Chapter 33
Indigo
Even though the Iron Raider threat had been eliminated, life at the LCMC compound hadn’t quite gone back to business as usual in the weeks that followed.
The compound remained locked down. Lennon and I could leave only if we had an armed escort despite the fact that Sheila was packin’ heat and ready to party.
My best bitch, ride-or-die for life, Sheila, housed more than just the weapons Bones had placed in the cache hidden beneath her floorboard.
The baseball bat I’d used to smash that jerk’s headlight when he’d tried to ruin date night was stashed under Sheila’s driver’s seat.
I’d tucked small blades into the bands on each of her sun visors, a taser was in her center console, and I had a can of pepper spray in her glove compartment tucked between my brass knuckles and a bike chain.
But I’m a team player, so I pretended to be grateful for the Crows who escorted me to Crow’s Landing for my shifts and back home again when I was finished working.
In the time that had passed since we’d met with Mikhail at The Goldfinch, there hadn’t been any sightings of Roark.
Duke had learned during the conflict with the Iron Raiders that Rook was good with technology, so he had him working with Ivan and Clover to contact Nicodemus when he wasn’t searching for Roark.
I wasn’t sure if they wanted to recruit Nicodemus, expose them, or fan-girl over them, but I hoped they were successful.
They were working so hard, but I just wanted everyone to have fun.
Even if my friends never solved the Nicodemus riddle, they were all winners in my book.
Maybe Lennon and I could get Rook, Ivan, and Clover participation trophies, so they knew we appreciated them.
Ratched had taken Bones in to have his arm x-rayed again yesterday, and he was officially free from his soft wrap and sling.
As long as he managed not to fracture it again and kept up with the physical therapy exercises Ratched insisted he do, he’d be good as new.
Bones and I had spent some quality time at Rusty’s while he buffed the scratch out of Sheila’s rear bumper and checked her tire pressure and oil levels a few days ago.
Something had happened between us the night we’d been taken from the compound by Pyro and his Band of Bastards.
We’d formed a deeper bond in Satan’s Dairy Queen, and it was good to catch up with him away from the compound for a bit.
I’d been missing him and hadn’t even known it.
I guess we’d both been preoccupied, but I resolved to check in with him more often.
Lennon and I were sparring in the gym one morning, while Cricket lay on a weight bench and scrolled mindlessly through his phone. Knuckles wrapped tightly and feet dancing over the mat, Lennon and I bobbed and weaved, dodging blows and striking out with our legs as we kickboxed.
“Hands up, protect your face,” I reminded as I snapped my fist toward Lennon’s nose. She raised her arms but twisted her torso, dodging my blow and sending an uppercut of her own into my gut. I grabbed her shoulder and slammed my knee into her stomach before we both fell to the mat in a grapple.
We tossed and turned a bit until I had Lennon pinned. She tapped out with a grunt. “One of these days, I’m going to put you on your ass, Indi,” she huffed as we took a water break.
“I don’t doubt it for a second,” I told her.
Her very first kidnapping attempt had shaken Lennon a bit, not that I blamed her at all.
Lennon was focusing on her fear at that moment, but from my perspective, I was just proud of her for fighting back like a freaking badass.
She’d remembered what she’d learned, even if she hadn’t been able to incapacitate her attacker by herself.
That was a victory in itself. Lennon had been training like she had something to prove.
But only to herself, never to me. I loved her just as she was.
“You’ve done well, you know,” I say after sipping from my water bottle. “You’ve been training consistently, and it shows. I’m proud of you.”
Lennon took a swig from her own bottle. “Thanks, hun, but…never mind.”
I quirked my head to the side. “No, what is it? You know I have your back no matter what. It’s girl code. You could literally blow a snot-bubble right now, and I wouldn’t bat an eye.”
Lennon huffed out a laugh when Cricket chimed in, “I would. Have some decorum.” My rascally conscience! Such an eavesdropper.
“I want to learn to defend myself, especially after what happened. I don’t ever want to feel that helpless and out of control again,” Lennon said.
“But…” She licked her lips and tucked a dark curl that had escaped her bun behind her ear.
“The idea of being in another fight like that scares the shit out of me. I thought I’d enjoy putting some culo in his place, divine feminine rage fueling me and righteous fury leading me to victory.
