Bad Dad

by Sloane Howell

  Cora’s mother stood there, shaking her head at her. “What happened? I thought we were on the same page. Thought we’d had a breakthrough. Progress was being made. Then you deceive us and tell us you’re not with him anymore. Said you were going to wait until the school year was over. How could you do this to us? Embarrass us this way? What is wrong with you?”

  Cora was done with the conversation a long time ago. Her mom was doing nothing but piling on the anguish and she knew it. I could tell. There was a slight curl at the corners of her mouth, like she got off on the pain she was causing.

  “That’s enough.” I stepped between her and Cora and stared down at her. Frightening women wasn’t something I enjoyed doing, especially to the love of my life’s mother, but she was inflicting a lifetime of psychological pain. It was going to end.

  “Or else what? What are you going to do?” She turned her gaze up to me. The lady didn’t back down from anything.

  I glanced to Cora’s father and back to her mom. Stepped up so that I was about a foot away from her. Leaned over and let her know with my stare she wasn’t going to bully anyone else while I was there. “Look, I’m asking nicely.”

  Her eyes widened along with her husband’s.

  Cora stepped out from behind me. “Everyone just go.”

  I spun a one-eighty to face her. My heart palpitated. “What?”

  “Come on.” Mr. Chapman took his wife by the elbow and guided her out the front door.

  I hadn’t raised my voice to them. Was Cora mad at me too? I didn’t disrespect anyone. I hadn’t been loud.

  “Cora?”

  Her lip trembled. “Just go. Please.”

  I shook my head.

  “Please, just go.”

  Cora’s father guided her mother through the front door with their backs to us. I could practically feel her mother grinning as she heard Cora’s words. She’d gotten what she wanted.

  Cora covered her mouth with her hand. She wouldn’t look at me. Her voice cracked when she started to speak. “It’s just—too much. I’m sorry.”

  I placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “I can’t. I can’t leave you like—”

  “Please go.”

  Logan stepped out from the hallway. “Dad?”

  Cora’s face blanched. She glanced back at Logan and completely broke down. “I’m so sorry.” She sprinted past him to the bedroom.

  I wanted to run after her. Chase her down and hold her and comfort her. Logan had tears in his eyes. The day wasn’t supposed to go this way. It wasn’t what we’d planned. Anxiety roiled in my stomach.

  “Daddy, I want to go home.”

  I glanced to him and back toward Cora’s bedroom and then back to him again. I nodded. “Okay, buddy. Come on.”

  I hoisted him up in my arms and we walked out to the car. After I got him settled in, we pulled down the road. It was the slowest drive of my life. I watched her house disappear from the rearview mirror.

  I wanted to tear down the world. Burn it to ashes. But I couldn’t. I had to grit my teeth and bear it. I had a responsibility to Logan. I had to respect Cora’s wishes. He watched everything. Saw everything. What kind of man would I be if I blew up at everything? What kind of man would he become if he saw that? Cora needed time. She’d come around. She was just overwhelmed. Who wouldn’t be? Janet was the closest thing to a mother I had, and if she told me those same things I wouldn’t want to deal with the world either. I had to give Cora space. No matter how much it hurt.

  CHAPTER 26

  Landon Lane

  THE WAVES PERPETUALLY CRASHED ON the shoreline. I was older. I’d just returned from an assassination mission executed to perfection. Killed an African dictator in the middle of his home in the Sudan. Crept right inside his window undetected and injected him with potassium chloride to make it look like a heart attack.

  People—mainly because of television—had a misconception that assassinations meant sniper rifles or slitting someone’s throat with a knife. Bloody messes that consisted of action and suspense. But the goal was to make it look like a natural death with no responsibility. In and out with nobody to blame and no evidence left behind. Completely covert. The leader was too strong and wanted to change too many things. He was being unpredictable and not falling in line with the powers that be.

  Titan.

  I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about politics. Politics didn’t exist on Hell’s Island. Only missions and results.

