Surge (89 page)

It would have hurt her less if I’d just punched her in the heart, because you could see the gaping wound I tore wide open, and I’m following the trail of it right now. There’s furniture thrown around, most likely in her mad dash to get the fuck away from me, and I don’t blame her. I don’t even want to be around myself right now. As I continue down the hall, I hear that dying animal noise that I’ve only heard once before, and this time, I’m the cause of it. A few doors are open and people are popping sleepy heads out to see what’s going on. When they hear my tread, ten heads swivel in my direction.

“What the fuck did you do?” Cory demands.

“I fucked up.”

“I fucking knew it,” he hisses. “I said you were hurt her, and you fucking did.”

Taking long stomping steps to clear the distance between us, Cory prowls forward. He twists his hand in my shirt and hauls me up on my toes, which he can do since he’s got a few inches on me. Pulling his fist back, he lands a blow to my right eye. Pain bursts from the eye socket, but I ignore it. I deserve this and so much more, so I stand there and let Cory land three more punches to my lip, nose and jaw. That’s when the twins separate us.

“Calm the fuck down!” Oscar orders.

“Jared, what the hell did you do?” Carlos asks.

“I already told you, I fucked up.” Looks like I know have an ailment to complain about, but I ignore the headache, the blood dripping down my chin and the throbbing in my nose, chin and eye.

“How?” Carlos presses.

“I took your advice about avoiding Olivia, and this is where it got me.”

“I never told you to avoid her, you selective listening prick,” he retorts. “I was only pointing out the fact that you’re only one man, and you had tough choices to make.” Carlos looks down the hall. “I guess you made the wrong one.”

“I didn’t. I did what’s best.”

“What exactly would these choices have been?” Cory inquires. “And how the fuck is making my sister cry doing what’s best?”

He’s still pissed; you can read it in his brown eyes that are glittering dangerously with the help of the flashlights that Sarah and Danny are holding. His jaw is also clenched and his fists are balled like he wants to hit me a few more times. If I were him, I would hit me until I was nothing more than a bloody pulp staining the carpet, and if Cory knew about half the shit that was said, or I allowed to happen in the last half hour, he probably would.

“I had a talk with Jared the other day,” Carlos explains. “It was about how Olivia was going to leave the compound.”

“Yeah, she was always planning to leave the compound,” Cory says. “The deal was that she and I were going to escort your group to the compound, and then we were going hunting for Cole. You all knew this before we left the condo.”

“But that was before Jared grew an attachment,” Oscar explains. “He was all for her leaving until he realized that there was a chance that she wouldn’t come back.”

“Nah, that’s not it,” Carlos counters. “He actually thought that he could split himself in two so that one half would be with Sarah and the other half would be with Olivia. Then he learned that the man Olivia’s going after is above his forte and chickened out.”

“You fucks can all sit here and argue over Jared’s motives all night if you want to, but I’m going to go calm Olivia down before she cries her throat raw,” John announces. Then he points a furious finger at me. “I warned you. I told you not to try anything unless you were serious about her. She had enough trust issues, and she didn’t need any more proof to steel her walls with, and you just gave her an electric fucking fence.”

“I was serious about her,” I say and John shakes his head.

“If you were, you would have told her how you feel, instead of lying and pissing her off so that she’d run away,” he tells me. “That way you could blame her since it’s easier that way for you.”

“Let me tell you something, you stupid mother fucker,” Cory interrupts. “Love ain’t easy. There are shit times, and there are moments of absolute bliss. It’s hard work to keep it going, but if you’ve got the right person, it’s worth it. Too fucking bad you’ll never know that, since you threw her away.” He rubs a hand over his face. “I don’t know why the fuck I thought you were the one for the job, because obviously, you weren’t.” Then he looks at me with deadly intent. “Come near her again, and I’ll fucking gut you.”

Cory doesn’t wait for my reply as he turns his back on me and walks down the hall with John, not that I would have had one since they’re right. I caused this. Me, no one else. Instead, of claiming my blame for what it is, I glare at the wide eyed people staring at me.

