Post by MERCENARY on Apr 29, 2021 5:15:55 GMT -6
Part 3
A caramel-amber puddle beside a broken glass. His hands shake. The pat pat pat of blood drops the only sound that echoes in his ears. His eyes are wet. His voice is raw. He doesn’t understand how he got here but he knows the way was not a good one.
The whisky tasted the way that dead things smell: sickly sweet, and he had already had enough to make his head swim. The music was turned up loud and the bass vibrated deep down in his guts as he stood staring at the shadows of a burning candle flame dance across the wall. His recent loss had left him in a dangerous mood and he was trapped right in the middle of the storm. He took another long slug straight from the bottle in a vain effort to numb the haunting echoes of the thoughts that were mocking him in his mind.
He didn’t see her when he stumbled into the room. He didn’t notice that she was there until her arms tightly encircled his waist in what was meant to be a comforting embrace. He pulled away and turned to face her. He looked down and was struck by how beautiful she looked in the candle light. But the look of acceptance she wore caused an unexpected anger to rise again at the base of his skull.
Dalilah: “It’s okay baby. It’ll all be okay. It’ll go your way next time.”
Mercenary sneered and his expression grew dangerous without Dalilah recognizing the warning.
Mercenary: “Will it? Will it really? Will it be ‘okay’? Will it all be better the next time? Will it?”
He stepped closer to her. The rage rose from deep inside his guts. In that second he almost hated her. He hated her pity. He despised her understanding. Her perfection disgusted him. He caressed her cheek, his hand sliding gently down her face to her neck. His hand lingered there where he could feel her pulse throbbing just beneath the skin.
Merc: “You’re just so sweet aren’t you? So damn sweet. So accepting. So understanding. You’re just so damn…”
His grip started to tighten. Her smile lingered at first, thinking that this was a game. But as the pressure persisted and his face hardened her eyes went wide with panic. Fear gripped her as his thumb pressed into the center of her throat and his large hand robbed her of breath.
Merc: "... Perfect.”
She clawed at his wrist but he didn’t let her go. Before her air was completely taken from her and she gave in to terror entirely she managed a labored gasp of protest:
Dalilah: “Michael. DON’T!”
The desperation in her words woke him up. He saw the fear on her face and he saw someone’s hand choking the woman he loved. It took a shocking second for him to realize that it was his own fingers tightly marking her flesh. He pulled away like she was made of fire. He turned from her and wailed in anguish and anger. It was the sound of something in his soul dying. In a rage he put his fist through the wall. His knuckles burst and bled. The pain was not enough to absolve him of what he had done. His hands were shaking and salty sorrow burned his eyes. Disbelief and disgust overcame him. He couldn’t feel any of his old self anymore. He was a stranger inside familiar skin. It was strange how well it fit.
Dalilah’s face was wet with tears but she was possessed with a strange sense of calm. Crossing the room she put her hands on his trembling shoulders. Despite a tentative apprehension she felt compelled to comfort him.
Merc: “I’m sorry.” {He whispered too softly for her to hear.}
Dalilah: “It’s alright baby. It’s alright.”
But it wasn’t. Nothing about it was or ever should be. He pulled away from her gentle touch and headed out the door without looking back. He couldn’t stay here right now. It felt too much like a cage.
The roof top bar was lit by a string of soft white lights like the star filled Canadian sky. The place was almost empty but a few couples drank at quiet tables in dimly lit corners while on the stage a beautiful woman with dark hair played an acoustic guitar. The song was a cover of Lana Del Ray’s Born to Die. From his seat at the end of the bar Mercenary lay across the marble surface nursing a double whiskey. He watched her intently. She was beautiful, but it was her voice that had captured him the most as his mind was on a completely different dark haired girl.
He had wandered in several hours after the show had reached its conclusion. His intention was to celebrate his win in the gauntlet match, but a few drinks in that joy had started to dissipate as his mind wandered to thoughts of Dalilah. It had been several months now since he had watched her walk with her head down up the ramp in Korakuen Hall and in fact no one had heard from her since Scars and Stripes. She disappeared like a wisp in the wind. He wondered where she was now. He wondered if she was safe. He wondered if she was scared. He wondered if she would believe that he even cared.
The live entertainment came to an end and many of the patrons decided to call it a night. The speakers in the room began to play The Kill by Thirty Seconds to Mars. The tune matched his mood. He started to sing along mid-way. He was only a little bit off key:
“Look in my eyes, you’re killing me, KILLING ME! All I wanted was YOU!”
The bartender called LAST CALL and Mike sighed for himself. He bought a bottle to go and wandered off to try to remember where the elevators were and what floor that his room was on. Eventually he found his way back to the door that opened to his electronic key card. The room was pitch dark when he went in, even though he could have sworn that he’d left a light on when he left. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness one of the shadows over by the windows moved enough for him to take notice. For a minute he was convinced that he was seeing spirits brought on by a brain that had become way too Southern Comfortable, but when she pulled the drapes apart to allow the moonlight to illuminate her fragile features he knew for sure that she was really there.