  I’d made my way out of his compound and into a safe zone for extraction. They brought me straight back to the island for debriefing. Nobody had ever known I was in the country. Nobody had known who I was. I didn’t exist to the world.

  I existed to myself though. It ate at me night and day. The others didn’t seem to have the same problem. They did what they did and went on with life. Trained the same way. Waited for the next call. Rinse and repeat.

  I sat in my bunk while the others slept.

  “You okay?” A voice came from the dark.

  I didn’t know how to respond. We weren’t trained to socially interact. We spoke monotone and clear. No dialect. This voice had an inflection. I’d heard it in airports and in brief interactions with operation liaisons.

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then.” The footsteps faded.

  I looked down at my footlocker where I kept my gear. There was a plate with a sandwich on it.

  “Hey, asshole.” A giant hand shook me awake. It could only belong to one person.

  I glanced back to Logan’s door and then back up at Joe. “What do you want?”

  “Have fun on your date?”

  I shook my head. “Didn’t happen.”

  Joe leaned back against the wall across from me. “Want to talk about it?”

  My head shot up to meet his stare. What the hell was going on? Had he been watching Dr. Phil? “Not really.”

  He shrugged. “It’s something I’ve heard people say. Seemed right in the moment.”

  Thank God he was still his normal self. “You’re catching on quick.” At that moment I started to worry humanity was going to taint him.

  He looked down the hallway like he was staring to the edge of the earth. “I can see why you like it here.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Don’t know what it is exactly.”

  “Logan likes you.”

  Joe smiled. “I like him too. He showed me Batman the other day.” He grinned at the wall. “Great story.”

  “Do you ever sleep?”

  “I don’t have that luxury.”

  “What?”

  “Come on.” He nodded out toward the back door.

  It had to be three a.m. I looked around. Glanced to Logan’s door. “I can’t.”

  “Can’t what? He’s sleeping while two of the most deadly men on the planet watch after his house. Let’s go.”

  I got up, hesitantly. Too slow for his liking.

  “I said let’s go, asshole.” Joe was already down the hall and out the backdoor.

  I thought about Cora. Thought about her alone in her bed, crying her eyes out. Maybe she was fine now and sipping coffee and reading a book. Was she able to sleep? Edmon had been right about something he told me. When you love someone, you give up power. Cora and Logan made me vulnerable. I tried to keep them in the same area, protect both of them. Now, they were both upset, hurting, in two different locations. I couldn’t be in both places at once and it drove a spike right into the middle of my chest.

  I walked outside. Caught Joe over at the shed in the backyard where I kept some gardening tools. He flicked on a light inside and the yellow haze emanated from the door. I stepped inside.

  There were notes, pictures, numbers scribbled everywhere.

  “This is what I do at night.” He nodded his head toward all of it.

  There was an anatomical diagram of Sid with two small red circles on it. So small they almost looked like solid red dots.

  “Weak points?”

 
; He nodded. “Theoretical weak points. But that doesn’t mean shit. The guy is a lion.”

  “Better to live one day as a lion, than a thousand days as a lamb.”

  Joe grinned. “You’re goddamn right.”

  I prayed we wouldn’t be struck by lightning, and at the same time I was a bit proud he caught the biblical reference while I pored over the notes about me. There was a picture of Logan, Cora, Janet, Gus—even our house. All of them had red circles around them, and notes.

  “What are you doing out here? With all of this?”

  “Homework, asshole. One of us has to focus.”

  “You think I don’t know the stakes? That my head’s not in it?”

  He stood up and shook his head. “No. I think you’re living in the present and it’s going to fuck you nice and good in the future.”

  I walked over and looked around at the rest of his analysis. I couldn’t disagree with him. Day-to-day was definitely how I was living. It’s how I’d lived the past ten years.

  “Don’t say it’s not true. You’re living for the next few months until the fight and that’s it.” He got up in my face and snarled. “That’s it.”

  I tried to turn and walk out but he spun me back around.

