by LC Lehesaho
"Yeah, I do." I swallow the lump in my throat. "She saved my life. Every fucking day I held the gun against my forehead, but I couldn't do it because she always came back. I didn't want to disappoint her by not listening."
Puma wraps me into a bear hug. "I'm so fucking sorry. I know this is hard to hear, but you know this already. She will protect you until the day she dies. She won't give up when it comes to your safety. I should've known better than to expect the worst from her."
"I'm still mad at her for fucking that Aussie," I state, but the reality is that I'm holding back tears. I'm not going to cry, hell no.
"Yeah, well, we all have our coping mechanisms, so…" Puma leans back, stunned. "Wait, you knew that dude?"
"No, not really. She bumped into him in the cafeteria at the university that day. I lost my shit and nearly broke his nose."
"I'm not even surprised. In case you see him at the uni, please, don't kill him." Puma pats my shoulder, nodding toward the door. "Let's go, Dad is waiting. And hey, try not to give him any signs of this or we’ll be neck-deep in shit."
Leone has worked miracles already. Snow's former club is already looking way better than it was when he was in charge—it's cleaner and lighter. I'm sure he will make it classier than his ex-boss, who apparently had a thing for filth. Leo wanted to talk with him behind closed doors, it's his way, and I know why. He is intimidating as fuck, and when you're alone with a guy who has done things that Leo has done… you don't want to make him mad. You listen to every word he says, and you remember those words for the rest of your life. Unless there is something wrong with your brain and you want to play games with your life.
Puma stands between Cobra and me while we wait outside of Leone's office. Usually, he would have to come to Leo, but this time Leo made an exception because of Snow's fuck up. Leone's guys are standing on the other side, and I'm sure one is new because of his behavior.
The way he’s giving Cobra the once-over makes me boil. She doesn't give a shit, just stares in front of her with a blank face. Her lifeless attitude is really starting to get on my nerves. The Cobra I know would tell the guy to at least fuck off. But this? Nothing, and I fucking know she sees him undressing her with his eyes.
When it happens the third time, I lose it.
"If you look at her again, I'll carve your eyes out, newbie. Got it?"
The guard's eyes fly at me. "What? Are you talking to me, hotshot?"
His work buddies shake their heads, cursing under their breath. "Brad, shut up."
"Listen to those who have a brain, maybe you'll learn, Brad," I tell him in a cold voice. My insides are anything but.
"Go fuck yourself, asshole, I watch who the fuck I wanna watch," he retorts, and at that, I push myself from the wall. I grab him before he can blink, and swipe his legs out from under him, taking him down. The anger storms inside me, making my skin prickle and my fists itchy. I help the itch by scratching my knuckles against his face, and I get a couple of hits in before the door opens.
"Ah, I see we have a little disagreement going on here," Leo states, Leone standing pale-faced by his side. I look at the bloody guy under me and then at Leo. Everyone else has stayed where they are, no one making a move to intervene.
"I politely told Brad here." I nod at the newbie. "To keep his filthy eyes off Cobra, but he told me to go fuck myself. I'm just giving him my opinion."
Leo nods slowly and places his hand on Leone's shoulder. "See, I'm not the only one with a quick temper in my family. Do you have children, Brandon?"
"Yes, sir." Leone swallows. "Three-year-old boy."
"Ah, so tiny. Well, one day, you'll watch your son, and be amazed how much he reminds you of yourself." Leo smirks at me before turning back to Leone. "I have six kiddos, and watching them grow up has been the best thing in my life. I suggest that you and your wife get a playmate for your little boy, so he doesn't have to grow up without a sibling. Family is all you need after all. What do you think, Brandon?'
Leone's face drains of color, and he stutters a shaky yes. He doesn't know that Leo would never hurt his family, never, but he doesn’t let them know that. What he did to his father has given Leo a reputation, and of course, all the kills after that, but that is the one he is most known for. How he took this city for himself—everyone knows the rumors, even though there is no one to confirm them.
