by Hannah Ford
So I didn’t say anything to my father.
Instead, I did what he asked me to do.
I left.
There was nothing but silence as I walked past my father and followed Zack as he headed out the door. I grabbed my purse, which contained my money, credit cards and cell phone.
I knew I should have taken at least some clothes and toiletries, but any more time spent in the company of my father risked me losing my nerve and completely collapsing, begging him for forgiveness.
My parents had always made me feel like I somehow owed them something, just by the mere fact of my existence.
And if I stayed in the apartment for even another minute, I was going to fall apart and that would be just another chapter in the same old book. So I left, and Zach and I went out into the new morning together.
When we got outside and headed toward his truck, I stopped momentarily.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You don’t have to take me anywhere.” I smiled a little as he turned to face me, his beautiful green eyes squinting a little.
“I told you to come with me. I don’t just make empty promises,” he said calmly.
“I know, and it was so kind of you—more kind then you could even realize. But that doesn’t mean it’s fair for me to accept.”
His lip twitched up at the corner as if amused. “Does your old man always act like that?”
I thought about it. Shrugged. “Mostly, I guess.”
“So let him sweat it out for a change, then,” Zack said, grinning now. “Come on,” he said, nodding up to the window above. “See, he’s watching us right now. Imagine how much it’ll chap his ass when he sees you getting in the truck with me.”
I thought about it, glancing up and seeing my father’s shadow in the window.
“Maybe you can drive me to my friend’s house,” I said, smiling wider. “He’ll assume I went with you, and that’s bad enough.”
“Get in, then.” He walked to the front opened the door to the passenger side for me.
I inclined my head, blushing a little at his unintended chivalry. I got into the cab of the truck, noticing how it smelled of Zack, and also a little scent of pine.
It was a nice, cozy smell.
Zack got in the driver’s seat and started the engine. A cloud of smoke billowed out behind us and then we pulled away from the curb.
It was a strange feeling watching my apartment—my home—fade into the distance as I drove away from it with this strange man who’d done things to me last night that were previously unthinkable.
I was afraid to look over and see his expression, to truly acknowledge whatever was happening.
“So, my friend’s house is just a few minutes from here,” I said nervously, clearing my throat afterwards.
“Why do we need to go to your friend’s house?” Zack said, shifting gears.
“Well…you can’t be serious about me staying with you.”
“I have an apartment not too far from here.”
“Yes, but—“
“You’re welcome to stay with me as long as you need.” He sat there, his one hand dangling over the steering wheel, casual. His eyes were on the road.
I couldn’t help but once again admire his body, his handsomeness, but also his calm and cool demeanor that I couldn’t have pulled off in a million years.
Zack was one of those guys—the type that made you feel like he could handle absolutely anything, like he was literally unafraid of the world.
Meanwhile, I felt afraid of nearly everything most days.
“I don’t know,” I said, mulling over the idea for the first time. I dug my thumbnail into my teeth and then bit down on it. “This seems crazy. We don’t even know each other.”
“Isn’t that what makes it fun?” he said, finally glancing at me and flashing a grin.
“Well, tell me about yourself then,” I said. “Like, where are you from originally?”
Zack sighed. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t like talking about my past.”
“Are you in trouble or something?”
He didn’t respond for a moment. “Just not interested in going there. You needed a place to stay, you got one. But I can’t promise anything else.”
“Cool,” I said, wondering what this meant.
We drove in silence for a bit and then Zack’s phone began ringing. He answered it brusquely. “Wild,” he said into it, holding the phone to his ear.
There was a voice blabbering but I couldn’t hear the words.
And then Zack nodded. “It’s early,” he said. “I’m there if they got the money.” A few seconds later, he asked for an address, nodded, then hung up. He tucked the phone back into his pocket. “Detour,” he said. “I need to stop off and do some work, pick up some cash.”
“What kind of work?”
“It shouldn’t take long,” he said. “It’s a little early in the day for it, but I take the work whenever it comes in.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. I checked the time on the dashboard of his truck—the clock read 10:07am. I wondered what kind of job he was bringing me to—I hoped he wasn’t a drug dealer or something.
After another minute or two driving in silence, I spoke again. “Is this illegal?”
“Sort of,” he said.
“Then I don’t want any part of it.”
He laughed. “It’s not that kind of thing. You can’t get into any trouble for it.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Actually, I am,” he said, laughing again, shooting me a quick look of amusement as he stepped on the gas and shifted gears again.
After a little bit, we pulled up in front of a home on a residential street.
Zack turned off the car and grabbed the keys. “Ready?” he asked me.
“Should I wait in the truck?”
“Probably,” he said, then got out and slammed the door shut. He started toward the yard, which had a chain link fence around it. There were some people in the back yard waiting for him.
A few of them were holding up their cell phones, clearly filming Zack.
I grew curious.
Maybe he sings for birthday parties? Maybe he’s a famous DJ?
A clown?
Maybe he skateboards or juggles.
