by Stasia Black
“Nice,” I smiled. It was the neighborhood just south of Campbell, but much nicer. “I feel like that’s where everyone in Campbell wishes they lived. Sometimes half a mile makes all the difference in the Bay Area.”
She nods and laughs. “Don’t I know it. Me and my roommate just moved from a total shithole in Oakland.”
We walked into the locker room. “Head to the sink. I’ll grab my bag and be there in a sec.”
I did and she was back beside me in a couple minutes.
I put my hands underneath the tap and Lydia helped me washed the blood off. I grimaced when I saw the damage underneath.
“Well that’s pretty,” Lydia acknowledged.
“Yeah, I’m a real work of art.”
Lydia looked at me compassionately but she didn’t hold back from liberally pouring the peroxide on both hands. I held my own even though it stung like a bitch.
Lydia made a noise of approval. “Ooo, I do love the strong, silent types,” she said with a flirty tilt to her head.
“Oh,” I said, suddenly flustered. I hadn’t realized she was looking at me that way. “Look, I’m into guys. Or well,” I look at the floor, “I was. I mean, at the moment I’m not actually into anyone or anything.” I shuddered. “None of it. At all.” Right, so that came out way too vehemently. Um, and all that shit before it was major foot-in-mouth syndrome too because she probably wasn’t coming on to me at all, and even if she was, I just made it all super-fucking awkward.
I looked back up at her. At the beginning of my word vomit her eyes were sparkling, but now her mouth was a flat, unamused line.
Goddammit. The first time someone was nice to me in forever and I went super-freak on them within ten minutes of them talking to me one-on-one. Shit. I was about to grab a paper towel to dry my hands and rush out of there when her voice stopped me.
“Women come to self-defense classes for all kinds of reasons.” Her voice was quiet in the busy locker room. Women bustled all around us, but at our little corner sink, she spoke loud enough so only I could hear. “Maybe they’ve just moved to the city and want to learn how to protect themselves. Or their friends are doing it so they sign up too. Maybe they see some movie or read a book that scares them or inspires them about women empowering themselves this way. But then there’s another category of people.”
She paused, her eyes briefly meeting mine in the mirror before she squeezed antibiotic cream onto several large Band-Aids, which she then applied carefully to my knuckles.
“Do you want to know about this last category?”
I didn’t say anything, barely even dared to breathe.
“It’s mostly women,” she went on calmly, her eyes on the task of bandaging up my hands, “but not always. This group comes to the class because they’re scared. Or angry. They are in pain for sure. They’ve been hurt in the past. They’ve been abused, sometimes in the worst ways possible.”
My stomach sank and I felt sweat on the back of my neck that had nothing to do with the forty-five-minute session at the bag. God, how did she know? Was what they did written all over my face? Would every stranger know my worst secrets within three minutes of meeting me, without me ever saying a word?
That I’m defiled. Wrong. Filth. Disgusting. I looked beyond Lydia to the shower stalls that line the walls. If she wasn’t holding my hands to bandage them, I’d be scratching at my skin. It’s there again, that sense of dirt that goes down to my bones.
She finishes applying the last Band-Aid.
“But you want to know something else about these people?”
I didn’t nod or shake my head. I didn’t meet her eyes in the mirror anymore either.
She grasped my uninjured fingers in her hands and squeezed. “These are the strongest, most resilient and amazing people I’ve ever met.” Her voice was still a whisper, but the strength in it felt like that of a preacher giving a sermon.
“The fact that you are coming to my class, making a stand against your abuser and saying no!” She shouted the last word like she taught us to do in class on the first day—no matter that we were in a locker room with other strangers milling around. She shouted it so loud it echoed off the concrete walls.
For good measure, she shouted again, “No! We say no! To ever being abused again,” her voice then went back to a whisper.
“Amen!” called out several women, including an aging elderly woman with sagging breasts, walking around with a towel wrapped only around her waist who raised her fist in solidarity. Okay, that was an image I didn’t necessarily need, but yay sisterhood and all that.
My attention re-directed to Lydia when she continued, “That would be difficult enough for normal people. But for people like us?”
That was when I saw it. She didn’t look at me and automatically know what I’d been through because it was somehow rubber-stamped on my forehead. No, she saw it because like recognizes like. She’d known abuse firsthand. She’d known powerlessness while animals stole control of her body.
I couldn’t even blink, couldn’t process what it meant to meet someone like her. Someone like me. To be able to talk to someone else who understood. Not just that, but to meet someone who had obviously survived and was managing it a hell of a lot better than me.
“For people like us, taking a stand like this is like conquering Everest. No,” she shook her head. “It’s more than that. Climbing a mountain is something that normal people set out to do. That’s a goal they set their minds and discipline their bodies for.
“But us?” Her brows scrunched together in pain. “We don’t get a choice. Whether we want to or not, we’re dragged back to hell on a regular basis, forced to face our demons.” She tilted her head down, eyes direct. “Only way out is to jump into the hottest pot of brimstone and burn those fuckers alive, no matter that it burns us up right along with ‘em. That’s the trick—if you can be reborn stronger through the process. Some make it. Some don’t.
