by Eve Langlais
I’m not having this conversation. I’d keep repeating it in my head until I believed it.
“I gotta go,” I muttered. “Uh, thanks.”
The smile came after I’d hung up and grabbed my laptop. Mia had won. Of course she had. That was my girl, kicking ass. She could take care of herself. I just wanted the chance to help.
That didn’t sound the least bit like I was whipped. Nope, no sir.
I closed down the window that still contained school stuff and opened another. The blank line of the browser mocked me, daring me to type her name. Why was I nervous? It wouldn’t pick up anything. Besides, doing this was a violation of her trust.
But since she didn’t trust me anyway, what did I have to lose?
I typed in her name and hit enter. Steeling myself, I read through the first couple pages of entries. Relief bloomed in me for the second time that night. See? Nothing but a couple of random entries in a few fighting blogs. Completely minor. I’d just do a bit more checking around to make sure, then I’d close down the computer and try to get some sleep.
For the hell of it, I typed in Georgia and her name. Carly had mentioned that was their home, plus Mia spoke in a southern accent sometimes, particularly when she got…excited. Narrowing down the location would eliminate the chance I’d missed something, as unlikely as it was.
So she had issues and clearly bad shit in her past. Who didn’t? I wasn’t going to find anything on the web. That niggle along my spine that always saved my ass was wrong this time. It wasn’t intuition. This was just a waste of—
Her picture snagged me and stopped me dead.
Strong fingers wrapped my throat, squeezing tighter until I had to shut my eyes against the wavering pattern of dots that consumed my vision. Only after I opened my eyes again did I realize the pressure around my neck came from my own hands.
I unclenched my fingers, mesmerized by the image of long dark hair, bright lively eyes, and a disarming smile. I didn’t know that Mia, but she’d existed once. Until some motherfucking bastard had killed her and left the shell behind.
Amelia Anderson. Her name wasn’t Mia at all, which explained why Carly kept calling her “Ame” the other night.
The grainy photo I came across in an old Georgia newspaper with the headline—Local Girl Rescued From Basement Prison—stole a piece of me and cast it into an abyss that only existed for other people. I’d been born privileged. Even now that I’d entered the sometimes dangerous world of underground fighting, I was just a visitor. Just a trespasser out on a day pass from my real life, one that existed behind spired gates and came with monogrammed shirts and vanity license plates. I spent time in a cage by choice.
She’d been given none.
I made myself keep reading. The location of my hands revealed the progress I made with the article. At first they gripped the top of my laptop, holding it in place so I didn’t rear up from the sofa and send it smashing into the wall. As I scrolled through the story that retold the circumstances of Mia’s life in dry, subtly judgmental catchphrases, my hands fisted by my hips. By the end they were holding on to the computer again, knuckles white with tension.
When I finished that article, I immediately sought another, despite the bile coating my throat. I didn’t understand why her name had been in the paper at all. She’d been a minor and usually the names of underage trauma victims—I couldn’t bring myself to use the term rape—were protected. But she’d been missing for months and the story had broken so hugely that perhaps they hadn’t been able to keep a lid on it.
A memory teased the back of my mind. Watching the nightly news with my arm wrapped around the shoulders of the latest girl I’d brought home. I’d already been counting down the hours until my parents went to bed. Even now I remembered her name. Sami…Something-Or-Other, the purest girl in our class. Hooking up with virgins usually meant the act played out in stages, but I enjoyed the challenge.
Rich boy thrills came in safe, perfectly-groomed packages. And Magnum condoms.
I’d been so hyped on that night’s imminent deflowering that I recalled too many details about the evening. How I’d skipped out on lamb for dinner, and the bottle of wine secreted in my trunk for our pre-bed toast. Oh yeah, I was a sophisticated bastard. Nothing but the best for Sami.
And when I’d glimpsed the picture of the missing girl too close to my own age on the newscast, she’d stuck in my head because I’d felt a momentary pity that she died so young. Because she had to be dead. She’d been gone for weeks.
