Dangerous Woman Pt2

Tonight, Friday 26th.

"Ava Mackat is willing to inject me this syringe. I can't scream for help nor defend myself with a weapon, I am truly doomed! What should I do.. this last fight will depend on whether I win this fight brilliantly or lose like an idiot. Our whole plan could fail right here and now if I can't fight by myself. Stella is counting on me, Carter is watching and Michael is... Anyway, I must win. Let's do Stella's plan!" is what he thought.

Roméo manages to push Ava far from him and run to the opposite corner of the cage. And then, while he was thinking of his next move, Ava starts snickering with an evil aura surrounding her. She doesn't even hide the syringes she got in her hand, she's not afraid of anything.

On the lifted up stage, one of David's collaborators, Douglas Wian, whispers to his ear,

- Shouldn't we do something? She's gonna drug him in front of everyone! It's completely against the rules!

- Yea and she's gonna pay for this infraction, however, I wanna see how this shrimp will manage to kick her ass.

- What..? Because you believe this tiny guy is strong enough to drive her out?! You must have lost your mind. Have you seen him?

- I did but I also saw the girl who trained him, "Lyra". With a trainer like her, everything's possible.

- Huh? Do you know her...-

Before he finishes his sentence, David glances at him devilishly. Douglas gulps loudly and sits back at his seat.

In the cage, Ava walks to him with a fierce look, as if she was ready to eat him up completely. Roméo sighs while looking around.

- I must say, Mr.Tommy, you are sure handsome, maybe a lil' bit too handsome to be my husband but we can come to an arrangement. My knives can help you become as handsome as he was.

Abruptly, she dashes to him and catches his neck violently while pushing him against the wire fences behind him, Roméo almost doesn't denfend himself.

- Aaaah yes... You are magnificent. Your soft lips, your weak cat look, even your scent is divine! You are a true angel in this stinky dumpster built by David. I almost feel sad that I have to drug you..

Before she tries anything to Roméo, a loud noise interrupts her. The noise came from the other side of the cage from a very tall and manly guy.. Michael. His mad look says a lot about his current state. If he truly wanted to, he could wring the wire fences blocking him from Roméo by the strength of his fists but he tries to keep calm.

Ava giggles in a very feminine way and turns his head back to Roméo.

- Looks like your boyfriend there is getting mad~. How jealous. Didn't thought that a hard guy like him would get that worked up over me trying to seduce you.. how insecure is he? Well, it doesn't matter anyway 'cause in the end, whether you have a lover or not doesn't matter. You'll be my next husband and I'll make sure to wipe out all of your homosexuality thoughts out of your head in one night.. and if it's not enough.. prepare yourself to a LOT of sex with me and maybe losing one arm.. or two. I like submissive men.

Roméo stays silent and doesn't answer. On the other side, Michael is getting impatient and angrier. Stella leans against the wire fences with a very serious look directed to Ava.

- Don't be so stressed M, Roméo's gonna crush her. I believe in that guy.

- That's not the point. Roméo could get serious injuries in there and we can't get in to avoid this disaster.

- See? You don't trust him. He's not the weakling you think he is, he has strength yes, he's less stronger than you, I give you that but he's smart. His intelligence is what will save him. At birth, God gave him an amazing intelligence and ways to use it, I don't know how you see him but you definitely get him wrong. I believe in destiny. If God chose to put him in the cage tonight, it's because he knew Roméo will handle it.

Michael glances aggressively at her and their eyes met for one second.

-... That woman is dangerous. One of my colleagues had to deal with her case. A thirty year old widow, killed his husband by voluntary overdose of xanax and ketamine, kept his dead body for two weeks. She didn't accept his death so she-

- Kept on having sexual intercourse with him until she finally realized it wasn't enough. And now, she's searching desperately for a new husband to drug him again and do her dirty things to him. A crazy woman in my humble opinion.

Michael grabs her by the neck.

- You knew who she was and still, you let Roméo get inside with her?!

- Tsk, you don't believe in him enough! If you keep on underestimate him like this, you will never get to fuck him y'know~-..

Michael tightens his grip.

