When she awoke the next morning, it took Alyssa a very long time to get her bearings back. Her head was pounding horribly, in a way that she felt like it had never pounded before in her whole life. Her throat felt like sandpaper, and there was a godawful taste in her mouth. She felt both nauseous and famished at the same time. When she looked around, she discovered that she wasn’t at all in her own home.
As soon as she recognized Lynn’s living room, everything came rushing back. A wave of embarrassment and shame washed over her. She instantly berated herself. How could she be so stupid? Now that things were spiraling out of hand, she should have been the strong one, the one with the level head. She needed to keep her wits about her in order to deal with everything that was going on and, hopefully, to change Prince’s mind about fighting with that butcher. Once again, she shivered at the thought of him at the mercy of a man who enjoyed killing.
She sat up gingerly. She was on Lynn’s couch with an afghan draped over her. Alyssa groaned. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Lynn must think of her. She swung her legs over the edge of the cushions and stood carefully, relieved when she discovered that her head wasn’t spinning.
She located her purse and made her way cautiously to the downstairs bathroom, insanely glad that she always carried a travel kit with a toothbrush and toothpaste with her just in case. She did her best to give herself a somewhat human appearance, and eventually resigned herself to the idea that the dark circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin were there to stay for the day.
By the time she emerged again, she could smell coffee in the air, and she could hear Lynn moving about the kitchen. Alyssa took a deep breath and prepared to give the apology of her life.
Lynn was busy getting out the bread, eggs, and bacon to fix breakfast when Alyssa walked in. She was in her robe and her golden blond hair was still damp from the shower she must have taken recently.
She turned around and gave Alyssa a bright smile. “Good morning,” she greeted cheerfully. “I wouldn’t have expected you to be up already.”
Alyssa glanced at the clock on the kitchen’s wall and discovered that it was five past eight in the morning. “I guess my subconscious knew I shouldn’t overstay my welcome.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Lynn said. “Take a seat; breakfast will be ready soon.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s no trouble, really. I don’t mind the company.”
Alyssa smiled gratefully. “Can I at least serve the coffee?” she asked, noticing that the pot was ready.
“Sure. Mugs are in that cupboard over there. Sugar’s in the pantry, and milk is in the fridge.”
Alyssa nodded and set out on her caffeine mission. She was grateful to have something to do that would allow her to avoid Lynn’s gaze as she spoke. She cleared her throat nervously.
“Look, Lynn…” she began, uncertain. “I’m really sorry about last night. I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s all right, Lyssa,” Lynn said sincerely.
“No, it’s not,” Alyssa argued. “It was pathetic. I’m thirty years old, for fuck’s sake.” A sudden memory from the night before flashed through her mind then, and Alyssa’s eyes widened. “Oh my God!” she choked out, incredulous.
Lynn turned around to stare at her quizzically. “What?”
“I puked in your car!”
Lynn let out a full laugh that left Alyssa completely disconcerted. “Yeah, you did.”
“I’m so sorry! I’ll pay to have it cleaned.”
“Oh, please. It’s nothing.”
Alyssa arched an eyebrow. “Vomit in your car is not nothing.”
Lynn shrugged. “Believe me, I’ve seen worse. Now relax, will you? So you drank yourself into a stupor. Big deal. We’ve all done it at times. You were upset, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” Alyssa said quietly, her face darkening. “I was.”
Lynn gave her a sympathetic look.
They didn’t say anything else as they got breakfast ready, and they only resumed talking once they were seated at the kitchen’s table with full plates and steaming mugs in front of them.
It was Lynn who broke the silence. “Do you remember what you told me last night as we drove home?”
Alyssa cringed. “Not really.” She took a long sip of coffee, welcoming the bitter taste on her tongue. She didn’t normally take her coffee black, but she felt that it was in order whenever she felt out of sorts; black coffee woke her up and made her mind sharp again
Lynn was staring intently again. “You told me Prince is going to fight against a man who has a reputation for killing his opponents.”
“Oh.” Alyssa felt herself go even paler. “Yeah. Apparently, he is.”
“He’s doing it to get out?”
