6. Who the hell is this guy?
6
Who the hell is this guy?
Electra
“We are leaving in the morning.” Stella’s stern command pulls my gaze from the panoramic window where I am once again watching white, fluffy snow slowly dance down from the skies.
“Leaving where?” A little over a month later and I still can’t get used to my own voice. Or shall I say to the new and improved version of it. Empty, detached, emotionless.
It’s the voice of a doll. Fitting…I guess. Because the voice of Elle Monroe doesn’t exist anymore. She’s dead. Buried under a thick layer of unforgiving ice. But at least I’m talking again.
“Home.”
“I am home.”
“No, you are in a mausoleum. And if I spend another night in this psych ward, I just might become like its owner. A fate worse than death if you ask me.” Stella clucks her tongue and goes back to whatever it is she’s doing.
Packing, I’m assuming, since she just said we’re leaving. And where is home if it’s not in my own penthouse. Or well, I guess it’s not really mine. A new little bit of information I’ve learned in the past couple of days and am still trying to wrap my head around.
The “rightful owner of this place” the only person whose name is on the deed, and as of recently my ex-boyfriend, showed up a week after the New Year and allowed me to stay here for a little while longer while he is in a training camp with his new partner.
He couldn’t even look at me and I couldn’t hold it in, I went numb at his words and then it was either another panic attack or shock or whatever but when I came to, he was gone and Stella was cursing like a sailor, shoving pills into my hand.
“Is there anything particular you want me to help you pack?”
“No.”
“Costumes?”
“What for?”
“Your medals?”
“Can go into trash.”
“Fine.” She agreed way too fast, which means she’ll pack it all anyway, ignoring what I just said. Why ask me then?
“So, where to?”
“Last time I checked, your ears were working just fine. Just as the rest of your body is,” she adds quietly. “I told you…home.”
Nope, I will not take her bait. I’ve fought and yelled enough in the past two weeks with her.
You see, my old trainer took Dr. Miles’s words about my ability to walk to heart and she won’t let it go. She’s convinced I can, while I’m convinced I won’t. And after I lost it on her, screaming, thrashing, and finishing the show with yet another panic attack she conceded to throwing out subtle hints instead of flat out trying to get me to use my legs again.
And they say I’m in denial…
“And where is home?”
“Iris Lake, of course.” I am indeed going home, and for the first time since I was discharged a month ago, there is a flicker of warmth lighting up my frozen insides.
I haven’t been back to Vermont in years and now that I know that’s where we are going, I can’t leave fast enough, the sterile white walls of this place pushing onto me. In fact, screw packing. I put my hands on the wheels and start moving away from my window.
“Where are you off to?”
“Home.”
“We haven’t packed yet.”
“Screw packing. I don’t need any of this.”
“You need your clothes, Electra.”
“No. I don’t need any of this. I don’t want any of this. It can all go to hell. I need to go. Let’s leave. Go. Please. Now. I need…I need…” My chest tightens as I start heaving, feeling the telltale signs of a panic attack approaching. My mind is growing fuzzy with those black spots I’ve become so accustomed to and I think I’m mumbling something, but I can’t hear myself.
All of sudden two strong hands grab a hold of me, wrapping me in a tight embrace. “Shhh, it’s okay. Take a deep breath.” Stella’s calm but stern voice pushes through the dark, thick ice of my brain, and I feel her warm hand patting the top of my head. “Get that breathing under control and we can get the fuck out of here. I promise you.”
Shakily and unsteadily I do calm down, only now I’m too drained to do anything else and I all but fall asleep in my chair but not before I hear Stella mumble, “God, I hope he is stubborn enough to handle her…”
I forgot how peaceful it is here. How serene and calm it is after the busy Boston. And quiet—so much that you can hear each tiny snowflake as it adds to the white pile already coating the ground.
I was born and raised in the small, picturesque town of Iris Lake, Vermont. And even more accurately on the Iris Lake itself. I close my eyes and see it all like it was only yesterday that my mom brought me here, taking out the second-hand skates from behind her back with a loud “ta-da” and a blinding smile on her face that was matched with my own.
It was the day after I saw that beautiful figure skater on the TV and wanted to be like her, so despite not having any spare money, she somehow got me those skates and holding my two small hands in hers helped me onto the ice, walking backward as I tried to skate on shaky legs.
