Authors: Julie Hockley
“It’s a
triquetra
,” she explained. “My grandfather gave it to my grandmother as a wedding pre
sent.”
I didn’t want to ask if she’d had to yank it from her grandmother’s cold dead h
ands.
While I held on to the pendant, Manny pressed my hand on her c
hest.
Manny’s gaze went from eye to eye. Large, dark pupils stared back a
t me.
“Stay with me,” she pleaded, pulling at my
hand.
“Good night,” I told Manny in a low v
oice.
The vulnerable softness of her face disappeared and was replaced by her stern self.
She turned on her heels and went back upst
airs.
On my way back to my suite, I let myself glance outside. It was as black as the inside
of a coffin. There was no way I would have ever seen anything outside, let alone at
the back of the es
tate.
Haunted. That’s what I was. And it was destroying me. I needed to ref
ocus.
I tried something that night when I closed my eyes in bed. I forgot where I was. I
took a deep breath and imagined I was somewhere else. That place I would never forget,
that was forged in my brain, that was part of my DNA. It was the only time I had truly
s
lept.
I was at ease. With Emmy. I could forget; I could let things go. Even for just a few
moments in her arms, I was liberated from my
self.
I could breathe again and reme
mber.
She was alone most of the time. Surrounded, but alone. Alone, but not lonely. Alone
by choice. We had this in common. This need to be self-sustained. And this was what
had drawn me to her initially. I had seen myself in her. She was me, the other, better
version of me—the one that could have existed in another dimen
sion.
Then she matured. She became a beauty—the kind of beauty that one can’t help but stare
at, as though it were absolutely not possible, and yet it was. I watched her, from
afar. I got to know Emily Sheppard … the way she moved, the sound of her laugh, her
habits, the people who surrounded her. This, I had thought, must be
love.
How can someone who has never been loved be able to
love?
Jesus, I had no idea what love
was.
The person I was watching was a fictional character. Someone I had made up in my mind.
I had given her a personality, feelings, thoughts that were not her own, because I
didn’t actually know
her.
I could have spent my lifetime being in love with this beautiful girl I thought I
knew. If that day in the cemetery had never come and if Emmy and I had never met,
that would have been just fine with me. I wouldn’t have known any better. She would
have lived her beautiful life, and I would have watched her d
o it.
She would have been ignorant of me (I had reproached Emmy for this), but I would have
also been ignorant of her. I would have loved her. But not really
her.
Emmy, it turned out, was real. She was hotheaded and emotional and overdramatic. And
she was kind. She could make your heart start beating again. She could bring life
to the darkest place, to the darkest man. With one tear, she could make you feel like
the shittiest asshole in the world. But with one smile, you were invinc
ible.
That thing that was tearing me apart—the visions of the lady in the garden, barefoot,
red hair flowing behind her in a nonexistent wind—was the knowledge of what I was
mis
sing.
Being alone but not lonely together. Being each other’s counterparts, each other’s
best
part.
There would never be another. For her or fo
r me.
After having had a taste, I knew what I was missing, and I couldn’t continue life
if she weren’t next to me. I had been sending myself to an early grave because I couldn’t
be Cameron without
her.
I knew
this.
So what the hell was I supposed to do
now?
****
In the morning, after a good night’s sleep next to the spirit of Emmy, I met Julièn
and Manny at the breakfast t
able.
“The Coalition will not be single sourcing to you,” I announced as I took a
seat.
Manny choked on her orange j
uice.
Julièn readjusted the napkin on his lap. “We had a deal. Measures have been taken
based on our agree
ment.”
By measures, he meant that he had already made promises, taken bribes, and spent the
money he would have made after the deal went thr
ough.
“I would be doing the Coalition a disservice if I didn’t test the proposal before
fully investing all of our efforts.” I looked Julièn in the eye. “I am not satisfied
that you will be able to deliver on your prom
ises.”
Manny sat erect. “Cameron, it’s all going down in a couple of days. We’ve already
spent so much time plan
ning—”
“The Coalition is committed to building a business relationship with you,” I continued,
cutting Manny off. “As a show of our loyalty, we will offer you exclusivity over all
marijuana being distributed throughout the United States. This will be at a considerable
peril for the Coalition. We will be severing relations with all of our current growers,
who have proved themselves efficient and trustworthy for many years.” I needed to
keep the peace with the cartel for as long as possible, until I could bring Emmy back
t
o me.
