Four Mercenaries - The Complete Collection

by K. A. Merikan

  Drake flinched. “I wasn’t talking about now. You didn’t know me back then,” he said, clearly blind to the size of the abyss that had grown between them in the last four months.

  Clover shifted closer without getting up from the floor, and played with Drake’s fingers, which for once stayed in his hand. “What were you like back then?”

  Drake’s free hand opened and closed, and his gaze drifted to the window covered by blinds. “That was shortly before I met Tank. There were people around me who were in the same or similar situation. They wanted to offer me their support, but I hurt them instead. I didn’t want to let anybody in.” He took a deep, somewhat wheezing breath. “I think the reason I told Tank the truth instead of carrying out my job and killing him, was to provoke him. I wanted the adrenaline. I didn’t care if he’d killed me.”

  The image of Drake holding a gun to his jaw was back in Clover’s mind like a stab wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding. “But… you’re in a different place now, right?”

  Drake swallowed. His mouth twitched, but he said nothing, and his silence pushed Clover down a bottomless well.

  “I can’t lose you,” Clover said and massaged Drake’s wrist with his thumb. “Is there anything I can do to help? It’s not good for you to disappear the way you do.”

  Drake shook his head. “Don’t worry. I won’t do it. In the morning I… panicked,” he said and offered Clover the saddest of smiles. “I’m just not sure how you can still stand me after what happened.”

  Clover swallowed. This was what Drake needed—an assertion that Clover wasn’t holding a grudge. “No, Drake, really. I’m not gonna say ‘it’s fine’, but it’s been months, I healed, I know you only did what you had to. You protected me from those two motherfuckers. I was so scared of them, but you killed them.”

  Drake’s hand trembled in his. “I know it was the lesser of two evils, but… I still did it, and I can’t get it out of my head. Now you also have his mark on you, and it’s my fault,” he said in a tiny whisper.

  “It hurt, but I’m okay now, I really am, Drake. You can stop avoiding me.” Clover smiled despite it being the last thing he wanted to do.

  Drake pulled his hand away. “Stop saying that. You’re too good. You always try to excuse people, but that doesn’t change the fact that you got stained by this monster because of me. I’m not a good influence on your life. I pulled you into a suicidal mission, just because I didn’t want to go alone, and you’re excusing Pyro even though he just choked you.”

  Clover groaned. He really didn’t want to get into an argument right now. He wanted Drake back. The Drake who had so much passion for him, and who remained focused on Clover. The Drake who had kissed him with so much passion. But instead, he found out Drake thought he was ‘stained’.

  “I wanted to go.” Clover grabbed Drake’s sleeve, but when Drake retreated, the fabric pulled up his arm, revealing round dots of red on the skin. Clover wasn’t sure what he was looking at until he realized he’d seen them before. Two, on Drake’s back. Drake had told him they were cigarette burns. So where did he get new ones? The worst thing was Clover knew the answer. “Drake…”

  Drake pulled away as if he’d been shocked by electricity, already scrambling to his feet. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Clover dared look straight into Drake’s eyes and followed his lead, getting up as well. “It does.”

  “Stop. I’m serious. I don’t want to talk,” Drake snapped, stepping away as if he didn’t want Clover’s touch.

  Clover spread his arms but then let them fall. “Fine. I guess we can all just hate each other.”

  Drake exhaled. “I don’t hate you,” he said but left the room, shutting it behind him. A few heartbeats later, Clover heard the door to the apartment open and close too.

  The bastard left him on his own.

  He let out a roar of fury and pressed his forehead to the wall. A dead guy hung in the living room, and all they could do was have fights with each other. He hadn’t even scratched the surface of what he was going through, because Drake was too wounded to hear any of it, and he’d still managed to scare Drake off.

  “Fucking useless,” he muttered.

  Moments later, a voice.

  “Clover?”

  Clover chewed on his lip in a struggle to not lose it too and leave Tank to deal with everything himself. Once the need to cry subsided somewhat, Clover moved to the living room, where Tank glanced at him from above a hole in the floor.

