5. Easton
Chapter Five
EASTON
Breathe in. Breathe out.
My feet landed on the asphalt with a light tap one after the other, the rhythm steady and constant. My heart maintained its rate as I inhaled and exhaled, resisting the urge to hyperventilate after forty minutes. My T-shirt was drenched with sweat, and my hair was damp, but I persisted.
Staying in the apartment was driving me crazy.
Hours had dragged on so slowly that I felt like the night would never come.
I had paced back and forth in my small living room as the walls closed in on me.
It shrunk with each step I took until the space was so small and oppressive that I had to get out.
I ran along Chestnut Street and beyond my neighborhood.
I ran into the sunset and the blessed relief of the night.
Not that I hoped I would get much sleep tonight, either.
My blood was still boiling from the clash with Kyle.
His smug face floated before my eyes, and his threats filled my ears.
But that wasn’t what worried me. It annoyed me, yeah, but the thing that chilled me to my bones was the ease with which I had crossed the line.
Dammit, I was a good guy. I didn’t explode like that.
I never let my temporary emotions take over my rational mind.
It was how I had grown up, especially after I was adopted.
I was placed in a home where there was a boy so prone to temper tantrums and lashing out that I had witnessed how dire the consequences could be.
Jace.
There was another thorn in my ass. It was his goddamn fault I’d snapped so quickly. Had he not worn my patience thin today, I never would have lost it with Kyle.
In all the years we’d spent together, Jace had craved attention.
The only problem had been the way he’d acquired it.
His idea of putting himself on our parents’ radar was to get into fights in school and have the teachers call emergency meetings with our parents.
He’d never been able to play by the rules.
Those few good times our parents had put together for us had always ended in a disaster.
We couldn’t go on picnics because Jace would end up nearly drowning in the lake.
We couldn’t go to amusement parks because Jace would stop at nothing to take off Mickey’s head and ruin the fun for all the other kids by revealing the actor behind the costume.
Seeing the way our parents dealt with Jace taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. Think. Think twice before you act. And it was a lesson I had forgotten today.
As my lungs burned on the run back to my apartment, I dared to hope that I was tired enough to sink into the mattress and the depths of sleep as soon as I was out of the shower.
It was dark already, and the streets were empty. I brought my speed down to a canter, then a brisk walk, and my heartbeat echoed inside my skull and throat. My pulse raced, and heat radiated out of my body. I had pushed myself to my limits, the fatigue slowly setting into my muscles.
I had no drills tomorrow to worry about, but I wondered if I would recover before Thursday morning.
Brick buildings towered on either side of the street on this block, and one of the streetlamps was broken down the street.
As I neared it, I understood the severity of my mistake.
By the time I saw movements in the dark alley, I was too close to turn back, but my legs were so tired of the run that they felt like jelly, even before fear crawled into them.
There were four of them. Each wore a black hoodie and a camo balaclava, their eyes barely discernable in the shadows. They appeared in a row and formed like an arrow pointing in my direction.
I cursed under my breath and stepped off the sidewalk, but the fuckers were quicker. They spread out.
“Hey, buddy,” one said, his voice deep and muffled by the mask.
I balled my fists and steered to the right, thinking I might avoid them. There was no turning my back to them now. If they were getting ready to do something bad, I wanted to see it coming.
And do what? I asked myself angrily. I was so fucking tired I could barely walk. In trying to get my brain to slow down before the night, I had rendered my legs useless and put myself in danger.
“I’m talking to you,” the guy said.
“You got the wrong guy,” I said. I didn’t actually think it would work. Even as I said it, I knew I should have stayed quiet.
“We just want to talk,” another voice said, higher and still as unfamiliar to my ears as the first. “Chill, dude.”
“I’ve got nothing to talk about,” I said. My stomach felt like I’d swallowed icicles. It wasn’t just cold—it was sharp and piercing.
I thought about the contents of my pockets. I’d left my phone in the apartment so it wouldn’t bounce in my sweatpants on the run, but I had my keys. If I could just get them out and between my fingers…
“Get him,” a voice said, and the four figures closed in.
