“Come here,” she says, and she puts her arms around me, pulls me close until she’s pressed to my body and her head is on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
I say nothing. Can’t speak, my breath caught in my lungs. There was one Christmas with my foster mom, before she got sick, when she bought me the cell phone I wanted, and she hugged me and told me she loved me, and fuck, I can barely remember the phone.
But I remember the hug. I’ll never forget it. It was as tight and warm and wonderful as the one Pax is giving me now.
I let my foster mom go, watched her get lowered into the ground in a shiny coffin, but Pax... Pax is here, and how can I let her go?
***
Sunday is over too soon. Pax has her last week of classes before Christmas break, and I have one more day before I go meet my fate in the ring.
Holy shit, what the fuck shall I do?
I can’t let myself be killed. I have to make it out of the fight alive, find a way to pay back the debts, and be with Pax. But how?
I sit on my couch, my head in my hands, recalling the conversation I had with Elliot and Oliver after they beat the shit out of me. Them telling me they waited all this time, skulking in the shadows, biding their time, until the Crusher came back to Chicago to fight. He was touring, then he was out sick. Now he’s back and I’m supposed to fight him. It’s all set up with the boss of the Hellfire Fighters Club.
Because Elliot and Markus were cousins, and even though they weren’t close—which is also why Elliot never cared to pay for Kyle’s expenses after Markus died—for him it’s damn personal.
And I’m fucked. They know I’m not ready. Haven’t trained for it in two years. That’s exactly what they’re counting on.
They want me to lose. Even worse, they want me to never get up from the floor of that ring ever again. Reenacting Markus’s death. Taking their revenge on me.
I mean, this is the Crusher we’re talking about. The one who put me in the hospital before killing Markus. If I couldn’t take him on then, when I was in top form, how the fuck can I take him on now?
Yeah, they know all this.
What they don’t know is that I’m not the same guy I was then. These two years that passed have changed me. Markus’s death changed me.
Pax changed me.
Back then I fought for money and a fleeting sense of family and pride and a twisted sort of honor.
Now I have real goals. Real reasons.
Kyle and his mom depend on me. Dexter and Batman depend on me.
And Pax loves me. So I will damn well get up from that blood-spattered floor and do my best to live.
***
The agency doesn’t know about the upcoming fight. Happily oblivious, Johnson has booked me an appointment for tonight. I’ll be spending what could be my last night on earth with a woman I don’t know instead of with Pax.
Pax who said she understands, and that she will meet Corey for a movie.
Dammit, I’m the one who should be sitting on her bed, my arm around her, her head on my shoulder, instead of banging another woman.
How can Pax stand it? I can barely stand the thought of her and Corey, and he’s gay, for fuck’s sake.
My bad mood haunts me like a dark cloud over my head as I make my way to the rundown hotel I was given the address to and wait at the reception desk for my client to arrive.
I don’t wanna be here. I don’t wanna fucking do this.
Holy fucking shit, I can’t. I feel like I’m cheating on Pax. Cheating on myself and what I really want.
Goddammit.
The receptionist watches me impassively as I start pacing up and down the hotel lobby, muttering to myself. He’s probably seen his fair share of insanity here.