Punching and Kissing (6 page)

***

After five hours, they said I could see him. Everything above his eyebrows was swathed in white bandages. When I saw the tube down his throat and the papery hiss and pump of the ventilator, I wanted to scream. His eyes were closed, but it didn’t look like any sort of peaceful sleep. His brow was furrowed, as if he was having a nightmare.

One he couldn’t wake up from.

“He’s in a coma,” said the doctor, taking a seat beside me. She was a pretty blonde who looked not much older than me. “That’s not unusual, with head injuries. In some ways, it’s the brain’s way of protecting itself.”

“While it heals, right?” I asked.

She just looked at me sadly.

“It’ll protect him while he heals and then he’ll wake up...right?” I pressed.

“There’s no way to tell,” she said slowly. “He
may
just wake up.” But her face told me how unlikely that was.

I felt my lip tremble and then, without warning, I started weeping and couldn’t stop. The doctor put a hand on my back and awkwardly patted me there. It felt as if it was the first time she’d done it—she really
was
young, I realized. But however awkward it was, I was glad she was there.

“Can I stay with him?” I croaked, when I could finally speak again.

“Of course.” She gave me her beeper number and told me to call her any time.

When she’d gone, I sat there staring at Alec. My whole life, he’d been the big one, the strong one, the one who’d taken care of me...even while our parents had still been alive.

But cancer had eaten away at Mom until she was just a jaundiced, skeletal copy of herself in a hospice, and Alec had had to step up even more. Then we’d gotten the phone call to say something had happened to our dad at work. Alec had been the one who’d dealt with the doctors and then the funeral parlor.
Undiagnosed heart defect.
My brother had insisted I get my heart checked in case it was hereditary, and I’d demanded that he did, too. We were both clear. But now we were alone.

We’d clung to each other even closer, battling to keep the rent paid on the apartment. Our family’s situation had been precarious even before Dad died—his savings had gone on Mom’s cancer care. Every bill became a struggle.

And now, the person I’d leaned on so much was the one who needed help. He didn’t look big or strong anymore. Surrounded by machines, dependent on them for every breath, he was more vulnerable than a newborn baby.

I picked up his hand and clasped it in mine. “I’m going to take care of you,” I whispered. But I had no idea how. I had no money to pay the hospital bills. And in a month, I’d be dead at the hands of some trained fighter. With me gone, Alec would have no surviving relatives.
Jesus, they’ll switch off the machine.

I was going to die. And not long after that, Alec was going to die, too. I’d thought I was sacrificing myself for him, but all I’d done was to seal both our fates.

I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tight, my face against his chest, my tears soaking into his hospital gown. I lost myself in a fantasy where his strong arms suddenly rose and tightened around me and he woke up and the doctors ran in and said
it’s a miracle.
It would happen any minute, I told myself. I just had to keep hugging him.

But it didn’t happen. My tears turned cold and the dawn crept slowly in through the blinds. Another day. One step closer to the end—a long month that I’d face utterly alone. And then, when it finished, I’d be dead.

I thought of the hard concrete floor of The Pit. My head cracking against it, blood spreading out in a pool. I hadn’t given a lot of thought to the fight itself, until now. Back when I was pleading with Rick, it had seemed like a simple trade—my life for Alec’s. But now, I started to think about how it would feel to be hit, again and again. No one had ever really hit me, my whole life. A few guys had groped me, a friend had slapped me, once. But no one had ever deliberately pulled back their fist and hit me. It was one thing my shitty life had spared me.

I was scared. I was scared of how much it would hurt. I imagined my cheekbones shattering, my ribs breaking. I was ashamed of how scared I was.

And it wasn’t going to stop. I was going to be punched and kicked until I lost consciousness, until I slumped to the floor in a ragged heap. Even if I was still alive when the fight was over, there’d be no one to take
me
to the hospital. Maybe Rick would take pity on me and put me out of my misery, or maybe he’d just dump my body in an alley somewhere, but I’d be dead either way.

I clutched my brother tight, feeling the warmth of the sunlight crawl slowly across my back. It became uncomfortable, but I didn’t want to move. Moving meant letting go of Alec and the beginning of the end. When it finally grew too hot to bear, I twisted and glared angrily at the window, one hand up in front of my eyes, dazzled by the new day.

And suddenly, in that second, I knew what I had to do.

I had to win.

That was the only way out. If I lost, we were both dead, one way or another. If I won, I’d survive. I’d be there for Alec and I could make sure he had the best chance, too.

But that meant fighting. Not just showing up like a sacrificial lamb and taking the punishment until I collapsed, but fighting some other woman and winning. I’d never been in a fight in my life.

I had to learn how to fight.

But where the hell was I going to learn that? Who was going to teach me? I didn’t need some personal trainer in a gym. I needed someone
serious.
Someone who knew how to fight bare knuckle and raw. Someone who was a natural at this stuff. I didn’t know anyone like that.

Wait.

I knew one.

Aedan

My place was close enough to the docks that the sound of engines and cranes woke me. It was almost comforting.

I didn’t like being around people, ever since I’d quit fighting. It wasn’t just the scars; it was the knowledge of what I’d become. At first, I told myself I was afraid of losing my cool and getting into a fight. I was staying in self-imposed solitary to protect other people.
Yeah, right.