"Tiger, help Brad up. I'm sure that the message was delivered," Leo says, all cool and composed as he nods to the others. "We can go. I just got a call from the police. Someone burned down one of the clubs."
Oh, fuck.
I do that and get out, walking side by side with Cobra. Puma talks with Leo, but I can't hear what they're saying because they keep their voices down. Cobra doesn't look at me, but she hands me a tissue from her pocket for the blood on my hands. I can't stop myself, when I take it, I also take hold of her fingers. I slide my thumb to the back of her hand and slowly roll it, feeling her smooth skin. She doesn't pull her hand away, but I see the emptiness in her eyes when she looks at me.
It fucking kills me.
13
There is something peaceful with being in pain.
You can count on it.
You can always make it worse, so you don't feel the pain you had before. It's pretty simple, really. When you add pain to the pain, it will make you feel even worse, and suddenly you realize that the earlier state wasn't so bad. It gives you perspective.
Even when you're drowning in shit, and you think it's bad enough, you accidentally open your mouth and swallow it.
There is always the next stage.
But that doesn't mean I want to go back to the earlier stage, no. I'm going forward.
I need to make it harder and harder because they are trying to catch up with me—the feelings.
The pressure in my cranium starts to get unbearable, and I have to focus not to move. My body wants me to jump up, gasp the air into my lungs, but I keep myself under the water with the pure strength of will. My throat feels almost right. The way it would feel if I'd be suffocating on the surface. If someone would help me feel it. But we've never taken it this far.
Now I'm taking this to the next level.
Because the feelings are coming. They are chasing me like hellhounds.
A burst of the little air I hold in my lungs escapes from my mouth and bubbles to the surface. With that, the weight on my chest sinks me deeper to the bottom. Another bubble. Deeper. Bubble. Deeper.
Then comes the first black dot. Like this, they don't come so quickly, it's not so effective. Probably because this doesn't hurt the same way as the pain caused by another human being. I know this because there have been times I tried to ease my suffering with a knife. It doesn't work like that. It takes time and leaves a different kind of mark. There's no rush of relief afterward.
Finally, the pressure makes me push to the surface and gasp for air. A couple more seconds and I would've passed out. I know my own limits, I've always known. How much pain I can take before my body takes control or gives up.
Sucker for pain, he says. That's what I am. I need to die to feel alive. To feel worthy of living.
My shoulders move up and down from my heavy breathing, and I hold back tears. I don't want to feel like this anymore. I don't want the heartbreak. The fucking pain in my chest. But still, every time I close my eyes, I see him. Tiger's eyes looking at me. I can feel his touch, just as real as he caressed my hand today. It's not only my own pain I'm feeling; I feel his, too.
All I wanted was to save him, but I ended up hurting him even more. It kills me.
"Cobra, are you there?" The gentle knock and soft voice come from behind the bathroom door. I wonder for a second how the hell Puma got into my apartment, but yeah, he probably came from the balcony. He lives on one side and Tiger on the other.
"What do you want?" I ask him and pull my legs to my chest to hug them.
"Can we talk?"
I really don't have the energy. I skipped my classes today, too, because there's j
ust not enough strength in me. The pain is like venom in my veins. It paralyzes me and makes me the living dead.
"Go away," I answer to him, sliding back into the water.
Clearly, my brother has some snarky insults he can't wait to throw at me because Puma opens the door, and his hand comes in to grope a towel from the rack. After managing to get one, he walks in with his eyes closed and holding the towel open in front of him. "C'mon, I don't want to see your naked ass."
"You'll not see my naked ass if you leave."
"I'm not leaving, so get out, or I’ll have to pull you out of there, and that's something I really don't want to do, but I will if you make me." He waves the towel. Still, eyes tightly closed. Which is good because this would be even more awkward than it is already.
With a sigh, I push myself up and pull the plug from the tub. The water starts to go down the drain as fast as my will to live these days.
