Текст книги "Hero"

Автор книги: Leighton Del Mia

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

46
Calvin

My bare hands have served me well so far. They are my weapons. My skin is my shield, my strength is my lifeline, and Cataline, my motivation. I’m not sure there’s greater motivation to me at this point. I am alarmed to learn all the things I would risk for her.

We arrive at the East Side in record time. I don’t know what to expect, or even who from the Cartel will be present. The call didn’t come long after our contacts around the city were alerted to our emergency. I’d snatched the phone from Norman, trying to listen for Cataline in the background, but the messenger had already hung up.

McCormick is a weak substitute for Carter. I’ve employed him as my driver for years, but the possibility that Carter betrayed me has deepened the fissure of mistrust I carry with me. I watch him closely as we drive. He has one command: get Cataline to safety with or without me.

Overgrown weeds lick at my boots and dirt crunches beneath them as I approach the shithole where I’ve been directed. I’m still in full uniform, though I’m not sure it’s necessary. Part of me hopes seeing me this way will restore some of Cataline’s faith in her hero.

There’s a small crowd of men out front, some I recognize, others I don’t. What links them all is their ink. To send a message, I grab the nearest Cartel member and shove him in the dirt. My boot flies into his ribcage, sending him onto his back. “Take me to Riviera.”

The only one who doesn’t step back flicks his cigarette on the ground and stamps it out. “This way.”

I throw my shoulders back and follow him inside, my eyes scanning the space around me. My body locks into a tense knot when I’m led into a room with seven men. As if on cue, they simultaneously raise their guns. Carlos Riviera stands center, his arms crossed and his chin raised.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“She’s safe,” he says. “Play nice, and she can go when we’re done with her.”

“Let her go now, and maybe I’ll kill you with mercy.” I step forward and a chorus of gun hammers sound.

“Espera. Wait,” Carlos says, holding out his hand to them. “This kill is mine.” He rips the gun from the hands of the man nearest him, but as I anticipate the shot, he calls out, “Get her.”

One of the men pounds on a side door, and Cataline comes hurling through it. Her hands are cuffed in front of her, her mouth is gagged with fabric, and the clothing she left the mansion in is covered in dirt. But it’s her undone pants that blind me with a white-hot rage. The thought of Carlos’s hands on her ignites a burning in me that only his blood will extinguish. When she sees me, her eyes widen and she whimpers.

Riviera’s head snaps to the boy who comes in after her, and under his breath, he asks, “¿Qué pasó—dónde está el gringo?”

The boy shrugs. “No sé. Se fue.”

“He left?” Carlos asks. “Stupid motherfucker.” He yanks Cataline’s upper arm and places the gun against her temple as his eyes dart off the walls and back to me. “We fuck her while you watch. Hope you taught her right, ‘cause if she’s good, we keep her. If not, she dies. Then we kill you.” Cataline’s lashes glisten with fresh tears, and her eyes are heavy with resignation.

“This doesn’t involve her anymore. You got me where you want me, now let her go.”

“Don’t tell me what the fuck to do.” He grabs the hair at the back of Cataline’s head. “Get down,” he says, pushing her to her knees.

My feet are moving across the floor, but I stop when Carlos grinds the gun’s muzzle into her cheek. “Either you watch as she blows me and my crew, or I put a bullet in her head right now.” Without taking his eyes from me, he says, “Untie it.” The man next to her sets down his gun to remove the gag. Cataline’s shoulders quake as Carlos traces his barrel down her cheek.

“Stop,” I say, but I barely hear it because my heart pounds furiously in my ears.

Carlos wrenches her head back and looks directly at her when he says, “Open your mouth, bitch.”

She swallows, and her effort to avoid my eyes is obvious. My skin is so hot it would burn anyone who touches it. Carlos hands his gun off and undoes his pants. Her skin pulls taut across her face, but I can still see her grimace through it.

“You can have whatever, I’ll go wherever you want,” I say. “Just stop.”

“Calvin,” Cataline whispers.

“Did you hear that?” Carlos asks her, his voice eerily low. “Hero’s going to trade his life for yours. He’s going to sacrifice an entire city for you, leaving them unprotected. Did you know about his obsesión?”

