Tough Enough

by M. Leighton

  “I think she’s one of his messes, too.”

  I know they won’t understand. They don’t know about Katie. They don’t know about what little Sims did to her. Or how that might look for a father if it came out during a bid for the presidency.

  My palms start to sweat. It all makes sense now. How could I not have seen it? How could I not have known?

  Mother of God.

  He’s going to turn his son loose on Katie.

  As if on cue, my phone rings. I see the familiar number and my insides clench.

  “Katie?”

  “Rogan?” she replies. My whole body, even my blood, sags with relief.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I . . . I just . . . I saw something on the Internet.” I try to come up with a plausible response without revealing the truth. “Something about you and Calvin Sims. I was just worried. That’s all.”

  There’s a long pause before she responds. “Actually, that’s what I was calling about. I need to talk to you. It’s about what the Senator is trying to do. To you.”

  “Stay there. I’m on my way.”

  I hang up before she can argue and I look up to two pairs of eyes watching me with varying degrees of fury. After a few seconds, Jasper merely steps out of my way and nods toward the door.

  “Let’s go. We’ve got work to do,” he says.

  I nod and lead the way. I’ve never looked forward to hurting someone more than I do right now. Not even my shitty father.

  FORTY-ONE

  Katie

  As I leave the studio, I realize that as anxious as I am to get away from work, I’m not very enthusiastic about going home. Work used to be just a job, neither good nor bad. Now it’s the place where I spent the happiest days of my life with Rogan and the most humiliating days of my life after him. And home . . . home used to be my sanctuary. Now it’s just pure hell. The memories of Rogan . . . they chase me. Haunt me. Refuse to give me a moment’s peace. Even to sleep.

  Nights are the worst. They’re nearly unbearable. I toss and turn rather than sleep, and everywhere I look, I see and feel Rogan. With perfect clarity, I can picture him asleep on the pillow next to me. With excruciating precision, I can feel his hands on me, his mouth, his body. Oh God! What I wouldn’t give to forget, to just have my memory wiped clean of all traces of Rogan. But there’s no such mercy for a girl like me. He will live on in my head and in my heart until I reach the only escape I’ll ever have from him—death. When blood stops pumping through my veins, maybe then I’ll finally be over him.

  And now I’m going to see him again. I know it will set me back. Maybe even right back to square one. But I have to do this. I have to talk to him and tell him what’s going on.

  I unlock my front door, pausing to look for Dozer like I do every day. When I see that he isn’t in front of the door, I push it open to step inside. It’s as I’m closing it that I feel the niggle of someone’s presence behind me. But not soon enough.

  I’m turning to face him, door still ajar, when Calvin grabs my upper arms and backs me into the living room, slamming the door shut behind us.

  I struggle to free myself from his grip, but his fingers are like iron shackles. A bolt of fear flashes through me. Among the memories of his punches and kicks and slaps, I’d forgotten how easily he could overpower me. But it’s all coming back to me now. Too fresh, too clear.

  I reach for bravery. I reach for boldness. I reach for tough. I don’t want him to see that he can still rattle me. Even though he can.

  “What are you doing here? Get the hell out of my house!”

  On his face is a sneer. “What? Change your mind so soon?”

  “Change my mind? About what?”

  “About seeing me again.”

  Sweet God! I’d told the Senator I’d do it, but I didn’t say when. No arrangements were made. And certainly none for this soon. It has only been a day, for God’s sake!

  “What’s the matter? Kat got your tongue?” he asks, using my old name.

  “No, I . . . I, uh, just wasn’t expecting you this soon. And certainly not here.”

  “What’s the matter, Kat? Afraid to have me so close to your bed?”

  His leer coupled with the smell of alcohol on his breath gives me a surge of adrenaline. My heart thunders and every subtle nuance of this moment is carving itself indelibly into my brain.

  “Hardly. You disgust me!” I hiss in a burst of bold and brave honesty.

  His expression turns furious and he grabs me by my upper arms. “So he’s so much better than me, is that it? That piece-of-shit fighter. Where is he now? If he’s so much better than me, where is he? Why am I here with you when he’s not?” A dart of fear pierces me. He was always much worse, much more forceful and unpredictable when he was drinking.