Such a pretty smile. Just like Sami. Wide-eyed, innocent.
So fucking innocent.
The girl’s disappearance was a big story, similar to so many others that filled the news reels before fading into obscurity. My mom had commented on it, since a branch of our family lived in a neighboring Georgia town. Isn’t that a shame, blah, blah.
Then I returned to flirting with Sami, the missing girl forgotten.
Until now.
She’d lodged herself in my consciousness, buried so deep that I hadn’t been able to excavate the recollection until now. Her face, and her name. Amelia. Old-fashioned, lovely. But it didn’t matter, because I knew she had to be dead. Even by sixteen I’d been jaded as hell.
Seven years ago, I’d been hoping Sami would give me a blowjob and/or her virginity. Mia had been hoping to survive the night.
Three months. Almost ninety days she’d been in captivity, imprisoned by a disturbingly normal-looking guy in his mid-thirties. He could’ve been a teacher or a doctor. His eyes weren’t filled with madness, unlike how mine probably looked like right then. He’d given her a ride home after cheerleading practice one day—or so the cops had surmised. She hadn’t been seen since.
Eventually she’d gotten free from that lunatic, taking advantage of him being away from home to sneak out a basement window. He’d returned early and caught her on the way out and she’d stabbed him with a piece of glass from the window she’d broken. He died later at the hospital.
I gripped my throbbing head. That’s what that stupid paper considered a rescue? Mia hadn’t been rescued. She’d fought her way clear. She was still fighting. Still using her smarts to survive.
Fourteen years old and she’d killed a man to save her own life. And I thought I had problems because I didn’t want to be compared to my daddy? Jesus Christ.
Sick to my stomach, I pushed the computer off my lap and ground the heels of my hands into my eyes. They weren’t wet. They’d burned dry, all of the moisture in my body evaporating and leaving only hard, brittle resolve in its place.
I’d thought I brought all I had into the ring every night. That I’d tested the limits of my determination and will. I was wrong.
This was the biggest test I’d ever faced. I didn’t know how to comfort someone. I broke bodies. I didn’t stitch them back together. But every part of me ached to go to her side. To protect her. No one would touch her again. Not while I had anything to say about it.
She’d become so much more to me than just a woman I’d had sex with. Somehow she’d changed me in a few days, and the man I was now couldn’t turn away. For the first time ever, I had a real reason to fight.
Maybe she didn’t trust me to be a good guy—maybe I hadn’t been one before—but I could keep her safe. If only she’d let me.
Instinct told me to spell out how I felt. If she didn’t like it, too bad. She needed me, and by fuck, I needed her. No, I didn’t know why. Yes, it had happened fast. So what? I’d lived by my wits for so long that I wasn’t about to start questioning my gut feelings. She had to feel what I did, didn’t she? Had to feel something. We could have even more than this. But not if I tried to strong-arm her into understanding that I wasn’t like the other men she’d known.
Which meant I had to learn how to not be like those men.
Groaning in frustration, I laced my fingers behind my neck and stared up at the ceiling. I liked the idea of romancing Mia, even if I wasn’t entirely sure how. It just didn’t seem
like the right approach. What if I spent my time sending her flowers and candy or whatever guys did to show they were interested, and she kept fighting until she got seriously hurt? Or worse?
And God, I’d talked so dirty to her. Hell, I’d been so dirty. She seemed onboard with all of it, but maybe I’d taken the wrong path. I was no longer the wine-and-woo type, but if she craved that, I’d do my best to give her what she wanted.
No matter what, I wouldn’t treat her like a victim. She was a survivor. If a little of my dirty talk sneaked out, I’d have to trust that she could deal. I wouldn’t dishonor her by putting on kid gloves. Not when she’d asked for fists.
God, in under a month, I was due to face her in the cage unless I could change her mind. I didn’t have time to seduce her slowly. This required a different plan. What, I had no clue.
