Cage (9 page)

Pensacola, Present Day

For the first full week back in town, tensions were still high with
Saffron. It appeared that I had succeeded in isolating her, and I was growing
more comfortable with the distance. We barely saw each other now. I spent a lot
of my time out on the road, and she was always curled up with one of her books
whenever I was home at some reasonable time. That worked fine for me. The more
time she spent in the house, the better…

I’d considered trying to patch things up, but I knew that I needed to
keep her away from me. I was running out of excuses, since I didn’t care too
much about Pensacola itself.

After all… I’d spent a few years here.

Not that I’d done anything with the time since I’d gotten back.

I’d visited a few bars for a drink if I felt daring, but otherwise I
just cruised around on the bike. The furthest I’d driven was Alabama. I had
barely recognized that I’d passed state lines, and I rented a motel for the
night. It had been this cheap, sleazy place on the side of the road, offering
me nothing but a night’s rest and some truly
awful
porn all paid for with Saffron’s black AMEX.

I watched it anyway. I knew who I wanted the actress to be. But even
that
pissed me off, because the thought
of another man touching her made my blood boil.

It was on my tenth day in Pensacola that I decided enough was enough,
and that I’d see about making something of myself while I was here. Things were
quiet, and it was clear my father was just being paranoid in sending us down
here. Hitting the road on my Suzuki again as I peeled out from the Beach House,
I knew just the guy to reach. He’d been my saving grace when I’d stepped off
the bus in Pensacola with a few thousand dollars and skeletons in my closet.

My stop was a dive bar, a few miles away.
Reggie’s
, it was called. It was this run-down little place with
relatively horrible regulars, but I knew the place and didn’t mind the
atmosphere so much. Parking outside, I kicked the stand into place and whipped out
my phone. I thought I had felt a buzz against my leg on the drive over; sure
enough, there was a text:

>
Grabbed a table. Back left.
Welcome back.

With a small smile, I slipped the phone back into its pocket. The
bouncer near the front turned to me as I approached, holding his hand out for
my ID. A few seconds later, he studied the unfamiliar card, running his thick
thumb across the edges.

“Out-of-towner, eh? Might not be the place for you tonight.”

I assessed him quickly. The immediate conclusion was that this guy was
built like a brick shithouse…and could probably take a punch like one. He stood
close to a foot shorter than me, but he was a stocky little bastard –
broad shoulders, bulky arms, tight abdominals under a thin shirt. Didn’t look
like he’d skipped ‘leg day’ either – with those tree trunk thighs, he
could probably land a truly vicious kick. Thick jet-black hair ran down to his
shoulders, flowing around his meaty throat, and his dark eyes peered menacingly
at mine. This was a guy with a hair-trigger temper, but he could keep his anger
in check.

In short, I liked the guy.

A self-assured grin flashed across my lips. “Much obliged for the
warning. I’ll not be giving you any trouble tonight.”

The bouncer looked me up and down. Without the smallest hint of emotion,
he handed me back my card. “See to it that you don’t, stranger.”

I gave him a subtle, respectful nod, stepping around him into the bar.
Across the throng of bar tops and a small crowd around the dartboard, I spotted
my friend in the corner. It wasn’t hard to miss him – with his optimized
physique and imposing height, the bodybuilder could probably knock the bouncer
out with a single, well-timed punch.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen him do it.

 
“Welcome back, Bonesaw,”
Darren grinned, using the cage fighter nickname that the fans had
unceremoniously given me. I’d built quite the following here in Pensacola
before I’d moved on… Knowing how on edge I usually was, he had picked the table
furthest into the corner, and left me the chair that faced into the crowd.

Just the way I liked it.

It was a defensible position. No surprises.

Darren motioned towards the Miller Lite that had been waiting for me,
but I overlooked it and watched the drunken men and their barflies.

“Aw, shit, that’s right. You don’t do domestic, do you?”

“Domestic beer tastes like cold piss,” I reminded him with a
condescending smile, my eyes on the bottle in his hand. “But it’s fine. I don’t
need one tonight anyway. I’m riding.”

“Fair enough,” he nodded, taking a swig of his own premium bottle of
frigid urination – the classic Budweiser. “I’ve got
to ask, man…what brings you back to Pensacola? You haven’t been here in a
little while, eh? Not since I saw you last?”

“No,” I agreed. “Not for about three years now.”

“Right,” Darren nodded. Another swig of beer.

