Kaeden

by Naomi West

  I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. I feel useless. I feel worse than useless, since if he blames himself then he must blame me a little too. Shotgun wouldn’t have been there if not for Kaeden, and Kaeden wouldn’t be there if not for me. It’s not a huge leap.

  “You should’ve seen that red-haired bastard when I first met him. Goddamn, he was nineteen years old and about the wildest bastard the club had ever seen. I remember running into him outside a club-owned bar in town with blood all over his face, pissing down the back of his neck.” He smiles sadly. “I told him I was a Red Death and he told me he was too. We’d heard of each other but never met, but that night we became friends. I don’t know, Fiona, I just … I guess I found it easier to trust Shotgun for some reason. He was like a little brother. Maybe he looked up to me, but I looked up to him more. He was a solid man. You could count on him when he said he’d do something.

  “We went fishing once, down on the Colorado River. We went down to Mansfield first but it was crowded as shit, so we rode our bikes up the river and then hiked damn near all day. I didn’t catch a thing, but Shotgun used to go fishing back in the day with his old man. He caught the biggest striped bass you’ve ever seen. I’ve got a picture of it somewhere in the club, I think.” He shrugs. “But you don’t need to hear this bullshit.” He stands up, his face hardening, his jaw setting. He won’t look at me, not even once. When he talks, it’s down at the ground or above my head. He won’t even look at me. “Just clean yourself up and don’t worry about my horseshit, Fiona.”

  “It’s not horseshit,” I tell him, but by then it’s too late and he’s already striding from the bathroom.

  He leaves me alone again, but this time with an ache in my chest that shows no signs of going away or growing smaller. I slide down further into the bath, blowing bubbles.

  13

  Fiona

  I lie in the bath, staring up at the ceiling, which has a crack running through the middle of it, jagged like Harry Potter’s scar. I stare at the scarred crack and reflect on what exactly I’m doing with Kaeden. I think it would take a woman of ungodly discipline not to ask herself certain questions right now; I’ve never been that woman. I have to follow what I feel, and right now I feel that I have no idea how I feel. All I know is that I’m lying in the bathtub in a biker safehouse after being kidnapped by the rival of the man who bent me over in a store closet and fucked me.

  If I haven’t got some soul searching to do, who has?

  “The answer is pretty obvious,” Jocelyn whispers in my ear. She’s the angel on my shoulder, has been ever since we were kids and she found out that I’d skipped class. Even back then, she always wanted what was best for me. “You have to leave him as soon as possible. You don’t understand the situation you’re in, not really. If you did you wouldn’t be here. You’re his hostage, Fiona.”

  “But he saved me,” I whisper, still fighting the perpetual battle to keep my eyes open.

  “It doesn’t matter if he saved you!” she snarls. “You’re still his hostage!”

  I roll onto my side, turning half my hearing into whale-like echoes. “He must care about me,” I say, trying to convince myself. “He shared how he felt about his friend with me. That’s something.”

  “But what?” Jocelyn snaps. “What is it, exactly? Is this going to be your new routine, then? You have some crazy sex, get in a horrible situation, and then he saves you and talks to you for like five minutes about how he feels before leaving you again. Don’t you see; this is all on his terms. What about what you want?”

  “I got what I wanted,” I mutter. “I wanted the date.”

  “Ha!” Her voice is louder in my head than it often is in real life. “And what a date! No, seriously. You need to really ask yourself now: what do you want? And then you’ve got to talk to him about it. You can’t just sit around waiting for him to be the communicative one! You’ll be an old lady before that happens.”

  I close my eyes, shutting out her voice, trying to blank my mind. But Reaper’s sneering face dances across my vision, and then Kaeden, running toward me outside the bar. The pain on his face … but it’s also true that I have to think about myself as well, at least insofar as making sure I can rely on him. I can’t just be some fuck-and-chuck chick anymore.

