by Bry Ann
“No.” I don’t train women. For good reason.
“One lesson,” Nix counters with a conviction I wouldn’t suspect from him. “Just meet her. I promised I’d find someone she could trust, and I’ll be damned if I break that. I need you there, and I’m prepared to do what it takes to make that happen.”
“It’ll cost you.”’
“I’ve got the money,” he say immediately.
I look to the ceiling. “Fine. Two lessons max. I don’t train women. Lacey is my one exception.”
“Good.”
“Tomorrow. One o’clock.”
Then I hang up. If he wants me there, he’ll make that work. Blade knocks me in the shoulder once my phone is in my pocket.
“Be there tonight.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I lean forward and grab my bag off the ground, throwing it over my shoulder as I go.
“So you’re not going. Noted.”
At least he knows me.
“See you around, Blade.”
“Cut?”
“What?”
“Just tell me this. Are you alright?”
There’s real concern on Blade’s face. That’s a rare sight to behold.
I sigh and look over my shoulder. “Does it matter?”
“Lacey.”
“Hey, Cut!”
Lacey throws her sweatshirt off and begins to bounce on her toes, ready to go.
“Warm up. Take ten laps around the mat, then meet me by the bags.”
She gives a swift nod and is off. One, two, three…
“Wait, stop!” I yell.
She freezes with a guilty look on her face.
“Why are you in leggings?”
I should have noticed that right away. It is my strictest rule that she wear shorts and a tank top. This is because: one, my training is intense and this room is already heated, but two, and most importantly, she hides her scars from the world. This is the one place I won’t allow her to do that. Lacey is the only person I’ve met who is as physically scarred as me. I’ve never asked her why, nor will I ever. It’s her story to tell, but I refuse to let her hide from me, of all people.
“Lacey!”
“I messed up.”
She bites her lower lip and looks at me with shame etched across her features. Lacey has struggled with self-harm in the past. She’s deeply ashamed of herself when she relapses, and cuts herself. I’ve made it clear that I don’t judge her, and I don’t, so she’s slightly more comfortable, but she still tries to hide it from me. Especially when it’s really bad. And it does get pretty bad sometimes. I’ve seen some downright brutal self-mutilation from her, and it kills me every time. She doesn’t deserve it. But they’re her demons. Not mine. I’m here to train her to fight, that’s all. So I give that everything I have.
“Don’t care. You know the rules.”
She sighs and heads for the door.
“I’ll be back.”
She gives me a nervous glance before running off. Two seconds later I get a text from her husband, who happens to be the boss of the Italian-American mafia.
Boss: Don’t say anything.
Shit, Lacey. What did you do?
Lacey pops her head back in the door before the rest of her body. Her eyes are fearful.
“Please don’t be mad.”
“Get in here, girl.”
She nods, toughening up, and walks in. All down her thigh is a huge bandaged cut. The white bandage tells me she got stitches. I take a deep breath to keep my composure. For the first time, my two day trip from hell is not on my mind.
“Alright. We’ll take it easy today,” I tell her.
“No, please! Cut, I need to box!”
I hate to do this to her. I know she needs to. I get it, but I have to give her something further to fight for when her urges to cut are high.
“Not a choice. It wasn’t a question.”
She purses her lips, but doesn’t say anything.
“Walk the mat ten times, then meet me by the bags.”
She nods with beady eyes, but does as she’s told. The next hour, Lacey gives it her all, as always, but she’s miserable with the need to push harder. I respect the fact that she trusts me enough not to push harder than I say, despite her wishes. I can tell her what to do, but it’s up to her to listen. And she does.
When the hour’s up, I call it. We usually go way longer, but neither of us are in it today. I’m certainly not. I hate being in this house. I hate thinking of Maria and taking the chance I’ll run into her. I haven’t seen her since we got back three weeks ago.
“Okay, I’m done with this! You’re miserable. What happened?” Lacey shouts.
“Excuse me,” I say coldly. I spin around and narrow my eyes. Lacey’s too comfortable with me and I let that happen.
“What’s wrong with you? What happened on that trip? I haven’t seen Maria in weeks. She’s locked herself in at her new job and hasn’t seen anyone. You’re clearly miserable. Please tell me.”
“Oh, so she’s employed now?”
“At a nursing home,” Lacey mumbles.
“What?”
“A nursing home.”
That sends a weird pang through my heart, but I shove it down.
“Nothing happened. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“No, wait!” Lacey calls as I walk out the door with my bag slung over my shoulder. “Stop, Cut!”
I don’t take orders from her. She’s limping now as she runs after me. I knew she was in more pain than she let on.
“Cut!”
Ignore her. I walk swiftly as I head for the front. She’ll see me tomorrow.
“Ouch! Shit!” A woman shrieks as I crash right into her.
“Watch where you’re going!”
I look down to see who it is I just ran into. I freeze immediately when I see her. The one woman I’ve been avoiding. Lacey’s feet skid to a stop behind me.
I go cold.
Maria’s eyes widen. She looks between me and Lacey… and just runs.
Not one word.
Not giving one shit she’s in at least three inch heels.
