“Daaamn!” Clayton hollered and ruined the moment.
Thundering footsteps approached from behind Russell, then a powerful force smacked him on his back.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Clayton asked, appearing next to him. “Dude, that was an absolute banger of an exit!”
Russell glared at his friend and gritted his teeth through the sudden pain flaring between his shoulder blades.
“Where’s the mic when you need one?” Clayton whooped and cackled beside him, uncaring of those still within earshot. “Imma drop it right at the center of their table as I enjoy Collins' stupid expression on his stupid face.”
Russell snorted as he nursed the sting coming from his back.
“I bet you that Brad-hole back there won't be forgetting that burn anytime soon,” Clayton piled on. “Knowing the guy, he’ll probably carry this grudge until our next reunion in another ten years.”
“You think?” Russell fought back a growing grin as they made their way to the lobby. “Maybe we should have a fifteen-year reunion then. Make sure Brad gets another reminder in five years instead of ten.”
“Oh, I bet he would love that. The money I'd pay to see that precious reaction on his face like a meme template.” Clayton chuckled. He did an about-face and began walking backward. “I knew attending tonight was gonna be worth it. You think someone was smart enough to get any of that on video?”
“I—” Russell was about to say he wasn't sure, but he already knew the answer. Like a cold shower, he felt his good mood washed away. He should have been basking in positive vibes at that moment, pumping his fist in the air, grinning from ear to ear, laughing without a care like his friend. Instead, all he got was a bitter dose of reality, reminding him of the issue that actually mattered.
Russell rubbed his hand on his face. The world wouldn't even let him enjoy his moment.
Behind them, Bradford and his posse have found their voices. Like ending the ceasefire on a battlefield, the barrage of taunting resumed.
Keep barking, Russell thought, refusing to give them any acknowledgment.
Clayton, though, had no problems giving them a finger as a parting gift. The guy enjoyed all kinds of attention, even if it was coming from an angry mob intending to have them lynched at any second. Satisfied that he had flipped off just about everyone in the room, he returned to walking normally beside Russell, his arm finding Russell’s shoulder. “Brad-hole finally found out in the end, huh?”
“It was only a matter of time,” Russell said. “The guy’s been fudging around all night.”
“Aaand we're back to using ‘fudging’ again,” Clayton groaned.
Russell chuckled. “Force of habit.”
They passed by the last table before the doorway for a second time. Only a few steps left. Behind them, more and more of Bradford’s lackeys had joined in on the shouting contest. They hurled insults at Russell’s back, not content with him getting the final say.
And still, Russell couldn’t care less. Even if his phone had stopped working, even if some thunderstorm was brewing outside, his victory over Bradford still counted as a small win. An unknown weight had been lifted from his mind. The welcome sensation made him breathe easier, his footsteps lighter. Coming here hadn’t been such a bad idea. In the end, his night hadn't turned out to be a complete letdown.
Something popped. Everything went dark.
Not only the lounge bar or the main lobby, but the entire clubhouse was plunged into darkness. And for a brief moment, it left behind a void of silence that encompassed the entire place—all except for a single voice.
“—literally gonna let the freak go home to his whore of a—”
Then a loud explosion erupted from outside. It drowned all sound, deafening Russell’s ears. The crash rattled the windows in the restaurant, swept over the entire room, and shook the artwork and decor hanging on the walls all around them.
As his ears rang, he replayed what he had heard—or what he thought he had heard. It had only been possible because the complete silence had been so abrupt. If it hadn't been, he wouldn't have even heard that particular snippet of conversation. But whether through coincidence or bad luck, he did. He had heard what he shouldn’t have.
The voice had come from behind him, where all the rest of the earlier insults had come from. A part of him immediately placed the blame on the usual suspects. He pictured Bradford, Tommy, or any one of their friends, but it couldn't have been any of them—the voice had belonged to a woman.
Russell slowly turned to face Clayton, his movement stiff, his mind still in disbelief. His friend’s face was hardly visible in the darkness, but his expression was clear as if it were daytime. The look in his eyes visibly changed from one of shock and surprise to one of fury and frustration. And Russell knew. He hadn’t imagined things. His friend had heard it as well.
Someone had insulted Rosalyn.
Insulted his own sister.
For everyone to hear.
And just like that, all thoughts of leaving vanished from his mind.
“Let’s bail, man,” Clatyon said, and he clasped Russell on the shoulder, reading him like an open book. “You know it's not worth it.”
Russell gave his friend a small nod before turning to the faceless crowd. “That's why I'll never be rich like you, Clay,” he said. “I always find myself doing things that aren't worth a damn.”
