Driftwood Dreary (The Dead Rockstar Trilogy #3)

Chapter 17

Seventeen

“Talk to me about the magic.”

Benny cocked an eyebrow and sat his can of Jack and Coke down on the table. I’d brought a four pack of the pre-made cocktails to his motel room in the hopes of bribing him. Lee and Phillip were back at Jason’s house, having a meeting to discuss the tour, so it was the perfect time to get Benny alone. “That’s a tall order. What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” I said. “I asked Lydia, but she was, as usual, cagey as all get out. I know nothing, Benny. Can you please tell me like, the basics? Anything?”

“Witchcraft for Dummies?” He laughed.

“You’re joking, but yes. That. Anything.” I swallowed. “I’m desperate. I can’t have this power in me, feeling it bubble up in my hands, knowing it’s running through my blood, without understanding it. Without knowing how to use it or why I have it. What my limits are. I don’t know anything, Benny.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“What I did to Shank…okay, I know he deserved it, but…I didn’t mean to do what I did. Someone is dead because I couldn’t control my magic, Benny. I need to know how to control it. Before someone else dies,” I pleaded, my desperation evident in my voice.

“Okay, okay,” Benny replied. “I don’t know everything myself, though. My own knowledge is limited so all I can do is tell you what I’ve learned.”

“Lydia said you’d done research.”

Benny laughed. “That part is true. I checked out actual books from the library. I took notes. What a nerd, huh?”

“Tell me what you knoooooooooow,” I said in a silly voice, slapping my hands on the table. “Fuck, read me the notes verbatim, I don’t care. Just talk magic to me, Benny and the Jets.”

“Where do you want me to start?” Benny asked with a grin.

“At the beginning,” I said, “When you first got your powers.”

“Well, that’s difficult to say,” Benny said, taking a guzzle of his Jack and Coke. “Because I’ve had them as far back as I remember. I wish could tell you I know how it happened or why, but I don’t. I do have theories, but.” He looked thoughtfully at his can, turning it over and over in his hands. “I guess I first noticed there was something about me that was different when I was five or so. I don’t remember much before that age, so maybe I’d noticed things before, but that’s when I really remember starting to think, ‘hey, something’s not right.’ That’s when things started to happen.”

“Like what?”

“Well, the first thing I remember was realizing that not everyone could hear thoughts like I could.” He frowned. “I just automatically knew when someone was sad, for instance, or I knew what my mama was going to cook for dinner that night without her having to say. I knew when my folks were fighting, even if they went in the other room and shut the door so I couldn’t hear them. I just assumed everyone had that power, and when I realized they didn’t, it kind of freaked me out. I thought there was something wrong with me.” He took another small sip. “And then I realized something else. Not only could I hear, or read, however you want to say it, people’s thoughts, but…I could suggest things to them and they’d think they thought of it.”

“What? Are you serious?”

“Yes.” He looked at me. “Can’t you do that?”

“I don’t think so. Have you…ever done that with any of us?” I asked. “With me?”

Benny shook his head. “No. I resolved years ago—after causing plenty of trouble for myself and others, believe me—that I wouldn’t do that sort of thing anymore.”

“So what kind of things could you make people do then?”

“I couldn’t really make people do things…just…plant a suggestion. The person would assume they’d thought of it themselves, but often people talk themselves out of things, or don’t even give conscious attention to their thoughts. So even if I planted an idea, there was no guarantee the person would put the idea into action.” He sat back. “I did have some success though.”

“Examples?”

Benny grinned. “Let’s just say back in my younger days when I was first starting out as a pro-wrestler, I may have talked a few of my opponents into giving less than their best.”

“Oh my god, you cheater.” I laughed. “Is that how you managed to beat guys three times your size when you were like twelve years old? Is that how you beat A.J. Floyd that time?”

Benny grinned at me, eyes widening in surprise. “How do you know about that match?”

“I was there,” I said proudly, beaming. “My dad took me to a lot of matches at the flea market when I was a kid, and I saw you wrestle quite a few times. That night was particularly memorable because…” I paused, then went on. “Because that was the night I met Nikolai. He’s my brother, you know.” I looked at him to gauge his reaction.

“I know,” he said, to my shock. “He told me a while back, around the first time I met you.”

“He did?

“Your dad has been on our radar at the Wolfden for a while because of his associations with Elvin and Guthrie,” Benny answered. “When you turned up with Roberta, Nikolai thought I should know who you were, just in case.”

