Page 13 of Freaks
FIVE
SERA
It was two in the afternoon and Fix was making grilled cheese sandwiches in the kitchen. I’d fired an M4 assault rifle just a couple of hours ago, and there was a hitman trussed up in the clawfoot bathtub two rooms away. All in all, it was a perfectly normal Saturday.
Fix faced the stove, his back to me, wearing just his jeans. He’d kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head the moment he’d walked out of the bathroom, slamming the door closed on the huge, dark-haired guy who’d shown up here to murder me. If I hadn’t had that rifle in my hands…
I shivered out of the thought, unwilling to even consider what would have happened.
Fix was angry. I could feel it radiating off him like waves of heat boiling off a stretch of blacktop on a summer’s day, and every time I thought about going to him, speaking to him, those waves of anger seemed to intensify to searing levels. He wanted to be alone, I knew it, but every time I tried to slink off back into the living room, he came and took me by the hand, firmly leading me back into the kitchen. He was still covered in blood. His torso was streaked with it, his skin marred with countless cuts and scrapes, and the bruises… fuck, the bruises were beginning to deepen, developing into dark, malevolent stains beneath his skin. It was a miracle he was still standing, and yet somehow he was stomping around the kitchen like a man possessed. His hair was falling into his face, and his brows were banked into one dark, furious straight line, his jaw clenched and set. There was a deep cut underneath his left eye, and his bottom lip was split, but neither appeared to be causing him distress.
His eyes had been swollen and puffy when he’d rushed into the penthouse, but amazingly the swelling was now almost gone. It was as if he’d bullied his body into submission, refusing to allow himself to be hurt through sheer force of will alone.
He slashed at the bread with a butter-loaded knife, greasing it before he thrust it into the hot frying pan.
“I’m sorry about the wall,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about it. I’ll get it fixed.”
“I’m not worried about the fucking wall.”
“Then I’m sorry about…shit, I’m sorry abouteverything. I’m sorry I brought this crazy bullshit to your doorstep. I’m sorry you had to deal with Rabbit. I’m sorry you have a guy tied up in your bathroom. I’m sorry I—”
I stopped short, my head jerking back as I realized what was happening. What thefuck? What was I doing? I wasapologizing? No. No, no, no. Just hellno.
“You know what? None of this would actually be happening if you hadn’t agreed to take money from someone to fucking kill me. You wouldn’t be dealing with the inconvenience of having to protect me at all if you hadn’t accepted forty thousand dollars from a complete stranger in return for ending my life.” My cheeks were on fire, flames licking up the skin of my throat.Hewas in a shitty mood withme? What the fuck waswrongwith him?
Without turning around, Fix said, “Twenty thousand.”
“Excuse me?”
“I only got paid twenty grand. We take half up front and then the other half once the job is done. So, I only took twenty thousand dollars to kill you.”
I let my mouth hang open. “Oh, wellthatchanges everything.”
Fix stopped what he was doing. The spatula he’d been holding in his hand clattered on the countertop as Fix leaned forward, palms planted on the granite work, and he braced himself. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t be apologizing to me. You’ve done nothing wrong.”
“So why are you acting like this? Why the fuck are you so damned pissed at me?” I hated that my eyes were stinging. My throat was aching, too. I did not want to be on the verge of tears. I’d been strong so far. I’d withstood so much over the past few weeks. Hell, I’d withstood so much over my entire fucking life, that raising my chin, looking trouble dead in the eye and facing it without balking had become second nature to me.
An ever-present exhaustion tugged at me, though. Relentless, it was constantly demanding that I just lay down and give up. How much easier would it be to simply crumble when things got tough? I knew women who burst into tears when their coffee makers quit working, or they broke a fucking nail. I was nothing like that, but today? Today was really taking the cake. And the guy I’d come to lean on, who I’d secretly allowed myself to believe would be a form of support for me, was now treating me like I’d fucked up his entire year.
Glacially slowly, Fix straightened, pivoting to face me. His expression was a mirror of the weather outside—thunderous, dark and ominous. “I’m not mad at you, Sera. I’m mad at myself.”
“Why? You dealt with that guy. You figured out a way to buy us some more time. Things are way better than they were this time yesterday.”
His pale silver irises seemed to glow as he stalked toward me. He looked like he was going to eat me alive.
Fuck.
“I brought him back here,” he whispered. “I let him inside the fucking building, Sera. I nearly got you killed. Things arenotbetter than they were this time yesterday. Yesterday, I hadn’t dropped the ball so fucking unbelievably that I nearly cost us everything.” When he stopped in front of me, he lifted his hand, touching his fingertips to the waves of hair that fell about my face. His smile was a jagged, mirthless slash that marred his handsome features. “I’m furious withmyself, not you, Sera. You have no idea… You have no idea what it would have done to me if he’d fucking killed you.”
His voice was thick with emotion. Fix was like a dark, glittering diamond; there were so many facets to him, a thousand different aspects, many of which I was still yet to learn. I could spend the rest of my life with him and I’d still discover something new about him every day, I was certain of this. But the very core of him, at the very center of that compounded, brilliantly impenetrable wall he’d formed around himself, there stood one solid, undeniably irrefutable truth that I already knew without a shadow of a doubt: he was a protector.
That might have seemed contradictory, given what he did for a living, but everything Fix did he did for a reason. Franz, back in Liberty Fields, had kidnapped and raped a girl so brutally she nearly died. The very first guy Fix killed in New York had attacked and murdered a defenseless little boy. Right now, he was furious with himself because he cared about me, he’d assumed the role of my protector, and he felt like he had failed me.
“Accountability’s a strange thing, Fix. We dread it more than anything else, but we’re all so eager to heap it upon ourselves for no fucking reason. Zeth isn’t your fault. None of this is really your fault. You don’t need to feel guilty.”
He gave me a lopsided, sad smile. “I know about guilt. This isnotguilt.” He fastened a loop of my hair around his finger, his eyes shining brightly, beautifully, as he considered it. “This isfear, Angel. Bottomless, terrifying, soul-shaking fear. Without you…”
“You’d be just fine. Life would return to normal. You’d accept jobs. Complete them. Move on. You’d find a pretty girl to sleep with every once in a while. Things would be easier. They’d be simple.”
