Shay Savage - Otherwise Unharmed

After all of that, she still felt guilty about taking his life.

I only regretted not doing it myself.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I turned away from the lake wind and made the trek back to the car.  I drove slowly through downtown traffic and watched the tourists with their shopping bags and Chicago-themed sweatshirts walk up and down the street, looking at maps and smartphones as they tried to figure out where they were.

I drove by the corner where Bridgett used to hang out and wait for tricks.

“You need to stop this shit,” I told myself.  “Too many fucking memories.”

With a quick twist of the wheel, I got myself onto Lakeshore Drive and headed toward the less damaged of Rinaldo’s homes.  When I arrived, all of Lia’s things were in a pile on the porch next to mine.  As I pulled up, she came outside with Luisa and Jonathan behind her.

“Ready now?” she asked.

“Definitely,” I replied.

Luisa and Lia shared an awkward one-armed hug, carefully avoiding bumping the bright pink cast over Luisa’s arm and elbow.  They spoke a few soft words as I threw the last of our things into the car and shut the lid to the trunk.  Jonathan came over and clasped his hand on my back.

“You take care of yourself, brotha,” Jonathan said as he shook my hand vigorously.  He was wearing his Save Ferris T-shirt, which made me smile.  “You ever need anything, you know how to find me.”

“Thanks, dude,” I replied.  “You sure you’re okay with taking care of…of Odin?”

“It’s my next stop,” Jonathan said.  “He’s getting the biggest fucking stone in the pet graveyard, so if you ever come back, it’ll be easy enough to find.”

We looked at each other for a long moment, but there wasn’t anything else to be said.  As strange as it was, given how many bodies I had disposed of during my tenure with Rinaldo’s organization, I couldn’t bring myself to take care of Odin’s.  The very thought of it brought me to the point of vomiting.  It could have been left over from the concussion, but I didn’t think so.  When Jonathan had volunteered, I knew my dog would get the best final services he could.  Thanks wouldn’t have been anywhere near enough, and Jonathan already knew how I felt about it anyway.

“Don’t put up with any shit from this guy!” Jonathan said to Lia as he gave her a quick hug and opened the car door for her.

She laughed.

“He wouldn’t dare,” she said with a wink to me.

I rolled my eyes, waved goodbye to Luisa, and got behind the wheel.  Lia settled in beside me, and I pulled around the circular driveway and off into the street.

“We need to make one last stop,” I said.

“Where?” Lia asked.

“The old apartment over on Kingsbury.  I’ve got to grab a couple things from there.”

“What?”

“Cash,” I replied.

Lia came with me as we headed up the elevator and then to the unit we had inhabited.  She stood near the door and looked around as I grabbed a couple of suitcases from the back of the closet.  When I came out, she was staring at a spot on the floor in the living room.

Odin’s spare rubber bone was lying there.

“Get it,” I said quietly.

She glanced at me, and there were tears threatening to spill from her lashes.  She didn’t say anything, just quickly walked over and grabbed the bone.  She shoved it into her purse, and we headed back downstairs.

I tossed the suitcases into the trunk and was about to slam it shut when a voice shouted out from behind me.

“You there!”

I startled and went for my gun.  Lucky for her, the crotchety old woman with the bitch Odin had knocked up didn’t end up with a bullet in her head.

“You owe me eight thousand dollars!” she snapped.  “I have four mongrel pups I can’t sell for anything!”

For a moment, I could only see red.  I was dangerously close to strangling the old hag, but before I did, I glanced behind her and saw her dog on the lawn with four playful, white pups rolling around in the grass.

One of them perked her head up and looked over to us.  Her tail began to wag furiously as she tried to bound over in our direction but tripped on her own feet instead.  Distracted by whatever scent filled her nose upon impact, she attacked a blade of grass and forgot about us.

“You’re a nut,” I informed the woman.  “Fuck you and the dogs.”

I turned around and started to walk away, but Lia stopped me.

“Evan?” Lia said as her hand rested against my elbow.  “Evan, can we…can we take one of them?”

My chest tightened.  At first, I wanted to say no.  I wasn’t replacing Odin—there was no way.  But these pups…they were part of him, too.

He took a bullet for her.

I went back to the car, looked around carefully to make sure no one was watching, and then opened one of the suitcases full of cash.  I quickly counted out eight grand and brought it over to the woman.

“Here,” I said.  “Don’t ask for another fucking thing from me, and don’t give me any shit about it—we’re taking one of the puppies.”

She opened her mouth like she was going to argue with me anyway but thought better of it as she stared at the cash in her hand.  I took Lia’s arm and led her over to the fluffy white, wriggling balls of fur.  The same puppy that fell over her own feet earlier bounced over and licked Lia’s hand.

“That one,” I said definitively.

“I think you are right,” Lia replied as she picked her up.

She twisted and turned to get out of Lia’s arms at first, but then turned toward her face and licked her chin.

“That’s disgusting,” I told the pup, and her ears perked up at the sound of my voice.  She stared at me intently for a moment and then struggled to get out of Lia’s arms and over to me.  I rubbed her head, but Lia kept hold of her.

“She’s perfect,” Lia said as we got into the car, and the pup watched out the window as I pulled away.  “What are we going to call her?”

“Freyja,” I said without giving it another thought.

“What’s that from?”

“She’s the Norse Goddess of fertility, love, and beauty,” I told her.  I left out how she was also the goddess of death and war—that shit didn’t make sense to me, anyway.  It sounded better to leave it as it was.

