Cage

by Sarah Sparrows

For a brief moment, regret seemed to cloud Sawyer’s face, but it was gone before I could know for sure. “I’m going out. I don’t need any pizza. I’ll find something to do and something to eat.”

  “Sawyer…”

  It was like this every fucking time, just like when we were younger. I’d try to forgive and forget him being moody, or cocky, or just an all-around asshole, but he would just push me again. Sometimes he’d pick at me or antagonize me, but other times…he just got so distant.

  Why do I even fucking bother?

  For a moment, I knew the answer, but I immediately shoved it back down in my head. No. That’s not it. That CAN’T be it. I can’t let him have that kind of power over me.

  “Look,” he conceded, “I just need to get out of here, alright? I can’t be here.”

  “We just got here? You’re going to leave me alone on our first night in? Aren’t you supposed to be, you know, watching over me or something?”

  “Is that what you want?” He growled. “You want me to watch your every move? Stand around and just hover whenever you want to do anything? Or would you like to slam a door in my face again?”

  “Look, that was my underwear, you jackass,” I snarled at him.

  “You’re the one who left it out in the open. Why in the hell do you need the world’s biggest assortment of sexy underwear anyway? Plan on moonlighting?”

  “NO! I… That’s none of your business!” I said, flushing red.

  “I was just trying to help. And if you do want my help,” he said, throwing a hand against one of the cabinets, “then maybe you shouldn’t piss me off. Maybe you should stay out of my way and let me just go enjoy some of my night…the parts of it I can salvage, anyway.”

  I clenched my jaw and fought back my tears, curling my hands into fists at either side.

  “By the way, the oven’s preheated.”

  Sawyer turned away, disappearing from sight.

  Fuck you....

  As I furiously glared at the spot where he’d been standing, trying to hold myself together, I heard his footsteps retreat. A few seconds later, the sound of the door opening and slamming shut rang out into the silence, and I broke down in tears.

  (Return to Table of Contents)

  Chapter 8 – Sawyer

  New Orleans, Four Years Ago

  After my first brawl, life fell into a particular rhythm. The fights were scheduled late on the weekends – but the venue skipped around from time to time, depending on how much of a blind eye we received from the authorities.

  For the most part, the fuzz didn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about our matches. Sometimes, that would change for a few weeks. Luckily for us, Gary had a high-ranking friend on the force, and we were tipped off early to any increased interest. All that meant was moving information through the network of usual spectators, then shifting our fights somewhere else for a weekend or two.

  During the week, I took up odd jobs for Gary’s bar regulars, doing more manual labor. It was easier to manage with a roof over my head and a shower on call, and they paid me under the table for everything.

  Meanwhile, Gary pulled through on that ‘training’ promise from the start. Before the second weekly brawl, I’d already been introduced to Chen, his dojo owner contact, and even attended a few sessions. It wasn’t news to me that Gary had been right – I was unrefined, and that was painfully clear to me after a few afternoons with the group.

  “Discipline,” Chen told me on the second night. “You lack discipline. Your body is a heavy block of clay – very powerful, very sturdy. But power is never enough. Teach yourself discipline, and you will learn finesse.” He sized me up, as so many did around those times, and smiled confidently. “You are a quick learner, and you do not fear pain. An excellent pupil… I think you will be.”

  And so it continued: brawls every weekend, a roulette of work during the week, and fitting forty hours of training around it. At first, my training was at the drawing board – revisions made to how I lift weights and trained my cardiovascular. At the same time, I was educated in how to throw a proper punch, the right stances to take, and everything I needed to know about taking critical punches and kicks.

  After I had been retrained in the very basics, I studied for a month under Chen’s instructors with basic, common denominator martial arts. I learned the bottom-rung ways to evade powerful jabs to the jaw, catch or deflect striking kicks, and how to avoid being wrestled to the ground. Optimized for efficiency and speed, the improvised curriculum was equally brutal on my flesh and taxing on my exhaustion levels.

  However, results began to slowly appear.

  With my large, powerful build, Muy Thai was a natural fit for me. As a full-contact style, it required that I utilize hard striking surface that my body supplied – forcing me to consider my shins and elbows equally viable weapons in the ring. This meant that I had to harden these surfaces through rigorous body conditioning, alongside my fists and feet.

  The full curriculum of training involved everything from shadowboxing to weight training. I began to take less work during the week, allowing my body to rest from the intensity I faced practically every night in the dojo. I moved from four nights a week to six, resting the entire day leading up to the weekly fight.

  I could have stopped at eight months, but I pushed through for two more. Once this was done, I took my hard, refined body and forced it through two more months of specialized wrestling techniques, eager to either keep myself on my feet or to crush whomever dared to get me onto the floor. Thanks to my specialty, I could be easily devastating in either environment, and my natural affinity for fighting made me an intimidating contender. On top of this, my body was hardwired for increased endurance, and I always found a little more stamina in my veins to pull from when things turned desperate in the ring.

