TWELVE
Adalind
A quick computer search told me about all I needed to know about the barracks. Namely that, yes, they were abandoned. They were also in disrepair, some half-dilapidated. And, as my boss informed me, it was often the site of various illegal activities from drug deals to makeshift raves.
The cops did do patrols down that way, but as I was starting to learn, everyone could be paid off in this town. I didn't know whether to be relieved or upset by this revelation. Relieved because it meant that whatever was going on at the barracks tonight, Ross wouldn't end up behind bars because of it. Upset because, well, no one liked corrupt cops.
I tried to talk myself out of it for hours.
It was well after dark when I was sitting in my apartment in jeans, a lightweight black sweatshirt, and sneakers, trying to will myself to stay in place.
Even all during the drive there, my heart as frantic as a hummingbird's wings, my stomach in knots, I couldn't make myself turn around, go back home, not be that girl.
I mean, hell, this was borderline stalkerish.
But what was going on at the barracks that Ross' men all knew about, but he was obviously keeping from me?
I was just going to drive past, I told myself as I drove past the beach, looking up at the Navesink Bank lights, feeling a fluttering sensation that was immediately followed by a sinking feeling in my belly.
I was just going to see if I could see from the road what was going on.
That idea got shot all to hell though five minutes later when I actually got stuck in traffic for people turning into the barracks parking lot.
I simply followed, turning in where they turned in, parking where they parked. I sat for a long moment, staring at the long buildings that seemed to go on forever, trees growing out of the roofs, windows busted.
I didn't want to go in there.
Right?
But even as I thought that, I was climbing out of my car, carefully tucking my car keys between my fingers, an action that maybe never would have occurred to me before the whole Kenny incident.
As we walked as a crowd, me hanging back a good couple of yards behind the group in front of me, there were signs.
Well, sort of.
There were little glow sticks lining the path, leading past brick building after cement building after lookout towers. Yellow, green, and pink just urging us on into the dark night, blindly trusting it would lead somewhere that, hopefully, led somewhere mildly less creepy.
I was vaguely aware of one of the guys in the group in front of me declaring, "It's going to be in the Voodoo Bunker." His voice was clear and confident with an edge of excitement.
I was pretty sure excitement wasn't the normal response to something taking place in a location known as 'The Voodoo Bunker."
Pee-yourself-worried sounded a bit more appropriate.
What the hell did that even mean?
I passed by a sign on one of the walls, the letters old, but with the moon shining down just right, I could make out the words.
Fort Hancock.
An old, abandoned army fort couldn't possibly have a voodoo bunker, right? Like, wouldn't the local rangers make sure crazy stuff like that didn't happen?
Then again, here I was behind a group of ten, following a very obvious glow stick path, no one seeming to feel the need to keep their voices down.
So I guess the rangers either had something better to do. Or, more likely, were sitting in their office, counting their money.
"Which way?" one of the guys in front of me asked, all of them at a standstill.
I stopped as well, my stomach dropping.
Did the glow stick path stop?
Were we at the, ah, Voodoo Bunker?
I took a few steps to the side, looking at what they were all looking at - two separate glow stick paths. One kept leading forward. The other disappeared inside a slightly ajar metal door into a low, dark building.
"It's a shortcut," one of the guys informed the others, clearly one who had been here before.
Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, all of them pulled out their phones, flicked on their flashlights, and just went right inside.
"Come on," a female voice said as she passed me, phone out, but light somewhat low. She was around my age with mermaid hair, tattoos, and a nose piercing. "It's no fun from out here."
With that, she all but ran inside.
Feeling maybe mildly less freaked the hell out by seeing a fellow female around, I carefully reached for my phone, took a deep breath, and followed the new path of lights into a low, long building littered with garbage, piles of broken cement and discarded rebar scattered everywhere, just threatening impalement if you so much as lost your footing, promising you would bleed out to a long, agonizing death with nothing to do but stare at the uplifting graffiti on the walls.
Bitches ain't shit.
Ronny was here.
And the coup de grâce.
My Chemical Romance for lyfe.
Shining the light mostly downward to avoid aforementioned rebar impalement, I followed the glow sticks down a hall that curved to the left and back where a door opened back up to the outside, this time right in front of the ocean.
