The Cocky Hockey Captain

Chapter 24 ● The Storm Inside

I boarded the bus near the end of the line without really looking where I was going.

I hadn't stumbled upon boxing by accident. After I was recovered in exchange for the ransom and taken to the hospital for examination, I'd been so traumatized that I couldn't say a single word. The nurses and doctors and my dad and my uncles, aunts, cousins and family friends tried to coerce words out of me. The authorities wanted to know where I was taken, how the culprits had looked like, anything about my surroundings and more importantly, what had been done to me. The more they asked the more I remembered the events from that morning or the ones from the afternoon. At first I'd been numbed, as though the images in my head were not something that happened to me. There was simply no way something so horrible could be done by humans.

But the more they insisted, the more a new emotion started taking root inside of me.

One day I exploded. It had been dad, a cop and a nurse asking that time. They really needed to know, or otherwise the investigation was going to run cold and the murder of my mom and my kidnapping and subsequent abuse would never go punished.

The first words I said were, "De verdad quieren saber?"

I let out a wail of pain that quickly morphed into a scream. I was in a haze of a rage that ran so deep that I didn't know who I was anymore. Before their eyes I destroyed everything around me. I threw things at them. I tried to pull at my hair.

When they finally restrained me I broke into the tears I'd been holding back for days since my rescue. I cried and cried for what felt like forever, until I was dried of any emotion.

And then I told them.

It was years later, when what was left of my family and I moved to the US, that my brother told me what happened after that. After a few days of searching the key landmarks I had described, the police had found the gang that had orchestrated the entire attack. It turned out that they were led by one of the security employees of Bernal Oil, someone who knew just exactly how much money the Bernal Solis family had. They apprehended the entire gang, except for the actual perpetrator.

It took them longer to catch the man, but they did. They got him while on his way to Margarita, trying to escape from the atrocities he had committed. He resisted the arrest and it cost him his life.

I'd looked into Miguel's green eyes as I asked him, "How many bullets did it take?"

He swallowed thickly, grabbing my cold hand in his warm ones. "It's over, chiquita. He's dead."

"How many?"

His chin trembled and his eyes welled up. He'd been just a high school sophomore when we had that conversation. A kid. But what was done to our family forced us to get acquainted with the ugly of the world too fast.

"Five," he said, and at the time I was satisfied with the answer. It was two bullets more than what he'd used to kill our mom.

I never found out if Miguel had made the number up on the spot or if it was true, and it didn't matter. Those people could never hurt us again.

And yet for years I stood on edge, almost waiting for anybody else to hurt me. I was scared and angry, and all the therapists that money could buy were unable to magic me into a semblance of a normal girl.

Until one of them suggested boxing. He said I needed discipline and focus, something that I could control. Something that I could work towards with my own skill. It turned out that he was familiar enough with the sport because his brother in law, Paco, was a boxer. That was how I met Paco, who brought me into his gym and taught me everything I now knew. And even though I was still full of anger, I was not scared anymore. And now I could use those skills for the good of a whole team, and not just myself.

I was snapped out of my reverie by Hunter as he presented a massive plastic bag to me.

In a gruff voice he said, "I believe this is yours."

It took me a few more seconds to bring myself down to reality and realize that the bag he held in front of me was no other than the one Lena Lee had given me, full of sandwiches for everybody.

"Oh," I took it from him. I'd better start distributing these before we took off. Just how many were there in the bag?

I was rummaging around in it, trying to count, when Hunter cleared his throat. I looked up, noting the ugly and bruised swell above his eye. We probably made a great pair to the outside observer.

"I just wanted to say thanks." He pursed his lips as though it had been hard to utter the words.

I nodded. "Any time. Contrary to what he may say, I'm not just Dean's bodyguard, you know?"

This drew a smile out of him. "Yeah, it's definitely good to have you in the team."

This was the first time someone said something like that to me, and my jaw dropped. Hunter rolled his eyes.

"Don't look so happy, it's pissing me off."

"I'll try my best to not piss you off anymore," I said, fake saluting. A beat of silence passed and I dared to ask, "Friends?"

Hunter gave a jerk nod. "Sure. Bros before h-"

I held a hand up. "Don't even finish that sentence."

He chuckled and I slapped a sandwich on his hand. I told everybody they were from the diner and had to endure a wave of teasing over how cool it must be to have such a nice mother in law. I just told them that their jealousy was showing and to check it. Dean avoided my eyes entirely as I handed him one wrapped sandwich, and even though it stung I figured it was for the best.

I was the last one to sit down and ended by myself on the row next to Dean and Brian. I huddled in my coat and put on my headphones, remembering that the ride back was going to be long and again quite lonely. Although at least it seemed like half of the bus was no longer pissed at me.

I rested my head against the cold window pane and closed my eyes.

I shouldn't have started thinking about the past, because now I couldn't stop. The past few months had been good at keeping me busy, but when I was alone my mind drifted. When I fell asleep in my seat, that was what I dreamed about, except the events started in a backwards sequence until mi mamá was alive again. In my dream I cried out for her and clung to her waist, asking her — no, begging her not to take Miguel and I to school that morning. Hoping that we could just stay home.

"Charlie!"

I finally opened my eyes and it took me a few seconds to realize that I was in the bus, that my arms were a vice around someone who was not my mom and that I had no control of my tear ducts.

I felt a gentle pat on my back and the warmth cut through the cold that was gripping me from the inside. I sobbed and breathed in short bursts. My heart felt like it was racing for something that it couldn't reach and my vision was hazy.

"What's wrong?"

I recognized the voice. I recognized the arms around me and the solid chest I was snuggled up against. I somehow even recognized his scent now. And as much as I would have liked to be able to answer Dean's question, I couldn't, because I was in the middle of the first panic attack I'd had in years.

Then I heard more voices. Coach Martel was asking someone if there was anything that could be done. About me, I figured. Somebody else asked Dean what was wrong with me, and if I'd been okay I'd have laughed and said so many things, too many to share.

It took what felt like forever for my breathing to slow down, and a lot of it had to do with the soothing circles Dean's hand painted on my back with his hand, with the fact that, no matter how uncomfortable our position was, he held me tight and didn't let me go until the images in my head were replaced by other ones. The Hogwarts Express. My favorite cafe in Orlando. Walking across college campus with Miguel. The drive my dad and I did together when we arrived into Silver Grove. My teammates, the friends I'd made here. The blur of the ice rink when I was skating on it. Dean's arms around me as he taught me how to shoot. His arms around me now.

I closed my eyes again and wished he'd never let go.