Deep down, I knew I was ashamed.

I sat up...and groaned. I could feel that bone-deep tiredness roll over me, the sort where you want to nod off every time you close your eyes. Not what I needed when I had to haul cargo around all day. Sure, these days the machines did most of the heavy lifting, but there was still plenty of raw muscle needed. Normally, I slept like a baby. Last, night, though….

Last night I’d been kept awake by visions of a dark-haired angel. They’d alternated between stupid, romantic fantasies of her in my arms and twisted nightmares where I hadn’t been there to get her out of that bathroom at The Pit. I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to save her. I needed to be with her.

And I knew I’d never see her again.

I sighed, downed some coffee, and told myself to
grow the feck up
.

An hour later, I was helping load a container onto a truck when my radio blared. It pissed me off a little, because you don’t want any distractions when you’ve got tons of steel hanging above your head. “What?” I snapped into my handset.

It was Aggie, the matronly redhead who worked the front gate. “One of your women,” she told me. It sounded even more disapproving in her bored, north-Jersey accent.

I ran a hand over my face. It wasn’t like I had a string of girls coming to see me at work. Hell, I hadn’t slept with anyone in months. But I’m not a feckin’ monk, either. There’d been a few hook-ups in Newark bars, and once or twice I’d been dropped off at work by a Sandy or a Mandy or a Cindy the next morning...I wasn’t even sure which had been which, now. It had just been empty sex, though it had taken the edge off. And Aggie had seen, and that had given me a reputation.

Well,
feck her
. I never claimed to be a good guy.

“Which one?” I asked tiredly.

“I’m not your secretary, Aedan,” she snapped.

I let out a long sigh and gestured for the crane to lower a little. “
Aggie!
”

She swore under her breath and I heard her bark out the question to whoever was waiting at the gate. “Sylvie,” she snapped.

And time seemed to stop.

The next thing I knew, Dwight was bawling down at me from the crane, “
Hey! Down or up or what, ya idiot?”
and Aggie was on the radio again and I realized I’d been standing there gaping for about a minute.

***

She looked even smaller than I remembered her. Small and slender, even with that firm ass and those cute, pert breasts. But it was more than that, something in the way she held herself. She looked
fragile.

I’d taken a break to go talk to her, which meant I wouldn’t get another one until lunch. Worse was the interrogation I’d get from Aggie, later.

I walked Sylvie out to the edge of the dock, where you could look out across the water towards Manhattan. A few gulls were circling overhead. “How did you find me?” was my first question.

“I called around—people my brother knew at The Pit. Everyone’s heard of Aedan. You’re a freaking legend. One of them said they thought you worked at the docks.”

I looked around at the little slice of industrial hell where I worked. “There are a lot of places around the docks. How’d you know it was this one?” It came out angrier than I intended. I’d just got used to my quiet little life there. It felt like she was bringing that whole world of blood and glory back into my life, and I didn’t want it. Or maybe I wanted it so badly it freaked me out.

“I didn’t know.” She lifted her chin. “This is the tenth place I’ve asked at.”

Jesus.
The poor girl must have been walking around Newark all morning. I had to admire her determination. “Why?”

She looked me right in the eye. “I need you to teach me how to fight.”

It was so unexpected, so utterly ridiculous, that I couldn’t help but laugh. I didn’t want to offend her—seeing her there, dark hair blowing in the breeze, was easily the best thing that was going to happen to me for months. But the idea of her swinging her fists….

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said, stiffening.

“I’m...I’m not,” I said, trying to control it. I shook my head. “It’s just....” I sighed and felt myself grin. The idea was cute. “Look. Go to your gym, find a trainer.” I didn’t mean it to sound patronizing, but a little of that tone crept in. “They’ll teach you how to hit a bag—”

“I don’t mean that,” she said coldly. “I mean in The Pit. I need to learn to fight like you.”

I frowned at her. “
Why?
Why would you even—”

She told me what had happened after I’d left. The deal she’d made with Rick. My grin vanished and I stared at her in horror.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph...
she was going to get killed. The idea of my dark-haired angel lying broken on that concrete floor made me want to throw up.

“Run,” I said. “Get a bag and leave town.”

“I can’t. My brother’s here and I can’t move him from the hospital. If I don’t show up, Rick’ll take it out on him.”

She was right. That cruel bastard would think nothing of sending someone to finish off the poor guy. Hell, all they’d have to do was flip a switch on a machine. And going to the police wasn’t an option—Rick had enough money and a greasy enough lawyer that he’d walk unless he was caught red-handed.

“You know him, don’t you?” she asked. “You know what Rick’s like. You were a fighter, once.”

I stared at her.

“A lot of people had stories, when I started asking around. An Irish fighter called Aedan who wiped the floor with
everyone
. They said you were undefeated for almost a
year!”

I shook my head. “That was a long time ago. I don’t fight anymore.”

“Please,” she said, and the sound of that word on her lips made my heart melt. Oh, Jesus, I would have given her anything she wanted, right at that moment. Anything at all.

Anything but that.

“Please,” she said again. “He’s my brother. I can’t run and leave him behind. He’s the only family I’ve got. Do you know what that’s like?”