Before me, just a couple of yards ahead, where all the glow sticks led to and ended, was a strange cement trapezoid structure sitting over - or maybe even submerged in - the very edge of the water.
The sand was piled up high, inviting you forward.
To the Voodoo Bunker.
Even the name gave me chills as I forced my legs forward figuring that I had already come this far, I might as well see what was actually going on, what had everyone excited.
Even if I felt like I was choking on my heart and maybe cursing myself for life for breaking into some kind of, I don't know, voodoo temple or something.
I worked my way toward the door, slightly brighter than the other building, like maybe lights had been set up, or, possibly, just a group of people were inside with the flashlights on on their phones.
I turned my own light off, wanting to be inconspicuous as I got to the end of the sand, needing to do a small jump to make it onto a half-rotted wooden step to get inside.
Taking a deep breath, I followed the sounds of voices inside.
And immediately understood why it was called the Voodoo Bunker.
The walls were covered in graffiti, but not the typical mismatched nonsense you saw out in the other buildings.
No.
This was carefully done.
This took hours and hours of uninterrupted work.
They were bright colors too, like they were kept fresh. Whites, reds, yellows, and blues all outlined in black. There was something almost Aztec about the style. In fact, right to the side of me, one of the pieces looked to be a body strapped to a sacrificial alter surrounded by demonic creatures.
Impressive, sure.
But also creepy as all hell.
And that was just one of dozens of pieces that stretched down the walls of the dome-topped space, seeming to go on forever, long enough to fit an entire damn army inside.
The floors beyond the opening were all cracked and heaved, making it almost look like some kind of makeshift obstacle course the way it split up and down.
As far as I could see, people were lining the walls, talking, taking pictures.
Everyone, oddly, keeping away from the center of the space.
I guess whatever was going on was going to take place there.
What?
A strange pop-up concert?
A party?
Why was Igor coming?
He didn't strike me as a dancing man.
"No, dude, I heard the guys talking about coming earlier to set up," one guy said coming in with his buddies, making me have to take several steps to the side to get out of their way. "They found actual fucking sacrificed chickens inside, throats slit, blood smeared all over in some weird shapes and shit. Crazy."
Ah.
Say what?
Actual animal sacrifice?
Yeah, okay.
I was so going to be cursed for coming, wasn't I?
I was going to end up with some rash that wouldn't go away. Some hideous mole that would sprout hair and prove inoperable. Complete alopecia. Sure, I wouldn't have to shave my legs anymore, but no thanks!
I was pretty much ready to call it a failed adventure, chalk it up to temporary insanity brought on by too-strong of feelings about a new guy, and drive myself back home where I was going to try really, really hard not to think about the reality of animal sacrifices.
But then there was someone yelling as a huge group of young guys moved inside.
And who was leading that group, you might be wondering?
Yeah.
That would be Kenny.
My blood immediately went cold as I watched them move toward the center, some jumping up and down, yelling Kenny's name over and over again.
My eyes moved around, looking for some sign of what this was. Finding none, I decided this was a really, really good time to get my butt out of here.
I definitely didn't want to be anywhere near Kenny and a bunch of his two-celled friends while they were hyping up for something.
No way, no how.
That seemed to scream out trouble for me no matter which way the situation was twisted.
I had just turned to go to the door when another crowd came in, this one not rowdy at all. In fact, they were eerily silent. And in being so, made the entire bunker go quiet as well.
But that wasn't what had my heart seizing in my chest.
No.
That was because, first, I saw Igor. Then the other guy, Lazarus, who had walked me to my car. And then another guy who had been at Hex, wearing a jacket like Laz had been as well. Not a fashion statement, as Ross had laughingly told me over dinner. They were bikers. As in, the illegal kind.
But if Igor, Laz, and the other guy - all people from Hex - were here.
Then...
Even as the thought formed, my eyes fell on his profile.
And I finally understood what this was.
It wasn't a concert.
Or a party.
Oh, no.
Everyone was here for a fight.
Between Kenny and Ross.
Oh, God.
They were going to fight because of me? Because of what happened to me? That was, well, insane. I didn't want anyone - especially Ross - getting hurt because of something that he couldn't have stopped in the first place.
