by Marata Eros
His body stiffens, and he shouts my name, frozen above me in a moment of unreal male perfection.
Lariat’s eyes find mine. He must not be sure of what he sees there.
I’m not sure, either. But I know right now that I’m content, happy, and deliriously tired. I feel as though the heartache, exhaustion, and uncertainty of the last three months have just crashed down.
“Come ʼere.” He scoops my healing body against his hard one.
I fight to stay awake. In the end, I can’t. I’m safe and warm because of Lariat’s presence.
I’m happy.
Epilogue
One Year Later
Mine.
Can’t get over that one word. Never really felt as if I belonged to anyone but myself and the team.
This last year hasn’t been easy. Angel was traumatized.
But I know trauma.
I never thought I would be a hero who mattered to anyone.
I roll over on the bed and survey my wealth. It’s not money and shit. I have plenty of that.
It’s this gorgeous creature who sleeps beside me each night.
I trace my eyes over her body. When that’s not enough, I use my fingertips.
Angel comes awake with a smile I can’t live without. I know my smile is pussy-whipped, and I don’t give a shit.
She’s my Angel. Mine.
“How you feeling, baby?”
“Pretty good for a fat cow.”
I smirk. Angel is not a fat cow. She is very, very pregnant. My fingers splay over her large, swollen belly, and an elbow—or maybe a foot; hell if I know—kicks at my hand.
A surprised laugh shoots out of me. “That kid’s gonna be a bruiser.”
She takes my hand and brings it to her mouth then kisses the center of my palm.
“Just like his daddy.”
My heart swells, and I feel as if it will bust out of my chest.
“Let’s grab breakfast.”
She nods then sort of can’t get out of the bed. I hoist Angel, and she waddles after me into the kitchen—our kitchen.
She sold her place. We got hitched about half a year ago and moved her into my place.
Doctors said she couldn’t have kids because of what Jenkins did to her, so Angel ditched the shot habit.
Turns out they were wrong.
I wrap my arms around her tightly, pulling her in close. “I got something to show you.”
She turns curious eyes to me. The bad one cooperates about ninety-nine percent of the time.
If I could turn back time, I would kill those fuckers again.
But Angel’s real mom did a stand-up job.
“What?” she asks.
“I’ll show you before food. Hoping you’ll still have your appetite. I want the shit off my phone too.”
Now I’ve really got her full attention.
Angel follows me slowly into the living room. I take out a phone from my floor safe. It’s a cell phone I no longer use.
While it powers up, I stroke her everywhere. I already have half a boner when the phone chimes.
Angel tries to grab it from me, but I press the front to my chest. “This is some gruesome shit. Not sure if I should show you. But figure you already guessed some of it.” I don’t say anything about Mini, and the senseless violence that killed her. Had nothing to do with the mob, or Angel. Just circumstance. But I’m going to close the circle that I can. Forever.
Her eyes go solemn. “Okay.”
“Don’t hate me now, Angel.”
She shakes her head, catching the side of my face with her cupped hand. “Never.”
I hand her the phone.
When she’s done scrolling through the pictures, her tears fall off the edge of her chin.
I let my breath out slowly and ask the dreaded question. “Why are you crying?”
Because Jenkins’s body in various stages of being beaten and dissolved is pretty fucking disgusting?
“Relief. I’m relieved.”
Not what I was expecting. “Oh.”
She hands me the phone, and I put it away, using the combination. The airlock sounds, and we look at each other.
Angel moves into my arms. “Happy too.”
“Happy I killed him?” I ask softly.
“Happy you made it slow.”
She doesn’t see my smile.
*
How doctors can screw up a penis from a vagina is a mystery. All those ultrasounds saying our kid was a boy?
Wrong.
Angel gives me a tired smile.
Hell, I was fucking exhausted after watching her push our daughter out.
I’m so goddamned glad I’m not a woman that I want to celebrate.
Instead, I sit by my wife, so happy I could die, and realize I don’t have to. I’m finally living.
The hospital door opens, and Angel’s real mom comes in.
They smile at each other. Angel decided it was better to welcome her parent instead of hate her for what neither had control over.
Besides, we named our daughter Beth.
Angel held her mom when she cried after we told her.
Bethany holds her granddaughter now, and Angel cries.
But not because she’s sad.
Because she finally isn’t.
THE END
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Volume 1
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Copyright © 2013 Marata Eros
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Prologue
“You’re dying,” Dr. Matthews says.
Two words.
Final.
Complete.
Desolate.
I feel my fingers clench the armrests of the chair underneath me, but the rest of my body remains numb.
If his words aren’t enough to convince me, I see my silence is a prevailing annoyance in his day.
Dr. Matthews walks stiffly, making his way to the softly glowing X-ray reader.
I flinch when he slaps the photo of the soft tissue of my brain against the magnetic tabs of the lit surface.