- Kuhh- You can't f-fool me, I saw how you two look at each other-- if you're trying to have your way with him by treating him like a porcelain vase, hmph, you won't get to ram your big thing insi--

Michael clenches his teeth and pushes her harshly against the wire fences.

- S-see? You're mad c-cause you know I'm right! So quit your bitching and consider him as a man 'cause I don't know if you noticed but he is a guy too-- not a weak girl getting crazy over you for nothin'..! You got that look- that look who says that we're nothing compared to you, it's a very different look from his', y'know? Complete opposite.

Michael sighs deeply and releases her. He leans against the wire fences next to Stella while suffering in silence.

Back in the cage, silence remains between the two. But then, out of nowhere, Roméo places his hand on Ava's left cheek and wears a very tender smile.

- You wanna make me your next husband, right? I.. I'm all yours.

As he leaned to kiss her, Ava pushes him violently before his lips touched hers'. She takes two step back, inhales and exhales sharply and then.. falls on her knees.

- R-really.. you're willing to.. to be my next one? My one and only.. husband.

- Yes. And I'm willing to do even more than that.. if you want to do ~dirty things~ I'm up to it. Such an attractive woman like you, a lonely widow, must be rewarded.

Roméo gets on his knees and starts crawling to her slowly with an enchanting gaze. He gets to her right hand and grabs it. As he gets his face closer to hers, he remembers..

Flashback, Training afternoon.

Stella climbs up the wooden table while holding sheets in her hands. She clears her throat in a way funny way and glances at Roméo who's sat on a chair facing her, confused.

- So! Here's today's lesson! In order to be strong, my child, you shall be in tune with your mind~.

- The hell? That's not a lesson, I bet you found that silly quote on a random social media huh.

- Hmph, quit insulting my way of teaching! Why don't you believe in my saying?

- Well, that's just cheap and damn obvious. I mean, that's the kind of advice an old sensei would give to his trainees during a cliché training up on a hill.

- Ehhhh, that's mean~, I'm being serious here, why are you so rude with me?

- Correction! I'm being realistic.

Stella jumps off the table and grabs Roméo's hand quickly.

- Why don't you try my technique before criticizing it, hm?

- Huh? What do you want me to do exactly?

Stella places Roméo in front of a mirror and gives him gloves. He seems confused when she hands him gloves but he puts them on, even if he doesn't know why. He glances at Stella.

- Okay, close your eyes, boy.

Roméo sighs and ends up closing his eyes.

- Now, imagine you're the best.

- Urgh, that's dumb, let's stop-

- NOPE! We don't stop until you truly try!

- Argh..

Roméo tries to concentrate on Stella's deep voice and empty his mind. Her hands on his shoulders helps him to stay still.

She murmurs in his ear,

- Now imagine being immortal, invincible, powerful, popular, liked by everyone..

You have an incredible power. You are the strongest. Hide in these thoughts, believe in my lies, wear that mask. Nothing can resist you, trust yourself.

She gets even closer,

- After all, you can't die. Death fears you.

She gets her hands off of his shoulders and steps back. Roméo seems very concentrated, he seems to be inside his role.

- Now.. I want you to punch as hard as you can the mirror in front of you, don't open your eyes yet.

Abruptly, the punch that Roméo is throwing at the mirror is filled with a strength he never had before, a rage and a trust he never got to have formerly. It's like all his thoughts turned into raw and pure force that went in his fist when he hit the mirror. Stella taps on his shoulder to make him open his eyes and when he opened them, what he saw in front of him was spectacular.

The mirror was almost entirely shattered in front of him. There are also pieces of glass stuck in his glove. He hit right at the top of the mirror, where his face was reflected. His punch not only broke the mirror but also damaged the stone wall behind. When he noticed all of that, he stepped back with a scared yet surprised face.

- See ? If you believe in it enough, you can turn your thoughts in strength or whatever you need. All you gotta do is believe in yourself and forget, for one moment, that you can risk to lose something. If your eyes were opened, you wouldn't have threw such a punch. You would have been too scared of the noise or that the glove would tear off or that you would damage the wall behind or that the pieces of glass would injure you,... If you were aware of all of that, that your act had an effect, you wouldn't have been that strong.