“I guess that makes sense,” I said, a little deflated that he hadn’t told me first, but I understood why he’d sat on that info. How on earth would I have reacted if he’d told me that first night out by the bonfire when I was already so freaked that he was my long-lost brother? I probably would have run screaming for the hills, or punched him in the face.

“I can totally see it,” Benny said, looking at me. “That you two are siblings. You both have the same strong, quiet way of just getting on with things, of handling business, but it also gets you in trouble. You’re so used to being self-sufficient and let down by people that you end up pushing people away.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” I said with a giggle, but inside, I felt hurt. Though he was right, of course.

“You also have the same cheekbones,” he said with a chuckle of his own, and I instinctively raised a hand to my cheek. “I’m glad you know now,” he said softly, reaching across the little table to pat me on the shoulder. “Now you two can build a relationship.” He sighed, then gestured for the whiskey. “I wish I had siblings—or any other kind of family—to fall back on.”

“Are they all…” I trailed off.

“My mom is dead, Dad is in jail,” Benny said matter-of-factly, twirling his can. “He went in when I was thirteen, right around the time I started wrestling, on a trumped-up, bullshit charge, and right around the time I started realizing I could use my powers for certain things.” Benny smiled grimily. “My mom never let me visit him or write too many letters to him before he died. She knew Dad was framed, but her culture is very conservative, and she didn’t want to be, I don’t know, tainted by association.” He frowned. “Then she died when I was fifteen.”

“Oh,” I said, curious. ”I’m sorry about your mom. And you don’t have any siblings or grandparents or anything?”

“None to speak of,” he answered. “My grandfather in New Mexico lives on the reservation. I’ve never even been there, never met the man. With my father being in jail, I guess that’ll never happen now unless I reach out. My maternal grandmother moved back to China after my grandfather—he was American—died. This was in the late seventies, before I was even born. My mother told me stories about them both, but I’ve never met them.” He drained the Jack and Coke and set it back on the table. “I’ve pretty much been raising myself since I was an adolescent, and I got used to being alone. But don’t feel sorry for me…I have a family. The Wolfden is my family.”

“I didn’t know you were Native,” I said, surprised. “Or Chinese, for that matter.”

Benny smiled. “You can’t tell by looking at me?”

“I can now,” I admitted, giving his dark brown eyes and sharp features an appraising glance. I’d always thought Benny made a handsome and imposing figure, but he did even more so now that he’d opened up to me and I knew him better.

“I hope you don’t mind…” I said, smiling shyly. “I’m kind of starting to see the Wolfden as my family too. Well, except for Clara.”

“The Wolfden is your family. In every sense of the word.” Then he grinned. “And just ignore Clara. She’ll come around eventually.”

I wasn’t so sure about that. Not to mention, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be close with her. “Far be it for me to give you advice, but…” I said tentatively. “You should consider reaching out to your remaining grandparents. Especially the one here in the States. What if you inherited your magic from one of them? What if they can help you learn to navigate it?”

“I’ve thought of that,” Benny said. “I’ve also thought of the alternative, that he’ll know the kinds of powers I have, the things I can do, and tell me to take my evil ass away from there.”

“But it’s your family,” I pressed. “Aren’t you curious?”

“Maybe one day,” Benny said in a voice that made it clear he was finished talking about that subject.

“So tell me more about the magic,” I said, content to let it drop, even though I was dying to hear more about Benny’s childhood, his dad’s arrest, and his grandparents. I hated when people pried in my life too. Family shit was so complicated.

“I just started…I don’t know…figuring out how to use it,” Benny said. “To wield it? Is that the word? I don’t know how to explain it. All I know is that I always sort of felt like I was different, like I had different experiences than others. Part of that was growing up as a mixed-race kid in the South, but it was more than that. And as things started to go sour at home, I felt that power rushing through me more and more. It’s like…when I was stressed or upset about my dad, or when my mom started to get sick, I could feel it, just running through my fingers, like it was just lying there dormant, waiting for me.”

“I’ve felt that too,” I said softly.

He nodded. “And as I got older, I started to kinda…push it forward. One day, it occurred to me that I could splay out my hands, and I just sort of…pushed…and it was like, zap! Next thing I knew, I’d pushed my friend Jeremy into the wall without ever touching him. I practiced, and I figured out other things I could do. I realized I could do that ‘zap’ thing and knock somebody out cold. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but I did that more than once. It came in handy when I was being bullied in sixth grade.”

“And then you used it in wrestling matches?”

