Monster: A Seven Sinners Novel

by A G Henderson

  The old hag across from me paled, and I belatedly realized that I was leaning forward in my chair. Fingers hooking onto the table between us like claws. Readying to lunge across the shallow space and rip the ugly, outdated wig from her head.

  Hell, I was still tempted to do just that.

  They’ll kick you out, the sensible voice reminded me. Both of you.

  Acknowledging that my impulse to fight first and ask questions later was about to get me into even more trouble—like it had with the man I was doing my best not to think about with his sexy ass—enabled me to sit back in the chair and take a deep breath.

  Right as I did, a nurse came around the corner.

  Alice’s curly ringlets of dark brown hair bounced around her face when she came to a stop and scanned the small lobby, eyes falling on me. There must have been something about my stance that said I was still pissed-off, because her eyes tightened. The small, fake smile everyone around here wore thinned a fraction before she cleared her throat.

  “We’re ready for you, Josie. If you would follow me?”

  I got to my feet and flipped off the couple in front of me the moment Alice turned. The older woman gasped, and Alice swung her head around, but my hands were already in my pockets. I offered her a one-sided shrug and a smile.

  She stared for a moment like she wanted to mention how I always attracted trouble every time I came around. Maybe about how this month’s payment was later than ever. But instead she looked me up and down, sighed, then turned and kept walking.

  I followed closely behind her, careful to stay right at the edge of her shoulders. For whatever reason, standing just out of her peripheral vision helped kill any risk of small talk. She was like a squirrel. Completely oblivious until she noticed something and then ridiculously overactive afterward.

  A few months ago, I made the mistake of wearing a designer scarf I’d swiped from someone at one of the fights. What? I punched people in the face for a living. I wasn’t above a bit of petty thievery here and there. But karma had gotten back at me anyway.

  Alice talked to me for a half-hour about that damn scarf. It got so bad that I pulled the thing from my neck and gave it to her so that I could escape. I called it an early Christmas present and she was too busy bugging out over thread counts and name brands to realize it was March at the time.

  She took a few winding turns around halls that confused me still. Another reason for me to hang right at her back; this place was pretty much a maze. I imagined it was stunning when it was first built.

  But time was the enemy of us all.

  What might’ve been an impressive facility back in its golden days was now understaffed, overworked, and almost certainly over their allotted occupancy. I didn’t know how that whole thing worked, but I was pretty sure there were state laws about how many patients could share a certain room.

  Laws they were ignoring. Big time. I wasn’t going to be the one to tattle, at any rate. The next best place in town was almost three times as expensive. There weren’t enough fights going on to make up for that kind of difference.

  I could try to find another job to help balance things out, but there were downsides to that as well. Already, I didn’t get to come here as much as I wanted to. I had to be incredibly careful.

  If anyone knew I had a weakness, they would exploit it immediately. Beyond the concerns from outside these walls, I also had to make sure I didn’t show up when I had obvious injuries. The last time she was aware and noticed my black eye…

  I didn’t want to think about it.

  Just remembering the quiet crying would send me crumpling to the floor.

  “Here we are,” Alice said, pulling me from my thoughts just in time. “Mr. Joyner is in the cafeteria for the next while, so take as much time as you need.”

  She moved to open the door for me, and I barged in without waiting on her to do so. The barely-there sigh she released had me pausing with my feet just inside the door, eyes glued to the toes painted a bright pink that were peeking out the end of the second bed.

  “Thanks,” I said grudgingly, not bothering to turn around.

  I was rude. People couldn't stand me, and I didn’t blame them. But it wasn’t her fault I was in this position. It wasn’t her fault I couldn’t do any better for the person lying in that bed. Alice was doing the best she could.

  Same as me.

  “You’re welcome, Josie.” Her steps retreated down the hall and I kicked the door closed behind me.

  Each step was like wading through tar as I trudged deeper into the room, hopeful of what I might find. Even though I knew how much it was going to hurt when I came face to face with that hope being misplaced. It always was these days.

  Holding my breath, I rounded the corner and looked down at features I knew better than I knew my own. The cumulative time I spent at Mom’s bedside, whether she was sleeping or awake, would easily add up to more time than I spent looking at my reflection.

  Her red hair was flat and shapeless, and her skin—already a light shade of porcelain—had become so pale from being stuck indoors that I could see the veins beneath her eyelids. Around her mouth. Going down her neck.

  She sat up in bed with her lips pursed, attention focused on a reality TV show. It was one of her favorites. She loved it so much that even when she forgot which episodes she had already watched, there was no outburst from the lack of clarity.

  She would just watch it again.

  Happy as a person could be when they weren’t guaranteed to remember who they were on any given day.

  “Hey,” I said softly, pausing by the side of her bed. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Just fine, dear,” she said without looking at me. “Have you seen this before?” Her hand lifted, and it was hard to ignore the monitors stuck into her parchment-like skin as she pointed at the TV. “This young man here seems to believe he isn’t the father. The baby looks just like him.”