  “Found the secret compartment, but it’s cleaned out,” he said, showing an empty metal box in the underfloor space.

  Clover sighed, eager to take his mind off Pyro’s hurtful words and Drake’s avoidance. “Fuck. I guess that’s it then for Mr. Hake.” He met the dead man’s gaze, nauseated at the thought that he might find Drake like this one day.

  “Yeah,” Tank said, carefully putting the floorboard into place. He then covered it with the carpet and leaned against the wall. With his shoulders low and a puffiness underneath his eyes, he looked tired. “I’m sorry about this mess. I’m not doing a good job at keeping us all together, am I?”

  Clover let out a choked laugh. “It’s hardly your fault. You’re the one stable person here, picking up everyone’s mess.”

  Tank’s mouth twisted into a weak smile, but he reached for Clover and pulled him down to sit against him, with the safety net of his arms keeping Clover warm. “Just us now. Left on the battlefield.”

  Clover instantly melted into Tank with a deep sigh of relief. They’d had their share of spats, but with Tank Clover didn’t need to feel like he was balancing on the edge of a knife. “Drake’s been burning himself. With cigarettes. Didn’t want to talk about it, obviously, so he left.”

  Tank huffed and banged his head against the wall. He stayed silent for several moments, but his fingers kept rubbing Clover’s flesh through his clothes. “You’re the only one who’s coping with this mess.”

  “Not really. It’s you who keeps me sane.” Clover put his head on Tank’s shoulder, unfazed by the corpse in the middle of the room. “Pyro hates me. Boar left that night because of me. I’m really embarrassed. We’ve had sex last night, and he said some horrible things to me just now.”

  Tank’s chest expanded rapidly. It happened whenever he was trying to hold in his immediate thoughts and think of something else to say. “You couldn’t know what would happen with Boar. It was an error of judgment. You shouldn’t feel guilty. You did your best, and if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have even known what happened to any of you. You’re very brave.”

  Clover hid his face against Tank’s bicep while bitterness filled his veins. “That night, I told Boar that if he loved me he would come too. I think about it every day. Please tell me I’m not a bad person.”

  There was it again. That meaningful inhale, and Clover shut his eyes, fighting tears that made his eyes itch.

  “It’s in the past. We can’t change it. You’re not a bad person, Clover, you just made a mistake. That’s all,” Tank said and kissed the top of his head.

  Clover sniffed. “I love you so much you wouldn’t even know. I always feel safe around you. Even when we argue, I know you’d never hurt me.”

  Tank shook his head and their eyes met. “I just wish you trusted me with your and Drake’s secret. You wouldn’t have to be so alone with it.”

  Something shrunk inside of Clover, but he only cuddled up to Tank more, relaxing ever so slightly under his arm, which smelled of delicious cologne. “I didn’t want you to treat me differently. I wasn’t sure how to process it myself. But the truth is it’s not fine. I still don’t know how to get back to normal. Apollo did what he intended to. He broke us.”

  Tank’s hand moved into his hair. “We all want good things to last. But bad shit happened. Boar’s not there, Pyro’s gone so far off the rails I don’t even know if there’s a way back for him, and Drake’s eaten up by guilt. You’re the only one who tries to put on a brave face. You’re allowed to grie
ve too, Clover. You don’t have to be strong for us. Didn’t I promise to take care of you?”

  “And that’s the other thing. I didn’t want it to eat at you. I got hurt stupidly charging into things. I thought I knew it all, and it turned out I couldn’t handle the simplest things. One punch to the face from Apollo’s men, a few threats, and I was a mess. I was terrified of what they might do to me.”

  Tank kissed Clover’s forehead, hugging him so gently Clover almost forgot about the dead body in the room. “Am I not your Daddy? I want to know what’s eating at you. I can take it. Maybe if I’d known, I’d have done things differently.”

  Clover sniffed, so calmed by Tank’s touch he could finally breathe with ease. “I don’t want different. I want things to go back to the way they were, but we can’t do that, can we? Sometimes, I feel I’m still stuck in that room where Drake was forced to torture me, and I can’t get out. You’re banging on the door, but I can’t leave. I even told Drake that I’m fine, but I’m not. I’d tell him anything so that he comes back to us, but when I think about him being back—really back, as in having-sex-back—I get this choking sensation in my throat. I hate it.”