After drying and covering myself up with an actual bathrobe, I turn to Puma, who is now keeping his hands over his eyes like closing his lids is not enough. "I'm decent, so now, say all the things you wanted to say about how I'm a bitch and I should die. Or have you come up with something new? That I'm a whore who should move to the streets to sell myself?"
Puma takes off his cap and carefully opens his eyes, not trusting that I actually covered myself. He slicks his blond hair back before placing the cap back on his head, front to back. "Listen, sis… I'm sorry."
I lean my ass on the sink, folding my arms across my chest. "About what?"
"That I was hard on you. I didn't know… that you have feelings for Tiger. I just thought that you were fucking around." He looks at the floor and shifts on his feet. My blood has run cold, and I feel the alarm ticking in my spine.
Puma knows. He fucking knows.
I move before I realize it myself. One second later and I'm pointing my gun at Puma, which was on the counter. Rage flares inside me like a bonfire. "What did you do to him?"
Puma's eyes are wide as he stares at the gun and then me. The gun. Me. "Christ, Cobra… I didn't do anything. Put the gun down."
His hands are up, and I see from his eyes that he reads me right. I'm not fucking around, I will put a bullet in him if he's done something to Tiger. I don't care that Puma is my actual brother because Tiger is above everyone else.
"What do you know?" I snap between gritted teeth. "Where is he?"
"Calm down, sis." His emerald green eyes are glued to mine, trying to convince me not to shoot him. "Please, trust me. Tiger is in his apartment, and perfectly fine. Not mentally but physically. I know that you two are… in love."
I don't put the gun down. "Does anyone else know?"
"No, I swear, and I'm not going to tell anyone." Puma takes a deep breath, scrubbing his face. "I figured this out myself, and he admitted it this morning when I… you know when I called you a bitch, and he hit me."
"If you even think about hurting him or mentioning this to anyone, I will kill you. I'm not kidding, you're a dead man if this gets out, from you."
"You really do love him," he states, tilting his head to the side.
"More than anything or anyone else, so don't think I wouldn't do everything to keep him safe. Are we clear?"
Puma nods and cracks me a smile, but it won't reach his eyes. "Yeah, we're clear. Please stop pointing the gun at me. I just want to talk."
I lower it to my side and glare at him. "Then talk."
He huffs out a breath. "As I said, I'm sorry. I should've known that you're not like that. You've always been the kindest one out of all of us, and I don't know what made me believe that something would ever change that."
Puma is wrong. I'm not kind. I am a monster who destroys the lives of others, especially the ones that I love.
"Cobra…" He steps closer, eyes filled with agony. "If there was something I could do to help you two, I would do it. Anything. You and Tiger have always been my people, and I hate to see you hurting."
Somehow his words don't surprise me. I mean it does since he isn't going crazy and killing us for how wrong Tiger and I being together would be, but there's always been a compassionate side to Puma. He hates to love, but he also hates to hate love.
"There isn’t anything anyone can do. Dad can't know."
He nods, looking at the floor again. "He won't. You two can't happen, and I need you to move on." Puma lifts his head up and meets my eyes. "I'm with him, I'll make sure he won't flip, but you… I know you're strong enough to get yourself out of this. Move on."
I stare at him, eyes wide. "What the fuck do you mean?"
"Everyone is suspecting something, and if Bear finds out… he will tell Dad just for shits and giggles. If I could figure you two out when I was higher than an airplane, they can too." Puma steps closer and plants his hand on my shoulder. "You need to draw attention somewhere else."
"How the hell am I going to do that?"
"I don't know. Fuck someone on the front lawn or something, how the hell should I know? Just do something that shows there is nothing between you and Tiger," he whispers as if someone could hear us. We are in my bathroom so that’s a negative.
I stare at him in silence for a while. He has a point, but I'm so fucking tired. I’m in pain. Misery is filling every cell in me.
"It hurts," I breathe out, tears rolling down my cheeks, and Puma wraps his arms around me, pulling me into his broad chest.
"I know it does. Love is murder, sis."
