by Stacy
*****
He slept like shit. The cold stung his face and his nose wouldn't stop running. Every drop of rain that hit the street outside his broken window echoed through his ears with no barrier to deaden the sound. It was one of the worst nights of his life. Almost as bad as the numerous nights he had spent in withdrawal from the drugs years before. Almost. Nothing could compare to the viral like symptoms that accompanied the withdrawal of heroin. It was like having the flu, a cold, your head hit with a hammer, and every bone in your body broken at the same time.
What he suffered from now, was more of a mental detox. His girlfriend left him, his home was in shambles, everyone was trying to kill him, and to top it all off, he had to watch as Fox cuddled up with that bastard Alaric. A slight jostle roused him from the foot of his bed. Carter shot up to a sitting position as fast as a lightning strike when he realized that someone else was on the bed with him.
"Alaric?" He asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
Alaric stared at the floor, dressed in jeans and a plain white t-shirt, one of the few times Carter had ever seen him out of uniform. Seeming distracted, Alaric only lifted his eyes to face Carter when he heard his name.
"What are you doing here?" Carter asked.
"I've found the leader of the cartel...but there is nothing I can do for you," Alaric said.
"What do you mean? Why not?" Carter asked.
"I cannot help you," Alaric said. "The leader of the cartel...he's a Vampire." Carter laughed out loud, but Alaric just started back at him as if he were crazy.
"A vampire? What is his henchmen a werewolf?" Carter asked.
"Not that kind of vampire you fool," Alaric said, "He's a powered human just like you or I, but a new breed altogether."
"So what he can't come out in the daylight or some shit?"
"No you idiot, I already told you it's not that kind of vampire," Alaric said. The giant man stiffened, rung his hands together, and cringed. "Vampire is only a nickname, like a Scorcher is for you, or a Screamer is for Eric."
"Why do they call him that?"
"Because he can suck your powers from you with a mere touch," Alaric said.
Carter's face twisted in question.
"Do you understand what I'm saying? Just by simply touching me, he could steal my super strength." Carter almost laughed aloud again, but thought better of it at the last second.
"But no one can beat you. You're Alaric, leader of the All Americans, the strongest man alive, the guy who gets the girl."
"I cannot beat him," Alaric said.
"You can't or you won't?" Carter asked in an accusatory tone.
"I won't okay, damn you!" Alaric said, "I won't!"
Carter thought Alaric may punch his head through the wall.
"But why?" he asked.
"Because I'm a coward! All right! A coward! If I lose my powers I've got nothing! Even a one percent chance of losing my powers to that monster is a risk I'm not willing to take!" Alaric sat at the foot of the bed with his head in his hands.
"Why are you telling me this?" Carter asked thoroughly confused.
Alaric reached from below the edge of he bed and produced a black duffel bag.
"I want you to take this," Alaric said tossing him the bag.
It landed in Carter's lap in a thud. Whatever is was it weighed a ton. Slowly, he undid the zipper to reveal stacks of bound hundred dollar bills.
"What the fuck man? There must be like fifty thousand dollars in here."
"A hundred thousand," Alaric said without skipping a beat.
"A hundred thousand dollars! Are you kidding me?"
"Nope."
"But why? For what?" Carter asked.
He tried to hold onto his senses. That much money was almost enough to make him go into shock.
"Whatever you want. Use it to start a new life," Alaric said. "Hell, go down to the Caribbean and spend your days lying on the beach for all I care."
"Oh I see, this is payoff money to get me to leave," Carter said his tone going from surprise to sour in an instant.
"It's not like that." Alaric's strong face went stern, but there was something else beneath that, something honest.
Carter didn't give a damn. He wasn't about to let this big monkey run him out of town.
"Really, because that's exactly what it looks like." Carter shoved the money back at Alaric.
"I've taken the liberty of securing you a first class plane ticket to anywhere in the world you want to go. If you don't want the money that's fine, but you have to go," Alaric said. "If you won't do it for yourself, do it for Fox. Don't make her watch you die again. Because this time, I don't think you're going to be so lucky. There's no second chances this time."
Carter winced at Alaric's reference to the time he had overdosed on heroin. He had stopped breathing, was for all intents and purposes dead, but was saved at the last second by an adrenaline shot to the heart.
Alaric threw the plane ticket on the floor before turning for the door.
"You fucker!" Carter leapt out of bed and jumped on Alaric's back. "You chicken shit, son of a bitch!"
With one arm wrapped around Alaric's throat, he used the other to punch the giant man in his sturdy jaw. Carter had no idea what the hell he was doing. He just knew he was mad and needed to take it out on someone.
"What do you think you're doing?" Alaric asked as he grabbed and loosened Carter's grip from his throat in one effortless movement.
"You can't buy me off you son of a bitch, and you can't make me leave. You just want me out of Fox's life!" Carter yelled in Alaric's ear.
Carter did another kind of yelling, in pain this time, as Alaric crushed Carter's fingers together, but Carter kicked Alaric in the back of the knee, knocking him to the floor.
