Blood and Honor Read Online Free PDF Page A

all over the damn place, financing her drastic, erratic movements all over the map with odd jobs and handouts. Any time she got the slightest notion that her past was going to catch up with her, she ran. Over and over again. She had the sinking feeling that someday, she was going to have to stop running but that day didn’t have to start now, did it?
    Reaching down beneath the table, Mickey pulled out the money she had stowed in her shoe. Fucking twenty bucks. That was all she had left. Her hand clenched reflexively before she was able to relax the death grip on her coffee.
    It was going to be okay. Somehow, she always made it. She always got to the next place. A meal and a place to sleep were luxuries, as long as she kept moving. Being in constant survival mode meant that she didn’t have to think—about her past or her future.
    “Just the coffee, hon?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Mickey looked away. Would there ever be a day when she wasn’t ashamed of being poor?
    Being poor is the least of your worries, the insidious voice in her head whispered.
    Mickey squeezed her eyes shut as if the action would dispel the horrifying image that was flitting across her brain. She smiled wanly, to keep up her façade. No sense in getting kicked out into the snow. The waitress refilled her cup, clucked to herself, and made her way back behind the counter. Mickey stared out the window. It was cold outside. Dark and dreary.
    Like my soul.
    Mickey sighed, gripping the coffee mug as though it were a lifeline. The heat seeped into her skin. It warmed her hands but that was where the comfort stopped.
    Guilt was an unforgiving bastard.
    The man at the table next to her stood abruptly, and paid his tab. The wind tossed the door closed with a bang. He had left his newspaper behind so she scooped it up, pleased to find any kind of distraction, and a reason to spend a few more minutes in the warmth of the diner. She huddled in her back booth, grateful for the simple black and white and the familiar typeface.
    She started flipping to the classifieds immediately. Twenty bucks wasn’t enough for a ticket out of this town. She had no destination—she just knew she had to keep moving. Unfortunately, the help wanted ads were dismal.
    Fuck it, looks like I’m stuck here for a while.
    Mickey turned the pages absently now, staring through the words. She might have missed the small photo at the bottom of the page if she hadn’t sloshed her coffee, spilling a large droplet just above the grainy picture.
    Everything inside of her stopped. For a moment, she thought her heart had ceased to beat as she stared at the caption:
    Local Artist Gives Back to Community.
    The fact that Rhee’s face smiled at her from the tattered pages of the daily news wasn’t what fazed her the most. No, it was the blurred image of the man standing behind her that made Mickey’s blood turn to ice. She stood up, perhaps too quickly and the blood rushed to her head.
    Mickey knew what was going to happen—it had happened a few times before. Frantically, she lunged for the bathroom, but it was too late. The room spun. Someone yelled something—the words distorting as though they were calling to her from under water.
    Then, she returned to the sweet oblivion that she knew so well.

Chapter Six
    “Did you see Mama swimming out there today?”
    Dax shrugged. Sharks scared the piss outta him, just like they did everybody else, but ever since the Vidal incident, he kind of felt like the big fish were on his side. He had seen their shadows passing beneath him as he sat on his board, deep in the line up, waiting for the perfect set to come in. Oddly, Dax never felt any danger when he was out in the marine wilderness. Still, if Rhee knew just how big the large tiger that liked to cruise the reef really was, she’d probably flip her shit.
    Nah, there was no probability about it. Rhee would definitely take a knife to his board. A wry smile settled on his face as an image of his stubborn,