30. Shane
30
Shane
T he downpour picks up as I push through random people still making their way to their cars, drenching my white tank and sealing it to my chest. My jeans aren't any better, soaked and heavy against my thighs.
Following the street Montana first turned down, I jog a block, finding no trace of her anywhere there or at the next intersection.
Panic trickles into my chest. I can't see anything but her eyes and how they stared me down, broken, defeated, done. I can’t face regret. I just can't, but the need to reach her becomes my only mission.
I hurry back to the garage, slipping my helmet over my head and starting up my bike. It roars to life, and I peel out of the driveway, tearing down the street. Heavy rainfall slaps across my helmet, blurring my vision, and my bare arms are numb from the chilled air.
Speeding through streets and alleyways, I search for what feels like forever. She couldn't have gotten far, but there's no sign of her, block after block. I consider the fact that maybe she jumped a bus or phoned an Uber. Maybe she called Jockface or her new orchestra friend to come save her.
Heat rises in my neck, redness nearly clouding my vision at the thought of her newly designed saviors, when I spot a group of people huddled between an old bar and a business space. I pull off to the side of the road, my tires squealing on the wet pavement, and remove my helmet, a boisterous collection of men’s laughter gripping my focus.
There between them is what looks like a girl, wearing none other than a white, barely-there tank top.
It’s her.
Throwing my helmet back on, I peel away from the roadside, revving the engine as I circle back down the street and race down the tight alley behind some biker bar.
Three guys, one in a leather jacket and two semi-overweight fucks have her cornered against the wall. Leather Jacket has a hand on her bicep, while one of the overweight men, donning a trucker hat, has a hold on her other wrist.
I hop off my bike, not even taking the time to remove my helmet, and take a few strides closer, but the horrors of my past grab me by the ankles and freeze me in place. That monster she created within me is truly never satisfied. He craves her torment like a moth to a flame, blindly seeking that unequivocal retribution. It’s as if my mind can’t turn off the detestation that formed in the wake of her ultimate departure.
I stand back, watching as they laugh and mutter nonsense at her. She spits in one of their faces, and their excitement grows. She backhands the fatty, and the other steps in to hold her down.
I should intervene. I should lodge a bullet into each of their skulls for even thinking they can touch her. I should put an end to this, but I can’t get myself to move. My feet are cemented in place, forcing me to watch as an innocent bystander to her singular demise. The fight in her eyes and the fierceness within her is showing itself, and the maddening desire growing within me keeps my feet firmly planted.
A hand comes up to cup her breast, gripping the soft flesh between greasy fingers. She thrashes her head, her wet hair slapping the sides of her face before she stills. Frightened and horror-struck, she's somehow drawn to where I stand, her focus pulling in my direction.
I watch as they touch her, their hands groping her wet skin, pulling her flimsy top beneath her breasts and exposing them beneath the alley’s lights. Their maniacal laughter is like fuel to my raging fire. My teeth clench together when they part her thighs, and talk of fucking her senseless until she can’t walk floats through the air.
I could let them fuck her, run through her, and destroy that fierceness she proclaims. I could let her fall into those nightmares of her past, of being used and tossed aside like trash, like she did to me, but my battle always lies within the bones of my being.
I hate that she stole that piece of me that I can never get back.
I hate that I love whatever cracked part of her soul she gave to me.
I hate that the darkest shadow of my half-beating heart still cares.
That this lost boy inside me will endlessly chase her, needing to know it’s real—that we were real. That she is real.
With her thighs parted, one of the men steps forward, gripping her hair in his fist and muttering something that has her lip curling in disgust. Striding forward, I pass by the grimy dumpster, grabbing a discarded car rim as I do. The man with the leather jacket slides his hand down her abdomen, sweeping past her belly button, before dusting over her sex. Fat Boy opens his mouth, about to wrap his rotten lips around her beautiful rose-tinted tit. She lifts her chin, and her gaze on me turns menacing. The rest of her expression remains docile, her mind anything but.
Gripping the wet metal, I approach the situation, swinging it and hitting the first man upside the head. The metal pings against his skull, and the only sound that leaves him is the disruptive thud of his body hitting concrete. I swing the edge of the rim across the man with the leather jacket’s face, his skin splitting across his forehead and cheek. His flesh immediately peels back, and blood oozes out. Dropping the rim, I grip the shirt of the lone man standing and headbutt him, knocking him to the ground.
