This is the first novella I ever wrote. I have re-written it entirely, given it new twists, and revamped most of the characters so that the story is way better than its five-year-old predecessor. Enjoy:
Chapter 1
He was in the bathroom, trying to get a grip on himself; maintain awareness, collect his calm, and get his butt back out there. There was no time to hunker down and let time drip by. One last glance in the mirror, his jet-black hair hanging down, one bang being an irritant, hanging down over one eye. He swiped at it clumsily, breathing heavy. Still trying to get a grip. Still trying to be a man. Try to slow his heart down. God, it was hitting his ribcage like a savage hook to the body. And he knew about that; plenty about that kind of business. It didn’t change the fact that he stood there, still staring at the mirror, at the small, pale young man glaring back at him, their twin hazel-colored eyes loaded with anger and frustration. Fear.
But there was no time to fear. This was the time for action. Come on, man, get yourself into the game. Put your hands up, bob and weave. He took a deep, halting breath, and his heart tamed with every one that followed. The beats now were steady, gently nudging his chest instead of thumping him every half-second. He relaxed, and his hands released their death grip on the sink. Another few breaths and all became clear to him again. There was only one logical course of action now; if they wouldn’t leave, he had to enforce house rules and kick them out himself. Little Dawson was too drunk to be much help; his brother had a chance, but that was only if Marv wasn’t in another bedroom with a girl. There was also the possibility that Marv’s buddies wouldn’t care, seeing as that it wasn’t their apartment; therefore, it wasn’t their fight.
But these were trivial matters, and he had no time to reflect. He gritted his teeth at the reflection, cracked his neck one last time, and slammed the door to the bathroom open. The loud beats being thrown on the stereo system made hearing difficult, and he had no idea if Little Dawson was still arguing with the offenders or not. He passed by the other bedroom on the second floor, and the door was locked. He could hear the noise coming from within; the animal grunts signifying that someone wasn’t going to answer the door for a while. He stepped down the creaking wooden steps, his heart starting to quicken again, that rhythm being countered by the beats slamming through the air, coming from the living room. The beats were getting louder, and his ears were throttled. He finally made it to the living room, and there were people everywhere.
Quite a party Little Dawson had been throwing. Quite fun until a few unwanted guests had shown up. They stood in the center of the room, Little Dawson standing toe to toe with the biggest guy of the pack. Little Dawson wasn’t short, but this man easily towered over him. Dawson was sweating, and his shaven head glittered. He turned to find his only friend coming down the stairs, and his eyes widened with a little surprise. “Bane!” He shouted over the music.
Bane wasted no time, striding towards the big man, tall, broad, and completely unprepared for Bane’s attack as he threw a sledgehammer right hook to the stomach, nailing him hard in the solar plexus. The man dropped, and his friend threw a punch, coming at Bane, while the rest seemed to go after Little Dawson. Several other guests that were friends of Little Dawson’s jumped into it, and chaos ensued, as Bane had anticipated it would. He was already ducking under the next guy’s punch, repeating his previous hook to the body, and then seized the man around the waist. He carried the man across the room, slamming him into the table in the next room. They went down, and Bane ended up on top. It took only two punches to stun the man, and a third and fourth to put him out of commission.
Someone else came up from behind him, and a shoe stomped on him from behind. Bane fell back on top of the man he’d just beaten, stunned. The man kicked him savagely in the ribs, and Bane felt the thuds rocking his entire body. He gritted his teeth with the pain, rolling away from the foot, trying to get back to his feet. A shower of glass and the sound of a bottle being broken occurred above him, and the little flecks of glass landed all around him and down his shirt. He was back on his feet in no time, to see Little Dawson swinging at the big man again, and the big man caught him with a single, jaw-shattering punch, and Little Dawson was down and out.
Bane was back on the man instantly, kneeing him twice in the stomach as the man hit him in the face repeatedly. Bane felt his nose take a hard punch, and the cracking sound that came with the agony made it clear that he’d just gotten his nose broken. He fought on, ducking under another salvo, hitting the man with a few of his own. The door was suddenly open, and a few of the unwanted guests were outside, running for it. Bane felt himself strike the wall, face first, and now he felt warm fluid snake down his face. He head butted the man holding him, and got some distance between them. As the man tried to hit him again, Bane swung his right leg up, the toe of his sneaker landing solidly in the groin area. The big man went down with a loud cry, and Bane felt no remorse whatsoever.
He found himself facing a small Colt .45, and Marv Dawson was the on the other end of it, holding it in a casual manner, shouting as the big man rolled around in agony. Bane recognized what Marv was saying, yanked the big man up, and threw him out the door. “Stay out. You come back and I’ll kill you!” Little Dawson shouted as he shoved his way past Bane, out the door. He held onto the doorway to maintain his balance, barely there anymore. He was rubber-legged, that last punch he’d taken obviously still messing with him.
Marv Dawson smirked, his own dark eyes cool as he glanced at Bane. “Not a bad party, huh?” Bane noticed then that Marv was only wearing jeans and nothing else. He was barefoot and bare-chested, exposing a torso built like a bull’s, without a single flaw. Muscular, tanned, and blonde, the perfect lady’s man, Marv Dawson had just saved the show. Bane raised his eyes back up to the room where Marv had supposedly been, seeing a pretty young girl standing in front of the now-opened bedroom door, covering her nakedness. Noticing Bane’s wandering eyes, she disappeared back into the room, slamming the door shut.
“That was fast, wasn’t it?” Little Dawson slapped his older brother on the shoulder. “Huh? Next time lemme get the gun. I’m a better shot anyways.”