“That’s perfect,” Lia said with a smile.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as she rubbed the pup’s head and started to tear up again.

“She’s got her dad’s eyes,” I remarked, and Lia nodded in agreement.

“Her breath is better,” she said as she wiped the wetness off her cheeks.  “Do you think she’ll like to play fetch?”

“Definitely.”

I pulled onto the freeway and headed northwest, out of Chicago.

“Where are we going to go?” Lia asked.

“Canada,” I replied simply.  “I have a cabin up there.”

“Like the one in Arizona?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” I said with a smile, “but similar.”

“Middle of nowhere?”

“You got it.”

“Will this place have electricity at least?” she asked.

“It’s got a propane tank,” I replied.  I looked over to smile at her slyly.  “Mostly gets used to heat the hot tub.”

Lia laughed, and I reached over to hold her hand.

Freyja licked the back of my knuckles.

“Disgusting,” I grumbled and sped up the highway as the Chicago skyline disappeared behind us.  I would miss it—well, parts of it—but everything important to me was with me.

I reached over to hold Lia’s hand as we drove away.

Nothing could have been better.

It’s fucking cold.

I kind of like it.

I stood out on the enclosed front porch of the small cabin in a desolate wasteland somewhere in Northern Ontario.  There was a good-sized lake not far off, and I could see the iced edge of it from the front of the cabin.  Evergreen trees surrounded the other three sides of the property, encasing it in serenity.

I adjusted the towel around my waist and took a sip of my scotch.  Behind me was the bubbling sound of the hot tub that had come with the place, and I planned on taking full advantage of it—for about the hundredth time—as soon as Lia was done cleaning up from the dinner I had cooked for her on the gas stove.

At least there was heat inside the cabin.

It had a living room, good-sized bedroom, a kitchen, and actual plumbing in the bathroom as long as the pipes were kept warm from the gas heat.  There were fireplaces in each room and three cords of wood in the back, already seasoned for the winter.  I’d have to get more for next year.

The cabin really was a lot nicer than the place in Arizona.  It was a good thing, too—I’d paid quite a bit for it, given the remote location and lack of amenities.  Some rich fisherman had the place built a decade ago but died of a heart attack before he ever had the chance to use it.  I bought it off his widow as one of the many getaways I might need when the time came.

The time had come.

The door opened, and Freyja bounded out with Lia close behind her, Odin’s old bone in her mouth.  She’d already grown a lot and resembled her father a little more than what made me comfortable, but I was getting used to the constant reminder of my old friend.

Lia had looked up her name and found out Freyja had been worshipped for war and death as well, but we ultimately decided it made sense.  All you had to do was look at us—from war, death, and suffering, we’d achieved beauty, peace, and love.

Lia was dressed in a string bikini, which I found utterly ridiculous, but she never just came out to the hot tub naked.  I wasn’t sure if she thought someone was going to spy on us all the way out here or not, but she refused to walk around outside without wearing something.  The bikini usually lasted about thirty seconds after Lia got into the hot tub, and even more often, ended up never making it to the water.

“Holy shit, it’s cold!” she cried as she wrapped her arms around her chest.

“Don’t do that,” I whined.  “I can’t see your nipples now.”

“I’m right, though, aren’t I?” she pressed.  She came up, stole a drink of my scotch, and kissed me lightly on the cheek.  “It’s getting even colder!  I thought Chicago winter was bad.”

“It’s barely December,” I reminded her.  “We haven’t even hit winter officially.  It’s going to get a lot colder.”

She looked out over the snow and got a faraway look I didn’t like much.  It meant she was thinking—remembering—about shit she shouldn’t have to think about.  She shivered, and I moved up beside her to wrap my arm around her shoulders.

For the most part, she was keeping herself busy with correspondence school to finish her degree in nursing.  It would only work for another year before she would have to be near a hospital to complete her studies, but we’d figure all that out when the time came.  It was a sacrifice she’d made to be with me, and I’d thrown out my Beretta so she wouldn’t have to look again at the only gun she’d ever fired again.

The Barrett was still with me, but I took it far away from the cabin to shoot it.  The noise made Lia kind of panicky, and Freyja didn’t care much for it either.  I set a target up about a mile away, and though the trek out there was a long one through the trees and snow, it was worth the effort to give her a little peace.

Lia had her scars from the whole ordeal, and I didn’t begrudge her those.  She’d done things she never thought she’d have to do, seen shit she never wanted to see, and she knew far more than she ever wanted to know.  There was no way I could erase those thoughts from her memory any more than I could erase what happened to me in the desert.

As much as I’d hated the thought, I told her she didn’t have to stay with me—not if it was too painful—but she just told me to shut up, and I wasn’t about to push the issue.

I needed her.

Maybe we needed each other.

I hoped so.

There was only one other thing still lingering in my mind—I still didn’t know why my parents ditched me in the first place.  I still had the address of the cemetery where they were buried, but I hadn’t gone there.  Maybe in the spring, we could take a trip to Ohio and see their graves, but I wasn’t sure what kind of information I’d really get from that.  It would be a good excuse to see Jonathan, though, and maybe get an update on the war in Chicago.

Maybe I’d just leave it alone.

Lia shivered again, and I lifted her up and lowered her into the hot tub before ditching my towel and climbing in myself.  Freyja went up the small step stool beside the spa and put her paws on the edge, but she didn’t like the water and wouldn’t come in.  She did like to sniff at the bubbles and watch us fuck, though.