Paradise Fought (Abel) (30 page)

I decided that day would be another day I’d miss human anatomy, and I stood to exit the large room before class began. As I was leaving, I saw Sofie. She was sitting in the last row, a laptop open on the small desk ledge.

“Abel?” she said, surprised to see me standing at the end of her row. I walked between the chairs and stood near her.

“Hey, Sofie, why are you here?”

“I sometimes sit in on the class to get the most current notes for my TA sessions and study groups.”

I could only nod in understanding. Recalling the professor said he didn’t know her at the beginning of the semester, Sofie explained that she was a late hire to the position.

“Looks like you’re leaving?” she inquired, eyeing my backpack over my shoulder. “Not feeling human anatomy, today?” She smiled and the dark shadow of where we were lit up. Her eyes sparkled behind those red glasses. She kind of had this forbiddenness about her, which made her incredibly sexy. Her face slowly fell as I smiled back at her teasing tone.

“I heard about the fight,” she said softly, looking at her computer screen as if it said something extremely important.

“Yeah, well, who hasn’t?” I laughed without humor. Sofie stared up at me, and I had the need to sit down near her, suddenly exhausted. I left a seat between us as I unfolded the auditorium chair. She watched me sit then spoke again.

“Why is he fighting you?” she asked. It was spoken as if she was familiar with my brother. She didn’t say his name, but she didn’t have to mention him.

“It’s about a girl,” I lied. I shrugged my shoulder and unintentionally looked across the room to find Elma watching me. She turned away quickly and I spun to face Sofie.
Lying to Sofie felt very wrong, for some reason. When her blue eyes focused on me, I was compelled to explain the truth. “Actually it’s about our father.” I took a deep breath.

“I think he’s been waiting for this moment. For me to step up and fight like a man. He can no longer put me down, but my brother can. As my brother always stood up for me, it gives my father the ultimate power, if he can break Cain, to take me down.”

The words flowed easily out of my mouth. I hadn’t been able to phrase it before, but what I described to Sofie was true. If my father could force my brother’s hand against me, to fight me in place of my father as punisher, it proved he held the extreme authority. His word was the rule. His command was the way.

Sofie continued to watch me with those soft eyes.

“Does he want to fight you?”

“Who? Cain?”

“Your brother,” she swallowed hard, avoiding his name again. “Is he really that evil?”

I sighed and sat back in the confines of the wooden chair.

“I don’t think Cain’s evil. I’ve never understood his intentions, his actions, but I don’t think evil is the right word for him.”

“He killed a man,” she spoke quietly.

“He was cleared,” I answered casually, as if everyone knew Cain’s story. Sofie apparently did not, as her head spun and blue eyes blinked in confusion.

“It was an accident,” I clarified. “The other fighter fought without medical clearance. He couldn’t handle the fight in general.”

Sofie stared at me, the expression on her face, innocent shock. Slowly, the surprise faded and she resumed her cheerful, neutral face.

“It seems a bit extreme to have you fight in the ring to prove something to your father,” she stated.

“Oh, we aren’t proving something to him. He’s proving it to us.”

She focused on me, for a moment, and then slowly nodded as if she understood my meaning. I wondered what her connection was to my brother, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to be concerned about him.

“My brother seems to know you. He was looking for you.” At this, Sofie’s head spun to me again. Her eyes opened wide and her hand gripped the arm of her seat.

“Why?” she breathed out.

“Don’t know. He just wanted me to find you.”

Sofie paused, scrutinizing me behind her glasses. Her facial expression hardened a bit, and I realized that hardness could only come from some contact with Cain. Sofie was too soft for the bitter look on her face.

“Well, you found me,” she snarked, turning away from me. She closed the laptop with a sharp click and stood abruptly. Then she bent to pick up a bag and I stood as well.

“That I did,” I replied.

“And?” she stopped after looping the strap of the bag over her shoulder, holding the laptop before her like a shield.

“And, that’s it. I found you. Nothing more.” I shrugged again.

“Nothing more,” she mumbled. Her head hung for a second in defeat, then she shook it and pulled it upright again. She smiled weakly at me.

“How’s the human anatomy research project going?” she asked, as if no other conversation had occurred.

I saw Abel talking with Sofie Vincentia, the TA for human anatomy, and the best friend of Lucie Moretti, my roommate. While it looked like a regular discussion between a teaching assistant and a student, it appeared more intimate. I wasn’t aware that Abel knew Sofie as more than the assistant for our class, but my imagination went into overdrive; I pictured him asking her to be his tutor. We had an exam coming up on the sex organs of the human body. I envisioned him using her for a visual aid,
the way he’d examined me. My heat pulsed but my heart dropped. Abel was completely ignoring me. When he said he was finished with me, he meant it.

I casually looked over my shoulder in their direction once to be caught by Abel, watching him. In my peripheral vision, I noticed movement in the dark shadows at the back of the auditorium. They left together long before class was finished. I gathered my things when class was done and was exiting my aisle, when I bumped into Thor. If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed he did it on purpose. The nudge was casual, but enough to grab my attention.

“Hey,” he said, sheepishly.

“What do you want, Thor?”

“So I noticed your boy is getting the fight of a lifetime.” He nodded in the direction of the emptying door. Abel was long gone, but the reference was implied.

“Yeah, he’s fighting his brother. How is that the fight of a lifetime?”