  I keep my calm, at least outwardly. “You’re drunk, Calvin. You need to leave.”

  “So anxious to get me out of here. Why? Is he coming? Will he be warming up that pussy tonight?”

  His temper flares and his fingers bite into my arms, making painful indentations.

  “Let me go, Calvin. I’m not kidding.” Part of me wants to cower in the face of his anger, the memories flooding me like salt water flooding a hole in the sand. But another part of me, a tough and slightly reckless part, wants to face him, wants to stand up in his face and scream that I’m not afraid of him anymore.

  He stares down into my face and I see the battle waging. Stay or go. Lash out or calm down. Stay and fight or walk away. I see his pupils swell and I know which way the tide is turning.

  The muscles along his jawline flex as he grits his teeth. He jerks me up close to his face so that I can feel the heat of his temper. And I do. I feel it. And I know what’s coming.

  “I tried to forget you after the fire. I thought it would burn you out of my blood. And for a while it did. But when I saw you again . . . with him . . . Damn you for making me feel this way again! Damn. You.”

  Before I can respond, Calvin straightens his arms and sends me flying across the entryway, a tangle of flailing limbs.

  I look up to see him pushing the unbuttoned sleeves of his dress shirt up his forearms, like he’s preparing to get messy. I know that gesture. I remember it like I remember the bone-jarring ache of being punched in the ribs. Or kicked in the back of the head.

  Courage flees me. Calm abandons me. And terror, pure terror turns my blood to ice in my veins. After a time, I knew Calvin had a bad temper and that he was prone to violence, but never would I have suspected that he might set me on fire. Yet he did. That’s when I realized that I had no idea the depths to which his mental illness extended. He could be capable of anything. Even murder.

  With speed uncommon in someone as lanky as Calvin, he lunges for me before I can react, grabbing me by the front of my shirt and pulling me to my feet to sling me across the dining room table. I go skittering along the top before I crash down onto the chair at the end and topple it to the floor, the edge of the seat cracking against my hip. I gasp in pain, my fear nearly blinding me as I scramble to get my bearings.

  “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to punish you, Kat. For leaving me. For making me hurt you. For spreading those legs for someone else. You’re mine, Kat. You always will be.”

  My addled mind spins with solutions and scenarios, for any possible way out of this without getting myself killed. He set me on fire last time. I can’t give him the chance to hurt me again.

  I stall until I can find a way, find something with which to defend myself. “I didn’t think you’d want me with all my scars,” I tell him. I swallow past the balloon of fear that inflates in my throat and I scoot into a sitting position.

  Calvin frowns. I’m not sure what to make of it. Is he confused by my tactic? Disgusted by the mention of my disfigurement?

  “I thought you knew how much I loved you. Yes, I hate the scars, but I’ll pay for plastic surgery to get rid of them, and you’ll be my beautiful
Kat again. At least for a little while.”

  For a little while? That sounds . . . ominous.

  Absently, I push scraps of the broken chair out of the way so that I can find my balance and make my way to my feet. I pause as my eyes settle on one of the splintered legs. For a few seconds, I zone out of the present as I stare at it, as I think of the implications of it. As I look at it, I drift into a strange place of calm.

  The jagged wooden end holds my attention, almost as though it’s beckoning me. Calvin’s angry voice is nothing more than a distant backdrop to the peculiar trance I’ve stumbled into. In this peaceful world, I don’t distinguish between Kat, Kathryn or Katie. I don’t live a life as splintered as the chair leg I’m gazing at. I’m simply a girl who’s tired of hiding, who’s tired of being hurt. Who’s tired of only surviving. I am a woman who needs to stand up. To fight back. To get the missing part of myself back. To be whole again.

  In the fuzzy recesses of my mind, I realize that if I don’t stand up now, if I don’t start to live now, I never will. Just like Rogan said, I’ll die a little more each day.

  Fight to survive. Fight to live.

  I’ve fought to survive. For years now, I’ve survived. But I need more. It’s time to fight to live.

