by Lux Miller
Margot winces at my joke. She turns away from me to pick at her nails, a habit she’s always had when she’s got something on her mind that she knows she should say, but doesn’t want to bring up. Shit, she’s hiding something. I sigh, “Out with it Margot… I know you’re withholding information, so just tell me. Let me guess… Brad knocked one of his bimbos up, huh? Figures since that was always his number one goal.”
She blanches as her gaze pops up to mine. She stares at me incredulously. “How… how the fuck did you know? It’s not confirmed yet, but everyone thinks it’s his.”
I feel my stomach turn as my gaze snaps up to hers, “Wait...what? Seriously? He knocked one of the waitresses up? And he’s only a contender for the father? Shit, he must be pissed about that.”
Margot’s pale face goes pink as she nods quickly, casting her eyes at the floor. “I think so. Like I said, it isn’t confirmed, so don’t go getting upset.”
I stop my silent revelry for a moment and look at Margot like she’s got an extra head. “Are you kidding? Why would I be upset?”
Margot plops both of her hands on her tiny waist and narrows her eyes at me like I’m dense. “Your husband got another woman pregnant. Aren’t you the least bit angry? Betrayed? Upset?”
I shrug my shoulders and level my gaze at Margot. “Why should I be? He’s been trying to plant his demon seed in me for years. I haven’t spent all this time and money thwarting him just to get angry when he manages to sow his oats into some other poor clod. Thank God, he won’t be my problem much longer. I filed for divorce from the idiot. I do feel sorry for whatever sleazy ho was dumb enough to let him fuck them bareback, though.”
Margot’s mouth falls open about the time I wish I’d kept mine shut. Shit. I narrow my eyes at her and blink in surprise. “You fucked Brad?!? Have you lost your goddamned mind or just your dignity?!?”
She moves her mouth like she’s trying to explain herself, but I just shake my head at her sadly. “Save it. You two deserve each other. Give me a few weeks to let the ink dry on the divorce papers and you can have him and all his sleaze, all to yourself.”
I turn to walk away from her, but she grabs me by the arm and whirls me around to face her, “Well, if you’d been doing it, he wouldn’t have had to find it elsewhere! You’re supposed to keep your husband happy!”
I blink at her in surprise. “Is that what he told you? Because I had more sex with that man that a porn star has in the average work month… and that’s even when you consider the replays the porn gets.”
Margot frowns. “It was only one time!”
I shrug my arm away from her and shake my head at her sadly. “That’s all it takes, Margot. I thought you had more sense than that. But congratulations. You let him sink his claws into you and now you will never escape his clutches.”
She points her finger at me with a startled gasp. Her voice is borderline hysteric as she wags her finger around in the air, “Who are you to talk? You’re his wife! How can you stand there and act high and mighty when you encourage his behavior! You know, it’s because you won’t fuck him that he has to go out and get it elsewhere! This is all your fault!”
I hold one hand up at her, nervous laughter bubbling out of my mouth. I nod solemnly, then giggle again. My emotional regulation meter is obviously broken as tears of frustration slide down my cheeks while I double over in laughter. The sour taste in my mouth intensifies as I wrap my arms across my belly to try to stop the uncomfortable pinch that’s gripping my gut from laughing too hard.
I gasp as I try desperately to swallow air to fill my lungs, but despite myself, I can’t seem to catch my breath. I continue to gulp at the air like a fish out of water until a cold voice startles me into inhaling sharply, “What’s so funny here?”
Whipping around, I find myself face to face with the devil. Instantly the humor in the poetic irony evaporates and I find myself through him as he stands before me looking perturbed. Don’t believe what people say about the devil having red, glowing eyes. I can assure you that the devil’s stare is ice cold blue, just like his heart. My voice is flat as I address him, “Brad.”
He narrows his eyes at my lack of even attempting to be friendly. He glances over at Margot, then at me and puts on a suave smile like he hasn’t been getting horizontal with who I thought was a friend I could count on. His voice is smooth, all hints of disdain gone as he addresses her, “Margot. It’s lovely to see you again…” He lowers his voice to try to hide his next words, but I hear him anyway, “..with clothes on.”
I take a deep breath and count slowly in my head. I’m trying my damnedest not to say something that I know will provoke him, but he’s not the only one with a temper here. He smirks at me and spouts off, “It’s nice to see that some of the waitresses here care about their appearance. Your hair is looking lovely with the subtle highlights of blue you’ve got going on. They really bring out your eyes and make them pop.”
Margot giggles, despite the look of fury I lob in her direction. It’s the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back and I can’t keep my snide remarks to myself any longer. “Yeah, kinda like she’s going to in a few months.” I make a crude gesture in front of myself as I mimic having a pregnant belly. “Looks like you finally succeeded in knocking up someone with that tiny prick of yours.”
I hear the smack before I feel the searing pain on the right side of my face, followed by a sharp gasp that sounds like Margot. I lick my bottom lip and groan when I taste blood. So the bastard finally hit me. I stumble backwards slightly, but regain my balance fairly quickly and shake my head to try to dampen the ache that’s radiating through my jaw. I twist it side to side and gain confidence knowing it isn’t broken.