The light glows around the tumor, immortalizing the end of my life like an emblazoned tool of disregard.
Just the facts, ma’am.
I sway as I stand, gripping the solid oak of his desk. It’s very large, an anchor in the middle of his prestigious office full of the affectations of his career.
I walk toward Matthews. His hard face is edged by what might be sympathy. After all, it’s not every day he tells a twenty-two-year-old woman she’s got moments to live.
Actually, I do have time—months.
It’s just not enough.
I look at the mess that’s my brain, at the damning half a golf ball buried in a spot th
at will make me a vegetable if they operate. My eyes slide to the name at the bottom. For a split second, I hope to see another name there. But my own greets me.
Mitchell, Faren.
I back up and Matthews reaches to steady me.
But it’s too late.
I spin and run out of his office as his voice calls after me. The corners of my coat sail behind me as I slap the metal hospital door open and take the cement steps two at a time.
I see my car parked across the street and race to it. My escape, my despair, is a thundering initiative I can’t deny.
I miss the hit as if it happens to someone else. Only the noise permeates my senses as light flashes in my peripheral vision, mirrors against sunlight. I tumble in a slow spin of limbs. My body heaves and rolls, hitting the asphalt with a breath-stealing slap.
I lie against the rough black road. My lungs beg for air, burning for oxygen, and finally I take a sucking inhale that tears through my lungs.
The wet road feels cool against my face as I watch someone come into my line of sight. My body burns and my head aches. My arm is a slim exclamation point from my body, my fingers twitching. I can’t make them stop. I can’t make anything stop.
Powerless.
The doctor is too late with his condemning words. I’ve already died. I know this because the man who approaches is an angel. A helmet comes off hair so deep auburn it’s a low-burning lick of flame. He swims toward me like a mirage, walking in a surreal slow motion. I blink, and my vision blurs. I try to raise my arm to wipe my eyes and whimper when it disobeys my command.
My angel crouches down, his eyes a deep brown, belying the dark bronze of his hair. “Shhh… I got you.” His voice is a deep melody.
I sigh. Safe.
I try to focus on him but the helmet he parks next to his boots becomes three as my vision triples.
There’s a scuffle and I try to move to see what all the commotion’s about. The angel wraps his warm large hand around my smaller one and smiles. “It’s going to be okay.”
That’s when I know I’m not in heaven.
That’s what people say when nothing is okay.
1
One month prior
I flex my hand, grab my isometric handgrip, and do my hundred reps. So fun—a little like flossing my teeth. I put on the kettle with my good hand and turn the burner on high.
Flex, squeeze, release, flex again.
I get to a hundred and switch hands. As I go through my daily ritual, I flip open my Mac and browse my emails.
Faren, can you cover my shift? Faren, can you come in a half hour early? Faren, can you bring the main dish for the office pot luck?
Delete, delete, delete.
I’ll say yes because it’s hard for me to say no. Tough lessons in life have taught me that.
I put my handgrip on the corner of the end table, glancing at my left pinky and frowning. It’s almost straight. Almost. No one can tell unless they’re looking for it. No one ever looks that hard. Humanity glosses over shit.
I leave my laptop open and walk back to the stove. Depression-era jadeite salt and pepper shakers stand dead in the middle of a 1950s pink stove. The combo reminds me of an Easter egg. The kettle insists it’s ready, bleating like a sheep. I lift it carefully, deliberately, using all the muscles of my hands as I’ve been taught.
As I teach others to do.
I pour the hot water over the tea bag and sigh, forcing my bad hand to thread through the loop of the tea cup handle. My dexterity is returning. I’ve pushed myself so hard that my hand rebels, willfully abandoning its hold on the cup.
The porcelain shatters, and shards fly on the wood floor of my tiny apartment above the main street where I live in deep anonymity. The pieces splinter in all directions, and I sigh. I want to chop off my hand.
I want to cradle it against my chest because it still works. Just not perfectly.
Like my life.
*
“Another headache?” Sue asks.
I nod, my hands falling away from my temples as I reach for my patient folder. I grip it with both hands and scan who’s up first.
Bryce Collins. Pain. In. My. Ass.
I grin. I love the tough nuts to crack. They make it all worth it. I stride to my torture chamber, pushing the door open with my hip and search through the sea of work out equipment and hand held physical therapy implements to meet the sullen gaze of a seventeen-year old athletic prodigy.
A prodigy with a chip on his shoulder so wide I could drive a truck through it. Well I have my own dings and dents. We can compare later.
Right now, it’s all about the work.
“Hi, Bryce.”
He mumbles a reply as I hand him the first merciless task. The huge rubber band fits around the pole in the center of the room. Mirrors line the wall and toss back our struggles.
And our triumphs.
