Colorado

Six Weeks before Thanksgiving

Chapter 1

Cameron didn’t taste the blood. The metallic flavor so familiar, it didn’t register anymore.

“Can you keep going?” Armand asked even though he knew damn well

Cameron was fine.

Cameron took a hard kick to the teeth, the busted lip that followed the hit barely making it onto his pain radar.

He nodded, drops of sweat running into his eyes, lips pulled back exposing the neon yellow mouthpiece streaked with crimson.

Finish him.  Quit fucking around — get your head out of your ass. He made you fucking bleed dude. Unacceptable.  Do it. Take your fucking pink panties off and kill him.

Cameron shook the sweat from his eyes; tunnel vision blocked out everything but the face of his nameless opponent with the purple mohawk and a douche bag ‘TAPOUT’ tattoo over his chest. When the buzzing started in Cameron’s ears, the switch flipped, and the beast took over.

The next sixty seconds turned to a slow motion show of slapping fists, growling animals and the crunch of bone on bone as Cameron brought his shin around like a Medieval morningstar.

His opponent’s head cracked at a right angle to his neck, and he fell like a crash test dummy onto the mat.

Sometimes, you just need to taste the blood to bring out the beast.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THERE SHE STOOD, ALL French manicured and highlighted, boobs like cantaloupes standing unnaturally high and hard on her chest. The life sized Barbie doll leaned against the cinderblock wall in the hallway outside the locker room.

“Hey, Cam.” She popped her gum and gave him as smile as fake as her tits. “You know they call you the Force. I didn’t know that until Tiffany told me — you’ve got the most powerful punch they’ve ever recorded at the gym.”

Her sing song Trixie tone made his skin feel like fire ants were crawling up and down his back.

“You ready?” He didn’t even bother stopping as he took the sharp right down the hall toward the ‘Exit’ sign.

“Yeah, I’m ready.” She toddled behind him out the door into the parking lot on those ridiculous six inch rhinestone encrusted two-buck-stripper heels.  “Thanks for driving, my car just died. Like nothing happened when I put the key in.  But it should be fixed in a few days.”

“Get in.” Cameron pointed to the passenger side door of his 1967 Emerald Green Camero.

The engine fired with a vibrating roar; then settled to a thumping hum. Cameron threw it in first, popped the clutch and barely noticed she didn’t have her door shut.

When she started flapping her gums thinking they were going to make conversation, he cranked up the volume on the Five Finger Death Punch CD until the rear view mirror shook.

“I love your pec tattoo. What does that mean? ‘Living Death’? Is that like a band or something?”

She threw her bag on the floor of the car and half the contents spilled out.  Trixie didn’t even bother picking it up and the disorder made Cameron rub his forehead.

Ten minutes later his head was pounding.  He pulled into the parking spot in front of his apartment, already sure this was a bad idea.  She needed the money and he needed someone to let the dogs out during the day.  He knew from the moment he saw her standing there outside the locker room this was a mistake.

He made a mental note to take a pound of flesh out of Reese—his teammate at the gym—who recommended this bimbo when Cameron mentioned he needed someone to help him with the dogs a few days a week.  Unfortunately, making friends was not his strong suit, and for the most part, since he’d arrived in his new home away from home, he’d not met anyone outside of the gym.

“Come on.”  Cameron jiggled the key in the lock and swung the door open.

He stepped inside, Trixie clicking on the tile entry way following.

Cameron couldn’t stand being this close to her.  She was sending out signals, and there was no way in hell he was sending the same ones back.  Since he quit trying to convince himself that the one woman in his life that mattered wasn’t just what family and society said she was, his cock didn’t get hard for anyone else.

Before he could take his next breath, he heard the soft tapping of claws across the tile floor of the kitchen as Samson and Stoli came running through the pet door and into the living room.

“Oh my God!”  The pitch of her voice felt like someone just poked his eardrum with a needle.