“Yes. He says Lenday offered him a deal. He says if he wins this fight, he’ll make the Devil’s Fighters enough money that they’ll agree to let him and Rick go with no repercussions.” Alyssa shook her head. “I told him Lenday has set him up, but he won’t hear it. He says he may have, but that he’ll win the fight.”
“He sounds pretty confident to me,” Lynn ventured.
“He sounds like an idiot,” Alyssa said brusquely. “He can’t be sure he’s ever going to win. It doesn’t seem worth it to me to get himself killed over this.”
Lynn frowned. “What happens if he doesn’t take the fight?”
“He says Bennie will never let him go.”
Lynn was silent for a few moments. “Bennie Lenday doesn’t make idle threats, you know? If he told Prince that, it means that he will make damn sure neither Prince nor Rick ever go anywhere.”
“Maybe,” Alyssa conceded. “But we could still find a way.”
Lynn grimaced. “It’s hard to find a way around a man like Benedict Lenday.”
Alyssa bit down on her lip in anger. She curled her hands so tight around the coffee mug that her knuckles turned white. “God, I hate him,” she spat.
“I know, sweetie,” Lynn said gravely. “We all do.”
“Rick says Prince is fighting mostly for himself,” Alyssa said after a moment.
Lynn looked curiously up at her. “What do you mean?”
“Prince said the same thing,” Alyssa said. “He says it’s the first time in eight years that he as control over his life, that he gets to decide for himself.”
Lynn was silent for a few instants, taking it all in. “He’s not wrong.”
Alyssa looked at her friend incredulously. “Are you serious?”
“It may seem stupid and suicidal to us, but if you stop and think about it, he is taking matters into his own hands. After eight years of his life being under the full control of others, that has to feel good.”
If it were anyone else telling her that, Alyssa would have stormed out of the room in an instant, never stopping to consider their words. But it was different with Lynn. She had a calm, soothing way of getting her point across, and Alyssa listened. For the first time since getting the terrifying news about Prince’s impending fight, she stopped and really thought about his perspective. And from his perspective, much as she hated to admit it, it did make sense.
“So you think I should let him do this?”
Lynn snorted out a laugh. It wasn’t an unkind sound. “Come on, Lyssa,” she said. “Do you really think you can stop Prince from doing anything?”
“Maybe…” Alyssa said, unconvinced.
“The way I see it, you have two choices here. Either you oppose him until the end and you spend your last few days in Pinebrook fighting, or you give him your support and be there for him. It’s that simple.”
The stare of Lynn’s clear blue eyes was so penetrating that it felt as though her friend was trying to see into her. Before Alyssa had the chance to reply, a knock at the kitchen’s back door startled them. Lynn stood up and spied past the window’s curtains.
“It’s Prince,” she announced. “Do you want to see him?”
“Yes, of course.” Alyssa took a deep breath and did her best to pull herself together.
Lynn opened the door. “You’re just in time for fresh coffee,” she said.
Prince offered her a polite smile. “I’m fine, Lynn. Thanks.” He peered over Lynn’s shoulder.
His green eyes met Alyssa’s, and she fought the urge to squirm. He didn’t look mad or disappointed about her behavior from last night—in fact, Alyssa had no idea how he looked. She couldn’t read his mood, and that put her on edge.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
Alyssa nodded and stood. “Let’s go outside.” Lynn would probably have been ready to leave the kitchen, but Alyssa didn’t want to put her friend out any more than she had already done.
Outside, the heat of the Louisiana summer already engulfed everything despite the early hour. They sat on the chairs on Lynn’s backyard porch, and they didn’t say anything for a very long time. Alyssa’s mind was working a mile a minute as she tried to wrap her head around everything that Lynn had just told her. She had no idea what Prince was thinking.
Finally, quietly, he said, “What the hell was that last night, Aly?”
Alyssa shrugged. “That was me, briefly losing my bearings.”
She was already done feeling bad about it. Lynn was right. So she had drunk herself into a stupor. So what? They all had done it at some point or another. And frankly, with all that had happened over the past couple of months, a night of getting shit-faced was probably long overdue. Alyssa was only sorry about Lynn’s car.