  “No,” I whispered, heart thundering as I knelt beside the bed. The tile was cold against my knees, even through my jeans. The cold sapped the last of my anger away until that aching hole that was closer to a rabid animal gnawing on my soul was the only thing that was left. “I haven’t seen this one.”

  Noticing my change in position, she glanced my way. I always got down on my knees to get into her line of sight before I tried to jog her memory. Call it superstition or confirmation bias, but the last time she remembered who I was it had been when I was on my knees just like this.

  Maybe I owed it to a memory we both shared. Of me dropping down to my knees so she could fix my hair in a smaller version of the braid I wore to this day. She was too short to do it otherwise.

  Dark brown eyes focused on my face and her brows arched. The knife went into my chest, stabbing the balloon of hope I was keeping tucked away. The organ deflated one heartbeat at a time as seconds ticked by without bringing recognition with them.

  My throat closed, but as her brow started to furrow, I jumped in. Distracting. Misleading. “What else have you watched today?”

  Her eyes brightened, the strain of trying to place a face she no longer could fading. She launched into a tale that included everything she had watched for most of the day, and I listened even though most of it was similar to the other stories I had heard before.

  When the tile became too much for my knees, I crawled into the bed beside her, breathing her in. Spending a bit of extra money to bring the rosemary and lavender soap she’d always used was worth it. Because when that scent was floating around in my lungs, I could almost pretend.

  That this was all a nightmare we were both going to wake up from.

  That my life wasn’t barren and empty, an endless struggle against the void of debt and danger to keep us afloat.

  That the woman who raised me without any help at all was still in there somewhere, fighting against the disease that had taken her too soon.

  Caroline wasn’t my birthmother. She wasn’t a stepmom either. There wasn’t a dr
op of blood relation between us whatsoever.

  But she was the woman who adopted me when no one else had.

  When the stiff-necked people at the various agencies I got shuffled through believed no one would take in a kid so misbehaved and confrontational.

  I didn’t let things go easily. At one point I tracked down my actual egg donor. Found out she was living a life of leisure in another country without a care in the world. By the time I found that out though, it no longer mattered.

  I had Caroline.

  She might not have given birth to me, but she was Mom in all the ways that mattered.

  This woman I almost didn’t recognize because she looked so small and frail having been cooped up in this home, had walked me through some of the most important moments of my life. She’d provided advice I couldn’t have done without for the moments she wasn’t able to be with me.

  Moments that I never saw coming.

  The disease started small. Innocuous. Little things here and there that were easy enough to brush under the rug before I knew I had a reason to be concerned.

  In the beginning, I barely realized anything was going on.

  I would get home from school to find her wandering around the kitchen, searching for pots or utensils that were in the same places she always put them. Shortly afterward, the same woman who tried to teach me about cooking—an unsuccessful attempt—started burning toast, letting boiling water overflow, causing fires.

  Even now, I could remember us joking about how clumsy she was getting in her old age.

  Despite the fact she was barely in her late forties.

  Despite the fact that she had never been clumsy or forgetful before.

  Then my life did what it always did; things got worse.

  Forgetting minor things turned into forgetting major things.

  She would leave the house and lose her keys somewhere between our place and work. We solved it, or thought we did, by putting another key under a flowerpot sitting outside. One day, I came home from staying with a friend and found her sitting on the porch in the pouring rain, crying because she didn’t remember where the spare key was.

  Another time, the sound of screaming woke me up and I ran to her room, heart thundering in my chest because I didn’t know what to expect. It sounded awful, but I would’ve almost preferred an actual burglar to be there that night instead of what I saw.

  The strongest, proudest, most compassionate woman on the face of this stupid planet huddled in the center of the bed. Knees to her chest with her arms wrapped around them. Hair wild and eyes frantic as she looked around the room.

  Something told me to approach carefully, and I did. A good thing too, because when I stepped into the pool of light and came towards her, she screamed and threw herself off the bed trying to get away from me.

  I would never forget that look of fright on her face.

  The sound of her head hitting the bedside table.

  The amount of blood that had gathered around her still form in the time it took me to leap over the bed and reach her side.

  That ride to the hospital was the longest trip I had ever experienced, and it made both of us face the reality that everything wasn’t okay.

  How could it be, when they were putting rows upon rows of stitches through her scalp because she didn’t remember the house she woke up in or why I was inside of it?

  “Look,” she said, tapping my thigh excitedly. Bringing me back to the present. “This is my favorite part.”

  An hour had already passed. A rerun of the same show she was watching when I came in was playing and she had no idea. The doctors I was able to talk to before they realized I couldn’t pay them told me she wouldn’t always lose memories evenly.

  That she might remember someone having been in the room with her all day but not anything about what they were doing there. But it never made it any easier to see.

  And yet…

  When she pointed at the screen and laughed, I threw my head back and laughed with her.

  When the laughter devolved into a fit of giggles that had tears in both our eyes, I rested my head in the crook of her neck.

