“Take em.”
I know what they are without asking. A heavy duty sleeping pill and two pain killers. My cocktail of choice for almost three months after my last fight. Preach threw them all out one night, at least I thought he did, when I got myself to the point of self pity that I could no longer function without a handful. I was popping them like a kid with a bag full of M&Ms. When he took them away, it cost me almost ten grand. Ten grand worth of repairs when I ripped my own gym apart in anger because the damn doctor wouldn’t write me a new script to replace what Preach took. I’m surprised he’s even offering them to me now.
Preach pushes his hand cupping the pills further in my direction. “God damn it Nico, take the fucking things. You need to sleep, your body needs to rest and that stupid ass head of yours isn’t going to shut down long enough to let it. You take em like they’re supposed to be taken, a day or two to heal, not like fucking candy.”
Hostilely, I take the pills and swallow them in one gulp and leave Preach standing there with the unopened water bottle in his hand.
Some of the regulars are starting to trickle in now and they yell their congratulations in my direction. I don’t want to hear them, don’t deserve anyone’s well wishes.
Chapter 34
Elle
After not hearing from Nico last night after the fight or all day today, I head to his gym after work. He hasn’t responded to my texts and my calls go straight to voicemail. Either he’s ignoring me or his phone is off. All I need is to make sure he’s okay. Worry has built inside of me all day and I find myself at almost a jog going from my car to the entrance of the gym.
The usual desk guy recognizes me and I ask if Nico is around. My worry ratchets up a notch when he tells me he hasn’t seen him all day. Now I’m starting to wonder if he’s lying unconscious somewhere with an undiagnosed head injury from the fight.
Preach spots me and calls my attention in his direction with a loud whistle and a shake of the head. He’s holding the heavy bag while some guy with no neck is punching and kicking so fast, it looks like he’s having a seizure.
I make my way over to Preach and the guy without the neck stops hitting the bag and gives me a leering smile. It’s a smile and look that makes me want to shower. Immediately.
“That’s Nico’s girl you big moron. He catches you looking at her like that, you’re gonna be looking for a new gym. After you spend ten minutes looking for your teeth.” Preach’s tone isn’t playful when he speaks.
I give a half-hearted smile to Preach. “Have you seen Nico? He hasn’t answered my calls all day.”
“I put him to bed this morning.” Preach looks at me and then back to neckless. “Make yourself invisible for ten minutes.”
Without complaint, neckless disappears. If I wasn’t out of sorts, I’d probably find it oddly amusing, the power that Preach has over men twice his size. “You had to put him to bed? Is he okay?”
Preach pulls a towel from his back pocket and wipes his hands as he speaks. “He’s got some issues, Elle, you know this already, right?”
“You mean what kept him from going back in the cage?”
“Yeah, that. Well, I found him trying to exhaust his body into submission to get some sleep. It’s how he deals with things. He trains. Hard. Too hard sometimes. I think he’d been at it all night. Screwed up his hands. They’ll heal. But other than that, I think the worst of it’s in his head. I can fix the body. I can’t fix what’s in here.” Preach’s pointer finger taps on the side of his head.
“So how did you get him to go to sleep?”
“Drugs.” Preach states matter-of-factly and without remorse.
“You gave him drugs?”
“Don’t look at me like I’m the devil. They’re his drugs. Doc prescribed ‘em for him after the last fight. He started taking them too much so I took ‘em away. But he needed ‘em this morning, so I gave him enough to get him some sleep. The boy’s got more energy than anyone I’ve ever met when he’s on a tear. But the longer the tear, the harder the recovery. Nipped this one in the bud.”
“Has he slept all day?”
“Haven’t seen him, so I’m guessing he did. I wasn’t going up to check.”
“I’m going to go check on him.”
Preach nods his head. “I’m sure he’d like that better than waking up to me.”
***
Nico is lying diagonally across his bed, face down on his stomach. He’s still wearing the trunks from the fight the afternoon before. I watch his back rise and fall. Relief floods me that he’s still breathing.
Quietly, I back out of the room and pull the door shut again. I don’t want to wake him after what Preach told me. I find a pen and paper in the drawer in the kitchen and leave him a note on the table. Stopped by to check on you, didn’t want to wake you. Sweet Dreams. Elle
***
It’s almost ten o’clock at night by the time my phone finally rings. I grab it off the end table anxiously. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Nico’s voice is groggy and it sounds like he might have just woken up.
“Did you just wake up?” If he did, those are some powerful drugs because he would have been out for almost sixteen hours straight.
“Yeah.”
“How do you feel?”
“I’m fine.” Nico’s inflection tells me he doesn’t want to talk about it. It seems like I’ll be getting answers with minimum words again.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I said I’m fine, Elle.” It’s not lost on me that he uses my name. I became Babe to him the first week I met him. It shouldn’t be significant, but for some reason the simple change makes me feel like we’ve taken a step back. And his tone, I try not to get offended. I remember people trying to help me, when I wasn’t ready to accept it yet. It just pissed me off. But still, I can’t help but feel disappointed that he is going to close me out with everyone else.
