My Monster

by Ellie Jean

  Emerald nudged my side.

  “What?” My voice hardly registers.

  “Looks like we are in trouble.” Trying to limit my eyes on the cage, I look at the men.

  Three sets of pure explosive lava glower our way.

  “They don’t look happy to see us.” I give a slight wave and refocus on Tanner. The fight may be better than the murderous stares they are giving us.

  Tanner is slamming the guy with precise, methodical blows. There’s no mercy and there can’t be. Only one will live. Fast and hard, Tanner punches and kicks, hungry for more blood and death. The challenger falls to his knees. There’s no slowing Tanner. He’s manic as he launches from the ground, kneeing his opponent in the back until his face hits the bloodied floor.

  My stomach revolts and I steady my breathing so I don’t vomit. A chant echoes through the room and I hold my head in my hands. His fists punch over and over again, even though there’s no movement. Tanner grasps his arm around his neck, choking any air left in the man’s body that is really only pulp now. I’m watching my man survive, but he’s covered in flesh from the other guy, blood coating him from head to foot. I cringe at the monster before me.

  Cold, unbreakable eyes look to his loyal team.

  But they quickly turn to mine.

  Intimidating and blank.

  My heart beats rapidly in my throat.

  A lethal look penetrates his swollen, black eyes.

  A twist of his arms and the guy’s body drops to the ground. He has crushed The Rock before my eyes and a hundred others.

  Sweating and swaying on my seat, I try to look away, but his soulless eyes hold me. Even the people yelling, cheering, and drinking can’t stop me from looking at Tanner.

  “They’re on their way.” Emerald stands and places the crutches under her arms. I snap my head to the guys. Slate and Caden are pushing past the mass to get to us.

  Their eyes frozen like Tanner’s.

  “Good luck, girls.”

  Screaming vibrated through my head.

  I knew tonight’s fight would be a death match. It was common for fights to be classed as one before fighters took the cage, only on rare occasions during it. Max had let on that it would be one, but it wouldn’t be announced until part way through. Apparently, they have trouble finding fighters to challenge me, especially when it’s to the death.

  I was feared.

  Respected because I earned it.

  I trained every fucking day. Hard, fast, and meticulous.

  Fighting is my passion.

  Tonight, the guy fought hard. More of an adversary than what I’m used to. I won because I am a predator; By day and night.

  Tightening my arm around the fucker’s neck, his breath was shallow, limbs look like cooked spaghetti. This win was as much for the guys as it was for me. Everyone is an opponent in our world. We were number one because we always fought together and for each other. Cage fighting showed the enemies we were strong, relentless, and unbeatable.

  Triumph swelled inside as I looked across to the guys. This kill was ours.

  Ocean was watching me, but Slate and Caden were scrutinizing something above them. Flicking my eyes up, blue crystals with tears swimming in them pulled me in. Horror and shock making them wide.

  How could she be here?

  What did she just witness?

  Blood, chaos, murder.

  Her vacant eyes left mine, noticing Slate on his way up.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  I needed to be near her, but another man’s blood covered me.

  She was scared. Was it too much to wish that she wasn’t scared of me? She needed comfort. Could I give her that after what she saw me do?

  I had to try.

  Climbing through the door of the cage as shouting different to the usual crowd noise erupts.

  Gunshots ring through the small room and panic breaks out.

  Crystal…I need to get to her.

  Bodies are throwing themselves on the ground, and I try running to Crystal, but I trip on legs. Hurtling myself up, I keep battling. Thumping wracks my chest, sweat mixes with blood leaking from me.

  More shots ring out. I turn to check Ocean. He’s trying to find his gun but falls to the ground. I collapse, my insides ripped apart.

  Motherfuckers.

  Scrambling over people fiercely, my knees squash into people’s limbs that are crawling to one of the two exits. There’s another round of shots and more ear-piercing screams. Glass shatters throughout the chaos, bullets whizzing past. I forge forward.

  “O?”

  His eye’s look at me, but they are glassy. Blood trickles down his neck and shoulder. I apply pressure. “It’s only a flesh wound, you’ll make it but keep your eyes open so I know you’re with me.”

