by Lois Greiman
I wanted something awful to let him go, to see him walk out of my life and never return, but I didn’t really want to lose my tongue to an underage goon with a cheesy gang name.
“I don’t know how,” I said.
He kept walking.
“Damn you!” I snarled, and threw the branch I had just collected. It careened directly toward his head, but at the last moment, he twisted and caught it in his left hand.
“Stay angry. It improves your aim,” he advised, and headed toward his cabin.
“What about Harlequin?” Honest to God, I have no idea why I said the words. Perhaps, judging from his relationship with the devil dog, I thought he had some sort of affinity for animals. But more likely it was because I was nuts.
“He’s big and slobbery and as dumb as a…” My voice broke. “What’ll happen to him if I die?”
His steps petered out. He stopped but didn’t face me, and when he spoke it was as if the words were being dragged from him by wild rhinos. “When you run that course in half the time, I shall teach you to use weapons.”
I gaped at him. “A six-minute mile? Are you kidding me?” I couldn’t do a six-minute mile in a car.
“I see that your math skills are well matched with your physical condition.”
“I can’t run a mile in five and a half minutes, either,” I said.
“Do not worry,” he said, and stroked an absent hand over Cujo’s silver head. “Shikoku will assist you.”
The next two weeks were a cacophony of misery. I ran in the morning, worked like a field slave during the day, and returned to Danshov’s cabin in the evening.
“Over here,” he said, and never shifting his attention from my eyes, swatted me in the ear.
I swung at him, jabbing madly with my left. He stepped leisurely out of range, then strode in and snapped a fist to my belly. My muscles shrieked at the impact, but he was already out of reach and light-years beyond remorse.
“Here. Right here,” he said, and motioned toward his level-set eyes. “Do not watch my hands.”
Our daily training—or beat-a-thons, as I began to think of them—were never restricted to one discipline. When the Black Flames agreed to fight by the Queensbury rules of boxing, we would do the same, he said. Until then, it was no holds barred. My hands ached and my muscles shrieked at every movement, but I kept going back for more. Perhaps my persistence had something to do with the fact that I wanted to live to the ripe old age of thirty-seven. But mostly, I think, I just really wanted to knock him on his ass.
While I was fantasizing about that scenario, however, he slapped my face. My left cheek stung. I swung toward him, anger erupting like a volcano. It was like being twelve years old again. A pudgy tween in a family of Troglodyte teens.
He stepped casually backward, as if he were just out for a stroll, and shook his head. “Daiki’s grandmother would have seen that coming.”
It took me a moment to remember who Daiki was. How far gone do you have to be to forget the name of the man who’s trying to kill you? I wondered, and forced my mind back to the reason I was there.
“How do I know you’re not lying about everything?” I asked. The question was issued in panting rasps.
He shrugged and sidestepped around me. I held my fists even with my nose, squinting over them. Maybe the squinting was to help me appear badass, but maybe it was because the swelling hadn’t completely receded from my right eye. I had checked it in the mirror that morning. The edema had subsided considerably, but the color was still fascinating. When I returned to L.A., I fully intended to buy a blouse in that delectable shade of magenta. After I whipped Daiki’s ass, of course, received a commendation from the LAPD, and had some time to enjoy a little retail therapy.
In the meantime, Danshov took a swipe at my nose. His knuckles whizzed past like a rocket, effectively snagging my mind back to the action at hand. I dodged just in time to save my nose from becoming the same entrancing hue as my cheek.
“If you do not wish to have your pretty face injured yet again, you must be present in the here and now.”
I almost faltered. Not that I cared if he thought I was pretty, ugly, or built like a duck. But his left-handed compliment caught me off guard. Still, I had learned enough to keep bouncing, to stay on my toes, to hold my knuckles high.
His lips canted up in a shallow grin. I narrowed my eyes even more.
I can honestly say that I have never hated anything more in my entire life. Except maybe Brussels sprouts. Although, seriously, I’ve never particularly longed to punch a vegetable in the face. “Why should I believe you’re not lying about everything?”