I watch as he half-heartedly goes through the motions of his straight leg kicks. When he reaches twenty I scoop my hand down and latch onto his hamstring and he groans at my touch. “Bend your knee a little,” he does while giving me a look that could kill. I stare neutrally back until his gaze drops and he finally digs in.
An hour later, shaking and sweating, Bryce’s huge and muscled body lumbers outside my door. He pauses as he opens it, looking at me with pissed off brown eyes.
“I hate you, Miss Mitchell,” he says and means it.
I smile back. I totally get it. Bryce needs to hate me to get better. It beats hating himself. I nod. “I know.”
He walks out, and I run my finger down the patient appointments for the day. Kiki makes her loud entrance, and my lips twist. She balances chai tea in both hands, staggering in too-tall heels that sink into the nearly bald carpet.
“Gawd!” she huffs as she winds her way through the ellipticals, weight machines, and treadmills. She leans against the walking bars that run like railroad tracks for those with dual injuries. Like both legs not working.
I swallow and force my smile back in place.
“Take your tea, you ungrateful bitch,” she squeals, handing me my tea.
I blow on it. A touch of honey and ginger rise through the vapor, and I grin over the rim of the cup as I sip through the little slot.
“So?” I ask in a purr.
Kiki is pure drama. It’s only Monday, so we have the entire week to build up to a crescendo. Mondays are usually sedate, so I brace myself. I have thirty minutes until my next client arrives to be tortured into wellness. Kiki smirks, sets down her tea, and moves to the pole. I give a furtive glance around the gym, hoping no one comes in.
“Got a…” She wraps around the pole and slides down it seductively, letting her butt cheeks split as she wiggles and bounces at the bottom. She springs up, the front of her hoohah a hairsbreadth from the cool metal. “Ginormous tip this weekend from a richie!”
She thrusts forward, wrapping one slender leg around the pole, and I groan. She does a little mock-hump against it and grins at me.
Kiki is so inappropriate I could die. But she’s my drug and I’m hers. We fit together because we’re so different. She’s an exotic dancer who’s also a senior at Northwestern State.
She makes great money, and she also does serious gym time, packing in an hour six days a week. It’s important to not look too striated, Kiki claims. No “guy-look.” Just tits, ass, and curves with definition. I designed the workout for her because I’m intimately familiar with the human body. I didn’t set out to be, but life had other plans.
The sins of the past become the direction of our future.
Kiki pouts, leaves the pole, and saunters toward me. “You’re no fun.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay… I know I’ve got to ask the burning question or we’ll get nowhere.”
She perks up. “You got it, sister.”
“Who was it?”
Kiki always takes stock of clients. Men think they know so much, but women could rule the world if we came together. I sigh. Kiki notices
regulars, high tippers, newcomers and flags the creeps. She’s scary uncanny. I came to watch a set at the prestigious strip club, Black Rose, and went away shocked.
Shocked by the clientele, shocked that Kiki could dance that well for such a short time, and shocked by the moolah.
“The owner,” Kiki whispers as if we have a secret.
I shrug. “So?”
“It’s Jared-effing-McKenna, baby!” Kiki is offended by my deliberate ignorance. Her brows rise to her hairline, and her dark eyes are wide with clear disdain.
Mine are steady with indifference.
The wheels of my memory spin. Oh yes. Jared McKenna. The Jared McKenna. Greek god. Adonis incarnate. Hercules. Playboy, womanizer, money mogul.
I slowly nod. Let’s add “strip club owner” to the repertoire. I remember the detail of why he has so much money and want to forget as soon as I do.
Kiki pouts and tears off the lid of her tea. “Anywho… he was with someone, and his pal tipped me big time.” She sips her cooling tea, gazing at me with “cat that ate the canary” eyes.
“Okay, the foreplay is killing me. How much?” I take a small slurp of tea, and she tells me. The tea sprays out of my mouth, and Kiki grins at my klutzy-ass move.
“Five hundred dollars!?” I choke some more, and tea dribbles down my chin.
“It’s okay, baby… it is a mind-blower. I mean,” her hands go to her ample chest in patent disbelief, “my nipples got hard and he didn’t even touch me,” she says sincerely and I burst out laughing. My headache is gone for the moment, my Monday morning lethargy lifting.
Five hundred bucks is an assload of cash, especially for one night of dancing half naked. It’s more than I take home every week. Just one tip. My schooling is done, my career path set partly because of circumstance. Kiki is high on drama, but doesn’t always say things without a purpose and I narrow my eyes at her.
“Spill it,” I demand.
Kiki’s lips twitch and she chucks her empty cup in the trash. “This type of gig could be the thing to get you out of that dump in downtown.”
I scowl. I like my downtown dump.
“Faren!” she wails.
I shush her before Sue comes in thinking someone died. Of course, with all the sounds of torment she’s heard since I began working here last year, nothing should faze her.