He hesitated to close the distance between them. She bit her bottom lip. Her expression was conflicted. The silence was thick and hard to inhale and he felt that it would suffocate him. After a momentary eternity she started to walk to him, gliding across the floor with slow and deliberate steps. When she was close enough for him to smell her sweet scent and the savory sweat beneath her perfume he had to resist pulling her to him. He wanted nothing more than to feel her heart beat fast against his flesh. He wanted to hold her and to never let go again. But he resisted that urge. He fought against it. Because the last time he’d touched her he knew that he caused her pain. As much as he wanted to replace the memory of that night with a more gentle association, he also knew that such a thing was not in his power. Such a redemption could come only from her alone. Only by her forgiveness could she cause that scar to fade.
Slow and hesitant she reached out her hand. It was like she was testing the water to see if it was hot, all the while expecting that the eventual contact would scald her trembling fingers. Gently they brushed the lapel of his leather jacket. In a swift and sudden move she gripped the front of his jacket with both hands, yanking him close to her in a single violent motion. She exhaled directly into his face before she kissed him on the lips, biting his lower lip gently as she pulled away. He was caught up in the thrill of it that he never saw the stiff slap coming. She hit him hard across the face, bringing the stinging burn of a bloody lip that only moments before had tasted the honeysuckle sweet flavor of her soft affection. She shoved him away.
Dalilah: “You hurt me.”
She accused with naked anger in a graveyard tone. His expression cracked and threatened to crumble at the bitterness in her voice and the cold expression on her pallid face. The second strike stalled his apology before he could breathe life into the platitude.
Dalilah: “You HURT me. You said you never would. You promised me. You PROMISED! You LIED to me.”
The force of her words hurt him more than her hands ever could. He stood with his own hands stiff and motionless at his side. Drops of blood fell from his chin, leaving small red stains on his grey t-shirt. With the tip of a finger she took a drop as one might take the tear from the eye of a grieving lover. She stared at the dark red droplet with an intense fascination before putting her stained finger between her lips and cleansing it with the tip of her tongue. There was the faint hint of a smile that came with the taste but it was quickly replaced with a scowl that found its full form, marring the beauty of her delicate features.
Dalilah: “You listened to all those haters. You blamed me for your failures. You thought that you needed to protect me… that I couldn’t fight for MYSELF!.” She struck him again, this time with the back of a partially closed hand. “But I don’t need YOU to protect me. I don’t NEED anyone to take care of ME!”
She went to hit him again but this time he caught her by the wrist. His grip was as gentle as he could manage.
Mercenary: “I KNOW you don’t. I know… But I can’t help it. I fight for the people that I love and I. Love. You. I love you. Even when I don’t really want to. Even when it drives me crazy. I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.”
He loosened his grip a bit more and she wrenched her arm out of his hand. She punched him hard in the chest, knocking him back a step. She threw another punch, and another, but this time he avoided the assault. She was backing him into a corner but he refused to fight back, even when his back was against the wall. She lunged at him, but instead of pressing her advantage she threw her arms around his shoulders and again pulled him into the depth of a lasting and passionately violent kiss. Breaking the embrace she looked up at him with a weighted expression.
Dalilah: “You can’t abuse my trust Michael. You just can’t be like that. I just can’t let you. Promise me that you’re better than all the rest. Promise me.”
He rested his head in her hair and the two just stood still in the silent shadows: The manic beauty and her bleeding beau. A stark and scary depiction: The portrait of the beast that love can sometimes allow you to be.
The cool breeze blowing in through the open sliding-glass door billowed the curtains and brought with it the smell of the salt-sea air. His eyes opened to the pre-dawn twilight and the sound of the morning waves breaking on the beach 100 yards from their back deck. He sat up on the side of the bed, rubbing his hand through his hair with a deep breath and a sigh. Behind him Dalilah rolled over, mumbling softly in her sleep. Looking over his shoulder he took in the sight of her laying there naked and pale against the soft black backdrop of Egyptian cotton sheets. Her skin seemed to glow in the spectral lite-blue ghost light that brought life to this early hour when any sane person would still be lost in the comfort of sleep. Stretching as he stood Michael pulled on a pair of black and silver basketball shorts and tied a black bandanna over his hair before picking up his running shoes and slipping silently out of the room. After lacing up his sneakers on the porch steps he picked his way down the back path to the beach where he stretched his stiff muscles before he began to run down the shore in the direction of the rising sun.
He ran on for a long time just above the tide line with nothing but the sound of the water and an occasional sea bird for company. He ran until his lungs burned and his blood rushed in his ears, roaring so loud that the sound nearly drowned out the ebb and crash of the tide. Taking a break he mopped the sweat from his face and looked back at the long line of footsteps that he had left in the sand. They stretched out behind him for a long distance, marking the miles that he had come, but even as he watched the prints were fading as the water washed over them leaving nothing but smooth sand in their wake until not even a memory remained. Turning his gaze away from the ground that he’d already covered he faced forward and found that the sight was the same. It was an expanse of sand worn smooth by the water, but unlike the beach behind him this ground was waiting to be marked by his progress. Taking a deep breath he took off at a faster pace than before as if propelled by some re-born sense of purpose.