  When she reached out, lightly patting me on the head, I squeezed my eyes shut tight and pretended everything was normal.

  Except it wasn’t.

  It wasn’t normal.

  And it wasn’t fucking fair.

  Still, this was our life. I treasured these moments. Eventually, Mom’s head nodded to the side, and Alice returned to fetch me. I didn’t want to leave, but I did. Right after brushing Mom’s hair from her face and taking her scent into my lungs again.

  I needed the reminder. I needed to be kept aware of what I was fighting for. Because tomorrow night, I was going to have to do it again.

  My hands turned into tight fists inside my jacket pockets as Alice led me down the hall. And the reason I didn’t notice the slight stink this time, or the leaky tiles, or the tired nurses going from room to room, was because my mind was focused on eyes like a bottomless ocean.

  On a tall, shapely man built like a warrior from the history books.

  On the desire that same man stroked between my thighs until I could feel the hum that left my body buzzing with every step.

  And that was just from thinking about him.

  Could I handle seeing him in person again?

  You have to.

  I grabbed my duffel bag from the front desk and threw it over my shoulder, breezing through the doors.

  I was never more aware of the pistol inside the bag than I was just then. That slight weight was a boulder of awareness on the edge of my consciousness. So was what I might have to do with it.

  Mom was depending on me.

  She was my person.

  All I had left.

  Losing the money from the other day was a blow I already couldn't afford. The next fight was tomorrow. This payday was a matter of survival.

  Monster would be there. Somehow. Someway. I was sure of it.

  But if he thought he could get between me and my goals, he was going to learn why exactly they called me the Queen Bitch.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Josie

  The tension was back in the air, hanging over everyone assembled inside the lumber mill like the pall of a funeral for an individual no one liked.

  Our usual attendance was slimmer than ever before. Instead of the hundreds who usually filled the space to bursting, there was barely a crowd at all; maybe fifty plus people, give or take.

  I was surprised to find that many. Although not so surprised once I noticed all the phones swinging back and forth, waiting to catch one of the legendary Sinners in action.

  Two women in heels so high they might as well be on stilts passed in front of me, talking to each other in squeals of excitement about the very man I was hoping not to see.

  I rolled my eyes and shoved through the middle of them just because I could, and because seeing their excitement annoyed me.

  Did they miss the part where he mangled three grown men as easily as opening a bottle?

  Like you weren’t salivating then, said my throbbing core. But I was ignoring it.

  Totally.

  Completely.

  I didn’t squeeze my thighs together once I stopped beside the raised stage that held my benefactors and competition.

  Nope.

  Not this girl.

  “This is risky,” was the first thing Micah said while offering me a hand onto their platform.

  I raised myself up, ignoring the dramatic sigh that accompanied his hand falling. “It’s always been risky.”

  “You know what I mean.” He pointed at his neck, highlighting the purple and yellow bruises lingering there. “We said that if the Sinners ever got involved, we would stop. You don’t look like you intend on stopping.”

  Nikolai and Bruno wore matching glares that were more hateful than usual. As if I was to blame for the angry giant that climbed down from his beanstalk to crush us underfoot. Returning their irr
itation was easy. I barely had to reach for it.

  Micah stepped into my space, hovering. “Are you even listening?” He shook his head when I didn’t respond. “Look, if this is about the money, you know I can find you something else.”

  I turned then, lip curling. “And work my way up from making chump change all over again? I don’t think so.” My attention shifted to Nikolai and I tipped my head up. “What do you have for me?”

  “Josie,” Micah tried, but I only held my hand up in his face.

  Nikolai and Bruno shared a look before the latter stood.

  “Tonight,” Bruno said, spitting on the floor at my feet. “I put you in place, little girl.”

  “Are you serious right now with this two-bit routine?” I laughed in his face. “After one display from a Sinner no one even knew about sent you and your boss running scared?”

  Nikolai steepled his fingers. He said, “We had to make sure our other assets were protected.”

  Not bothering to control the volume of my voice at all, I said, “Oh, you mean the drugs?”

  Watching Nikolai’s face flush was worth Bruno stepping into my space.

  He leaned down so his pitbull-mug was close enough to bite, stabbing a fat finger in my face. “Keep your mouth shut about our business.”

  Heedless of his size, I poked him in the chest. “Your business is what brought the wrong attention our way. Don’t take that out on me.”

  “And yet,” he spat. “It was you the Sinner requested. You, he wanted. Only a rat could’ve told them where to find us, and rats always make sure to save themselves.”

  To keep from punching him in the face then and there, I hopped down from the stage and headed straight into the ring, shedding my jacket as I went. I was wearing another dark green sports bra and matching spandex shorts. The cheers that greeted my arrival into the middle pushed my other distractions out of mind.

  I was free of the anger.

  Free of the worry.

  Free from picturing a hyper-muscled form covering mine.

  The fight was what I needed to focus on. No matter what, the money at the end was going to be mine.