
marble counter, stainless steel appliances. To the opposite side of
the room was his enormous California king bed with a white comforter.
In the center of the room, a living area with a deep blue sectional
and the biggest flatscreen available.
    He walked over to the
kitchen where several bottles of booze were standing and poured us
each a glass.
    I walked over, taking
my first round in one shot, and leaning against the counter.
    “What you got
yourself into now?” he asked, nursing his drink.
    “Lex Keith took
Shooter.”
    The air got noticeably
sharper. “What?” he asked, his tone turning lethal.
    See... the thing was...
me and Shoot went back. Went way back to me finding him sleeping up
against my place when I was nineteen. And by “my place” I
meant the abandoned storefront I was squatting in. No one gave a shit
and I had been there for half a year. Hell, I had the place rigged
with cable and electricity by that point.
    I walked out my front
door, and there he was. Fifteen, small, scrappy.
    “Yo,” I
said, kicking his creepers with my boots.
    His eyes bolted open,
his body somehow going from sleeping and sitting to alert and
standing in the course of a blink. He wore a pair of black