Destroyed(138)

His head bowed, lips captured mine.

His eyes locked with mine as he reverently whispered, “Yes, ma’am.”





My life ended three times before I finally had enough.

I’d been a boy, a Ghost, a man fumbling to find his place.

I never belonged.

My past was unchangeable, but my future was unwritten and rule free.

Invincible, Impenetrable, Invisible no longer applied to me.

I adopted three new things:

Resurrection.

Redemption.

Resolution.

All my life, I’d been a pawn. But not anymore.

I was a provider, lover, father, and friend.

In the wake of heartbreak came new life, and I was given a second chance. I accepted my handicap and grew to live with it rather than fight it. It wasn’t so bad having the woman I adored being my ruler.

But then came the silver lining. The ultimate dream.

I’d been right all along.

There was a cure.





Clara died in February, leaving us to face life on our own. Zel and I spent the first month doing nothing but healing and walking along the beach. It gave us time to grow and mend and develop a deeper dimension to our unconventional romance.

March came and went undetected—just four more weeks without Clara.

April brought a chill, signalling summer was over, and it was time to say goodbye to flowers and heat and sunshine. I returned to Obsidian to collect my tools and smithy equipment. I wanted to start sculpting again. I wanted to recreate Clara’s amazing spirit using bronze and copper.

May Clue announced she and Ben were moving in together and Ben bought a house not far from us in the Northern Beaches. He still went to Obsidian to fight, and he gave me a standing offer to beat me bloody if I ever needed my strange kind of therapy.

I took him up on the offer once or twice.

“I love it when you come home all sweaty.” Zel appeared around the corner of the lounge. Her small arms wrapped around my torso. “Don’t you get hot running all in black?” Her eyes found mine, smouldering with lust. “I want you, Roan. I watched you on the beach. I missed you.”

The swell of her pregnant belly pressed against my abs and I suffered a heinous flashback. It tore me from safety to howling winter and the pit. Snarls of wolves filled my head and I regressed.

It was the first of the month. The day that was worse for me than the rest—the day our conditioning was rebooted—reprogramed.

I grabbed her neck, fingers disobeying my commands. I squeezed her throat with uncontrollable anger. “Don’t ever touch me.”

I watched my actions as if my soul was unencumbered by my body. A spectator as I wrung the neck of the woman I adored. Screaming silently, I raged to stop but the conditioning pulled me under its unbreakable web.

Zel’s eyes filled with glittering terror and her fingers flew to her hair.

I grabbed her wrist—stopping her from going for her knife.

“Not this time, dobycha. Not this time.”

Her body flailed and she tried to kick and squirm, but it was no use. There was nothing I could do. I would kill her and I would swallow a bullet afterward for not being strong enough to save her.

Then Hazel saved both of us.

“Take your f*cking hands off me, Operative Fox. Stand down this instant.”

The order sliced through my foggy haze, dispelling the howling wolves and eternity of ice.

I blinked.

The command took all control away from me and I cowered. Pain. Torture. Payback for disobeying.

Loathing filled me, crippling my limbs as I skidded away and sucked in ragged breaths. I couldn’t do it. I’d done what I’d been terrified of. I lost control. If I hadn’t given Zel power over me, I would’ve killed my f*cking family all over again.

I ran.

And Corkscrew delivered retribution.

That was at the start of May. By the end of the month, we’d settled once again into a routine and Clue popped around often. She and Zel remained close and for the first time in my life, I had a network of people who saw me for what I was and accepted me. Dinners were a bi-weekly affair, and Clue kept Hazel distracted from her thoughts when they turned sad by planning a ridiculous baby shower and choosing colours for the nursery.

June was the first month Zel felt the baby kick. It effectively did what I’d hoped all along. It showed that Clara no longer needed us, but a new life did. It helped us stay strong and granted peace. Hazel wasn’t completely happy but more and more I’d catch a soft smile or contentedness mixing with her heavy grief. She spent a lot of time in the room I’d made for her. Talking to Clara, stroking the horse statues that she loved so much.

July Clue and Ben took us out for dinner to celebrate Hazel’s twenty-fifth birthday. It was the first party I’d been to, the only one I’d ever celebrated. I couldn’t remember my own birth date, so Hazel let me share hers. We ate decadent food and went on a cruise around Sydney harbour. I gave Zel her present when we got back—another metal sheep to stand proud and perfect beside Clara’s. It’d been the best night of my life.

August we finished the nursery. And Zel unpacked boxes full of Clara’s toys. She decorated the space with memories of her daughter, ready for a new child to play with. I did fear if the child was a boy, though. The amount of My Little Pony stuff that littered groaning shelves would scare any male.