  I rise from the bath with the conviction that I’m going to find out where Kaeden and I are. I know it’s not the best time—perhaps the worst time—but I also know that this is a critical juncture. If I don’t find out now, I might slip into something that I’ll later regret. What if I just become some girl, some thing he drags about the place? Because even if he saved me, it was being with him that got me kidnapped in the first place. I don’t blame him for it, yet I can’t ignore reality either.

  I towel myself off and find some clean clothes folded up just outside the door. I slip into the black hoodie and the men’s boxer briefs, along with the men’s sweatpants. They’re small and fit me snugly. Then I put my hair in a ponytail using an elastic band he left nearby the clothes; I guess he didn’t have a scrunchie.

  I find him sitting at the kitchen table downstairs. The sun has fully risen now, turning the room far more beautiful than circumstances should allow for. A patterned curtain hangs at the window, fluttering in a light breeze. Kaeden glances up at me and smiles tightly. “You found the clothes.” He turns back to his black coffee.

  “Kaeden,” I mutter, walking right up to the table. “I …” Gripping the edge of a wooden seat, I try to stop myself from trembling. “I need to talk to you about … well, I guess about what we’re going to do from now on. I mean about what we are to—to each other.”

  “Eh?” He glances at me sideways. “What’re you talking about?”

  “I can’t just be some booty call anymore!” I blurt, with far more emotion in my voice than I intend.

  He takes a long, slow sip of coffee, swallows heavily, and then shakes his head even slower. “Are you seriously bringing this high-school shit up to me now, Fiona? This fucking high-school bullshit? What the fuck do you want from me?”

  “I know it’s not the best time,” I whisper, because if I don’t whisper I’ll snap at him. That won’t be fair. “But you have to try and see things from my perspective too, Kaeden. I didn’t ask for any of this to happen. We were having a little fun, and then a date, and now … I need to know where we stand. If I’m going to stick around, I need to know what we are.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” he says darkly. He drains his coffee and walks around the room divider to the sink. The glass makes a clashing sound when he tosses it in, far too hard. “What are we? I don’t know how to answer a question like that.”

  “Well,” I go on, still maintaining my composure, “it means am I your girlfriend, or just some girl that you want to fuck every now and then? That’s what it means.”

  “Who gives a shit?” he snaps, turning toward me. “We’ve both been through hell today, and this is the shit you want to talk about? Really?”

  “You’re right!” I snap, walking around to his side of the kitchen. I try to quiet my thrumming heartbeat but, as always, it doesn’t listen to me; it’s like a small creature inside of my chest, completely independent of me at times, doing what it does without caring about the panic it sends surging to every part of me. “It has been a crazy, crazy day. So can you blame me for wanting to know what’s going on here? I can’t just go on with this … with this uncertainty, Kaeden. I can’t not know right now, because not knowing is just—” I shake my fists, my fingernails biting into my palms. Just when I need words most, my writerly mind fails me: useless.

  “I don’t know what to say,” he mutters after a long pause, during which we just stand there absorbing the tension. He has his back to me, rising and falling softly. He sighs and his shoulders plummet. But he doesn’t turn and face me, even though I sense that he wants to. Something in him is stopping him, perhaps: some biker macho bullshit. “I … What the fuck am I supposed to say, eh? Do you
want me to fall at your feet and start fucking worshipping you? Call you queen and tell you that you’re royalty and—and that you can’t do anything wrong and that you’re the damn finest …” He squeezes the edge of the sink until the material flakes away in his hand like a crumbling sculpture of snow.

  “You’re just being a dick now.” I retreat back to the dining table, pull a chair out to sit down, and then shove the chair back into its place when my restless legs send me pacing around the kitchen. “You don’t have to make fun of me. This might be normal for you, but it’s not for me, Kaeden. I know your friend is gone, and I know that’s awful—really awful—but that doesn’t change what happened to me. Can you really blame me for wanting to feel safe?”