The two hundred pound pitbulls were giving her a good ass and crotch sniff and Trixie backed away into the front door.

Cameron remembered the day he couldn’t take it anymore and cut the wire that held both dogs to a stake in the front yard of a house back in Detroit.

Their faces covered in scars and he could count every rib.

I guess they were born fighting too.

“Are they nice? Are they going — “ Her fake eyelashes fluttered and she held her hands high over her shoulders.

“Come on boys, you don’t want any of that.”

Cameron snapped his fingers then pointed to the back door. The two furry, wagging friends made their way outside after Cameron gave them both a scratch behind the ear.

“So, you like dogs, huh?”  The way she kept herself pinned against the door watching the pet door with a nervous stare told him she wasn’t an animal lover. Big surprise.

Anything she touched was getting a damn funeral pyre as soon as they were done.

“Yes.  More than people.”

She didn’t register his comment, but instead her hands fell to play with the button on her white Daisy Dukes as her eyes scanned the small apartment.

“Gawd, your place is so neat. Do you even live here?” She was looking down at the basket of laundry he’d just folded that morning before leaving for the gym.  Every item of clothing folded into compact, perfect squares before setting them inside the empty laundry basket on the floor.

She snapped the gum in her mouth and smiled and Cameron’s skin crawled.

“So, you need anything other than someone to take care of your dogs?”

Cameron’s head nearly exploded when her hand left her own body and came up and rested on the buckle of his belt. 

“No.  I don’t fucking need you to do anything.  Get out, this was a big fucking mistake.”

The thought of her hand on him made his stomach flip.  The only hand he ever wanted on him was a thousand miles away and impossible, but he didn’t care.  He’d rather go without for the rest of his life than let another woman touch him.

Now, he just needed her to leave.

Which, she did. Mewing and protesting, but she left. “You’re an asshole.”

“You have no fucking idea.”  Cameron’s voice groaned low.

“Do you even know my name—” Trixie’s last words as he held the door open.

“Nope.”

He gave her a soft shove out into the parking lot.

Her heels clacked as she nearly tripped over the curb

He called her a cab, threw fifty bucks after her and closed the door.

“Thanks!  Maybe we can – “ Her voice was mercifully cut off by the click of the lock.

That there is a goddamn nightmare.  Get in the fucking shower man.  Did she touch anything? Where’s the damn bleach?

After his shower, he felt the darkness descend.  The steam cleared, and he could see the man in the mirror staring back with dead ice blue eyes. A sinking indifference welled up that left him feeling like he was falling into a soul sucking black hole.

The muscles in his shoulders flexed and rippled the black primal ink

designs embedded in his skin. He rocked slowly back and forth, naked, still dripping from the scalding shower, hands gripping the cool porcelain edge of the sink trying to keep his dinner from reappearing.

It happened every time some other woman threw themselves in his path. He imagined her face, how she would feel, how it might mean something with her. Only, this time, it was different.  He felt her slipping away, her image fading with each passing day and each nameless Trixie that tried to catch his eye.

Who are you?  Is this who you want to be for the rest of your fucking life? Why the fuck did you make her your goddamn reason for living for damn near two decades just to run away?  Is this the guy she would want?  How far down are you going to go before you can’t find your way back?

Cameron glared at the fuck in the mirror. His lips curled back showing off his chipped front tooth and he turned on the cold water, splashing it on his face until his head screamed in pain, and his skin felt like a corpse.

Living death man.  Living. Fucking.  Death.

He stared back into the eyes in the steamed reflection as the freezing water dripped from his nose and chin.

He spoke to the image that returned his stare, “What the fuck are you waiting for?”

His words echoed in the small white tiled bathroom as his face splintered into a silver and black spider web.

A sharp pain shot from his knuckles to his shoulder.  Cameron’s fist dripped ripe, round spots of crimson onto the stark white porcelain, and he heard the harsh noise of glass shards hitting the floor around his feet.

It’s time to take a chance.  Because this is no life.