Dances with Monsters

by D. C. Ruins

  "Damn, there she is," one of the guys said and all eyes turned toward her. "That's the one I liked. I been wantin' you all night, honey."

  "Holy shit, you're right, Shane," another one chimed in from the other side. "Hey, baby, it's still early. Why don't you come over for a nightcap tonight?"

  At once, they all started speaking at her. Their voices were a jumble in her head and she shifted her eyes from side to side, hugging her bag to her chest. Their faces became a blur, their voices distant, and panic threatened to consume her. Her heart jerked oddly in her chest, beating fast, then slow, as anxiety filled her from her toes to the tips of her ears. She felt hot, then cold. Her breathing became hitched and memories, violent memories, assaulted her.

  She stared, unseeing, in front of her as she felt their body heat; they were closing in. Terror paralyzed her, and she couldn't move when she felt a hand on her shoulder, then another on her back, sliding down to her hip. She knew she was shaking, and she felt like she might throw up.

  Move, you dumb fuck! her mind screamed at her. Yell! Shove them! Get away! Do something! And yet, her body continued to disobey, keeping her rooted in place. She felt hot breath on her ear, heard the low murmur of a voice, and she squeezed her eyes shut, wanting either the ability to move or to die, right then.

  "Drew."

  His voice was cold, hard, but not angry with her. The strength of that one word made her eyes fly open as every head swiveled toward the voice.

  Heath was standing on the sidewalk a dozen feet away. His face held an expression she'd never seen before; it was the deepest, calmest anger she'd ever seen on a person. He stared at no one but her.

  He called me Drew, she thought vaguely. Not Drew. Drew. He always called her Drew.

  "Come here."

  The words were still hard, but there was also a gentleness to them. She swallowed and her level of panic lowered slightly. She took a hesitant step toward him, looking at no one but him. She watched as his eyes suddenly, sharply shifted to her right and he held up a hand, pointing a finger at someone past her shoulder. "Don't even fucking think about it," he said quietly, his voice dangerous and full of warning. She didn't want to know the reason for his threat.

  He looked at her again, and held his hand out to her. "Come here," he repeated, his voice taking on that hard and gentle quality again. "Come on."

  Her eyes fixed on his hand, her thudding heart beating erratically in her chest as she shuffled her feet forward off of pure desire. When she was close enough, she stiffly reached out and grabbed his hand, and then he was moving her quickly in front of him, turning her and himself so that she was in front of him and his back was to the group. The hand that held hers squeezed around it while his other landed on the small of her back and she looked up at him. He was glaring murderously over his shoulder but leading her out into the street toward a vehicle. He opened the door for her. "Get in," he said, and he looked down at her, his eyes still hard but full of questions that she didn't want to supply answers for. She climbed into the passenger seat wordlessly, her bag on her lap, and she clutched herself, trying to make her trembling subside. She didn't look at him, but she also didn't miss the look Heath exchanged with Connor in the backseat. As Heath started the car and pulled off, she fumbled through her bag for her meds. She located the amber bottle but didn't pull it out, miraculously managing to get the top off and two pills in her palm without much trouble, keeping her hands concealed inside her bag. She knew he'd notice, but she brought her shaking hand to her mouth quickly and tossed the pills in, gulping them down without water.

  "What's that?" he asked immediately, suspicion evident in his voice.

  "Aspirin," she lied quickly, and she knew he knew she was lying, but he gave it to her anyway.

  They drove toward Bloomfield in silence, as Drew waited for her nerves to soothe. When she felt somewhat in control of herself again, she glanced at him.

  "You called me Drew," she said.

  He didn't take his eyes off the road, but she saw confusion crease his brow. "Yeah?" he replied.

  "You never call me Drew," she said, echoing her thoughts from earlier. "You always call me Drew."

  He clearly didn't know where she was going with it, if anywhere. And truthfully, she wasn't going anywhere with it; she thought it best if she speak first so he couldn't ask her the questions she knew he had.

