Xeno
Standing before the wall of mirrors in the Freed’s home gym, I look at the man I’ve become. I see someone who’s dangerous, violent, cruel. I see someone who has taken life and barely flinched. I’m that person.
I do what others find intolerable.
Last night we came close to losing Pen forever.
If he’d gotten away with it, Malik Brov would’ve had her locked up in his fucking castle dancing for him like a goddamn puppet on a string. Once inside, there’s no getting out again. She would’ve been lost to us. They would’ve broken her.
Pen is strong. There’s no fucking doubt about that, but to survive that place…? I’ve heard the rumors about the Brov family, and if they’re true then they really are twisted fucks. Cruelty, violence, torture, degradation, sexual exploitation, sadism, it all happens behind the walls of that remote castle.
According to Grim, only one of The Masks is Brov’s natural son, the other two were stolen. Malik Brov— a real life fucking Rumpelstiltskin—took those families firstborn sons in payment of a long-held debt. Rumor has it he brainwashed those boys, including his own son, using torture to bring them to heel. He twisted them up good and proper. Put it this way, the whole family is a Brothers Grimm fairytale come true. There’s no happy ever after shit up at that castle. It’s the real fucking deal.
Knowing all of that, knowing how close we were to losing Pen, hits me like a bad high. My knees give way, and I have to press my clenched fists against the mirror to keep myself upright. My head drops between my shoulders and I force myself to breathe. To inhale precious oxygen before I drown in my own guilt.
I fucked up dancing with her. I fucked up so bad.
Of all the stupid, selfish things I’ve done, stepping into the cage and dancing with Pen tops them all. There are no excuses. None. I don’t deserve her love.
I let my emotions take over, and it could’ve cost her life.
Thank fuck for Grim, for Beast. Thank fuck for my brothers because the truth is, she’s safe because of them. Not me. Upstairs she’s sleeping off her ordeal and all I want to do is go into her room, lay down beside her and fold her into my arms. I want to comfort her. I want to fucking protect her. Love her. Fuck her. I want to fuck her.
Jesus. My need to bury myself inside of her is torturous. It’s taking every last drop of self-restraint to hold back because touching her is dangerous.
Truth be known, dancing with Pen has unleashed the savage within. There’s this dark energy right in the pit of my stomach that feels like a goddamn cyclone.
I can barely contain it.
Dancing with her has opened the door to its cage. This beast, this untamable, fearsome fucking monster of emotion writhes in the pit of my stomach. It lives and breathes. No longer dormant.
Now that it’s out, there’s no locking it back inside.
And I will tear the fucking world apart to keep her safe.
The thought of anyone hurting Pen has me wanting to break out of my own skin; it makes me wanna go fucking psycho.
I almost did.
I had every intention of flying out to Mexico and putting a bullet in the head of that sick fuck, David. I would’ve done it too if Hudson hadn’t talked me down from making a fatal fucking mistake. It wasn’t time. We’re not ready. Not yet. He convinced me to stay. He convinced me to keep my shit together, so I spent the last week in this house getting a hold of myself, getting my head straight and my emotions in check, only to lose my shit again the second I found out what Malik had planned. You see, there is something fundamentally wrong with me.
Something I’ve been protecting Pen from all this time.
My mum always said that I was a sensitive kid. That I felt too much. That I loved too hard. It was overwhelming feeling everything so intensely, so much so that I would hurt myself.
I was ten the first time I hit myself.
I slapped myself across the cheek so hard that my mum had to cover up the red handprint for fear my teachers would send around social services. Over time the slapping wasn’t enough, and I would resort to punching myself, learning that I should hit myself on parts of my body that could be hidden beneath clothes. Then I began to cut my skin to relieve the pressure. Just tiny little nicks in places where no one would see because I needed release, relief. It was blissful, cathartic. I used to watch the blood slide down my leg, dripping from my skin. It would numb the emotions enough to get through another day. The tattoo on my arm covers some of them, the others are close to my crotch, high up on my thigh, hidden by more tattoos. The Breakers never knew. I kept that part of my past hidden. My dark, dirty little secret.
My mother always feared that my inability to curb my emotions would be the ruin of me. So she taught me to keep everything contained, under wraps. She taught me how to funnel that passion, those emotions, into something else. Into dance. Into Bachata.
That’s why I never asked Pen to partner with me. It’s why I kept her at arm’s length for so long. I was safe dancing with her in a group but partnering with her would’ve changed things. It would’ve unleashed all the dormant emotions inside. I could keep them in check with girls I didn’t really give a shit about. I could even keep them in check around my best friends because the way I feel about them, though powerful, isn’t a patch on what I feel for her.
