by Rose, Aubrey
“Come on, Nat,” I said, giving my most charming smile. I wasn’t about to push her into sex, but I sure as hell would push her into showing me her art. “Please? I promise I’ll like them.”
“How can you promise you’ll like them when you haven’t even seen them?”
“Good point. I gotta see them first.”
Before she could respond, I’d ducked around and plucked out a handful of papers from the stack of paintings on the floor. I sat back on the couch, the paintings on my knee. Natalie stood watching me, her features pinched with fear.
“Come on, babe, sit down,” I said. I pulled her down and cuddled her against my chest. “I bet you’re the best artist I know.”
“Now’s when you tell me you don’t know any other artists.”
“Doesn’t make it any less true!”
I held up the first painting. The background was a dark blue, with little golden bits swarming like ants at the bottom of the paper.
“It’s like they’re crawling up to the sky,” I said.
“What are?”
“The little lights. Like the lights from the bridge, remember? When I took you on that bike ride?”
Natalie looked up at me, her head tilted suspiciously.
“Did you know that was when I painted it?”
“What?”
“The painting. I did it that night, after you left.”
“It looks like you want it to all be lights,” I said, kissing her on the top of the head. “They’re creeping up on the sides.”
“I didn’t want you to go,” Natalie admitted. “I tried to sleep, but it was too dark. And lonely.”
“See, you should have let me creep into your bed,” I said. I nudged her with my elbow and she laughed softly.
“This one is sadder,” I said, holding up the next page. It was a swirl of yellow and orange, and I frowned when I saw it.
“Why is it sadder?” Natalie asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not sadder. It looks like a sun, I guess. But there’s something not quite right, like it’s not sunny. Man, I am definitely not an artist, huh?” I chuckled. “A sad sun.”
“No, you’re right,” Natalie said quietly.
“Now this one,” I said. “This is my kind of painting.”
I squinted my eyes and let the painting go out of focus. Red splashes of color bled across dark lines, and a blurred splotch in the middle that seemed to melt into the red.
“This is the fight,” I said, recognizing it now. “This is me.”
“How do you see that?” Natalie whispered.
“No wonder I like this one,” I said, grinning at getting it right. “This is the sexiest portrait of me I’ve ever seen. Even if you can’t really tell it’s me.”
“Sexy?” Natalie looked up at me with wide eyes. I wasn’t sure if she was fooling around, but her face was searching mine like I’d told her the future and gotten it right. As I looked back at the painting, I could feel the emotions jump off of the page, same as if I’d been her feeling them as she painted.
“It’s all desire,” I said. I touched the splashes of red. “It’s about violence, but not the bad part of violence. Not the destruction. It’s about feeling alive.”
I spoke like I knew what I was talking about, but as the words came out I felt more certain than ever. Natalie had put something in these paintings for me, I thought. They all meant something. My fingers moved to the blurred fighter in the middle.
“What do they mean to you?” I asked. My lips were on her skin at the hairline, moving slowly. She felt so fragile in my arms, and I thought that speaking too loud might shatter her.
“That’s...that’s exactly what they mean. I don’t—how did you—”
“Nat.” I started to speak, and then stopped. I didn’t know if what I had to say would come out stupid or right. All I knew was that I had to say it. I turned to her and took her by the arms, my hands touching her bare shoulders. A slight shiver ran through her skin under my palms.
“Nobody knows why I fight. But there it is, on the paper. This is why I fight. This is how I live. You’re the only one—I don’t know how to say this—you’re the only one that’s ever understood. I don’t know if you meant it, or what, and maybe I’m reading too much into it. But I feel like if there’s anyone who can get what fighting is all about, it’s the girl who painted this picture.”
“Hutch...” Natalie shook her head. “I don’t know if I... I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Come to my next fight,” I said impulsively. “Don’t worry about anything else. Don’t feel like you have to shift for me. I just want you to watch me fight... and to see how you see it.”
Natalie nodded. A burst of happiness shot up through me. I leaned forward and kissed her hard. Her lips tensed, then relaxed into the kiss. My arms drew her closer, my hands loving every inch of softness they found, the curves of her hips. The slight scent of her shampoo and the desire running underneath, fierce and yet so subtle that I had to search to find it.
I deepened the kiss, looking for her desire. I wanted to tease it out of her, to pull her out of her shell and let her run wild. But she drew back, and I lost the sensation.
“I... I should go inside.”
There. As soon as she felt the desire pulling at her, she pulled back. I would dig into her to find it, no matter how long it took me.
“You’ll come to the next fight?”
“When is it?”
“This Friday.”
She nodded, and I brought her hands to my lips and kissed them from knuckles to fingertips. God, I wanted to kiss every part of her body.
“I’ll see you then,” I said, standing up. She looked up at me like she wanted to ask me to stay. There it was, the desire. Not tonight, but soon. Now that I knew what was running in her veins, I knew I could pull it out.
“Goodnight,” she said.
“Goodnight,” I said. “Don’t paint any more sad suns, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Hopping on my bike, I sped away.