This unfamiliar impotence unnerves me in a way I can barely contain, and I know I’m going to erupt if he doesn’t let her go within seconds. Cataline looks at me finally, and the resignation from before has vanished. In its place is something wild I recognize from the night she cut herself open. She has nothing left to lose. Her message is clear: she’s going to fight back.

My first step lands heavy on the concrete, upsetting a cloud of dust. As Carlos looks up, Cataline buries her head in his thigh. I lunge forward just as he cries out and throws her to the ground by her hair.

Men are coming at me, but I only have eyes for Carlos. I just dodge a bullet as I tackle him, but Cataline’s scream shatters my focus. Two men are dragging her from the room with a knife pressed into her cheek. Its blade is red with the reflection of her blood. I leap to my feet, ignoring the shot that burns into my calf. The man drops the knife and runs, so I swipe it as someone jumps on my back. I turn, grabbing behind me, and throw a man across the room.

When another shot rings out, my muscles tense, but nothing hits me. Carlos runs, and I pounce, catching him by the back of his shirt and hurling him. He collides with a wall, where I pin him with my forearm on his neck.

“What are you?” he wheezes.

“I’m a predator,” I say, my voice unnaturally deep. “I target, and I kill. You mistook me for a hero. I can’t be outrun. Nobody can escape me. Nobody can hide.” I spear the knife into his chest, pull it out just as quickly, and drop it. He grunts an inhuman noise. “Now you know my secret,” I tell him. “I cannot be defeated. And nobody touches what’s mine.” His mouth moves in a silent plea, his eyes round when I drive my fist in the wound. My hand wraps around his thumping heart, and I rip it out. It’s seconds before he collapses.

I turn to find another body slumped over feet from Cataline. Her ashen face is a canvas for silently streaming tears as she stares at the man she shot. Her cuffed arms are taut and trembling. The gun in her hands remains raised.

“Cataline.”

She jumps and aims it at me. A man’s life drips over my clenched fist as our eyes lock for a few static seconds.

“What now?” she whispers.

“I’m taking you to the mansion.”

“I’m not going back there.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

Blood, some of it hers, is sprayed and smeared across her skin. I want to lick it all away, clean her beautiful face, and then keep her forever so I can protect her. My ache to be near her is oppressive in its urgency. She’s frozen still as I cross the room. I walk until the gun’s barrel is jammed into my rubbery armor, right over my heart. “Do it,” I say.

“It wouldn’t matter. You said yourself nobody can escape. Nobody can hide. You can’t be defeated.”

“Maybe it will be the one bullet that kills me.”

I search the strangled depths of her eyes—blue like the air, grey like the sky. I sense the twitch of her index finger near the trigger. Finally her hands open at the same moment, and the gun clatters to the ground. She heaves like she’s going to vomit and falls into a squat, dropping her head between her knees.

More Cartel members enter the room. They look from the bleeding bodies to me to Cataline. I throw the red pulp of a heart on the floor and make short work of killing each and every one of them.

47

“Try it.”

Cataline’s entire body flinches, and she looks over her shoulder at me. On the kitchen counter sits her half-eaten sandwich and a glass of milk. It’s some time after midnight, hours since Norman cleaned her and took her upstairs.

“Go ahead,” I say.

She reaches out tentatively and touches the back door’s handle. Even from where I stand, I feel the increase of her heartbeat as she turns the knob. The door opens when she pushes it, but she looks back at me again.

I step into the kitchen. “You’re not my prisoner. I brought you here so you could heal.”

“Heal? How can I . . . after all this? I bit a man’s leg today. And then I,” she hesitates, “killed someone. A person.”

“You survived.”

“I didn’t even think about it,” she says to herself. “I just did it. One second he was coming toward me and the next he was on the ground. I aimed for his heart.”

“That’s not what I wanted for you, but it’s done. You did what you had to do.”

Her posture falls, and she looks out into the night. “I wouldn’t even know what to do out there. You could still find me.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“Do you want me to want to?” My feet are drawn toward her, stopping only once I’m staring down at the top of her hair. “You could stay.”

Her head snaps up. The bandage on her cheek wrinkles.

“Stay because you want to,” I say. “Because I want you to.”

