Chapter Twenty

River hadn’t expected an actual cage, much less one like this. This was no well-situated MMA-style cage. It was thrown together, the floor under it stained. River would bet ten-to-one the bar wasn’t legal. No way a place like this had a liquor license. Jadis was there, cloaked, fluttering from person to person. Money and drugs passed hands. The violence in the room was palpable. Patrons muttered amongst themselves, hungry for blood.

O’Malley better watch his back, Johnson’s out for blood.

This’ll be a good one. No one’s leaving that cage whole.

River pulled his hood up and scanned the room. Erik had shed any trace of the person River knew. When he glanced at the crowd and caught River’s eye, fury burned, snapping heat that River felt across the distance. In the blink of an eye, Erik redirected it toward his opponent, anger and violence chilling River more than the teeming cold of the Warehouse.

Paris, Paris, Paris.

He wanted to shout it when Erik was pinned. He bit his lips raw to keep it in and watched blood splatter Erik’s face and chest. A moment came and went, a breath in which River really thought it, almost meant it, when the limit of what he was willing to watch was under his feet and slipping past him. It paused and rewound the moment Erik stopped beating his opponent.

That violence, what seemed like uncontrolled rage, stopped at the drop of a hat on the ref’s command. River closed his eyes. His whole body was a mess of tremors and cold sweat, his stomach heaving. But still, he thought, this can be saved.

…

It rained steadily while they waited for a car. With water on his lips and in his eyes, Erik was too far away. His distance ached more than the cold.

A month.

Blood ran in rivulets down Erik’s chin. When River reached for him to wipe it off, he jerked away.

A month ago, they’d stood in the rain and Erik had taken him apart with a kiss. A month of them in each other’s hands, testing something fragile they wouldn’t name.

Four weeks later and River could do nothing to hold Erik together.

Once they arrived at River’s apartment, he took care to lead Erik by the wrist that Johnson hadn’t pinned. Erik wiped his face carelessly. The bleeding from his nose had stopped, but it was too dark for River to see the rest of the damage. A fluttering pressure in River’s chest stole his breath.

Pax was in the living room with his perpetual stack of books and study guides. One look at River and the state of Erik’s face and he hightailed it to his room.

“Stop,” Erik said. He tried to tug his hand out of River’s. “What am I—I shouldn’t be here.”

“Bathroom,” River snapped. “Now.”

He might not have been a fighter, but River had fire. Rarely deployed, but when it was, ferocious. Erik’s uninjured eye was nearly black, his pupil blown wide. His face went slack and then hardened, but he followed.

“Sit.” River pointed to the toilet lid. Rooting through their cupboards until he found antiseptic wipes and gauze, River held up his end of a cold and unwieldy silence. He had to remind himself to gentle his hands when he cupped Erik’s chin. He was barely holding himself together. His hands shaking with the pounding of his heart, it would be so easy to hurt Erik by accident. He wiped the blood off Erik’s cheek and chin.

“Where’s this coming from?”

Erik pulled back his bottom lip to expose the jagged cut where Johnson’s fist had connected.

“Okay.” River took a breath. “I’ll be right back.”

“You know, I don’t need a mother,” Erik called after him. River smacked the wall of the hallway with an open palm rather than respond. He ran the tap in the kitchen warm, filled a cup, and stirred salt into it, listening to Erik muttering to himself in the bathroom. He pulled out frozen peas and a towel while the salt dissolved in the water.

“Swish and spit it out.” He held the cup out.

“You’re shitting me.” Erik smirked. Being dismissed rankled River more than most things. He stared until Erik looked away. Erik might’ve been a stranger when he stepped into that ring, a man and a body completely foreign to him, but right now, River knew he was the stranger in the room, a version of himself Erik had never seen.

He tilted Erik’s head back once he was done. Blood lined the sink. “Tell me where this works best.” He tried to place the peas against Erik’s eye, unsure how careful he needed to be with the orbital bones. What did it take to break those? Erik shied away.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, does it hurt?”

“Probably.” Erik laughed then, really laughed, cutting and mean. “But I’m still high. Kinda helps.”

“What?” Ice trickled down River’s spine. “On what?”

“Coke,” Erik said. He didn’t look at River; the line of his shoulders said it all. River resisted the urge to put his hand on the wall to steady himself.

“Is that like—was it like a one-time thing or…?”

“Look, I hate to blow the lid off whoever it is that you think I am—”

“Don’t be condescending,” River said. His fingers were numb, livid anger and fear flooding through him. “Don’t act like you’re doing me a kindness by lying.”

“Please,” Erik scoffed. He grabbed River’s arm, palmed his tattoos. “This—these—don’t make you a hard-ass, River. They make you art, and you know it. This world—my world—isn’t for you.”

“I’m not naive. Don’t kid yourself. What you’re doing isn’t to protect me. I’m a big boy. It’s not like I’ve never been around this. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

I didn’t see it coming. He’d known there was something but couldn’t fathom any of this—this night, this vicious man bleeding on his towel and in his sink. This stranger.

Erik stood, and the peas fell at River’s feet. His lip was still bleeding. In the small bathroom with something ugly between them, Erik towered over River for the first time.

“I told you not to come. You found out where the fight was, and you came anyway.” He leaned closer, words clipped and harsh. “This is who I am. You wanted something else—you want someone else.”

“No.” River swallowed the gravel in his throat and reached for Erik’s hand. “I don’t.”

“I’m not who you thought I was. But you knew that already, right?” Erik pressed closer, pushed the words like barbs into River’s skin. “You knew. You still came. And now, surprise, you don’t like what you found.” Erik nudged him aside.

“Don’t tell me how I feel. Don’t pretend you know shit about what I think. This isn’t about me, and you know it.”

Erik rounded on him, opened his mouth, and then shut it before turning away. A different kind of panic lanced through River’s bones. A familiar one, a song spun through years and years of his life, the automatic fear his mother had sewn into him: that one day when she left, she wouldn’t come back. River never could do uncertain goodbyes.

“Just, please, stay. Let me—”

“I gotta go.” Erik stumbled over the shoes in the entryway. When he slammed the door, it cracked through the dead silence he left behind.