It was dark as I left, and I thought of her dark painting. I only hoped there would be enough little golden ants crawling around her mind to keep her safe tonight.
Chapter Fourteen
Natalie
That night, I dreamt about Hutch fighting. I woke up to the sunlight streaming in through my window, and I closed my eyes again. The morning could wait. I wanted to be back there, watching him.
“Nat? Nat?”
My dad knocked on my door.
“You awake?”
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing the sleep in my throat. “Yeah, just getting up.”
“Tommy’s here to pay you a visit.”
Oh, shit.
Dressing quickly, I pulled my hair back into a thick bun. It poked out everywhere in frizzed strands, but I didn’t have time to take a shower. Smoothing it back with my hands, I called it good.
When I went out into the living room, Tommy and my dad were laughing.
“What’s so funny?” I said, trying to smile along with them.
“Natalie!” Tommy stood up and pulled me into a hug. The pressure of his chest against mine made me acutely uncomfortable. When we pulled apart, I stepped back a bit.
“How about we go for a walk?” he said. “I was just telling Pops here that it’s been a while since I’ve cruised through your neighborhood.”
“Sure,” I said, anger building inside of me.
Was he not going to bother talking about the fact that he’d abandoned me at the fight? I didn’t want to make a scene in front of my dad, so I let Tommy lead me out the door. Once we reached the sidewalk, his face turned hard.
“Your dad mentioned you’d been back to see another fight,” he said.
“Well, I had a hard time getting back home after the first one,” I said, just as acidly.
“I am sorry about that,” Tommy said, his voice flat and about as unapologetic as you
could get. “I got a little worked up. You know how that is. So you enjoyed the fight?”
He glanced over at me accusingly. I swallowed hard. I knew he was talking about prom night. Although I’d messed up his leg, I didn’t think it gave him the right to be mean to me forever.
“Yeah,” I said. “Except for the part where two guys tried to accost me in the parking lot when I asked for a ride home.”
“You can take care of yourself,” Tommy said. “I wasn’t worried about you.”
“No, you weren’t,” I said. “Lucky for me, someone else was.”
“Excuse me?”
“I got a ride home from Hutch. He stopped the guys from attacking me and took me back.”
“Hutch? Oh that brute?” Tommy sneered. “I’m sure he played a fine knight in shining armor.”
“What exactly are you doing here?” I said, stopping midstride. Tommy stopped after another step and turned back to me, both his hands clutching the top of his cane.
“Here? Looking for properties to flip.” Tommy gestured to one of the houses on the other side of the street that had a big FORECLOSED sign out front. “Lots of rundown places around here.”
“I mean, why did you come to see me again?”
“I wanted to make amends. I wanted to apologize for leaving you early that night. I thought you would want to apologize too.”
“Apologize for what? For enjoying myself too much?”
“Is that what you call it? Enjoying yourself?” Tommy’s voice clipped at the end of every word. “Getting hot and horny over a couple of brawling animals?”
“Why did you even bring me to the fight, if you didn’t want me to like it?” My voice was rising now, and I couldn’t keep the fury from coming out.
“I wanted you to see your kind.”
“And hate them? Hate them like you do?”
“Actually I’m invested heavily in… well, some shifter activities,” Tommy said drily. “I don’t hate them at all. In fact, I find them quite entertaining. Not to mention profitable.”
“You just wanted me to look down on them. Laugh at them along with you.”
“I can’t help but laugh at something like that animal fighter, all muscle and no brain.”
“He’s not a something. He’s a person.” I was shaking with anger now, even as Tommy spoke calmly. I could tell he was trying to get me worked up. He always did this—tried to get me to act out while he stayed perfectly cool.
“God, don’t tell me you fell for that animal!” Tommy chuckled, and then stopped. He caught my eyes and saw my anger, and something else. His eyes narrowed to slits. “No. Nat. You can’t be serious.”
“He’s not an animal,” I said.
“You went back to see him, didn’t you?” Tommy’s voice was trembling just under the slick surface, and I breathed in slowly.
“What if I did? What does it matter to you?”
“He’s a goddamn piece of meat!” Tommy said. “Natalie—”
“You said it was my own kind! My own kind!”
“Sure, but Natalie, you’re different from those animals.” His voice was strained as he tried to stay calm. He reached out to take my hand, and I jerked my arm away from him.
“I’m not! I’m not any different from Hutch or the rest of them. And stop calling them animals! We’re not animals!”
“Natalie, I wanted to protect you from people like them.”
“Protect me!?” I snorted. “You couldn’t protect me from a chipmunk! You abandoned me!”
“And you ran off with one of them!” Tommy’s face was turning red, and I could tell his anger was about to burst through the surface. “You’ll see! When everything’s over, you’ll see! I’ll get back at all those losers!”
“What will I see?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ve seen enough, Tommy. I’ve seen enough to know that you’re no better than any of them.”
“Shut up!” His voice was high and piercing, and I could tell I’d gotten under his skin. Well, served him right.
“I won’t. And if I want to date one of them, I will, and you can’t talk me out of it.”