Clayton groaned beside him, resigned to what was about to happen.
In that dark, crowded lounge, it wasn’t Clayton’s frustrated words or the crowd’s growing panic that Russell's mind perceived—it was the static, the buzzing noise in the air, the high pitch in his ears.
And the rising song in his blood.
“Care to repeat that?” he asked into the darkness, his voice barely audible over the growing commotion.
Shadows moved about. People talked over each other. Confusion appeared to have gripped the minds of everyone in the large room. Seconds passed, but he got no answer.
“I said, CARE TO REPEAT THAT?” he yelled at the top of his lungs, his voice louder and deeper than anyone else’s, resounding across the room, quashing the crowd’s chaos into stillness.
Silence. No voice, no shout, no noise. And no answer.
A faint red light—probably from the emergency lights—faintly illuminated the room, allowing people to barely see in the dark. In the gloom of his surroundings, the expressions of those around Russell slowly became visible. Some squinted at him. Some were frowning back. A couple of others averted their gazes, and a few chose to openly stare at him, their eyes wide open in anticipation.
Russell strode forward, his footsteps moving as if in concert with his heartbeat. Step by step, he neared Bradford’s group. One by one, those sitting with his quarry turned to watch his approach until the whole table was looking at him as one.
“Oh, man. Oh, man,” Clayton muttered as he followed a step behind.
Russell soon reached the cluster of tables the football players shared among themselves. The emergency lights had everything in the lounge awash in red, casting an eerie sight.
A few at the table have yet to return to their seats, too busy clearing up the mess Russell had left for them. The ones sitting in front of him stared back. Some were glaring. Few were glowering. But all their unmoving faces were tinged in the same reddish hue—all of them seemingly tainted with blood.
Compelled by something Russell could only feel but not see, his footsteps led him opposite where his target sat. He didn’t even glance at anyone else. His entire attention was solely focused on the woman sitting beside Tommy, the same woman Russell had already seen together with the guy earlier.
Before Tommy had decided to ruin his night.
“I asked you a question,” Russell said, facing the woman across the table, her bottle-blonde hair obvious even in the dim light.
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tommy's companion said. She leaned back in her seat and gestured around her, her movements stiff, her expression even more so. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but all the lights just went out.”
Russell wasn't fooled. Under the growing crimson light, he noticed the telltale signs. Sweat beaded on her brow. Tremors wracked her shoulders. In the silence, he could even hear the quiver in her voice, the raggedness of her breath.
The beating of her heart.
The rapid tapping of a heel underneath the table could have been anyone’s, but the intense drumming of the woman's heartbeat betrayed her.
Russell could hear it as clearly as her voice, as clearly as the explosion that had caused this blackout. It was so loud it surprised him that no one else around the table even noticed. But he was sure it was hers. It was her.
“Why bother pretending?” Russell asked the woman. “Everyone here heard what you said.”
“I literally don’t know what you’re talking about, Flynn,” the woman reiterated. “What are you trying to say?”
Russell tilted his head. “Are you being serious? Or are you too stupid to understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Now, now, no need for that,” said the guy sitting to the woman's left. “Why don’t you calm down, yeah? No need to get butthurt about anything. I’m sure everyone here knows she was just joking around, right, Court?”
“Joking?” Russell asked, easing his gaze to the guy sitting beside her. It was another familiar face, one of his former teammates, but it was someone whose name he had long since forgotten. So Russell improvised.
“Do I look like I'm laughing to you, asshole?”
The guy flinched, and he swallowed down whatever he was planning to say next. His eyes darted around him, hoping someone at the table would come to his aid.
Russell saved the guy the trouble and turned his attention back to the woman. “I’m simply asking you to repeat what you said earlier,” he continued. “Right when the lights went out, with me conveniently far away while my back was turned to all of you.”
“I…” The woman tried to pull a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear, but she failed. The tremor on her hand hindered her movement. She couldn't control her fingers the way she wanted to, her limb completely losing its connection to her brain. “I really don’t—“
“Are you going to make me repeat myself?” Russell asked, scrunching his brows together.
The woman’s heart thundered in his ear. She attempted to appear dignified, to remain unruffled, but the spike in her heart rate was unmistakable. Her heartbeat kept climbing, rising faster and faster and—
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“Enough!” Tommy slammed a giant fist on the table, causing the woman to shriek and sending plates and utensils clattering. He rose to his full height and pointed a meaty finger at Russel's face. “I’ve had enough of you, Flynn!” he growled. “You can't just come here to our table and tell my wife what she could and couldn't say, you hear me?”