  "I thought that was your name," he said, gently sarcastic. "Would you prefer Drusilla next time?"

  She allowed a tiny smile. "No. Because that would actually not be my name. It's just Drew. I actually hate it when people call me Drusilla."

  He snorted quietly. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Where am I going?"

  Drew guided him through the neighborhood to her apartment, which was about a mile from the café. She reached for the door handle and turned to him, intending to thank him for the ride, and saw that he was taking his seat belt off and opening his own door.

  "I'll walk you to your door," he said in a tone that offered no option for refusing him.

  She glanced over her shoulder at Connor, who had been silent the entire ride and whose head was lying against the seat, eyes closed.

  "Good night," she said softly. "It was nice to meet you." She wasn't expecting a reply, assuming he was knocked out, and she jumped a little when she heard his voice reply back to her, completely awake and almost sober-sounding.

  "Good night, and nice to meet you, too," he offered back. "Hope to see you again soon."

  She wasn't sure how to reply so she merely nodded and hopped out of the car, Heath holding her door open. He pushed it closed and followed behind her as she led the way into the building and up to her apartment on the third floor. Her stomach clenched with stress. Now he knows where you live, she thought. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. She never wanted anyone but Bunz to know where she lived. Her family obviously knew, being that her parents owned the building, but outside of them, she was extremely cautious about anyone else knowing. What if Heath was some sort of psycho, and he was going to follow her inside and do unspeakably horrible things to her? Like in New York, she thought, and her heart tightened with stress again.

  But when she reached her door, and turned around, she noticed that he was at least three paces behind her and studying the carpeted floor. When he'd realized that she had come to a stop, he looked up, meeting her eyes that she knew were wide with a mixture of fear, expectation and uncertainty. He took a few ambling steps toward her, his hands in his pockets, and as she studied him, she noticed for the first time how good he looked. She was used to seeing him in sweats, athletic clothing, with either a skullcap or a hat on his head, or his hair damp and matted from sweat. But tonight, he was wearing a long-sleeved black sweater that looked light and soft and clung to his body just right, a nice pair of jeans and dark shoes. He even had a little product in his normally messy hair, and now he was close enough for her to smell his spicy cologne. She sucked in a breath, louder than she meant to as his gaze locked onto hers. They studied each other's faces for what felt like an eternity, and her heart kicked into another level of irregularity when his eyes dropped to her lips, his tongue flicking out between his own to moisten them.

  Oh, shit, she thought, panicked. Oh, fuck. Kiss me don't kiss me. Kiss me don't kiss me. Kiss me don't…..

  Her arms involuntarily rose and she hugged her bag to her chest, pressing her back against her door. The action was completely independent of her conscious thought, and he didn't miss it, his eyes going over her quickly.

  "Better go on in," he finally said, dropping his eyes. His hands never left his pockets and he subtly retreated a step. She gulped, feeling relief flooding through her, mixed with a strange twinge of disappointment.

  "Thanks for the ride," she squeaked, turning to grab for the handle.

  "Sure," he replied. "Good night."

  "Good night," she responded without looking at him, and rushed inside. She shut and triple-locked her door, then collapsed against it.
She felt anxiety flooding through her again, but this time, it wasn't due to paralyzing fear; the reason for it was completely different altogether and in fact, the reason was walking down the hall out of her building.

  Chapter Eight

  Heath leaned back in his desk chair on Monday evening, yawning deeply and rubbing his hands over his face. It had been a long day. Between endless paperwork, the computers crashing and a fight breaking out, he was already drained. Despite his physical tiredness, he knew he still had work to do. He'd managed to fit some training in today, but now the long-promised women's self-defense course was coming to the forefront. He'd put out a survey among the gym members and their families simply to gauge interest, and the response had been overwhelming. There were a few more female members at the gym now, and most of them had indicated that the course was something they'd like to participate in. He also had decided to make the course available to the wives/sisters/mothers/girlfriends of the male clientele, and by his count so far, he could plan on having at least fifty participants.