“His brother’s Cain Callahan, the Cobra. Isn’t that what you wanted? A fight.”

I stared at Thor.

“Is that how he found out?” I questioned, mumbling the words to the tiled floor. I wasn’t in my right mind at the Callahan’s to inquire how Atom Callahan discovered my plan.

“I went to set the fight,” Thor announced, pleased with himself.

“You?” I questioned again. “You didn’t want to fight him.”

“Oh, yes, I did,” Thor exaggerated.

“But I thought…after…” I stared at him, not able to complete my thoughts.

“I still wanted the fight,” Thor said with a slow shrug of his broad shoulders.

“You…” My voice trailed off again. He was still willing to fight Cain Callahan, despite what happened with Abel interrupting his attempts to sleep with me.

“This is perfect,” I blurted. “You can fight Cain instead. Abel shouldn’t do this. It isn’t right for him to fight his brother.” My heart rate increased with the excitement. If Cain would just choose to fight Thor instead, this would solve everything. Abel just needed Thor to take his place. One of the Callahan brothers had to step down. There could still be a fight, just a different one.

“Oh, I plan to fight Cain, after he beats the crap out of his brother.”

I was stunned.

“What if Abel wins?” I suggested, not even comprehending that two seconds before I was hoping the two brothers wouldn’t fight one another, after all.

“I’ve been promised I get to fight the winner. I’m actually hoping Abel does win. Knock that brother of his down a notch, and then I get my shot in the ring again with him. This time, he’ll go down like the stinking fish he is.”

I stared in disbelief.

“You fight the winner?” I repeated, uncertain I’d heard him correctly.

“Yep. For revealing your little plan, I’ve been guaranteed a fight with the winner,” Thor’s green eyes practically sparkled, and his smile broadened across his fake tan face. I had no response. I turned and stormed out of the auditorium.

“Hey. I was hoping we could get together again,” Thor shouted after me. “We can seal our own deal,” he laughed. I kept walking. As I entered the long hall outside the classroom, I noticed Sofie sitting with Abel on a couch set in an arrangement for study sessions. Abel looked up at me with those bright blue eyes, and my heart broke. He turned away instantly, and I continued to walk on by without further acknowledging him.

I received a message when I returned to Lindee’s apartment from the landlord of my mother’s home. She was two months behind on rent, and he wondered when it would be paid. It was unfortunate that my phone number was attached to the lease. It wasn’t going to be paid by me. I didn’t know what to do, but I had to cover expenses with Lindee and the girls first. I was making enough money at The Dance Academy to cover my responsibility, but I couldn’t fork the bill for my mother’s place as well.

“What am I going to do?” I covered my face as I spoke to Lindee in the living room.

“Can’t you call one of Montana’s old friends? His coach? His trainer? Anyone? How is this your responsibility? It should be the other way around?” Lindee encouraged. She didn’t understand, though. Lindee had always been taken care of, just like my mother and me. She couldn’t comprehend there was no one else. My father was long gone. Montana’s trainer had his own family and had moved on. Montana’s coach disappeared. I only had the phone number of Montana’s lawyer, and I didn’t wish to speak with him again. He did what he could, but what he wanted was the loan sharks paid and his fee retained. That’s what left us without any other means.

My mother had been pampered her whole life, as well. She hadn’t known how to take care of herself. She claimed to love Montana’s father until he died. She married my father when she got pregnant by him and they lived an unhappy marriage. When he left, she took what she could get from him, until he disappeared completely from our lives. By then, Montana was making money the old fashion way: fighting. He took over by seventeen where my father left off. Montana became the breadwinner and my mother took the bread. She had worked, but I was never clear what her employment consisted of. Odd jobs for men associated with the fight, somehow earned her extra money. She had many connections, just like Montana, but when he died, they all seemed to disappear.

I decided I had to see my mother again. It made me rather anxious to go to her place. I didn’t know who would be there. I didn’t know if she would be there. I worried that I’d be abducted again by someone associated with the Callahans. My plan for a fight against Cain had blown out of proportion. Abel refused to talk with me. Cain said I needed to give him space. It was odd that Cain turned out to want nothing from me. He was the one who told me where Abel’s bedroom was that night. He was the one who let me take his bed when I returned, and he slipped onto the floor to sleep instead. He was the one that assured me he’d work it out with Abel. So far, I didn’t have any indication that Abel was freed from the fight. It wasn’t that I thought Abel would be crushed by his brother, which was certainly a possibility. It was more so that I didn’t want him to fight his brother for me. I wasn’t an object to be won. In my heart, Abel already owned me.

When I got to the place, my key opened the door easily and the apartment was empty. The furniture was well worn looking, and I hated to even imagine what kinds of specimens had been deposited on it. The kitchen was surprisingly bare. My room was as I left it: one dresser and a empty bed. My mother’s room was vacant. It was the appropriate word. Her clothing and minimal belongings were gone. My mother had disappeared.

I sat with a thud on the corner of the unmade bed. The apartment suddenly had the feeling of a ghost town. Lives had been lived and wasted in this place, but not a soul remained. There was no trace of her. The unmade bed could have been a hint of struggle, but just as easily it was a sign of a woman who wrestled her own demons. Her missing clothes suggested she left willingly, either on her own or with another. Either way, she was gone, and I had no clue as to where she went. At twenty-one, I truly felt like the orphan I suddenly was. I’d never felt so alone.