  However, I did lose a few times. Each night that I tapped out or blacked out, Gary threatened to throw me to the streets again – but I had already proven my worth, allowing him to charge higher ticket sales. I was indispensible to him now.

  Gary settled on making me work for his friends for half a week – usually in something a little more nefarious that my typical work. More often than not, I was acting as a bodyguard for some criminal element in the city. It was work that made my skin crawl, but I took it all in stride.

  I did what I had to do.

  Slippery Pete was the closest thing that I had to a friend. His strange blend of condescending camaraderie even started to grow on me a little. He considered me his partner in crime, always making sure we wound up on the same team in the ring. If he held any bitter resentment towards his father obviously favoring me, he never showed it.

  It looked like he was just happy to have someone.

  I couldn’t begrudge him; I felt the same way.

  He filled me in about Hurricane Katrina, and the devastating toll it took on the city. I’d seen the images and read the news reports, but he had lived through it, and offered a harrowing insider’s view into the disaster.

  “Thought the world was gonna fuckin’ end, man,” he confessed one night, over takeout Chinese. “We couldn’t get out of here, Gary and me. Locked ourselves up with every ounce of food and water we could find. Stupid fucker gets these ideas in his head, y’know? Stubborn bastard. He stays the course, man. A’int no matter where those tracks gonna go.”

  “That’s not always the best approach,” I observed, chewing on a forkful of lo mein. “Gotta know when to fold ‘em.”

  “Damn right,” Slippery Pete agreed. “But it’s all okay, see? You and me, we’re a team. We’re gonna get outta this dump, maybe head out west. Plenty of action out there.”

  “Out west? Out west is expensive,” I chewed.

  “Not when you’re all resourceful, see?” He took a bite of an egg roll, quickly swallowing. “It’s all in the, uh, approach. You just gotta believe, pal. And you believe me…it’ll happen. With my speed and your strength, we’ll be a duo. Fuckin’ unstoppable, that’s what they’ll sa
y about us. You’ll see.”

  “I wish I shared your enthusiasm,” I remarked. “New Orleans is decent, but I could use some different scenery. Sure. Maybe we’ll head out west. I mean it’s a cliché for a reason, right? There might be a better life out there just waiting for us.”

  “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” He shouted, jabbing a dirty chopstick towards me. Not that he knew how to use chopsticks, but he tried, anyway. “You and me, all the way. We’ll bust outta this piece-of-shit bar and make something of ourselves, see? It’s gonna be spectacular.”

  “You might be onto something,” I agreed, swallowing another bite. “If there’s anybody that can do it…might as well be us.”

  Pensacola, Present Day

  Coming to Pensacola had been a complete mistake.

  I knew that I’d been too hard on Saffron. She didn’t understand that I had to keep her at arm’s length – ignorant of my feelings for her. Every syllable that I’d uttered had filled my heart with regret, but I’d lashed out as hard as I could bear.

  All because I was still a coward.

  The poor girl had only offered me dinner. It was the perfect opportunity to forget all about earlier in the day, to push everything out of my head. She must have envisioned us chowing down and bonding over some comedy flick. Instead, maybe she thought I’d convince her into watching a horror film – testing her mettle and making her prove that she was nearly as tough as I was.

  I turned onto a side street, the wind whipping at my shirt and jeans. Under the streetlights of Pensacola, I headed towards the interstate, uncaring where I went.

  It wasn’t good for me to focus on her while I drove. Maybe I should turn back, I thought to myself I can just beg her forgiveness and tell her that I was being stupid. I wasn’t feeling well. She’d hate me, but she’d believe me.

  Perhaps there was a part of the night I could salvage, after all.

  But I had just missed my turn, and now I was heading onto the interstate. Under the orange glow of the lamps, I was already peeling towards the main throughway, and I realized that my split-second decision had already been made for me. With a small amount of regret, I stayed the course, not knowing how far I’d drive.

  It wasn’t a total loss. I was supposed to use Saffron’s credit card at places away from the Beach House. Ownership of the house itself was shielded by three different shell corporations, but there was no hiding a credit trail. It’s why the house was so well stocked. If anyone was coming down to Pensacola to find Saffron, I was supposed to make sure they didn’t find what they were looking for. As wind whipped through my hair, I gave the throttle a little twist. This would all be over soon and I could get back to my life… It was probably better that way.

  (Return to Table of Contents)

  Chapter 9 – Saffron

  Pensacola, Present Day

  Sawyer came back late that night. At the time I was curled up in a thick chair, nursing a small carton of ice cream and watching some 90s sitcom on Netflix. The door quietly opened and closed; his motorcycle helmet softly fell to the couch nearby, and he ascended the stairs without a word.

