Fuck.
Even if we were together for a while, she’d find out pretty quick what an asshole I really was because the first fucking thing I was going to do was to get drunk off my ass. She’d go back to school and end up with a study partner who was a guy, and I’d have to fucking kill him. Just the thought of her being close to another guy was enough to get me worked up and wanting to punch something.
Raine took my hand, and we walked to the shelter together as the sun began to set. She was going on about something, but I wasn’t really listening to her. I just nodded and grunted every once in a while as I banked the fire for the night and Raine shook sand out of the mats. She said something about her friend Lindsay, the shopoholic, and her escapades at a mall in Cleveland as we settled down on the mattress to sleep. My thoughts were far too internalized to understand any of the details of her monologue.
There was no way being back in polite society with Raine would work. Here was perfect. Here I could be everything she needed because her needs weren’t complicated in this place. Back in the normal world, I was nothing but a social misfit, just like the fucking Christmas toys in the Rudolph cartoon. Raine had friends to take her shopping and people who cared about her. She had potential, she had intelligence, she had money, and she had looks. She wouldn’t need me for anything.
It was probably that thought that brought back the nightmares with a vengeance.
“You like that? Huh? You gonna scream for me again?” He holds her hair with one hand, pinning her head to the ground. The other hand twists the knife he has lodged in her side…
My jaw tightened, and it actually felt like I might bite through my own teeth for a moment. The palm-frond ceiling of the new shelter was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. I must have rolled off of Raine after I fell asleep because the nightmare was pretty fucking awful and I hadn’t had one like that for a while. Well, a few days, anyway. The scene was the same – they had her down on the beach and I couldn’t get to her in time – but the faces, the faces were all different.
My stomach cramped, and I wrapped my arms around my middle for a moment, swallowing hard and telling myself not to be such a pussy. It was a dream, for fuck’s sake. I forced my body to relax a little while I stared at Raine’s peaceful, sleeping form. I tried to make myself focus on her face so I wouldn’t see anything else in my mind, but it wasn’t working. I lay my fingers over the top of hers, thinking maybe the physical touch would help, but it didn’t make any difference. I kept seeing his face – that bastard motherfucker who took what shambles of a life I had and fucking destroyed it. Gunter Darke. This time, his face had replaced Dreadlocks’ in my dream. Franks held Raine down while Gunter’s body violated her and his knife tore into her flesh.
I couldn’t hold it back any longer, stumbled outside the shelter, and dropped to my hands and knees to get sick. When I was done, I thought about going down to the water to wash off my face, but I didn’t want to be that far from her – definitely not now.
“She’s safe.”
I said it out loud, though under my breath, so I wouldn’t wake Raine.
“He never fucking touched her.”
Memories of her father’s face, not so unlike hers, as Gunter ripped into him flooded my brain.
“You like that? Huh? You like that, pig? You gonna scream for me again?”
“Did you have another nightmare?” Her soft voice came to me from the night breeze. I swallowed hard before nodding once. Raine was next to me a moment later, one of her small hands resting on top of my shoulder, the other offering me a cup of water. I washed out my mouth, drank a little, and then put it off to one side in the sand. I reached over and pulled Raine closer to me, kneeling in front of her and pushing the side of my face into her stomach. I breathed in her scent and tried to stop the shaking in my hands.
“I want a fucking drink,” I cried into her skin.
“I can’t give you that,” Raine said as her hands wrapped up in my hair. “I can only give you me.”
“I love you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t help him. I should have…if I had known you then, I would have fucking died to save him for you.”
Raine’s breath caught in her throat, and I felt her knees buckle a little.
“Will you tell me now?” I could barely hear her.
Was it time? Could I tell her? I couldn’t give her the details – I wouldn’t. But shouldn’t she know? Shouldn’t she know I didn’t do anything? Didn’t she deserve to know what a fucking useless bastard I was?
“I had just won my last fight,” I heard myself tell her. “There was always a big victory party and dinner and shit afterwards when it was a big fight. This one had gone on for four days, out in the middle of the desert in Nevada somewhere. I came out barely scratched and was pretty fucking pleased with myself. I think I netted over two million on that tournament. God knows what Landon and Franks made off of it. They flew us all back to this big resort in Seattle afterwards. There was this luxurious balcony which looked over a dance floor and bar and shit like that – a live band, lots of tables and hookers and people just partying. I was standing near the edge, just watching the people and getting my back patted by the guys who won something off my performance as they walked by. There was another guy with me – Gunter. Franks was his uncle.”
“Gunter Darke. The man who killed my father,” Raine said softly.
“Yeah, he’s the one who was put away for killing all of them.”
“He died in prison.”
“Yeah, pissed off the wrong motherfucker, I guess.” I tightened my grip around her middle and closed my eyes as the memories rushed over me. “He was standing with me, and I was telling him about the last contestant I had killed when he suddenly stands up straight and points out over the crowd.”
“See that guy?”
“Which one?” I asked.