Yet she never gave up. Day after day, we’d come here, practicing until we were both blue with the chill.
It’s days like these when I wish I’d remembered the sound of her voice. Or how her skin felt when she wrapped me in her arms. You’d think having seven years with her would be enough to have more memories of my mom than what I do, but no.
It’s days like these I envy those lucky ones who remember what color their booger was when they pulled it out on December 5th when they were two-years-old.
But I do remember her warmth as she gave it away to me freely. I remember it warming me up while we were practicing or just goofing around on that lake. She gave everything away too freely. Even her life.
It’s too quiet out there and the ring of my memories is too loud, ricocheting off that cold, unforgiving ice.
I’m wondering why the hell I decided to buy this particular house. Sure, one look at it and I was sold. I loved the cabin feel of it with wood accents, giant wood-burning fireplace, the warm colors of the floors and the most beautiful, colorful backsplash in the kitchen.
Nestled on the outskirts of the woods, it was far away from the rest of the nosey locals who were all too eager to talk to me and I was too eager not to. It’s not that they are bad people, not at all. Iris Lake is amazing and welcoming, but I left here as their celebrity. Only to come back broken and crushed. A failure. And the thought of seeing the disappointment written on their faces, guts me furthermore.
So, this cozy house was great. Plus, it was nothing like the penthouse I shared with Erik. Nothing like that cold, frozen castle that only served to display our acolytes, but it was also right up front that wretched lake.
Am I a secret masochist? I must be, because it’s been three hours since Stella left and I am still sitting at the window, not taking my eye off the blurry memories flashing in front of me.
Maybe it’s a blessing that Mom is gone, that she can’t see me and the disappointment I’ve become now. The sad bits and pieces that are left of that little girl who slashed through the ice on that lake to the sound of her booming laughter and never-ending encouragement. And how I wasted her precious gift—her life—with one wrong move.
I wipe one stray tear that slipped down my face when I hear someone knocking on my front door.
I thought Stella said she wouldn’t be back until late evening and it’s barely twelve o’clock now. Maybe she forgot something despite drilling into my head for years that she never forgets a thing. I turn and wheel myself over to the door. “I thought you never forg—”
The words die on my tongue when I fling the door open, and it is not my trainer standing on the other side. Not. At. All.
It’s a six-foot-something giant with spicy, yet smooth brown eyes, reminding me of an expensive whiskey and a mop of brown, slightly curly and unruly hair in that same shade, a beard covering his strong jawline, who is filling the entirety of my small one-bedroom house with his presence despite not even having one foot inside it.
And to top it all off, he looks at me like I am the one who ruined his day, killed his puppy and drank all of his protein shakes.
Who the hell is this guy?
“Can I help you?” I find my voice again, arching one eyebrow.
“Oh, yes,” he draws out, sounding all too-patronizing, and then stepping around me, the giant walks into the house.
Did he just…?
“What…where are you going? Hey!” I yell, slamming the door shut and wheel myself after him as fast as I can manage. And let’s just say, I had no idea I could actually go this fast.
“You got any food in here? Or better yet, alcohol? I’m starving,” he says nonchalantly as he strolls into my kitchen, dropping his heavy bag on my wood-looking tile floor on his way there.
“You’re starving for alcohol? Who the hell are you? This is not an AA house.”
He turns around with a “you are an idiot” facial expression and one eyebrow raised at me. “Just how hard did you hurt your little head? The fuck for would I come to an AA house and ask for a drink, dummy?” Andddd he manages to insult me in my own house when I don’t even know what he’s doing here in the first place.
“Okay, this has been lots of fun.” I finally manage to wheel myself around the kitchen island and slam the fridge door shut. “But if you don’t leave right this moment, I’m calling the cops.”
“Go ahead,” he says and opens it again.
I slam it shut again, making the contents inside of it rattle. “Go ahead?” I repeat quizzically.
“Mm-hmm.” He, of course, opens the fridge again and this time I’m too stupefied to keep the game going. “The only police station I saw on my way here was the one downtown.” He peeks out of my fridge. “That’s like half an hour away from here. So, by the time they get here for no reason at all, I will at least meet them on a full stomach.” He shuts the door himself this time, lifting the lasagna leftovers I had in there.
Shock moment over with.
I grit my teeth, pull out the wooden spatula from a drawer next to me and drive it into the side of his stomach hard enough for him to squeal, jump, cry out in pain and double over.