  “What are you going to do? You already know you’re going to lose, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think will happen to all of that when you die?” He pointed at the red circles by my picture. The red marker outlining every person I cared about. The diagram that showed every weakness and vulnerability that existed in my life. It all crashed down on me at once. The brevity of the situation.

  I flew out of the shed and sprinted back toward the house. The night sky tried to crush me into the ground. The whole world was caving in on me.

  I needed my chair. Needed to be sitting in front of Logan’s door in case they came. When I wasn’t in the chair, guarding him, I couldn’t breathe. They could already be on their way. The way they’d sent me for the dictator in the Sudan and countless others. It could happen any second of any day.

  “What are you gonna do?” Joe hollered. Then he laughed. Laughed so loud it was sinister.

  I ripped open the back door.

  “What are you gonna do, Landon?”

  CHAPTER 27

  Cora Chapman

  A FEW MORE WEEKS HAD passed. I’d only seen Logan at school and he answered me with the bare minimum of words. It broke my heart every single time. “Yes, Ma’am. Yes, Ms. Chapman.”

  I hadn’t just sent my parents and Landon from the house. I’d sent him out too. I missed him. My little helper whose eyes would light up any time I said his name.

  I missed Landon’s arms wrapped around me. I missed Janet and Joe.

  And I did what I said I wasn’t going to do anymore. Backed down when times got tough. My mother knew where I was vulnerable, and she went for the jugular. I thought we’d had a breakthrough, but I’d kidded myself. People didn’t change. Maybe for a moment, but not for the long-term. They always went back to who they were. Mom turned into her old self, and I did too.

  I was a runner. I needed to accept it before I hurt Landon even worse. He didn’t need the distraction.

  Why did I come back to this fucking place?

  I needed to let Landon train. Let things die down. He had another fight, tonight. I told myself earlier in the day I wouldn’t watch it, but there I was at eight p.m. on my couch, in my pajamas. Couldn’t turn away from the television.

  I needed to see him. Even if he was a thousand miles away on a television screen. I would get my fix and then will myself to stay away so he could focus on his family.

  I flipped the TV on and the announcers popped up on the screen after a commercial.

  “Hello everybody, Bob Godwin here with George Lewis for WMMA 146!”

  “The crowd is packed at the MGM here in Las Vegas, Nevada. Full house.”

  “It’s incredible. People seem to be taking more to Lane than Sid, even though Kayzo obliterated his last opponent. Perhaps it’s the mystery behind him and his manager the fans have dubbed The Terminator. Lane seems more human. The ghost. The enigma. People are calling him The Red Death after the Edgar Allan Poe story. He walks into the room and destroys. It’s remarkable.”

  “You know—nobody’s ever seen anything like this before. We watch Sid destroy opponents and he doesn’t speak, but he has a whole team of publicists and is always standing in front of a camera glaring. Lane fights for StrikeForce and we don’t see him with anyone other than the man in the glasses. It’s indescribable. Nobody knows where he came from, though sources tell us they’ve found him in a small town in Montana just outside Missoula where StrikeForce headquarters is located. Nobody knew who he was before. But tonight, he has his hands full, for certain. Ty Webster, the human pitbull himself. Different style than Kane. A new test. I don’t know, what do you think?”

  “Well, hah! I mean, we didn’t see much of Lane last time. There’s a chance he just landed that once in a lifetime haymaker, maybe got lucky, but I don’t know. I’ll tell you what, if I was Webster, I might just say an extra prayer. Because Lane marched out of that ring last time like it was business as usual. Like he’s done it a million times. You don’t get lucky and react like that. A lucky guy jumps around, celebrates. He doesn’t march out unsatisfied like he wants to go tear down a building like King Kong. And the fans are already calling for a fight with Sid. It’s the number one trending topic on all social media around the world!”

