Tough Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous, #2)(74)

She rushes across the room to take me in her thin arms. I resist the urge to literally cry on her shoulder. That’s not my style. Or at least it wasn’t until recently. For the last thirty-some hours, I feel like I’m no longer in control of my tear ducts. They’ve been overtaken by evil spirits or something. They don’t even care whether I’m asleep or awake. Each time I’ve fallen asleep, my own sobs have awakened me.

Somehow I manage to keep it together until Mona releases me. I give her a tight, polite smile and plead, “Do you mind if we just not talk about it?”

I can tell that’s tantamount to asking her to bite off her own tongue and swallow it, but still she nods in compliance. I walk past her to slide my purse into the drawer where it lives during the day. “Just know that when you’re ready, I’m here.”

I don’t turn to face her. I just nod. I don’t trust myself to speak.





THIRTY-SIX


Rogan

I have a lot of reasons to be angry. I had an abusive father who never once tried to hold his temper with me. I enlisted in the Army and got to see, up close and personal, the evil that men are capable of. My team has been betrayed by someone we trusted. We just haven’t found out by whom yet. I’ve been on the receiving end of hundreds of punches and kicks from various opponents, both professional and otherwise. I’ve been burned, cut, whipped, thrown, slammed and insulted more than I care to remember, but never, not once in my life, have I ever wanted to hurt someone as badly as I do right now.

As badly as I have since I found out who he is.

Calvin Sims. Katie’s ex. The man who tried to burn her alive.

Every time I think of Katie, I think of him. And that happens almost as often as I breathe.

He doesn’t deserve to live. Lots of people don’t, I’m sure, but I’ve never really wanted to take a life. Not even when it was part of my job in Delta Five.

Until now.

But I want to take his. He stole everything from Katie and then he stole her from me. He stole our future. He stole any chance we might have. I can’t blame her for drawing the line. Unfortunately it’s a line I can do nothing about. So I’m angry. No, I’m furious. Livid. Irate. All the time. And it’s eating away at me like cancer, gnawing at my guts. Always gnawing.

I’ve been in front of a speed bag, a punching bag or a sparring partner three or four times a day since the morning after she left. I beat on them like I want to beat Sims. Only I can’t. Because my hands are tied. And no matter how many other people or objects I take out all my aggression on, it never makes me feel any better.

I just feel worse.

More trapped.

More hopeless.

Less alive.

Every day I wonder how much longer I can let this go. Not that I’m letting it go. I’m holding on to it. Tight. With a death grip that feels like it’s only killing me. Slowly. Day by day.

At least I tell myself that’s what it is. But deep down, I know that it’s really not what’s killing me. Grief is. I die a little bit more every day. Every day without Katie.





THIRTY-SEVEN


Katie

Days creep by. The week is punctuated only by the arrival of my belongings on Friday afternoon. Everything I left in New York, packed neatly into my bag, brought by messenger to my door. No note. No Rogan. No hope. Just a suitcase full of stuff that I couldn’t care less about.

I’ve never hated Friday more.

Slowly, the days turn into a week. One week into two. Two into three. And then a month has elapsed. I’m firmly back in my shell, hiding from everyone except Mona. It seems everyone is hiding from me as well. I’ve become a bit of a pariah, from what I can tell.

Two days after returning to Enchantment, the disastrous post-fight interview aired on Sports Central. I didn’t immediately know, of course, since I have ovaries and therefore do not live and breathe sports. It didn’t take too long for me to figure it out, though. The men who saw it asked the women they knew about it. Then the women talked among themselves over lunches and drinks and workplace water coolers. Eventually, word got out and the video made its way around the studio.

I wasn’t surprised by the strange looks that followed the circulation of the video. I’m the resident freak show, after all. I’d been living right here under their beautiful, flawless noses all this time, unbeknownst to them. But even so, that doesn’t mean I’m not hurt by them. Hurt and humiliated.

The Ew, what happened to her? and Gross! What’s wrong with her skin? looks were both hurtful and humiliating, but not nearly as much as the ones that showed pity. Those are the ones I have little tolerance for. They’re the ones that hurt the most. They say I’m the pathetic girl who fell for a guy way outside her league. They say I was a fool to ever think he could really be interested in me. A freak. A scarred, backward, freak who used to be somebody but then basically died in a fire. Only a few human parts remain and they fled the moment I left Rogan at the airport.

Rogan.

Even now, after a month, it hurts. I thought it would get easier, but it hasn’t. It seems that the gaping hole in my chest is ever-widening. I’ve had these recurring nightmares where I’m sucked into oblivion by the vacuum that exists within me. Only sometimes, it’s a dream rather than a nightmare. In a way, I’d welcome an end to this misery.