The Tornado

by Missy Blue

  I heard a wild, ear-piercing whoop from somewhere near the front of the stage and I let out a long, heavy breath, feeling my heart thudding in my chest, and one single tear drop down my cheek.

  I loved her.

  I would always love my girl.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Her

  WE ALL MADE it back to Bloomfield. My whole family, Ruby, Bailey and Tess, had all come to watch my performance tonight. I couldn’t have done it without a single one of them.

  My father was offering homemade pizza for everyone to celebrate my success, my new life, at the café. Asher drove a few blocks past the café to my apartment and walked with me upstairs so I could get showered and changed before heading over to the café.

  I stopped short at the site of my door slightly ajar.

  "Asher…" I breathed.

  "I see," he said, and I glanced over at him, seeing his jaw clenched. "Get behind me. Now."

  I obeyed, watching as he pushed my door open. I followed him inside my apartment as he made a quick circuit of the living room and the kitchen. When he stepped out of the kitchen, he caught my eye and pointed at the couch. The look in his eyes made my stomach clench with fear.

  "Sit there," he said, his voice gentle and low, but offering no room for discussion. I immediately dropped onto the couch and watched as he crept deftly toward the back of my apartment, where my bedroom and bathroom were. After a few long moments, he returned to the living room.

  "No one's in there," he said. "But I...I didn't see Rocky anywhere."

  I shot to my feet. "Oh my God. He probably got out—if the door was open he probably just ran out. He does that all the time if I don't watch him." As I rapidly talked I moved back to the door. "We have to find him—"

  "Hang on," Asher interrupted, grabbing my arm. "Not to downplay your cat missing, but I—we just came home to your fucking door hanging open. This is a secure building, so that means somehow somebody got in here, and broke into your apartment. Let's focus on that." He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "I'm calling the cops."

  "And I'm going to look for Rocky," I replied firmly. I fixed him with a stare that let him know I wasn't kidding around. Finally, he nodded and sighed.

  "I'll go with you," he said. “But I’m still calling the cops.”

  I nodded and without another look at him, I turned on my heel and flew downstairs, Asher right behind me. I burst through the door, my heart pounding. Rocky meant everything to me. I'd adopted him from a shelter shortly after he'd been born and had raised him from a kitten. He was my rock, before Asher. He was still my number one man.

  I couldn’t lose him.

  My eyes burned with unshed tears as soon as we were outside. I knew that he was naturally a very curious animal, and had often tried to slip outside before. He wanted to sniff all the scents, nibble at the grass, chase mice and other vermin in the darkness that he could see in. He was lean and muscular, and very fast and agile. I'd witnessed him leap from the floor to the top of my refrigerator casually on many different occasions. I wondered if he could be up a tree somewhere.

  "Rocky," I hissed harshly into the night, straining to hear rustling noises of grass that might herald his movements. His noiseless, tiny padded paws wouldn't make a sound out here. "Rock! C'mon, kitty."

  “Rocky, here boy,” Asher said, looking around as well.

  I stood in place, my ears pricked for any sound. I wasn't sure how long I stood like that, but after an extended silence, I tried again.

  "Rocky," I called a little louder. "Rock-kitty. Come here!" I tried all of the nicknames I had for him that he responded to, my voice higher in pitch and tone because he liked my voice that way. I stood still, listening hard again. I moved around the sidewalk that led to the side of the building, calling out softly for him as I went, Asher still right behind.

  We had just rounded the corner of the building when I heard a tiny, piteous little mewl. "Rocky?" I called, and heard the sound again. I sprinted toward it, blind in the darkness, calling his name and listening for his cries. I heard Asher tell me to stay with him but I didn’t listen. Between the way the cries sounded and the fact that Rocky hadn't run to me, I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I pulled my cell phone out to activate the flashlight application to see well in the darkness.

  "Rocky," I called softly again, and swung the flashlight to my left when I heard another small, pained noise. I saw his long, lithe body stretched out in the grass about five or six feet away and hurried over, throwing myself on my knees as I examined him, feeling relief, confusion, and horror at the same time.

