by Elena Monroe
No wonder something in me trusted him with something as precious as making Dove pay…
“I need you to shoot me in the arm. Close up, through and through,” rifling behind the desk for Dove’s gun he pulled it out and shoved it towards us like he was living off the adrenaline of emptying his gun into someone.
Khaos looked bewildered, throwing his hands up already protesting when I took the gun from him, checked for the safety and aimed it at his bicep. I wasn’t wasting any more time on this chapter in my life. I wanted to close the damn book and live out my happy ending when I squeezed the trigger letting the kickback cramp my wrist.
What’s a little more pain?
Rodriguez winced but in an impressive way that was only showing merely a discomfort instead of the pain of being shot. Holding his arm, he jutted his chin towards the desk prompting me to wipe off the gun and make sure Dove’s hand was on it for when backup came to look at the scene.
“I’m not gonna lie… that shit was fucking hot and I’m ready for round two,” Khaos’s hand snaked under the suit jacket still hanging onto one shoulder to squeeze my ass making a heat burn up my face. Not from embarrassment but a heat that only his love had the ability to set my heart on fire.
“You two need to get out of here,” Rodriguez finally let us go even though I was working with him willingly and he was on payroll for the Clave. We were both untouchable and this was just closure.
Taking my hand, Khaos practically raced us down the stairs heading to a car parked in front of the gate pretty much blocking everyone from coming or going. A cherry red vintage car that might as well have had wings.
The party seemed a lot different now, less vicious and menacing with everyone frozen into their last movements. All of them looked tortured and still in this creepy way wax figures did, like they were one breath short of being alive.
Seeing how they looked from the outside made me question why I was so comfortable being around all of this evil before him...
Standing planted, I looked around the room when Khaos twisted back to me with a confused look, “What? We can’t really hang around… dead people, LAPD, you know... the laws we broke.”
Pulling his hand to me, I stood up to my tippy toes until my lips reached his, “I love you, Krosby.” His thumb smoothed down my jawline deepening everything about the moment. We were standing in the rubble of our messy lives after fighting for each other and nothing was more star-crossed lovers than that.
We pulled away only enough to catch our breath when he whispered, “Please don’t ever call me Krosby, babe. It’s boyfriend, fiancé, betrothed, future husband, soul mate, twin flame, Khaos, or nothing.”
Laughing between us, I was weighed down by his arm over my shoulders as we left Dove in the rearview mirror when he asked me, “Ice cream? We never did get it.”
Opening the door for me, I slipped inside leaning against the leather with no anxiety, no one to answer to, no reason to lie, and finally what I always dreamed of… freedom.
We must have looked like a prom gone wrong, sitting on the beach with burritos and ice cream watching the slow waves crash against the soft, wet, sand. Khaos was shirtless next to me leaning onto his elbow scooping ice cream out of the dish in big piles trying to catch it before it fell off the spoon.
He had an innocence I lacked, and I had the resilience he never needed to have.
“Khaos… we have to talk a-,” my voice was a whisper when he fell back into the sand, letting more of it stick to his body.
He rolled over facing me in his own dramatic way when his hand found my leg and cut off my words from coming out, “Don’t worry, babe, we don’t need a plan this time. I had a plan that we’d fake our own deaths and that worked out great so let’s not have any more for a while...”
I hadn’t even thought about a plan for what would happen after tonight: where I would go or who I’d be. I just knew I knew I needed to do all I could to get revenge and make sure no one else lived a similar life to mine. Whatever came after was going to be enough to make the unknown okay.
Especially now that he was back by my side.
Holding onto the suit jacket Khaos had laid over my shoulders, I took his hand, standing up and leaving the sand stuck to my legs. It would be the only grit my life would have now and I was appreciating it differently.
Sitting back against the seat, I closed my eyes letting the wind waft against my face while Khaos drove home, holding my hand in his lap. There was a smile making my facial muscles ache, in the best way possible. It was stuck to my face and I couldn’t grasp onto all the bad staining me anymore.
Rodriguez’s name came over the screen of my phone when I slipped my finger across the screen to see a text from him.
RODRIGUEZ: Consider yourself off the hook. LAPD owes you one.
My slate was wiped clean and now I had to figure out what I liked, what I didn’t, and do something with all my freedom.
I was exonerated.
We stood there in front of his house, the same house that held our fucked-up history, when he sparked up a joint between his lips. Offering it to me pinched between his fingers I declined knowing my period had been MIA and my decisions weren’t mine anymore if I was in fact pregnant.
According to four tests with Justice and her friend Abigail, if was a very slim chance.
“This isn’t our home, is it?” He was studying the structure with such focus I wondered what kind of plotting he was doing.
Letting go of my hand, he disappeared into the garage, emerging with his bandana pulled over his nose and a gas can. Going around the perimeter, spilling gas messily, he stepped back saluting his home before he flicked his lighter into the stench making me pinch my nose tightly.
The combustion came quickly, making the garage doors crumble against the flames that were spreading and growing quickly. Taking my hand, we watched the universe finally accept nothing was going to come between us.
