by Wyatt, Dani
“Hopeful Fighter Loses the Final Round”
Or
“Hometown Badboy Fulfills his Tragic Destiny”
Or
“Local Mobster Drinks his Last Black & Tan”
Or
“Star Crossed Lovers Dance Their Final Dance”
Or
“Innocent Lamb Slaughtered by Selfish Fucks”
Cameron shook his head, trying to clear the block type headlines from his mind as his eyes fought to adjust to the shadows inside the small corner bar. It smelled of cigars, decades of filth, and spilled beer permeating every corner.
There were noises, voices — not many; it was early, but he was pretty sure he was here. By the time his pupils dilated enough to see shadowy figures out of his left eye, the decision was made.
He listened closely as his ears made out the sound of the voice he was there to find.
The other voices faded, there was a rushing in his ears as he imagined that fat fucks hands on her and in three strides and less than 50 words, the deal with the devil was done.
It’s the only way.
His voice echoed in his head as he wondered which part of him he was trying to convince.
The only other thing inside his head was the monster’s final words.
“I was almost hoping you wouldn’t take me up on my offer. I would so very much like to taste her.”
That familiar twitch began in his fingertips; then the heat that rose from the back of his neck and reality started to shift. Time spun backward when survival was the only law — it was kill or be killed and the beast that resided just on the other side of his breath came out.
Cameron knew, there was a good chance when this was all done, there was a next of kin notification in the future for one of them. Or, more likely, both of them.
44
“Geez, this place is a time capsule.”
Hannah was the only real girlfriend Victoria had ever had. The last few years had drifted them in varying directions. When Victoria texted her an S.O.S. the other night, she turned on her heel showing up within the hour.
They spent the evening with Hannah picking Victoria up off the floor as she realized Cameron’s words were no joke. They were done.
Inside the gym office, Victoria looked more like a photographic negative come to life. Her eyes sunk into the spots above what used to be pink swells of her cheeks. Her lips took on a grayish blue hue; the color lips take on after swimming in water that is far too cold for far too long.
“Thanks for coming last night. I’m such a disaster.”
Victoria looked at the black and white photographs on the wall and they began to waver as her eyes blanketed with tears.
“I still can’t believe you were banging your step-brother.” Hannah tried to lighten the mood. Her pink fingernails matched her lips as her full length tattooed arms crossed over her chest.
“Stop. He’s not my step-brother. Yes, he was, for like a minute. But, God, what am I going to do? How did I fall so far so fast and fuck up so big?”
“He overreacted. He’s a badass, Uber Alpha bull shit; they do that. They can’t see past their own dicks. You have to get him to listen to reason. Right? I mean, he has to be reasonable. You don’t just break up with someone you love for not calling. For having lunch with his brother? I mean, you told him there was nothing going on. If he loves you, he should trust you and listen to reason. You have to take control girl. Sit his ass down and tell him how it is.”
She apparently didn’t know Cameron very well. Reason was not in his vocabulary. Life was black and white. You were in, or you were out. There was no middle ground with him.
Victoria felt her stomach flip flop and then dance again with the constant state of nausea which had took up permanent residence in her gut since yesterday.
In the little sleep she managed last night, she dreamed of him.
Every part of him. The way his body moved when he held himself above her, the way he wouldn’t let her look away when he entered her when he made her cum until tears streaked her cheeks.
Every time she blinked, she saw his face, the glint of his teeth, the way the dark black ink stretched and moved on his arms and chest.
She could hear his voice in her ear, whispering in his deep, painful tone how he loved her, how his only purpose in life was to care for her, to bring her pleasure.
“Hey — I’m not here to talk to these pictures you know.” Hannah waved her arms in the air trying to get Victoria to snap out of her stupor.
“Sorry. What?”
“I said, — when we were sixteen, and Colton Sesher messed with you, and Cameron almost killed him — you remember that right?? — I thought if I ever had someone care for me like he did for you, that would be the perfect man. I tried once you know —”
Hannah curled her finger in her hair.
“Tried what?” Victoria managed to ask.
“You know, with him, Cameron. Once, when we were hanging out here our senior year. Because you guys worked all the god damn time so if I wanted to see you I came here. So, I tried to get him to kiss me, back there behind the office - in that hall.”
“What?! You never told me that! So, did you? I mean did he? Kiss you?”
“Nope. I couldn’t even make a dent in that armor he has. I was all over him too. I mean, you can’t blame me. Look at him. I think he’s the hottest guy I have ever seen. Real or imagined.”
And now he’s gone.
“Then, I remember when he went in front of the judge for ‘assault with intent to do great bodily harm’ for smashing Colton’s head into that brick wall twelve times — and then the judge let him off with probation because he was protecting you from almost being raped. I can remember I was soooo relieved, honestly, it is just good to know there are men like Cameron in the world. It gives me something to dream about. I mean, not him specifically, anymore, but someone like him. I walk all over most of the guys I date. Most of them are pussies. Give me a caveman any day, I want to be taken — not asked. Honest to God, there is just something about him that screams sex. A good badass is hard to find my friend.”
Shut up, please, stop talking about him.