Marv only grinned wider as the rest of the guests, and there still was quite a few, laughed at this remark. Bane suddenly realized he couldn’t feel his heart bouncing around; the adrenaline was gone, and he was okay. Minor bleeding, a head wound, but that could be taken care of.
The living room and dining room were now a mess. A chair in the dining room had been broken, two of the legs snapped. There was now a Bane-shaped dent in the wall next to the doorway, and there was a small splotch of blood where his head had hit. He grimaced when he saw it, and immediately touched the wound, wincing as the sharp bite he received for it jolted his whole head for a moment. Everyone was chattering, some of the guys talking big loads about their part in the fight, repeating it for the girls to hear. The beats had continued on, but someone had had the decency to turn the volume down to a tolerable level. Bane’s head was starting to kill him. With the adrenaline went all his focus, and his grit. He collapsed onto the stairs, eyes studying the white ceiling.
Marv Dawson stood over him then, that smirk he’d donned still looming around in his eyes. He chuckled as his eyes roamed up and down Bane’s body. “You’ve got a nice hook, Bane,” He said as he stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “Nate was telling me how you dropped the big one with that sucker to the body. I’m impressed.”
Bane had no words to give him, no thanks. He merely nodded his agreement while Marv stepped over him as if that was all he’d intended to say. “Well, gotta get back to business. Now I’m gonna have to start over, but at least I got some excitement out here.” He stopped climbing the steps to take one last look at Bane, whose eyes still followed him. “See you later Bane. I’m sure we’ll talk.”
Talk about what? The last thing in the world Bane wanted at the moment was to talk. He wanted peace. Sex. A bit of alcohol. A kind word tossed his way, in earnest. These were merely hopes and pursuits, nothing more. Bane finally sat up, and took a deep breath. The fear had fled with those thugs, and he felt on top of things once more. The game had been good to him. Once again, he’d managed to stand tall, and there was no price to pay for it. Going to the kitchen he found a rag, and heated the water so that he could bathe his brow, and clean it. One of the ladies that had come by herself came in and offered assistance, but Bane refused politely.
“Really, I can get it better than you can. You can’t even see it,” She tried to take the rag, but Bane stepped back and gently removed her hand from his forehead. “What, am I not good enough for you or something?” She snapped at him then.
Bane shook his head. “It’s not that.” he said softly. There was nothing else he could say; she left him then, and something crawled up inside of him then. The wretched longing for a body to hold, to cling to him, touch his cheek, kiss his lips. Bane ignored this lust and finished cleaning his forehead. He slapped on a band aid in the bathroom then, and took care of the nose as best as he could. It had stopped bleeding, at least, after sitting with his head tilted upwards for a while. Then he went back to his bedroom, stripped down, and tried to lie in bed without thinking, without hearing the shouting and laughter coming from downstairs. It was a task almost impossible to carry out.
Darkness smothered the room, though Bane’s eyes adjusted well enough. He could make out the silhouettes of the drawers, the nightstand beside the bed, the small alarm clock the only source of light in the room, screaming a dull red as numbers slowly ticked by the time. Each time the clock registered a new minute, Bane’s mind grew weary, and soon, the questions came flooding in, unstoppable.
What was he doing here? With these people? With Little Dawson? Marv Dawson? They weren’t really his friends, were they? And if they weren’t, who was? To these questions, Bane had no answers, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the truth; the truth had a nasty way of making everything that was light and good slowly melt into grimy, blackened filth. But yet, the questions still hung heavy, and finally, he allowed himself to play the silent game of answering himself, a bizarre conversation that had no end, and had been going for four years now.
What was he doing here? Chicago, Illinois. Born and raised in Indiana, and somehow, he was now in Chicago, no parents, no sister or brother to tease, not one soul who could call him family. And for that matter, if there was no family to connect him to, who was Travis Bane, for that matter? Was he even real? Or was he just someone made up, possessing this current body until it was used up like trash? That couldn’t be the case, though, could it? Travis Bane was as real as any other man. He had a life. He worked as a bouncer for a dance club downtown. Dirty Business. He had friends, and he supposed they were family enough. Little Dawson had been nothing but cool since allowing Bane to move in two months ago. Marv? Marv was…
Bane didn’t know. He like Marv well enough, but there was something off there. Something wrong. Maybe it was in the eyes; the man had devil’s eyes. The way he had grinned down at Bane was not humane or kind in any way. Bane knew that, despite his carefree personality and relaxed demeanor, Marv Dawson was not a friend. There was something there that was not right, and Bane didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was something he’d had to look out for in the future.
And his gun. Bane would have to remember that Marv carried a gun on him everywhere. That knowledge would come in handy later, if there was a problem with Marv. Travis Bane cursed himself quietly as he laid there, realizing how pathetic his thoughts had become over the last few weeks. Were things really getting that bleak? He didn’t know anymore.
And that bothered him. He barely knew what was coming, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know anymore. The violence of the evening had left him weak, and once again, the boy that Travis Bane had left behind four years ago manifested himself in that bedroom as Bane pulled the bed sheets over his head, knowing that he was a foreigner in a strange land, and there was no telling what tomorrow would bring down on his head. He shut his eyes, cutting out all light, and shut off the thoughts. He wanted to sleep without dreaming, go with the silence of a good night’s peace for once instead of always crawling in fear of the sun rising.
However, the night would crawl by, and Travis Bane would get no sleep. He tried his hardest to clear his mind, give himself no encouragement to think, but it was no use. He sat up the next morning, and knew that this was going to be a bad day.
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