"I came here to help you, you ungrateful selfish bastard!" Alaric yelled.
Carter jerked his arm back and was just barely able to free his hand from Alaric's grip. Carter took Alaric's back and threw a right hook, this time with a fist full of fire, hitting him in the side of the face.
With a growl of anger, Alaric went into a roll, taking Carter with him. They spun twice, leaving both men sprawled out on the dirty shag carpet. Carter went hot in his hands and feet. Little fires erupted from all four of his limbs as he scrambled to his feet.
The look on Alaric's face made Carter go weak in the knees. He had pissed the man off something fierce. One side of his face was bright red from the burning punch he had taken, and the expression Alaric wore was like a pissed off bull. From a kneeling position, Alaric charged, head and shoulders first, tackling Carter like a football player. Alaric's legs pumped furiously. The force lifted Carter from his feet, drove him back first into the wall, and together they burst through the drywall and out into the kitchen. Alaric slammed Carter on the cheap linoleum floor.
"You no good, druggie piece of shit!" Alaric punched straight down, and Carter moved his head at the last second. The man's anvil for a fist crunched the floor boards.
"Quit moving you good for nothing fuckhead!" Alaric punched again and again.
This time they found their mark and Carter's face was pummeled under Alaric's mighty fists. His nose splattered against his face. Carter, in a desperate attempt to get Alaric off of him, grabbed the man on the ribs, his fiery palms burning Alaric's skin. Alaric growled through the pain though, and it only seemed to piss him off all the more. Even when Alaric's shirt caught fire, and turned to ashes, he kept pounding Carter in the face. Carter lost count of the hits he had taken. The edges of his vision blurred as his eyes swelled up.
"Fuck you!" Carter screamed and spit blood in Alaric's face. Alaric cocked back. The last thing Carter saw was a fist the size of his face descending on him. Then the world went black.
*****
He awoke to a rhythmic beep. Over and over again it beeped. It beeped at the same pace as a leaky faucet. He tried to open his eyes, and found he could barely peek through the swollen lids. Through his blurry vision
he could make out a white sheet draped over him with spots of sporadic red blood dotting its otherwise bleached color. A machine, the source of the beeps, with a green line jumped up and down in rhythm with the beat of his pulse. Long tubes ran from his arm to an IV and another set, providing air, ran to his nose. The ceiling was dark and dusty, not the halogen lamps of a hospital room.
"Where am I?" he croaked in alarm.
He couldn't see anyone, but he could hear faint steps from behind the bed.
"You're in my version of the batcave." A voice he recognized as Fox said from over his shoulder. "A secret lair under my house."
The walls were bare rock in some places, stacked bricks in others, a mix of a natural and man built structure. The room was shaped like a semicircle with a long training pad complete with targets for throwing knives and other projectiles. On the opposite side of the room was a weight set and exercise machines. Fox didn't mess around when it came to this shit. She was prepared.
"How...how did I get here?" Carter asked.
"Alaric brought you here."
"Why? Why would he bring me here? Why not just leave me to die?" And at that moment Carter wished Alaric had. It felt as if his brain had been mixed up in a blender and his face was like a bloody piece of beef.
"Alaric would never leave anyone to die. Not even you," she said.
That only made Carter hate him all the more. That do-gooder son of a bitch saved his life, then brought him here to show his girlfriend how he had pounded her ex.
"Figures," Carter said.
"He's not a bad guy," Fox said.
"You're not helping," he said.
"Oh, I'm helping. I'm the only thing keeping you alive," she said in a mocking tone.
For the next day he slipped in and out of consciousness. While awake he and Fox talked about his condition, despite his face taking a pounding, his nose was broken and his cheek bone was fractured, but he was otherwise okay.
"It could have been a lot worse you know," she said. "I've seen Alaric kill a man in one punch. You're made of tougher stuff than you look."
"I've always been a survivor, if nothing else," he said. They spent that evening reminiscing about the old days, and even joking about cases or fights.
"Remember that time Darnell hung that Pusher out to dry? There he was, dangling in thin air over the buildings edge forty feet above the ground with nothing but Darnell's moving powers holding him aloft," she said.
"Yeah, but you're forgetting a key element there. Before Darnell got a hold of him that bastard had already pushed me into believing I was a chicken. I spent the next twenty four hours pecking at the floor," Carter said.
They laughed aloud and it echoed off the stone walls of the subterranean basement.
"How could I forget that?," she asked.
"You did spend the entire day corralling me like a wild animal."
"Those were good times."
"They were," he agreed.
A dour look came over her face at that moment, as if she had remembered something solemn.
"They weren't all good times though," she said.
It was as if they were sobering from their mirth. The air was just sucked out of the room as they went through the time line from so good to so bad in a matter of seconds.
"Yeah, things after that went from bad to worse, but we were just kids. What started out as just partying became an addiction and an addiction became an ugly way of life."
"I should have stood by you," she said.
"No, you did the right thing." He stretched his legs and arms, checking for feeling in them before propping himself up on his elbows. "No one should have to sit by and watch someone destroy themselves. You would have just been dragged down with me."
