Read Traitor, Book 1 of The Turner Chronicles Page 39

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  Feeling sad, Perk watched while Derrick staggered down the walkway. The sight of one more loser walking out of her life made her want to take therapy. There was something inside her, some insecurity that made her go after the users and the abusers. Obviously, her lovers were not the only ones who were sick. They were just the ones who were afraid to openly admit to the sickness in their minds. Perk knew she was sick, but she could see no way out of it except through an endless array of weightlifting, and swimming, and martial arts classes.

  Shaking her head in self-disgust, Perk went around the house, changing the combinations on her locks and the codes on her alarm system. Of course, she would now have to set up the cameras again because Derrick was violent and had a vindictive streak as wide as her driveway running through him. Being Derrick, he would try to damage her home. Well good luck, boyo. If you do that you'll do your time behind bars just like those other two smarmy bastards.

  It took her over an hour to reconnect the cameras, and then it took her another two hours to get them adjusted the way she wanted. During that time she took a look at her life and did not particularly like what she saw. She looked at her job and her men, and she wished desperately that she did not live here. She wished she lived in a time and a place where honor had some meaning. She wanted to live where integrity was more than just another word in the dictionary; where it was not a constant struggle for her to get through the day without wanting to punch some asshole of a fare who thought all female drivers sold themselves on the side. Most of all, she wished she could land a decent job and a decent man, but those goals were only dreams because she was a person of limited potential. All she could do was drive and fight. Despite encouragement from her teachers, Perk knew she was not qualified to teach martial arts. She was not good enough for that. She was not nearly as good as those who taught her, and she had too much pride to be a third rate teacher like so many others.

  Well, she did have more than a little money set aside, money that Derrick had never known about. The twisted man had seen to that. She smiled. Aaron Turner was a lonely and a weird man. She liked him despite or because of that. Maybe it was the weird in him. She seemed to be attracted to weird.

  Maybe she should quit driving and start taking a few classes. She could probably arrange to get her GED in a year or two, and then she could go after something more ambitious than driving a cab.

  Or maybe she should just pack her bags and head off for some foreign port. Maybe she should ditch Jefferson entirely and head for one of those little tropical islands where tourists drank out of glasses with little umbrellas stuck in them. A place where native men and women took off their daytime business suits to don the traditional skimpy attire of their forebears so they could dance and prance for those umbrella-twiddling tourists.

  Hell, maybe she should just take a nap.

  Nah, she couldn't even do that. She had to wash her sheets first. She only had the one set, and they were soiled.