  I wanted to say something to him.

  Fear prevented me; I thought he’d lash out again.

  It was already 2AM in the morning, and I hadn’t slept since the long flight here. The rest of the evening was spent tossing and turning fitfully in bed. Usually, I was a rampant and colorful dreamer – but my confusion and fear stole these things from me.

  Several days passed. I walked on eggshells around Sawyer, afraid of setting him off again. To my chagrin, I realized that I was dying for his attention again. But I knew better than to try to reach out to him.

  Instead, I buried myself in my books. After a long afternoon of desperately trying to lose myself in my backlog, I finally let go of my frustration enough to sink into a story. This one was an alternate history book, the critically beloved debut novel of a relative unknown. After eight years of research, it begged the question:

  What if Eisenhower had been the first elected Presidential WOMAN?

  It was a ridiculous concept to me, but the author was clearly a fanatic of the time period – and of the titular president him(her?)self. I could see a fair share of immediate logical fallacies in the work, and the writer’s grasp of recent political history was somewhat tenuous, but it was a compelling enough read nevertheless.

  That one was a little denser than my usual reading fair, so I strove for something lighter and fluffier afterwards. If undisturbed, I could typically finish a book in under a day, unless it was an absolute doorstopper like a lot of the weird but wonderful fantasy writers out there. I didn’t engage that genre often, because it wasn’t typically my thing; however, there were a few that came highly recommended down the pipeline, either from a few bookish friends or from critics I loved.

  This one, “Seventy Suns,” was no different. It had been sitting on my shelf for a few months now, and a few friends had been pressuring me to finally tackle it – asking every couple of days if I’d started. It was always the same thing: Oh come on, you’re gonna love it or even something like I’m not talking to you again until you get to Chapter 17. If there was a particular part of the book that was mentioned, it was usually that one.

  I eyed the book carefully, holding it in my hands. Even as a hardback, it was still thinner than some of the really hefty books I’d read. Sitting at a typical page count in the near 300s, it was one of the more reasonable fantasy books that I’d read.

  Across the front was a painting of a young, female pirate, the tip of her sword held valiantly high as she stood atop the edge of her pirate ship. The background was an inky black; mist surged all around her, giving it that strong, edgy look that a lot of contemporary pieces seemed to go for in the last few years.

  I buried myself in the book, but it took me a while to get into it. Often, I’d grow bored with it, setting it down to favor something else. It wasn’t anything with the writing style, which was great; the imagery and the details were pretty fantastic as well.

  Guess it just wasn’t my kind of tale.

  I eventually persevered, and when I finally hit the single page that was Chapter 17, I suddenly understood – and then I couldn’t put the book down. I’d already read three other books from front-to-back while trying to get through just this one but, with six chapters to go, I couldn’t fathom dropping it.

  I won’t spoil it for you.

  It was pretty awesome, though.

  By that point, I realized that I hadn’t seen Sawyer in a few days. In fact, it had been close to a week. But I was determined to not be the one to break the silence with the jackass, even if I was willing to peer out of the corner of my eye when he walked down the hall, or scrounged around in the kitchen while I was watching television.

  Of course he was always shirtless. The asshole just loved to strut his body around like it was on freaking display. Getting a good look at his muscles, even a brief or sideways glance, revealed those achingly wide shoulders, rippling arms, and washboard abdominals. If he had been anyone else, I’d have been salivating at the very thought of running my fingertips down that incredible musculature…

  Quit it, I would have to remind myself.

  He’s not just an asshole. He’s your BROTHER.

  Well…stepbrother, at the least. So what if I admired how he looked? He took damn good care of himself, and it really showed. As fucked up as it was, when I got really bored while he was off doing whatever the hell he did, I’d slink into my bedroom and masturbate…mentally slapping some celebrity’s face onto his body.

  I tried my best to separate Sawyer himself out of the situation, although I couldn’t help it. I’d masturbated to him before, when we were younger. Even before he got all super hot on me, I was attracted. I could only barely deny it to myself. It was always on the fringe, like trying to remember something you’ve forgotten and it’s just on the tip of your tongue.

  But I wouldn’t finger myself to him now.
>
  There’s no way I’d let him get into my head like that.

  In the meantime, while I read books and loitered around the house, I decided to make good use of the city. Luckily, I didn’t have to call Hensley every time I wanted a trip into the city, nor did I have to summon a taxi with ridiculous fares and questionable quality. Instead, I went the Uber route, pulling up my iPhone app and sending out a digital beacon for a driver. Ten minutes later, a sleek, small black car would pull up in the driveway, and I’d be escorted wherever I wanted to go.

  It was usually some college kid, sometimes someone in their upper twenties. The rides were friendly enough, but I never wound up with the same driver twice. That was fine with me – I’d indulge the driver with small talk, but I wasn’t out to make friends.