While I was figuring it out, I had to see her and make sure she was okay. Not only from tonight’s fight, but in general. She wouldn’t ever truly heal from the hell she’d lived through—one I hadn’t been able to fully stomach reading about, and that was the sanitized version—but she was so incredibly strong. I needed another dose of that strength to feed my own. Maybe then I could do this. I had to become more than I’d ever been to help her.
She would never be alone again.
I went to take a shower then pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt. I stuffed the gloves I’d bought in the front pocket of my hoodie and, out of habit, turned to grab my coat off its usual peg.
A smile lifted my mouth. Nope, I wouldn’t be getting that jacket back.
I jogged most of the way to Mia’s. The streets were quiet in the middle of the night, not counting the few pockets of people crowding around stoops or outside of corner bodegas. I didn’t second guess my actions until I stood in the vestibule of Mia’s rundown building. Should I have come? She was likely asleep. Carly too.
Instead of pressing the buzzer for their apartment, I hit the intercom for their place instead, hoping like hell that Carly—and only Carly—would be up. By now, Mia had probably crashed. The adrenaline spike after a fight was huge, but so was the eventual low. If she was anything like me, after a few hours she’d taken a hot shower, popped some ibuprofen, and hit the hay.
“This better be good,” came the feminine voice through the speaker. She didn’t swear so it wasn’t Kizzy, thank God. Plus she sounded more perky than hard-edged, so that left Carly. “Do you know what time it is, unknown person?”
I looked at my watch. Almost three. I’d spent hours caught up in the horrors I’d found on the web. “Yeah, sorry, Carly. It’s Tray. Can I come up?”
“Tray?”
Had she forgotten me already? Some impression I’d made on the kid. “Fox,” I muttered. “Fighter dude? Mia’s…friend?”
“I remember you. I just wanted to hear you say ‘Fox.’” She giggled, though the sound seemed subdued. “Come on up.”
She rang me through the lobby, and I bypassed the elevator for the stairs. I had so much excess energy and pent-up frustration about the whole situation with Mia and her past that I could’ve run through Brooklyn twice and not gotten tired.
Then I saw Carly’s façade of cheerfulness as she opened Mia’s door and that energy surge turned into panic.
“What is it? Where is she?” I pushed her aside and barreled into the apartment. Nothing seemed out of place. Mia’s bleeding body wasn’t draped over the sofa. The kitchen counter, however, was filled with mixing bowls and pans, and the distinctly peanut buttery scent coming from the oven made my stomach growl. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“A, I don’t know your number. B, she was pretty upset after you left last night—and she shouldn’t have been, considering what y’all had been doing beforehand.” Carly closed the door with a firm click. “And C, why should I? Apparently this getting beat all to hell stuff is her normal life. Yours too.”
I pivoted to face her. Carly stood with her back to the door, her hair in long swirling reddish-gold ponytails that spilled over her pink sweater and made her look about twelve. Except for her eyes. They were much older than her years and painfully direct as they bore into mine.
“Is she all right?” I asked carefully, unsure how to proceed. I didn’t know any more about dealing with kids than I did about taking care of people. Carly was closer to adult than child, but right now I suspected she also needed taking care of, and that put her strictly in landmine territory. I gestured at the mess in the kitchen. “I’m assuming she must be or you wouldn’t be working through the Betty Crocker cookbook in the middle of the night.”
“I like to bake.” She pushed off the door and socked me in the stomach on her way to the kitchen. The move was so like Mia—Amelia?—that it made me grin before I remembered this wasn’t the time.
“So I see. And smell.”
“Want a cookie?” She slammed her cookie sheet on top of the ancient stove. Then she huffed out a sigh. “She’s sleeping. She’s fine, I think. I just don’t like seeing her like that. She shouldn’t be limping. Not ever aga—” She broke off and shook her head. “She just shouldn’t. Now eat a damn cookie.”
I walked over and ate a damn cookie. When I was done, she slapped another in my palm.
“The edges are a little burnt.” She sighed again and stared at the sheet of cookies.
“A little.” I chewed and swallowed, smiling at her steely-eyed glance. “But they’re great.”
“That’s better.” She turned to the refrigerator and took out a skinny carton. “Milk?”