“Your wife?” Russell said, refusing to back down. All night long, he had to rein in his emotions, refusing to rise to any of their taunts or get baited into saying something he'd regret—but he was only human.
And every man had his limits.
“Your wife insulted my sister, Thompson,” Russell said as he held the bully's gaze. “And here she is, shaking in her seat, pretending like she didn't say anything wrong.”
“Well, cry me a river, motherfucker!” Tommy spat. With a mighty kick, his chair slid back away from him, its legs screeching against the hardwood floor. “I don't give a crap about what Courtney did or didn't say.”
A curse came from behind Tommy, but the guy was already busy rounding their table to reach Russell on the other side.
Russell blinked. Court? Courtney? That Courtney? That was a name he would never forget that name, but he shelved the errant thought for later. He had more important things to worry about, namely a three-hundred-pound boar of a man charging his way.
For a man his size, the former starting center could move, and he reached Russell in a few seconds.
“And guess what, you little runt,” Tommy said, drilling a finger into Russell's chest. He leaned down and got right into Russell’s face, the veins popping out on his forehead as he loomed over his smaller stature. And after blowing out his fetid breath, the bully whispered his next words.
“Coach ain't here to rescue you this time, asshole.”
Russell’s body stiffened. There were a few things in life he had to learn the hard way, and this situation reminded him of one he’d never forget. Whether they were kids in high school or grown-up men, bullies like Tommy only understood one language, and that was violence.
There was no going back from here. And this was no the time to hold back. As much as he wanted to simply wait for Tommy to run out of steam, Russell couldn't. He would only end up being pushed around and treated like a punching bag, all the while forced to listen to threats and insults.
But among the drivel the meathead had spouted, he had gotten one thing right—Coach Sanders wasn't here, which was too bad.
For Tommy.
“So what if she refuses to answer your questions, huh?” Tommy asked, and with a single hand, shoved Russell back a step. The pig outweighed him by a hundred pounds, and it showed.
Russell clenched his teeth. He was done being patient.
“So what if she talked about your sister behind your back, huh?” Tommy gave him another shove, this time with both hands. Russell had almost lost his footing, and he barely braced himself that second time.
There wouldn't be a third.
“So what if she insulted your trailer trash whore of a—“
Russell closed in.
From the balls of his feet, the twist of his hips, through the extension of his arm, he delivered the opening blow.
He struck Tommy in the upper gut, just under his ribs, at the pit of his stomach, dead center in his solar plexus.
And Tommy Thompson—the six-foot, 300-pound mammoth of a man—collapsed straight to the floor.
Noise erupted all around. Screams and shouts and scraping of chairs replaced the earlier silence.
In front of Russell's feet, Tommy lay in a crumpled heap. The guy gasped for breath, choking on himself, only to start vomiting food, alcohol, more food, then more alcohol.
Russell spat on the ground, disgusted at the sight. For years he had worked in construction, doing hard labor from sunrise to sunset, six days a week, fifty weeks a year, year in and year out. Tommy, meanwhile, spent all that time in every buffet line he could find in town. The outcome had been a given.
The knuckles on his right hand ached, feeling as though he had struck a punching bag without any gloves or padding. But Tommy was only the beginning, so Russell kept his head on a swivel, watching. Waiting. And just in time.
The guy to his right was already on his feet, his arm cocked back, intending to blindside Russell. For someone who looked burly enough to be a heavyweight boxer, the guy moved fast.
But Russell was faster.
He stepped inside his assailant’s guard and dodged the haymaker. With a twist of his torso, he yanked the guy’s overextended arm, using his momentum against himself.
Then Russell heaved. He planned to throw the bruiser straight to the floor, to slam him into the ground with all his strength.
The guy had aimed a heavy strike to the back of a person’s head. A wild blow. A dangerous blow. And Russell wanted to teach the fool a lesson.
But he underestimated the guy’s weight.
After nearly breaking his own back, all Russell managed to do was send the guy tripping forward. His hands flailed around him as he fought to keep himself from falling over, but before he could regain his footing, he unintentionally tackled another person heading for Russell.
The heavyset man ended up bulldozing the smaller guy, bringing them both down to the ground.
Russell gaped at the lucky coincidence that had unfolded before his eyes before he flinched. He had gotten distracted like an amateur. He snapped his gaze around, wary of getting caught off guard.