Two men remain on the pavement while the other holds his skin together, groaning as blood spills down his face. He scurries down the alley, but not before he trips over his feet, falling to his knees in a pile of old scrap metal. He slips, attempting to stand again, before finally getting his feet beneath him and running toward the opposing street.
I turn to face Montana, finding her coiled up into herself against the brick wall. Her arms are crossed over her head, her body remaining curled into a ball near the dumpster lined with trash and wooden grates. The sight—something that should invoke excitement and pleasure at her pain and turmoil—unfortunately tears into me in all the places I deny.
She’s not who you think she is. This is still a game.
I ignore my thoughts and race back over to her.
She gazes up at me, the rain-drenched hair stuck to her forehead, cheeks, and neck. Her eyes, usually so filled with fire, appear dark and lifeless.
Montana stands, backing into the brick as I close in on her. Her nipples are completely visible through the wet material clinging to her curves, her slippery flesh coated in a layer of goosebumps. I clench my jaw, warding off the impulses that forever taunt me.
“You stay the fuck away from me, Croix!” she yells, her use of the name messing with me.
I flip my visor up, letting her see my eyes as I approach. “Now it’s Croix, huh?” I lean my palm against the wall behind her. “You’re lucky I’m here. You were a second away from whoring yourself to those lovely men.”
“Don’t come here acting like I need you. You’re worse than them!” she screams, lashing out at me with her fists. “You watched! Y-you liked it!”
I hate how transparent I can be.
“Get back to the house,” I demand, pointing behind us.
“To what?” she says defeatedly. “There’s nothing for me there. You burned the last thing that meant anything to me.”
She punches my chest, shoulders, and helmet, stretching my loose tank, aiming for any part of me she can get her hands on. She claws into my skin, her nails scraping viciously into the flesh of my neck and chest. I fight back, gripping her wrists to thwart her attack. I hold them tightly above her head in one hand and press my hips into her, rendering her attacks useless. Vicious little thing .
“Now you know what it’s like to lose everything,” I state, my tone barely containing my rage. “How do you like rock bottom, you heartless bitch?”
“Why?” she cries, giving up her fight and finally melting in my hold. “You’ve ruined everything. You’ve ruined me.”
Her pleas almost affect me until I remember what caused this, what she did to deserve it. What created the beast before her—the man who will stop at nothing to ruin her. She needs to live in the pain of what one person’s actions can do to others—the monster that unrequited love can unleash.
“You're pure evil,” she seethes.
Evil. The boy who opened his heart to a whore. The one who once believed her love could save him, and in return, he’d save her from a life she never asked for. I wanted to be her hero. Did everything in my power to make that happen, all while she slowly ate away at my heart, leaving the organ incapable of use.
“Why don’t you remember?” I growl and drop her hands, my voice tearing through the rain.
I move to punch the brick beside her head but stop myself, blowing out a hot breath instead.
She startles at my violent tone, blinking through her wet lashes as she stares back into the eyes of the man whose blood now runs black from the effects of her poison. She appears rattled by the question. I gaze back at her, nothing but silence and our heavy breaths between us.
“God, I was so naive,” I scoff, disgusted by the thoughts of a younger, softer version of myself.
“What?” she breathes.
I contemplate even giving her the knowledge, but I’m so lost right now. So torn between destruction and need. Love and hate.
“All I wanted was to feel seen,” I continue, venom on my tongue. “By you.”
Her throat bobs and her big, timid brown eyes scan mine.
“To be needed by you. The only one who ever got it. Got me. But you used me. You used me and discarded me. Like the burnt end of a cigarette, you snuffed me out, searing your way through my flesh and ensuring it scarred.”
My words make their mark; remembrance of those horrid truths shared late at night, the abuse, the shame, the traumas we've endured…
“So don't you for a second call me evil when the devil himself resides within you,” I continue.
Her initial anger for me dissipates, and a new form of recognition lights in her eyes. Her face softens as it all begins to click for her.
“King.” The name rolls off her lips, barely even a whisper, aggravating me further.