Feigning a right, he struck with his left. I bobbed out of reach. His fist breezed past my ear.
It was then that I recognized the devious twinkle in his eyes. I had seen that same damned joy a thousand times on my idiotic brothers’ faces.
I stopped dead, breathing hard, and standing flat-footed for the first time in the forty-five minutes we’d been sparring. “Damn you.” The words were little more than a feral growl of rage. “Are you lying?”
He grinned, actually grinned. It was the first real expression I’d seen on his face, and it stunned me. A thousand emotions rushed through me. That’s when he hit me in the chin.
My head snapped back, but I barely noticed. “Are you?” I demanded.
He danced away, as light as a fairy on his feet.
“God damn it!” I snarled, and lunged at him, anger erupting like a volcano. “Did you make all this up?”
He skipped back, gave me a come-on motion with his left hand, then tapped the side of my head with a right jab.
I kept charging. “You fucking freak!” I snarled, and swung wildly. To my absolute surprise, my right fist plowed into his ear. He danced out of range, but he wobbled a little. I’d like to say that I felt sorry for him, that I took pity on him, but the opposite was true. At the sight of his weakness, something roared up inside me, something feral and ferocious and mean as a drunken Irishman.
I lunged in, swung with my right, then brought a left up from the basement and struck him square in the eye. I was going for his jaw, but in his attempt to escape my right fist, he had bobbed down…or maybe my swings were as wild as spider monkeys and I had no idea where they were going to land. Regardless, he stumbled backward, blinking blood. I laughed out loud, hooted really, and it was that sound that stopped me in my tracks.
Who was I? What had I become? All the years I had spent learning to be cultured, cool, caring, only to be reduced to this!
“I’m sorry.” My voice trembled, and in that moment I remembered who I was…what I was. An educated individual. A respected therapist. “I’m so sorry,” I said, and hurried toward him. He remained where he was, almost against the wall. “I shouldn’t have…” I began, but at that precise moment something went terribly wrong. Maybe it was the insanity that lurks like hungry eels in my gene pool. Maybe it was just the old Chrissy rising up like a demon from hell. Maybe they’re the same thing. Whatever the case, I couldn’t stop myself. Even as I reached a sympathetic hand toward him, I bent my leg and gave him a front kick to the head. For a moment, surprise shone in his eyes. Then he dropped to the floor. I gazed down at him, amazed. Stunned. Proud. Ashamed.
Then I found myself flat on my back. I’m pretty sure I’ll never know how I got there. I’m also pretty sure it wasn’t voodoo. Cuz I don’t think voodoo leaves the kind of bruises on your backside that I sustained from that fall. All I know is that one second, I was standing there feeling terribly wonderful, and the next, I was down for the count.
He remained exactly where he was, left eye already swelling shut, right eye expressionless. “Four thousand dollars,” he said.
I stared at him, tailbone screaming in pain as a dozen other body parts shrieked in synchronized unison. “What?” I could barely manage that single word.
“The bounty.”
I shook my head. “What are you talking about? Why the hell don’t you sp
eak in full sentences? It’s bad enough that you attack an innocent—” I stopped, drew a careful breath, and momentarily forgot about the pain that radiated from every inch of my body. “The Black Flames. They’re offering a reward for Rivera.”
He didn’t answer. I scrambled to my feet, almost able to ignore the agony that shot off in a hundred different directions. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
He shook his head, drawing a knife from some orifice I was pretty sure I didn’t possess. “They would prefer to have you alive, but they are not so very concerned about your condition.”
“The bounty’s for me?” I felt blessedly numb suddenly. “How do you know that?”
He raised one brow, giving me time to think.
“Holy crap.” The words were barely a breath. “You’re an assassin.”
“Knives,” he said, and lifted the blade in one hopelessly capable hand. “Silent but effective.”
I swallowed, mind spinning. “I bet you wish that I was like that.”