Pen. My Tiny.
Dancing with Tiny intimately like that would’ve made me volatile in a way I couldn’t control, but now that I have danced with her, these long-trapped emotions are dying to find a way out and keeping them inside is killing me.
Love shouldn’t fucking hurt. It shouldn’t pull you to pieces. It shouldn’t shred you. It shouldn’t fucking ruin you. When I said that love was dangerous, I meant it was dangerous for me.
I’m wired differently.
When I love it hurts. It really fucking hurts.
It’s a physical pain. An all-consuming sickness. A wildheartness. A soul-searing blindness.
And I have to keep it in check because right now I’m literally seconds away from barging into the room Pen’s sleeping in and taking her, just like I wanted to do that night at Grim’s club. I wanted her so bad that I’d convinced myself that she meant nothing, that I fucking hated her, because even though hating passionately hurts me too, it has nothing on how loving someone makes me feel. I pushed her away, made her feel like shit and convinced myself that what I felt wasn’t real.
It was safer that way. For the both of us.
But now my emotions are becoming untethered. Now that I’ve held her in my arms and danced with her, she has become every damn thing, and I can’t see clearly. This savage fucking monster within me is ready to tear up the world to keep her safe. I’m going to kill every last motherfucker who’s threatened her and fucking smile whilst I do it.
I. Will. Gut. Them.
Pushing off the mirror, I step backwards. My chest is heaving with exertion as though I’ve run a marathon when all I’ve done is kept myself in this damn room and away from her. Striding over to the panel on the wall, I tap on the screen that’s connected to the internal sound system and scroll through the selection of songs. Unsurprisingly, the Freed brothers have a state-of-the-art music system with speakers in every room that’s voice activated. The whole house is rigged up with tech way beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. Even the fucking blinds open and close on command. Last week Hudson had a space in the gym cleared for me so I could dance. He saw very quickly that was what I needed to release my stress and to get control of my emotions.
Maybe in a different life I could’ve been like him. Selfless. Good.
He’s a good man whilst I’m… not.
Pressing my forearm against the wall, I scroll through the selection of songs and choose Silence by Marshmello, featuring Khalid, then walk into the center of the space. My skin is already covered in a sheen of sweat, my t-shirt sticking to my chest and back. A heavy feeling of claustrophobia surrounds me, and I have a desperate need to be free from the heaviness. Stripping off my clothes and shoes, I stand in the middle of the space wearing just my boxer shorts, but the temperate air of the gym does nothing to cool my blood. Only dancing will take the edge off this feeling. It will help me release some of the pent-up emotion, get it under some semblance of control.
Rolling my head on my shoulders, I narrow my eyes at my reflection. “Play music.”
The opening piano chords begin to sound out around the gym, and I grasp my head in my hands, gripping the strands of my hair, reveling in the sting to my scalp. Jerking my torso forward, I bend at my waist, stepping into the movement, then stumble. As though I can’t hold myself upright.
But I have to keep moving.
Being the way I am means I can’t linger in a moment, a mood, a feeling. It’s too much to take otherwise, too fucking overwhelming. I subdue, damp down, suppress.
Like Khalid sings, I would rather be a lover than someone who is constantly fighting.
Fighting these emotions.
Fighting to keep my boys safe.
Fighting to keep away from Tiny.
Fighting to be normal.
Fuck knows that’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be able to love like a normal person.
I didn’t. I couldn’t.
So I danced instead, or at least I did until I began to kill.
Drawing my fists up to my chin, I punch at the air like a boxer in a ring, battling an invisible enemy. I move my body in staccato beats, my left foot rising then dropping, my right leg kicking out, dragging me forward. I lash out with my arms, my legs, as the cyclone within me twists up and expands, threatening to break free of my rib cage. It wants to detonate my heart. It wants to destroy.
I can’t let it.
Turning on my feet in a spin, I funnel the momentum within and mimic it on the outside. I become the cyclone, letting a little of it out to release the pressure only to feel it drag me down like gravity would a stone. My legs slide out across the hardwood beneath me as I fall to the floor, my forearms resting against the coldness, my fists curled, my toes tucked up beneath my feet. This close, I can see the faint scars on my forearm hidden beneath my shattered heart tattoo and the cracked penny with Tiny’s name inked onto the surface.
