Natalie Damschroder - Heavy Metal

Sam moved closer and took her hand in his. She’d scraped it raw. Patches bled and had smeared on the pipe.

“We need to take care of these. Come back into the bar with me.”

She tilted her head and eyed the spot above his temple where he’d been hit hardest. It tugged when he shifted his eyebrows. The blow must have split the skin.

“You could use some first aid, yourself,” she confirmed. “I’m sorry you got hurt on my behalf.”

“You can make it up to me.” They started walking toward the gate.

“I can try.” She looked him over again, clearly checking for other injuries. “Lose any teeth?”

He ran his tongue over them. “Nope.”

“Crack any bones?”

“Only the fingers that hit my hard head.”

“Good.” She heaved a sigh, and Sam heard a world of weariness in it, something even heavier than the late hour and the altercation warranted. “Thanks for coming out after me.” She waited while Sam pushed the partially open gate against the underbrush holding it captive so they could squeeze through. Once he’d closed it and they’d continued on, she resumed talking. “Most bartenders wouldn’t.”

“I’m not an ordinary bartender.” Judging by the way she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, she caught the understatement. His curiosity rose even more.

A few moments later Sam led her back into the empty bar. She sat at a table while he retrieved a first aid kit, clean cloths, and bowl of water before joining her.

She sat quietly while he cleaned her hands and applied antibiotic ointment and bandages. As soon as he was done, she grabbed another cloth and dabbed at the various cuts and bruises on his face. She winced every time she touched him.

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt that bad,” he lied, trying to make her feel better. But her concerned frown deepened.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt for me.”

“It wasn’t up to you.”

She seemed about to argue, but closed her mouth and smiled. The soft curve of her lips drew Sam’s gaze, and for the first time, he saw her as something as simple as a woman. Her eyes were a deep green in the dim light, her skin creamy, and even after the running and the fear, she smelled of some flower that reminded him of his mother’s garden.

And then she said, “You proved yourself a real champion.”

Uneasiness curled through him, and Sam sat back. Riley dropped the bloodied cloth into the bowl of water, her expression closing off again.

“I think you’d better tell me why you’re here.”

Riley swallowed hard. There’d been an edge in his voice she hadn’t heard before. She’d thought calling him a champion was a compliment, but he apparently hadn’t taken it that way. Now she had even less of an idea of what to say to him. But he’d asked a direct question, and she only had two choices. Answer him, or leave. And if she left, she would burn this bridge. No second chance—she’d never have the nerve.

“I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted, letting her bandaged hands fall limply into her lap.

He folded his arms and tilted his chair back on two legs. “How old are you?”

Riley frowned at the odd question, but hey, it was a place to start. “Twenty-three. Almost twenty-four.”

“So you’ve only been a goddess for a couple of years.”

The word chilled her, even as it drew a knee-jerk reaction based on years of conditioning. “Goddesses aren’t real.” She was almost surprised the words didn’t come out in her mother’s voice. “They’re scam artists.”

Sam didn’t get annoyed or defend them, as she’d expected. He just nodded to acknowledge her statement. “Are you? A scam artist? Did those people pretend to attack you so you could draw me in and then steal from me or something?”

Heat crept up her cheeks. “No.”

“So you did channel energy through that metal pipe and blow two people across open space.”

How the hell did he make it sound logical instead of ridiculous? “I did.”

“Do you know those people? Why are they after you?”

She lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know who they are. I never saw them before.” She paused, trying to pull together too many details, and Sam spoke before she could elaborate.

“So they’re not the reason you’re here.”

“Not completely. They’re part of it, I guess. I just don’t know how everything connects.” She pressed her fingers against her eyes. Now that the adrenaline was gone, everything was catching up to her again. She longed for a real bed and a soft pillow. With a deep breath, she tried to explain. “My life is kind of messed up. I don’t know where this…power comes from. What’s true and what’s not. What’s coincidence and what’s—” She waved a hand toward the back of the building, indicated the altercation. “Deliberate. I was hoping you could help me, but I don’t even know how. Besides, you know, beating up the bad guys.” She twitched her lips, and Sam smiled back, reassuring her that he didn’t think she was a nutcase. Not yet.

“Sounds like a long story.” He stood and gathered the trash and first aid supplies to carry behind the bar. “It’s after two. Why don’t we table this until the morning?”

She let out a short breath. It was going to be okay. “That sounds great.” She stood and braced her hands on the rough tabletop as all remaining energy drained out through the soles of her feet and into the floorboards. She’d find somewhere to hunker down for the night—the woods across the road might work—and by the time they met tomorrow she’d have all her thoughts in order and know what to tell him and what she hoped he could tell her.

But Sam was too perceptive. “Do you have a place to stay?”

“Of course.” The lie popped out before she weighed pride against practicality. Again, Sam read her too accurately.

“If you help me close up, you can crash at my place. It’s a little house with a spare room over the garage,” he added before she could even think about protesting. “Then we can talk in the morning.”

Riley didn’t want to impose that much on him, but she hadn’t asked, he’d offered. And a room over a garage sounded like heaven compared to the cold ground. A bed and a pillow popped into her head again, and she could have whimpered. “Okay. Thanks.” She almost offered to pay him, but remembered she had no way to do that. Besides, she had a feeling it would just annoy him.

They spent half an hour wiping tabletops, flipping chairs onto tables, and mopping before walking the six blocks to his little—and he wasn’t kidding—house, where he left her in the one-room garage apartment with a towel, a T-shirt that would be gigantic on her but probably fit him skin-tight, and a promise of excellent coffee in the morning.

She slept better than she had in months. If she dreamed, she didn’t remember. A few times a car passing or some other innocent noise woke her, but without the pulse-pounding anxiety she was used to.

Eventually, the room was light enough and her brain had recovered enough that she couldn’t sleep anymore. She yawned and stretched but didn’t jump out of bed. Sam had said he usually slept in because of his work schedule, which gave her time to consider how their conversation would go.

He’d already called her a goddess, a label she’d been too afraid to apply even after studying the Society website and checking out some of the Facebook profiles of women who did use the term. Goddesses weren’t secret or anything. Some of them seemed to have businesses where they used their abilities in various ways. But it all sounded like psychics selling a bill of goods to the gullible, and Riley didn’t know anyone who’d ever met a real one. They weren’t connected in any way to her old life.