Prince stared at her. “You got them back now?”
Alyssa nodded. “Yeah,” she said, because she really had. Lynn had set her straight, and her mind was focused again. The turmoil inside of her was still swirling within her chest, but she felt like she could keep it at bay now.
“Good.” Prince sighed and ran a hand through his brown hair. “Aly, I need to know I can count on you while I do this. I know you don’t like it, but—”
“It’s all right,” Alyssa cut him off, gently but firmly. “Well, it isn’t, really,” she corrected herself, “but I know now there’s no way I can change your mind.”
“There really isn’t,” Prince confirmed.
“I know. You’re right, I don’t like it,” she said. “But if I can’t change it, at least I want to be there with you.”
Prince’s evident relief soon morphed into concern. “What do you mean?”
“I want to be there before and after the fight. And I want to be there during.”
“Absolutely not!”
Alyssa stood her ground. “That’s not negotiable, Prince. You can’t keep me out of the place, and I can’t keep you out of the ring. So we’d best meet halfway.”
Prince stared at her, long and hard. Eventually, he smiled. “You’re impossible, you know that?”
“Look who’s talking.”
He reached out to grab the arm of her chair and pulled her to him. He met her halfway, kissing her deeply, his other hand cupping the back of her head.
Alyssa leaned into his touch and gave in to the kiss. There was a voice in her head that told her these may be the last kisses they would ever share. She silenced it quickly, unwilling to let her mind go there; if she gave in to those thoughts, despair would quickly follow. And despair was something she simply couldn’t afford at the moment.
They kissed on Lynn’s porch for a very long time, and eventually they all went off to their day ahead. Lynn went to her diner. Prince drove Alyssa back to Greg’s bar to retrieve her car and then, much to Alyssa’s chagrin, he went to train for the fight. Alyssa climbed into her rental vehicle and drove back to a house that soon would not belong to her any longer.
To say that she was at peace would have been an exaggeration, but she did feel better about things. Much as she didn’t like to admit it, Prince really did seem confident that he had an actual chance of winning this fight. Alyssa allowed herself a few precious moments in which she entertained the idea that he might win, and that this nightmare would soon be over, and that they would all be free. She didn’t linger too much on that blissful image, however, for fear that it might go up in a puff of smoke.
She didn’t quite know what had possessed her to declare that she would go and see the fight with her own eyes. The idea alone terrified her. She didn’t want to see Prince get hurt, God forbid even killed. But she figured if he was ready to take that risk, then she could swallow her own fears and be there for him. Whatever happened, he didn’t deserve to go through it alone.
Alyssa’s hold around the steering wheel tightened as her body was once again taut with tension. It seemed tension was her permanent state of living now. Her muscles were constantly tight, her neck was constantly rigid. Her heart felt like it had not stopped galloping within her chest ever since she had gotten the news of her parents’ death. She was just so tired of all this.
She thought of Bennie Lenday and of the way he and his gang ran this town. She thought of the power the Devil’s Fighters held over everything and everyone in Pinebrook, even over those honest people who had nothing to do with them. Indirectly, everything that happened and did not happen in Pinebrook was a consequence of their actions and decisions. Alyssa felt the familiar hatred mount dangerously in her chest. It wasn’t fair. She wished she could see them destroyed, but she knew that project was bigger than her. Right now, her priority had to be Prince and getting him out of that nightmare of a life. She hoped, however, that one day the reign of the Devil’s Fighters would end.
Alyssa shook her head. Bennie Lenday and his gang surely did not deserve to be in her head so often and for so long, but she just couldn’t help it. They had taken everything from her, and she would always hate them in a way that she had never hated anything or anyone else. Pure, burning, all-consuming hatred.
She took a deep breath and willed herself to remain calm and focused, knowing that was the only way she would ever get through all this.
When she reached her parents’ house, a red Fiesta was parked outside. Alyssa frowned and parked her own vehicle behind it in the driveway. She climbed out and walked up to the house. To her absolute surprise, sitting on the swing on the front porch, waiting for her, was Anna.