Looking at it, my fucking heart expands to the point of bursting. This isn’t some metaphorical bullshit. I suffer an uncontrollable physical reaction to overwhelming emotion. I feel my heart bulging, swelling, aching.
It hurts.
Sweat slides off my forehead, my pulse jumps erratically and as the beat drops, I feel a very real need to just fucking move. Pushing up off my knees, I put all my weight on my right hand and lift my legs off the ground in a floor leap before transitioning into an aerial cartwheel. As the floor passes beneath me in a blurred rush, and my body cuts through the air, I feel peace.
But it’s short-lived.
I land on heavy feet and a rush of emotions floods my chest trying to crush me.
“No!” I grunt, refusing to give in.
Jerking my torso to the right, I continue to dance as though my fucking life depends on it. I suppose in some ways it does. Because if I don’t dance, I will seek Pen out and do something I’ll regret. I won’t hurt her that way. I’ve done enough of that already. But what I can say with absolute conviction, is that if Jeb was here now I would kill him with my bare hands. Like the song suggests, I’d find peace in violence. I’d find peace in murdering that motherfucking cunt.
Because I have found peace in violence before.
After Pen walked away, I used violence to control my emotions. The act of violence calmed me, it made me feel numb.
I could live with numbness.
But living like this is torturous, and I need to control this emotion within me before it does even more damage to the one person I need to protect from myself. Lifting my right leg up, I kick out to the side before slamming my foot back down. Sweeping my arms out in a wide arc, I allow my body to follow the motion until I kick off the floor and flip forwards into a series of tumbles. Air rushes past me as the room blurs.
I feel like a leaf dragged up into the vortex of a tornado, twisting, turning, tumbling.
But still it’s not enough.
Reality stills my feet. It drags me back down into the clutches of my emotions that swell, consuming me. My hands rise up my body, my nails digging into the sweaty skin of my chest, my neck, my face, until my fingers curl into my hair and tug. This time a few strands of my hair fall away, dropping from my fingers.
I let out an anguished cry, doubling over as I heave and choke on these feelings.
There’s no peace, no contentment.
“Xeno?”
My whole body stiffens.
Her voice is no more than a soft whisper, a cautionary tale. I hear it. I feel it like a motherfucking bullet to my heart.
The concern. The fear. The empathy. The love.
“I’ve never seen you dance like that before,” she says, stepping towards me. I straighten up. Every single part of me pulled taut to the point of snapping.
“Get the fuck out of here, Pen.” I grind out, choking on the words as I glare at the floor. They feel like fucking shards of glass in my throat, slicing my gullet open. They hurt me because they hurt her. Before, I could be cruel because I believed she was my enemy. The words that caused her pain didn’t cut me so deep because I’d convinced myself that she meant nothing to me. It’s different now. All I know is that if she stays in the room, I will lose every last shred of my resolve to hold back, to keep it all in. I have to contain it. I have to. “I need you to go. You’re not safe around me right now.”
“No,” she replies firmly. “You’re hurting.”
“I can’t stop it.” It’s a warning, one I hope to fuck she hears.
“Then don’t. Let it go, Xeno. Whatever this is, let it go.”
And that’s when I feel them, the fucking tears. They slide down my face. They aren’t cathartic. They’re not a release. They’re fucking painful, like acid burning into my skin. I’m ashamed of them. I don’t cry.
I. Don’t. Motherfucking. Cry.
The next track begins to play and Emeli Sandé’s song Hurts sounds over the speaker system.
Fuck. The beat matches the pounding of my heart and the words fucking speak to my soul.
Loving Tiny hurts. It fucking hurts.
“Don’t,” I snap, holding my hand up and stumbling backwards as she takes a tentative step towards me. This girl. This brave, strong, gutsy, reckless, courageous girl refuses to leave me whilst I fucking break. She loves me despite all the shit I put her through.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. Grim said I should make you work for my love. She wants me to punish you.”
“You should.” I swipe at my face. “You fucking should.”
Pen smiles softly. “See, here’s the thing. I don’t want to punish you. I’m done with that. Haven’t we all suffered enough?”
“Not me. I haven’t.”
She laughs softly at that. “You especially. Look at you…”
“Don’t pity me.”
“I don’t pity you. This is purely selfish, Xeno, because I want your love. I’ve always wanted it. Whatever that looks like.”
And with those words the thin shred of my restraint breaks.
I rush towards her.
No, I fucking sprint.
But instead of being afraid, instead of running the fuck away, she squares her shoulders, looks me in the eye and opens her arms. She opens her arms and the fucking cyclone within me rips out of my chest, taking my heart with it.
