by Wyatt, Dani
“Yeah, Cameron. Why don’t you tell — tell them who you fought last.” Victoria was treading a very thin line and for the first time since she arrived at 6 am to put the god damn turkey in the oven and try to make this a holiday, Cameron met her eyes with a long, solid glare.
Like a storm filled river, he burst open. Blood began to rush from every extremity and settled in the thickening length under his jeans as her glare bore into him.
The curve of her shining pink lips made his teeth grind together. A part of him wished he never met her — then in the next heartbeat, he knew he would throw his life away if it meant saving hers.
“Don’t.” He glared at her. “I’m not telling you who I fought last. So all of you can just shut the fuck up.”
Cameron grabbed his plate and shot a venomous glare across the table at the devil’s cherub that sat smiling back at him. He shifted his hips back and his chair wobbled and knocked against the worn dark wood of the china cabinet filled with ribbons, trophies and pictures of their father and the fighting Cobain brothers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Victoria felt another twenty pound iron plate land on her chest.
Watching Cameron turn toward the kitchen, she could see the twitch in his eye, the tension in the bulge of his shoulder muscles. The pull of his white t-shirt across his chest showed the dark outline of his overlapping tattoos that covered both arms, the broad flat of his pectorals, and onto his back.
He was more than mad, and her stomach filled with something far less pleasant than the Thanksgiving dinner she’d cooked for these men that she still considered her family.
“That’s right! Run away! That’s what you’re best— ” Larry growled as Cameron disappeared behind him.
4
Victoria felt her chest tighten as though she was being chased by something both wild and horrible.
“Don’t worry ‘bout him.” Larry slugged back the bottom of another Bud. Waving his free hand over his shoulder dismissing Cameron as he stomped through the swinging door to the kitchen.
“Did you get that photography show you wanted?” Asher asked trying to change the subject to something resembling a normal conversation.
Victoria looked into Asher’s soft blue eyes and wondered how he came to be so sweet and kind raised by wolves.
“Um, still working on it.” Victoria took a drink of her water.
Her other hand twisted around the end of her long copper colored hair. A habit she had when she felt the frustration building. She didn’t want anyone to know about the gallery that called.
“They said I needed more of a portfolio and show history.”
“Your pictures are great. Fuck them. If they can’t see it, then they aren’t worth your time. You’re wicked talented Vic. It will happen, you’ll see.”
“Thanks, Ash.” She gave him a friendly pump on the shoulder with her fist. He was her biggest fan and the vice grip on her chest softened by one gear.
Victoria pushed her chair back and reached down to gather the dishes, her plate still full. Asher seemed to be the only one able to consume the beautiful early Thanksgiving dinner she’d managed to put on the table.
“You done Dad?” Victoria’s soft voice made Larry’s lips turn upward in something resembling a smile.
“Yeah. Sorry, sweetheart. My stomach, you know, damn ulcers. Just wrap it up, will ya? I’ll eat it later.”
“Sure.” She patted him on the shoulder, her eyes filled with pity as she looked at the man that was a shadow of what he could have been.
Victoria felt the knots in her stomach tighten like they were being pulled by a draft horse. She knew he was on the other side of that door somewhere, and it took the will of Solomon to push it open and brace herself for what was coming.
The stack of mis-matched plates seemed so heavy as she pushed on the wooden door, the swinging hinges squeaking as she edged her way into the snake pit.
She felt like a rope noosed around her throat, cutting off her air as she turned through the door, bracing herself for Cameron’s death stare. Instead, there was only silence and emptiness.
The worn seafoam green wooden cabinets chipping with too many layers of paint, lined two walls of the small bungalow kitchen. The soft hum of the Frigidaire was the only noise besides the throbbing of her heart and the clink of the dishes as she set them down on the counter.
“Cam?”
It was the kind of whisper that you hoped wouldn’t be answered. He couldn’t be far. His name hung in the air like a bubble, any moment ready to pop and disappear like it never existed.
A dark movement caught her peripheral vision through the curtain that covered the back door of the kitchen. A flash of Cam’s faded blue hoodie moving on the back porch as he paced like a caged wolverine.
His massive form looked even larger as the afternoon light dappled through the leafless branches on the ancient oak trees that surrounded the house.
The cut of his jaw stood clenched, the set of his forehead showing the deep wounds from years in the ring. His features were no longer exactly symmetrical, yet the irregular angles and chiseled lines combined into a stew of dead sexy that left most women without any reasonable way to resist him.
Victoria could feel his energy. Even through the wall, it was like a conduit of hot wires connected them and she felt the heat rise from her core outward, like a child with a high fever.
She was suddenly 16 years old again, watching the same clenched jaw, the way he drew his brow together, the flames in his eyes as he stood over Colton as the boy begged for his life. Cameron was a killer, and just like it happened yesterday, Victoria pressed her hands around her waist, the memories flooding back of that day he almost let his demons consume him.