“Yes, but more subtly. I mainly stuck to the power of suggestion with the matches; I didn’t out and out cheat. I never knocked anybody out in the ring, but I do confess to using a little light zapping to shove someone off me when they had me in a headlock.” He grinned. “I’m not ashamed to admit that I used my powers to my advantage. Being that young, on my own, trying to make my way doing the amateur wrestling circuit in South Georgia… Well, let’s just say the odds were stacked against me and then some. My powers enabled me to make a living when I needed a roof over my head and food to eat. I don’t regret it.”

“I wouldn’t, either.”

“So yeah, that’s pretty much it…for a while. I wrestled all through my teen years. Crashed on a few couches at first, then saved up enough to rent a trailer of my own and buy a car when I was sixteen. I met Clara around that time, and she and I teamed up and did a few co-ed tag team matches.” He looked at me with an embarrassed smile. “You said you saw me wrestle a bunch. Did you ever see us together?”

“No,” I admitted. “Though I wish I had. That sounds awesome.”

“It was.” He grinned. “I had an unfair advantage, but Clara was just a badass. When I met her, she was already all muscle, just stacked. All that blonde hair, and she wore it in this messy bun on top of her head, and she wore purple glittery eyeliner that matched the purple lipstick she always wore. It sounds tacky, but she made it work. She was sexy, tough as shit, and it was perfect. The crowd always ate her up. She was pretending to be twenty years old when she was only seventeen, so half the guys screaming for her didn’t realize they were lusting after jailbait.” He laughed. “She and I were already an item then, though, so I wouldn’t have let anything happen to her. Not that I would’ve needed to intervene. She could kick asses better than I could.”

“So what happened between the two of you?”

“Well,” he said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. “Two things happened, actually. One of them has to do with the magic, and the other…as you might’ve guessed, has to do with Lee.” He gestured at me. “Get up.”

I got up from the table, and Benny stood up too, coming to stand directly facing me, only about a yard away in the small motel room. He held out his arms and gestured for me to do the same. “Zap me,” he said.

“No,” I said automatically, clenching my fingers into involuntary fists, holding them to my chest. “I don’t want to do that.”

“You won’t hurt me, I promise,” Benny said with a smile. “Scout’s honor. Just a small zap.”

“But …”

“Go ahead.” He grinned. “You know you want to flex the old muscles.”

I sighed, fully aware that it was somewhat theatrical, because he was right—suddenly I did want to. I splayed out my fingers, stretching them, enjoying the buzzing feeling as I moved my hands. I was still getting used to that odd electric sensation that always happened when I moved my fingers; it was a pleasant thrum, not unlike how I imagined electricity running through wires might feel like, if one were the wire. It was hard to explain, but Benny knew what I was feeling, which explained the wide smile on his face as he watched me prepare and stall for time. I shook my hands once, twice, then bent my arms at the elbow and back out again, extending my fingers to their full length as I did, and before I had a chance to rethink and stop myself, I shot out as much power from them as I could, directly in Benny’s direction.

I could also see it in my mind’s eye. I could visualize a glowing, blue-green ball of light hurl through the air directly toward Benny’s chest. Time seemed to stop for a moment as I watched it barrel forward, heading right for his heart, and my breath caught in my throat. My fingers were stretched out still, my arms cast forward, and I desperately scratched at the air, as if I could take back what I’d already unleashed.

The air seemed to crackle between us, the atoms floating there seeming to pop and jump.

Then, in less than seconds, Benny reached out and grabbed at the air, his fist closing around nothing, and with a mischievous look, he hurled his hand forward, unfurling his fist, and shot it back toward me.

I had only a split second to think before I reached out and grabbed, somehow knowing on instinct what to do, where to grasp. My eyes widened as my hand curled around what felt like pure light —the same feeling I so often felt in my fingers and other limbs, concentrated and in my palm. I opened my hand and saw nothing. My hand seemed a little illuminated, as though I were standing in a beam of sunshine, but that was all. And yet the feeling of fullness, of light, of pure power was undeniable. I stared down at my hand, shocked.

“Didn’t know you could do that, did you?”

“How did you…how did I…did we just play a game of catch with a ball of electricity?” I asked.

“Close your hand,” Benny said, ignoring my question. “Just …close your fingers and sort of hold it there.”

I did what I was told, closing my fingers slowly, one by one, into a gentle fist. As my hand came to settle, I felt the odd sensation of electricity seeping into my skin through my palm, tickling, buzzing, like touching the world’s gentlest electric fence. And then the sensation was gone.

“What the fuck.”