  He smiles slightly and mumbles something, but he needs to keep his strength for fighting blood loss. Scanning the room, I don’t see Slate or Caden.

  Fuck…

  Or the girls.

  My limbs turn cold, like a poisonous gas is swirling its way from my legs through to my chest and neck, eating me alive. There’s no pain, just an ability to do nothing, I’m paralyzed. I can’t help.

  Once again, I cannot protect a woman I love.

  The girls have to be safe. There’s no other option. Slate will protect Crystal too.

  The crowd has thinned out and Max strides toward us. “Need your help, man.”

  He nods and points to the back room.

  I lift Ocean, who is passed out, and follow Max to a room that has an external door. “The ambulance is on its way, but this is where I leave you. I have to clean up this mess before the cops come and shut me down.”

  Placing Ocean on the floor, I put on my hoodie Max threw me. “You have trouble, let me know. I have your back.”

  He lifts his chin and leaves us on our own.

  Holding his wound, the blood has eased but Ocean is pale and not responding. My phone is not here and I need to talk to Slate. The calmness I usually ooze has long gone replaced by a type of frenzy. Feeling his pockets, I find Ocean’s just as the ambulance pulls up.

  They assess him, telling me the bullet is still lodged in his neck.

  “Let’s go then. He needs surgery now. Money’s no object.”

  Piling him on the ambulance stretcher, I sit on the seat near him, praying that he will pull through this one.

  “You could do with this.” A man’s voice grabs my splintered attention, handing me a washcloth and ointment to clean my wounds from tonight. I do a half ass job, too concerned about Ocean and Crystal.

  What if she didn’t make it out?

  Pain that doesn’t match anything I experienced tonight lurches through my entire body. I surge forward gripping my knees, agony howling through my head.

  It only gets louder with each minute that passes.

  “We’re here.”

  Straightening, my body is on high alert, blood thrashing. A man wheels him away and I find the nurse’s station. A look of shock reflects in her eyes, probably from the bruises forming or does she know who I am? Either way, I let her know, he needs a private room, security will be here within the hour and to alert the hospital CEO that this is happening.

  There can be no more risks.

  Crystal kidnapped.

  Emerald run over.

  A shooting at a fight we were all at.

  That’s no fucking coincidence. Liza is constructing her final encore.

  But it will be her last hurrah.

  I won’t sleep until she is dead and buried six feet under.

  An incoming call on Ocean’s phone makes me stride to the side of the hospital room. I want privacy.

  “You good?” Slate’s voice is deathly quiet on the other end.

  “Yeah. Ocean’s down, man. Bullet in the side of his neck, they’re working on him now.”

  Silence fills the air. “He’s tough, he’ll pull through.”

  “You’re right.” I need a smoke, but I have nothing on me bu
t this phone. “Where are the girls? Crystal?”

  “Safe. Caden’s taken Lace to the airport. He thought it best if she goes to her father’s MC club while this sorts out.”

  “Good plan. Where’s Crystal?” My voice wavers a fraction.

  “Man, she’s not good.”

  Dropping to my knees, my organ squeezes in panic. My throat constricts and my breath is shallow.

  “Fuck, what?” Tell me she wasn’t shot? No, she couldn’t be.

  “She’s taken the fight pretty hard.”

  The breath I’d been trying to draw in is freed.

  “Emerald’s trying to calm her, but she was hysterical when the shots rang through. Caden carried her to the car while I got Emerald and Lace out safely.”

  A knot re-tightens on my throat, strangling me. I cough spasmodically.

  “I’m going to drive her to her mom and dad’s tonight so we can concentrate on the main problem.”

  “I need to see her before she goes.” I close my eyes and I see the terror she held in her eyes at the end of the fight.

  “Man.” There’s a pause. “She doesn’t want to see you.”

  The phone slips from my hand. Unexpected but deserved. I’m empty, sitting on the floor with my arms wrapped around my body. My shoulders heavy and slumped, I scrub my hand over my battered face. This pain wreaking havoc on my body is one hundred times worse than what I endured in the cage. Acid eating at me would be more tolerable.

