Chapter 34 Roderick
Ihad to walk away.
I haven’t felt so close to losing all control in a very long time. I’ve had moments when I've let it slip or used it, but this wasn’t the same.
This was a rage that if I let it out, I wouldn’t be able to stop until it sated itself.
I wanted to grab Jade and shake her until she understood what the problem was.
How could she stand there and argue with me while her blood was sprayed around the gym like it was a fucking crime scene?
She’d been unflinching about it, as though she thought cleaning up would calm me down, but all it did was make me angrier, seeing her knuckles split and the dark bruises that littered her hands.
According to Kratos, that damage was done at the heavy bag all on her own, and while I believe it, I doubt that was all of it.
Kratos was a huge guy, even bigger than I am, and when Trent and I found them in the gym, she had been winning.
I can only imagine how hard she’d fought for that.
There's no way she wasn’t sporting a few bruises from him as well. Jade was good, but not untouchable.
Standing in my bathroom with my hands braced on the counter, I let the cold water drip down my face. I’d hoped to calm myself down, but the longer I stand here, the more I think about her, and I find myself angry all over again.
“Fuck,” I mumble, rubbing a hand down my face to clear the water.
I stand and see myself in the mirror. The man looking back at me is fucking pathetic.
My fist swings out before I can think better of it, and the glass shatters.
Pieces fall onto the counter, but most of it manages to stay intact, simply spider-webbing into a million pieces, some of which I’m sure are now lodged in my skin, though I can’t feel it at the moment.
I’ve dealt with this anger long enough to know I’ll feel it later, just like I’ll deal with the damn mirror later.
For now, I need to get my shit together before I do something worse than break a mirror.
Yanking my shirt over my head, letting it drop to the ground.
Moving across the room to my shower, I push away thoughts of going back down there to pick a fight with Kratos.
I would get my ass handed to me, but it might be enough to clear my head.
As appealing as that sounds, I know I won’t. Kratos outranks me, and my brain won't let me go against him like that if I can help it, and right now, I have just enough sense left to know that.
Flipping the water in the shower on, I let it run cold.
I fucking hate cold showers. Usually, I prefer the water to damn near burn, but right now, this isn’t for my enjoyment.
Glass pricks my skin as I flick open the button on my jeans.
Blood drips from some of the deeper cuts, throwing me right back into a rage as I remember walking into the gym to find her blood smeared around like a child's finger paint, her hands mangled.
It only made it worse to watch Kratos get the drop on her, pinning her to the mat.
My mind runs away with the idea of just how many men had done something like that in the past with much worse intent.
I step out of my pants, but the sound of a door opening stops me in my tracks as I listen.
It could be anyone, anywhere. There are so many rooms up here, but it sounded closer.
A moment later, the bathroom doorknob shakes.
It’s locked, so whoever it is doesn’t get in, but that doesn’t stop them from trying.
“Fuck off,” I bark out, and while they stop trying, I don’t hear them walk away.
Whatever, I don’t have the patience to deal with this shit. I turn back to the shower, but before I can even think about finishing undressing, the door handle rattles again.
Why is it so hard for anyone in this goddamn house to listen?
I stalk toward the door, ready to lay into whoever it is that couldn’t take a hint, but before I reach it, the door swings open.
A shiny silver lock pick sticks out of the keyhole as the door hits the wall with a thud.
Jade pushes up to stand from her crouched position that let her into my bathroom, and some of my anger at being interrupted dissolves.
Only to come back when I spot dried blood on her throat and cheek.
“Get out,” I hiss the words through clenched teeth as I fight to stop myself from lashing out at her.
She was right earlier in the gym. I was angry with her and taking it out on Trent. He didn’t deserve that, but he isn’t innocent either, plus he knows me well enough that I’m sure he probably understood. Even after all these years apart, he knows the monster that lives just below the surface.
He has one of his own; he’s just better at controlling himself.
But no matter how angry I am at her, turning that anger on her doesn’t feel right. I need to get myself under control, which means I need her to leave me the hell alone.