“That skill will come in handy,” Benny said. “To protect you from others and to protect others from you.”

“What do you mean?”

His soft brown eyes met mine. “Sometimes you’ll find yourself unable to control the power. It wants to come through you, to use you as a conduit. It seeks its target. But if you learn to master it, you can tame those urges into submission.” He reached forward and thumped my hand. “And you can use it to thwart attacks from others too, like I just did.”

“You’re teaching me magical self-defense,” I said, rolling my eyes. “This is too much.” Deep down, though, my stomach was rolling. I wished I’d known this when I’d zapped Shank and got Phillip’s entire show blown up. Someone was dead because of me.

“He was also a total asshole who was determined to blow that place up long before you ever zapped him,” Benny said quietly.

“Hey!” I looked at him in surprise. “Did you?—"

“Sorry,” he said with a sheepish smile. “Sometimes when I get to playing around with the magic, it’s like…the veil slips and I forget to stop listening.” He cuffed my shoulder. “You should know by now that people—well, the ones like us—can read your thoughts. And you can read ours, if you want to.” I didn’t have time to digest that before he continued. “But honestly, Stormy, I already figured. We all did, actually. And nobody judges you; we’re all grateful that you were there, trying to protect us.”

“I’m not sure Phillip will see it that way,” I said sullenly. I hadn’t had a chance to really talk to Phillip about what had happened at the show, or Colt’s death specifically. We’d been too busy focusing on the next show and the tour. Though that was only partially true, if I admitted it to myself. I’d been avoiding the topic, and Phillip had been letting me.

“Of course he will,” Benny said. “He already does. Like I said, we can’t help but see some of what’s in your head. Phillip already knows what happened in that venue, Stormy. Why do you think he was so quick to talk to the cops and get everything cleared up? To protect you.” He squeezed my shoulder. “You should have seen him when you were out. He was running around, frantic, desperate for me to make you better. He didn’t give two shits about his show, or Shank, or anything other than making sure you were safe and okay.”

“I have a habit of ruining things for him,” I said dejectedly. “For both of us.”

“I don’t like this on you,” Benny said, his voice turning a bit sassy. “It’s not a good look, simpering wimp feeling sorry for herself. Bitch, you’re a badass witch. You’re the girlfriend of a legit fuckin’ rock star. And most importantly, you’re the newest member of the Wolfden, which means you’re my family, and I don’t let nobody talk shit about my family. Got it?”

I couldn’t help but grin. “Got it.”

“Daps.” He reached out his fist. When I bumped it with my own, a spark of electricity jolted me, and I jumped backward, watching as a bright blue spark fell from Benny’s hand to the ground.

“I have a few more tricks that you don’t,” Benny said with a laugh. “But that’s only because you haven’t practiced. You can do anything I can…if you just hone in on your abilities.”

“I can’t kill people,” I said pointedly, and he cocked his eyebrow again.

“Yes, you can,” he said. “If you want to.”

I looked at him in horror. “No, I can’t. At least not on purpose. You kill people…I bring them back.”

Benny shrugged. “If you say so. Let’s just say our talents…and our desires…are different.”

“Okay,” I said, not ready to pull at that thread any longer. “But it’s driving me nuts, Benny, not knowing the origin of this magic, what it means, why I have it. I need answers. I hear you have notes too. I’d love to see them.”

“I’ll happily show you the notes, but…I think you’ll find it has a lot more questions than answers.”

“Lydia said you’d done all this research.”

“I did,” he answered. “And pretty much all I found is that there’s no real rhyme or reason to any of it.” He sighed. “One thing that seems to be a common denominator in the people like us that I’ve met —and there aren’t as many as you think—is that we all suffered some form of neglect or trauma as children. Most of us are just the smart, hurt kids who learned how to dissociate. You know, I really believe that all humans have the powers we have, it’s just that the majority of them never learned, or maybe they knew as babies but forgot as they grew up, how to harness that power. It’s like toning a muscle you’re not used to using. Somehow, some of us kids learned how to tap into those powers as a way to self-protect.”

“I can sort of see that with the ‘parlor tricks,’ as Lydia calls them,” I said thoughtfully, taking a sip of my own drink. “But raising the fucking dead? Having the power to kill someone with your bare hands? Being able to prolong someone’s life? Benny, that’s serious magic. That’s not easy magic like moving a pencil across the room or reading someone’s thoughts. There has to be something more behind those abilities.” I met his dark brown eyes and shook my head. “For god’s sake, I recited a spell on the back of an album and reanimated someone who had been dead for over two decades, summoned him to my house, and now he’s alive and can read my mind. You can’t say that’s just some self- care basic witch shit that I created to cope with my trauma. I can’t believe that.”