“What the fuck are you all looking at? I did it for you.”

I sweep my gaze around to encompass Tommy, Whit, Mike, Akio, the twins, Sarah and Danny. John and Cory are now down the hall trying to get to a hysterical Olivia. It should be me down there trying to clean up the shit storm I created. But no, I’m right where I wanted to be, so I have to lay in the bed I’ve made.

“I couldn’t leave you behind, so I chose you all over her. You should be happy. Celebrating and singing zip-a-dee-doo-dah fucking day!”

“We aren’t,” Akio says.

“And why not? I put the good of group ahead of my own happiness, which is just the way it should be.”

“Because we aren’t just a group, Jared,” Whitney adds.

“We’re family,” Mike finishes.

“And Olivia’s a part of that family,” Tommy says without a single stutter.

“She’s not,” I deny. “She’s on a suicide mission, and I won’t risk the safety of the majority for the foolhardy mission of the minority. I have responsibilities to all of you and that’s to take care of you, to make sure you’re clothed, fed and safe. And I can’t do that if I go gallivanting around on some aimless hunt for an elusive serial killer to claim vengeance on something that has nothing to do with me, or any of you.”

Maybe if I repeat it enough, I’ll start believing it. Not that any of them look any more convinced than I am. Hell, they all look like they want to line up and take a few swings of their own. Step right up and punch a douche bag. Absolutely free, just make sure you hit him nice and hard, then maybe some sense will finally pour out of his deranged cranium. Need some incentive? He let a sexually abused girl give him a hand job while calling herself a slut. Still not enough? He then called her a kicked puppy, a burden, and belittled the murders of her fiancé and baby. Want to kill him now, you say? So don’t I, folks, so don’t I.

“We aren’t your responsibility,” Carlos says.

“And we never should have let you think otherwise,” Oscar continues. “You’re just a kid yourself. Hell, most of us are older than you, but we’ve been looking to you as if you’ve got all the answers, and you don’t. Nor should you. You didn’t train for the apocalypse or to protect innocents, and you didn’t sign up to take care of a bunch of strangers. All you did was open your doors to us and we took advantage of you. For that, I’m sorry, but it’s done now. Step down and claim your place as an equal. Quit carrying the weight of the goddamn world on your shoulders, it doesn’t belong there, and never belonged there in the first place.” He hikes a thumb over his shoulder. “Now, go make up with your girl before you lose her for good.”

I blink at Oscar. That’s probably the longest speech I’ve heard from either twin while they’re together without the other one popping in to make a comment, or to finish a sentence. I don’t know whether to applaud the feat, or cry out in demand of a refund for being jipped of my admission to the creep show.

“Well, what the fuck are you waiting for?” Carlos asks.

“Yeah, move gringo, before I dance my way into her heart,” Oscar says with a grin. And they’re back. I flip the flirtatious asshole off.

“I can’t,” I say.

“Why the hell not?” They say in unison. Was it me just asking for the creepy twin act? I take it back.

“I made a promise and I have to keep it.”

“Didn’t we just go over this?” Oscar asks as he scratches his head.

“We did,” an equally baffled Carlos answers.

“Different promise and this one can’t be broken, so thanks for the green light, but this’ll have to stay red.” I look at the scowling people around me. “Go back to bed, we leave in three hours.”

Several doors slam, and I ignore the curses about me being a
‘stubborn ass’
or a
‘sullen bastard’
because they don’t matter. My parents’ asked one thing of me. One simple thing, when I’ve never done a thing for them even once in my life. I didn’t go to school right away like they hoped I would. I didn’t keep a job for more than three months because I got bored stocking shelves. I asked them for money constantly to put gas in my car, buy video games, hit the club, to get the latest technology and other stupid shit that I don’t even remember. I was a lazy slob who took advantage of my privileged life, because I was nothing but a silver spooned, snobby asshole.