He stepped toward me, head lowered a little, eyes deadly.
“Silent,” I said, stumbling backward, “but…you know…effective.”
His face was expressionless again. Fear bubbled in my blood, turning my bowels to pudding, my knees to flan. I was terrified…but apparently not so scared that I had quit thinking in terms of dessert.
“Please,” I said, but then he struck.
I shrieked. The knife sizzled toward me, slicing harmlessly between my right arm and its closest boob.
“Weapons tomorrow,” he said, and left.
Chapter 25
What doesn’t kill me mostly just pisses me off.
—Vincent Angler, defensive lineman/philosopher
The following workweek was almost as hard as my workouts. But both were behind me now. Darkness had settled in hours before. I wiped sweat from my half-exposed chest and midriff. Above the makeshift punching bag that hung from the barn’s lofty rafter, a single bulb illuminated the hay bales, the wall of tools, and little else.
From the opposite side of the fence that separated the barn from the pasture, Hiro’s fantasy horse nickered. Reaching into the pocket of my cargo pants, I pulled out a peppermint candy and let him lip it from my palm.
Josephine flipped gigantic ears at me. I gave her two candies. Turns out, I could more easily relate to an ugly ass than I could to a sexy beast. I wasn’t sure what that said about me, but it probably wasn’t—
“This all for me?”
I spun to the left. Remus stepped out of the shadows.
“What are you doing here?” My voice sounded a little breathy. Maybe because I’d been taking my frustration out on the punching bag, but could be it was because he was as big as a mountain and I hadn’t really gotten a mental bead on him.
“Watchin’,” he said. I could feel his gaze settle hot and heavy on my caboose as I turned to collect my sweatshirt from a nearby hay bale.
“Well, don’t,” I said, and slipping into the outer garment, zipped it to my chin before trying to step around him. He blocked my escape.
“I can’t help myself.” He grinned, skipping his gaze back to my face. “You’re lookin’ good enough to spread on toast, love bucket.”
I stared at him. My hair was shellacked to my head with sweat. My face, just now losing the last of the blooming bruises, was entirely devoid of makeup, and my ensemble was what one might optimistically call early ugly.
“If I was raspberry jelly I’d be flattered,” I said, and tried to slide past him. Again he blocked my path.
“You been workin’ awful hard,” he said. “Runnin’, punchin’…” He nodded toward the bag suspended from above. “Makin’ all that fine flesh firm as a spring peach. But ya don’t have to try so hard to impress me, sugar button.”
“Excellent,” I said, and backed away. I was getting stronger every day, and I had learned a shitload about self-defense, but mostly I had figured out that I’m about half as strong as the average man. Remus Hughes was not average. “Because I’m not.”
“I know better, dumplin’. You want yourself a little Remus,” he said, and reached for me.
My back was against the fence now, but I grabbed a bale hook from the wall beside me. “Listen, numbnuts,” I snarled. “I came into this world screaming like a banshee and covered in blood. I got no problem goin’ out the same way.”
Silence echoed around us. His shoulders drooped. “He ain’t no better than me.”
“What?” My grip on the hook loosened a little. “Who?”
“Just a stunted little shit.”
“Danshov?” I guessed.
“Been nothin’ but a pain in the ass since the day we was born.”
“Romulus?”
He jerked a nod. “I know he’s a charming little crapper, but that ain’t everything.”
“Is there more than one Romulus?”
“I’m bigger. Better lookin’. Stronger,” he said, and flexed a mammoth arm.
I pried my gaze from his bulging biceps with more effort than seemed necessary. “Aren’t you…identical twins?”
“Identical! I’m a quarter inch taller than him. Not to mention Zinger!” he said, and ripped his pants open.
I stumbled backward a pace and froze.
No lie, his penis was as big as a soup can even though it lay against the open teeth of his zipper as quietly as a well-mannered dachshund.
I like to think I’m fairly cosmopolitan, but “Wow” may have slipped from my lips.
“Right? So where you wanna do it?” he asked.