“Well, but in your case,” Benny argued, “you were influenced by Lydia at a very young age. You witnessed her, a very powerful witch, using her power to bring your mother back. You joined in, so to speak, and I think that activated something dormant in you. And then, when Elvin started putting you under hypnosis, having you try out different types of small magic…I think it flexed your powers, gave you a workout, so to speak. Your powers grew and grew, out of both necessity and practice. So by the time you recited that spell, you were primed.” He looked at me with sadness. “And he indoctrinated all the kids at the trailer park—Burt, Jamie, Nikolai—with the same powers. They gained their abilities because of their proximity to you.”

I frowned. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that. I’m their witch mother, basically? And Lydia and Elvin are their witchy grandparents?”

Benny laughed. “In a nutshell, yes.”

“And you? How did you get ‘primed’? I’d argue that you’re far more powerful than me. This isn’t Harry Potter; most people can’t wave a wand and kill somebody with their mind.”

“I flexed my muscles too,” Benny said quietly. “I told you my home life was pretty bad when I was a kid. I’ve spared you details, but let’s just say that I was stuck by myself a lot with nothing but time on my hands to figure out my powers. And remember, I met Elvin as a kid too.” He grimaced. “I was a bit older than you, but he was every bit as predatory, believe me.”

I wanted to ask further, but something in his expression shut me down. “But…necromancy?”

“I seem to remember the phrase ‘it’s all about intention’ swirling around that noggin of yours a lot when we first met,” Benny said with a small smile. “As Lydia will no doubt have told you, a huge portion of your magic really is about how you intend to use it. There are limits, of course, but you’re the weaver, the wielder. If you write the spell—whether that’s literally with quill and ink, or just in your own mind—you can make that spell a reality. You were able to bring Phillip back because you wanted to.”

“Lee is…like Phillip,” I said, and he nodded.

“I know. He doesn’t like to talk about it a lot. It bothers him,” Benny said. “I think it’s a reminder that his parents were always trying to fix something they’d already broken rather than not breaking it in the first place.”

I nodded. I could understand that. The truth was, I’d been dying to hear the details of Lee being brought back ever since Lydia had first told me, but I was afraid to ask. Something in Lee seemed so delicate, so afraid of the truth. And part of me was afraid too. Whatever I learned about Lee might also apply to Phillip. It was a power so big I was afraid to confront it. “Do you think it was easy for me to bring Phillip back because I’d already interacted with someone who had that ability?” I asked, and Benny nodded.

“There’s some type of, I don’t know, string of fate, that ties the four of you. You had this connection with Lydia, and years later, Guthrie had one with Phillip. Roberta thinks Guthrie and Elvin orchestrated a lot of that, that it wasn’t coincidence. I wasn’t there so I can’t say, but whatever tether you have to this group of people, it’s very strong.”

“Don’t I know it,” I said glumly. “Still…I’m not satisfied with this. It’s too much of a coincidence for all of us, who just so happen to have grown up within a few miles of each other in South Georgia, to have these powers. That we’d all find each other again as adults. I know what you’re going to say—that we all seek each other out subconsciously or something —but no. There’s more to it than that.”

“I don’t disagree. But I’ve never been able to find out what that link is,” Benny admitted, his face regretful.

“So that’s it, then? There’s no history or lore I can pour over to learn about who I am? No more information? Just…nothing?”

Benny reached into his suitcase and pulled out a spiral bound notebook. “Take it with you. I’ve written things down over the years, stuff I’ve studied about magic, about witchcraft and the occult. You might find it helpful. But yeah, that’s it, as far as I know. We’re just blessed, or cursed, however you want to look at it, with these powers. We’ve cultivated them with our own minds, and now we are who we are.”

We sat in silence for a few moments, me holding the notebook, my hands lingering over the pages, wanting to look. I’d wait until I was alone when I could really delve into it. I was hopeful that, despite what Benny said, I’d get some answers. Something I could hold onto, even if it was a flimsy explanation. I decided to change the subject.

“So…I can’t help but notice that you dodged my question earlier. What happened with you and Clara?”