  I knew that my life would eventually catch up with me. Delivering evil, destruction, and despair to others. It blackened any part of a soul I had left. A type of poison, vicious and rotten breeding inside of me over the past ten or so years. It was bound to kill me in the end. I had thought though it would be a silver blade, a bullet or a beating that would take my last breaths. Not a sassy, curved, blonde-haired bombshell that would deliver the fatal blow.

  Staring down at my feet, my chest hollow, I wait. I’m unclear what I’m waiting for: to hear how one of my best friends is doing in surgery, for the guys to arrive, or for my woman to rescue me? It doesn’t take long for the coldness to creep through my skin like insects have already decided to feast on my corrupt flesh.

  I don’t move, but I want to scream. My chest burns with rage, aimed at myself. My head is ready to explode. I’m stuck between knowing what the right thing to do is and taking what I want. I could apologize, tell her I was done with that way of life, I could move cities and away from any fucking danger. And I would if she asked me. But she’d be getting an imposter, a shell of who I am. I can’t be someone else.

  I was selfish to take her from her lightened world, thinking this world wouldn’t tarnish her purity and goodness.

  “Did you bring Ocean in?” A deep voice takes me from my head.

  “Holy Christ, what happened to you? You should be in a hospital bed looking at you.”

  I deserve to be in the ground letting my woman anywhere near the fight or fucking gunshots. Fucking anywhere near my darkness.

  “How’s Ocean?” I stand and take in the skinny, younger doctor’s appearance. He’s younger than me. I hope he’s good at what he does.

  “Your friend had an extremely close call. The bullet lodged in the side of the flesh, away from any major arteries. He was lucky.”

  A minuscule part of the weight crumpling my body, lifts.

  “Do you want to see him?”

  I nod and drag my feet through the corridor to his room. Ocean’s hooked up to machines and is sleeping.

  “He should stay asleep most of the night. We have the instructions in place you explained to the nurse, Mr. Grayson.”

  My reputation obviously precedes me. “The guards should be here within the hour, I will wait ‘til they come. Thanks, Doc.” Holding out my hand, he shakes it and leaves me alone.

  With another person I didn’t protect.

  “How long until your designs will be presented to the world?” Mom’s specialty was small talk, which tonight was grating on every fiber of my being. I poured water into two cups, making myself a cup of tea and Mom a coffee.

  “You still like sugar, Mom?” Last time I visited she was on a sugar-free fad. It was always something with her, Five to Two diet, protein shakes, Keto. I lost track.

  “Yes, darling.” She leans over and puts milk in our cups.

  “The show’s in a month. I’m cutting it fine. This time with you will be good for me. Get me focused.” The boiling liquid slides down my throat. There’s a burn, but it is the least amount of pain I’ve felt in the last twenty-four hours.

  I stare.

  Disconnected.

  I’d been correct thinking Tanner lived in the darkness. He was dangerous. His world dragged him under, only leaving remnants of the private Tanner. But it didn’t only drag him out of the light, it was impossible for it not to affect the people around him. There was no immunity from the evils surrounding him.

  Screams…

  Painful, electrifying, torturous screams filled my head.

  The blood sprayed everywhere.

  A human who resembled a pound of red, oozing flesh that had been through a mincer laid at his feet.

  A twist of a neck and then nothing. Dead.

  Elation, cheering, and money swapping hands was confronting.

  This was the world Tanner lived in. He and three others ruled this devastation.

  I tipped over the edge as shots from a gun rung through my ears. It barely missed Tanner. It was as though I was in The Matrix, where the bullets slowed down, showing how bullets were millimeters from his chest. I’d been transfixed until hysteria went rampant shutting down my body.

  Tanner was close to being killed, twenty feet from where I was standing and all I could do was watch. And fall apart.

  I was no match for his world.

  Totally and utterly out of his league.

  The ride home was eerily quiet. Piling into the one car, the guys sat in the front and us in the back like naughty school girls. No laughter or snickering though. Only pure desolation and isolation. Each of us playing through the events of the night.

  Emerald on edge with worry for Slate.