Not just milk, but whole milk. What women didn’t stock skim? My kind of women, that’s who.
“I shouldn’t. I’m training—” Ah hell. I’d already blown my workout diet about ten times over. I shrugged. “Sure. Hit me.”
She filled a glass covered in painted daisies and slid it my way. We ate and drank in silence until she murmured, “Why do you do it?”
“Eat peanut butter cookies?” I asked, knowing full well what she meant.
“I’m serious.”
“Yeah, I kinda got that.” I finished off the milk and set down the glass on their small circular table. If I extended my arms, I could reach just about everything in the kitchen. “I had stuff to prove.”
“And you did it by getting beat up?”
My mouth curved as I debated grabbing another cookie. They were warm, for Pete’s sake. “Mia and I, we beat other people.”
Carly lifted a brow. “You never lose?”
“Sure I do. Just not often. What else is in these cookies besides peanut butter?”
“Cashew butter. It’s my secret ingredient. What about my sister? How often does she lose?”
“I don’t know. We just met—” Yeah, probably not best to tell her little sister that I’d started having sex with Mia within a couple of days. “Recently. But I know she’s good.”
She smirked and wiped her fingers on a dishtowel hooked to her belt. “So you were calling out last night.”
Since I wasn’t sure whether or not that was true, I opted to change direction. “How long has she been asleep?”
“About an hour. She dragged in here with her cheek still bleeding and started cleaning the apartment. I told her I’d take care of it, but she couldn’t settle.”
“Sounds about right.” I went for broke and grabbed an undersized cookie at the edge of the tray. Extra crispy were the best. “Did she take something?”
“Yeah. Ibuprofen, I think, and something to help her sleep. She made me promise I wouldn’t leave and that I’d keep the doors locked.” Carly turned to wash a bowl in the sink. “The pills totally knock her out so she normally doesn’t take sleep stuff when she’s alone.”
“Understandable,” I said without thinking, shrugging at Carly’s sharp look. She must be wondering what Mia had told me. “Mind if I check on her before I go?”
She shrugged. “Sure. I guess. She doesn’t look too good right now.”
I set my glass in the sink. “She’s always beautiful.”
“Like me?” A semi-narcissistic, spoiled, rich boy brawler?
“Yes. Someone honorable and decent.” Smiling faintly, she reached up to grab my bicep. “And hella strong.”
Surprised by the sudden tension in my shoulders, I hunched them. “She might disagree with you. She thinks she can kick my ass.”
“Suicide mission,” she said quietly, reaffirming my thoughts.
Part of me wondered if Mia had known all along she would lose against me. If subconsciously she wanted to.
Carly edged back, but I withdrew the gloves from my sweatshirt pocket and pressed them into her hand. “I want you to give her these, but you have to be sneaky about it. She can’t know they came from me. Just pretend they were a gift from some old aunt or something and you hate them, okay?”
She stroked them reverently. “They’re butter-soft. They had to have cost a fortune.” She pulled them on.
“Just make sure she doesn’t connect them to me. And don’t tell her I was here tonight.” When she didn’t respond, I squeezed her fingers, now snugly wrapped in leather. “Promise me, Carly. It’s for her own good.”
“I don’t like lying to my sister.”
“There isn’t any other choice right now. Promise me.”
Nodding, she tugged off the gloves and set them on the solitary free spot on the counter. The rest of it was crammed with bakeware. “I’ll keep your secret, Fox.” Her eyes twinkled. “Sorry, Tray.”
“Uh huh.” I ruffled her hair and she squealed and pushed me back, much like Slater’s little sister did when I messed with her. It made me smile. Some parts of life were still normal. Not everything was tragic.
Just too fucking much.
“Thanks. I’ll only be a couple minutes.”
I headed down the hall to Mia’s room and carefully opened the door. The drawn curtains let in a sliver of light that trailed over the spill of dark hair on her pillow. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with her and bury my face in it while I enfolded her in my arms. I’d never been a snuggler before. Now it was all I wanted.