Ross looked different right then too.
Shed of his usual suit - another of his shields, I was convinced - dressed only in a tee that he stripped off when he got to the center of the room and a pair of bottoms just like Kenny, he seemed almost like another man entirely.
It was in the fierce set of his jaw, in the stubbornly raised chin, in the tension that seemed to be overtaking every inch of his body, culminating in tightly curled fists down at his sides.
His body too was intimidating. You could tell that the men around him had no idea what was underneath his usual suits, his normally buttoned-up, expensive attire. Even Laz and Igor looked taken aback at the sheer number of scars across his skin and, of course, the very prominent bullet wound scar on his shoulder.
I swear you could feel everyone who had bet against him's thoughts right then.
Shit, I put my money on the wrong guy.
Looking at them now, stripped of all their usual clothes, just standing there as fighters in basketball pants, there was no way you would put your money on Kenny. To begin with, Ross was taller and wider. Even his hands looked stronger than Kenny's hands. And the scars spoke of some past they knew nothing about, but the proof was plain that it was brutal and violent.
I didn't see a single scar on Kenny's skin.
Both men sized each other up as their crowds moved away, and another voice rose from the crowd, loud, like an announcer.
I didn't recognize him - tall, mostly gray-haired, and good-looking, dressed in a suit much like what Ross always wore, looking way too snazzy for a Voodoo Bunker in an abandoned fort near the ocean.
"Ladies and gentlemen, bets are now suspended," he called out, making a few people who knew how badly they screwed up grumble. "Tonight, we have a special treat for you. It's been a long time since I have had the privilege to host a grudge match. Too long, in fact," he said, looking around at the crowd, everything about him enigmatic, drawing you in, making you strain somehow to hear every last word. "For those who don't know me, my name is Xavier Cooper. I have been hosting fights all around New Jersey since most of you were still pissing in diapers and begging for the tit. Though, from the looks of you disheveled fucks," he said, shaking his head at the hoodies and jeans the younger generation wore that he clearly disapproved of, "you must all still be begging for a glance of a tit."
There was a chuckle at that, making Xavier's lips curve up toward his dark eyes.
"Now, tonight, I have the honor of introducing you all to someone you likely only know as the owner of Hex, the place that has all but put me out of business," he said, giving Ross a head shake, but he was clearly fond of him. "What many of you might not know was that once upon a time, back when he was a young and hungry boy of maybe eighteen or nineteen, Ross Ward was one of my best fighters."
You could literally hear everyone draw in their breath at that information. Even Kenny seemed to lose a bit of his bravado.
"And tonight, he has a grudge to settle against one of his own fighters, Kenny Depta who, allegedly, sucker punched a woman outside of Hex, leaving her bleeding behind a dumpster."
At that, there was a murmur of anger, people who didn't know the story clearly pissed that they had been duped into putting money on his woman-beating ass.
And though I knew no one knew I was there, it somehow felt like people were looking at me, like they knew I was the bleeding woman, like they knew this was all because of me.
"Alright, alright," Xavier said, waving a hand around. "Like I said, it was allegedly. No charges have been filed. But, well, let's just say we have it from a pretty good source - the woman herself - that this was what happened. And in my experience, contrary to popular belief, women don't tend to cry wolf over things like this. Now, see, that is bad for business as a whole. But to add to the drama tonight, I feel I must add, Ross Ward has now claimed this woman as his own. And he wants blood."
There was a murmur of approval from the crowd, all except maybe Kenny's friends who were all puffed-up in the chest, tense in the jaw, clearly pissed that Kenny was being painted the bad guy. Even though he clearly was the bad guy.
"For those new to matches, here are the rules. There are no rules. No shots are off-limits. There are no breaks or rounds. Tap-out or knockout is the only end to a fight. And without further ado," he said, and both Ross and Kenny moved forward, closer to each other on the uneven ground. "Fight!" he demanded, moving quickly backward toward my direction where Laz and Igor had moved in to keep a close eye.
"You, I've been watching you," Xavier said, his booming voice carrying over to me even as the first whack of fist on skin made my entire body jolt like it landed on me as well, even though I couldn't quite see who threw or who took that hit.