“What the fuck?” he roars, those whiskey eyes wide and furious. “Are you insane?”
I grab the dish he set down, holding it protectively in my lap. Are these the most insane fifteen minutes of my life?
Yep.
But at least my lasagna is safe.
And as of recently, I’m not really living in fear for my life. It can go whenever it pleases. And I am not hungry, but he can’t have it either.
“Say thank you it wasn’t my filleting knife. Now get your stuff and get the hell out of my house!” I point the spatula to the door, but if I thought he’ll do as told, I was wrong.
Dead wrong.
Oh no, the bronze in his eyes solidifies and within seconds he charges at me, his somewhat woodsy yet distinctively aquatic scent wraps around me, making my head grow fuzzy—God, why does he smell like that?—and before I know it, he’s yanking on my lasagna dish and pops the lid open.
“Give that back,” I say through clenched teeth.
“What are you gonna do, cripple?” he says, stuffing a mouthful of my fucking lasagna into his mouth. “Chase me?” The idiot taunts me as he walks backward.
And just like that, all humor—however pissed off it was—is gone from my face. The previously intoxicating scent of him, now toxic and choking as the icicle pinpricks run over my useless legs.
My fingers are itching to dig into them, to scratch and claw until that ice is gone, but it won’t help. I know it won’t help because the last time I did it, the only thing I accomplished was seeing that the blood in my legs still runs red…
He sees the sudden change of expression on my face right away because I watch him stop chewing, setting the dish down and cursing softly underneath his breath. “Look, sorry, I didn’t mean that!”
“Don’t lie to me.” My words are like a hot whip, and I don’t know what makes me say it. I don’t know why all of a sudden, I don’t want to have this weird, beautiful, infuriating stranger lie to me.
Not when everyone else in my life is.
He huffs out a heavy breath and goes back to eating like nothing happened. “Fine, I totally meant that. But, like, come on, what are you going to do about it?” He lifts a questioning brow my way and when no answer comes from me, he just nods and stuffs another forkful into his big, stupid mouth. “That’s what I thought.”
I’m way past finding out who this intruder is and just want him gone. He’s too…unsetting and I don’t like my reaction to him. Just a moment before he showed up I considered eating as too much effort, now look at me.
I make a sharp turn and will my hands to drive me away from him. “Well…it was not a pleasure; hope you choke on my lasagna and finally leave me alone.”
Just then a choking sound does sound, and I stop. “Fucking A, mate, you just had to jinx me like that, didn’t you?”
“Not your mate. And it’s not my fault you can’t perform basic body functions. Have a great life, weirdo, and hope to never see you again.”
“Man, it must really suck to not have any of your wishes come true recently.”
I exhale a tired breath. “Why are you still here?”
“Because I was sentenced here.”
“Start making sense or I don’t care how long it will take for cops to get here.”
“Jesus, relax your buttocks, oh wait, they are already relaxed.” He grins like an asshole he is. “My name is Exton Quinn, but you can call me Axe. And I’m your new babysitter.”
“You’re what?” I spit out.
“Look, we can make this real easy for the both of us. All you have to do is get up.” He claps his hands together.
All I can do at the moment is stare at him and blink. There is a lot of blinking happening over here. “Fuck, are you high?” I even lean in slightly to look into his eyes.
Are his pupils blown? They are, right? And that name…I’ve heard it before, I think.
“Not yet,” he answers and once again gets way too close into my personal space, fixing those whiskey eyes on me as if he’s trying to hypnotize me.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Get up!”
“Get down!”
“What?” He furrows his eyebrows.
“What? I thought we were practicing dog commands over here.”
The stranger’s—Exton’s—nostrils flare as he cages me in my chair with both of his hands on my rails. “I said, get up!”
“I can’t,” I grit out.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Why are you here? Who sent you here?”
“Sentenced,” he corrects. “By someone who holds my future in their hands, and it depends on you walking. Now, talk.”
“You took the assignment without first asking all the details?”
He shrugs, “It’s not like I had many options. So?”
“I broke my sacral bone.”
“You broke what? Human language, please.”
“Wow, you know how to say ‘please’?”
He rolls his eyes and motions for me to get going with the explanation.
I sigh. “It’s the bone that stabilizes my spine and connects to my pelvis. In simple terms, I need it to be able to walk.”
