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Water from the shower slides over my back as I sit on the tiled floor, hugging my knees to my chest. I can’t seem to move, let alone feel.
Every time I close my eyes, I see York bringing his baseball bat down on Frederico’s knees. I see Zayn and Xeno crouched over him, one with a knife pressed into his throat, the other with his finger shoved deep into the gunshot wound in his chest. I feel Dax’s arms tight around me and smell the metallic scent of blood, violence and revenge in the air. It doesn’t matter how many times I wash myself; I can’t rid myself of Frederico’s cries or the light leaving his eyes. I can’t turn off the sound of his voice as he struggles to speak.
“David…”
I can’t stop seeing the blood or the bodies as my mind flicks through the photo album of tonight’s events. It doesn’t matter if my eyes are open or shut, those memories are crystal clear as though playing out in front of me right now. So here I remain, hugging my knees to my chest in the bottom of Dax’s shower, waiting for the numbness in my body to infect my mind.
“Kid?” Dax enters the bathroom. his voice sounds far away, lost beneath the screams of dying men.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, unfurling my body slowly as I push upwards to stand on stiffened legs, my muscles tight from the cold.
“Jesus fucking Christ, the water’s freezing! Your lips are turning blue!” He leans behind me, turning the shower off.
“It is? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Kid… Fuck…” A moment later a warm, fluffy towel is wrapped around my shoulders as he eases me out of the cubicle. Like me he’s scrubbed tonight from his skin, but despite the fact he’s no longer covered in blood, I still see the stain reflected in his eyes. “Come with me, Kid.”
I follow him without argument, too numb to do anything else. He guides me back into his bedroom and eases me onto the edge of the bed. “Let me see your neck,” he says, lifting my chin.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I reply, my words empty, hollowed out like all those dead bodies seeping blood.
“It isn’t a deep cut… It shouldn’t take long to heal.”
“I guess that’s something,” I reply.
“Fuck, we could’ve lost you. I shouldn’t have brought you along. Why the fuck did I do that?” He cups my face and presses his lips against my forehead, then sits on the bed next to me and wraps his arms tightly around me, but even his hug isn’t enough to comfort me this time.
“Are they back yet?” I ask, pushing out of his hold, and pulling the towel tighter around me. It’s been almost two hours since we drove away, leaving the rest of the Breakers behind to deal with the carnage, stopping only to drop Beast back at Tales to a furious Grim who threatened to kill him herself for daring to get shot.
Dax shakes his head. “Hud called, he’s with them now. They’re debriefing.”
“Debriefing?”
“Yes.” Dax chews on his lip as he regards me. It’s a nervous tick, one that I’ve not seen in a very long time.
“What aren’t you saying?”
“Being an informant has its perks, Kid, but I ain’t sure that murdering a small army is one of them. There will be a lot of red tape to cut. It’s gonna take a bit of time getting them out.”
“Out?”
“Of custody. There were a lot of dead bodies, Kid.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t remind me.”
Even to my own ears my voice sounds empty, like an abandoned building with cracks in the walls and all the windows smashed in. I’m in shock, I know that, so processing what happened tonight is going to take time. Right now, I’m caught between being fervently on the side of my Breakers and disgusted by what I witnessed. Logically, I know it was a ‘them or us’ situation but that doesn’t mean I am comfortable with any of it. Violence is something I’ve tried to avoid at all costs. Growing up with David, I’ve lived under the constant threat of it; I’ve spent my entire life avoiding it where I can and seeking comfort in dance. Having to witness the men I love embrace that side of themselves has well and truly shattered the illusions I built. Yes, they may have gotten into fights as kids but nothing like this. It’s easy to turn a blind eye when you’re in love, but to have part of their natures revealed in such a shocking way… it’s hard to stomach. At least for me it is.
“If it makes you feel any better, violence isn’t something that comes naturally to Zayn. York either,” Dax says, reading me expertly.
“That’s not how it looked tonight.”
“What you saw tonight was the men who love you doing everything in their power to protect you. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“You don’t need to cover for them. I saw the look in their eyes. I’m a big girl,” I say.