  One of his front legs was bent at an odd angle, and there was matted blood in his soft gray fur. I stroked a hand along his body gently, fighting back tears at the way he weakly winced under my hand. Had he broken his leg somehow? Had someone done this to him? I was utterly confused and it made my heart sick to see my beloved cat in so much pain.

  "It's okay, baby," I said softly. "I got you now. You're okay." I heard Asher walk toward me from behind, and I set my phone down. Preparing to lean forward to scoop Rocky up, I heard a loud bang, like metal hitting bone, and then heard a low chuckle in the darkness.

  I froze.

  That wasn't Asher.

  My body tensed as I whirled my head in the direction of the noise. I saw a dark figure approaching me slowly, but I couldn't make out his face.

  "Hi, Jewel," a low voice said. My breath and pulse picked up speed as I recognized it.

  Blaise Colton.

  “Asher!” I screamed, when I saw his body slumped on the ground. He wasn’t moving, and I could just make out a faint line of blood trickling down his head. Blaise was holding a steel bar in his hand.

  Oh God…Get up Asher! Get up! You can’t be dead. You can’t be!

  "What did you do?" I snarled.

  "Aw, I just broke your boyfriend’s skull, is all," Blaise said coolly. “And your cat’s little leg. Maybe some other things. Just wanted to leave you and your boyfriend a little message. But then I decided that wasn't enough. So here I am. You look good, Jewel."

  "You cruel, disgusting piece of shit!" I hissed angrily. I rose to my feet, feeling adrenaline sweeping through me. That this man had tried to take everything away from me, when I’d only just started getting my shit together, infuriated me, pushing any fear I felt to the back of my mind.

  I was done playing the victim.

  I was done.

  I wished I had a gun then. I was so angry, I would have shot him without a single regret.

  Blaise reached out and grabbed me, slamming me face-first into the brick wall. He forced my face to the side, tilting my jaw out toward him and covering my mouth with a hand. He gripped my face hard and pressed his palm painfully against my lips while my neck throbbed from the odd angle and my forehead scraped along the sharp brick. I felt the insides of my cheeks thrusting painfully around my teeth as my jaw tightened and tensed. I felt panic rising—horrible, dismantling panic that threatened to freeze me up and make me go limp.

  "See, Asher fucked up when he fired me," Blaise was whispering into my ear. "He fucked up in a huge way. But then—he fucked me over again. I don't know how he does the things he does, but that motherfucker got me banned from MMA. Forever! Do you know what that means, Jewel? Do you? That means I can never manage any fighters because I can't enter them into tournaments. Who wants to be managed by someone who can't even do anything for their career? He might as well have chopped my dick off."

  He chuckled again, the sound horrible in my ears. I realized I could smell a strong, pungent, sharp odor of alcohol around him. He had pressed me into the wall below a wall sconce, and in the dim light, I could see, when he leaned into my face, that his pupils were dilated almost to the size of his entire iris. His eyes were bloodshot, hazy, and insane. I assumed he was both drunk and high on something, all at the same time.

  "So then this fucker takes my business from me. My motherfuckin’ business—the one I built from the
ground up. Because he got me banned, and I won't be able to pay any of my bills. For a day I lost two-thirds of my clientele when they found out he fired me. Do you know how much money that comes to?" His hand was still gripping my face hard and pressing the side of my forehead into the brick, hard. It hurt so much, but I refused to cry out. I only shook and stared back into his eyes with fury.

  "What hasn't he taken from me?" Blaise went on rhetorically. He tightened his grip somehow, and I tasted copper on my tongue again as the tender insides of my cheeks scraped tightly against my teeth. He pushed on me, and I felt a wet trickle slide down my temple as it raked over the brick wall. I moaned involuntarily, squeezing my eyes shut at the pain. Blaise was using the elbow of the hand gripping my mouth to pin one of my arms to the wall. His other hand pinned my free arm to the wall down by my side. His body was pressed against mine, and his legs somehow maneuvered against mine to wedge in between them and around them. I didn't know how he was holding me. All I knew was that I couldn't move. Any slight tension on my part resulted in pain from the force he was exacting on me.