"Me?" the man who had the other biker jacket on asked, brows half-raised.
"Pagan, I hear you called. Where were you when I needed someone with that much bloodthirst?"
"Me?" Pagan asked, smirking. "I was drinking five-hundred dollar bottles of booze out of my father's library."
They all laughed.
But I was pretty sure he was actually telling the truth. There had been a strange bite to his words that you didn't typically have if you were joking around.
The men parted again, conversation clearly over, as they turned to watch the fight.
It gave me just enough space to see between their bodies, to watch as Kenny cocked back, swooped low, and slammed a fist into Ross' side, making Ross hiss and fall back a step, his ankle scraping against the jagged, uneven floor, and I watched as blood started trickling down, seemingly unnoticed by Ross.
I hadn't been aware of it, but I must have gasped, because the group in front of me turned, and Laz's air sighed out of him.
"Sweetheart, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I told you to forget I said anything," Igor told me, shaking his head.
"Right, like that was going to happen," Laz snorted. "You don't want to see this. Let me walk you back to your car."
My head was shaking even as I saw Ross take another hit before charging forward at Kenny.
"He's doing this because of me," I said, like it explained everything.
"Mostly, yeah. But it doesn't mean you have to watch. And he's gonna have all our asses if he finds out we saw you here, and didn't make you leave."
"Well that's--" I trailed off as Ross landed a fist that sent Kenny literally spinning, but the force made Ross stagger back, his foot falling off the end of a particularly low break in the rocks, making him slam down on one knee just as Kenny got his bearings again, and came charging forward.
"You can breathe, darling," Xavier informed me, voice calm as could be. "I've seen him in hundreds of fights. No way is he going down this early. And no way is he going down at all when this is about more than money."
Then, as he predicted, Ross got up, doing so while swinging, landing an uppercut that had blood spurting out of Kenny's mouth.
Truly, I didn't want to watch. I certainly didn't want to see Ross getting hurt.
But it was proving impossible to look away.
I was seeing a different side of him right then, a rougher side, a side he left mostly in his past, but was clearly still a part of him.
His movements were methodical, practiced, controlled, while Kenny got more and more sporadic, clumsy, and frantic by the moment.
"Christ, how long has he been fighting?" one of the men from Hex asked, shaking his head, clearly impressed.
"Since fifteen," I heard myself answer, immediately feeling my stomach plummet, realizing what I had done as all their heads swiveled to look at me, curious.
"Please forget I said that," I implored. "He told me that in confidence. Please..."
"Won't say shit," Pagan said, shrugging. "Not our business."
I watched with a pit in my stomach as Ross took several shots, making his lip break open, making his head snap hard to one side, hard enough that I had memories of him telling me about how my brain slammed against my skull, making me pass out, worrying for a second that that might be his fate as well.
But he came back harder, stronger, taking Kenny's ground from him as he retreated, then pounding into his face, his midsection.
My heart was slamming so hard that it was somehow nauseating, making my skin feel clammy and goosebumpy, something about how vicious this was getting causing me to genuinely wonder if I might get sick.
There was just so, so much blood.
Kenny's sure.
But Ross' as well.
How much longer could this go on?
How many fists could your body endure before it started to give up on you?
I didn't want to find out the answer to that last question.
As the fighting got worse, the noise of the crowd got louder and louder, clearly enjoying the bloodshed while it made me completely lightheaded.
Then there was a slam that had my stomach jumping up into my throat before my eyes adjusted enough to see Kenny's body sprawled on the ground, his breathing uneven.
Not Ross.
That was really all I could focus on.
But then there was Ross again as well, dropping down over Kenny.
And continuing to beat the shit out of him.
Blood splattered out onto Ross' skin, mingling with his own blood and sweat.
I saw it then.
Kenny's hand slamming into the ground.
Tapping out.
But Ross didn't stop.
"Ward!" Xavier roared, starting to move forward even as Laz, Igor, and Pagan charged to break it up themselves.
Before Kenny's guys could gang up on Ross.
Laz reached him first, making a grab for Ross who threw him backward, making him lose his footing, and catch his back against an upward facing piece of the jagged flooring.
Pagan got there next, but was thrown back into Igor who, unfortunately, rammed into one of Kenny's friends.