  He began creating the agenda for the course as it started to take shape in his mind. He knew if he didn't write it down now, he'd likely forget it later. As he mulled over his paper, tapping his pencil against the desktop, he decided it would need to be a two-day weekend event. The first part of the first day would be spent "in the classroom"—teaching women about situational awareness, going over local case studies of violence against women, statistics, and things like that. The rest of the day would be spent learning basic self-defense moves with a little sparring. The first half of the second day would be spent learning more advanced techniques with sparring, and the "final test" would be each woman facing off with him or any of the male volunteers he was putting feelers out for and spar. The object was for the woman to successfully get away from the attacker using the techniques they had learned. With the amount of participants, he knew he'd need at least five, preferably ten, male volunteers to help. He quickly jotted down several names that immediately came to him, including his brother's and his brother's trainer's, and returned his attention to the actual techniques, writing down several different moves that struck him. He knew that he'd need to go back over this list with someone and actually try out the moves, adjusting them to make sure they fit within the scheme of a women's self-defense course and could be easily picked up, perfected and applied. But for now, his list was coming along nicely.

  As he glanced over his notes and rough outline of the agenda, he was pleased; it was taking shape, aligning with his original vision, and he'd have plenty of great things to share with the participants. His eyes shifted over to the calendar. He needed to set a date, but it obviously needed to be after Smackdown. He penciled in a few tentative dates toward the end of April into early May, satisfied that he'd have plenty of time to iron out all the details and get a solid agenda together.

  He yawned again and reached for his bottle of water, taking a healthy pull as he glanced at the clock. He started in surprise. He hadn't realized working on the agenda for the self-defense course had taken as long as it had; it was nearly closing time.

  At that moment, as if reading his mind, Rex stuck his head in the office. "Closin' time, boss," he announced. "Got all the equipment sanitized, most of the clients have left. All except Carnevale." Ever since Drew had corrected him, he made a point to exaggerate the pronunciation of her name.

  Heath's ears perked up. "She came tonight?"

  Rex shrugged. "As always. That surprise you?" His eyes narrowed as he examined Heath's face. "Everything cool after the bar?"

  Rex and Jameson had both left early, so they hadn't witnessed the scene outside the bar. Heath averted his eyes and rose from his desk, gathering his jacket, gym bag, keys and water bottle. He shrugged. "It was fine."

  "C'mon, man," Rex said, standing to the side to let Heath pass through the door. "What happened? I can tell something's up."

  Heath hesitated. He didn't want to tell Rex too much; whatever was going on with Drew wasn't anyone's business but hers and he didn't want to give his brash friend any fodder to potentially torture her with. Rex had a habit of thinking he was funny when no one else did.

  "Some drunk guys gave her a hard time," Heath said lightly. "She's fine though."

  "Oh, save the day, did you?" Rex chortled as they headed into the gym.

  "Not at all," Heath replied. "Anyway, shut up about it in front of her."

  Rex just shook his head and laughed. "Everything look good, man?" he asked, sweeping his arm over the expanse of the gym. Heath knew what he was really asking was if he could go home.

  Heath glanced around then waved him off. "Yeah. Go home."

  As Rex left, Heath crossed the gym, rounding the corner of the ring in the middle of the room. He could hear the steady thump of Drew's fists on the bag. He had spent quite a bit of time since Saturday feeling confused; his interest was more than piqued by the way she'd reacted to the drunk guys outside the bar. He knew he had witnessed her having some sort of anxiety attack, and it reminded him of the Marines he'd fought beside—to him, all signs pointed to her suffering from PTSD. But what the PTSD could be a result of, he had no idea. He wanted to know, but he was also a huge fan of people minding their own business. If Drew wanted him to know…she'd let him know.