  "The only way I see it," Blaise went on, his voice dropping to a sharp hiss, "is for your fucking mick boyfriend to understand what he's done—is to take everything from him." He leaned his forehead against the back of my neck and then nipped at my flesh there. I cringed, trying to lean away, only to feel a fresh burst of pain throughout my body. "I do believe that's where you come in, Princess. I think you're everything to him. So I'm gonna fuck you real good and he can watch when he wakes up. If he wakes up."

  I began to pant at his words, feeling throbs of pain with every flex of my lungs. It hurt so much to even draw breath, since he was pressed against me so tightly. I felt I couldn't catch my breath. I was terrified of what was going to happen next.

  "The way I see it, things started going to shit with me and Asher as soon as he started fucking your tight pussy," Blaise growled in my ear. He rolled his hips against my buttocks and I moaned again in disgust. "So if I fuck you, then things will go to shit for him. It's the only way. Don't you see, Jewel? You're going to help me fuck your boyfriend." He giggled maniacally in my ear. "In more ways than one. So let's get down to business, shall we?" His hand dropped down to my waist, then lower, fumbling at the button on my jeans. “I’ve been wanting to fuck you up the ass since you let me grope it.”

  My eyes glazed over as my body froze up. My thoughts receded, almost as though my brain were signaling to my body to give up the fight, to let things happen. Vague, distorted images of my previous attack hazed in and out of my mind, my own screams echoing through my brain intermittently.

  I looked down at my poor cat who had been hurt, and at Asher. And then a sudden warm rush of white-hot anger flooded through my veins like it was on an IV drip in my arm.

  I. Would. Not. Be. A. Victim. Anymore.

  A sudden memory flashed through my brain, seemingly forever ago—one dark night, late, at the gym when Asher had been trying to show me some self-defense moves. It hadn't worked when he'd been the assailant—I'd panicked. But what about when I had been the assailant? I recalled Asher’s heavy leg swinging around behind mine, his arms maneuvering fast, and before I'd known it, I'd been on my ass.

  Despite having never repeated the move since that night, it seemed to all come back to me in a rush.

  I jerked hard, blindly, feeling pain shooting through me, but got my left leg free. I used my hips and butt to thrust back hard on Blaise, putting him slightly off balance, before I swung my left leg in a giant step backward, positioning it right behind the back of his right thigh. My arms were still trapped, but I thrust my hip hard again, throwing him even more off balance. As a result, he let go of one of my arms as it flailed in the air, trying to regain his balance, and I slammed my elbow back into the center of his face as hard as I could, feeling the flesh and bone give way with an incredibly satisfying crunch. I felt wetness on my elbow and realized it was from the blood that began to spurt from his nose.

  He bellowed in pain, his hands going to his face as he stumbled back blindly, and I used the opportunity to ram my knee into his groin as hard as I could, making him choke out a moan and a gag before doubling over, his hands now moving into his crotch as he gasped for breath. I threw an uppercut into his face before using my other fist to slam down on the back of his neck, laying him out flat on his stomach. I kicked him hard in the ribs for good measure before turning fast on the ball of my foot toward where my cat was still laying.

  I scooped Rocky up as gently as I could, cringing at the tiny mewls of pain he whimpered out, and cradled him as I hurried toward Asher. Asher’s eyes were slowly opening and relief washed through me.

  He was alive. He was alive.

  Asher pushed himself up, his eyes narrowing at the blood on my face and arm, and his eyes went wide.

  "What the fuck—"

  "Blaise," I interrupted breathlessly. "He did this to Rocky…And you.”

  "Where is he?" Asher asked, his voice hard. He placed a hand to his head and growled when he saw blood on his hand.

  “He hit you with a steel bar and then tried to attack me."

  A sudden cold, violent anger settled over his face like a mask and my insides twisted as I shrank under his gaze. Asher could be absolutely terrifying when he wanted to be. "Where did he go?" he rumbled.