Back at the large guy's table, one of his friends shot to his feet. He yelled out a curse after seeing Russell manhandle his buddy like a sack of potatoes. Without waiting for the rest to join in, the musclehead charged straight at him, bellowing out a war cry of his own.
The guy's addled brain must have been somehow impaired. He should’ve learned from his friend’s mistake. But his rage had blinded him, his common sense taking a back seat. Abusing performance-enhancing drugs would do that to a person.
Russell found no reason to exchange blows with someone like him. He didn’t even wait for the guy to get into range.
Timing his strike, he pivoted on the ball of his left foot and snapped his right leg sideward. The hard soles of his work boot slammed against the rusher’s unguarded chest. The kick sent the roid freak flying before he could even properly join the fray.
The guy crashed right back into his seat, toppled over the backrest with his feet rising over his head, and body-slammed against the floor, his chair falling backward right on top of him.
And the guy’s cry of agony was music to Russell's ears.
Adrenaline flooded his system. Familiar energy flowed through his veins, filling his body with endless strength. He felt like nothing could stop him. But he wasn’t superhuman. His power wasn’t limitless. He couldn’t allow himself to be swept away by the torrent—he needed to ride the wave.
So he rebalanced himself and caught his breath. He had taken out three guys in quick order—four counting the poor bloke still pancaked under Mr. Haymaker. Russell had acted with practiced ease, his movements precise, his form close to perfect. But the fight had only begun. And his eyes darted to the next person closest to him.
The man flinched back in surprise, his open hands already raised in surrender.
“Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit,” Clayton kept muttering nearby.
Worried for his friend, Russell took a glance over his shoulder. But the giant was fine. Russell had been the only one attacked so far. No one else around Clayton had dared to even approach him.
Bullies loved to make fun of smaller guys, preying only on those they knew weren’t a threat to them. And whenever a fight broke out, those same bullies would go for the weakest guys first. They were predictable that way. Smart, even. But this time, evidently, they had chosen poorly.
Clayton shook his arms as if trying to keep them loose. His friend prepared himself to engage anyone at any moment, but Russell knew better. The guy had no clue what he was doing. Knox didn't how to fight.
Muttering a curse, Russell returned his gaze in front of him, staying alert. Spending time in the gym was different from spending time in the ring. He needed to make sure to watch over Clayton when the real fight began. But in the chaos they would soon find themselves in, would he even be able to watch over himself?
He sensed Clayton stepping up right behind him. Russell nodded. Good. Keyed up as his friend was, the big guy was still able to use his head, allowing both of them to watch each other’s back. For the time being.
“What are you waiting for, huh?” Clayton taunted, ready to take on all comers. “Bring yo’ ass over here! C’mon, baby! Time to show you boys what I got!”
Russell grimaced as he listened to his friend begging for trouble, and he prepared for the next round. But like a snapshot in time, all movement in the lounge came to a screeching halt.
People stood still like statues, their faces carved into expressions of shock. No one dared to move. No one wanted to go next. Not Bradford, not the jocks, not any of their dates or spouses, and not even the rest of the alumni watching in horror as the brawl unfolded.
No one except for Courtney.
The woman scrambled her way around the table. She pushed aside those rooted on the spot, calling out her husband's name the entire time.
“Tommy! Oh, my God, Tommy!” she exclaimed, falling to her knees after reaching her husband's side. She wrapped her arms around Tommy, bawling her eyes out as she rocked the guy back and forth in her embrace. The large ball of a man was dry-heaving now, his whole body convulsing in clear agony.
Seeing this, Courtney turned her tearful eyes back to Russel, anger burning in her gaze. All her earlier apprehension of him was now absent, gone without a trace.
“You bastard!” she snarled. “What did you do? What did you do?! Look at what you did to my husband, you freak!”
Russell stared back at the hysterical woman, unmoved by her tears. Did she expect him to wait for the bigger guy to throw the first punch? Did she expect him to simply stand there and allow himself to get ganged up on by the entire football team in a straight fight?
Russell scoffed. He was also well aware of the force behind his own strikes. His punch earlier hadn’t even been halfway enough to send Tommy to the hospital. With all the fat her husband was sporting, the blow had been no different from a love tap to his diaphragm. A hard one.
The retching meatball would survive.
Courtney blinked, and Russell could see the gears shifting inside her head. She wouldn’t find any sympathy from him. She knew. So the woman changed tactics, turning her frantic gaze to those standing around her instead. “What are you fools waiting for?” she screeched. “Fucking do something, for fuck’s sake!”
But no one did.
Russell stepped right in front of Courtney, and the rest collectively took a step back.