It wasn’t hard for trouble to come calling for Cameron. Kids like him didn’t seem to understand the rules of polite society. He was a trigger, and there always seemed to be an invisible finger applying pressure.
He wasn’t born evil or inherently bad. Just born to a father that held the bottle in one hand and a belt in the other; a mother taken too soon from him, slowly and painfully.
It didn’t help that he was born with fighting in his blood. The son of an amateur boxer that never could quite find his own fame, so he pushed his sons with nothing short of his own cruel blueprint for them to make up for his shortcomings.
Larry’s years of losses and missed opportunities left the boys with a man that had no interest in being a father, but instead cracked the whip on his own to be the champions he could never be.
The whiskey pumped Larry’s blood colder as the years railed by. The booze sent the fight he did have left into his gut, spinning and coming out in roundhouse blows on the two boys that did their best to gain his praise.
For Asher, his life had turned him toward the light. He was the pleaser, the peacemaker.
He lacked the primal disconnection of his older brother. His lighter hair matched his soul and as hard as he tried, he would never have the lethal force that inhabited Cameron.
In the year that Victoria’s mom lived here with Larry, both boys smiled more; Larry took on a reluctant softness they never experienced with him before. Then, it was all gone, and Victoria never returned to stay in the tiny bungalow that housed her second family, she returned to the life her own mother had fled.
Now, inside the small kitchen, her heart pounded. She moved to grasp the tarnished brass knob, the rush of her heated blood sounding like ocean waves in her ears. The click of the latch and the predator on the other side twitched and turned, his shattered ice blue eyes tearing into Victoria from behind the glass.
“Cam…” Victoria felt the heat from his gaze like a thousand sparks stinging her neck and chest.
He took a three quarter turn. His shoulders angled like she was the opponent in the opening moments of a battle, sizing her up, Cameron felt the muscles in his thighs twitch, every cell in his body telling him to run.
“What? I don’t fucking want to talk to you.” C
ameron felt the skin stretch over his hands as his fists balled at his sides.
“You're an ass, you know that? Everything isn’t about you. You seem to think people are either the enemy or plotting to be your enemy. Stop it, look at me.”
Cameron could feel his blood thicken like lava as her hand touched the sleeve of his jacket. Instinctively, he jerked away.
For most people, life consisted of shades of gray. For Cameron, there were only three colors, black, white and red.
“I fucking told you not to come, Victoria. And, goddamn it, that was before you decided — ” Blood red was all he could see, flames flickered in his eyes as he tried to look at her, and he knew if she didn’t go away, neither of them would leave here without bruises.
Her hair was hanging down, one strand lingering inside the opening of her sweater, winding just inside the first button and Cameron threw his head back desperately trying not to look at any part of her.
“Nothing happened, it was just lunch. Asher is part of my life too. He always will be, why is everyone a threat to you? He’s your brother too; I love him…”
White hot fire catapulted through his veins.
“What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me right now? You’re going to tell me nothing happened and how you fucking love him?”
”You can’t…” Victoria could feel the dangerous power emanating from him.
Cameron was set to detonate. Her instinct cut her off just before his arm pulled back like a loaded sling shot, his fist slamming forward, the air moving by her ear as he drove the piston of his arm forward with such force, Victoria felt the house shake.
The sickening crunch of metal and fury sent a wave of fear through Victoria as Cameron’s iron fist met the oxidized aluminum of the back screen door, denting it like a piece of tin foil. Her hands flew to cover her ears, Cameron’s breath moved and out of his mouth like a parched soldier gulping water.
“Don’t fucking tell me what I ‘can’t’ do.” Cameron breathed the whisper into her ear.
She felt the power of his pain and fury like a cascading river of demons as his body moved forward, dwarfing her.
He stood as close as he could without any part of his body touching hers. It didn’t matter; they were intricately woven into one another with or without their consent.
Victoria felt her skin like it was a defensive wall manned by billions of tiny warriors charged and ready for battle. It prickled and shook waiting for Cameron to break through and touch her. Somewhere, anywhere — she forgot to breathe and felt her mind floating. A ringing in her ears began as she looked up into the face of madness that had become her worst enemy and her only savior.
Cameron could feel his blood. Truly feel it moving in his veins like rivers of some accelerant thrown onto the dying embers of a fire that had simmered and scorched them both for years. He could smell her, the sweetness of her perfume mixing with the memory of her scent when their bodies clutched onto each other like drowning refugees.
She did not understand she was no longer just one person; she was not a separate entity. She belonged to him, and nothing short of his death would ever end the pain he felt when he looked into her brown eyes.
“You need to leave.” Cameron stepped back; he knew there was no potential for virtue in him today, and if making her leave kept her safe, that was what needed to happen.
“Just stop…why can’t you believe me? It isn’t what you think you saw…please, Cam…” Victoria fought the prick of welling tears.
He could never stand the tears, they would have normally brought him some flicker of that overprotective stallion that reined over her. But right now, he was a hunted, injured animal and even the pain on her face couldn’t snap him from the feeling he was standing at the bottom of a pit with no way out.
