9. Ryan Fairview
Alexa, Play: Animals - Maroon 5
I had never lost it on the bag so hard. My head was muddled with thoughts of Caleb and how scared he must have been when he had been forced to endure whatever beating had caused those bruises.
Hitting the bag again and again, I completely lost myself in the impact of my knuckles against my target. For the first time, I thought I could understand what Theo got out of this. For me, it was a workout, but for Theo, it was almost like boxing was therapy or some kind of church.
It made sense. I didn’t really understand why Theo was so angry, but I could see how such an angry person would cling to this sport. It was a healthy outlet for intense emotions, and that was exactly what I needed right now.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been at it, but I was covered in a thick film of sweat and regretted not taking the time to change out of my jeans when all the hair on my body stood on end.
My next exhale came out at a cold puff, which was a telltale sign that there was a spirit close by… and not just any spirit. A malevolent one.
The more benign the being, the warmer they were. Kind spirits didn’t tend to linger; they usually passed on over the course of three days.
But the bad ones? They were stubborn little fuckers. Sometimes, they didn’t pass on at all and needed to be forced away.
The bag of sage my mother had given me was suddenly heavy in my back pocket, and I froze mid-swing.
I spun away from the punching bag and scanned the dark, windowless room suspiciously. The basement gym was pretty bare-bones. It was all unfinished concrete with a rack of free weights, the bag, and space for us to spar in the middle. There was a little mini-fridge where we kept bottles of Gatorade that we had always forgotten about, but other than that, this space was more or less empty.
The bare bulb that illuminated the windowless room flickered on and off, which wasn’t unusual, but it certainly wasn’t helping with the roll of terror suddenly coursing through my body.
To make matters worse, the more afraid I became, the harder my dick got… yeah. In case you didn’t already think I was enough of a freak with the whole funeral home thing, coupled with the fact that I see dead people, I should probably mention that fear turns me on.
Pretty typical of me. It was like pulling teeth getting hard for girls in college, but if you made me fear for my life, I’m suddenly standing more erect than the Statue of fucking Liberty… go figure.
Anyway, I would talk about it in therapy if I had time to go, but I don’t, so we’re just going to go with good old-fashioned denial…
I eyed the pitch-black doorway that led out of the gym, and my suspicions were confirmed when the phantom of a woman staggered into the frame.
She was fucking demonic . Even knowing that she couldn’t physically touch me, I recoiled. She had long, stringy black hair and bloodshot eyes. She was wearing a white nightgown that was stained red from the gaping gash across her neck, and she stumbled toward me on bare feet.
I patted my jeans, looking for the sage my mother had given me, and nearly cursed out loud when I realized I hadn’t brought a lighter.
Idiot.
I scanned the room and felt a rush of relief when I saw a black Bic sitting on top of the mini-fridge.
Thank god.
I inched away from the phantom toward the fridge when she started laughing.
“My son is a demon, and he’s coming to kill you,” she cooed, but I ignored her. I had learned that many of the ghosts I saw, especially the evil ones, weren’t really talking to me. Most times, they were reliving whatever vile act they had been committing before they had met their untimely ends.
“Devil boy!” she screeched, lurching toward me. I dove away from her and snatched up the lighter from the fridge.
She passed right through me, and I shuddered as I struggled to get the herbs out of the bag and light it before she tried to come for me again.
Spirits couldn’t physically hurt you, but if they passed through you enough times, you could get sick. I had theorized that it had something to do with them lowering your core body temperature enough that you became susceptible to things like the flu.
She passed through me twice more before I finally got the sage lit. She hissed and staggered back just as more phantoms began to crawl into the room.
What… the… fuck?
Two… three... four phantoms began to stagger in through the door to the gym. I waved my lit bushel of sage at them, making them screech and back away.
I’d never seen so many spirits at once before, especially not so many malevolent ones… and I lived in a funeral home.
What the hell was going on?
Suddenly, a man stepped into the flickering light that bled out of the exposed bulb hanging in the center of the room. Don’t ask me how I could tell he was a man and not a spirit. Chalk it up to experience. Once you knew what you were looking for, it was like an instinct, telling apart the living and the dead.
This man was massive. I wasn’t a short guy, and he had at least two inches on me. His broad shoulders were draped in the heavy cotton of a black hoodie, and his matching jeans were slim fit and ripped at the knees. He had scuffed combat boots laced up at his ankles and a bandana with a skeleton mouth pulled up over his nose. Piercing brown eyes slammed into mine, and his mop of dark hair swept across his forehead in thick, soft waves.
His hostile gaze fell to the sage stick I was currently brandishing like a weapon, and he cocked his head to the side in a strangely endearing way.
What the fuck, Ryan? This man is an intruder! You should be fucking running for your life!
But I couldn’t. I was frozen in place. Maybe I was in shock? What was this man doing in my house? And even more importantly… why the fuck did he have, like, twenty ghouls hanging off of him like demonic Christmas ornaments?
Of course, the man didn’t seem to know that he was dragging a gaggle of ghouls around with him, but they were there. Stroking him, wrapping their hands around his throat and wrists as if they could drag him down to hell with them.