“You rutting little whore!”
His hand swept through the air and slapped me, hard.
I gasped and stepped back. My cheek was stinging where his hand had hit my skin. I touched the burning spot on my face and looked up at him in horror. He looked sick, like he was about to throw up.
“Natalie...” he said, licking his lips. “I—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean... I’ll make it up to you. I’ll—”
“I don’t care what you do,” I said. “I don’t care how much money you make, or how friendly you are with my dad. Don’t you dare come back here again.”
I spun and left him standing alone on the sidewalk. If I ever owed Tommy anything, I didn’t anymore. The stinging mark on my cheek felt better and better, and by the time I reached my house I was smiling from ear to ear.
I would go to see Hutch fight again. And this time, I knew exactly what I wanted from him.
I arrived at the warehouse ten minutes before the fight and parked in the back, in Pack City. Under the setting sun, the trailers reflected back the shades of red and orange sky. The place felt different now. More open, less forbidding.
Getting out of my car, I breathed in the air. The scents of the pack were enough to send my body reeling, and the wolf in me growled, a deep silent rumble that started at the base of my spine and ran to my teeth. All of my senses jumped into high alert. The parking lot lights vibrated strings of brightness down to the asphalt. The air ran slightly cool over my skin, trembling the hairs on my neck. And as I walked, my very step echoed through the cars as a kind of radar, and I didn’t have to watch my step to get across the potholes - I could sense them without thinking.
Tonight would be different.
I walked around the huge metal walls, friendly with the surroundings. Letting my wolf come closer and closer to the surface. I could sense her now, and I focused myself on seeing her and allowing myself to let my fear go.
My hand trailed along the corrugated metal. The walls under my fingertips were still warm from the last rays of sunshine peeking across the horizon. I looked up and saw the light move over the ripple of metal, the metal sheets themselves overlapping in waves until the waves broke around the entrance where the crowd would later stream out.
Now the stream was more a trickle, dribs and drabs of spectators who didn’t care about the opening fights or were too drunk to care. There were those who had spent the last few hours tailgating in the front lot, and the smell of barbecue stuck to them as much as the smell of their excitement.
The metal walls rumbled again, and it was as though the crowd inside was the heartbeat of the building, the animal under the skin. Their desires, their sins, their thrills rumbled along with the walls into my body, sending me further along into losing control. I lifted my fingers from the metal and the wolf snapped back.
She was still in my bones, whining low and threatening, as I passed into the great entryway and into the roar of the crowd. But she could not threaten me.
Not tonight.
In the ring, Gina unleashed a fury of kicks onto the fighter they’d brought in from out of town. I almost felt bad for the other woman, a larger blonde lady who couldn’t keep up with the darting jabs Gina sent her way. With one solid kick to the side, Gina knocked down her opponent.
She raised one fist up to the crowd, and the shouts from the crowd rang from the rafters.
Terry stepped into the ring. Terry - I vaguely remembered him playing guitar by the fire that night. One of Hutch’s friends.
“Give it up for the gorgeous Miss Gina Marquez!”
He waited for the cries to die down. The spotlights shone brightly down on the ring.
“Next on the ticket, the fight you’ve been waiting to see…”
His words faded from my hearing, though, as I spotted Hutch climbing up into the ring. All around me, noise rained down, hard an
d tumultuous, but all I cared about was Hutch. His presence was like a candle in the middle of a dark room.
The other fighter joined to a smattering of applause. It was clear that the crowd was on Hutch’s side, and by the way he was grinning, he knew it.
“Don’t get too confident, Hutch,” I murmured. As though on cue, Hutch looked up straight into my eyes. He winked, kissed his fingers, and sent a kiss my way straight from his heart.
Then the whistle blew, and his face dropped into an expression of attack.
The first blow landed on Hutch’s chin, and in the second it took for him to recoil I understood what he meant when he had been talking to me in the field, talking about balance. His feet danced underneath him as though his legs and torso were almost independent. He was floating in the middle of the ring, suspended in the light like a mote of dust.
The fighter threw another blow, but this time Hutch anticipated it and ducked, sending the other man reeling. The guy must have been an amateur, for as he hit the ropes, a snarl echoed off of the metal walls, and I could see him struggle to keep from shifting.
“I know how you feel,” I said, and I was talking to both of them. For the first time ever, I got what he meant, what he had referred to with his wolf. He wasn’t controlling it. His eyes glowed amber, pinpoints of light that I could see burning from across the room, my senses were so piqued. He was like a fighter out of a painting by Goya - the shimmering of his muscles was the only curve of light that stood out in the ring. Behind him, the crowd was a muddle of brown and blue, and—
THERE!
He struck forward and knocked the other fighter back, and I saw the blur of his motion and saw where the blur would go next, what would work best, not just the balance of his body but the balance of dark and light, the negative space between the fighters growing, growing, then collapsing back in on itself in another litany of blows between them. Their skin, growing redder, and the blood and the drops of sweat that I could almost count in the air when the two bodies met in a crashing symphony of light and sound and furious survival.