I didn’t get an answer and decided to wait a half hour before trying again. When it rang out the second time, I frowned. Had his phone died? Or maybe he left it.

I got up and checked the clothes he’d been wearing. The pockets of his jeans were empty, but something hard was in his hoodie pocket. This must have been it. I dug my hand in there and pulled out something…

Something that wasn’t a phone.

Confused, I stared down at a pocket sized notebook that looked like it’d seen better days. I’d never seen this before. Was it from work? I opened it and flipped through the pages, and what I saw further perplexed me.

It was gibberish. Sentences that were filled with random letters that made no sense, but I was even further disturbed by the line that went through some of them. Like… like it was a list and things were being crossed off of it.

What the fuck? Was this… encoded?

I spent minutes on end, flipping through every single page, trying to read something that made sense. He needed to explain this because it wasn’t giving me any answers.

Pulling out my phone again, I scrolled through my contact list and tried to reach Matt instead. Surely if he was hanging with the guys, Matt was most likely there, or would at least confirm this.

“Allie?” he answered in surprise.

“Hey, Matt, how’s it going?” I returned, anxiously chewing the corner of my thumb.

“Good, hon. And you?”

“Yeah, good. Look, I can’t get a hold of Heath. He said he was fighting tonight and then hanging with the guys, so I’m wondering if you’ve seen him. I know you hang out with them too sometimes, so thought I’d try reaching him through you.”

“Um,” he hummed for a moment, and I could hear loud chatter behind him slowly fade away as he moved into a more secluded spot. “There was a fight tonight, but Heath wasn’t in it.”

My heart rate picked up. “What?”

“And Heath’s not here with the guys either.”

I nearly grinded my thumb to smithereens. “What about Marko? Is he kicking around there?”

“Nope. No Marko in sight either.”

My eyes widened in shock. “Are you fucking with me, Matt?”

“No, Allie, I’m being a hundred percent serious.” His voice took on a gentler tone. “You okay?”

No, I was most definitely not okay. Heath had lied to me. Fucking lied to me! Why? Where was he really? What was he up to?

“How many times has Heath fought in the last couple months?” I demanded shakily.

“Not a lot of times. I mean, you asked me today about the one he had last week and I asked around but everyone’s absolutely certain he didn’t fight.”

This wasn’t making any sense. I got off the couch and began pacing the room. My whole body coursed with sudden adrenaline as all kinds of horrible scenarios played out in my head. What the hell was he doing?

Was he… Was he with a girl?

No! No, a guy that looked at me with such warmth and love could not be capable of that kind of dishonesty, right?

The tiny voice in my head whispered, Ryker was.

“Allie,” Matt said, “are you okay? What’s going on? Has he been lying to you?”

“I just… I don’t get it because he’s been telling me he’s been fighting and he’s been coming home with the money in his hands! I don’t… I don’t understand!”

Matt went quiet on the other end too before he solemnly asked, “How much money is he bringing home?”

“The usual you get from winning a fight.”

“Every time?”

“Yes.”

“What the fuck?”

“Exactly!”

“Alright, alright, look, maybe there’s an explanation. Maybe he’s been fighting somewhere else, out of town or something...” He knew that was bullshit as he was telling me. There wasn’t anywhere outside of town you could fight.

“No,” I disagreed. “That’s not possible. He’s been getting money from somewhere else. I just can’t think of what it could be. In the rumours you heard about Marko, did he ever do anything illegal, like sell drugs?”

“No, Allie, nothing like that.” Matt was deep in thought too. “It was just shit about his sister and him. No crime involved.”

I sighed in defeat. “Okay, well, I’m going to try calling him again. Thanks for everything, Matt.”

“Let me know how it goes. I’ll call up some people and see if he’s hanging around anywhere else.”

“Okay, and thanks.”

I got off the phone and tried Heath once more. I got nothing again and this time I ended up throwing the phone on the couch as hard as I could. What in the hell was happening?!

Tears threatened to spill as the twisted feeling of pain gutted me from within. I hunched over, clenching my stomach with my arm, and breathed hard through my mouth.

I was having a full blown anxiety attack.

My entire body shook hard, tremors so violent I couldn’t shake them off no matter how many times I paced the place. He lied.

He fucking lied to me!

For the first time since being with Heath, I felt helpless.

Seven

Heath

If I stopped doing this every time I had a bad feeling, I wouldn’t have done it at all.

“Stay focused, man,” Marko said from behind me. “You’re taking a lot longer to get this shit done.”

We’d broken into another place – a small home on a bit of old farmland. This was meant to be our last hit for a very long time, and I was taking an unusual amount of time handing him the money as I tore it out of the walls. I wasn’t feeling like my usual cautious self. I’d thrown my mask off because the inside of the house was stifling and I couldn’t breathe.

I could barely concentrate, stopping every few moments to shake my head clear. I knew the real issue was personal. All I kept thinking about was Allie’s rejection. She was right to do it anyway. I was unworthy of her. I was a piece of fucking scum, lying to her behind her back just to do this shit.

I just wished she’d told me the real reason why she’d said no so I wouldn’t be standing here, in the middle of a robbery, thinking about it.

“Heath,” Marko hissed, grabbing at my arm harshly and shaking me. “Fuck’s sake! You’re distracted. Let me do it and you just keep a look out.”