  It’s time to live.

  My movements have a slow, surreal quality to them at first, almost dreamlike. I reach for the makeshift stake. I curl my trembling fingers around it. I use my free hand for balance. I come carefully to my feet. And I face Calvin.

  Although fear is still with me, it’s muted by this strange calm and, somehow, I’m bolstered by the feel of the cool wood of the chair leg against my palm. I flex my fingers around it, rubbing the sharp tip against my thigh as I study Calvin.

  “If you leave me again, it’ll only be worse, Kat. I didn’t think I could hate you as much as I loved you, but I was wrong. You made me see that. God, you were such a bitch! What you did to me . . .”

  I tilt my head as I watch him. His face is bloodred as he rants, a single vein standing out like a thick rope right in the center of his forehead. I wonder briefly that it doesn’t burst and send him face-first onto my floor to drown in his own blood. I actually smile at the vision.

  Calvin stops talking. I notice only because his lips cease to move. All I hear is the beat of my own heart, pounding in my ears.

  I see spit on his chin. I focus on it for a few seconds, oddly fascinated by the foamy little drop. I notice only in the most absent of ways that it begins to get closer. It’s that minute detail that shakes me from my thrall.

  Taking a step back, I hold out one hand and raise the other, wielding the stakelike piece of wood like a weapon. A weapon that I will use if I have to.

  “I want you to leave, Calvin. Right now. And never come near me again. You and your father can go to hell. Stay away from me. Stay away from Rogan. Let this drop or I swear on all that is holy, you’ll regret the day you ever met me. Get out, Calvin. I won’t ask you again.”

  At first he looks confused. Then stunned. Then, when his eyes bounce from me to the stake and back again, almost insulted.

  I raise my chin defiantly. My cards are on the table. I’m taking my stand. And it feels good. I feel good.

  But then he starts to laugh.

  “Oh, Kat! You can’t be serious.”

  Surely the girl who took his abuse for months wouldn’t fight back. Surely the girl who he set on fire wouldn’t dare to stand up to him. Surely the girl who he murdered in all the ways that count couldn’t have found a reason to live.

  Surely not.

  The hell you say!

  Righteous fury explodes from my chest like a bomb, raining adrenaline into my blood. It’s like rocket fuel. It propels me into motion. Offensive motion.

  I lunge forward, slicing in a downward angle at Calvin’s chest. I feel the tip of the pointed stick tear through something. Not flesh, but something.

  When I step back, I see Calvin staring down at his torn shirt, at the bloody scratch that mars the smooth skin of his chest. The eyes he raises to mine are homicidal.

  A needle of fear pricks my bubble of bravado, piercing it. For a moment, what was and what is collide, leaving me confused and frantic. I inhale sharply, my body mobilizing its fight-or-flight response as Calvin comes at me with an ear-splitting roar.

  His aggression drowns out the loud clap of the front door flying open and ripping the hinges out of the frame. It doesn’t, however, drown out the image of Rogan racing toward Calvin like an avenging angel, come to save me.

  At the last second, Rogan’s feet leave the floor. He’s airborne for only a few seconds before he comes down on Calvin like a two-hundred-twenty-pound hammer, driving his elbow into the top of his head. Calvin weaves and wobbles, dazed, before he stumbles back into me. I move to my right, barely escaping his falling weight, as Rogan comes after him again.

  Kneeling, one knee on Calvin’s chest, the other on the floor, Rogan smashes his fist into my monstrous ex’s face in four punches of blurring speed. When he pauses, Calvin is oozing blood from his nose, mouth and the corner of one eye, and mumbling something about his daddy.

  “I’m not thinking about your daddy. And neither should you. You should be listening to what I’m telling you right now, because I won’t say it again. If you ever, ever come near her again, I’ll kill you. I. Will. End you. I’ll break your neck, throw your body into a river and disappear before anyone can find me. And if you think I’m kidding, just ask your shithole of a father about me.”

  Calvin rests on my floor, his head rocking back and forth as he drools blood onto his cheeks. Rogan stands to his feet, spitting on Calvin before turning to me. His expression is fiercer than anything I’ve ever seen. It softens the instant his eyes meet mine, though.