She moved her grip from my fingers to my upper arms and kept her eyes locked on mine. “But hon, you will. I see it in you. You will make it through.”
Then she hugged me. Here was this woman who was all but a stranger to me, saying the exact words I hadn’t known I needed to hear. Emotion churned in the dark lake, and it took several hiccupping breaths to keep the tide back. I couldn’t afford it. I wouldn’t let it all loose simply because I’d found a kindred spirit. I just couldn’t.
When I pulled back from Lydia, head nodding hard, jaw clenched, her smile was compassionate, as if she understood exactly what I was trying to do. If it had been any other person, I think I would’ve resented it. But she knew. It was a knowing I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But there it was, something neither of us could change. A tie of battered bodies and spilt blood that made us sisters more than blood ties ever could.
“Callie,” Lydia’s sharp voice calls me back to the present. “You’re up!”
I blink and realize the whole class is looking expectantly at me. Right. I hurry and jog up to the front of the class. The padded ‘attacker’ is much more intimidating up close than he was when Lydia was so easily tossing him around a moment ago.
Lydia grins at me when I join her side. “You got this.”
She sounds so confident.
I stretch my neck and shake out my hands. I got this. I got this. I glance up again at the volunteer. Mike, was that what she said his name was at the start of class?
He’s smiling in what I can only assume he feels is a non-threatening manner. But all I can feel is the prickling sensation that he is way the fuck too close to me.
“All right, Callie. What are the steps to take if he grabs you?” Lydia asks.
For a second, my mind is a complete blank. Hands. Men grabbing me. Sweaty hands holding me down. Goddammit. One, two, three, four, five, six—
“Remember the steps,” Lydia’s voice breaks in.
I take a deep breath in and let it out slowly through my teeth. The steps. Remember the steps. “Vocalize. Dise
ngage. Run.”
“Excellent.”
We’ve practiced the moves involved in different attacker holds so many times they’re supposed to ingrain themselves in muscle memory. That way if an attack actually happens, my body should take over without thinking. Then again, I’ve only been at this for three weeks. How much muscle memory can I have really built up in three weeks?
“Are you ready for Mike?”
I take another breath to center myself and then nod. I know in a real-life scenario I wouldn’t have time to prepare for an attacker, but Lydia is adamant that class feel like a safe space for every student. The whole idea of this is to prepare us. And that means working at our own pace. Some of the more advanced students allow surprise attacks, but I’m not there yet.
Mike doesn’t move until I drop my hand in the prearranged signal.
And even though I know it’s coming, God, I’m expecting it, that’s the whole point of this—there’s still a moment when his arms drop in a hold around my neck that my body just absolutely shuts down.
I’m back there. I’m fucking back there. I can’t breathe. Oh God, I can’t breathe. Say you’re hungry for my cock. It’s the nightmare, but the nightmare is real. There’s a man’s body at my back. His heavy arms around my body.
Oh God, no—
No, no, no—
“NO!”
Someone is shouting in my ear. Lydia. It’s Lydia. I open my eyes and see my friend. And then my whole class. They’re all shouting no. Lydia’s eyes are on me, eyebrows raised in encouragement.
“NO!” she shouts again and this time I join her.
“NO!” I shriek. When the word rings through my vocal chords and echoes off the walls of the room, I feel the power of it. The attacker has his arm around my neck in what would be a chokehold if he were pressing any harder, but in a sudden rush of adrenaline, I realize I know what to do.
I turn my neck to the side so my throat won’t be crushed and I can take full breaths again. Then I raise my elbow and jam it as hard as I can into the attacker’s stomach. I hit the soft padding of the safety suit, but I’m too in the zone to care.
Get him off me! Get him off. That’s all I can think or care about. Get his fucking hands off my body. I lift my foot and slam it down on his instep. Again, the stupid protective padding stops it from doing any real damage.
So then I go for the move I know this lesson is all about. God, I don’t know if I can do it, but I’ll try, because I know it will get me free of his hold. I could call stop and the exercise would be over. In this room stop means stop—but damn it, what if this was real life?
Because I know that outside this room, words don’t stop anyone. Instead of paralyzing like it normally might, the thought only propels me.
I scream, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” then reach behind me, grab the top of the attacker’s safety suit at the collar, lever him at my hip, and flip him over my body.
I barely even register it, but he’s spun and on the mat at my feet. Just like that. His weight wasn’t even an issue. I don’t get how. But it worked. It fucking worked.
I start laughing as the class claps. Lydia puts her fingers between her lips and lets out an appreciative whistle like we’re at a ballgame or something. I take several steps away from the man groaning on the floor, a little disbelieving. For the first time since all those weeks ago when Lydia grabbed my arms and told me I was going to make it through this stronger than ever, I believe her.
I wrap my arms around myself and laugh. I look to the ceiling and think of my son, of how my lawyers have worked it so tomorrow I go in for a new drug screening. It’s a much more accurate follicle test this time which can prove I haven’t done drugs over the past ninety days. In addition to retesting the original urine sample at a lab that can discern street drugs from other substances that can cause false positives.
What does all this mean?
I’m going to survive what was done to me.