I break eye contact to pull my sweater over my head and hand it to her. I wait as she takes my cue and puts it on. My hand slips quietly around hers. “Come.”

At this hour, the outside air is still. Only the moon illuminates our path as I lead her through the yard’s labyrinth of rosebushes. “My parents bought this land before I was born. My father helped build the house. My mother designed the interior and the garden. Roses were her favorite flower. When they moved to Fenndale, they kept the house because there was no question they’d return one day.

“I inherited enough money from their death to start my own business. I picked media because it would give me some control over my image. I knew that would be crucial to maintaining two identities. I don’t need all this,” I say, gesturing at the house, “but it allows me the privacy and security that I do need.”

“Do you miss your parents?” she asks.

“Yes. I wish they could’ve seen their creation come to life.”

“Do you think they’d be proud?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, I think I lost sight of what they wanted.”

“What did they want?”

“They wanted to make the world a better place, starting with the city they loved. I don’t know what I was supposed to be. An answer, I guess. For my grandmother’s death—until it became greater than that.”

“What’s it like to be a hero?”

I glance down at her. “I don’t know. I don’t think of myself that way.”

“Why do you do it, Calvin? Really?”

“I can’t put into words how it feels to save a life. Nor can I describe how it feels to take one. Nothing compares to that kind of power. In the beginning I did it for my parents. Now I could never walk away. I’d be abandoning millions of people. That, and . . . I care about this city. It’s the only thing I ever cared about.”

Her expression softens. “The only thing?”

“What do you want to hear?” I ask. “That I care about you? I fucking killed for you today. I put everything on the line.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that. I never asked for any of this.”

“No, you didn’t. But you got it. I can’t explain why it’s you, how you feel like mine. If you could see what I’ve seen and all the evil in people—” I swallow through gritted teeth, “you’d understand. I want to protect you from that because it’s my fault you have no one else. And because . . . ”

“Because what?”

I sigh and shake my head. “Never mind.”

After a few moments of walking in silence, she asks, “What were they like, your parents?”

“I told you. Extremely smart and kind-hearted.”

“But what else?”

“They never gave up on anything. Or anyone.”

She bites her bottom lip. “Do you think they maybe asked too much of a sixteen-year-old boy?”

“No,” I say. “They gave me a gift.”

“What happens if you stop?”

“Stop what?”

“The injections.”

“I don’t know. Why would I?”

She stops walking and turns to me. “You said it’s the K-36 that makes you this way. This—I don’t know. Aggressive. Cruel.”

“They amplify my human urges. Anything bad, any darkness in me becomes worse. But it also makes me strong and capable.”

“Could you stop if you wanted to?”

“Yes, but I have no reason to.”

I release her hand, and she glances down. “Was I wrong about Hero?” she asks.

“What did you think?”

“That he was good. He’s a hero because he can’t be anything else.”

She’s still my little bird, a delicate flower in my hands. I’ve closed my fist around her and crushed her so many times. “You weren’t wrong.”

“Am I wrong about you, Calvin?”

“No.”

“How can that be? How can you be two opposite people in the same body?” She gets right under my chin. “It makes you this way.”

“What?”

“K-36. It’s a drug.”

I blink slowly at her and raise my eyebrows. “Drug?”

“That’s what your injections are. Drugs. You get high just like any other junkie.”

“They make me better,” I snap. “Without the ‘drugs,’ I’m nothing. I’m a criminal, just like them. That ‘drug’ is what saved you today. They’re what make it possible for me to protect what needs protecting.”

“Fine,” she says. “I don’t even know why I care.”

She turns, but I grasp her arm and pull her back. “We’re not finished. Don’t walk away from me.”

“There’s the Calvin I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 “I don’t know that other guy, the version of you who holds my hand and tells the truth. The one who saves the world. But this man,” she says, looking at my hand on her, “this one I know.”

“You think because I put on a mask you don’t know me? That’s bullshit.” My grip loosens, and I take a deep breath. “Look, Cataline, the truth isn’t pretty. It’s fucked up. But that doesn’t change what we’ve been through. The other night you said,” I pause on the verge of unknown territory, “you said you loved me. Did you mean it?”

“Yes,” she says immediately. Whatever’s coursing through my veins, I don’t recognize it. I think I smile, but I’m not even sure because it’s been so long since anything has made me happy. That’s when she says, “But I don’t anymore.”