Which meant there was suddenly a side-vs-side thing going on while Ross continued to bash his fists into Kenny's alarmingly motionless body. Xavier was making his way through the crowd to get there as well, but got stuck between two people fighting over money.
I should have been turning to my side and disappearing out the door with the rest of the crowd who had come for a show, not to get caught up in a brawl.
That was where I needed to be.
Out toward safety.
But I didn't go that way.
I charged forward, jumping up over the uneven flooring, reaching Ross just as he cocked an arm back to - if I was right about it - slam right into the center of Kenny's face which was already, well, barely recognizable.
Before my hand could grab that arm though, I felt fingers sink into my shoulder, yanking me back a foot, making my stomach lurch, not wanting to get caught in the brawl, knowing I had no fighting skills whatsoever.
But then a man was moving in front of me, grabbing Ross' arm himself, and sending him flying backward a few feet where he landed hard with a savage curse.
My eyes went to the man, tall, lean, but strong, dressed simply all in black, his hair pulled up in a man bun that should have been silly, but somehow worked on him, making his striking gray eyes be the dominant feature on his attractive face.
"Ya were losing yer shit there, Ward," the man declared before turning on his heel, and disappearing into the crowd.
My gaze went back to Ross, sitting up on the jut of the floor, eyes shocked, lips open.
Even as I was trying to figure out what was going on, his voice roared out of him, deep, commanding, and - if I wasn't mistaken - almost a little desperate.
"Adler!"
"Darling, we need to get out of here," Xavier's voice said, coming up beside me, arm going around my hips, dragging me back away from Ward, toward the door. "This is about to get ugly if we don't."
I was barely registering what he was telling me, even as he pulled me away. My eyes stayed over my shoulder, watching Ross.
Ross wasn't paying any attention to the brawling crowd either.
Because our focus wasn't on the fight.
No.
It was on a mysterious man who showed up just in time to stop Ross from killing a man in his rage.
A man who had, himself, killed at least two men with his own.
A man who Ross had been trying to track down for years.
And never could find.
A man who was once just a boy.
In a basement.
With an accent.
And a jaded outlook on life.
Adler.
Adler had been there.
But, I realized as we broke outside, looking around at all the retreating bodies, he was already gone.
"No!" I whisper yelled, trying to pull away as Xavier tried to half-drag me toward the parking lot.
"Trust me; you do not want to be out here looking like a target when these men start pouring out."
"Ross needs--"
"You to be safe. Let me get you there, and then I will go back for Ross."
It wasn't exactly a request seeing as he was pulling me along, grip not quite painful, but bordering on it.
Before I could do anything about it, I was pulled back through the creepy rebar-riddled building, then exploded out the other side, pulled until he had a question to ask me. "Where is your car, darling?" His voice was kind, but there was an edge there that said he needed to get me taken care of because he needed to get back inside.
And a man who had spent a lifetime in his profession sounding worried? Yeah, that meant I should worry as well.
"I got it. It's right there," I said, pointing. "Go. Make sure Ross is okay. I'll stay in my car," I promised, meaning it. I definitely didn't want to run into any of Kenny's friends on their way out.
So as he turned away, I darted back to my car, climbed in, and locked the doors.
Around me, about ninety-percent of the cars cleared out, leaving Ross' distinct one, a few motorcycles which, I figured, belonged to Laz and Pagan, a couple pickups, and one final fancy car which, well, had to belong to the bespoke Xavier Cooper.
It felt like hours, like days with nothing but my swirling thoughts, my crippling worries to keep me company.
Really, it was only about twenty minutes before I heard voices, then saw a rush of men - Kenny's friends, all varying degrees of busted-up - rushing out, watching behind them like someone was coming for them. Which, well, they likely were.
Between two of the men, I could see Kenny, barely conscious, face completely and utterly wrecked. He would never look the same, not even if he splurged for plastic surgery.
An ugly face to match an ugly soul.
Maybe that was unkind and unforgiving of me. But he had knocked me unconscious for just being a decent human being, so I felt like I deserved to be a little bitter.
They all peeled out, leaving just the cars mentioned before and one pickup that maybe belonged to Igor.