“I didn’t dodge it,” Benny answered. “I showed you how to manage your magic to illustrate a point. There was one time when I didn’t know I could do that. Well, to be honest, I knew I could, but I chose not to put it in practice. I liked winning matches, you see. I really liked it. I make good money as a wrestler, and being the heavyweight champion or whatever, it was a boost to the ego that I had a hard time letting go of.” He sighed. “The ironic thing is, I know now that I could have beaten any of those guys on my own steam without using magic at all, and I have. But back then, just a couple years ago even, I was scared of letting go of control. Scared not to use my power.”

“What happened?”

“Clara and I had a tag-team match with this husband-and-wife duo—you ever heard of the Brunswick Bulldawg and Lady Tela?”

“I can’t say I have.” I suppressed a snort. “That’s quite a…quite a pair of names.”

“Yeah, it’s bad,” Benny said, but his face was dark. “I hated that guy. His real name was Lance, and I’d been seeing him on the circuit for years. You make a living in a small town in a niche like wrestling and you get to know guys. Y’all are sharing a dressing room, or sometimes just a small, dirty-ass bathroom with these guys. Working small venues like clubs, flea markets, outdoor festivals…you get to know a person. And I knew Lance. More than I cared to.” His face bore a grim expression. “He was a bully. Racist as fuck. Mean as a snake. Not just in the ring, either.”

“Oh,” I said quietly, understanding. “That sucks.”

“You can imagine I was gunning for him, solely based on that,” Benny said. “One night a couple years ago, we were all at a cookout after one of the weekly matches, and we’d all been drinking a lot. Bathroom was occupied, so I walked around back of my buddy’s house to take a whiz, and I happened upon Lance and Tela fighting. I rounded the corner just in time to see him clock her right in the nose. I ran up on him, ready to tear the bastard limb from limb, but a couple of my buddies pulled me back. They kicked Lance out of the cookout, but they didn’t do anything to him, and of course Tela got right in the car with him. I was so fucking pissed. Nobody held him accountable, nobody did anything. They held me back so I wouldn’t do anything.” He shook his head. “I came so close to zapping them all that night. Anyway, I’d been seeing him bully younger and smaller wrestlers for years, so when he punched Tela, that was it for me. I decided I was going to whoop his ass into next week. Fuck the match, I didn’t even care if I won. I just wanted to get my hands on that son of a bitch.”

“I can imagine.”

“I didn’t tell Clara that I was planning to go all in on Lance. For all she knew, I’d let the whole thing go and this was just a normal match. We had everything scripted out, planned—you know how wrestling goes. The moves are somewhat choreographed, and while there’s a little room to improvise here and there, it’s largely drafted ahead of time.”

“Including the outcome of the match?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” he replied. “Depends on the venue, on the event. That particular match, there was no clear-cut winner. We had a timeframe, a general script to follow, and a few moves we were expected to do, but the end moves were ours. I planned to win that night,” Benny said. “Not just win, I wanted to kill the motherfucker.”

“I can imagine what happened,” I said. “You went in there and zapped him, didn’t you?”

“Yes…and no,” Benny said. He paused, sighing. “This part doesn’t really put me in a good light. Just so you know.”

“Noted,” I said, but I was excited to hear the rest. Benny was good as gold in my eyes, and I welcomed anything that made him seem human, warts and all, like the rest of us.

“I didn’t zap him in the ring. The truth is, we didn’t even get to the ring. The match never even happened. Turns out, I couldn’t keep my anger in check long enough to get to the match…It all went down before that. In the dressing room.”

“What happened?”

“We were due to shoot one of those promos, you know, where one wrestler is giving an ‘interview’ in the locker room, and the next thing you know, the heel runs in and interrupts to talk shit? A fight breaks out?” He grinned. “Surely you’ve seen those.”

“Yeah, like a little teaser to get you pumped for the match,” I said, remembering back to my childhood and the countless locker room brawls I’d seen between “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair and Macho Man Randy Savage or Bret the Hitman Hart. “Those were always the best parts. These two beefcakes yelling at each other and pointing fingers and some nerdy looking interviewer standing in the background sweating.”

“Fun to film too,” Benny said, grinning wider. “I always wanted to sign with one of the big dogs like WWF or WCW and get a chance to do that on a larger scale. That’d be a blast. But I’ve never left the amateurs.” He shook his head. “Anyway. So we were set to film one of those promos, and I was running late because I’d had car trouble. Clara and Lance were already there, and I was rushing to get to them so they wouldn’t have to wait. I’m throwing on my makeup as I’m running down the hall of this—well, basically it was a glorified gym, nothing fancy—and I can hear them talking in the locker room. I round the corner and go in, expecting to find the camera crew all set up and them waiting for me, pissed. But instead, I find the camera crew is nowhere to be seen, and Lance has taken the moment alone with Clara as an opportunity to pin her to the corner and grope her.”