  Slate furious with Emerald for putting herself in danger. Again. And not listening. Again.

  Caden fearful that his angel would be killed.

  Lace stressed fearing Caden could be taken from her.

  And I rapidly built myself into a state of delirium revisiting on replay, the look in Tanner’s eyes delivering blows, weakening another, covered in a thick red mess and jerking back, dodging a bullet. But it was the panic and loss etched on his face when he decided to turn and go and tend to Ocean that pushed me beyond the limits.

  Going back to the line of fire to help a fallen man.

  Risking himself. This man would ensure the safety of his loved ones, no matter what the personal cost.

  Could I live with that? Because when it came to Tanner, I was selfish. A bitch in my own darkened way. Tanner made a choice in a split second, to rescue his brother, and I was left. He chose Ocean, who was shot, who was bleeding out perhaps, who could have been breathing his last breaths in this world and I wanted Tanner to keep coming to me.

  But the elastic band drawing him to me, snapped, sending him in the opposite direction.

  In my mind, I sounded rational.

  See the egotistical, self-centered asshole I was dealing with? Me. All me.

  True colors shining bright in the face of danger. I was more monstrous than The Savage Shadows caring for my needs only. These men were killers, but a part of them did have a sliver of light. Slate and Caden saved me, as Tanner knew they would. Not a conversation was had, they knew, because they have each other’s backs. Always.

  I couldn’t say the say about me.

  I. Was. The. Monster.

  Emerald took me to their apartment. Slate’s fury and tension radiated in the elevator, making the ride up extremely uncomfortable. Being calmed by Emerald, I made the decision to call Mom.

&nb
sp; I couldn’t see Tanner tonight. Hopefully one day soon.

  A jumbled mess, I needed to have my thoughts in order when I saw him. He deserved no less.

  Being taken to Mom and Dad’s by Slate and Emerald was kind of pathetic but exactly what I needed. A warm hug, no judgments and just normalcy. Some peace and quiet to piece my splintered view back together.

  “Tomorrow is the day I get back on track, design creations the world will be wowed by and I’ll think of nothing else.” Sounds great, but I’m unsure if my brain will be on the same page. It’s common that Tanner consumes ninety-five percent of my everyday thoughts, tomorrow would possibly be different. But probably not.

  “Sounds like a plan. And I can help you. My ideas will amaze you.” Mom looks enthusiastic. Tossing me a bag of marshmallows. Time to eat my sorrows away.

  My lips twitch upward, but I really can’t bring myself to feel light at the moment, I murmur, “Everything you do amazes me, Mom. Like the jeggings you think are fashionably acceptable to wear, or matching your brown shirt with your purple pants when we go out. That amazes me. Can’t wait to see your thoughts on a fashion line.”

  “Darling, you wait and see. I’ll blow your socks off.”

  I know I made the right decision coming here, seeing her warm smile and open arms, my breathing starts to get back to a regular pace. The sugary goodness is my companion. Always.

  “No doubt about it.” I finish the last of my tea, popping another marshmallow into my mouth. “Thanks again for having me here, Mom. I’ll catch Dad in the morning when he wakes, I know I got dropped here late. I appreciate it and you.” Hugging her, I wipe my face, smudging the mascara farther across my eyes. Sore and burning, they need to close.

  “Get some sleep and everything will seem clearer in the morning. And Darl, I haven’t hounded you about tonight’s events, or why my beautiful girl who is always immaculately presented has got a tear-stained face and makeup everywhere. But know my ears are good for listening when you’re ready.”

  Holding Mom a little tighter, I smile weakly. Replacing her arms with mine when I let go, heading to my childhood bedroom.

  Numbness spreads looking at the bed. The first night in over a month, Tanner’s irresistible body won’t be next to mine. Tears drop rhythmically and my chest constricts. My legs refuse to move, knowing what I will be missing; His warm touch floating over my skin, listening to his heart beating under my ear, legs entwined around mine protecting me, his smooth velvet voice whispering and his roars of ecstasy. I’m crushed more so, because I’m missing out on my sensitive and secretive Tanner. The Tanner that only I see.