It was another excruciating five minutes before I saw my people - and I had a strange internal skipping sensation at the idea of them even being my people - emerge from the side of the building.
They didn't look great, though not nearly as beaten-down as Kenny's friends. But each one, Xavier included, was bleeding, had rips in their clothes, darkening spots of skin that would likely be bruises in just an hour's time.
I frantically reached for the handle to my door, half tripping over my own feet in my rush to get out and around my car.
"Addy?" Ross asked, shocking back slightly, brows going low, lips parting.
"Oh, yeah, we forgot to mention," Pagan agreed. "Igor let it slip that something was going down here tonight. Your girl showed up."
And as his gaze went to mine again, a little regretful, sad, I don't know what came over me.
But I flew at him.
His slight grunt at the impact let me know that I needed to hold him less tightly, even as his arms went around me, and his lips pressed into the top of my hair.
"I didn't want you to know about this," he told me, voice heavy, "let alone see it."
"Well, to be fair, I had no idea what exactly it was that I was walking into. Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, vaguely aware of his men moving away, giving us a minute, but sticking close, keeping an eye, making sure Kenny's friends didn't show back up.
"Didn't want you to worry. And I didn't want you to see me any differently."
Well, I had seen him almost beat a man to death.
That was not something you would normally witness with a man you were dating. But this wasn't any man, and this wasn't just any situation.
"I don't see you any differently. And if it helps at all, I came because I wanted to know why you weren't going to see me for the next week."
There was a slight rumble in his chest, followed by a hiss as something clearly hurt. "That's why you were in a mood this morning," he concluded. "You thought I was giving you the brush-off."
"It sure felt like it," I insisted, pulling back slightly.
"Figured I would look like shit for a couple days," he told me with a small shrug. "Like I do now," he added. "I didn't want you worrying."
"Or asking questions," I added.
"If you asked, I would have told you. I don't do lies, doll."
"Well, I didn't want to ask because I didn't want to be that girl."
"What girl?"
"The needy, clingy, jealous, pathetic one," I supplied.
"You could never be pathetic," he said with what was very nearly an eye-roll. "And, while this makes no fucking sense to me at all, I don't care if you need to be needy or clingy or jealous. Though I would prefer you talk to me about it."
"Well, for the record, I would prefer you talk to me about having underground fights in creepy Voodoo bunkers where people do animal sacrifices."
"They told you about that?" he asked, shaking his head.
"Oh my God... it's actually true?"
He looked down at me, giving me as much of a smile as he could manage with a split lip, bloody gums, and a bruise already darkening his cheek. "Yeah, that was true."
"Great. Full-body alopecia in my future."
"What?" he asked, smiling despite the blood in his teeth.
"Nothing," I said, shaking my head. "Maybe we should get you home, and get you fixed up."
"See, I have this rule," he said as I led him toward my car, figuring driving wasn't a good idea for him right now, and not feeling comfortable behind the wheel of his car that likely cost more than I would make in five whole years at my office.
"What kind of rule?"
"About letting people nurse me."
I looked over at him, lips tipped up. "What kind of rule is that?"
"It has to be done naked."
I laughed as he moved toward the passenger's side of my car. "Of course it does."
He yelled out something about his car to his men before sliding inside, and closing his door.
"Are you alright?" I asked after turning over the engine, watching as he winced while he shifted in his seat, trying to find a comfortable way to sit. "And don't sugarcoat it," I demanded, giving him a firm look that he must have found endearing because he smiled at it.
"I'd say two bruised ribs is the worst of it. Though I am starting to think I might have a concussion."
"Why?"
"Because I saw something that I know I couldn't have seen back there."
"You mean Adler?" I asked, watching as his head snapped over toward me.
"What?"
"At the very end there, I was rushing over to you. Xavier got caught up, so he couldn't pull you off. I was going to try to get your attention, but before my hand could touch you, someone was pulling me back, then throwing you off. I mean, I've never seen him or anything of course. But he had the long hair, the gray eyes, the accent..."
"So I wasn't imagining that shit. He was here."
"He was here," I agreed, nodding.
There was no mistaking the look on his face then, something I had seen there a few times when he looked at me, with that wonder in his eyes like he couldn't believe he was even experiencing it.
Hope.