How was it possible for a human to live in this kind of pain? How did you remember to breathe? To take steps and form words without such exhausting effort? Victoria saw those eyes watching her from the line of photos hanging over Hannah’s head and the wavering tears turned to death rattling sobs.
“Oh man, I’m sorry. I'm supposed to be helping, and I’m just making it worse.”
“No—” Victoria tried to squeak out more, but her throat closed.
The only thing that came out were the clutching, halting noises of a tortured soul. The pain was like a neurotoxin from a viper, affecting every part of her being and shutting down her vital organs one at a time.
Hannah’s warm arms covered her shaking shoulders until the hurricane subsided, and another box of Kleenex went empty into the trash can.
“You know how to kill some tissue there girl. That was one of them-there ugly cries.” Hannah winked, using her best Alabama red-neck voice and as Victoria did her best to remember, her lips curved upward.
“God, now I’m glad I never had my heart broken before. This sucks. I can’t eat,” Victoria managed to mumble.
Just thinking of food sent her stomach into her throat, and she gagged on the stinging bile that threatened to spill over.
“Well, then watch me eat. Maybe you should drink.”
“Oh yeah, I can imagine how that would go. Me? The one drink wonder?”
“Yeah, you sort of suck at it.”
“I know. I puked on my Dad’s feet the one time you decided to introduce me to Peach Schnapps then dropped me off at home to fend for myself. I only had two shots and still I was a mess. It never got better, so I just got comfortable with the idea that I was going to be the permanent designated driver.”
“And I thank you for that.” Hannah gave her a quick nod of appreciati
on. “Well, you want me to come over for a while? I can order pizza at your place —”
“Sure.” Victoria didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t want her to come over, but she also didn’t care if she did. She was void of emotion and opinion.
Hannah was babbling on about how her last boyfriend used to cry after sex as they emerged into the gray tones of the parking lot.
45
He shouldn’t be here. He promised himself he wouldn’t come again tonight.
There existed a blank space of time between when he left the hotel after taking care of the dogs and when he found himself slowing to a stop across the street behind the prison that held her inside.
His eyes didn’t blink; they didn’t waver or flinch. The door was where he would see her next, and he haunted it with his gaze until he saw the first pinch of white light squeak out of the crack like a mouse running for safe harbor.
She stepped into the dusk and every moment he’d touched her in the last weeks bound into a light so bright, his eyes squeezed shut, and he took a gaspy breath like someone just connected a throat punch.
His car sat silent; parallel to an old abandoned 1984 El Dorado that long decorated the back parking lot of Earl’s Liquor and Groceries. The past two nights he’d watched, knowing he could see her, but he was sure she couldn’t see him.
Tonight she wasn’t alone, it only took a moment and Cameron registered the other form as her friend that had been around since grade school.
He could see Hannah’s mouth working — not much had changed there — but Victoria looked dead. A glass eyed doll staring right through her friend without acknowledgment.
Without any obvious reason, Victoria raised her eyes and began to scan the desolate landscape of urban decay and came to rest unequivocally and intentionally on the El Dorado. Another second, she lay her warm brown irises on the icy blue stare that came out of the darkness from behind the Cadillac.
She must have some damn radar. Jesus, what the fuck am I doing here? What a fucking train wreck. I’d rather take twenty throttles to the head than feel what I’m feeling right now.
The buzzing, flickering security light cast shadows like darts and arrows across the cracked black asphalt. He knew she was looking right at him because he felt it like someone doused him with a bucket of cold water then jumped him with a car battery.
They say if you have no intent, then your crime is somehow less egregious, less pathological. What happened next was like that, because Cameron went there with no intent to walk toward her; to hear her voice or stand close enough for the possibly of touching her.
Stop man. Don’t fucking go over there, don’t — things are bad, do you want them to turn into a fucking horror show? Are you like that stupid character that hears the scary noise in the dark basement where the ax murder is hiding and says to himself, “I think I should go down there and check it out, what could go wrong?” Dumb ass. You’re a dumb ass.
He knew better than to come too close, she was bait, and he was the taunted lion.
Neither of them seemed to need to speak. Hannah’s platinum blond bob swung around her chin as her eyes darted back and forth, trying to figure out when the show was going to start.
“Sooooo —” Hannah clapped her hands softly and decided to try to prod things along.
Even at that distance, Victoria’s scent cut in the air like an owl’s silent talons as it bears down on the unknowing prey.
It was cool, almost cold, with autumn in full bloom and the maniacal laughter of winter waiting just behind the curtain for the act to change. But Cameron stood in his white t-shirt. He found only enough energy for the necessities and a jacket was unnecessary.
“Are you going to stand there staring or do you have some reason to be here?” Victoria’s vitriol hit him even from this distance.
Hannah started tapping her foot, swinging her hands and finally she cleared her throat unable to stand the strain of putrid silence clamping around their little trio.
“So, okay, here it goes. Cameron, Victoria — you two know each other right?” Hannah’s hands waved in the moonlight back and forth like a hostess introducing two long lost acquaintances. “Crickets. Okay —”
Victoria couldn’t move, her feet felt the pavement sucking her lower. She counted the faded, chipped white lines that delineated the two parking spaces that stood between them.