I’m going to get my son back.
Life is a shit storm. Still, it’s one I’m going to make it through. I might come out beaten, battered, and more than a little bit bruised.
But no fucking way am I broken.
Epilogue II
JACKSON
I stomp through the parking lot of Callie’s apartment building after she tells me to leave, furious, but not at her.
Gentry. Bryce Gentry, that fucking snake. He did something to her. He hurt her. Somehow. Some way. What the fuck did he do to her?
I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him.
I shouldn’t have left him breathing this long. I of all people know exactly what he’s capable of.
“Fuck!” I shout and kick the apartment’s dumpster as I pass.
Which only gets me a sore foot and makes some kids playing soccer near by shoot me looks like I’m crazy.
Which I am. For her. Everything for her.
And he hurt her.
How bad? How bad is it? What did he do?
She was afraid of you. The way she jerked back from me when I tried to touch her… Jesus. My stomach drops out at the thought and I swallow back bile. No. Not that.
I walk down the street in the opposite direction from where my car is parked. Toward the park where I first saw her with her son.
I lied to her. I wasn’t just happening to jog by that day. I live twenty miles from here. I hired a guy to track her movements and he told me where she was.
It was obvious Bryce was up to something with that whole fucked up lunch meeting.
I drop down onto a park bench and drop my head into my hands. It was months ago, but I’ll never forget that day. I’ve run over everything that happened so many times it’ll be etched in my memory until the end of time.
I close my eyes and yet again I’m back there, glancing down at my watch while I sit in the back dining room of the Italian restaurant. The first day I met her…
What am I doing here? I might be a genius, but taking Bryce Gentry’s bait and accepting the invitation to this meeting has left a sour taste in my mouth ever since I agreed to this meeting. I swore a long time ago I’d never let that bastard ever have any influence in my life again.
I can just feel that he’s up to his old games.
My jaw tenses.
I could tolerate it if he’d just made a fool of me. But what Bryce Gentry made of me was far, far worse. My whole body tenses at the flood of memories even his name evokes.
That’s it.
The Art of War might say to keep your enemies close, but I don’t think I can stomach this. Seeing that man face to face… Pretending to exchange pleasantries while he lords my father’s patent over me? And that’s just the least of the many things he stole from me.
That’s why you’re going to take him down. Your way, not his.
I was never one for face-to-face conflict like this. I work behind the scenes. Gather data. Construct algorithms. Plan a strategic attack that he’ll never see coming. If I try to play his game I’ll lose.
What’s the saying? A leopard can’t change its spots? Well, neither can sociopaths. I have no doubt he’s continued using and abusing people like he did me and the others I watched him destroy. And used me as a tool to destroy.
Soon Bryce will have to pay for all his many sins.
But not today.
I stand up and drop my napkin on the table, ready to leave as if I was never here.
And then I hear that goddamned voice.
“Jackson!” Even after a decade it still has the ability to curdle my stomach.
I look up and there he is, smiling at me like we’re best friends and he didn’t set me up for a rape charge.
He rounds the table and embraces me with a slap on the back.
The fucker has the gall to hug me.
I’m not a violent man but it’s really taking a lot of energy not to grab the steak knife from the table and jam it through his eye socket.
Outwardly though, I just shut down. I go cold. Calculated. In his games,
Bryce always watched people’s every cue for an in—a way to play and manipulate a person.
I couldn’t trust anyone for years after what he did. I have intimacy issues, apparently. That’s how one of my girlfriends diagnosed me a couple years ago. We broke up about a month later. It was an ugly scene—she was crying loudly and asking me why wouldn’t I just open up to her? I could only stare at her without a word and hand her a box to pack up the things she kept at my place. The more she shouted, the quieter I got.
What could I say? That loud people make me nervous and suspicious? She was always so talkative and outgoing.
Just like Bryce.
I didn’t even put my finger on the fact that that was the problem until a week later when my apartment was actually silent for long enough that I could finally pinch out a shit again.
I’d been constipated throughout our whole relationship.
Should’ve been a red flag right there.
My bowels tighten right back up again at Bryce’s embrace.
“Bryce,” I acknowledge stiffly, looking down at him. I was always taller than him, but over the years, I’ve filled out as well. I tower over him not only in inches, but in sheer size. He’s a slim man, nothing to the brawler strength I’ve built up working out my various…aggressions. Certain places have been my sanctuary. The gym and the club in particular.
Bryce has always loomed as such a large figure in my mind.
In reality he’s small.
A small, pathetic little fuck-head who wanted to play God with other people’s lives.
Not anymore.
It’s on the tail edge of that thought that I see movement beside him. There’s someone with him. A woman.
A very beautiful woman.
Who looks scared shitless for some reason. What am I thinking? She’s with Bryce. Of course she’s scared.
“And this is?” I ask Bryce, but don’t look away from her.
Her eyes widen in surprise and when she swallows hard, I can see her fluttering pulse.
Bryce always surrounded himself with beautiful girls, but this one seems different. She’s not throwing herself at him. She doesn’t seem dazzled by his looks and charm. In fact, she looks like she doesn’t want to be here at all. Smart girl.
