Oscar reaches out to place his hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
I place my hand over top of his, playing over his fingers. “I’m good.”
He gives me a squeeze and then removes his hand, sitting back in the seat once more. It doesn’t take long to get to the gym from Oscar’s apartment. Magnum does his usual watching the area thing as we walk in, and then he heads through with his bug detector as Finn and Jax come to greet us.
The mood is pretty somber in the gym already. Brawler’s off hitting the punching bag in the corner. It swings on its swivel hooks, the chains clanging as he puts all his energy into hitting the bag. It’s taking a beating, too.
My eyes bulge out of my head. I’m going to be staring that down tomorrow. He’s going to hurt me. It’s not that I can’t inflict damage either, but his fists are like cement blocks. He’s one of the most skilled fighters I’ve ever met, and that’s not to mention the fact that I care about him. I don’t want him to hurt me, and I don’t want to hurt him, but I have to separate the two. At least tomorrow, I do.
“This is a terrible fucking idea,” Jax says, eyeing the big man taking out all his rage on the poor leather-wrapped punching bag.
I try to shake myself out of the fear swallowing me. I can’t let Brawler feel worse than he already does. He’d rather rip out his right arm than fight me, but we’re left with no choice.
I yearn for a day with choices. Opportunities. Moving around at my own discretion. It’s why I’m here after all. Freedom. I just had to give some up for a little while to gain a lot.
I yell at myself internally to get over myself. I’ve been in fights before and this will be no different. I have to treat it like any other.
Brawler moves around the bag. He sees me out of the corner of his eye and stops, lowering his guard. His chest rises and lowers. The ink creeping up his neck stands out like a Picasso on a muted background. I drop my water bottle and towel and move toward him. He waits for me where he is, the bag swinging to my right.
“Kyla...” His voice is a desperate plea, as if I have the power to stop this. As if I have the power to tell him this doesn’t need to happen. None of us have the power right now. We’re all just puppets on a string until we can take it back.
“Let’s give them a moment,” Mag says in the background.
My eyes fill with salty tears.
“That’s it. I’m not doing it,” he says, moving forward to cup my face.
“You have to,” I say, checking the tears as best I can.
“It’s not worth it,” he growls.
I move my hands up his neck. I trace the angel wings, one light and one dark. “We don’t want to become these people, right?” One sacrificial lamb, and one wolf. We have to play the game and play it smarter than them.
“I can’t hit you,” he seethes. “It’s not in me.”
“Tomorrow, it will be. Tomorrow, pretend to be a different person. You’re not you, and I’m not me.”
“Impossible,” he says, shaking his head. “I’d recognize you anywhere. What’s in you is in me, and when two people like that find each other, they can’t just wish it away.”
“You know you have to,” I say. A tear finally escapes, tracking down my cheek. I never thought I’d be begging a guy to kick my ass. It’s true you can find strength in anything. This might be the moment I need the most strength. For both of us. “Then think about the future,” I tell him, grabbing onto that thought and holding it closely. “It’s a means to an end.”
“I thought I was helping you!” He turns and slams his fist into the heavy bag, sending it flying.
“I’ll never forget that,” I tell him. I hold out my hand to steady the bag. “How you walked into that room with no thought of your own well-being. You sacrificed a part of yourself. I get it.”
“And I’ll be giving up another tomorrow the first time my fist lands. I might as well just carve myself into pieces right now, Kyla. There’s no way this is going to work.”
“It will,” I argue, trying to make myself believe it as much as