I'm sure you've all noticed that the R rating has come into play in terms of sexual content and coarse language. This chapter contains some fairly graphic violence as well. Be warned, this chapter does push the envelope, and from now on most chapters are going to be pretty intense in all three respects.
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Clark walks down the street. He's already fucked and ditched two girls at two separate clubs, so when some punk approaches him asking if he wants some hot youngass he almost refuses. But when he looks down the alley the kid is pointing at he sees a familiar flash of black hair and combat boots.
He picks up the punk by the collar and walks calmly down the alley, ignoring the man's gurgling cries. As he nears the brick wall he sees her struggling with a larger man. Clark's sharp eyes pick out dark bruises under her eyes and a cut on her forehead. He lower lip looks a little swollen as well. Clark records this in a purely automatic fashion, and when the big guy finally notices him he turns to Clark and growls: "Back off, man. Wait your goddamn turn."
"I don't think so." Clark intones before throwing the choking man at the larger man. Hard. They fall away and Clark looks at them for a moment as they stared wide-eyed up at him. Moments later they are gone, and Clark goes to kneel beside Smiley's quivering body. Her eyes are glassy and distant and her breath seems to hang thickly in the air. She is breathing heavily and when Clark tries to get her attention she doesn't respond.
No matter what Clark does - yelling, snapping, slapping - She just stares straight ahead. So he lifts her over her shoulder and carries her back to the hotel.
In the room, he pushes her chain off the unused bed and tucks her in. She finally looks straight into his eyes and regains a little of her awareness. She goes to sleep.
Clark lies down next to her on top of the blanket and stares at her while stroking her face and hair. Then, without realising, he falls asleep as well.
In the morning, Clark wakes up first. His arm is wrapped around her and their faces are inches apart. He cringes and recoils quickly, almost falling off the bed. He starts his morning with a loud-voiced room servicecall for breakfast, and does nothing to muffle any of the noise he makes, but she doesn't stir.
Briefly he wonders in a strangely panic-filled moment if he crushed her ribs in the night. He stares at her for a long moment, unable to see the rise and fall of her chest, but then he looks inside and sees her beating heart, the barely perceptible push and pull of her lungs. He shakes his head angrily and forgets he ever worried.
The food arrives when he's in the shower, and when he gets out, he sees Smiley sitting at the table with a piece of toast between her fingers. It's buttered, but unbitten. She doesn't look at him as he pulls on some clothes and sits down across from her. He sets about eating in silence, and when he's done, he sits back and looks long and hard at her.
He waits.
It seems like ages. They sit in tight silence for a long time until Smiley clears her throat and Clark almost jumps. Smiley's piece of soggy, long-cold toast falls from her fingers, and she looks up at him.
"When I was here two years ago I met this guy. His name was Kyle. He said I could stay with him for a few days while I set myself up, but I ended up staying with him for a few months. So one night I went home and there were these three guys standing with him in the living room. He introduced us and told me that from then on I had to stay in the apartment at all times." She pauses. Coughs. Takes a sip of orange juice. "Basically, they had parties… Paid parties… With me as the main attraction."
Clark doesn't say anything and it appears she is finished. They sit in silence while he eats his eggs and bacon and toast, and drinks his coffee. Smiley doesn't touch any of the food on her plate and Clark doesn't try to make her.
When he finally stops eating he levels his gaze at her, taking in the damage in the light of day. She's an ugly mess now, with her eyes all bruised and red and her lower lip scabbing in the corner, as well as the cut on her forehead. He knows there are more bruises but he doesn't want to see them, doesn't even use his x-ray vision to peek under her clothes in search of damage.
He doesn't have a plan for the day yet, so he makes some decisive actions toward going out in the hopes that she won't stay in her dazed funk. He rustles around the room noisily, humming and moving things about. When he finally picks up his wallet and stuffs it in his back pocket, and she still hasn't moved, he turns to her. "Are you coming?" He asks, exasperated.
She slowly turns to look at him, and then gets up from the table. She dresses in a haze, putting on the clothes Clark hands her, and then, in a moment of what seems to be clarity, she picks up her chain from where it was lying on the floor. She holds it in her hands, weighing it, then begins to wrap it around her waist, securing it somehow. Clark watches her do it with a cool and detached eye, and doesn't say anything when she turns to him. She gives him a challenging look, the first real piece of her he's seen so far, and he turns, sure she'll follow.
As they get into the car, Smiley emits a little 'oh' of surprise when she finds her camera still lying on the floor. Clark had completely forgotten about it, and now he's glad, because he knows he would have crushed it if had remembered.
There is little conversation as they cruise the city. Before long, Clark finds himself surveying the area he found her in the night before. He thinks he sees someone familiar out of the corner of his eye and he pulls in to the nearest parking lot. He pulls a twenty from his pocket and hands it to Smiley. "Why don't you go into 7-11 and get us some coffee? And then come back here and lock the doors." She stares.
"What are you going to do?" She asks in little more than a whisper.
"I'll be back in about ten minutes." Clark gets out of the car and slams the door behind him. He stalks down the street, not looking back to see if she followed his instructions. At first he can't find what he's looking for, but narrowing his vision through the walls he sees a familiar skeleton.
With no regard to the lock on the door of the old apartment building, he enters, coming immediately face to face with three startled young men. He recognizes two of them from last night's attack, but the third he can't place.
"Shit! Kyle!" The immediate reaction of the smaller one is enough to know he's been recognized. The middle one steps forward.
"What the fuck, motherfucker?" The man named Kyle speaks very quickly, as though he's surprised at the intrusion and trying to overcome it. It reminds Clark of a small, yapping dog trying to scare away a larger, more dangerous dog. It almost makes him chuckle.
"What the fuck, motherfucker!" Clark mimics, advancing on the three men.
"Kyle! That's the guy who-" The kid's exclamation is cut off when Clark steps forward, grabs him by the neck, and crushes his windpipe. The larger man rushes forward, but with a sweeping motion Clark knocks him out of the way and the man makes a large dent in the wall. Meanwhile, Kyle stands in the middle of the apartment hallway looking somewhat lost; shock visible in the slack of his jaw and the bulge of his eyes.
Clark moves quickly, knocking Kyle to the floor. Clark bends over him, his knees on Kyle's shoulders. When he is certain Kyle can't move, he begins hitting the other man's head against the cement of the floor. He bangs it lightly at first, but gradually the hitting grows harder and harder. Kyle begins to cry out.
Two minutes later, Clark exits the building, wiping the brain matter and blood from his hands with a ripped t-shirt. He's surprised no one found them in the apartment lobby, but he notices the way certain people look at him as he walks back to the car. He stares at one particularly large and threatening-looking group standing in a doorway and carelessly throws the shirt to the ground. One of the men nods his head almost in greeting; some kind of acceptance. Clark doesn't nod back, but he sends a silent message with his eyes: You know what I've done, so don't fuck with me.