- T-that's..

- Terrifying, right? Sometimes.. we just need to forget that our life has an impact. I bet that if we all believed in ourselves every times we do something, we would achieve so much more things. The key is to believe.

- You mean to lie to ourselves? I only manage to break that because of what you told me. Without your lies, I wouldn't have broke the mirror.

- Was it a bad lie though? Sometimes you need to lie to yourself in order to do what you want. I'm not saying that's what you should do everyday but.. when it's needed, you can forgive yourself for lying. After all, we're humans, right? We can be wrong and do mistakes, if the Lord do exist, he won't punish us for being hopeless souls who're trying to achieve things if.. we do become what we hoped for.

"I can't know if what she says is right for sure but.. this little exercise proved me that I had it in me. All I have to do is forget and believe. If I can become how I hoped to be, maybe I'll be able to forgive me for lying to myself for a while, right..?" is what he thought while watching the mirror he broke in no time.

Tonight, Friday 26th.

Roméo comes back to his senses and concentrate on his current goal; manipulate Ava Mackat. He brings his mouth close to hers.. but avoid it, he rather places his mouth next to her ear and whispers tenderly..

- I'm willing to be all yours, right here and now but.. you must do something for me before.

Ava nods her head frenetically, she's very concentrated on Roméo's sweet and enchanting voice which traveling across her soft skin to her tiny ear.

- I know you brought a strong drug here tonight and you intended to use it on me in order to.. seduce me in some way. But, I have other plans. I like shows. Do you have exhibitionism kinks?

Ava gasps loudly with excitement. Her breath is tight and all of her muscles are contracted. She could die of overjoy. Roméo slides his hand to her left hand, which is holding the syringes, and with his gentle moves and sweet gesture, he manages to takes the syringes of her.

Roméo smiles softly to her and without warning, drives deeply the two syringes simultaneously under her skin with a lot of strength and then, chuckles next to her ear before standing up and walking away from her body.

Ava starts convulsing some minutes later and then, finally return to her senses. She gets up and look at the confused and terrified crowd. Her peripheral vision is completely blurry, she can't distinguish the faces in front of her nor hearing correctly the crowd shouting at her, all she was thinking about is Roméo. She had to follow his orders no matter what.

- Now that you're up, how about you show to these people how mad~ you are about me?

Ava clenches her teeth with a smile and runs to the closest wire fences to hit them, scream at the crowd, laugh like a psychopath, trying to break out of the cage to catch the people who're talking about Roméo in a bad way. She feeds on the horror cries of the crowd, she have fun scaring David's collaborators while screaming Roméo's fake name all over the room. She's gone crazy.

- HAHHAAA! NO ONE can stop us! NO.ONE. Finally, my husband is back, he's back to me!

When Ava glances at Roméo, all she sees is her deceased husband. Her twisted mind can't even make the difference between is dead and buried husband and a random young man.

Suddenly, her gaze stops at Michael, his indifferent face annoys her. Ava walks weirdly to him and abruptly clings on the wire fences in front of Michael. He's not even afraid, he stands still and watches her desperately trying to impress him or scare him.

- You. You damn homo tough looking-like guy, that boy over there is my next husband. He's NOT YOURS HE BELONG TO ME. No matter what you'll try to get him back to you, every fiber of his soul is MINE AND ONLY MINE. His dead body will be my land of JOY, I can't imagine what kind of dirty thing I'll do again to my tired husband's body huh. He's gonna enjoy having me play with his leftovers. He's gonna-..

Violently, her face gets harshly crushed against the wire fences with an unrealistic strength. Her bones are cracking under the strength used to shut her up, her eyes go up to the sky and her breath is cut by the pain rising to her brain. She faints of several pain and brain damages due to the blow and her body falls on the floor, unconscious.

Behind her, Romeo's silhouette slowly takes shape and a cold expression never seen before on his face then appears. His cold yet serious face enchants Michael as soon as he lays his gaze on Roméo. He places his hand on the wire fence to take support while staring at Michael and Stella.

- HA HA! Looks like Ava is DOWWWNNN! She literally got CRUSHED by Tommy's strength, who would have guessed?!