I should shut up right about now and not provoke the bear. I delivered the divorce papers already, but it’s just not in me to back down from a fight. I may have spent years letting Brad have his way with me sexually, but I will be damned if I stand here and let him hit me. I may not be able to stop him, but I’m not going down without a fight. I muster what’s left of my pride from somewhere deep inside of me and let it all out in a scream that rivals a banshee.
Despite the upbeat music and the clicks, beeps, and dings of the hundreds of gaming machines just outside the swinging door that leads to the employee break room, there’s no way that my scream goes unheard. Brad leaps across the floor and presses me up against the wall with his body. He shoves his hand against my mouth hard enough that he forces my head back against the wall. I see stars as the back of my head cracks against the plaster surface and I know now that this isn’t going to be one of our typical fights. This is going to be the fight to end all fights.
I open my mouth and bite down as hard as I can into the fleshy part of his hand. He howls like a rabid dog and I close my eyes in anticipation of whatever is about to happen next. I brace myself, but nothing can prepare me for the one-two-three set of sucker punches that Brad lands on my face. This is about the time that Margot decides it’s appropriate to scream at the top of her lungs.
I groan in pain as I feel my head growing heavy. I open my eyes and see Margot staring in complete shock at the scene in front of her, backing out of harm’s way as quickly as she can as she stares on in horror. Brad has stepped away from me and is wiping his hand on his pants, pacing back and forth and he growls, “Look what you made me do, Poppy!” He turns back to me as my eyelids struggle to stay open. I’m not sure if I’m losing consciousness or if my eyes are swelling, but either way, my vision is getting fuzzy as I struggle to stay standing.
I spit at his feet, narrowly missing his designer leather shoes. “Fuck you, Brad. I didn’t turn you into the devil… you took the highway to hell all by yourself!” I focus all of my energy into lifting my left leg up and flinging it in his direction. I don’t hit my intended target of his family jewels, but I do make contact with his shin.
His hand is wrapped around my neck faster than I can blink as his hot breath blows across my face, “You little b
itch! You’re going to pay for that!”
He pushes me up the wall until my feet are dangling helplessly under me. I struggle against him with my hands, but the effort is fruitless. His hand is tightening more and more against my throat and I’m finding that I can’t get a breath into my lungs. I can hear a ruckus going on behind me and raised voices, but I’m too woozy to discern who any of them might belong to. I wobble slightly and gasp for air as Brad’s grip on my throat lessens and my feet hit the floor. Instead of holding up my weight, they buckle underneath me and the last thing I remember before everything fades to black is the faint scent of vanilla and being lifted off the floor in a crumpled heap of limbs.
TWENTY
Storm
Watching that asshole throw Poppy around like a rag doll set off an explosion inside of me that turned me into a raging beast. I’m still not sure that I’m stable enough not to hulk out again the minute I’m provoked. I’m fairly sure that my fist hitting the back of that jerk’s head was the sound heard ‘round the world. It was certainly loud enough when he tumbled into the wall, tripped over a bench, and knocked a set of freestanding lockers to the floor with his face. Okay, so the rest of his body probably had something to do with the crashing too, but that’s not the point.
As soon as he let go of Poppy’s throat, she collapsed to the floor and my attention zeroed in on her. She looked so helpless crumpled on the floor like a discarded toy. Whoever the girl was that was in the room with her, she wisely stayed back as I stormed over to her and lifted her up off the floor, then ran out of the employee break room as fast as my legs could carry me. I don’t know how much time passed with her unconscious in my arms, but it felt like I’d barely even gotten her out of the room when police officers and paramedics stormed in through the front doors of the Wonderland casino.
The paramedics had taken her from me and I may have been a little bit belligerent with them and growled at the first one to approach me. The threat of a taser pointed in my face made it a smidge easier for me to allow them to take her from me. Once the paramedics shouted that she was alive and breathing on her own, just knocked out and beaten up, I began to pull myself out of beast mode. That’s when I realized that the police officers were trying to talk to me. The only part I heard of what they had to say was, “For your own safety,” as I felt the bite of cold metal against my wrists as they were yanked behind my back.
While sitting on the floor in the middle of the casino where I just fought to a sold out crowd a week ago, I explained everything that happened. Apparently, the dark-haired girl that was still cowering in the break room corroborated what I had to say, because they didn’t arrest me on the spot. They did, however, arrest Poppy’s husband. He had a nice goose egg forming on the side of his head as the officers led him out in cuffs and if the look he was giving me wasn’t damning enough, the words he spat at me solidified his intent, “I will sue you so far up Shit Creek, Braxton Storm, that you’ll never be able to get near my wife ever again.”
I should have kept my mouth shut, but once a street fighter, always a street fighter and I’ve been very good at holding my tongue. “Ex-wife,” I mused at him as the officers dragged him along while dozens of people gawked at the casino’s top blackjack dealer being led out in cuffs. Especially since he looked like he got into a fight with a dog and lost. Which, he kinda did, I guess. When Brad heard what I had to say, he’d stopped dead in his tracks, glaring at me with a murderous expression as he strained against the police officers trying to get him outside.
