Crossfire - a sizzling slow burn with supernatural powers

First rodeo

My mother was still in her home office. Light slanted across the floor from of the door opening. There was no reason to announce my homecoming, or the fact that I had Brandt in tow. There was no need for her to see me as I must have looked after the fight. It would put her in an unpleasant situation that called for a caring maternal instinct, she didn't possess.

Brandt and I made a beeline to the kitchen where we grabbed ice packs from the freezer and water from the fridge, before we headed upstairs.

In my room I closed the door behind me, seeing the space before me through Brandt's perspective. It was a girl's room, not a woman's, and all my drawings and scribbles littered my desk. Drawings of him, the flop of his hair, his face and jaw line. Embarrassment pooled in the pit of my stomach. Brandt turned on the lamp at my desk and picked up one of my drawings.

"You missed me." He admired the drawing and smiled his lopsided smile at me. It was a statement and not a question. "Come on, let's get cleaned up."

We stepped into the bright light of my adjacent bathroom and I saw myself in the mirror. My left cheek carried a purple bruise and was swelling. My left shoulder was already a purple mess. The knuckles on both my hands were cut and bruised. There was blood on my chest, but I didn't think it was my own. My make up was smudged and my hair definitely looked worse for wear. I somehow looked worse than I felt, which I didn't know was possible.

In the bright light I could see Brandt's injuries. His lip was cut as was his brow. There was a tickle of now dried blood at his hairline and at the back of his neck. His knuckles were cut deeper than mine, evidence of the power behind each hit.

I muttered something, I don't know what, but Brandt responded by filling the sink with water and soaking a a wash cloth.

"I'm not going to lie, this is going to hurt." He washed my face deliberately and as gently as he could. And it hurt. He cleaned my shoulder and washed the blood off my chest. It wasn't until he reached for my hand to clean my knuckles that I realized that I was clutching his t-shirt in a death grip.

"Let go, sweetheart."

"I'm sorry," I stuttered. The entire night was catching up to me. It wasn't about me holding on to his t-shirt.

"I know." Brandt carefully washed my knuckles and handed me one of the ice packs.

"Hold this to your cheek. You need sleep. Go." He raised his chin towards my bedroom. I left him in the bathroom to get cleaned up and went back to my bedroom and pulled on the shorts and t-shirt, I slept in.

"The ice pack goes on your cheek, Harper." I jumped at his words, lost in my own blurry thoughts, and immediately held the ice pack against my cheek, wincing. He held the other ice pack to the back of his head.

"Are you alright?" I asked as he sat down on the chair opposite me.

"Not my first rodeo," he said as a sad matter of fact. I laid down on my side carefully, so as to not aggravate any of my bruises.

"The smoker died tonight. I don't even know his name." There were tears on my cheeks, even though I was unsure of what they were for. The smoker was not a pleasant human being, but did he have to die? I participated in that. I saw him die, and I wasn't sorry. Juanito couldn't have been more than 15 or 16 and I fought him. I used his own power against him.

"His name was Curtis," Brandt stated. The weight of his actions pressed down on him. I saw it now. He wasn't emotionally cold. The impenetrable shield wasn't a denial of responsibility for his actions, it was part of his own punishment. He carried every action, which meant he could not walk with joy. When he saw me staring at him, he continued,

"In the world I live in, a fight only leaves one person standing." I could hear the echo of Neil Duncan say something to that effect. My own mother was by no means mother of the year, but I couldn't imagine growing up with Neil Duncan as a father. It should frighten me, but it only strengthened my resolve. I wanted to counterbalance the darkness in Brandt's life. I wanted to be there.

"I hated being away from you these last few months. We haven't known each other that long, but I miss you."

Brandt got out of the chair and sat on his knees in front of my bed, so we saw eye to eye.

"I'm right here. I haven't been able to stay away from you, since I saw you in the woods." He leaned forward as kissed my forehead and stroked my hair.

"Will you stay until I fall asleep?"

"Of course I will." Brandt sat down beside my bed with his back against the wall.

My eye lids weighed a hundred pounds and I struggled to keep them open. If I closed them, Brandt would disappear and I wanted him to stay. It was a losing battle.

————

"Oh my god!"

I woke to the exclamation and Penny at the foot of my bed, aghast. I moved, glancing at the place where Brandt was sitting when I fell asleep, and winced.

"What in the world happened to you? I wanted to make sure you were okay, after you disappeared last night. You didn't answer my texts. Any of them! The police came and shut the party down. Apparently there was a fight, a window was broken. And you, you look like shit, if you don't mind me saying."

Penny stopped her stream of words by putting a lock of her long hair in between her lip. She sat down in the chair opposite my bed, took a deep breath.

"Are you okay? I was worried."