“You enjoy all this far too much.”
“This place used to be boring ’til you started working here. I never realised just how many blokes got their kicks from getting a good verbal roast. It might help if you didn’t look even spicier when you’re fuming. It seems to get their blood running.”
“You say all the right things,” said Jaxxon sarcastically.
“Oi, if I gave you a compliment or any sweet words you’d laugh in my face just like you do with all the others.”
He was right there, which, she supposed, was why she had never been with a truly decent bloke. Somehow she always ended up with controlling, clingy weirdoes. It seemed like ‘nice’ blokes were often too intimidated by her take-no-prisoners mentality to even approach her.
At the same time as the door flew open, a gruff voice rang out: “Jaxxon!”
Sigh. She had actually expected her twat-of-a-neighbour earlier. He must have taken longer at his drug dealer’s flat than she’d anticipated. “Yes, Sean, what can I get you? Budweiser? Guinness? Cyanide?”
“Where is she?” he demanded as he stood opposite Jaxxon panting like a Bull Mastiff.
“She?” enquired Joe.
Sean looked at him, wearing a bitter smile. “Imagine my surprise when I get back to my flat to find no Celia and no kid. Gone. Clothes and all.”
“Good,” said Jaxxon. “All’s going to plan then.”
“You helped his woman run off?” asked Joe, not all that surprised or bothered.
Jaxxon held up her hand. “Correction: I helped a beaten, mistreated, petrified woman and a bruised, starving, frightened little girl have a new start somewhere away from this threat to their lives and sanity.”
“You interfering bitch,” growled Sean.
“What can I say – it’s a gift.”
“You put ideas in her head. Celia wouldn’t have left me like that.”
“No she wouldn’t have,” agreed Jaxxon. “She was too scared to take a piss without your say so.”
“Where did you get the idea that you had the right to stick your nose in?”
“I’m sure Jesus said something about loving thy neighbours.”
He spread his hands over the bar, his face contorting as his anger intensified. “Where’s Celia?”
Jaxxon then noticed the tear in the arm of his jacket. She smirked. “So you tried to break into my flat and ended up being used as a chew toy.”
“That dog is a hellhound.”
“A much loved hellhound. And I better not get back to find your blood all over the carpet of my flat.” She had found the beautiful Great Dane, Bronty, about a month or so ago lying in an alleyway covered in bites and scratches. Without hesitation she took him back to her flat and got to work on his injuries. From that point on Bronty had seemed to decide that she was his, and had remained with her even once he was fully healed. Since then, her flat hadn’t been broken into.
The first time her flat – which was more or less one single room – had been ‘visited’ she had been both shocked and enraged, but soon she got used to these regular ‘visits’ from who appeared to be mostly drug addicts looking for money. Occasionally they took some of her underwear, too. It was difficult to experience any anxiety over it anymore. How could she feel territorial about a place that, to her, was not ‘home’ but merely just shelter? Besides, Jaxxon didn’t have much by way of possessions that she could call her own, especially not anything of worth.
She would never forget the day about three months back when she got back to find that not only had her flat been broken into, but the culprit was still inside. Not an addict looking for something they could sell, but a twelve year old boy looking for food. Little David revealed that although he lived with his mum in the flat above Jaxxon’s, the woman was hardly ever home and when she was she barely took any notice of him. Despite his insistence that he remain with his mum, who he was very protective of, Jaxxon might have contacted the authorities if she hadn’t known from personal experience that going into care didn’t mean you would be any better off. So she had taken him to meet a friend of hers who worked in the bakery at the corner of their street. Nora had told him that if he came each day just before closing time she would give him any pastries or other foods that were left over. Thank God. Jaxxon made a mental note to check on him later.
“Where are they?”
Sean’s growl snatched Jaxxon from her thoughts. She groaned. “Are you still here?”
“I won’t ask you again.”
“I’m curious, Sean, do you even know how old your little girl is? What date her birthday is? What her favourite food was to eat – when you bothered feeding her, of course.” If the man had truly known anything about Celia and their daughter then he would know about Celia’s sister who lived a few towns away. And if he had then suspected that that was where they were, he would have been right.
Sean leant across the bar, his face becoming an ugly shade of purple, his bloodshot eyes bulging. “You’ve always looked down your nose at me.”
“Now really, Sean, you make it impossible not to: You’re an abusive, twisted, weak little twat who enjoys trying to assault young girls in his free time.”
His smirk was crooked and callous. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” So close, he’d come so close to having that delicious body once. Even though it had been something like eight years ago he could still remember how arousing she’d looked in her school uniform that day. And just how much more arousing she’d looked when they were tearing it off her. So close. “I’d told Nick you wouldn’t just lie there shaking with fear and not fight back. McKenzie had taught you better than that – before he went off and became famous as a Formula One driver that is. If Nick had listened to me and tied you up like I told him to, I reckon that afternoon in the alley would’ve turned out very differently.”
“Such a shame.” She didn’t let it show that the memories were grating on her control, or that the mention of Connor, however fleeting, had brassed her off.
“You think that what we had in mind for you that day was bad? You think that what I did to Celia and the kid was bad? It will be nothing compared to what I do to you if you don’t cough up what I want to know. Oh yeah, I’d have a lot of fun with you. Even more fun than what I had with that little daughter of mine.”
Sick, perverted, evil bastard! Anger made her quick; without thought she grabbed a fistful of his greasy dark hair and slammed his face down hard on the bar. Once. Twice. Three times. “You ever even attempt to touch me with these paedophilic hands of yours and not only will I castrate you but I’ll ram your balls up your arse when I’m done.” She released her hold on his hair with a shove.
Although Sean, steaming with infuriation, quietly made his way to the door with that stealthy walk he had, she wasn’t mistakenly under the impression that that was the end of the matter. She was right.
“Don’t be surprised if Don decides he wants his rent money early,” he yelled as he reached the door.
Ah, yes. She had the company of her wookie lookalike landlord and his grubby paws to look forward to later when he came asking where his rent money was. It wouldn’t take much convincing from Sean to make Don be awkward. It was even possible that wookie Don would repeat his cheeky offer that Jaxxon could pay her rent with her body. She’d just have to knee the perverted old fart in the balls like she did last time.
Sean began, “And another thing -”
“Oh for the love of God why don’t you just piss off out of here!”