Monster - Gadziala Jessica. Страница 21

I swallowed hard and so did she.

Then I swung.

My knuckles hitting her jaw was the single worst feeling the world had to offer. Worse than Shoot saying his final words to me. Worse than all the lives that had taken their last breaths at my hands. Worse than the beatings I took when I was too small to do anything but cry.

Nothing would ever come close to that feeling.

To seeing her head snap in the other direction as her body fell. To see her eyes shut hard in pain.

She went down hard on her side, one hand braced under her, the other going to her face.

“Bravo,” Lex said, clapping slowly.

My head jerked to his, feeling something strange building up in my system. Something I had never known before. A hot kind of anger. Not my usual cold, calculating kind. This kind felt like it replaced my blood with gasoline and someone just lit a match.

There was shuffling on the ground and out of my peripheral I saw Shooter offer his hand to Alex. She reached underneath of her. For what, I had no idea, then took his hand, letting him help her up.

“Fuckin' satisfied, Lex?” I ground out, brow raising. My fist was still smarting from the punch and it was taking everything in my power to not lunge at him and bash his face in with it.

“For now,” he said, looking down at Alex with a bright, awful glint in his eye.

I couldn't follow his line of vision. I just couldn't do it. I wasn't ready for the way she was going to look at me.

“Shooter,” Lex said, nodding at him.

Shrugging, Shooter accepted his fate. He had to go back with them. He wasn't gonna bitch and moan about it. He turned to Alex, chucked her gently under the chin with his pointer finger, brushed past me, slammed his shoulder into my arm, then followed Lex's goons out of the car.

“I will be in contact,” Lex said, looking over at Alex again. This time, the sick fuck licked his lips once before moving away.

I stood staring at them leaving. Listening for their boots on the steps. The door closing. The engines firing up on the street.

“Breaker...” Alex's voice called.

“No doll,” I said, keeping my gaze pointedly away.

“Talk to me” she said.

My head hung, shaking slightly.

“Nothing will ever take this away,” I told her, knowing deep down it was true.

Her hand reached out, touching my arm.

“It's nothing. I'll forget this in a week,” she suggested.

“Alex, nothing will ever take away the memory of having a grown ass fuckin' man throwing a right hook to your jaw.”

Her body shifted in front of mine, her hands going to my face, pulling until I had no choice but to lift it.

Her jaw was red where my fist had landed. It would bruise by the morning. A constant reminder of what I had done.

“I'm fine. Jazzed up, but fine.”

“You can't be fuckin' serious right now.”

“Oh come on. You feel it too,” she said, lowering her eyes at me. “All that fear and adrenaline. It's like... napalm in the system. I can't even feel my face.”

She meant that. But in an hour, when the adrenaline gave way to rational thought...

“Alex...”

“Come on. It was a stupid little nothing punch, Breaker.”

“You ain't gonna think that was a stupid little nothing punch once you stop being all jazzed up.”

“Whatever. It's over. I could hit you to make things even,” she said, giving me a weird little smile. “But I'm pretty sure your jaw is made of granite. It would probably hurt me more than you.”

She was trying to comfort me.

That was ridiculous.

I was the one who was supposed to be doing the comforting. I was the one who crossed a line. I needed to try to make things right.

“You can hit me any time you want. But until then, why don't we get the fuck out of here?” I said, holding an arm out toward the door.

And she didn't flinch when my arm raised.

I was taking that as a good sign.

She wasn't afraid of me.

That was somewhere to work off of.

“Only if you cook again. I'm starving,” she said casually, as if we hadn't just gone through the weirdest experience of both of our lives. “Oh,” she said, turning back at the bottom stair, looking at me. “Yeah. And I gave Shooter a knife.”

Ten

Alex

I'm not exactly sure what I had been expecting from the meeting. But whatever I did have in mind, well, it was nowhere near as weird as what happened. With Lex acting all odd and formal. With Shoot seeming to care more about my life than his own even though he didn't know me at all.

I think a part of me had thought that Lex was going to pounce on me as soon as I walked in. I had expected anger. Hatred. Bitterness.

But there was none of that.

And that made no sense.

It didn't fit into his personality.

And, believe me, I knew all about his personality. I could do a psychological assessment I knew him so well. When he found out someone was working against him, well, let's just say he didn't ever take that news well.

I should have been beaten and dragged out of there. By the times guns were finally drawn, I had planned on already being in the throws of whatever an overdose of heroin felt like.

Something wasn't right.

And then I couldn't worry about that anymore because Shooter was being forced onto his knees and giving his last words and I just... couldn't let that happen. I didn't know him from Adam, but he had shown me, a complete stranger, kindness.

I couldn't let Breaker lose his best friend.

Because of me.

No way.

So I did the stupidest thing a woman could do around a man like Lex Keith. I screamed at him. I belittled him. I emasculated him.

And he didn't even rise to the bait.

Yeah, something was seriously off.

Breaker turned to me. His arm raised. I braced for it. But, in the end, there was no preparing for something like that. I had never been punched in the face before. Slapped? Sure. But punched? By a huge, hulking man? No. So while I had imagined it was going to be unpleasant, the reality was something I couldn't have dreamed.

The second of contact sent off an explosion of pain that seemed to radiate out, making my whole face throb as I felt myself start to fall. I had presence of mind to brace my fall just in time, half slamming into Shooter as I did so. My hand went to my face as my mind struggled to think through the pain.

And then Shoot was offering me his hand. And I remembered the knife.

He took it with the barest of smiles at his lips. Just a ghost of a grin with a light in his eyes as he tucked it into his shoe much like I had done.

Then everyone was gone.

And, somehow, the train car was more full of tension than it had been with three bad guys in it.

Because Breaker looked like something had shattered inside him.

He wasn't that kind of man.

The kind who used his strength against women.

And he couldn't reconcile this reality with the idea he had of himself.

Well, he was just going to have to get over it.

It was over.

Hopefully it never had to happen again.

But even if it did, I could never blame him for it.

“What the fuck do you mean you gave Shoot a knife?”

He took the stairs casually two at a time to match my run.

“I mean I took one of your pocketknives out of your pantry and put it in my boot. And when I fell... I handed it off to Shoot.”