I know, you shouldn’t poke a bear, especially one that’s caught in a trap, but I couldn’t help myself. Just before the officer that’s bigger than me shoved Brad outside through the revolving door, I’d informed him, “If you hadn’t been so busy trying to beat the shit out of Poppy, you’d have noticed she served you with divorce papers. She’s done with your bullshit, Brad. And she’s done with you.”
Once the officers had determined that I was no longer a threat to anyone, they let me go with a stern warning against slamming any other douchebags into walls. It was a relief to hear the officers essentially agree with what I’d done, but as soon as the cuffs were off me, my concern turned to Poppy. One of the officers gave me a lift to the hospital where they took her while I dug through her phone they’d recovered to try to find Hunter’s number. Hunter hadn’t answered, but I did manage to get a hold of her other brother, Jasper. Thankfully, Poppy’s pretty transparent with labeling her contacts. Jasper said he’d be on the first flight out of Malibu and asked me to stay with her.
So that’s where I am now. Sitting in the waiting room at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, pacing the floor so much they’re probably going to have to replace the hypoallergenic carpet. Jasper got here an hour ago and he’s been holed up in her room, where Poppy hasn’t made much progress since being brought in last night. They won’t discuss her medical care with me, but Jasper’s her brother, so they’ve been giving him details and he’s filled me in on the most important stuff.
Brad essentially choked her out, but they’re saying she’s going to be okay. Which is good, because if I didn’t already want to kill Brad, him hurting Poppy beyond repair would set me into a rage where I would, without a doubt, murder him. No ifs, ands, or buts about it - I would literally murder the asshole. Right now, Jasper says it’s just a waiting game until she comes around, but he’s warned me that there could be some memory loss and they don’t know how much yet, especially if there’s anything more than superficial damage.
Jasper says there’s a girl back in Malibu who’s going through something similar, except instead of a man beating the shit out of her, it was a rogue wave that she tried to surf. Instead of stunning everyone on the beach, where Jasper was luckily on duty as the lifeguard. She was slammed to the ocean floor, but he was able to pull her out before she drowned, though she still suffered some damage from the accident. He says that girl woke up, but that she’s got a severe case of amnesia and is missing weeks of time from before the accident.
He says he’s working with her to remember who she is, but since she didn’t have any ID on her, and there’s no missing persons reported in the area matching her description, they’ve hit a dead end. I can’t even imagine having to help someone remember who they are, but then again, I guess, in a way, I’ve done that for Poppy too. Less reminded her who she used to be and more reminded her what she isn’t. And she isn’t anyone’s property.
I hear a flurry of activity coming from down the hall and my heart lurches into my chest at the possibility that something has gone wrong with Poppy. Damn why do I care so much? She’s not even my girlfriend, just a friend that’s a girl. Oh, who am I kidding… if she’d have me, I’d be a hell of a lot more than a friend. I already know that we’re physically compatible and the conversations between us have been easy. There’s never any uncomfortable silence and she even used my toothbrush for the week she crashed with me at the hotel in Egg Harbor. If that kind of blind trust isn’t friendship, I don’t know what is.
And my heart aches to think that right now, something drastic may be altering both of our futures forever. I can’t take the suspense any longer and storm out of the waiting room, clomping my enormous feet down the stark white linoleum floors, surrounded by stark white walls with stark white lighting. I swear, when I do settle down and buy a house, I am not putting white anywhere in it. It’s so stale and medicinal that I’d lose my mind in a place like that. A home should be bright and colorful and reflect the personalities of the people living there, not look like it belongs in a magazine of unachievable dreams.
I stop at the doorway as I hear voices inside. To my delight, I can hear Poppy’s voice… she’s awake! My heart soars at the thought, but then dives back down to Earth as I hear the panic in her voice.
“No, no, no… don’t tell me that. You must have the wrong chart. There is no way I’m pregnant. I sabotaged Brad’s every effort. Every time. I made sure that he’d never spawn a demon inside of me. The
re was never a single time that I wasn’t diligent to make sure it wouldn’t happen.”
A male voice, soft but stern replies to her, “Ma’am… the test results are conclusive. You are very much pregnant, by our guess, approximately seven weeks along, maybe eight. We confirmed the urinalysis with an ultrasound. There’s a heartbeat, nice and strong, about 160 beats per minute. You’re very much pregnant, and from what we can tell, it’s a healthy pregnancy with a hearty fetus.”
Poppy’s voice is adamant as she declares, “No way in hell am I giving birth to anything with Brad’s demon blood. I don’t want it in me… there has to be something that can be done. Put it in someone else. Someone that can’t have kids, but please don’t make me give birth to the spawn of Satan.”
All is quiet for several moments until I hear Jasper’s good-natured, surfer-boy voice break through the silence, “Could it be somebody’s else’s?”
Immediately, Poppy denies it. “I’m married. What do you think I am? A floozy? Just because my husband is an asshole, doesn’t mean I’m the town slut. There’s not anybody else that could be the father… except…”