  "He's just there," I said, pointing to Blaise’s body. Asher took a giant step toward him, but I used one hand to fumble at his shirt, pulling. He was going to kill Blaise. He was going to stomp on Blaise’s head until he didn’t draw breath. And then they would lock Asher up, for good. Away from me. "Asher—”

  He growled and jerked free of my grasp. He stopped short at the man laying facedown on the ground. Blaise was still breathing, but he wasn't moving. Asher looked at me over his shoulder, his anger mixed with absolute amazement. "You laid him out like this?" Asher asked.

  "Yeah."

  Surprisingly, a reluctant grin tugged up one corner of Asher's mouth. It was more of a grimace, but he shook his head.

  At the sound of our voices, Blaise stirred vaguely and groaned. The anger fell back over Asher's face, creasing his brow deeply, and he dropped a foot on Blaise’s back, digging in with the heavy heel of his boot.

  "You outta your fucking mind?" Asher hissed down. "You came after Jewel? You got a death wish?" He leaned down, pressing his weight on his foot in the middle of Blaise's back, and the bastard cried out weakly in pain. His face was a bloody mess from my elbow. Good.

  The sound seemed to only spur on Asher's rage. He knelt down, one foot still in Blaise's back, and reached out and gripped the side of the man's face and pressed it hard into the pavement. Blaise let out another strangled cry.

  "You've gotta be fucking shitting me," Asher went on in a furious undertone. "I could break your spine right now—you know that, right?" He dug in harder.

  I hurried forward and grabbed his shoulder. "Asher, stop." My voice was commanding, not a plea, and at the strength in it, Asher glanced up at me. "I fought him off. I put him down. Don't do this. Don't stoop to his level. Don't get in trouble over him. I can’t lose you. Remember what you promised me. I never have to be afraid while I got you." My hand tugged insistently at his shirt. "So stand up. Now."

  Asher glared down at Blaise again for several seconds, not releasing even a little pressure on either his back or face. Finally, he let go and rose to his feet. He stepped back from Blaise and continued to glare over at him. I noticed Asher’s fists were clenched by his sides and shaking slightly. I reached up to touch his face, instantly drawing his attention.

  "Calm down," I said softly. "Just calm down. For me, okay?" I pressed my palm against his cheek insistently. I felt his jaw tighten under my hand before releasing, and he gave me a terse nod.

  The sound of vehicles at the back of the building caught my attention. I glanced over Asher's shoulder and saw the police. I glanced back down at Blaise, then at Asher.

  "Are you calm?" I asked. "The cops ar
e here."

  "Go meet them," Asher said. "Bring them over here. I'll stay and make sure he doesn't get up or try to run."

  I nodded at Asher, meeting his gaze intently. He seemed to understand my silent question and nodded slightly.

  "I'm calm," he said. "Go on."

  I exhaled a tense breath, feeling relief flooding my body again. I rushed off to meet the cops, still holding onto dear life of my little baby Rocky.

  Him

  IT HADN’T TAKEN long for Jewel's family to catch wind that something wasn't right.

  Once the cops had gotten our statements, they informed us that we had to come down to the station to give a formal statement. They also wanted to take photographs of both our injuries to submit as evidence to the prosecuting attorney.

  Jewel had reluctantly given Rocky to her sisters who informed her that they would take him to the twenty-four hour veterinary hospital immediately.

  After we were done at the station, I took Jewel immediately to the veterinary hospital, where her sisters still were. The vets on staff assured her that despite his broken front leg, he would make a full recovery with plenty of TLC, and they planned to keep him overnight to make sure that he remained stable. Jewel hadn't wanted to leave, but I gently pointed out there was nothing she could do for him that wasn't already being done. I promised to bring her back first thing in the morning.

  I drove us back to Bloomfield. It was almost eleven o'clock by the time Jewel convinced both of her parents that she was just fine, that nothing else was going to happen. The threat had been resolved, she had promised them. Finally, they relented and headed back to their home, promising to see her first thing in the morning.

  Ruby had lingered throughout everything and looked utterly exhausted. She put a hand on Jewel's shoulder.

  "You want company tonight?" she asked. "I can stay over with you if you don't want to be alone. Or—" She glanced at me and her full lips twisted into a little smirk. "Or I can go home and shut the hell up."