I'd Kill You First: when bad meets bad

Chap. 40

SODA:

I guess my nightmares would always and forever be unforgettable because I was still tortured by them every night. Matt's presence helped, but I was still haunted in the dark by the things I didn't remember. Faces would creep into my mind, places I've never been, things I've never done, and it terrified me. Were these memories or just devil dreams?

So when I bolted upright in my bed after another dream with his face, I couldn't take it. I looked to my right to see Matt sleeping soundly, my clock reading the earliest hours of the morning, and I crept out of bed. Brody was asleep in that man, Keenon's room, so I was silent as I went down the hallway, carrying my clothes and boots.

I got dressed in the kitchen and put my shoes on in the hall, taking the dark and silent elevator down to the lobby and walking out to my beautiful car. I hadn't been allowed to drive since my trip to the hospital, and it felt so good to wrap my fingers around the black leather steering wheel. I had the urge to race, to zip down a track with other cars, but I blinked and the image in my head was gone.

That's how things came to me. I would touch or smell or hear or see something, and a small little image would pop into my head, and I could only assume it was from the forgotten parts of my life.

My cast had been removed last week, so I mashed down on the gas pedal and squealed out of the parking lot. I had a fleeting hint where to go, a punching bag and half a neon sign in my mind's eye, and my heart kept telling me this was important to me. So I went.

Not sure at all what I would find, I went looking for those green eyes that seemed to be the answer to what I was missing.

I went looking for him.

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KEENON:

I swung my fist into the bag as hard as I could, sending ripples up my arm as the sack swung out and jostle with the impact. It swayed back my way, and I connected my knee with it, spinning around with a kick that nailed it near the top.

I thumped against that bag every night, pouring myself into it, dripping sweat on the gym floor, hate flowing through me.

It was my fault.

If I hadn't let her out of the hospital to begin with, if I had been more careful with her, if I hadn't let her leave and hadn't fallen asleep. She would still be okay, not a shell of herself, not quiet and withdrawn. I would sometimes go to the apartment and stand in the doorway of the place, watching her sit numbly on the couch for hours, oblivious to my presence when before she would have sensed it immediately, ready to face a potential threat. I had broken her.

So I left her. Damn it, I hated myself for leaving her, but she didn't know me! She didn't even remember me, and... and maybe that was for the best. She was fine before I came along, so she'll be better off without my screw ups in her life. I've screwed up my own life enough as it is.

I came to this gym every day, working myself to the breaking point, broke myself, and kept going. If I couldn't fix what I did to her, then I could at least avenge her. I would find who did those things to her, and I would kill them. As far as I knew, Matt and Brody had kept everything from Soda about what she forgot, so she definitely wouldn't be going after her attackers. It was up to me.

I had been training none stop with a severity that all the trainers said they had never seen before. I fought in the ring and was done in two minutes tops. My opponents didn't get back up.

Someone was going to pay, and I was ready to collect the cash.

I had grown in size, muscles bigger and stronger, shoulders more broad and legs thicker. I was bigger than Matt ever was, and bigger than all the guys my age at the gym. This was it. What I wanted. People feared me, knew me on the streets, I dominated the room when I walked in. Look me in the eye, I'd kill you.