Even through the waves of anger, Cameron felt the blood in his veins flowing down, settling like a thousand fists pounding in his growing cock. She needed to go, now, or he would hurt her and he wasn’t in any condition for restraint.
“One of us is leaving.” Cameron’s voice was the loudest whisper she had ever heard. “And, in case you are confused, that means you. You have exactly five seconds to turn around and get your shit and get out the front door. Don’t fucking test me.”
He held his ground and the heat bounced back and forth between his worn, faded hoodie and the soft, cheerful yellow of her sweater.
Victoria felt the hooves of a herd of wild horses pounding the blood through her veins. Blotches of pink and red covered her neck and chest, working their way where her fluttering hands fought to flick the two salty tears from her lower eyelids.
Cameron gave her no room. She pulled her shoulders tight, turning in a small radius careful not to cross the inch of fire that kept them from touching each other.
A long tendril of hair moved down over the roundness that filled her sweater and Cameron felt the discomfort of his thickening shaft pushing up inside his boxers.
He didn’t give a shit she was the forbidden fruit, that shit didn’t even cross his mind. But she knew the rules, she broke them, and now, what could have been was dead to him.
There was no more to say.
Victoria felt the chasm between them, the unbreachable inch that kept them apart. Her heart turned to stone, no longer able to beat as the hinges on the screen door squeaked, and her legs felt so heavy as she took two steps into the house.
Leaving the one person in her life that seemed to know exactly how to love her and exactly how to hurt her in a way more intimate than any bond she imagined.
Inside the flickering fluorescent light of the kitchen, she turned and tried to catch one last glimpse. Cameron taught her that pain lives just on the other side of pleasure, and when those things were brought together under his command, she was more alive than ever before.
He was off the porch and sprinting up the hill on South Perry Street before the click of the screen door latched behind her.
She felt her back tighten, her eyes turning from golden flecked honey brown to a blackened stout. She remembered kneeling before him, his hand print still stinging the softest part of her ivory flesh and his blue eyes impaling her as she fought the submission he demanded.
She listened; outside it was quiet. The porch was empty.
As Cameron stepped into the alley behind the house, he imaged this must be how it felt to be skinned alive.
Nothing and no one turned his darkness into light like she did. And no one ever would again.
5
Cameron’s knuckles were barely healed from the gashes of the mirror glass. After that night, shit fell apart in Colorado and it was time.
The gym at Southside smelled the same. Nothing here ever changed.
“So, what brings you back?” Cameron’s father wouldn’t meet his eye.
It was before noon. Larry was still sober.
Cameron spent the last week driving a slow road back to Detroit to find out six months gone hadn’t changed a thing.
“You know what brings me back.” Cameron did his best to keep his voice steady. Even sober, his father was a dinosaur sized asshole. “Where’s Ash? He’s training today, right?”
The clock showed 3:34, Asher usually came through the steamed up door of the gym right about now.
It had been almost six months since Cameron decided he couldn’t stand looking at her anymore and moved to Boulder to train with Armad Sinclair, a three time heavy weight UFC title fight winner who now ran one of the most successful training programs in the country.
Cameron didn’t tell anyone it took them a few weeks to allow him into the program. His reputation for resisting authority and being unpredictable preceded him.
Only to be let go last week because he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut and follow the rules. Big damn surprise.
Their training program was unique and demanded complete dedication. There was no life outside of the RAZE gym under Armad’s dictatorship; it was more cult than a training program.
Cameron never shied away from hard work; it was the bull shit rules about sticking to the strict daily schedule of meditation and group meetings every morning and night like some macabre fighter’s therapy session.
“He’ll be here. You been training?” Larry sucked the air between his teeth as he talked.
“Yeah.” Cameron’s eyes darted from the front door to the hallway behind the bank of worn, cracked blue and red folded mats that leaned up against the gray cinderblock wall.
The noises were the same, grunts and thuds and voices that urged the fight forward and demanded more from the embattled dancers that filled the training rings. There was a smell that eluded time itself, the combination of everything that made a place like this thump with its own heartbeat over the last fifty years.
Cameron hated that this place felt like home even as the dark fingers of childhood memories wrapped around his throat. He remembered his dad standing over him at five years old, his lip busted open, drops of blood falling in perfect round circles onto the mat below his feet.
Larry’s voice telling him it would not be the last time he spilled blood in the ring; reminding the little boy if he ever caught a tear coming out of him, he would show him a real beating. The images as real today as they were two decades ago.
A handful of years after Cameron took his first broken lip, it was Victoria that urged him on and gave him whatever comfort he would accept, handing him the icy cold towel for his swollen shut eyes. The face of a young girl that had no business being in a place like this at her age, quickly became the very reason he fought so hard to win.
To see her wince when he took a hard knee and watch her little hands clap when Cameron landed a concussion yielding blow to whomever met him inside the ring or the cage became the axis on which his fury turned.