“The one on the far left side of the bar, with a Manhattan in his hand,” Gunter said. “Big guy, dark jacket, dress shoes, no tie. Fuck! There’s two of them!”
“Two of what?”
“Cops, Bastian – they’re fucking cops.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can fucking smell them,” Gunter said with a grin. “Just watch the way they walk – strutting with their arms out to their sides like they’re wearing guns even when they aren’t. You ever seen those two before?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Fuck! Hey, Franks!”
“I don’t know how he really knew they were cops, but he did,” I said. “Franks flipped out and had security haul them up to the balcony. When they didn’t answer his questions about what they were doing there, he had security go through the whole fucking place. It took a couple hours, but in the end every single person who couldn’t be vouched for by one of the bosses was hauled up there and lined up against the back wall. Sixteen of them altogether.”
“Those are all the people Gunter Darke killed.”
“Yeah, but he…he didn’t just kill them. Fuck, if he had just shot them all in the head, I probably wouldn’t have left. I probably wouldn’t have testified. I’d probably still be fighting. What he did…shit. I can’t even tell you what he did to the guys, Raine, let alone the women. I don’t want you to ever fucking think about it.”
“I think I know enough,” she admitted.
Thank God she wasn’t going to argue that point.
“I started to…I don’t know…go over there. I don’t know what the fuck I was going to do. Stop him? John Paul and Landon, they held me back. Said I’d just get myself killed, too. I should have fucking done something. I just stood there and watched it all. Two of Franks’ bigger security guys were holding them, and Franks was giving Gunter suggestions about what to do next, and I just fucking stood there and fucking watched it happen…”
I stopped, a sob coming out of my throat, unbidden and uncontrollable. Raine laid herself back in the sand, scooting down so when she reached around my head and pulled me to her
, my cheek was pressed against her shoulder. One of her arms wrapped around my shoulders, and her other hand ran through my hair, holding me tight against her. I tried to focus on her touch and her scent filling my nostrils, but whether my eyelids were opened or closed, all I could see was their eyes as each of them realized they were next. All I could smell was their blood. All I could hear were their screams.
“I didn’t do anything, Raine. I didn’t help your dad…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m so fucking sorry…if I had known you then…I would have done something to help him, I swear I would have, Raine…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
“I know, Bastian.” Her arms tightened around me, and she held me as close as she could. I could hear her crying, too. “There was nothing you could have done. I know there was nothing you could have done.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why were they there, Bastian? What were they all doing there?”
“I have no fucking clue, baby,” I answered. “I don’t know how your father got there or why he was there. During the trial there was another cop who testified – I think he was a supervisor or something – and he said they had been off the beat. He said they weren’t supposed to be in that area at all and they hadn’t radioed in to say they were going to investigate something.”
“My dad would have radioed,” Raine said, not a doubt in her voice.
“That’s what the prosecutor kept saying. None of them seemed to know what they were doing there, and I know that sounds really suspicious and shit, but I wasn’t paying close attention to that part. It didn’t matter to me how they got there.”
“It matters to me.”
“Fuck, baby…I wish I could tell you. I just don’t know.”
She held me…or I held her…I don’t know which – maybe both – for a long time. The sand was becoming uncomfortable, but I didn’t really care. I had told her as much as I could ever tell her about that night; I just needed to finish what was left before I couldn’t talk any more.
“It fucked me up, Raine,” I whispered. “Even after all the death I’d seen – all the death I’d caused – I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat anything without getting sick, and I couldn’t get all their faces out of my head. Every night, over and over again. I couldn’t even leave my apartment for a while, and after about a month, I finally told Landon I was never going to fight again. A week later, Gunter was arrested, ratted out his uncle, and the next thing I knew, I was agreeing to testify for immunity. Landon found out, came over and beat the shit out of me, but I refused to back down. I thought if I did that – if I helped put them away, maybe I could sleep again. Either it was going to let me sleep or I was going to be dead anyway.”
“It didn’t work, though,” I told her. “Even after Gunter went to prison, I still had the dreams. Maybe because Franks was acquitted…I dunno…so I started drinking…a lot. I drank when Jillian left, and sometimes it helped me forget for a while, so I started drinking when the nightmares kept me up. After a while, they’d go away, or at least I wouldn’t remember them after I drank myself unconscious. So that’s what I did…for years…up until we were on the raft.”
“You’ve talked about some of it in your sleep,” Raine told me. “You talked about the trial when you had that infection, and you talk about Landon all the time.”
“I didn’t know I did that before,” I admitted. “I never really slept with anyone but you.”
Raine let out a soft, snorty chuckle.
“I mean…”
“I know what you meant, Bastian. It’s okay. I know you’ve…been with a lot of women.”
“Not like you,” I said softly.
“I know that, too,” she said, trailing her fingers over my jaw.
“No one’s ever treated me like you do,” I told her. “I was always…I don’t know…tossed out? When I was a kid, I didn’t even have a real name.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of the social workers told me when I was older. I had asked her where I came from and who my real parents were. I was probably six or seven, I think. I had just been transferred out of one foster home and into another. I was still in the same school and accidentally got on the bus going back to the first home. When I got there, the foster dad wouldn’t let me in even though it was raining. He yelled at me and told me to stay outside. The social worker came and picked me up eventually. I asked her who my real parents were.”