“Oh no.”

“Clara can handle herself just fine with most everybody; she’s tough as nails and she can win matches with guys three times her size. But I guess Lance caught her at a bad moment or something, or maybe it was the way he had her pinned, with one of his legs in between hers, kind of skewering her back into the corner…She was trapped. She was pleading with him to just let her go, that people would be here any minute, that she’d get him fired. But he didn’t care. As I’m rushing over, I hear him go, ‘Nobody would believe you since you’ve slept with half the crew anyway.’” He grimaced. “You can imagine what happened next. I pulled him off her and wailed on him. Something just came over me, and I was dealing punches—Clara got a few in herself too—and by the time we were done with him, Lance was in a heap on the floor, curled in the fetal position, trying to shield his head. Blood pouring out of his nose, just a really bad scene.”

“Can hardly blame you for it,” I said. “I mean, he was about to assault her. He did assault her.”

“If I’d left it at that, yes. But I didn’t leave it at that.” He shrugged. “I felt that surge, like I just showed you. I could feel it building in my hands, growing and growing and becoming this, like…this thing. Like my anger and rage was all transferring to this power that I held in my hands, this tangible thing I could touch and feel and use. I knew it was wrong, even as I felt it. Looking down, I could see that Lance was barely conscious at it was; I’d already hurt him pretty damn bad. He’d likely get fired for assaulting Clara, and he was fucked in more ways than one. There was no reason or need to do anything else, but…I was still angry. And even though I knew by then that I could control the power I held in my hands…I…I didn’t want to.” His voice had gone quiet as he looked at me, his dark eyes glowing with fire. “The thought just went through my head, very briefly, almost casually—‘I could kill you.’ I didn’t even say it out loud. It was so fleeting. And I just…without even thinking, I looked down at Lance, crumpled in that ball by my feet, and I aimed and shot everything I had in my hands—all that anger and rage and power—into him.”

“And what happened?”

“You know the answer already, don’t you?” Benny asked, then didn’t wait for my answer. “What happened next is that Lance died.”

He went on, ignoring my wide-eyes and gaping mouth. “His arms that had been guarding his head sort of went lax, and he was very still. Clara was staring at me in shock, and I asked her if she was okay. She didn’t answer or nod or anything; she just kept staring at me like she’d never seen me before. So I reached down and put a hand under Lance’s nose to feel for breath. My hand was shaking so bad that I accidentally brushed his face and got blood all over my hands. There was no breath. He was dead. I’d killed him.” As his fingers resumed nervously brushing the rim of his can, I could see that they were trembling. “I don’t know how…or why, even…I did it, but I did. I’d killed him instantly with nothing but my magic, and I hadn’t even been really directing it. All I had thought, absently, was, ‘I could kill you,’ and that’s all it took.”

“How did Clara react?”

“I had to shake her a little to get her to help me to um…to hide the body,” Benny said. “In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t involved her because it really took a toll on her. It fucked up our relationship, our friendship, all of it. It’s never been the same. But at the time, I was so panicked, and I didn’t want anyone to find Lance there. It wasn’t like I could explain that I’d accidentally zapped him to death. People would see his bloody nose and assume we’d beaten him to death, and that meant we’d both go to jail. I had to get rid of the body, and quick.”

“Oh, Benny.” My shoulders tensed. This was heavy. “What did you guys, um…what did you do?”

“We found a spot,” he said quietly. It appeared he still wanted to keep a secret or two, and I couldn’t blame him. “We made quick work of it, and when it was done, Clara was crying silently. She still hadn’t said anything, but the tears on her cheeks said it all.” His face was dark. “She knew I’d done it for her, but the fact that I’d killed someone, and the shock of seeing my powers without knowing about them…I guess she’d maybe suspected that something was weird at the matches, why I was so much more powerful, but she didn’t know outright, and I think seeing it scared the shit out of her. It was all too much. When she finally spoke, it was to break up with me.

“We had a big fight. She accused me of keeping secrets from her, said that she couldn’t trust me now or even feel safe around me because I’d concealed who I really was from her, the powers that I had. She wasn’t wrong; it wasn’t something I could argue with. But I was desperate not to lose her. And truth be told, I was a little afraid she was going to turn on me and go to the cops, which is really unfair because she’s always been loyal. So I said a few things I’m not proud of. I accused her of cheating on me, of leaving me to be with someone else. I threw what I’d heard Lance say about sleeping with half the crew in her face.” He looked ashamed. “But she was able to easily counter that accusation. Since I’d been unfaithful to her too. An affair I thought I’d been discreet about, but it turns out she’d known about it for months.”