Giving his hand a squeeze, I softened my voice, “We’re gonna need a new place if we want to keep miniature Mayhem in here.” Pressing my palm to my still flat stomach, I kept my eyes on the flames hoping he’d want him just as much as I did.
Turning to me with his eyes wide, his hands forced my hips to square to his, “You’re pregnant?” He paused and I nodded, chewing on the inside of my cheek as I watched his smile grow, becoming infectious.
Wrapping his arms around me, and lifting me up, I felt his face bury in the crook between my neck and shoulder as he whispered, “I didn’t get my extra cherry on top of my ice cream tonight and now I know why. Now you’re gonna have to marry me and make it official, babe.”
Laughing in his arms, I teased him, “We’ll see… I’m under contract.” Finally setting me down, Khaos took a knee in front of me, holding my hands in his as he laid kisses on my stomach while I watched our old life burn. We traded it all in for a promise to marry, a mini-Mayhem, and dedicating myself to a new family. One where they won’t begrudge our love and there’s no pain in the loyalty.
I always thought I would keep collecting a bunch of terrible endings, each more devastating than the last, but now I was closing that book. This new one is a whole lot happier.
GRACE
Two years later…
The world is filled with ways to make us feel like anything is possible, that we can transcend anything and reach the sun.
Most of us have wax wings.
The world around us rubs it in our face that if you just work hard enough you can have everything you want. I used to think that was all bullshit trying to keep us alive with hopes and dreams that forced us to work ourselves to death before we ever reached that finish line.
Until him.
Khaos wanted me to fly and gave me the wings to step off a building and soar.
That’s exactly what I did, I flew directly into the sun and freedom tasted a lot like Mayhem, Anchary, and Khaos.
The only escapes I had in my life became my calling. Bird on a Board was my own
piece of paradise.
Coming from zero homes, I felt lucky to have two now, when I cashed the gentleman with his preteen daughter out at the register. Slipping her some stickers, I smiled seeing myself in every girl who came in. Everyone was looking for that rush of landing the perfect trick, catching the perfect swell, a kind of feeling that you controlled, no one else.
Out there that’s all you had, yourself and a board.
Mayhem, our adopted son, caught my eye when I saw his little fingers reaching into a man’s back pocket trying to pickpocket him. Sweeping the store for Khaos I knew that this had his name all over it.
Forgoing the Krosby tradition we were naming our kids what we wanted. We were breaking the rules, but I was only following his bad example.
When all the best things are born from rule breaking it makes it harder to follow them.
“Mayhem! Get over here,” I made my voice stern the way he needed it when he held his hands up in a dramatic shrug.
“He taught me,” he pointed to the loft upstairs of my surf and skate shop that I used as an office. Having Khaos and Mayhem in your life was me trading in my ability to say no when I thought back to how we ended up with our little troublemaker.
My new life still meant being friends with Justice, real friends this time, not fake friends or acquaintances like it felt like before. This was all genuine in the way my life was now.
Justice dragged me into volunteering at an orphanage because she was convinced it would be good for me. I’m pretty sure Meadow had scanned my fucking aura or something and tipped her off.
All my wounds were healed, packed away, or dead.
Sitting was pretty much the only comfortable position for me at six months pregnant while I watched the kids run around outside on the playscape. That was our only job, act as companions and don’t get attached unless you plan on being their forever home.
Khaos was hard to miss when he came practically skipping to the table under the tree with my traditional soup and crackers, all I could currently keep down, when John caught my attention out of the corner of my eye swiping another cookie when he knew the limit was one. I already had to help him with the chocolate smeared all over his cheeks, so I was positive this was cookie number two.
“John! Hey! I see you, punk!” I shouted his direction committed to laying down the law from right here when he stalked his way over.
He was trying to kill the smirk taking over the amount of real estate it was when he stood in front of me hiding the cookie behind his back. Leaning in, my resolve was already broken by the mischief in his eyes when I spoke in a low tone, “Dude. You can’t be so obvious. You gotta be sneakier if you don’t want to get caught.”
He always looked at me with this glow in his eyes like he had been stranded his whole life and found salvation in me when his little arms wrapped around me as much as they could. His body pushed against my growing bump and I wrapped my arms around him too.
Damn it. That was the only rule; do not get attached. John was permanently my favorite but today tipped me right over into being attached.
Ever since becoming an ex-gang member following the rules was tortuous for me. All of them seemed ready to be broken and Khaos was zero help in maintaining any of them.
John scampered off when Khaos snickered from behind me, “Found trouble or he found you?” Slumping down next to me he placed the small bag in front of me when I could just hear Justice giving him the speech about the environment again.
“Found me, always.”
John’s little hands pushed against Khaos’s arm as he mean-mugged him before squeezing himself between us on the picnic table. He stared at Khaos the whole time like his stare alone would defeat him, but it was going to take a lot more than an adorable toddler to scare us.
“What’s your name?” The mini punk who steals cookies grilled him for answers upping his torment.
I could see Khaos getting attached too just being this close to John, his eyes were gleaming, and his smile was trying to make him seem less intimidating when he responded. “Khaos, yours?”