“My stepsister is here,” I told him. “I’m keeping an eye on her. Doing a
favor for my father.”

“Your sister?” He eyed me with a smile. “Didn’t even know you had one. Look
at the dreaded Bonesaw…from cage fighter to bodyguard in no time flat! But
that’s what family’ll do for a man, right? Always got to stick to the
priorities…”

“How the mighty have fallen.” I couldn’t help but grin too. Of course,
nobody begrudged a fighter looking out for his family – particularly a
sister. Even in the underground side of the cage-fighting community, there was
a certain code of honor – a
respect
that was given and expected.

“So, how long are you going to be down?”

“The rest of the summer.”

“Cool. What are you planning to do with yourself?”

“I haven’t quite decided,” I answered. It was true – the options
were wide open in a place like this. “Does Luke still have New Horizons?”

“Barely,” Darren laughed. “I don’t know
how
he’s held onto it as long as he has…when we left, I wasn’t sure
he could keep the old cage together. We almost bet some money on that,
remember? I’d be buying you beers all summer!”

“Yeah, I remember,” I smiled. “Glad the place is still around. Summer’s
a long time out of the cage. Thought I might get into a few little scuffles
while I’m in town…keep up appearances. You know how it goes.”

“Aw,
hell yeah!
” Darren
smacked the bottle down hard on the table. I flinched, expecting the glass to
shatter under the force of his movements, but it somehow held together. The
drinkers at the next few tables glared over at us, but Darren didn’t seem to
notice. “Just like the old times!”

I chuckled at his enthusiasm. I thought back to how quickly he and I had
become friends, or how he’d helped pick me up last time I’d come to Pensacola…
I’d counted on this man once, and I knew he’d do me right now that I was back.

“That’s right, man. Just like the old times.”

(
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Chapter 11 – Saffron

Pensacola, Present Day

Enough was enough. I was tired of moping around our luxury villa, trying
to keep out of his way. Sawyer clearly didn’t want anything to do with me, and
I was going to find out why. I knew he would never explain himself without some
prodding, so I did the next best thing.

I followed him.

You see, there was a small, white plastic box that dangled from my keys.
It was a GPS tagger that allowed me to easily find them from an app on my
iPhone. The way the device worked was to lead me to the general area from my
phone, so long as I had a decent Wi-Fi connection, and then beep loudly when I
request local discovery. It was a handy little white box, very small and easily
forgotten. Attaching it to his Suzuki while he took a mid-afternoon nap on the
couch was no trouble at all.

I tested it on the phone, and sure enough, I got a fairly accurate
reading from the app. This gave me everything I needed to finally see what my
darling stepbrother was up to. Maybe I’d even figure out why I was being forced
to spend the summer holed up with him.

Even then, I knew that it was a tremendous breach of trust, but I was so
furious with him that I gleefully ignored the consequences. When he left at
night, I would occasionally check up on him, forcing my eagerness deep down so
that I could concentrate on other, more important things, such as reading,
shopping, or occasionally going out to see a movie by myself.

To my surprise, it seemed like he just drove around like a maniac. He’d
hop on the interstate going one way, drive that direction for thirty minutes,
and then whip around and do the same thing the other way. There didn’t seem to
be any rhyme or reason to it. Once, he drove over the state line and kept
going, then just stopped somewhere. It was hard to pinpoint exactly what he was
doing, because the cell reception out there was pretty weak, but it stopped
tracking him near an interstate exit with a pair of motels. I assumed he was
just stopping for the night, although I was afraid that he’d never come back.

The next day, I checked the app a few times. He hadn’t gone anywhere
since then, and after lunchtime he was on his way back. Sure enough, he turned
up an hour or two later, acting as if nothing had happened.

I wanted to mischievously jab at him.
Out all night with a woman?
I would have asked. But I was too
afraid of him to say anything of the sort, and I stayed out of his way. When he
came back through the door, he made no effort to find me or check up on me, so
I continued going about my business.

But watching my stepbrother leave the city and maintain an average speed
of 80 miles per hour at all times grew weary, so I dedicated my efforts
elsewhere. Mostly, this went back to shopping and reading, although there’s
only so much shopping you can do when you’re miserable, and the endless reading
was finally growing tiresome.

One night, I decided to mix things up a little…and I finally visited one
of the nearby clubs.