“You made me bleed for you, Montana,” I say, cupping my hand around the side of her neck, my fingers gripping so deeply into her flesh. “You bled me dry, and hurting you is the only way to heal.”
Those timid eyes peer back and forth between mine. “It was…you.”
I peer from her eyes to her quivering lips and back, encasing her in my arms. Her hands still lie rested against my pecs, her fingers loose and her touch soft.
“K1ngK0br@,” she whispers, her hand reaching higher until her fingers are touching the curve of my helmet. “It’s you.”
Her eyes leave mine, coasting down my shoulders and arms, stopping only when she sees the scars. The circular burns along the inside of my forearms, seared into my flesh by my father, the marks now covered in sporadic ink. Featherlight, she traces her fingers over the raised flesh, never having studied me deep enough to notice them before now. When her gaze returns to mine, a new wave of fear appears to wash over her.
“All this time—”
“You stole everything from me,” I begin, “My life, my future, my hope…”
“K1ng, I didn’t know—”
I slam her shoulders back against the brick, my fingers gripping into the wet flesh of her upper arms.
“Don’t fucking call me that. That’s not who I am anymore. Just like vEn0mX isn’t who you are. Everything I thought I knew about that person was a fucking lie. Every conversation, every truth, every want, every need…”
“No, Shane.” She shakes her head.
My heart pinches in my chest, but I don't allow it to spread.
“Don’t you get it now? Do you understand my need to destroy any illusion you had of a future without me? You left me—alone in that chatroom, you fucking left me. Discarded me. All just to pick up the pieces of yourself and start a new life. One without the dirt you wore with me. Your need to cleanse yourself of the place we met has me craving to bury you back in it. You ripped me the fuck apart. Left me. I needed you!” I yell, unable to withhold the anger that's built up so high within me over the years.
She shakes her head wildly, “You don’t understand. You don’t…you don’t get it.”
“I think I understand well enough. You took advantage of a weak boy's heart, siphoning all his money away with lies and deceptions, then ghosted him before the guilt set in.”
“It wasn't like that with you—”
“I gave you everything we had, Montana! Bank accounts drained! And you know what that made my father do to me.”
She winces at that, knowing the further abuse I subjected myself to in order to help her. To give in to her pleas to sustain herself so she could keep being the faceless sex doll I needed—the one that held me above water, allowing me to breathe each time our conversations grew deeper.
“I was trapped!” she yells. “You were the only thing that kept me—”
“Trapped by your drug-dependent mother… I know where my money went, Montana, I’m not a fucking idiot.
Her face is ghost-like. She looks moments away from collapsing before me, the pure horror and shock of my admission overtaking her.
“You think I wanted this life?!” Her fists pound into my chest. “You think living there was something I wanted? Sometimes people have to make choices, both of which are derived from the dirt. I didn't want it to be like this, Shane,” she pleads. “I didn’t mean for it to get that far with you.”
“So you faked being in love with me to siphon my kindness and keep your junkie mom high? Ensuring my pain so she could continue to get faded? You had a choice, Montana.”
“I-it wasn't like that. I had to keep her from relapsing. I had to keep her alive,” she weeps. “She’s the only one who’s ever really loved me. You've seen my father.”
My palm finds her neck, and I grip her throat at those words.
“I loved you!” I seethe. “Far more than that piece of shit you call a mother ever could. You're stupid to hold out for scraps of love when I offered you everything! Everything!” My hand shakes as my rage consumes me. “How can you deny the shit she subjected you to? The man she let abuse you? The money I sent to get you free of it. I emptied my family’s accounts, my father’s IRA, our savings, sold everything I had and gave up scholarships, all so you could start a new life away from her. But you never wanted to leave, did you?” I eye her with disgust. “Maybe you enjoyed the attention those men gave you a little too much. It probably catered to your career move.”
“She didn’t know about that! That man. She never knew what he did to me while she was sleeping. I just did what I needed to do to survive in a world where every day was cloudy and the nights felt like home,” she says hoarsely, her pulse pounding beneath my palm. “You more than anyone should understand that.”