  As he came upon her, he noticed that she was beating the bag with new intensity, her arms quivering with fatigue. Her sharp exhales of breath had turned to grunts. She was overdoing it and risking injury. He leaned into her vision like he always did, to not startle her as much. Her eyes immediately shifted to him, and he saw fire and anger snapping in the deep, chocolate brown depths. She dropped her arms, still staring into his eyes and stood still, her chest heaving.

  He swallowed, unsure of what to say. He hadn't seen her look like this before. Finally, he cleared his throat. "You all right?"

  Abruptly, she yanked her headphones off her head and dropped her mitts to the ground. "Fine."

  Heath didn't know everything there was to know about women, but what little he did know told him that she was actually completely opposite of the answer she'd supplied. He sensed that rebutting her or probing further would likely make things worse, so he left it alone.

  "Hey," he said, switching gears. She glanced up at him, one of her brows raised questioningly. Curiosity pushed the fire out of her eyes and he was glad to see it. "I need your help."

  "My help?" she repeated, the other brow joining the first. "What could you possibly need my help with?"

  "Well, it's something you already shot me down for," he said, folding his arms. "I finally have a plan worked out for the women's self-defense course. Now that you know I'm not a total piece of shit, maybe you'll be willing to help me work the moves out."

  She shrugged. "Why can't you use Rex or Jameson or someone?"

  "I need a female body," he replied bluntly. A second later, he heard in his head how it must have sounded and shook his head as Drew hid a grin. "Not like that, smart ass. The course is designed for women; I need to make sure that it works with a woman's body, that the moves aren't too advanced for beginners and what not." He saw her hesitation. "What's wrong?"

  "Well, I've sparred before," she began. "In New York with my trainer. But that was like, boxing type stuff and we didn't do that very often. I'm not sure how well I'd fare with self-defense stuff."

  "It's not totally unlike boxing," Heath said with a shrug. "There are just other elements." He paused, studying her face as she studied her hands. "You would really be helping me out."

  Finally, she sighed and lifted her head, nodding. "All right. I suppose I owe you a favor, anyway."

  He had planned on not referencing Saturday night's events, for her comfort, and he'd expected that she wouldn't either. But now, her veiled reference served to almost put them at ease with each other. She smiled uncertainly at him, as though she wasn't sure how he'd receive her comment.

  He waved a hand. "No big deal," he said. "Let's go to the ring."

 
He hopped up into the ring and pulled the ropes back slightly as she hopped up beside him, stepping delicately through the ropes. She stood with her back to them, hugging herself as he moved into the center of the ring.

  "All right," he said. "Come here. I'm going to show you how to hit angles." Drew stepped toward him uncertainly, still hugging herself. He smirked and reached out, pulling gently at one of her arms. "You have to put your arms down. Stand like this." He showed her a proper, basic fighting stance and she mimicked him.

  "Now. I want you come toward my shoulder. When you get there, you're going to take your hands and push off, throwing me to the side. This is effective for when an attacker is coming at you head-on. You hit your angle, shove him away, and run. Got it?" He demonstrated slowly against her, turning his body away from her slightly, stepping up to her side, and using his hands to push at her shoulder, sending her stumbling back several steps as he moved away. She nodded, and he resumed his place in the center of the ring, facing her head on. "All right. I'm going to stand still. You hit my angle on both sides." Drew demonstrated, and he nodded his approval. "That was good. Easy?"

  "Yes," she replied. "Easy."

  They practiced that several more times, before Heath showed her how to take it to the next level if staying and fighting was the only option. He showed her how to reach up and grab an assailant by the back of the head and bring the head down, to ram it with the knee. He fetched a padded helmet with a front cover guard on it and told her to go to town.

  "Really go for it," he said. "You won't hurt me."

  Drew hit her angle and then whirled to the side, grasping the back of his head and yanking it down, while bringing her knee up to the front of his helmet. He was pleased that she'd caught on so quickly. He made her do it over and over, then practiced both moves together until he was satisfied with her progress. Next, he took her through some exercises to show her how to block strikes, how important it was to watch an opponent's shoulders and not their eyes, to be able to gauge from where they were going to throw their next punch.