“I guess ten years certainly is a long time,” Russell muttered, his voice carrying through the now silent room. “I guess it's not just Brad who must have forgotten a few things.” He loomed over the couple, his shadow casting them in even more darkness. “Looks like your poor husband here did too.”
Courtney seemed to remember herself and attempted to rise to her feet, only for her knees to collapse under her. With a gasp, she fell over her husband's curled form, landing on her rump.
At any other time, Russell would have found the sight hilarious. But no one was laughing now. And he was in no mood to smile.
“And it seems there are many of you here who need to be given a personal reminder,” he continued, eyeing the blood-tinged silhouette of the crowd around him before staring back down at Courtney. “Maybe then you'd remember what happened back in high school—something important you should've already known before you decided to mess with me.”
Courtney blinked back at him, sprawled on the floor and frozen in place.
“Here's a piece of trivia y'all must've forgotten.” Russell leaned over the woman’s prone form. “Even after all this time, throughout our town’s long history, our high school has only expelled one single person.”
The woman shuddered, and she looked about ready to faint as a few hisses of breath came from the audience around them.
“Do you recall who that is, Courtney?” Russell asked. He needed to keep his calm, but inside, tightness wrapped around his chest.
Courtney couldn’t utter a word. The woman could barely open her mouth to breathe. Even under the ambient red light, her face only turned paler.
“Do you now perhaps remember why that person was expelled?” Russell asked again, leaning even closer. He was suddenly feeling both hot and cold. Numb and fervid. The turmoil inside him needed to be controlled, but the pent-up energy he had been bottling up all night was now burning in his chest, raging through his veins, screaming to be unleashed.
Courtney's lips quivered. She had turned mute, having long lost her voice. The woman failed to fight back fresh tears forming in her eyes, and she could only lay there on the floor in silence.
Everyone was silent now.
“Do you really not know?” Russell said through gritted teeth as his blood boiled inside him. “Or do you need me to—“
“Russ!” a voice called out, and someone grabbed his shoulder from behind.
Russell exploded into action. He spun in place, swinging his elbow behind him—only to remember who was behind him.
He stopped at the last moment before he accidentally landed an elbow in Clayton’s jaw. Biting back a curse, Russell shrugged off his friend’s grip. He gave Clayton a quick frown before returning his attention to the paralyzed woman in front of him.
“Russell!” Clayton hissed, grabbing him once again. This time his friend grasped his shoulder even tighter, the pain from his grip sudden and intense—strong enough to give Russell pause.
He shot Clayton a glare over his shoulder, his patience already stretched thin. But his friend wasn’t even looking at him.
“Look, man! Look!” Clayton shook Russell on the shoulder and pointed at the other end of the lounge, in the direction of the emergency lights that had the entire venue flooded in red.
But there were no emergency lights.
Whatever backup the country club had in place, they had never turned on. Clayton was pointing at something else. Everyone was looking at something else.
Beyond the lounge chairs and dining tables, beyond the crowd of onlookers, outside the window walls dominating the far side of the room, right above the valley of Solace Springs, the night sky bled.
“What the hell is that?” Russell muttered.
“I don't know, man,” Clayton whispered back. “But I’m pretty sure that isn’t part of the weather forecast…”
The club, the cliffside road, the valley town—everything had gone dark except for the sky above. But there was no moon to illuminate the night. Not a single star shone in the sky. Only the curtains of light remained, and it was completely different from before. The odd phenomenon fluttered like blood red drapes, seeping down from above like rivers made of lava, webbing like bright red cracks across a glass dome, slowly spreading to the far ends of the horizon.
It was no aurora. It wasn't even close to anything natural. Russell had no idea what it was. Perhaps no one here did. But as he stared at the light show in a mixture of awe and apprehension, he was sure of one thing—it was just wrong.
Russell forced himself to take a deep breath, to ease his stiff neck and loosen his tense shoulders. The unknown chill had left him. All that was left behind was an empty husk of a person, a guy who was both heavy and weary, but now a man with a clear purpose.
Russell turned away—from the weirdness encompassing the sky, from the fight left unfinished, from everyone still there—and he headed straight for the exit.
He didn’t care anymore about the wasted effort of coming here tonight. He couldn’t care less about Tommy still reeling on the floor, or Courtney who still hadn't apologized for insulting his sister, or Bradford for trying everything to make his night miserable, or even Jude who had started it all with that one phone call.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Clayton called out after him.
“Home,” Russell said. He didn’t look back. He didn't care about anything else. All he cared about now was doing what he should've done the moment he had gotten back into town.
“I’m going home.”