“No,” she says, lifting her head in defiance that both makes me hard and enraged at the same damn time.
I roar in anger as I reach for the door to slam it closed again, but she’s quick, slipping past me and into the bathroom before the door slams shut.
My chest heaves as I turn to look at her, but she doesn’t back down or flinch away. So many times, I’ve wondered if she’s brave or just stupid, and while I know now it’s bravery, it’s different seeing her step up to me without faltering.
Even the guys have been known to flinch away from me when I get like this. I wouldn’t blame her if she did. Hell, I almost wish she would. I don’t think that I could hurt her, but I’m not exactly level-headed right now, and I would never forgive myself if I did.
“Roderick,” she says my name, and while I hear her, I can’t focus enough right now to pay attention.
I need to be away from her, and if she won’t leave, I will.
I move toward the door. The only thought in my head is that I need to be away from her.
She calls my name again, but I keep going, too far in my head to care.
Just before I reach the door, she’s there again, her back pressed against it, hands up in an attempt to stop me. My hand hangs in the air between us as I freeze.
“Rick?”
She breathes my name, hardly more than a whisper, but so full of emotion that I can’t help but look at her. She’s never called me that before. The closest she got was Ricky Boy to taunt me the other day, but this feels different.
“You're hurt,” she says, frowning in confusion as her eyes fall to my hand, still outstretched toward the door. I let it drop back to my side, but it’s too late. Her gaze snaps back to meet mine, and she arches a brow.
“So it’s okay for you, but not for me?” she asks, and there's no judgment in her tone, but I feel like she’s judging me.
“Yes,” I answer without thought before I realize what I just said. “No,” I correct, but that doesn’t make much sense either.
Fucking hell.
“So, which is it?” She asks, her voice still low as she takes a step toward me.
When I don’t answer, she takes another, and while I want to keep as much distance between us as possible, the room’s only so big, not to mention there's only one door, and it’s behind her.
All I’ll be doing is backing myself into a corner.
“You're not supposed to be hurt. We're supposed to be protecting you,” I tell her, and it’s the truth. That's our fucking job, but it still doesn’t make me feel better.
She nods, looking up at me as she takes another step toward me, eating up the last of the space between us, so that we’re all but standing toe to toe.
“And you are, but sometimes you need to let loose to make the world make sense.” She tilts her head to the side before looking down at her hand, before looking back at mine.
“Sometimes the pain and the fight help us take control when the world is falling apart around us. It helps to center us in a way that pretty words and plans for change can’t. ”
She looks back up at me, and I see the truth of her words in her eyes.
The way she describes it is so spot on that I could almost laugh.
All my life, I’ve had this blind rage that nobody understood.
Now, this little five-foot-nothing wisp of a girl who’s faced horrors that could make grown men cry is telling me she not only gets it, but she knows how it feels.
She watches me, but I keep quiet, unsure what to say, but she doesn’t seem bothered by the silence.
“I know you're upset, and I see why. It’s sweet that you care, but Kratos has been helping me stay afloat for a long time, and sometimes what we need doesn’t always make sense to other people.
If you want to be mad, that's fine, but I’m the only one who deserves that rage.
Not Kratos, and certainly not Trent.” Her voice is stern as she scolds me like a child.
The rage that had been slowly diminishing flares back to life at that. Trent might not have deserved it, but Kratos did. I open my mouth to argue, but she’s not having it.
“No, Rick,” she says, and I snap my mouth closed with a huff. “That would be like me picking a fight with Spencer because he wasn’t watching you, and you hurt your hand,” she says, and I scoff at that.
That’s not even remotely the same.
“Isn’t it?” she questions, and I realize I said that last bit out loud.
“I’m not saying I won’t pick a fight with Spencer anyway, because I probably will.
It’s kinda what we do at this point.” She shrugs, and she’s right.
They might not be ready to kill each other at any given moment now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t find something to argue over.
Arguing and death glares are what they built their entire relationship on so far, or at least, it had been. I think something happened last night, though. Spencer was a lot less on edge the last few hours. But he could just be too exhausted to be an ass at this point.