Roméo turns around to David to listen to his speech and around him, the crowd goes wild. They're banging the floor, shouting his name, breaking their chairs and gathering in front of the cage, all around Michael and Stella, even pushing them to get the chance to share the same air as Roméo, be seen by him, almost touch him from the tip of their rotten fingers.

David chuckles loudly from his stage. Douglas pulls David's arm to him quickly.

- Hey! What are you laughing about? Can't you see? They transgressed your rules! How can you be so pleased to see them almost killing each other here?! Have you planned all tha-..

- Did you see it? The coldness in his eyes. He gave us the show we wanted-- no, we needed. I like his spirit and together with this "Lyra", they will be able to complete the job I need to be done.

- You're nuts..

David turns his head to Douglas with a crazy smile.

- Yeah, I am.

Douglas gulps and steps back after seeing David's twisted face but almost bumps in the other collaborators sat behind them.

David whispers to himself,

- These two are gonna be the bests.

Roméo exhales and ends up glancing at Michael who placed his hand above Roméo's on the wire fence. During a few seconds, it's like all the nuts people from the bleachers just disappeared from their sight and they were the only ones in the room. However, Stella scoffs to make them react and suddenly, Michael gets his hand off of Roméo's and both act like nothing happened.

- I know you looove your cousin but how about you get out of this cage so we can party?

Roméo nods shyly and leaves them to walk to the door situated behind him on the opposite of the cage. Whereas Roméo was walking to the door, the crowd followed him to the door to greet him warmly. At the same time and despite all the sounds around her, Stella's phone starts ringing. When she read her notification, her mood changes and she becomes impatient, excited. She whispers something to Michael's ear and walks out the room in a hurry.

By the time Roméo managed to pass all the excited people, he lost sight of Michael and Stella. Instinctively, he walks out the room and searches them outside in the district. For a short moment, he sees Stella's shadow appearing some meters away from him, a bit confused, he chooses to follow her wherever she went.

When he finally sees her entirely, she's exchanging money for small packets of a white dust Roméo didn't know the name of. Even if he didn't know the name, he's not stupid: he understood right away that Stella was buying drugs.

Roméo walks up to her when she finished buying her small packets from a mysterious man and stands in front of her.

- AH! R-roméo, i-it's you--

- What the hell.. are you..

Stella looks away and even tries to escape but Roméo grabs her arm.

- Are you a junkie Stella?

She gulps loudly.

- W-why would I b-be--

- Is that from him that you got the syringes from Jackie's fight?

- W-well we needed drugs quickly and he's a good guy in the end--

- A good guy? A man that builds his fortune and pays his rent with the money he took from desperate addicted people is a good man? I think you should review your definition of "good" Stella 'cause that..! It's not good at all.

Stella clenches her teeth forcefully.

- AND WHAT?! Now just because we won a few fights and I've been playing all nice to you, you think it grants you the right to judge me? No, lecture me?! Oh please don't do that with me kiddo, you don't know shit about true life in the US. Just because you saw a few documentaries on American ghettos that you think you can change us?! Let me explain it to you: life's not a damn Disney, I won't cure from my addiction just with the power of friendship!

- Stella.

- No! Let me finish. I don't care how you see me now nor how you saw me then, life's a bitch and this few grams are my way of escaping it now SCREW YOU and the hell out of my sight, damn foreigner!

Stella pushes Roméo violently and runs away quickly. He doesn't have the time to catch up to her that she already disappeared in the darkness of the streets of Drugcity. "I should have known something was wrong with her.. now she left. What am I gonna do now?" is what he thought.

Roméo sighs profoundly and turns around to the lighted road on the other side of the district, it's time for him to walk back home.

Next to the two big doors, Michael is leaned against the wall of the room, head lowered, waiting. When Carter, disguised with his gang, crossed the doorstep, Michael coughs loudly to get noticed by them. Carter turns his head quickly to him and startles.

- M-Michael..!

- Yo, long time no see, Nick.

Michael walks to him and stands in front of him with a very serious face. Carter's men start gathering around Michael, armed but Carter tells them to stop and stay in standby, he could handle it.

- It's time to speak Nick.

Next chapter: Excuses.