“Okay.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence that sits between us. Something that I’ve never experienced with Nico. My stomach twists, but I wait for him to speak first.
“I need to make something to eat. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I act like nothing’s wrong, even though I feel my heart squeeze at his words. He’s blowing me off. “Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” I do my best to sound upbeat when I’m anything but.
For the first time, I realize I’ve really fallen for Nico Hunter.
Chapter 35
Nico
It’s fucking killing me to keep away from Elle. She’s all I can think about, but I don’t want her to see me this way. Weak. Scared. I can’t even fight anymore. I thought I’d moved past it all, moved on with my life after more than a year of running in place. But the nightmares are back. I can’t sleep and god damn Preach won’t give me any more of the pills.
She knows I’ve been avoiding her. I’m ruining the one good thing that I’ve found in a very long time, because I’m afraid to close my eyes and see his face. He haunts me. Haunts me for what I did to him, but I fucking deserve it.
I’m on the other side of the gym listening to one of Preach’s lectures for the hundredth time, when she walks in. I’m not expecting her, I don’t hear the door open or the sound of her voice, but somehow I feel her presence. I turn around and look for her. Our eyes find each other like magnets. Fuck, she’s beautiful. I love her in those god damn prissy looking suits she wears. Her face is apprehensive at first, like she’s not sure if showing up unannounced is going to be welcome. Jesus, I did that to her. Made her feel that she may not be welcome. What a total asshole I am.
She smiles at me from across the room and I can’t help but feel the first glimpse of light I’ve felt in days. I watch her as she gets closer and see her face falter when she gets a good look at me. I look like shit. I haven’t shaved since before the fight and my eyes are dark from sleepless nights. I’m pretty sure I’ve been wearing the same shirt for at least thirty-six hours and I’m wondering if I
might also smell too.
“Hi.” I see the concern in her eyes when she reaches me and speaks.
“Hey.”
“Figured if I didn’t ask, you couldn’t tell me not to come.” She smiles at me apprehensively and it makes me want to reach over and kiss her so hard she’ll never doubt I want her near me. But I don’t. Instead I stand like an asshole and say nothing and just nod my head as if I can comprehend what is actually going on in that beautiful head of hers.
“Preach, do you mind if I steal him for a little bit?” She turns to the bastard that was chewing me out a minute ago, who is now all smiles for her.
“By all means, take him. You can keep him for all I care.” The second part is mumbled under his breath as Preach walks away, but we both hear it.
“Can we go upstairs and talk?” Her voice is low, sweet.
I nod and lead the way. I pull down the gate to the elevator to my loft and suddenly it’s just the two of us and the car feels small. She smells so damn good. Everything about her is good, unlike me. I hate myself for wanting her so much, even though she deserves better.
Elle puts her purse on the kitchen counter and takes a few minutes before she turns around to face me. But when she does, she looks nervous.
“I want you to talk to me. You won’t let me in.” Her voice is shaky, but when I look at her she squares her shoulders and digs deep for whatever she is working towards.
“I don’t want to talk Elle.” What does she want me to tell her? That I need time to sort out the demons in my head? The demons that I deserve to haunt me every hour of every day for the rest of my life?
She takes two steps toward me, stopping just in front of me. “I can help… and there’s grief counseling…and groups to help people going through things like this.”
My response is a sardonic laugh and I can see immediately it’s the wrong reaction. Elle’s face quickly changes from concerned to pissed off. She crosses her arms in front of her chest and it looks like she is ready for a fight.
“You think it’s funny that I want to help?”
“No I think it’s funny that you think you can help.”
“I can help. But you have to let me.”
“Elle, run while you have the chance. You can’t fix me. I’m not some project for you to take on like charity. You’re better off with someone who is more like you.”
Here eyes widen to saucers. “More like me? What does that mean? William? Is that what you’re telling me, I should go back to someone like William?” Her voice is growing louder with each response.
The mention of William’s name from Elle’s lips strikes me harder than any physical blow. The thought of that pretty boy anywhere near my Elle makes me froth at the mouth. I’m angry. Angry at just hearing her say the words. But maybe that’s really where she belongs.
“You want William, Elle?” Seething, the words make me sick to even her myself say them.
“I want you. I want to help you, damn it!”
“You can’t help me, Elle. I’m fucking broken. I killed a man. With my own two hands, I took another person’s life. Only a monster does that. A monster that will rot in hell. It’s where I fucking belong!”
“It was an accident!” We are screaming at each other now. Completely and totally screaming at the top of our lungs, each trying to get our point across by yelling louder.
“It was my hand that dealt him what killed him. That’s not an accident, it’s murder. And murderers are unredeemable.”
Elle looks up at me and she’s pale as a ghost. For a second I think she might pass out.
“You really think there’s no forgiveness in what happened?” She’s no longer yelling, her voice is low and breaks mid-sentence.
“Forgiveness from who, Elle? The only person that could grant me absolution is dead.”
Tears are streaming down her face as she runs out of my loft and rips the elevator door down. I watch as she frantically presses the button to make her escape. She’s desperate to get away from me, and I don’t blame her one bit.