“So you broke your ass? How do you fix that?” He pulls his brows together as if he’s really putting a plan together.
“Not sure how you got ass out of my explanation but nonetheless, you don’t. I’m paralyzed.”
“I’ve been told you are capable of walking and the only way I’ll be free of you and back to my life is if you do just that. So, walk!”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, but you are not Jesus. Your commands won’t do the trick, and I don’t know who told you that crap, but I can’t walk. And never will. I’m paralyzed, idiot! Do you think I’m in this chair for funsies?”
Exton’s hands fist around my wheelchair, almost lifting it altogether with me in it, off the ground. “Fuck,” he hisses and releases me with a slight thump , and runs his huge hand over his hair, messing it even more.
For someone who can’t stand the sight of other humans right now—never mind men—I sure keep staring at him. Even in that huge sweatshirt with Boston’s hockey team Outlaws logo on it, I can see how huge his arms are, how broad those shoulders are. I’ve never met someone like that.
All the men I’ve known are figure skaters. Lean, fit, even skinny, but nothing compared to this mountain.
What would it feel like to be held by that?
I’d almost think how absurd my line of thought was in regard to this asshole if I wasn’t so surprised by it.
Sure, I’ve come a long way from those first days in the hospital and I can pretend to be somewhat normal or resigned to my new life. But I’m nowhere near…that. Whatever it was.
I blink at my own thought when my eyes catch on that logo again and just then it dawns on me… “You’re Exton Quinn from the Boston Outlaws?” I’ve never watched a hockey game in my life but when you live in Boston and share the same ice with the local celebrities, you will end up hearing their names.
“Want an autograph?” he asks in a flat tone.
Well, now it makes sense a bit more. “Stella made you come here, didn’t she?”
My old trainer mentioned going to their game to see an old friend who happens to be Outlaws head coach back when we were still in Boston. And that same coach also happens to be her ex-boyfriend who was very much in love with her—and looks like he still is, if he gifted her one of his best players.
I don’t wait for him to answer though. “Well, sorry, you wasted a trip out here, but I don’t need a babysitter. And I won’t walk, so have a safe drive home.” I start to wheel myself out again and he stops me, again.
“No can do, little star.” I stop in my tracks, turning my head over my shoulder to look at him.
“What did you just call me?”
“Little star,” he says, taking yet another bite. “But I guess you are more of a falling star now. And I do mean that literally.” He points his fork at me. “Speaking of falling… Do you have a boyfriend? I thought all of you marry your partners or whatever. Cause we need to make sure he understands that I’m not here to hit on you or whatever.”
“Get out,” I grit out through very clenched teeth. “I don’t care who sent you here. You are going to get the hell out of my house now!” I basically roar that last part out just as my vision grows hazy.
So not the fucking time, stupid panic attack. So not the time.
The asshole has the audacity to groan. “You think I want to be here? Stuck with a pain in the ass with a ‘woe-is-me’ complex?”
He doesn’t even see the six-hundred-forty-three pager I’m hurling at his head, but I give it to him, his instincts are good—or my aim is shit since I’m a second away from passing out—he ducks away. “Are you fucking insane?”
“Yes! Yes, I am! Now get out!”
“I can’t! Stella Gray told me I’m to be stuck with you.”
“Well, I’m absolving you of that responsibility.” My breathing is coming out in pants now and I need him gone. Fast. “My boyfriend will be here soon. So, you can leave.”
“Stella—”
“Stella doesn’t know that yet,” I lie, but he doesn’t need to know that either. “I’ll deal with her. Go, run with a stick, hit people or whatever is it you do.”
“You know what? Fine.” He turns to grab his bag and starts toward the door. “If you don’t need me, then I’m out of here.”
“Yes. Good. Bye.” I barely manage to get out before he storms out the door, slamming it shut.
And it’s as if my body knows that now it can let go because my next breath? I can’t draw it. All I see is black in front of my eyes, my limbs feel like they weigh a ton, and I know I need to move, to wheel myself over to the window for some fresh air, but I can’t.
The fingers around my wheels are clammy and I think I’m moving but I’m not sure.
Whatever control of my body I still had is rendered useless when I’m like this. When my new reality crashes against that thin new layer of ice I’ve built for myself with the slightest mention of the accident or my old life and the next thing I know, I’m falling through it.
Again, and again.
I need air. Water. I need, I need…breathe…