I couldn’t think of much else that made sense—why he would just show up at some house and get paid and filmed like he was some kind of celebrity.
I got out of the car, slowly heading toward the back yard to see what was happening. When I approached the fence, I saw that a crowd of about fifteen or twenty young men (with just a sprinkling of three or four women) were standing around drinking beer.
There was a large keg standing on one end of the lawn near the porch.
Zack was stripping off his jacket. He said something to one of the men, who approached and showed him a roll of money. Zack glanced at the money and nodded approvingly. Then he took off his shirt, baring his muscular, tattooed torso to the crowd.
Oh my God. He’s a male stripper.
I felt revolted and entranced.
Then I saw another man, much bigger and even more muscular than Zack, also with his shirt off. He was even more heavily tattooed, and he also sported a thick Mohawk dyed blue.
The larger man was throwing punches at the air. His eyes were wide and insane.
The crowd formed a semi circle as the big blue haired maniac squared off against Zack. Zack rolled his shoulders and gave a quick smile and a nod at the blue-haired monster.
The man holding the money got between them momentarily, raising his voice to the audience of beer swilling hicks in the backyard. “Okay, y’all, this contest is simple. No holds barred—anything goes. First man to tap, ask to stop the fight, or get knocked the fuck out loses. Last man standing wins and gets the money.”
He backed away and someone handed him a cup of beer and he drank it, squeezing the roll of bills in his other hand.
I couldn’t believe this was real. If I wasn
’t watching it in real time, I’d assume this was staged—a hoax, a joke.
A bunch of young men drinking warm beer and standing around a muddy backyard, paying to watch two strangers beat the crap out of each other.
But that didn’t explain why Zack was there. I could tell he was intelligent, and he was clearly hot enough to be a model. He could get money a different way, and yet he chose to do this.
Why?
But my ruminations were interrupted by the commencing of an actual fight in front of my eyes.
The onlookers began raucously cheering, whooping and hollering as it began.
Mohawk walked briskly towards Zack, hands up as if to block punches, but Zack wasn’t throwing any punches. He backed away, slowly, his own hands down at his sides, moving his head ever so slightly from left to right, as if taunting the bigger man.
Mohawk grinned, revealing a mouth shy of a few teeth—his dental health couldn’t have been exactly encouraged by this sort of activity.
Mohawk seemed to tire of chasing Zack, stopped and stood there, waving at him with both hands. “Come on,” he shouted. “You wanna fight or you want to run, pussy?”
The crowd cheered, but some people whistled and booed.
Zack stopped and then moved forward suddenly, ducking as Mohawk threw a hard but ultimately slow, wide, looping punch that missed by at least two feet.
Zack threw a hard punch to the bigger man’s gut, hitting him just below his ribcage, collapsing him sideways from the pain and force of the blow. As Mohawk began to try and protect his body, he brought his hands low, and then Zack pivoted and threw a vicious punch that landed with a thud on the jaw that could be heard echoing out into the neighborhood.
The punch separated Mohawk from his senses completely, and he fell sideways to the dirt in one violent mass of unconscious flesh.
His head bounced off the ground and then he rolled onto his back, legs kicking out straight as if he’d been electrocuted.
Zack stood there, watching him momentarily.
The crowd had fallen deathly silent, as if the brutality and finality of the contest had dismayed even the most bloodthirsty observers.
As a couple of guys lifted Mohawk off his back and into a sitting position, his eyes opened and he shook his head. They seemed to be explaining to him that the fight was indeed over.
Meanwhile, Zack approached the man handling the money. Outstretching his hand, Zack still seemed to radiate danger.
Everyone nearby had fallen silent and watchful, like he was some rabid dog that might just tear into the nearest person who looked at him wrong.
He was handed a wad of cash that he didn’t bother counting, just stuffed the roll of bills into his pants pocket. Then he grabbed his shirt and coat and walked off, exiting through the gate while the crowd stared mutely at him.
When he reached me, Zack pulled his shirt on and then glanced at me. “You should’ve stayed in the truck,” he said.
“I didn’t know,” I replied, following him as he headed back to the vehicle.
We both got inside. Zack started the car and then examined his knuckles while it idled. His hand looked a little swollen and raw, but that could just as easily have been from the fight with my cousins.
“Not too bad,” he muttered, flexing his fingers out and then making a fist. He grimaced a little as he closed his hand.
“So this is what you do all day? Beat people up?” I said, unable to keep the judgment out of my voice.
Zack gave me a quick sideways look before pulling the truck out into the street. “That’s just one of my many talents,” he said, clearly not taking my question seriously.
“And now where do we go?” I said, feeling strangely betrayed.
“Where do you want to go?” he replied.
“Oh, I don’t know. Somewhere else equally fun. How about a slaughterhouse?”
Zack gave a grunting laugh. “Relax, Caeli. Nobody got hurt too bad. It’s just a fight, it’s what we do.”
“Don’t act like it’s normal to do that to people.”