“Listen, Remus…” I managed to rip my attention back to his face. “I can see you’re pretty serious about this whole sibling-rivalry thing. But I’m not going to have sex with you.”
“Is it too dark in here? Is that it?”
“What? No, I can see it just fine,” I said.
“It’s half an inch longer than his and a full—”
“You measured your…Never mind,” I said, and held up a hand to ward off any unwanted images. “This isn’t a competition.”
“It sure as shit ain’t. It’d be like comparing a baby dill to a zucchini squash.”
“I mean…size doesn’t matter.”
He stared at me dumbfounded for a second, then snorted. “How about in the hayloft?”
My arm was getting tired. I let the hay hook droop. “Not in a box, not with a fox, not in a house, not with a mouse.”
“Your room, then?”
“I don’t want to have sex with you, Remus.”
“Really?”
“Really.” It wasn’t a lie…exactly. I mean, this guy was a Neanderthal. On the other hand, he was a Neanderthal with a zucchini squash in his pants. And squash is supposed to be good for you.
“Is it cuz I don’t seem as randy as Rom? Cuz I am. I just can’t get me enough pussy.”
“As charming as that may be, it’s not—”
“I’m horny as a two-peckered billy goat.”
“A two—”
“When I seen you and Hiro sparrin’ a few days ago, Zinger here ’bout went crazy.”
But he had just been watching me jiggle around half-naked and he was limp as a dead duck.
Realization dawned slowly; Rom had learned better than to press his sexual advances after my assault with Rivera’s club, but Remus persisted despite dire threats and some corporal punishment. Methought the “gentleman” was protesting overmuch. Me also thought I might have been a fairly intuitive therapist once upon a time. I remembered my last session with Jeremy Jones. He and Remus were like night and day. One scrawny, one gigantic. One fiercely defending his heterosexuality, while the other quietly accepted the fact that others thought him gay. But they had both been wounded in the battle of life, and both were hiding something. The trick was to figure out just what that something was and why they felt the need for subterfuge.
“Are you sure it was me you were interested in, Remus?”
“There weren’t no other gals there,” he said.
“Have a seat,” I said, and motioning toward a hay bale, wished like hell I had a couch.
Chapter 26
Hey, Nap, sorry I was such a dick to you when I was a kid.
—Peter McMullen, sleep-deprived father of one
“Why can’t I just shoot you in the head?” My question might have sounded kind of childish…if you didn’t consider that I was asking why I couldn’t simply put a bullet into my sensei’s brainpan.
Hiro scowled at me from the floor. “Do you have a gun?”
“You think if I did you’d still be breathing?” It was two o’clock in the morning. I’d been up since dawn the day before. Generally, I don’t awaken at dawn, but if I do make such a heinous miscalculation, I try to counteract it with a morning nap followed by an afternoon siesta. Instead, I’d put in eight hours of backbreaking labor followed by an hour of knife instruction and a millennium of hand-to-hand combat. Hand-to-hand combat, I had decided, is stupid. Maybe that sounds kind of childish, too, but if I don’t get enough sleep I can get pretty cranky.
“Are you certain you are intelligent?” he asked.
“Yeah, and I know no self-respecting whack job is going to attack me from a recumbent position.”
“What makes you believe this?”
“Because I know a shitload of whack jobs,” I said. “And none of them have tried to kill me while napping.”
“Then statistics suggest it will happen soon,” he said, and curled his hand around my ankle. “What would you do in this situation?” His fingers were long and tapered. His wrist was corded, and his arms, glowing with a soft sheen of sweat, were sculpted with neatly packed muscle that flowed with seamless symmetry into a chest so pretty it would have made me weep…if I hadn’t hated him more than Brussels sprouts. Which I did.
“If I had a gun, I’d shoot your ass,” I said. Sometimes pain makes me kind of cranky, too.
He held my gaze. It was like being stared down by a cobra. “You would not shoot me, wuwei hua.”
“What does that mean?”
“Weakling,” he said.