  He doesn’t touch me, doesn’t come near me. I’m not sure I even want him to. I just want to stand here, in his presence, and take him in. Bask in his being, in the knowledge that he came for me. That he saved me. Again.

  “You’re safe now,” he declares quietly.

  I don’t know what to say. My tongue seems to be frozen to the roof of my mouth.

  Behind him, I see Calvin stumbling to his feet. I gasp and Rogan jerks around, grabbing a handful of hair from the top of Calvin’s head and pulling down until my ex’s face meets the upswing of Rogan’s knee. With a nauseating crunch, Calvin drops lifelessly onto the floor again.

  Barely breathing hard, Rogan straightens, turning his head just enough that I can see his profile. “I’ll be back after I take care of the trash,” he says quietly.

  He bends, tossing Calvin over his shoulder and walking slowly toward the door. He pauses in the opening, like he might turn to face me, maybe to say something, but then he changes his mind. I just stand here, numb and stunned, until he starts to move again. That jars me into action.

  “Rogan, wait!”

  He stops and turns toward me, his eyes eating me up as I close the distance between us. He looks relieved.

  “The Senator . . . he was blackmailing me. He said if I didn’t publicly date Calvin so that you would fight, he’d tell your secret. Kurt’s secret.”

  He says nothing at first. Just watches me. “You know.”

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “Katie, I’m so sorry. I would never choose those snakes over you. If he hadn’t held that over my head . . . over my brother’s head . . . I swear to God, I’d have walked away and never looked back. For you. For you, I’d walk away from the world if it’s what you wanted me to do.”

  My pounding heart soars.

  As though Calvin is nothing more than the trash Rogan referred to, he drops him unceremoniously onto the floor and steps closer to me. His emerald eyes stare unflinchingly down into my face. “I’d rather die than watch you date Calvin Sims. I’m tough as hell and I’ve survived a lot in my life, but I wouldn’t be tough enough to survive that. I couldn’t stand it. I just . . . I couldn’t.”

  His voice is raw with emotion and I feel bela
ted tears well in my eyes.

  “Then, Rogan, please tell me there’s another way. Tell me that he won’t win. I can’t bear to see him hurt you. They’ve taken so much already. From me, from you. I can’t give them anything else.”

  His lips spread into a thin, sad smile. “They won’t take anything else from you. You have my word.”

  The statement sounds final. Definite.

  “Wh-what are you going to do?”

  “Something that could make you hate me. Something that you can’t be a part of. But something that has to be finished. The Senator has done things. To you. To me. To the brothers I served with in the Army. We did a lot of covert ops. Things I can’t talk about. Things the Senator shouldn’t have ordered. Now he’s trying to cover his tracks. He’s having people targeted. Assassinated. My people.”

  I had no idea that Special Forces meant . . . this. The room has narrowed to a tunnel that extends from Rogan’s eyes to mine and contains only the sound of his voice and the blood rushing behind my ears. Part of me thinks that I should be outraged, shocked. Afraid. But the rest of me . . . most of me . . . wants this, wants to be rid of him for good.

  And knowing that Rogan is one of the men who has sacrificed so much for his country, for those he loves, for me . . . well, I could never hate him for that. Only love him more.

  As if on cue, my heart swells with it, threatening to rip me open with the pressure of it inside my chest.

  “I . . . I could never hate you, Rogan.”

  “It would kill me if you did, but I won’t lie to you. I would never disrespect you like that. That’s why I’m telling you. Senator Sims is guilty of war crimes, Katie, and he’ll pay. It’s the way it has to be.”

  “And Calvin?”

  “I’ve got plans for him, too.”

  I nod. I don’t know what else to do. Or to say. I want this. Even though it may not change things between Rogan and me, he’ll be free. And so will I. At least we’ll have that.

  He backs away, bending slowly to throw Calvin the Trash over his shoulder and turn back toward the door. Things feel so . . . unfinished between us that I want to ask him to stay. But I know he can’t. And maybe he shouldn’t. But I want him to anyway.