"I know, but I should have done something, done more," she said and a tear rolled down the side of her face. He reached out and wiped the tear from her cheek.
"You did what you could, beyond that you didn't owe me anything. And you still don't, which is why I'm going to go," he said sitting up.
"What? Where will you go?" she asked. "You're still too injured to leave."
"It's just my face. My legs are fine. I know of a shelter down at the old church that I'm sure has open beds. I'll go there," he said.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
He swung his legs around and stood up from the bed and immediately had to take a seat as the blood rushed to his head and the vein on the side of his head pounded with pain.
"Are you okay?" she asked rushing over to help him.
He held his arm out at length to stop her.
"I'm fine. I'm fine. Just the blood rushing to my head," he half lied.
He stood and was able to find his balance this time.
"Thank you, for everything you've done," he said before turning for a long dark shaft that he assumed ran to the surface.
"Carter...one more thing before you go." She called after him.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Alaric, he found the location of the Vampire." She held out a piece of paper with an address on it and a map. "Take it. Do with it what you will."
Slowly, he took the sheet of paper from her, looked at it for a moment, folded it up, and shoved it in his pants pocket.
"Thanks again," he said.
"Just follow the corridor." She pointed down the long arched hallway. "It leads you out a trap door in the side of the building."
And without another word, he walked down the corridor, through the trap door, and out of her life once again.
Chapter Five
Part 4
Part 4
Prologue 4
"So that's why you look like a human punching bag," she said.
"Mostly."
"What do you mean mostly? There was another fight after that?" she asked.
Her face crinkled up in disgust.
"Maybe," I responded hesitantly.
She got up from her chair, stomped out from behind her desk, and over to a cabinet on the far wall. She pulled open a drawer and grabbed a blue and white box from within.
"I want you to try these," she said throwing me the box.
"What's this?" I asked.
"A sample of some new medication, I want you to give it a try." She pulled on the bottom of her buttoned up dress shirt to straighten it before she sat back down.
"What kind of medication?"
"It's a blood pressure medication," she answered. "I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but with your...unique problem it could help."
I held the rectangular box in my hand and stared at it for a moment. It had a list of side effects a mile long written on the side. Not that I wasn't used to that. They all had side effects, and I seemed to get almost every one of them.
"So you left Fox?" she asked.
"Yeah."
"How did that make you feel?"
"I didn't feel much of anything," I lied.
"Certainly you must have felt something." She leaned forward, placing her elbows on the desk, as if the topic had piqued her interest.
"I felt like I needed to get high."
"Did you?" she asked.
"Did I feel that way? Or did I get high?"
"Did you get high?" she clarified.
"No." I shifted in my seat.
Just discussing the subject of using made me uncomfortable. My skin crawled and my mouth went dry as I imagined cutting up a line or holding that glass dick to my face. That feeling of anticipation that happened just before I flicked the lighter and sucked in a deep breath full of chemicals. The elation that I would feel as my worries rode away on a roiling cloud of smoke.
"Well that's a check mark on the plus side of things," she said pulling me from my contemplation, and I almost thanked her for it, for dragging me back to reality.
"The pain was excruciating, but Fox knew that I couldn't take pain killers. She knew first hand what would happen, so I endured the pain with no way to dull my senses."
"That must have been h
ard."
"It was. It still is. Hard, I mean," I said. "I feel every ache and pain that runs through my body with no sign of relief ever coming. It's just another regret."
"How's that?" she asked.
"I regret not being able to have handled my high. Every time I see someone have a casual drink after work. Every time I see weed smoked at a party, or people getting drunk just to get drunk. It makes me regret that that wasn't enough for me. It makes me wonder why I couldn't be happy with just a casual drink, or a little pot every now and then. Because of my addiction, I have to avoid it all, and it bugs the hell out of me," I said spilling my heart out in front of her.
"Sobriety's not so bad," she said.
I knew that was coming. Her family had all been alcoholics and drug addicts like myself, and she had spent a lifetime sober, having never touched even a drop of alcohol.
"You've never done it, so you don't miss it," I said.
"You think just because I have never tried it that I couldn't use a release every now and then?" she asked. "Because trust me I could."
She had me there. There's something about being an addict where we all think our situation is so special, but in truth we're all the same. The same behaviors, the same story replaying itself time and time again. It's all bullshit. I'm not special and I know it, but that doesn't stop me from complaining about it.
"It's not the same." I told her.
"How?" she asked, "how is it not the same?"
"You've never experienced the sweet relief that washes over you when you sink in that needle, or the warm tingling sensation that runs up your spine when the drugs start to kick in," I said.
"Maybe not," she conceded.
I looked up at her, surprised by her relinquishing of the upper hand she had on the conversation. Therapy was like war at times. A battle of wills, and I was fighting a constantly losing battle. I fought for my side, but my perspective was all fucked up. It didn't deserve to win the war, and somewhere deep down I knew it. I was an animal that needed a leash.