Her skin was alive, vapid and crawling under her clothes as his eyes stuck to hers, unwavering and challenging.
Jesus, man, fucking say something. Why the fuck are we here??
“Are you here to be reasonable? Because, if you’re just here to —”
Victoria’s words lit the fuse. In one breath, it burned down and hit black powder.
“Reasonable?!??! Jesus-fuck-n-a.” He shook his head with a sneering grin.
Even as he found his voice, his blood boiled, and his belly tightened looking at the way her chest rose and fell with each word.
He wanted her, as much now as ever before, but he wasn’t a man that broke his word. He knew it was over; there were no options for them. No space for them in this world, not the way it needed to be for a man like Cameron to survive.
“Yes, Cameron, rea-son-able. You have to know there is nothing with Asher, right? Look me in the eye and tell me you really think I would do that to us?”
Nothing about what she said mattered.
“Reasonable.” He enunciated the word with an exaggerated sniff of his nose as he shifted and cracked his neck to both sides. “What fucking part of me has ever seemed reasonable to you? Huh? Fucking ever, Victoria. You want some pansy ass hipster that couldn’t find his balls with a microscope and a scalpel? Uh uh, that ain’t me, I’m not that fucking guy, and you know it. I’m going to lay down the fucking rules, and I’m going to lose my damn mind if you cross the line. Well, I gave you plenty of damn warning, and you still decided you were such a big shit you were going to do what you wanted without any regard for our agreements. You disrespected us. You disrespected me.”
“No regard for us? What do you mean? You’re such a big man, you tell me what I can say, who I can see, that’s not right. I’m not a child —”
“No, you’re not a child, but you sure as shit are making some childish fucking decisions. You’ve got things covered? Handled? Huh? You wanna enlighten me on just exactly how holding my fucking brother’s hand and letting him put his lips on you is not my fucking business? I have no say in who touches you? Fuck that, that’s not ever going to be how I roll. I’m not here to change things, apologize, or beg you to come back. I’m here to do the fucking job I told you — I’ve always told you — I would be here to do which is keep you safe. That’s it.”
“Well, I think I’m going to let you two hug this one out —” Hannah made an exaggerated tiptoe toward her Toyota with the trunk covered in Co-Exist and PETA bumper stickers.
“Do you want to know why I was there with Asher? What we were talking about?”
“No, actually I don’t and it doesn’t fucking matter.” Cameron spun on the heel of his black boot.
He needed to shut this shit show down because his rage was quickly turning into something he would not be able to hold back more than a few more seconds.
Just the sight of her and her scent from twenty paces bubbled his rage into something that scared even him. He felt the course of his blood directing down into his dick, and there was no stopping that Calvary once it began the charge.
“You’re going to ruin your life — to solve this then? Maybe I don’t want YOU to do that! What’s the difference? Either I do what he wants or you do what he wants. How does that make you any better than me?!? Huh? Don’t do it, Cameron! Don’t throw away your future for this place, for them. It’s one night, one night for me or one night for you.”
“Don’t come. You got that?”
Cameron squared off for one more moment before he left her standing with her hands wrapped around her belly and her head cocked to the side, mo
uth half open trying desperately to find something that would fix it all.
“You’re not so good at listening, so I’m going to say it again. DON’T COME.” He pointed at her then turned in a half run to the side of the Camaro.
Cameron thought his lunch was going to make a re-appearance just hearing her talk as though she would ever even consider giving that disgusting fuck part of her. She truly had no idea the fury she whipped up with her words.
He knew Topher would choose his money over a fuck, so Cameron’s only security was knowing there were seven days to get to the fight and make this all go away.
After that, his next decision would be to figure out if he cared enough to keep breathing.
46
The fight lasted exactly 26 seconds. Cameron gave Jake three quick jabs, then for one split second; Jake faltered. That was all it took, Cameron focused, his eyes like a stalking tiger and with one roundhouse blow, sent his opponent three feet in the air and onto the mat like a crash test dummy.
When Jake hit the mat, the organism that a crowd like that became drew its breath as one entity. They held it silently; straining the thousands of bugging eyes to see if the body laying there like a corpse would rise again.
The impact of Cameron’s haymaker jerked Jake’s head around into an inhuman Linda Blair Exorcist angle. There resounded a united gasp inside the makeshift dark colosseum and from the density in the air, no one was sure if Cameron may have just made all of them witnesses to murder.
At first, the sickening smack of fist on flesh along with the twisted contortions of Jake Rashney’s neck rose the pulsing crowd to their feet filling the cavernous space with cheers worthy of a Roman gladiator match that ended with one less head attached to a body.
But, when he hit the mat like a bag of lead marbles, a sound sucking silence fell on the mob.
Victoria covered her face, and her shoulders shook like a grief-stricken widow as Cameron circled his prey with fire and vengeance in his eyes. He collapsed to his knees, cocking back and crushing the lifeless body with another fist cannon to the side of his head before the ref stepped in and jerked Cameron off.