“Go, Lacey,” I snap once Maria’s gone. I am not prepared for twenty questions right now.
“What was tha—”
“GO, LACEY!”
I see her tiny smile as she finally listens to me and runs off. I want to be angry at her for that smile. For thinking this is some kind of joke. I sure as hell feel fire in my veins, but I can’t. Not with Lacey. She’s one person who deserves every smile she gets.
And I distinctly remember the woman who just ran from me telling me that smiling is the one pure thing we have in this life.
Lacey needs that.
Once they’re both officially gone and I’m in my car, off to train another client of mine, another faceless name, I can’t help but think back.
Did Maria Vasquez really just run from me? What was that? And why?
I knew I couldn’t avoid her forever, but that was not how I expected her to react when we ran into each other again.
29
Ding-Dong!
I don’t want to be here. To say I’m not in the mood is the understatement of the century. It doesn’t matter, though. It never does.
“Cut, man, thanks for coming.”
Rose’s older brother, Nix, answers the door wearing green sweats, a casual tee, and his signature leather bracelets. His dirty blonde, shaggy hair is unusually kempt for him. Ironically, I associated with Nix long before I met Lacey. He runs in the same circles as me. He does dirty work for Aaron Marketta, Rose’s psychopath father. Nix is respected in this world. He’s gotten many offers, but there’s more to the story with his father. He’s never left his side, never wavered in his loyalty. At least not on the outside. I see the misery in his eyes, even though he’s probably the most outwardly light-hearted, chill guy I know.
“I know you don’t want to be here, alright? Sage won’t be hard. She just needs the basics.
If someone lays a hand on her, she wants to have the confidence to get it off. That’s about as far as she wants to take it.”
“And she needs me for this?”
“I can trust you. And Sage...” He sighs. “Don’t be an asshole, Cut. I know you’re not one. I don’t know what’s up your ass. She doesn’t need that. You’ll scare her off.”
Scare her off?
What did people do to her? Working with women is making me hate humanity. It’s making me cynical. With a tight jaw, I nod.
“You got it.”
“Good. Sage!” Nix calls, at a volume I notice is very contained. “Come on out, babe. Cut’s here.”
I hear the slight tap of tennis shoes walking along the tile before a girl with black-green hair walks out. She’s incredibly pale, like her skin never sees the sun, but more than anything else, it’s her body language. She looks petrified. Her eyes widen as she takes a small step back. I see her desire to run. It’s right there on her face. She’s not hunching into herself, which is typical for girls like her. She just looks ready to run at any moment.
She looks directly to Nix. Whatever she sees keeps her from running. The trust that runs between these two is strong. I feel it flowing between them like I river as I stand here.
“Hi,” she whispers. “I’m Sage. Welcome to our house.”
She offers me a warm smile, despite her fear.
I tilt my head to the side and take in her trembling form. She’s interesting. She’s looks deathly afraid, but desperate to make me feel welcome at the same time. It’s intriguing. I was expecting Lacey 2.0. Other than the fact that they both obviously have experienced some kind of trauma, these women are completely different. It’s obvious immediately.
“I’m Cut. I’m here to teach you some basic self-defense.”
Note to self: I cannot be as hard on this girl as I am on Lacey.
Her trembling increases, but she doesn’t really try to hide it like Lacey does. Nix moves from behind me and stands beside her with a boyish smile. He leans toward her ear and whispers something that makes her cheeks turn red and a bit of her fear subside. She leans in on the tip of her toes and whispers something back to him.
As she does, I take the time to take her in further, to try to figure her out. She’s wearing a tight black t-shirt that shows off her probably too slender form. Her hair is up in a slicked back ponytail. She has green and black leggings with designs on them. To complete the look, she has white tennies with socks that stand out. That one hint that she doesn’t really care if she looks perfectly presentable or not. The whole look screams time and effort, except those socks. Her quiet rebellion.
I smile a bit as I look into this further. She’s a subtle little thing.
“There’s my brave girl. Now get to learnin’, princess. I’ll see you when you’re done.”
Nix looks up with hard eyes. Take care of her. I nod back. I got her.
When Nix walks out, Sage visibly starts to look rattled. I keep my distance, pacing the back of the room.
“Was there something specific you wanted to learn from me, or should I run through basic women’s self-defense?”
I put the ball in her court. Asking her directly what she wants to learn from me in these expedited training sessions forces her to reveal the real reason I’m here. It forces her to reveal what happened, because the first thing every person wants to know is how to overcome the thing that took them down in the first place.
“Well, I… I’m not sure anything could help me, really. I tried to tell Nix that.”
For the first time since I got here, she avoids all eye contact with me.
“What do you mean?”
She laughs bitterly. “Is there self-defense for the mind? Can you stop a girl from being stupid?”
Ah. “Yes and no,” I respond to what I’m sure was meant to be a hypothetical question.
Her eyes widen. She takes another step back, but I have her attention now.
“It’s called instincts. You ever get a weird feeling in your gut?”
She nods slowly.
“That’s instinct. Learning self-defense, a martial art if you will, can help you get more in touch with that part of yourself. It’s a skill in and of itself. Some people are more in tune with it than others, but you can always work on it. Paranoia and knowledge are two very different things.”