  He won’t even look at me. He keeps his back to me, staring down at the sink and then through the floral curtain into the garden, which is baked in sunlight now, the ignored garden brown and crispy. “Do you know who I am? I’m Silence, Fiona. Silence, that’s what they call me. I’ve killed more men than you’d believe; tortured them too. I’ve fought more fights than any man you’ve ever met. I’ve seen people gunned down in front of me like dogs and I’ve done the gunning more’n once. What do you expect, goddamn? What can you expect? Calm down. Just go upstairs; get some sleep. You’re tired. We can talk about this when you’re less …” He waves his hands in the air.

  “Less what?” I hiss. He’s right, I know, but that just drives me on. Calm down; calm down. Is there anything worse to hear than that when you’re not calm? He won’t give me a straight answer. He won’t even entertain the idea of giving me a straight answer. He just wants me to sit here numbly, silently, do what he says when he says it, and disappear the rest of the time. “Huh?” I go on, when he continues to stare, dead-eyed, into the garden. I walk around to his side again, but this time I stride right over to him and clamp my hands down on his shoulders. He’s hot, sweating through his clothes.

  He reaches up and grabs my hand. For a second, it’s like he’s holding it, and everything will be okay. He’ll turn around and kiss me and tell me he wants me. I won’t have to wonder anymore. I won’t have to feel as though Reaper is still shoving that gun in my face anymore. But then his hand stiffens; he lowers it and finally turns to me. His face is set firmly.

  “Go upstairs and get some sleep,” he tells me. “When you’ve calmed down, we can talk about this.”

  “Just give me a straight answer!” I cry, leaping at him. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and look straight into his eyes as best as I can, on my tiptoes.

  He juts his lower jaw as though trying to stop himself from shouting. Then he sighs. It’s clear he’s trying to keep himself calm as well. “Just go upstairs …”

  “Just give me an answer!” I interrupt. “Stop telling me what to do and—”

  “I’ll never be the fucking man you want me to be!” he suddenly explodes, the walls trembling. A picture of a vase slides from the spot just above the microwave and slams into it, toppling onto its front and then cracking down the middle. He throws his hands up and shouts at the ceiling, but really at the sky, as though speaking to God. “You know who I am! You fucking know, and yet you still try’n make me into something I’m not! I can’t fucking commit to you, woman! Or whatever the hell it is you want!”

  “Then you can go to hell!” I scream. I leap back into the kitchen and snatch the car keys from the table. “Thanks for saving me! But not really, since it was you who got me taken in the first place, jerk!” My mind is fog, big clouds of it filling my head until there is no room left for thought. I stride outside, barefoot, and climb into the car, always expecting Kaeden to come chasing after me.

  I turn the key, rev the engine, but Kaeden does not follow. From my place in the driveway I can see though the open front door into the kitchen. Kaeden stays where he is. Maybe he wants me to go. Maybe it will be easier for both of us.

  “Fine,” I mutter, not allowing myself to cry.

  14

  Kaeden

  “Fucking talk to me like that,” I growl under my breath, as I slump down onto the kitchen floor and stare down at my trembling wrists. “Fucking …” I was about to call her a bitch but I can’t. It’s like there’s a stopgap inside of me, not allowing me to use that word with Fiona. I can’t call her a bitch, I realize. And as I realize that, I realize something else: I let her go. Goddamn it! I let her go!

  I get to my feet, annoyed at myself for letting her go but also annoyed at myself for following her. If she wants to drive away from the only person who’s going to keep her safe through this mess, then I ought to let her. What was all that bullshit about anyway? Shotgun dead, a blood-red hole in his head, and now she wants to talk about … what? Getting married or some shit? Getting engaged? I don’t know what the hell she wants, except that today, right now, isn’t the time to ask for it.

  “Fuck,” I whisper under my breath. I walk up to the edge of the driveway and look to the top and then the bottom of the street. Plenty of the fellas in the club talk about arguments with their girl, about how women’ll sometimes storm off, all dramatic, only to hover just a few streets down, waiting for them to catch up. Apparently they like the chase. Not Fiona; she’s gone, at least past the end of the street anyhow. I reckon she’s gone home. I believe her.