Chapter 36
Elle
I have no idea how I even made it home. The tears blurred my vision so badly, I could barely see. Panic seizes me as I think about how much worse it could have been. The only saving grace is that I never got to carry out my plan to tell Nico why I can help him, what makes me so uniquely qualified to understand what he is going through. I sob as I recall his words over and over in my head, “It was my hand that dealt him what killed him. That’s not an accident, it’s murder. And murderers are unredeemable.”
I don’t know why I thought we were the same. We’re not. I’m so much worse. Yet, he thinks he’s a monster for what he did…and what happened to him was truly an accident. Unlike me. I’m the one who is unredeemable. If he hates himself so much for what he did when he didn’t intend for it to happen, what would he think when he found out about me? Mine wasn’t an accident.
I’ve suppressed emotions for so long, that it’s like a dam breaking when the tears start to come. They flood me like raging waters. Uncontrollably, I cry and cry until I finally feel like I’m drowning and sleep takes me as I surrender, my mind hoping to find peace at rest.
“You stupid whore. I told you not to go running to your sister’s house again.” My father grabs a fistful of my mother’s hair and yanks with all his might, sending my already frail mother across the room. The pot on the stove makes a loud clank as she hits into the stove. My mother’s face is already black and blue from last time and her nose is probably broken. Although she can’t be sure since she stopped going to the doctor a few years ago. Doctors ask too many questions.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you, you worthless cunt? I’ll always find you. When are you going to learn your fucking lesson?” My father takes two long strides toward my mother and she folds her body into a ball to protect herself, bracing for what she knows is inevitable. I watch as he rears his leg back and kicks her in the side with all his might. Her body falls to the side, but she’s still huddled into a ball, her tiny arms straining to cover her own head.
It’s not difficult for my father to lift my mother, he’s six feet tall and well over two hundred pounds and she’s tiny. The last year has been so bad that she keeps getting tinier. She thinks I don’t notice, but I do. Her clothes are all too big and she barely eats anymore. She’s always sad lately.
He reaches down and grabs her off the floor by her neck, lifting her upright and off her feet in one swift motion. Even when he’s this drunk, it doesn’t seem to lessen his strength. Sometimes I think it gives him more. More power. More hatred. The evil that’s always lurking in the depths finds its way to the surface and then it’s even worse. Almost as if the evil gets bottled up so long that it explodes when it finally comes out.
It wasn’t always like this. My father wasn’t always the monster he is today. I remember him coming home after work and sitting on the couch. He would playfully pull my mother onto his lap when she came to bring him a drink. She would giggle and they would kiss. I thought it was gross. But I’d give anything to go back to those days now. We were happy. And he wasn’t drunk and angry all the time.
But then things changed. He lost his business and we had to move. Move out of our big house with the pretty green lawn and into a small apartment with a concrete patch for a yard. My father hated to move, it made him really angry. At first he would just yell a lot. And drink. He started to drink a lot. Sometimes I would get up for school and he’d have liquor in his coffee mug instead of coffee.
Then one night mom burned dinner while she was trying to give me a bath at the same time. And when Dad saw the mess, he smacked her across the face. Hard. I remember him telling her she was wasting his money. She cried and apologized. The next morning he was still passed out. Mom told me Dad was under a lot of stress and he didn’t mean to hurt her. It was just an accident.
But then it happened again. And again. And again. And the hitting got worse. The smacks turned into pu
nches and punches turned into kicks. Until it got to the point where he was beating her almost every day. She almost always has bruises and she didn’t go out much anymore. We tried to leave a few times. But he always found us and brought us back. He would apologize and say it would never happen again. Then when we went home, it usually got worse. Like this time.
Mom’s feet are dangling and her face is turning bright red. I’m afraid and I don’t know what to do. He really may kill her this time. “Stop! Stop! You’re going to kill her.” Desperately, I beg my father. Tears are streaming down my face as I grab his arm, frantic to get my mother air. He swats me away and I go flying through the air, but at least I’ve managed to make him release his death grip on her throat.
My mom falls to the floor, her hands holding her neck as she gasps for air. She’s making a loud wheezing noise with each breath as she tries frantically to bring air into her lungs. My father turns and looks at me, sitting where I’ve landed after his push. His eyes are dark and crazy and I begin to tremble. I’ve never been so scared. He’s going to kill us. Both of us. I can see it in his eyes. Whatever semblance of a man that remained from what used to be my father is gone. A monster has replaced him.
I think he’s going to come after me, but then he turns. His focus back to my mother, still gasping for air desperately on the floor. With one arm he grabs her hair in his fist and hoists her back up, slamming her into the refrigerator. Everything resting on the top falls, some of it landing on my mother. But it doesn’t distract him. Holding her head steady with a fistful of hair against the refrigerator he leans his head into my mother’s, his once handsome face contorting to the point that he no longer even resembles himself. “What did I tell you I would do if you tried to leave again, you stupid little cunt? This is all your fault. You bring it all on yourself, you worthless whore. You’re garbage.”
Then he pulls his face back and winds up before slamming his fist square into her cheek. I hear a loud crack and I’m not sure if it’s my mother’s face or my father’s hand, but the sound makes me sick. Physically. I vomit all over myself.