What had he done to piss them all off so much?
“Your little burning stick isn’t going to save you, ginger snap.”
“What?” I asked dumbly.
The stranger’s eyes were burning with a rage that I didn’t understand.
“You want to hurt little kids?” he growled, taking a step toward me, and I frowned, instinctively taking a matching step back.
“Hurt little kids?” I asked, reaching behind me to put the herbs down on top of the mini-fridge.
“You think I don’t know what you did to that little boy?” the man snarled.
Little boy? Was he talking about Caleb?
“Dude, you have it all wrong. I didn’t?—”
But he didn’t let me finish. He lunged for me, and I reflexively found myself on the balls of my feet. He didn’t waste time with a one-two; he came in hard with a three-two-three, and I was barely able to block him.
His cross was devastating. If it had connected, I had no doubt I wouldn’t have gotten back up.
Jesus Christ.
I took on the immediate defensive. I dodged, blocked, and only retaliated when I was sure I would connect. The first punch I landed was a face shot, and it barely seemed to phase him. If anything, it seemed to egg him on more.
What the actual fuck was happening right now?!
The only positive in this situation was that the sage my mother had given me had burned enough to fill the small, concrete room, forcing the phantoms back out the door. It was just me and the intruder in the gym now, which made it easier to concentrate.
For someone so tall, he was lightning fast. I ducked out of the way, barely missing a left hook, just in time to catch his right directly to my gut. It winded me, and I buckled.
No. No, no, no.
This wasn’t like sparring with Theo. Something told me I would lose more than this fight if I let this man overpower me.
I would be losing my life.
Of course, the second that thought shot through my fucked up brain, my traitorous body kicked into high gear, and I felt myself harden in my jeans.
For fuck’s sake…
Not only was I going to be murdered at twenty-seven in my own house, I was going to die with a goddamned fear-boner.
Great.
Why am I like this?
With the humiliating prospect of giving a whole new meaning to the term rigor mortis, I found a second wind.
My mind went blank, and I unleashed a relentless stream of jabs that took my attacker by surprise. He tried the same combo that had taken me out before, but I saw it coming this time and blocked him with an effortlessness that surprised me.
His eyes flashed in what looked strangely like amusement, and he barked out a laugh as my next right hook connected with his cheekbone.
“Why are you laughing?” I snarled. “You like to fucking lose?”
“I just wasn’t expecting you to be this much fun, ginger snap,” he commented, leaning back to dodge another hook.
“You think this is fun?!” I snarled, and my attacker laughed again. The sound was deep and guttural.
“The most fun I’ve had all week, actually,” he replied mildly. Fucker didn’t even sound winded.
Suddenly, he ducked under my assault and snatched me up in a front chokehold.
He forced me back against the wall, squeezing my throat so hard I saw stars. My traitorous dick hardened even more as I clawed at his wrists.
Terror was rushing through me. I was fucked if I couldn’t get out of this. I tried to remember what Theo had taught me about getting out of chokeholds.
Stay calm. Breathe.
Create space.
I stopped struggling and focused on the man’s body.
I tucked my chin and forced it between his hands and my throat, giving myself room to breathe. He growled in frustration and pressed against me more firmly. His groin rubbed against mine, and we both froze as it suddenly became painfully obvious that I was nursing a raging hard-on.
Time seemed to stop.
As if he wanted to check to make sure he wasn’t imagining it, he ground his pelvis into my erection, and a choked groan escaped my lips.
His fingers spasmed around my throat, and he leaned forward, his bandana tickling my ear.
“Hard for me, ginger snap?” he purred. My entire face flushed red with humiliation as he tightened his grip on my neck. “Too bad I don’t fuck child abusers. I hope you carry those blue balls all the way to hell.”
Of everything this asshole could have said to me, that was the wrong thing. I had come down here absolutely tortured over what had been done to Caleb. To be accused of being the one to hurt him?
Fuck that.
I wasn’t dying with anyone believing that. Especially not this asshole.
I brought my knee up and clipped him in the groin. He roared in rage and reared back, but his bandana slipped down, exposing his face to me.
Fuck.
If I thought he was going to kill me before, there was no chance I was surviving now. I had seen his face!
Fuck fuck fuck!
His full lips pressed into a firm, angry line, his brown eyes boiling with liquid fire.
“You keep saying that! I didn’t hurt Caleb! His asshole family hits him. This is a safe space. I would never hurt a child,” I snapped.
I wound up, getting ready to deliver a lead uppercut that would have put fucking Tyson on his ass, when my attacker suddenly pulled a goddamn handgun out of his sweater and pointed it at my forehead.
I froze, holding my hands up in immediate surrender. That’s when it occurred to me that while I had thought I was fighting for my life, this had always just been a game to him.
I was never going to win this. My fate was entirely dependent on whether or not this intruder decided I should live or die, and nothing about that felt fair at all.
“On your knees, ginger snap. Then you’re going to tell me everything you know about Caleb. If I find out you’re lying, I’ll blow your brains out all over this sad, pathetic room you call a gym.”