“He made you stay out in the rain?” Raine gasped. “How could anyone do that to a little kid?”
“He was pretty angry with me,” I said. “I don’t remember why, though. I assume I deserved it.”
“No one deserves that,” I heard her mumble, but I didn’t feel like arguing that point. Obviously someone deserved it. Me, for instance.
“Back then, I was just called Sebastian Smith. I only knew my first name when I was found, I guess, so they just made up a name and a birthday and shit for me.”
“You don’t know when your real birthday is?” Raine sounded absolutely mortified.
“No,” I responded. “They just took me to the doctor who told them I was probably born in May, and they picked a name and birth date to make the birth certificate.”
“Oh my God,” she mumbled, her fingers working their way up into my hair as I snuggled closer into the space between her neck and shoulder.
“It’s okay – I don’t really give a shit.” I took a deep breath, inhaling her scent before I went on. “The social worker said no one knew my real name, so they gave me that one.”
“How did you get to be Stark, then?”
“It’s Landon’s last name,” I said. “I took his name about three months after I started fighting for him. He’s the closest thing I ever had to a father, and I wanted a tie to someone, even if it wasn’t real.”
“Just like Mister Fluffy,” Raine said.
“Not the fucking dog again!” I growled, tilting my head to look up at her.
“He didn’t have a name either.” Raine pushed my hair behind my ear and trailed her fingers down to my neck. “I never knew where he came from or how he got where he did. He had nightmares, too, you know.”
“The dog had nightmares?” I snorted.
“He did!” she insisted. “He would whimper and growl in his sleep.”
“You know I don’t like that shit,” I reminded her, “comparing me to a fucking dog.”
“I loved Mister Fluffy,” Raine said quietly, “and I love you, too. You have a lot in common. He was fiercely loyal to me and would try to protect me when people he didn’t know came around. It took a long time for him to trust me, but once he did, I couldn’t have asked for a better companion.”
I thought about it for a bit, but I still didn’t like it.
“What did he think of your boyfriends?” I heard myself ask.
“He didn’t like Andrew too much,” she said. “He did eventually stop growling at him, though.”
“What about the others?”
“There weren’t any.”
“Why not?”
“No one ever…appealed to me in that way.” I felt her shrug her shoulders. “After my dad died, I had Andrew. He understood what I was going through, so I didn’t have to explain it to him. Once we broke up, I had so much else going on in my life when my friends were dating and stuff, it was just too much. I didn’t want to have to explain to some guy why I would start crying out of the blue, or why I was in therapy, or why I kept visiting with lawyers even when they said they couldn’t do anything else for me.”
“So you never went out on another date?”
“Well,” Raine laughed. “I tried to once.”
“Tried?”
“This guy asked me out when I first went to college,” she said. “We went to dinner, and Andrew showed up and kind of caused a scene.”
“What did he do?”
“He was really mad when he found out I had a date. He showed up at the restaurant and started questioning the poor
guy. He was acting like an overbearing parent, and when my date figured out he was my ex, he just threw some money down on the table and walked out. He said he wasn’t going to put up with that kind of…stuff. He never spoke to me again.”
“Andrew’s a dick.”
“He’s not; he just wanted to protect me. He was afraid I would get hurt.”
“If I had been on that date with you, I would have fucked him up.”
“Bastian! You can’t just do that.”
“Why the fuck not?”
“You can’t just beat someone up for something like that. People have a right to their own opinions, and you can’t hit them just because you don’t like what they do or say.”
“Some motherfuckers seemed to be of the opinion that you should be fucked against your will. Do they have that right, too?”
“No, of course not.”
“I would have fucked this Andrew up,” I reiterated.
“It’s not the same thing.”
“It is as far as I’m concerned,” I grumbled. “He did something you didn’t want and screwed up what could have been a good thing for you.”
“And if he hadn’t, maybe I wouldn’t be here now.”
When she put it to me like that, all my arguments went out the window, so we lay on the sand in silence for a while. The sky was starting to brighten and bring in a new day, but I didn’t really feel like moving from where I was. I had way too many thoughts going through my head at once – the remnants of the dream, Raine’s date getting fucked up by her douche bag ex, being compared to the fucking dog again – and I couldn’t seem to make them stop. I wished I had something I should be working on so I had a reason to get up and do something. However, lying with Raine just felt too good, so I stayed where I was as the sun rose, and Raine kept stroking her fingers through my hair.
“What do you miss the most?” Raine finally asked. “I mean, from the real world?”
I snickered at her, wondering if she thought this was actually some kind of fantasy.
“Booze, smokes with nicotine, and fucking huge Chicago-style pizzas,” I replied after a moment. “What about you?”
“Showers.” I felt her nod her head. “A nice, hot shower would feel really, really good.”