I really think her eyes are going to pop out of her head.
“You can teach me that?”
“Yeah, girl. I can.”
“Let’s start!”
She takes six big, hurried steps forward, then catches herself like she was about to run off a cliff, and takes two back.
“What do I do?”
Her eyes go up, down, down, up then to me.
“Don’t break eye contact with the threat.”
“Right, of course.”
She looks at me, but it doesn’t last. She can’t hold my gaze.
“I’m sorry,” she says immediately when she looks away the first time.
“You’ll learn.”
A truckload of doubt runs across her face.
“You will.”
When she looks back up at me, I see Lacey in her for the first time. Those big eyes, desperate to trust me. Desperate to believe what I say and for it to be true.
Shit, I think with a sinking feeling. Those dang eyes from these women suck me in. I don’t deserve them. Not a brutal man like me, and I’d do almost anything to give them what they’re asking for when they look at me like that.
“Let’s get started.”
She tightens her lips in a line of determination. It’s not hard or dark, it’s just the look of an innocent young woman wanting to do a good job.
I’m not sure I know how to work with someone like her, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try.
“How’d it go, angel?”
Nix pulls a wobbly looking Sage into his side. She’s not sweating one bit, which is strange. To add to this, she looks an odd mix of nervous, proud, and nauseous. I can’t even try to understand what she’s feeling. She acted normal the whole session. Didn’t give me one hint into what led to her needing a session with me. She seems like an average young girl to me, albeit desperate to hide herself and extremely nervous. Overall, though, she’s kind, funny, gracious, and hard-working, but not overly so. Nothing strong stands out to me.
She does have an array of mismatched, pale white scars all over her skin. Unlike Lacey’s and mine, they are hard to see unless you are extremely close up. When you are, though, you notice there’re tons of ‘em. Months worth, if not years. Whatever she went through was for a prolonged period of time.
I shake my head and look back up. Nix squeezes Sage’s hand, and looks back at me.
“I’ll walk you out.”
“Thank you, Cut. Um, really,” Sage mumbles with a tiny smile, looking up from under her lashes.
I give her a chin lift. “Of course. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yep, that’s what Nix said.”
She shrugs, giving me an unsure smile. Nix laughs under his breath. I just smirk. There it is. Just as I expected, the subtle rebellion.
Nix leans over and kisses her cheek before nipping her ear. “That’s right, babe. I’ll be right back.”
She looks at me, unashamed. Ignore him.
I shake my head, feeing a ghost of a smile on my lips. Alright, I’ll give it to her, she’s charming.
“Come on, man.”
Nix leads me to the foyer.
“How’d it go?”
His tone has changed from playful to concerned.
“She did well. She was much more concerned about her instincts during the fight than the actual self-defense itself.”
Nix tightens his jaw. “I suspect she would be.”
“Mmm. Well, other than getting her to focus on the moves and trusting me, she did well. She’s a good woman.”
“The best.”
There’s a light in his eyes when he speaks of her
. A light that is only ever there when he forces it, usually. But it’s fake then, dim. Right now, it’s burning bright with pride and love. What they have is special.
I look him up and down one more time. That’s when I notice the difference in him. His shirt is thicker, along with his muscles. The way his clothing wraps around his skin tries to hide the fact that he has weapons hidden beneath the fabric of his clothing. I know he has a knife around his ankle, and there’s no way he doesn’t have a gun stashed somewhere on his person.
He’s a man preparing for battle.
And Sage has no idea.
“Everything good with you?” I question, letting my eyes roam over his thicker form one more time.
His eyes go dark. He opens the door for me, shooting me a smile as he does so. But it’s dark. Filled with the promise of blood and vengeance.
“It will be. Trust me, Cut, it will be.”
30
Two more weeks have gone by. I couldn’t feel more empty. I need to call Mandi, see if she’s alright. See if my note made any difference. I need to call my mom and thank her for having me. I need to go to Blade’s for more than just a beer. I need to stop berating the shit out of Lacey.
I need to, I need to, I need to.
But I can’t.
People need to hear it from my scarred pink lips.
I’m drowning. And fuck Maria and that stupid ass trip for making me feel this way.
I’m pretty much storming down the hall to meet with Lacey, but I know I have to get it together before I see her. I have to. I broke her trust last year when I led her greatest enemy straight to her to save Maria. I haven’t forgotten it. Not once since it happened. I owe it to her to be 100% when we train. Not some grumpy, miserable fuck who treats her shitty.
This place doesn’t feel like home anymore, and that fucking terrifies me. I mean, when the hell do I stop fighting? Running? Training? How long can I avoid the pain inside?
I was convinced forever. I’m not, now.
“I said forget it, babe. It’s fine.”
“You sure? Any chance you’d be willing to give me another shot? I’ll make it up to you.”
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! What is it with the shit I hear in this hall? Over a year ago I heard a, now dead, man who worked for the boss threaten Lacey. Now I hear Frances trying to fucking seduce Maria back into his bed. After breaking her hand! After scaring her! Nearly raping her!