” Big, soulful brown eyes met mine. “But it wasn’t like that.
” My fingers crept across the mat toward Lennon’s, intertwining with hers and offering solace born from the absolute understanding of shared experience.
“I didn’t feel powerful and mighty. I felt scared.
I was so scared and then so ashamed. I kept thinking about Ellis, and how—”
Lennon swallowed reflexively and clenched her jaw as her eyes skipped around the room. Finally, they met mine, and what they saw there caused her shoulders, which had been creeping up to her ears, to relax ever so slightly.
“I know,” I said. “There’s a difference between meting out lady vengeance in your head, where you control the variables and therefore the outcome in the scenario. It’s completely different when you’re living it in full-blown technicolor.”
Lennon nodded, and her fingers squeezed mine. “I want to learn to defend myself, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get to the point where I relish the fight. And somehow, that makes me feel like I’m failing.”
“Failing at what?” I asked softly. “You did exactly what you had to do. You survived.”
Lennon shook her head but didn’t speak for a few tense moments. “How did you do it?” she asked, turning her big, tear-filled eyes my way.
“Do what?”
Lennon weighed her words, thinking before she spoke.
“I don’t know everything you’ve survived, but I know enough to realize that it was pretty damn traumatic.
If I were you, I’d do everything I could to avoid triggers—conflict, fights, violence.
After what you said about The Consortium, how did you ever manage to fight in the ring that night at Savage Delights?
If it were me, I’d never want to be put in a ring ever again.
I was attacked one time, and it shook me.
I wasn’t even really hurt. If I freak out this badly, then it must mean I’m just too weak. ”
I sighed. “If a woman enjoys sex after surviving a rape, does that make her a bad rape victim?”
Lennon’s jaw dropped. “What? No, how do you even—”
I continued. “I coped with my situation the best way I could at the time, so I could survive it. Did I choose the best methods for dealing with my demons? Probably not.” I shrugged.
“But it kept me alive long enough to start reading and learning about PTSD and living with such a fucked-up mental headspace. Maybe one day, I’ll have the time and money to find a therapist who isn’t squeamish.
“Just because I’ve been conditioned to accept and even excel in violent circumstances, doesn’t mean you have to.
How you feel is how you feel, and there’s nothing wrong with any of it.
If you want to learn to defend yourself for your own peace of mind, I’ll train with you every day.
We can research different styles of self-defense, and I can teach you to shoot.
If you never wanted to spar again and preferred to leave the fighting to me, that’s okay too.
There’s no right or wrong way to go forward, as long as you’re being true to yourself. ”
Lennon fidgeted with the wrapping on her knuckles. “But how did you do it? How did you turn your trauma into fuel for the fight instead of letting it consume you?”
I mulled over her question, noting that Cricket was no longer scrolling, though he still pretended to be engrossed in his phone instead of our conversation.
“At first, it was necessity, I guess. In my darkest moments, sometimes I’d wish Roark would put me out of my misery and just kill me.
I’d get so tired of the constant fear and struggle.
But the moment I’d enter the arena…” I licked my dry lips, trying to put into words the primitive urge to live, to win, to prove that I deserved to be here when so many cruel people desired just the opposite.
“I didn’t want to die for some sick bastard’s entertainment.
I want to live on my own terms, and I can’t deny that the rush of proving my enemies wrong when they assume I’m an easy target is pretty freaking exquisite.
But,” I add in, taking my bestie’s hand, “you’re not me. ”
“Thank Christ,” my irritating brother-conscience muttered. “I don’t think the world is ready for double Indi trouble.”
“Shut it, conscience, or I’ll take you to the mats,” I say with a glare.
Lennon chuckled a bit as Cricket held his hands up in surrender.
“Just know, bloodthirsty or not, your place in the Wicked Sisterhood is reserved for life. And maybe even beyond! When we both die, you have to promise to become a ghost with me so we can do spooky shit and terrorize the nonbelievers for eternity.” Lennon laughed and pinky promised to an afterlife of Scooby-Doo-worthy ghostly shenanigans.
That was what best friends were for, after all: unwavering acceptance, irrevocable love, and a mutual desire to terrify unsuspecting townsfolk for amusement. We’d cackle like witches together for eternity, and that was definitely something worth fighting to keep.