The first punch landed before I could maneuver back. It struck my stomach, pumping air out of my body. It wasn’t so bad, but it was a terrible omen. The pain was dull and instant, spilling through my insides and making me bend forward.
A hand gripped my sweat-drenched hair on the back of my head. Its grip was unbreakable, and the tug yanked my head up for an immediate slap that landed on my face.
I managed to wheeze a breath of air into my lungs. “Let me go,” I rasped as one of the guys pulled my arms from where I had wrapped them around my stomach. As he twisted both my arms behind my back, I knew that my fight was over.
They jerked me upward, and the big, deep-voiced guy let his blow land on the side of my waist. He was precise, hitting me where it hurt and where nobody would see.
A grunt broke out of me at the second punch to the side as this one landed partially on my rib cage. The hurried whispers between them swirled around my head, the excited ideas of where to strike me to make me remember.
When the smaller of the two that stood in front of me slapped me across my face, my head snapped to the side, the taste of blood filling my mouth and putting my body on useless alert. As if I could do anything about it.
Another punch struck my side, making me cry out.
I hated myself for giving them the pleasure.
“You like that?” the third guy asked.
Pain in my left shoulder screamed, but I clenched my teeth and made no other sound. The guy holding my arms behind my back was almost as big as the one leading the punches. Even the smallest moves of my muscles raised the tension and pressure on my shoulders.
The one next to me stepped on my foot, twisting my ankle to make my head rise as I growled in pain.
“Wanna get your ankle broken?” he asked. “I’ll do it.”
I said nothing.
“You’ll be a real good captain then,” he threatened.
Again, I held my tongue and my breath. All I could do was deny them the satisfaction. If they wanted me to break, they would have to work for it.
The pressure on my ankle increased, and I wavered, my body moving down an inch, the pain in my shoulders making me gasp.
“Ask me to stop,” the worst of them said, twisting his foot on my ankle to amplify the pain tenfold.
A shudder passed through me as I saw my career flicker out of my future. He was going to break my ankle. I was certain of it. He was going to ruin my life in a heartbeat or two.
“Ask me, you little bitch,” he said, his voice crackling with excitement.
The big guy who had used only his fists so far stepped closer, shoving the sadist off my ankle and three feet away. “Don’t fuck around,” he snapped in that angry bass at the guy who’d enjoyed hurting me a little too much for his liking.
I exhaled shortly with relief that I couldn’t contain. I could see myself on the ice again. I could see myself leading a rally against the Titans. I could hope, even misguidedly, that they wouldn’t take hockey away from me. Not tonight, at least.
The big guy turned around and slammed me so hard in my left side that I dropped out of the other guy’s hold and fell flat onto the sidewalk with another grunt. A kick followed, bruising my left leg.
Someone’s hand grabbed my hair again, and the side of my face pressed hard against the concrete’s rough surface.
I cried out more from panic than pain and felt the sting of scratches along the side of my face.
Maybe I was vain, or maybe I was afraid, but I struggled harder against having my face dragged against the sidewalk, even though another kick found my stomach.
It seemed to last an eternity. Every punch, kick, and scratch was a year, a century.
My mind located each and acknowledged it when it should have detached itself from the body altogether.
It would have been easier if I had found a way to escape the vessel of meat and bones that carried me around and let it hurt independently from me.
But I couldn’t. I clung to it so completely that I didn’t know where my body ended and where I began. We were one and the same. Inseparable.
We say “me” and “my body” as if there is a difference. Where is that line? If I lose a limb, it’s not me. It’s only my arm that is gone. Yet, who am I when all of my body is gone? I am just the sum of its parts. My thoughts ran away from me as darkness narrowed my vision.
I heard myself huffing, panting for hair, saying nothing to the commands. “Lick it,” the bass said. “Lick the sidewalk.”
“And remember this,” cackled the sadist.
I wouldn’t. I would never be reduced to that.
I was willing to let go of whatever was holding me here before I licked the sidewalk.
But I would remember. How could I not? And that was the point.
Alone, I could overpower him, but I could never escape him.
Kyle was a cocky coward, but he had the money and the connections to hunt me down on the same day I belittled him.