48
Cataline

My muscles ache, my head pounds through a haze. The room is dark when I open my eyes, but I know where I am. I recognize it by what I can’t see. By what I smell. By the sounds. But I don’t think it would matter if I were deaf, dumb, and blind, because I recognize it mostly by the way it feels. I’m back in the mansion in my bed. The thought sinks into my brain as I doze, dragging my heart down with it.

The next time I wake, the room is awash with sunlight. It makes me irrationally angry that nobody closed the blinds, and I’m now assaulted by the reality of my situation. I don’t bother to dress or fix my hair; I just slog downstairs to the kitchen, hoping to find food.

I’m not surprised to be greeted by mouth-watering smells, but I am surprised to see Calvin sitting at the head of the table reading a newspaper.

“What day is it?” I ask, surveying his grey t-shirt and charcoal, plaid pajama pants.

He glances up. “Friday. How are you feeling?”

I grab a strip of bacon and fall into my usual seat at the opposite end of the table. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” I ask as I chew.

“I’ve been waiting for you to get up.”

“Why?” I mutter. “I’ll be here when you get home.”

“I’m taking some time off.”

I scoop scrambled eggs onto my plate, trying to avoid his eyes, even though all of his green is fixed intently on me. “Can you, like, do that? Or will you still be out there doing . . . Hero things?”

He folds the paper and sticks it under his arm. “Don’t worry about me. Just focus on getting better.”

“I’m not worried. Just trying to make conversation.”

“Duly noted. Will you answer my question?”

“Which one?”

“How are you feeling? You slept through most of yesterday and half this morning.”

I shrug. “I’m a little stiff.”

“You’ve been through a lot,” he says, clearing his throat. “We haven’t really discussed it. I’m sorry that you saw everything you did.”

“You removed a man’s heart from his body.”

“Does that scare you?”

I scrape my fork against the plate. A sarcastic answer sits at the tip of my tongue. The fact that I’d rather tell him the truth, though, makes me want to stab the fork into my thigh. Why can’t I hate him like I’m supposed to? Why didn’t I shoot him when I had the chance, for everything he’s put me through? “It scared me more that they might hurt you,” I say finally. “There were a lot of men there. Are you okay?”

We watch each other across the long table until he says, “Come here.”

I shake my head.

“Defiant as ever.”

“Demanding as ever.”

“Come here, Cataline.”

Curiosity urges me up and that inexplicable draw to him moves me forward. He pushes his chair back. I perch on his knees so we’re eye-level, and he brushes his thumb over my split lip with unexpected gentleness. “You’re hurt.”

My eyes close. His smell is intruding on me, an unwanted reminder of what it can be like to have him this close. His thigh muscle is so strong under me, his hands so tender.

“Did they touch you?”

Guy Fowler’s sinister grin is clear in my mind. “No.”

His fingers grasp my chin, and I open my eyes to meet his intense gaze. I almost don’t recognize his inhumanly deep voice when he says, “I killed them for you.”

I shake my head. “Not for me.”

He blinks slowly. “For you. I held Riviera’s heart in my hands. You want truth? Here’s the truth: I enjoyed every minute of it. Because that’s the monster I am. Now are you scared?”

To have anything other than fear and hate for him makes no sense. Maybe I could have loved him, maybe I did, but how can I now? My brain tries to reconcile the gap between the man I thought he was, the man he is, and the man I want him to be.

I’m so confused that I press my lips against his. We sit that way, inhaling and exhaling each other until I part my mouth. He opens with me, returning my kiss with a hungry tongue.

Without disconnecting, I shift to straddle his lap. “Wait,” he says, pulling away and rubbing his eyes with tense fingers.

I ignore him with a softer kiss. I move my hips, seeking out his hardness. His hands race over my back and under my nightgown, scrunching the fabric up to my shoulder blades.

His skin on mine makes me needy. He rips away again, his breathing labored. “Does it hurt?” he asks, staring at my lip.

“I like the way it hurts,” I say, bringing him back to my mouth by his t-shirt.