A frown overtakes my burning face as I slowly turn back to her. She couldn't know. She wasn't there for any of it. The torment of seeking out substances, subjecting myself to pain and engaging in mindless sex to erase her. Losing a scholarship, falling into toxic dependencies, losing the will to stay afloat, wishing for an end I didn’t have to make for myself, the cold stone of rock bottom I’d succumbed to.
“You left the last person that cared the day vEn0mX logged off. I would’ve done anything for you, Montana. Given you the fucking world. I would’ve ended them all. Slowly drained each and every one of them of their blood before you. But there's no coming back. You created this man, the one incapable of forgiving. Incapable of living without pain. The one that needs to see you suffer for stripping me of my soul.”
“Then take it out on me,” she offers, swallowing beneath my hold. “Take what you need to, Shane. If you need to destroy my future prospects, then do it. Burn every instrument I bring home, showcase to the world how you fucked your sister on camera. If that’s what you need, then fucking ruin me.”
I glare at her, not sure who or what to trust anymore.
“There's so much you don't know or understand. I had to go ghost,” she says, choking out the words. “I had to rebuild, to plan, to fight…everything I've done has been for this.” She motions behind me toward the direction of the house. “What you’ve just destroyed, it’s deeper than just wanting a new life. It’s the reason behind the music that you've yet to understand.”
The rain continues to pelt my helmet and shoulders, and I watch as the droplets roll down her face, mixing with the tears now falling. They fall from her luscious lips, her jaw trembling as she tumbles back into the restraint I've got on her.
Memories of her song dance in my mind…the way she played, the drive in those skilled fingers. There was always more to it. More than she’s letting on. More than I imagined.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she continues, the words only aggravating me further. “But I’m here now, and you’re going to have to deal with that.”
“You underestimate who I am now. This need to inflict the pain I feel you deserve might never go away. This manic desire to watch you suffer at my hands will forever rule me.”
“Then hurt me, Shane. Use me. Fuck me up. Do what you need to do to me for those years I left. That's why I'm here, right? Dropped into your little fishbowl of torture since our parents met. So convenient, it’s almost as if it was planned. Just take like the rest of them.”
“You say that now, until I take what I need and leave you weeping and without an ounce of respect to hold to your name.”
“Do it,” she dares, lifting her chin defiantly. “And see if it breaks me.”
Our gazes set on one another, our confessions out and clashing between us beneath the cloudy sky. Her face holds that familiar look, the hunger, the insatiable need that never lets up. That sizzling passion between us that once held up in a digital world is now crossing over into the blazing fire of our reality. She gives me her full attention, her breathless and quivering body, that heat in her eyes that never dims in my presence, almost begging me to take what I need from her. Needing to be stripped of humanity to feel at home.
However, I've done this before. Used her. Taken from her. And each time, it just leaves me feeling weaker and less like who I am. I want her, yet I crave to destroy her. I'm lost in a cyclone of twisted desires and mixed emotions I can’t unravel.
Placing the backs of my fingers along her collarbone, I slowly skim them across her chilled flesh, sinking lower and lower until they caress the pointy tip of her erect nipple.
Her chest rises and falls at an increased tempo, her wet lashes clumping together and blinking rapidly. She swallows and angles her head.
“The thoughts that would plague my mind when it came to vEn0mX,” I comment, my palm gently cupping her plump breast, lifting it slightly in my hand before dropping it and watching it bounce.
I pinch her nipple, twisting taut flesh between my fingers and gauging her reaction. She winces, a breathy plea escaping her as her other nipple juts through the fabric, craving the same tortuous tease.
“Let me see you,” she whispers, gripping the bottom part of my open helmet and pulling my head down toward her. “Shane, let me look at you.”
I snap my chin toward my chest, flipping the visor down, nearly snapping it shut on her fingers. She quickly pulls away, gasping as she backs further into the wall. I inhale, my jaw tightening at the delicious sight. So pure, so rottenly deceiving.
“You’ve lost that privilege.”
She looks so helpless and scared standing here alone in this dark alleyway with strangers bleeding and unconscious among us. So timid and terrified beneath the rain and yellowed street light. Something about it brings out the worst in me.
“Watch yourself, gutter rat,” I breathe. “See all the things I saw as a boy in love. The faces you make, the pain you’ll emit. I want you to watch as I break you.”