  “Indeed. I think we’d all love to see that fight. I can’t help but agree with them. Oh, and here comes Webster now. Not usually known as a trash talker, he’s stayed quiet all week leading up to this fight. Webster is a veteran at 32 years old. He doesn’t really excel in one particular area, but is above average across the board. Very well-liked and respected in the WMMA community.”

  “And the electricity is building. It’s like they’re waiting for that Jimi Hendrix guitar riff after the Mitch Mitchell drums. You can feel the energy in the air like gas waiting to ignite. And there it goes—this place is roaring. I’m surprised people can even hear us talking at home. It is absolutely insane in here. Bedlam even.”

  “Yep, and it’s like de ja vu. Lane’s got the StrikeForce robe on and stalks in with The Terminator next to him. God, is he intense. He’s like a machine from the future or something. Straight out of a science fiction novel and built like a Sherman tank, this guy. We go live now to referee, Jimmy Stevens.”

  “All right, fellas. You know the drill. Have a clean fight. Tap gloves and let’s do this.”

  “Lane shows Webster a little more respect than Kane received during the glove tap last time. Perhaps it’s because he knows Webster is a respected veteran?”

  “Yeah, that’d be my guess. Webster didn’t talk about putting him in the hospital all week before the fight. To Kane’s credit, I think he may have bit his tongue a little more if he’d seen Lane fight previously, but yeah, it’s not Webster’s style ever. The man is beloved by fans and fighters across the board.”

  “I hate to interrupt, but there goes the hand signal from Stevens and the fight is under way. The two fighters stalk out to the middle, hands up. Circling, circling, and—”

  “Ohh! My God, did you see that? DID YOU SEE THAT? Landon Lane has knocked out two men, in less than twenty seconds. Webster went maybe an extra three seconds with him as they did a half circle. Webster clearly planned for a left hand. But Lane comes with a left anyway and just destroys Webster!”

  “Look at the replay. Holy—he knocked him out through his guard. Oh wow. I’ve seen a lot of things folks, but this, just—c’mon. It’s not even fair, look at that! Webster’s technique is flawless. He does everything right. Straight textbook fighting. He adjusts and thinks he’s blocking a strike from Lane, and Lane knocks him out anyway through his arm. Just jars Webster’s gloved hand and forearm straight into his head. The raw power it took for him to do that was just, it’s un
natural. I’ve never seen anything like that in my life! There’s something magical about Lane. It’s like he’s larger than life. Like watching Babe Ruth knock the cover off a baseball or call his shot in the World Series.”

  “And look at that. Just like last time, Lane is nowhere to be found. Walked right out after the punch and disappeared with his manager. The Terminator doesn’t flip the bird and the crowd actually seems a little disappointed about it. And I just don’t believe what we just saw. Landon Lane has a record of two wins and no losses, both wins by knockout, and less than twenty seconds of total fight time under his belt. One thing is for certain, his first fight was definitely not a fluke.”

  My heart tried to leap out of my chest. “Yes!” I fist pumped on my couch, alone.

  I clutched a pillow to my chest and bit my lip as I watched Landon on the screen. He was so powerful. I looked around at my empty house.

  A shock of nerves ripped through me within seconds. I pictured Logan, jumping up and down on his couch, rooting for his dad. I should’ve been there. What was I doing? Why was life so damn complicated?

  When two people love each other that’s all that should matter. The rest of the world needed to move over and let us be happy. I sat there for a few minutes, staring blankly at the TV screen. It didn’t do any good to think about a utopian world, or a perfect paradigm where our love could exist. The real world didn’t work that way. Most of the time it felt like a zero-sum game. In order to love one person, you had to hurt someone else.

  I needed to figure things out. I’d spent my entire life in purgatory, afraid to make decisions, waffling between choices. I couldn’t sit on the fence this time. The next month or so until Landon’s big fight might be his last days with Logan. Would I embrace that and be a part of it? Or just let him be? What if I had another breakdown? Unlikely, considering I might not ever speak to my mother again. But I’d already promised him I wasn’t going anywhere and then I’d broken it.