“Lee?”

Benny nodded. “Yes. Lee.” I couldn’t help but smile, seeing how Benny’s face began to glow at the mention of Lee, even when talking about such a difficult subject. “We’d met a few months before, and one thing had just led to another…I was already head over heels in love with him, and we were stealing away to see each other every second we could. Lee wasn’t out yet, and it didn’t bother me that much back then because I had Clara. I was having my cake and eating it too. Stupidly—arrogantly—I thought Clara had no idea, that I was getting away with it. But she knew. She knew, and she was really torn up about it. She’d started taking pills to cope with her depression. Truth was she’d just been waiting for the right time to confront me and give me an ultimatum. Before Lance’s death, she’d been planning on forgiving me, giving me another chance, if I’d finally agree to marry her and leave Lee for good. But after she saw me kill somebody with my bare hands, I guess she realized that wasn’t what she wanted. And she just sunk deeper and deeper.” Benny smiled sadly. “The ironic thing is that I would have agreed to leave Lee and marry her, just for the security of knowing she’d be loyal to me, that she wouldn’t turn me in. I was so shellshocked, so ashamed of what I’d done. But Clara was finished with me by then. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, in that regard, though I still feel responsible for her addiction.”

“God, that’s a lot to happen at one time,” I mused. “Your girlfriend is assaulted, you accidentally kill the perpetrator, and then you both admit to cheating on the other and break up. Damn , Benny. I don’t even know what to say.”

“My life has always been one drama after another.” He grinned, picking up his empty can and raising it in a gesture of salute. “A feeling that I think you might unfortunately be all too familiar with. You got another one of these bad boys?”

“If that isn’t the fucking truth,” I agreed, passing him a cold can.

“Things are okay with Clara and me now,” Benny said, popping open the tab. “But only okay. We have a begrudging kind of peace between us. And she says she’s clean now. We stay out of each other’s way. I like having her at the Wolfden. She’s strong and tough, and yes, loyal. But she hates Lee. I don’t think that will ever change. And she doesn’t trust me anymore, not like she did. She loves me, I guess, or the idea of me, but sometimes she looks at me like…like she expects me to sprout horns and a barbed tail.”

“She accused me of working for the people who kidnapped you,” I said.

“She did?” Benny looked surprised.

“Yeah. After Elvin and Sloan kidnapped you off the porch after you got shot,” I explained. “Phillip and I jumped in the car to follow and get you back. But before I left, she stopped me. She accused me of being a plant, of working with them to try and hurt you. I assured her that I only wanted what was best for all of us, but I don’t think she really believed me. I’m surprised she came to Boston for the show, honestly. Whatever her reasons, it wasn’t for Phillip and me.”

“No,” Benny agreed, nodding. “But that doesn’t mean she’s a bad person, Stormy. I hope she’ll come around, and you’ll see that for yourself. Clara’s tough, and a good ally to have on your side. But I’ve caused her a lot of pain, and that takes some time to get over. You know?”

“I do,” I said. I’d felt the same way about Tess ever since our divorce. Tess… who was now gone forever. I’d never see him again. I shouldn’t be surprised at how acute the pain was at that thought, how much I was actually grieving him, but I was. Tears well up in my eyes and I looked down, not wanting Benny to see. I felt for him, even though I didn’t agree that Clara had good intentions. I didn’t trust her.

“It’s hard, losing people we once loved,” Benny said, noticing despite my efforts to conceal my pain. “Even if we think we don’t love them anymore, we grieve who they were, what we had with them. We grieve the chance to make things right. We grieve so many things.” He stared at the floor. “I still miss my mother so much it wakes me up at night ten years later. Now that I know I have some powers of healing, that I can stop, or at least slow down sickness…I never stop thinking about how I could’ve helped her. How I might have kept her here, at least a little longer. I never even tried because I didn’t know I could.”

“You didn’t know,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”

“I know that logically,” Benny said. “But that’s grief.”

“That’s true,” I said. “I just wonder when the grieving will finally stop. For all of us. I wish it would, you know?”

“You and me both,” Benny said, standing up and coming over to give me a warm hug. His huge, muscular arms were strong and tight around my shoulders. I hugged him back, grateful. “You and me both, sister.”