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“Hello?” Evan said as he tried to see around the concrete support columns. “Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me. Who else would it be. Are you coming out of there?”
The personal trainer’s voice was low and soothing, and Evan thought about the first conversations he’d had with the man. Evan had had a New Year’s resolution to start working out, and he’d met the guy that very first night. Lash—short for Thomas Lashelle—had been so helpful, teaching him how to do the weights safely, encouraging him to keep at it, warning him against the three-week barrier that most people who tried to turn over a new leaf couldn’t get past.
And then the offer had come. A private workout group for special clients at the gym. Evan had been invited even though he hadn’t signed up for one-on-one coaching because the trainer had said his follow-through had been so good: Evan had made it past the three weeks. He now had a—what had the guy called it, a habit base—habit basethat could be built on.
He’d felt honored to be asked, and he’d met a bunch of other guys. Some had been straight-up power lifters. Some had been easygoing gym bros with thick shoulders and lunkheads. And then there had been him. But Lash had never stood for any bullying, and Evan must have proved himself yet again even if he couldn’t lift much.
Because he’d been invited to come to this transformational seminar.
Except…
“Where’s everyone else?” Evan asked.
“This is a special thing, just for you.”
Lash stepped out from behind one of the columns way across the basement. Beneath the ceiling fixtures, the man’s blond hair seemed white, and his workout clothes were a dense black. His handsome face was the kind of thing anyone would want to stare at in the mirror, but the effect he had on people was about so much more than those eyes and the cheekbones and the jawline.
There was a magnetism to him.
Bet no one had ever called him a pussy.
“Like I told you, Evan, I’m so glad you reached out, and you’re not going to regret the commitment. You told me you wanted to be stronger, physically and mentally. I can give you that.”
“What is this place?” he heard himself ask.
What he really wanted to know was what was on the floor and why everything smelled bad and where the other guys were.
“It’s a way station, Evan. A place for things to begin. Are you ready to be transformed? You’ve told me that you want to be bigger, and stronger, and not just physically.”
As those low, hypnotic words rode across the fetid air, Evan measured the breadth of the trainer’s shoulders, the bulk of his arms.
“I told you I don’t want to do steroids,” he mumbled. “It’s just not natural to have those chemicals in your body.”
“And I told you this is not about doing drugs. Now, are you coming out of there? You can’t very well expect me to work with you when you’re standing in an elevator.”
Evan looked at the control panel, the buttons for all the floors above him like other avenues he could have taken. Maybe should have.
It was just the smell, he told himself. If the basement didn’t stink like this, he wouldn’t be second-guessing everything.
As he extended his boot, he remembered tromping through the snowy forest with Mickey and then his cousin pushing him to the ground. Like he was nothing. A nobody. A cowardly piece of shit who’d been a momma’s boy until his momma had been put in her grave, probably because she, like everybody else, just wanted to get away from him.
Pussy. Dummy. Sonofabitch wimp—
With resolve ringing in his chest, Evan’s boot landed on the far side of the threshold. The second his weight transferred and he picked up his back boot, the doors closed with a snap as if they were spring-loaded—and he jumped away from them, like they were a pair of teeth—
“Shit!” he blurted as he leaped back a second time.
Somehow, the trainer had gone from being thirty feet away to right in front of him.
“How… did you do that?”
The smile that came back at him was reassuring. Almost gentle. “Stronger. Better. More powerful. That’s what you want, right?”
Evan pictured the scorn on his uncle’s face. And knew that he’d been allowed to leave the club so he’d think it was all okay, that nothing was going to be done to him. But his uncle didn’t let shit go like that. He was going to have Evan killed for not protecting Mickey. Even though he’d tried to get his cousin to leave that awful snowy forest. Even though he hadn’t been the one with the knife.
He was a target now.