14
"Remember to send me your assignments tonight before midnight!" Mr. Kowalsky shouts as everyone starts to leave from his class. I throw my bag over my shoulder and put my headphones on. “The History of Violence” by Theory of a Deadman starts to fill my senses and I ignore everyone around me.
I've tried to do as Puma said. Yesterday I faked a smile for the cashier in the cafeteria and participated in three classes. Missed only two. Today I took it even further. I faked a laugh for a stupid joke Bear told in our morning meeting. It was hell on earth, I sat next to Tiger, and he didn't look at me even once. All I wanted to do is lean on his shoulder and breathe.
Escape into him.
But there is no escape for me. Just crawling forward, trying to keep things as they were before we wrecked ourselves and act like everything is fine. Like I haven't actually died inside and hope the day that someone will put a bullet through my head comes fast.
I promised Puma that I would be at every class today because he pointed out the fact that he can be absent, and no one will blink an eye but for me? I'm always where I'm supposed to be and when I'm supposed to be there. So, if I'm suddenly skipping classes, our family will notice it.
In some weird way Puma, the weed-smoking pile of depression, is very fatherly. He can handle shit when he wants to do so. And right now? He is the ringmaster of my life because I'm unable to handle it myself. Though, I don't appreciate his methods with Tiger.
Tiger hadn’t smoked weed before, but now his eyes are red all the time like he's been peeling onions for a living.
We still don't speak.
And it feels like I'm scrambling in the dark, unable to find my way back home.
I walk to the cafeteria because I have a half an hour break before the next class that I have no interest in attending. But a promise is a promise. I grab a coffee, smile to the cashier like a fucking ray of sunshine, and take a table far away from other people. Though everyone in the university knows who I am, it's not like people are running over to hang out with me.
The song changes to “Familiar Taste of Poison” by Halestorm, and I stop scrolling through my old Instagram photos. My throat tightens because every third picture is of Tiger and me. The latest one was from a couple of weeks ago when we were at the movies. Like in every shot, he is making a stupid face but still manages to be incredibly handsome. Then there's the one taken a month ago by Puma. Wolf had forced us all to go hiking, and I refused to walk any more after an hour, so I sat on Tiger's shoulders, and he carried me the res
t of the way. Even though we all hate hiking save for Wolf, it was a fun day.
I’m lost in thought when someone startles me by sitting at my table, and I push my headphones to my neck, glaring at the intruder.
"How's it going?" Luke asks me, his bright blue eyes sparkling like the Caribbean Sea in the sun.
"Oh, jeez." I roll my eyes and get back to staring at my phone. "Get lost."
"Bloody hell, you are one happy camper, aren't you?" he retorts and leans over the table, placing a piece of paper in front of me. "There. I tried to give you this yesterday, but you sped away in your impressive pink Jeep before I could catch you."
I squint, taking a better look at what he handed me. A ticket. "What the… what am I supposed to do with a ticket to an amusement park?" I lift my suspicious look to him.
He cracks me a smile, and truthfully, the guy could be acting in a toothpaste commercial with his perfect line of white teeth. "You need a ticket to get in. You owe me a date."
Holy fuck, I can't help but bark out a laugh. "Owe you? For what?"
"I don't do one-night stands. There has to at least be one date under my belt before I have sex with someone, so you owe me that one date." He takes a sip from his take away coffee and looks at me over the rim of the cup.
"Well, hate to break it to you, but it was a one-night stand, and it's going to stay that way. I don't date." I wave my hand to tell him to beat it. "So, thanks for a good fuck and bye, Luke."
He doesn't leave. Instead, he grabs my phone from my hand and starts to tap it.
"Give it back, goddammit." I lean over the table, but he leans further back, and then his phone starts to ring. After that, he hands me my phone back, smirking at me.
"There." Luke gets up and looks down at me. "I needed your number to make sure you can't bail on me, or I'll call you all night. What time will you be ready today?"
I give him a blank look. "I'm not going with you. Not today, not ever."
"Come on, I promise it's gonna be fun. I can pick you up, let's say at five?"