Julièn leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other, showing off his
leather shoes. “I suppose this could be temporarily achi
eved—”
“I will, of course, need detailed and complete intelligence on your current grow-ops.
As an equal show of good faith,” I a
dded.
He kept his gaze locked on me. “Of co
urse.”
Most of our growers were partners of the Coalition. While there would be some rumblings
of the decision to single source all marijuana through Mexico, the captains would
find ways to make amends and keep the p
eace.
But there was also one independent grower. And he would not be happy to know—following
an anonymous tip—that his license to grow had just been rev
oked.
TRIGGER
The bright side of hitting rock bottom, of having exhausted all options, was that
my eyes had been opened to new possibilities. It was like getting lost in the desert
carrying an empty jug of orange juice, collapsing with dehydration, and on my last
breath being handed a jug of apple juice and a map sending me in a totally new direc
tion.
It was March already. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor in some seedy gym in
south Callister, my homework splayed in front of me. But I was focusing on Griff,
who was punching out a balloon bag in the corner. He had been training hard to get
back into fighting shape and had already won a few bouts, held in shady backroom fighting
rings. Everyone we encountered was excited to see him back in fighting shape. Griff
wasn’t just a good fighter. He was gifted. And with every day that passed, I noticed
his confidence growing. While he wouldn’t admit it to me, I could tell that he was
happy to be back in the ring. He was
home.
I envied him. I knew how it felt—to do what you were always meant to do. I had caught
a glimpse of this when I was with Pops. The glimpse had croaked the second Pops had
turned me
down.
At least the dreams and the nightmares had stopped so that Griff could get some shut
-eye.
I hadn’t forgotten that there was a whole world of bad people who wanted me and who
would want my child. But for now, I had pushed this aside—because I had no other ch
oice.
A few days after Griff and I had come back from our fruitless meeting with Pops, a
large cardboard box was delivered to our door. It was the kind of box that my roommates
usually got from their moms. Boxes with clean Spider-Man sheets and Kraft dinners.
Except that this box was for me. It had a bunch of clothes of a bigger size to accommodate
my growing self. XL shirts and stretchy pants. A brown and red woven poncho. And a
large terrycloth bathrobe that, quite magically, had a thousand dollars stuffed in
one of its poc
kets.
As soon as possible after Christmas, my loving, doting mother had my medical benefits
canceled so that I now had to pay cash for my nausea medicine. I guess this was her
way of rejecting me and rejecting my child again (in case it wasn’t clear to me that
she had already done so on Christmas Eve). So the care box obviously wasn’t from my
mother, but from two people who were as close to a mom as I would ever get: Maria
and Darlene. I knew that a thousand dollars was a lot of money for them. And I knew
that if I tried to send it back, they would be really
hurt.
Since Griff wouldn’t let me out of his sight, I’d had to stop working because my schedule
was getting in the way of Griff’s training. And honestly, I was too exhausted to work.
I could barely manage going to class and keeping up with my homework. Some days I
felt as though my neck were holding up a bowling ball. But I kept this from G
riff.
Griff’s fights were quite small (compared to what he had once been used to) and paid
little, so the money that Darlene and Maria had sent me came in handy, keeping us
fed. And the box of clothes helped me continue to conceal my pregnancy. As far as
I knew, no one knew that I was pregnant. Griff and I planned to keep it that
way.
Griff and I, we wedged together as though we had always been meant to. Before I knew
it, spring was trying to claw its way out of the irrepressible
snow.
Griff had finished training for the day, and I was taking yet another trip to the
washroom while he went to get the car. I had learned to be speedy. The last time I
had (apparently) spent too much time in the women’s washroom, he had a handgun placed
in my purse the next day, and I got a two-hour refresher course on self-defense from
one of his assistant trai
ners.