  “You know he loves you, right? He practically told me he’d never felt this way about anyone before you. If you want him back, it will eventually happen, but if that’s your state of mind, then hiding what happened might not have been such a good decision. You don’t have to do this alone,” Tank said, cupping Clover’s face.

  Clover kissed him, so much lighter now that Tank actually knew all the things Clover had been hiding away in the darkest corners of his heart. “Thank you, Daddy. For being there for me even when I fuck up. I keep holding on to this hope that if we only find Boar, he can pull us back together.”

  Tank nodded. “Clover, we will pull back together whatever happens.”

  Clover took a deep breath when Tank wiped the tears off his face. They hugged in silence, and so much love filled Clover’s shattered heart, he was finally ready to move.

  When he looked out of the window, Pyro’s car wasn’t there. “Tank? I… I don’t particularly like Pyro right now, but I love him. You know what I mean? I can’t just let him go.”

  Tank groaned and rested his chin on Clover’s head. “I’ll go with you. I’ve got a tracker on his car.”

  Chapter 6 - Pyro

  The coke he’d bought burned his palm, as if it were a winning lottery check. The world around him thudded with the sound of feet and clapping accompanying the fight before his own. The venue here had much better acoustics than the shabby cellar back in Texas, and voices turned into a single sound blob that fell heavily on his shoulders with each pulse inside his head.

  He pushed past two women in heavy makeup and revealing clothes, uninterested in anything they had on offer. But once he reached the nearest table, the white dust from the tiny Ziploc bag sprinkled dry coffee stains, and anticipation rose deep inside Pyro.

  He divided the portion in two lines using his little finger, and then dove straight in, relieved when fire shot up his nostril and all the way to the back of his head. It was a cathartic moment, even though the drug wasn’t working its magic yet.

  Once he’d consumed the second line, the pressing need evaporated somewhat, and he looked up at a young woman, who seemed out of place in the waiting room. With her hands tightly clutched in her lap and worry painted all over her innocent features, she was dressed the part, with heavy makeup and killer heels, but it was more of a disguise than an outfit. He offered her a smile, but her eyes widened, and she shot to her feet. She covered her face when double doors opened, letting in the noise made by the audience.

  Two men entered, carrying a lump of flesh that might have been a man twenty minutes ago. Blood dripped to the floor, as if the body was full of holes, but the woman still hurried to the man’s side and grabbed his limp hand. Pyro averted his eyes when a long wail left her throat. It sounded as if she were the one dying, and maybe she was. On the inside, just like Pyro did every day without news of Boar.

  Pyro’s brain sharpened by the second, as if invisible hands progressively unwound tangles from his brain, leaving him to wonder whether anyone would miss him after the argument at Hake’s place. The men he called his friends, even Clover, were getting fed up with his shit. They’d all be relieved if he was gone. Maybe they’d even stop the search for Boar, consider him a lost cause, since it was hard to say how invested they were. He took a shuddery breath and glanced at Boar’s brass knuckles, which he rarely took off since finding them in the abandoned facility on the night of Boar’s disappearance. They were the only friends he had left.

  “Breaker? The arena’s ready for you,” said the lady who seemed to run the place. Clad in leather pants and a matching jacket, she looked like Morticia Adams’s reckless sister, and her voice, thick from years of smoking, brought Pyro to his feet.

  He walked past the lamenting woman and her corpse-boyfriend, their tragedy only a blip in the life of violence Pyro had chosen. If he was to fall, then it should happen in the fire of brutality, his bones broken, head crushed, teeth scattered over the ring. He was fine with that.

  Morticia acknowledged him with a nod and led the way through a corridor with no lights, her silhouette like a dark spider on the background of the open doors ahead. The roar of the crowd gathered to witness the upcoming battle drummed on the insides of Pyro’s ears, and the moment coke hit with its full potential, he could discern every single voice. The rush to his head was obvious by the time he entered the well-lit hall with huge halogen lights mounted on the ceiling.