So, the least I could do for them is keep this one promise. And that promise is to take care of Sarah and make sure that she’s safe. Nothing, and no one, will ever make me break it, no matter how much it may kill me inside in order to keep it.

<~~~<~~~
~~~>~~~
>

I think it’s rather obvious why I’m treated like the red headed step child the next day. I don’t think anyone got much sleep after the fight, and Olivia’s subsequent howling. Her wounded cry lasted a good half hour until it miraculously ended, but it didn’t stop echoing in my ears until I broke two fingers with my assault on the wall. Yeah, it’s childish, but I caused the woman I love pain, and I wanted to be in some myself. Sure, Cory busted my nose, reopened burn scabs, and split my lip; but even all that in addition to my self-inflicted damage, didn’t hurt me enough to compare to Olivia’s pain.

I feel like shit, I am shit, and I will remain shit. I’m just a heaping pile of steaming horse manure, and I’m pretty sure I even reek of it. My rotten core is leaking out of my pores, and suffocating the air we’re breathing with misery, so fragrant that you could taste the bitterness of it on your tongue.

We all packed into the van at 6:00 this morning when Oscar gave us our marching orders. Olivia was already in the driver’s seat, face blank, headphones in place, and revving the engine for us to hurry the fuck up. Why she still agreed to take us when I was a dick to her, is most likely because she made a promise to the group to get them there safely; not just me, so she wouldn’t take her emotions out on the rest group. She’s a much better person than I am, because if someone said half the shit I said to her, to me, I’d have laid their ass out. Hell, I want to knock myself into next week.

We’ve been driving for six hours. Six hours of silence. Six hours of listening to the tread of tires ripping up asphalt, dirt and branches. Six hours of sighs and death glares being thrown in my direction. I’m as far away from Olivia as possible, but it seems that everyone wants to be far away from me.

Cory’s up front with Olivia, John’s in the next row with Sarah. Danny’s in the following one with Tommy. Akio and the twins in the third, leaving me with Mike and Whit in the last one. And they are none too happy with the setup, as can be seen now since they’re leaning against each other, pressed against the padded metal frame of the van’s interior. Even fucking Morris doesn’t want to be near me, the feline asshole flipped me the paw when I tried to cuddle him like Olivia does. And these are the people I’m throwing Olivia away for. Fuck, I didn’t throw her away; I gutted her, set her on fire and pissed on her ashes. You just don’t do that to people you care about, so it looks like Carlos was right about the puppy love comment.

I’m fucking clueless and immature when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex, which is why I’ve avoided them in the first place. Sure, my parents were married, and obviously they cared about each other to some extent since they didn’t get divorced, but I never seen them display open affection for each other. Yeah, they kissed each other on the cheek and my dad gave her the standard roses on her birthday, but that was it; because he was so fucking involved in his work. He’d go to the office at six o’clock every morning, come home at seven to eat dinner and share the pleasantries of
‘how was your day so-and-so,’
then go to the home office down the hall. As I told Olivia, it was life sucking monotony that I wanted no part of.

I’m jostled out of my head, when the van comes to an abrupt stop. If I weren’t wearing my seatbelt, my broken nose would have been mashed into the headrest in front of me. Leaning back, I rub my abused collarbone and try to peer around nine heads to see what the fuck the holdup is.

“Everyone out,” Cory orders.

The fuck? I hear a door open and the slider move on the track. The van rocks as the bodies make their exits quickly. Because I’m a dick and no one’s a fan of me right now, it’s like I’m the last kid to be picked in gym class because kids are dicks too, so I’m pushed to be the last one to exit. Oh well, I can take their childish antics; after all, I’m rather childish myself.

Hell, I could have avoided all of this if I’d used that big mouth of mine for something useful for once. But no, I have to be a fucking moron, and a stubborn fuck that refuses to right my mistake by explaining that my actions were well intended, but wrongly executed. There’s no going back though, what’s done is done and I’ll have to suffer the consequences.