When I pulled my pants down in the stall, my insides twisted when I found that I was
bleeding again. This had been happening on and off for weeks. The nausea, the fatigue,
the bleeding, the fear for the baby’s health, the fear of what was going to happen
next—it was all weighing on me like a metal jumpsuit. But with my mother having pulled
my medical insurance and having no alone time to stalk the student doctor, I had to
take comfort in the fact the baby was still kicking my insides to a
pulp.
I rushed outside to find Griff parked with a wheel on the sidewalk, the passenger-side
door open for me and Griff on his phone. He hung up as soon as he sa
w me.
“Everything
okay?”
“Sure,” I said. I had been hiding my health issues from Griff because he didn’t need
the added anxiety. Some days he was so wound up from the stress of fighting, of money,
of watching out for me that I thought he might actually unstitch. “Who was on the
p
hone?”
“My prom
oter.”
He drove out of the parking lot, nearly colliding with an oncoming vehicle. Something
wa
s up.
“And?” I wondered when we were safely stopped at a red l
ight.
“There’s a fight in two weeks. At the Bolster Coli
seum.”
There were posters all over Callister, and his gym mates had been yakking about it
for weeks. The first time Callister City hosted a mixed martial arts fight in its
largest arena was big news, but it was no longer
new
news.
“And?” I asked a
gain.
“One of the fighters just got injured in training.” He turned to me before I could
repeat the same question. “They want me to fight his f
ight.”
This was big and new news. “That’s good, isn’t it? It’s what you’ve been hoping for,
training
for.”
But Griff didn’t seem as excited as I thought he should have been. “This is a title
fight, Em. It’s the main event. I’m not ready for
that.”
“Then you will be ready. Two weeks is enough time to get ready for it. R
ight?”
“If I train twenty-four hours a day for the next two w
eeks.”
“So d
o it.”
“It’s not that si
mple.”
“What’s not so simple? You train hard. You win. Done. If anyone can do it, you
can.”
He chuckled. “I want you there. You’re my lucky c
harm.”
“Of course I’ll be there.” I had been to every one of his fights, watching from the
back, where no one could see me. Staying out of sight as much as possible was the
best way to keep the baby and me
safe.
“No,” he said. “I want you there. In the stands. I need to be able to see you when
I’m in the
ring.”
“Griff—” I sta
rted.
“Please, Em. You’re the reason I’ve been winning all this time. I can’t do it without
you.”
I laughed. I found that hard to believe. He had been winning all those years before
he even met me. “This event will be televised, and I’m as big as a whale. How exactly
am I supposed to keep this pregnancy secret with millions of people watc
hing?”
“Emmy, you’re barely showing. If I didn’t know you were pregnant, I would have sworn
you just had a really big dinner.” His eyebrows jumped up and down, and he grinned.
“Besides, they won’t be watching you. They’ll be watching Griff the Grappler Co
nnan.”
He had a point. When Griff entered a room, nobody could take their eyes off him, including
most of my roomm
ates.
****
Two weeks later, it was mid-March and the day of Griff’s fight. My belly was still
quite small for being eight months pregnant, but finding something nice—nice enough
to wear—was a major challenge. I was combing through my bins, trying to figure out
what to wear to the arena when I got accosted in the hall by Hunter and Cassie. I
had noticed them spending a lot of time together lately. Cassie had kept her hair
blonde, though the rest of her still screamed bloodsucker. Vampire girl and frat boy
was a weird combination, but they both had something in common: their love of seeing
someone pummeled by all means necessary in an escape-proof
ring.
Griff had gotten everyone tickets to the fight so that I wouldn’t be sitting by myself …
so that Griff could take his eyes off of me long enough to beat up the guy they put
in front of him. He was the hero. I was the hero’s side
kick.
Griff came up behind them and stood snickering as they handed me a plastic
bag.
I narrowed my eyes at Griff while I opened the package. There was a lot of deep purple
in there. I unfolded the material to find that it was a cotton sweatshirt with a life-size
picture of Griff, when he was a kid. He looked to be about ten years old, smiling
proudly, with one of his front teeth mis
sing.
“They asked me for pictures,” Griff told me. “I asked that this one be made especially
for you. My brother had knocked out my tooth after I peed in his morning cereal. Cla
ssic.”