Club Selene looked like your regular beachside hotspot. With a darkened
view of the ocean through staggered floor-to-ceiling windows, plenty of mood
lighting, and a stunning bar area with a veritable fleet of liquors, it was my
immediate choice for a night out by myself. The dance floor wasn’t too bad
either – the local DJ was blaring the usual EDM fare, although scoping
the place out showed me that
this
disc
jockey seemed to actually know how to work with a crowd. Plenty of
mid-twenties-somethings were grinding and dancing on the floor when I fought my
way to the bar, taking a seat at an open spot and patiently waiting on the
bartenders.

I must have
looked
like I had
money, because some tanned, sunglasses-at-night asshole was at my side in
record time.

“Ayy bae, how you doin’ tonight?” He flashed the kind of white teeth I
expect that you get from swishing bleach 24/7.

“Don’t call me
bae
, you don’t
even know me.”

I sighed, glancing over at one of the staff. The three bartenders were
accounted for, taking drink orders from small pools of guests. The vapid flock
of self-entitlement clung to the wooden surface like packs of piranha,
slathered in not scales but designer clothes – instead of biting and
pecking, they shouted and squealed.

It was disgusting. I briefly locked eyes with one of them, standing away
from the crowd, and she shrugged knowingly with me.

“Yo, you gonna let me buy you a drink or what?”

I’d almost forgotten about the loser bothering me. “No, I’m good, thank
you…I think I can manage my own drink.”

“Pfft…fine,
bitch
.” He
wandered back through the nearest throng. To my lack of amusement, he was
greeted like a king, raising his arms to a chorus of cheers and merriment.

“
Broskie!”
Some frat guy
called out.

“Yeaaahh!” This one was some valley girl.

Why am I even here
, I thought
to myself.

“Hi, sorry about that…what can I get started for you?” He half-shouted
the words over the crowd, just before a round of cheers nearby.

I glanced up, into the eyes of a charming young bartender, leaning over
the counter with both palms down. With his ginger hair swept back behind his
ears, he flashed a small smile, and my eyes fell to his waistcoat and tie.

“Yeah, I’ll, uh…Malibu and Coke,” I told him loudly.

“Cool. Can I see your ID?”

“Sure! One second…” I withdrew the card from my pocket. I had thought better
on bringing a purse out to a club, considering that I had no idea how expensive
the thing really was.

He looked at it with a quick, quizzical look, then handed it back. “Long
way from home, huh?”

“Yeah, ran away to the circus.”

He looked over at the throng against the counter, and I followed his
gaze. “Well, I think you found it, although it doesn’t look like you’ll fit in
with ‘em too well…

“Think you’re right. Bad plan.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong place.”

We shared a smile, and he got to work mixing my drink. While he did so,
I couldn’t help but resist whipping out my phone and checking on Sawyer.
Unsurprisingly, he had left for the night, but this time was different –
he’d stopped at a local bar.

“A bar?” I’d wondered aloud. It was interesting that he went to a bar
the night that I did, although there was no way that either of us were aware of
the coincidence.

“What’s that?” The bartender asked, slapping a napkin square down and
placing a drink on it.

“Oh, it’s just a GPS app,” I mentioned without thinking.

“Yeah? You’re tracking something?”

“Yeah, my brother…” I paused, realizing what I was saying.

“You’re tracking…your
brother
…might
I ask why?” He raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.

“It’s complicated.”

“…Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it!”

He gave a parting smirk, darting away to take care of other guests.

Great. One decent human
interaction since coming down here, and I blow it by being crazy.

I was in too foul a mood to try dancing, and I just sat at the bar and
sipped my drink. I fought the compulsion to keep my eyes glued to the screen.
Is Sawyer picking up a chick?
I thought
to myself grumpily.
What if that’s what
he was doing in Alabama?

I shook my head.
Why does it even
matter? You two hate each other. At least he isn’t bringing them back to the
house! You should just wait for him to get back, and then take that stupid
tracker off of his motorcycle.

Nodding to myself, I decided on the course of action. But before I did
so, I lost my restraint just enough to pop open the app one last time…he was on
the move now, apparently.

Back to driving all around,
huh?

I paid for my drink as soon as I could get the bartender’s attention,
leaving him a tip larger than the original cost – just to maybe reverse
his understandably low opinion of me. In the meantime, I paid peripheral
attention to the app.

By the time everything was done and I was fighting my way through the
throng, I called for another ridesharing driver. I had every intention of just
going straight home…but then I saw that the motorcycle had stopped and parked
beside a small business.

One that was undoubtedly closed for the day.

Talking aloud to myself, I wondered, “…What’s
New Horizons?
”