  Bleachers were full of bloodthirsty animals just like him, their fury expressed in cries and jumping rather than putting their fists to use. He was their proxy, and he would kill or die trying.

  The size of the venue was an unexpected sight, but he soon took in the details—tall windows that had been covered with foil, a tower that reached almost all the way to the ceiling, with even more people perched on its staircase to watch the spectacle. The original purpose of this place became clear when Pyro followed Morticia to the edge of an empty pool.

  He was on the shallow side, so instead of awkwardly using the rusty ladder, Pyro jumped in, landing beside a smear of fresh blood left behind by a body that must have been dragged over the tiles. Heat glowed at him from lamps mounted in each corner of the pool, and he had to blink several times to adjust to the brightness.

  More details emerged from the white flood as that happened, and he noticed a plush throne on a podium which had to be a smaller diving tower. A man sat there, with two massive dogs at his sides, like a king about to give his subjects an offering of gladiators and blood. The light was too intense to allow Pyro a better look at the ‘king’, so he raised his hands, then pounded his chest, already getting sweaty.

  “Let’s do this!” he yelled so loudly his throat ached, and he saw his own spittle shine in the bright light. “Who do I kill?”

  The king laughed, and the raspy sound was carried through speakers mounted above. He wore a dark purple suit, and when he shook his head in amusement, long gray dreadlocks fell to the sides of his face. “Breaker, a newcomer who insisted he can take on the best of the best. Hope your teeth are as sharp as your tongue, because you’re up against our champion.”

  The people gathered shot to their feet when a spotlight pointed to a double door on the other side of the arena, where stairs led from the edge of the pool all the way to the bottom. The crowd started chanting, their voices quickening up to eventually reach the speed of Pyro’s cocaine-fueled heart. It was two syllables, but Pyro only understood the first—red.

  The king spoke again, hand on the head of one of the guard dogs. “The first time you saw him, he killed a brown bear with his bare hands. Now, he falls asleep wrapped in its pelt. To connect with his animal instincts, he says. In the four months since then, he kept feeding us what we want most: blood. Greet our champion, the Red Bear!”

  Pyro squinted, but it was like looking straigh
t into two suns. He wouldn’t see his opponent in detail until the two of them were close enough to pack a punch, but the massive man stepped into the arena with a raised fist. The cape he wore dropped to the tiles, prompting even more noise. Pyro didn’t care for any of those theatrics. He was here to smash the fucker’s head and collect his prize.

  Or Die.

  “Red Bear!” the man roared his own name. His voice sounded familiar despite the cruel quality to it, but Pyro went motionless when the giant man’s face became clear enough for him to recognize its features. His heart couldn’t have beat any faster.

  Cuts and bruises covered the firm, muscular chest that had lost its padding since Pyro last saw it, and large brown scars ran across the familiar face, his hair barely a shadow of ginger, but it was Boar.

  It was Boar.

  Pyro’s first thought was that his coke must had been laced, but if he were to hallucinate his lover to life, why would his mind show him an image so unlike the cuddly teddy bear Pyro loved?

  Boar huffed like a wild beast, and wouldn’t stop blinking at the sight of Pyro, but the show would go on despite the fire burning in the space between their bodies. What had happened to Boar? How he was doing? Or, more crucially, who did Pyro have to kill to get them both out of here alive, were questions that had to wait.

  The announcer went on. “This is a fight to the death, ladies and gentlemen, so if you don’t want blood on your clothes, you better not approach the edge!”

  Pyro’s brain ran a hundred miles per hour yet still couldn’t catch up to the shocking reality of this moment. He wasn’t afraid, and with each beat of his heart, liquid joy was pumped into his bloodstream in greater quantities. “It’s you,” he mouthed, the fight and spectators almost forgotten.

  Boar huffed, staring at Pyro with his mouth hanging slack under the tangled beard. His shoulders tensed, as if someone had pressed a switch at the back of his head, sending him forward in an aggressive stomp, but as he got close enough to whisper, his lips moved, “what are you doing here?”