I was at a loss for words. “Thanks. I
t’s …”
“Really
ugly.”
Cassie and Hunter both unzipped their hooded jackets, revealing similar ugly sweatshirts.
This sweatshirt would bring way too much attention to me, but I couldn’t remind Griff
of this while Cassie and Hunter were within hearing distance. And Griff was just too
preoccupied with the fight for me to remind him of all the other stuff we had to be
worried a
bout.
I looked at the tag: extra large. I sighed. Well, at least they had accounted for
my college weight gain, and this would indeed hide my belly. When the rest of the
roommates came out of their rooms proudly wearing their ugly sweaters, I knew I had
to make a decision, even though I had no choice re
ally.
At least I wasn’t going to be on my
own.
I threw my shirt over my clothes. “I lov
e it.”
We all left the house together—Griff and his ugly-shirt
army.
My roommates went to find their seats in the arena while Griff and I went to a changing
room in the back. The camera crews were already there, as was Griff’s fight team.
I found a corner to hide in away from the limelight while Griff got ready and got
filmed getting r
eady.
Every time an undercard bout would end in the arena, the camera lit up and came back
to Griff: Griff punching the air, Griff wrestling one of his teammates to the ground.
Soon, it was Griff’s turn to go out. The camera crews left the room to film his exit
and entrance into the stadium. Griff and I had a few moments a
lone.
I jumped in his arms as soon as everyone had left the room. We stayed like this for
a while, cheek to cheek, listening to the noise out
side.
“Even if I
lose—”
“You w
on’t.”
“Even if I lose,” he said again, “the second prize is still more than I would make
winning in a hundred of the other fights. This money will give us the ability to hide
for a bit, at least until the baby c
omes.”
My heart tore a bit. This was the biggest night of his life, and he was still worried
about our next meal. I wished he would focus on himself for
once.
I didn’t want to let Griff go. But when a light knock came at the door, our arms fell
to our sides, and I was ushered out before we even had a chance to say good-bye, before
I could wish him the good luck he didn’t
need.
As soon as I was out the door, the noise was deafening and only getting louder with
each step. The baby was doing gator-sized rolls against the skin of my belly as I
came out through the gateway. Stands went all the way to the ceiling and all seats
were filled, though no one was sitting in their assigned chairs. Screaming from spectators
took up any air left in the arena. I felt as though I was crawling deep into the bowels
of an ant
hill.
It was easy enough to find my seat: I just looked for the ugliest sweaters in the
crowd. My roommates’ seats were just a few rows back from the front. Griff had planned
it so that I would be close enough for him to see me in the crowd but not so close
that the cameras would point my way. Griff’s anthem came over the loudspeakers, and
none of my roommates even noticed that I had arrived and found my seat (even though
I had to step over a couple of them to get there). I stretched my neck, but I didn’t
see Griff make his entrance into the arena. As soon as he was in the ring, he turned
his head my way, and our eyes conne
cted.
Another song came on the speakers, and I looked at one of the mega-screens hung around
the stadium. Griff was fighting a Brazilian fighter named Batte Gomez. He had apparently
held the middleweight title for almost three years, which was unheard of according
to the gossip at Griff’s gym. Until that moment, I had no real idea what this guy
looked like, other than the picture that was on the millions of posters posted everywhere
in
town.
The posters did not do this beast jus
tice.
His hands and his forehead were big enough to crush a school bus like a beer can.
He was less human, more buf
falo.
My eyes immediately went looking for Griff. I was shaking my head. He needed to get
out of t
here.
Griff was standing at one corner, hidden by his fight team standing behind him. The
monster entered the ring, and I was foolishly yelling at Griff, my voice lost in the
ant
hill.
Griff was doing this for me, because of me. He would die doing this fo
r me.
The referee was introduced to the jeering crowd, the fighters bumped fists, and just
as the fighters were parted, Griff glanced back. He was looking for me, and one last
time our eyes locked before he got kicked in the face. He had just enough time to
shake off the pain of his opponent’s foot against his cheek before the buffalo’s fist
found his jaw. There was a gasp from my row of roommates as Griff staggered back.
He moved away from the Brazilian while he once again tried to shake it
off.