“I didn’t say it was normal. I said it’s what people like me do. We fight.”
“You could at least get in a ring and do it professionally, not illegally in a backyard.”
“So that would make it all better then?” he retorted.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“That’s a start,” he said, his voice hardening as he drove faster.
I bit my nail, chewing on it absentmindedly, then realized what I was doing and stopped. My leg jittered anxiously. “I don’t even know what I’m doing right now. You’re right, I don’t know you and I shouldn’t judge you.”
“I never said any of that,” Zack laughed.
“Well, I just did.”
“What’s your damage?” he asked, shaking his head.
“This whole situation is just ridiculous. How many girls have you slept with?”
He didn’t answer.
I snorted. “That many?”
“You’re really itching to find something to hate about me,” Zack said. “Well, you won’t have to look far if that’s what you’re after.”
“I just don’t get why you asked me to come stay with you. Was it just because my father pissed you off? And now you’re regretting it, so you’re trying to scare me away or something?”
Zack sighed, turning the truck onto a side road. “I asked you to stay because it seemed like you might need a safer place to live.”
I cackled madly. “Living with you is safer? On what planet?”
He glanced at me, his green eyes flashing. “Nobody will ever hurt you or so much as look at your wrong when you’re with me,” he said.
In that moment, I felt the truth behind his words. I knew that he wasn’t merely saying it, that he actually meant it and intended to honor it.
The sensation of his protectiveness caused chills to cascade throughout my body, making my skin flash into goose bumps.
I inhaled sharply, my nipples stiffening.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” I admitted.
He gave a small grin. “You don’t need to say anything.” And then he pulled into a shopping plaza with a department store. In the next lot over was a large supermarket. “I happen to have come into some cash today,” Zack said, winking at me. “So why don’t you run into the store, pick out some clothes for the next few days, some essentials, and then I’ll run across to the market and grab some food and whatnot.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said.
“Caeli,” Zack said, turning to me and staring into my eyes. “You deserve to have a few nice things. It’s my treat. Let me do this for you.”
I shook my head. “I can go home and pick up some clothes—“
“No,” Zack said. “We both know if you go back to that apartment, this all falls apart.”
His insight into my personality scared me a little. “I can’t live with you.”
“You’re just staying with me for a bit,” he said. “Nobody said anything about living together.”
“But what’s the point?” I asked, my hands curling tightly around my shirt anxiously. “Eventually I have to go back. This is silly.”
“No,” Zack said.
“No I don’t have to go back or no this isn’t silly?”
“Both,” he replied simply. “Now get out and I’ll meet you in a few minutes in the store when you’re ready to check out.”
ZACK
After Caeli reluctantly got out of the truck, I watched her walk hesitantly towards the department store.
She was beautiful and sexy as fuck, and she didn’t even seem to realize it.
It was as though she was a beautiful, rare flower growing in the mud and dirt, somehow existing in the middle of a war zone.
I’d seen beauty destroyed before—but nothing so beautiful as her.
Nothing so rare as her.
My stomach clenched a little as I watched her disappear into the st
ore, looking back once over her shoulder as she went inside.
My palms were suddenly sweating and I had a pounding headache as my mind spun back in time.
Gun shots rattling.
Me, running full speed with my gear, shooting like a maniac, the bullets I fire blowing through the bodies of the enemy fleeing before me. They don’t know how to deal with someone who is unafraid of death—someone who will do anything to defend his brothers.
The fury of seeing my best friends scared, wounded, killed—the smell of burning flesh and the madness of battle—all of these sights and sounds and scents are now permanently etched into the backs of my eyeballs, the insides of my nostrils, hitting my ear drums and echoing endlessly.
We’re all going to die out here and I know it.
But first, I intend to give my brothers every chance and opportunity to survive the ambush, and if that means my life is over, then so be it. After everything I’ve seen in Afghanistan, I don’t really think my life can ever be what it was—the veil has been pulled back and it won’t ever be the same for me.
I’m fine with being a sacrifice.
I snapped out of my memory, heart pounding, breathing shallowly, as someone laid on their car horn behind me. I turned and glared at the young guy in his car, and his face visibly paled.
The look in my eyes was probably enough to make him pee his pants.
I turned around, getting control of myself little by little and then driving across to the plaza with the supermarket.
Just run. Leave her in the store back there and get the hell away from her.
You’ll be sparing her so much misery. You’re ruined, a shell of a human being. You know this is all meaningless, your mind corrupted from everything you’ve seen and the places you’ve been.
Why are you still trying to act like a human being when you know it’s all a lie?
I wiped the sweat from my brow and slowed my breathing little by little. Part of me did want to run, leave her in the store.
I was supposed to leave her this morning, not ask her to come and stay with me at my apartment. But something inside of me couldn’t stand by and let that beautiful flower wilt in the hot sun, couldn’t abide by that old man trying to crush her underfoot.
I knew it wasn’t my place—me of all people. I was about the last person that should be trying to save anyone else, seeing as I’d been drowning for a long time.