Chapter 24 Sim
SIM
Iturn the corner around one of the large, stone gothic buildings, my body tense, on alert for Mayhem and their cronies, and filled with frustration.
I’ve been walking Soule's University campus for what feels like hours, and I still can’t find her.
I'm not sure why the hell I'm even here.
I pulled out of all my classes months ago to focus on my MMA career, and I swore I wouldn't come back here. The sun’s warm rays are beginning to sink low over the stone courtyard, bleeding orange and burnt reds across the university building's walls, and all I can think about is how fast everything's fallen apart. One incredible and unbelievable night, that’s all it took to shred my life into something unrecognizable.
Olly. My pretty lavender pixie.
Her name is an ache in my chest I can't seem to comprehend, and the memory of her soft skin, her enticing scent, and the sound of her voice, husky with pleasure, are wrapped around me like sharp thorns digging into my skin. They tear me open and make me bleed out, even as they embed deeper. It was only one night, but the way she looked at me like she saw something worthy, it’s all tangled up in my head.
Then, to make matters even more confusing, she ran.
No explanation. No goodbye. Just gone, like she realized she’d made a mistake. Fuck, was I a mistake?
The logical part of me, the fighter, the planner, tells me this shouldn’t matter.
She’s just a random girl, an amazing one-night stand, but nothing more.
I have a future mapped out: leave this town, put Mayhem and its filth behind me, focus on the cage, the fights, the way the world falls silent under my fists and blood.
I’m good at fighting, naw, I'm better than good. It’s the only thing that’s ever made sense in my world, and it's not something I'm willing to put at risk.
It's my only ticket out of here. Why now, when I'm so close to getting out, did she appear? The tightening and thrumming in my chest doesn’t care about logic, or my need to escape Soule. It’s loud, pulsing, whispering her name in every heartbeat.
Fuck, I'm a mess, a love-sick wuss. I rub my large, rough hand over my face, dragging sweat across my jaw. My healing knuckles are stiff and ache from training, and my ribs still sting from the last underground match, and last night's exertions with Olly. Under it all, a dull, persistent dread coils tight in my guts, because I know what it means to defy Cross, Damon, and River. You don’t step into Mayhem’s path and walk away clean.
I’ve seen what happens to those who try.
They disappear, never to be heard from again, and sometimes, their families do too.
Why the fuck have I put myself on their destructive path?
For what? I had a plan, a way out of here, and now I've fucked it all up for her.
A girl with pretty purple hair who looked back at me and made me believe in an instant I could be something different, something better.
She seems to have breathed new life into this place and hope into my weary soul, even if it's unfounded and unrealistic.
She's just a one-night stand; you need to get over it and move on.
I try to reason with myself, but something within me is refusing to acknowledge the logic that is glaringly apparent to anyone with half a brain cell.
I'm not a chivalrous white knight, or a fucking prince from a fairytale, and she's not some helpless princess waiting to be rescued.
There is no happily ever after here to be found.
I curse under my breath, and cut through the main path toward the library.
The air tastes like cut grass, heat, the scents of fall, and my desperation.
Students are still moving around, chatting, laughing, blissfully unaware of the rot that festers beneath this campus.
The kind that wears letterman jackets and family crests, calling itself a brotherhood.
Mayhem ruins everything it touches, and no one is truly out of their reach, including me.
I wave back at those greeting me, trying to look inconspicuous.
I’m almost to the main doors of the library when I see movement up ahead.
A large, daunting figure in all black stumbling from the side entrance, moving like he’s barely holding himself upright, and that has me halting in my steps as alarms ring inside my head.
Damon.
Jesus fuck, he’s a mess, even more than usual.
His shirt's ripped, his hair is in complete disarray, his face is all bruised up from Olly's fists the previous night, and his lip is freshly bleeding. I watch him stumble forward with glassy, unfocused eyes, and he swipes at the air like he’s seeing something crawling before him, or he's on another one of his benders.
He looks unhinged, furious, and half gone.
I should walk away, and avoid him like the pestilence he is, but instead, I step in his path without hesitation, squaring my shoulders and preparing to fight him if necessary, when I spy a familiar backpack hanging from his clenched fingers.
“Damon!” I call out, stepping forward until only a few feet separate us. “Where the fuck is she?”
He freezes, and the silence stretches tight and menacingly between us, filled with deadly intent.
His mouth twists into something that might be a smile if it wasn’t so full of hate, as his hazel eyes narrow and focus on me.
“You got some fucking nerve asking me that,” he declares, voice raw.
"I should carve out your heart right here, so the world can see what happens when you go up against Mayhem. "
I take another step in his direction, and my self-preservation disappears, as fear for Olly courses through my veins.
“Did you hurt her?” I demand, and every muscle in my body spasms, as adrenaline floods my veins.
I know I can take this fucker in a fight.
I've been holding back in the cage, but Damon doesn't deserve my restraint.
He needs to be taught a lesson that he's not as powerful as he believes.
If he's hurt her, I'm going to rip him limb from limb, consequences be damned.
He laughs, a low, broken sound that has the hairs on my arms standing on end.
“You think you can protect her from us? From me?” He sways forward, dropping her bag on the ground, his eyes burning with something I can’t name, and his head suddenly quirks at an angle, as if he's listening to something I can't hear. “You don’t even know what she’s done. She deserves to bleed.”
His rambling is making no sense. Before I can stop myself, I grab his arm and shove him back against the side of the building.
“Tell me where Olly is!” He hits me hard and fast in the ribs, with practiced ease that I underestimated.
Pain explodes through my side, but I don’t dare let go, even though my breath is hissing between my lips.
I slam him back again, and for a second, we’re both breathing hard, glaring, caught in that place where neither of us really wants to back down, and that will have deadly results.
I stare at him, at all the bruising, some of it fresh, some of it already changing color.
Did Olly hit him again? Is she lying somewhere, bleeding and hurt, thanks to this psycho?
The shadows seem to shift behind his bright eyes, filled with madness, and he grins, feral, with too many teeth, his mouth stained red with blood.
“You’re in over your head, Sim. You should’ve stayed out of this, away from her.
She belongs to Mayhem. Cross will make an example out of you now.
Watch your back, you don’t have long to live. ”
He shoves me off, hard enough that I stumble, and stalks away as if he doesn't fear my retaliation, muttering to the empty air like it’s answering him back.
The smell of iron and sweat trails behind him, leaving me filled with further unease, and too many unanswered questions.
I watch him go, chest heaving, trying to decide whether to go after him, and what the repercussions of that will entail.
The quiet that follows, as I lose sight of him around the next building, is worse than the fight.
My hands shake, and I force them into fists.
It's not from pain, but from the knowledge clawing at the edges of my mind that whatever’s coming, it won’t stop with Damon.
The others will come too, and I can’t walk away now.
Somewhere out there, Olly is running from all of us, me included.
There's something haunted about her. It's as if the world has beaten her down, and she's suffered some great injustice, and that has made her hide behind thick, impenetrable walls. I can’t decide if I want to find her to save her.
.. or to make her explain why she made me forget who I was supposed to be.
Either way, this is not over between us.
I reach down and grab her bag, throwing the strap over my shoulder, determination filling me to find my pretty purple pixie. She needs me to watch her back. I just wonder who's going to watch mine.