“I want a cool name,” it didn’t slip past either of us that he never gave us his name.
I watched him cover his ears with his cupped hands speaking over his short stature, “I wanna take him home. Today. We have a dope name, and the kid wants a cool name. We already have a blue room too because your butt was positive we were having a boy when she’s sporting a taco. You owe me.”
“That’s not how this works! This isn’t adopting a puppy, Khaos!”
Still covering his ears, he whisper-yelled back, “It’s exactly like adopting a puppy with our last name, Grace! Don’t make me ask Sheila at the front desk. I know you want to do this too; I can see it in your eyes.”
One of us has to be sane and remember the Duponte name doesn’t give us free reign on the world, we can’t both disregard the rules.
I would love for John to get our dope name that we had chosen for a boy and to be his forever family, but again, I was named Grace for a reason while Khaos over here does what he does best whenever he wants.
Giving him my sternest look, I pointed to my bump, “I’m already pregnant, Khaos. Your adopting privileges are revoked until this one in here is potty trained.”
Standing up, his hands gripped under John’s armpits lifting and twisting him around until his shoes were on the seat and he was standing taller, “You cool with the name Mayhem?”
John nodded his head with so much excitement that I couldn’t say no if I wanted to. I could never say no to Khaos, to anything his heart desired, and right now he was ready to name this little dirty blonde boy with green eyes after his own heart.
Picking him up and tossing him over his shoulder he shouted into the air while walking away, “Give Sheila the credit card and meet us in the car. He’s ours now.”
Phoenix was coming in a few short months and Mayhem was apparently ours starting now.
A bird who can rise from her ashes and so much love it feels like mayhem.
I looked around for Khaos when I found him swaying like a maniac because he was convinced Phoenix liked it when his eyes pushed up to my evil eye. “Khaos… did you teach Mayhem something bad?”
He didn’t even skip a beat before he ran behind the register hiding behind Ears and Kennedy, who had sparked up a romance, betting on them protecting him from my wrath. “I taught him nothing but the sh-stuff that he was going to eventually learn from all our stories. Nothing we haven’t done. All the best kids from adversity Grace, don’t be so PC.”
Ears shot him a concerned look when he took our bundle of joy from his arms, “I’m gonna need to hold Miss Phoenix while she kicks your ass. Go on, we can’t all be fudged, it’s all you.”
Khaos, always true to his name, jumped over the top of the counter and landed in front of me when his lips dipped down to touch mine and his palm curved around my small bump making me smile. We couldn’t stop adding to our family and this was my second pregnancy in just two years. Every time he went full on daddy mode, I swear I melted for him even more.
“He can’t be called Mayhem and be a PAB, babe.” I couldn’t help but laugh knowing exactly what PAB stood for: Pussy Ass Bitch.
With my hands on my disappearing hips, I looked at him with a raised brow, teasing him I threw out, “He needs to be more like me, I know, I know, it’s been a rough road for you as a PAB…”
Ignoring my jab, he gave my ass a loud smack before tossing his keys on the countertop finger gunning his way to saying, “Lock up whenever, it’s date night, hooligans.”
KHAOS
Seven years later…
The new house wasn’t a lot more kid friendly than the old Château De Khaos used to be before I burned it down trying to erase the past. This place had a trampoline, pool with a wave simulator, tree house, sand box, ball pit, skate ramp, zipline, and dirt trail for extreme sports. They had everything they could ever want to tire themselves out before crawling into our bed and creating our
human cuddle puddle.
Everyone was in the throes of having fun at the party when I scanned for happy faces. Among them were the horsemen’s munchkins, all but Daisy. Maybe it was because her dad was my best friend, but we’ve always had a bond and I chalked it up to some kind of shared custody.
Kissing the side of Grace’s face and letting my warmth soak into her pregnant belly, I whispered that I’d be back. This was going to be kid number six for us and was officially where I was being cut off.
We rebuilt the tree house towards the back of the property only it had become overrun by the kids and there was nothing really adult about this one. If Daisy was ever missing, I could always find her here, reading or coloring quietly by herself, and we had an agreement that I wouldn’t give her secret hiding spot away.
Climbing the ladder, I poked my head up into the tree house and leaned onto my forearms, “There’s fun stuff happening down here. Pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, games, slip and slide… I bet Mayhem is looking for you.”
She didn’t even look up from her book, “No, he always knows where I am.”
Tapping her little leg, I stared at her the same way I did Grimm when we were younger. There was always an unknown darkness lurking on his back, and he passed it onto Daisy.
“Pick a hand,” I closed both my fists and held them out while still balancing on the ladder when her face perked up.
Tapping the right hand, I peeked under my fingers like I was in the dark too. Opening my hand, I sulked. I may not be pretending to be anyone else anymore but let’s be real, an ability to act helps with kids. Hell, you don’t even have to be good.
Kneeling closer, her small hand fell to my shoulder, “What’s wrong Uncle Krosby?”
The only person allowed to call me by my real name sported as much empathy as she did darkness.
“That hand said you’d get pizza with me, but I know you’re hiding up here so…” I even let my eyes water out of pure respect for the craft when I felt her little hand take mine.