“I don’t think this is a good—”

“Stop,” I say, shoving against him as I get to my feet. “You want to hurt me, but you’re bothered by a split lip?”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, anger just below the surface of his words. “I never did. I want you bad, Cataline, but I think we should slow down. Start over.”

“Oh my God,” I say with a hollow laugh. I gesture between us. “We can never start over.”

“What I mean is that sex won’t help anything right now.”

“Jesus,” I say, covering my face. “Just stop. You’re making everything worse.”

“Talk to me. Tell me what’s worse.”

I look up from my hands and before I can stop myself, I’m climbing back onto his lap, pushing the elastic of his pants over his erection.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he says. “You need to talk.”

“I need you,” I say, kissing his cheek. I tug aside my panties and glide myself along his shaft. “Come on, Calvin,” I taunt against his skin as my hands find their way into his hair. “I know you want to.”

He swallows loudly, and I remain there, my breath on his cheek, my fingers fisting his hair, my thighs trembling as I hover over him. His chest deepens with each inhale, but neither of us moves.

“Look at me,” he says.

I want to, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing all the ways I’m hurting. In this moment, ripped open by desire, I know my face is raw with confusion, pain, and unfiltered need.

“I’m a monster,” he whispers, sending a direct line of shivers down my spine. “You’re in control here. I don’t want to take from you anymore.”

“Yes, you do,” I respond. “That’s all you know. Take it, Calvin.”

He shakes his head.

I muster all the grit I can from my throat and lean in so he’ll feel the heat of my breath on his ear. “Fuck me like the little slut I am. Do it hard. I know that’s what you want, to teach me a lesson. Show me that you own me, all the ways I belong to you—”

He vaults the chair out from under us so we both fall to the floor. I’m on my side when he seizes my hips and drags me backward. My hands scramble to catch up and just as I’m getting to my knees, his fingers are opening me up, spreading me for him. He works his crown inside, opening me wider and wider, teasing me so my fingernails dig into the wood.

“This what you want?” he asks, mocking me with short thrusts. “To be fucked like a dog?”

“Yes,” I moan.

“What else do you want?”

“Make me real again,” I say. “Make me feel it.”

He gives my ass cheek a light slap.

“Harder,” I grate through my teeth.

His one hand curls into the crease of my hip, and he hauls me backward, filling me all the way. “In my dreams, I’ve spit in your pussy, fucked you with my fist, turned your lips red and swollen from sucking my cock.” He rolls into me leisurely like he’s testing me for the first time. “Would you let me do all those things to you?”

“Yes,” I tell him. “You can have it all. This is what we are. You’re the enemy, the master. I’m your slave.” My words have the desired effect, and his hips start smashing into mine faster, his cock more slippery and unbridled with each thrust. “This is how it should be,” I groan. “I deserve this.”

His palm burns my ass with another satisfying slap. I gasp into the resounding sting of each subsequent smack as it lives through me. I push back against him, stretching my arms out in front of me to take him deeper as I beg for more with my body. He answers by wrapping my hair around his hand and pulling me into his thrusts. “Tell me you’ll always be mine.”

“Always,” I lie, crying it loudly.

His body closes over my back and forces me down. He props himself up on my shoulders, mashing me into the ground with each drive of his hips.

“Lick the floor,” he says. My tongue flickers over the wood, and his fingers dig into my skin. “Want to fill you up so bad, Sparrow. Come for me so I can finish.”

My ass bucks upward with his feverish demand, and he has me just right so I’m shuddering, descending into nothing but vibrations and buzzing electric currents. He groans from above, his heat spurting and trickling throughout me, claiming me from the inside as it seeps into my bones.

One hand leaves my shoulder and then the next so he’s propped above my body. He thrusts slowly, softening in the puddle of his cum and mine. “Cataline . . .”

I shake my head as best I can against the floor. My eyes close, and my fingers curl into my palms. “It’s what I wanted.”

I flip onto my back when he pulls out of me. The waistband of his pajama pants is still gripping his thighs. I begin to feel the effects of him losing his control. My lip and cheek throb, my shoulders are stiff, my breasts tender.

I know his eyes are on me as I get to my feet, but I can’t bring myself to return his stare. Pulling on the hem of my nightgown, I say, “I think I just . . . need to be alone.” Before he can respond, I climb back up the stairs to my cushy prison cell.