  I return to the house and go around to the garage. I’ve got to bust through the side door, since there are more boxes stacked up against it than make sense: tools, books, old shit from the owner who lived here when this house was still used as a house. I find an old beat-up Ford with the keys in the glove box and half a tank of gas. I do some quick checks to make sure the old girl won’t explode on me, and then I open the garage and drive the dusty, rusty thing out toward Fiona’s apartment.

  Following a woman …

  “I never thought I’d see the day,” Shotgun says, smiling happily as blood from his bullet hole drips down into his eyes.

  I almost swerve, but then I steady myself.

  “We both know that sleeplessness and stress and trauma are three of the main ingredients for minor hallucinations, my old friend. There’s no reason to be surprised.”

  I’m not hallucinating, though, because Shotgun’s image is like those curtains they have at fancy hotels; I can see right through him, and he flutters in and out of existence.

  “Chasing a woman,” the half-made man tuts. “What a fucking joke. You know she’ll lose respect for you now, right? Remember when we went to the mall and we counted how many henpecked fellas we could see? I got twenty-seven, but you reckoned that the big old hunter-looking type was henpecked but he was pretending he weren’t.”

  “I’m not henpecked,” I snarl, gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn as white as clean bone.

  “Sure you’re not. So why’re you chasing her?”

  I shake my head, trying to shake his words out of my mind. The hazy image has disappeared now but his voice is still loud. I’m not going crazy, though, because it’s more like I hear him where my own inner voice ought to be. I saw a man go crazy once; he reckoned the voices were coming from the speakers, the telephone, the windows, anything.

  “Congratulations,” the voice mocks. I imagine Shotgun grinning. “You’re not crazy. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a henpecked—”

  The voice dies as the engine dies, the fuel gauge suddenly depleting to nothing whereas a few moments ago it was half full. I growl out about a dozen curses and manage to coax the old beat-up piece of shit to a gas station a sixth-mile down the road. It’s one of those Western-looking places, sitting between two built-up areas but looking like it could be in the middle of nowhere. I pull into the empty slot and do a quick check over to make sure it’s the gas gauge that’s broken and there isn’t a leak. When I’m certain, I fill up the tank—ignoring the gauge—and go to pay.

  “All right, old man. How much for pump two?”

  The fella from the restaurant looks up at me in shock, the army-looking fella. He’s wearing a
red cap pulled low over his eyes, but I’m sure it’s him. His mouth falls open and I reckon mine does too.

  “You didn’t keep her back,” I tell him.

  He shrugs. “She was intent on getting away from me. I’m no jailor.”

  “Sure. I … you work in a gas station? That was a pretty damn fancy restaurant, old man. No disrespect.”

  He grins. “None taken. I own this gas station, and a few others. I’ve done mighty fine for myself since the war. That wound’s healing up nicely.”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence stretches, and then the old man offers me his hand. I didn’t notice before; he’s got an ooh-rah! tattoo on his knuckles. “Jordan McClain,” he says.

  I take his hand. “Kaeden,” I reply. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t give you my last name.”

  He withdraws his hand, shaking it in mock-pain. “I wish I’d known you back in the day. Take the tanks home, boys! We’ve got ourselves a human tank! Where’s your girl? I hope you managed to find her. It was mighty cruel what those men did, taking an innocent like that. Did you find her, son?”

  “I found her,” I whisper, thinking that right now she wants nothing to do with me, because I’m not what she wants and can’t be what she needs. Can’t … or won’t? I grind my teeth. “Let me ask you something,” I say on impulse. “Why are women so damn complicated?”

  Jordan chuckles as though I’ve just asked him some crazy science question. Then he sees that I’m serious. He taps his fingers against the counter. “I don’t know if I can rightly give an answer to that,” he says. “I don’t have a clue, and I’ve been married twice. I’m not the divorcing type,” he adds quickly, as though I’m going to judge him. “Cancer took my first wife, so I’ve been married twice, yessir, but why are they so … I haven’t got the slightest idea, son.”