EVO Universe 1: The First (11 page)

“You doing Bubba again? You doing Bubba?” he threw her over his shoulder, grabbing her legs, and began to paint her feet with the paintbrush tickling her.

“No! No!” Sophia laughed, “You know that makes me pee! No! No!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She had to fight herself to recoil away from the memory, a happy memory with a painful reminder that only paint filled this room. She pulled herself away from the room, finally making it to the master bedroom.

She braced herself psyching up before she walked through the doors, “One memory…focus on that one memory…focus on that night…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As she touched the double doors to the master bedroom, her memory transported her to that night, hours before her world changed. She was going to leave him that night; they had been arguing nonstop almost two months after he returned home injured from Iraq, and when they were not arguing they were barely talking to one another.

Sophia’s psychology background made her understand Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, especially with soldiers injured in combat; however, it was a completely different story being the wife of a soldier who was suffering from it. Money was never the issue, they had more than enough especially with his trust fund, military pay, and her work; she also could live through the night terrors.

What she could not live through were the nights of silence, being in the same house with the person she was in love with, and feeling so lonely; there were no talks of children, or starting his custom auto restoration business. Instead, there were late nights alone at home, or him stumbling in drunk after a night with his friends, or just angry and snapping at her about something; especially simple or stupid things. She asked him to go to counseling with her, and he flat out refused. She would take extra shifts in the hospital just so she did not have to come home and deal with him.

She couldn’t live like this, she needed some time to think so she decided to take a couple of weeks off work and go stay at her parents in New York for a while to figure out if this life was worth continuing. She did not expect him to be home; she thought it would be a long night of waiting before she could confront him; she found the master bedroom doors closed, which was unusual; she listened at the door for a minute to see if anyone was in there with him; she heard what sounded like him but no one else. She took a deep breath and opened the door to every wife of a veteran worst nightmare. Robert sitting on the bed hunched over sobbing uncontrollably; holding his Beretta M9 locked and apparently loaded…a very bad combination.

She thought it was best postponing telling him she was leaving him as she entered the room slowly with her heart in her throat, and fresh sweat soaking her doctor scrubs. It was like walking into a field of landmines as she neared her husband.

Sophia calmly almost innocently asked, “Robert…honey…what are you doing?”

He sobbed harder, as she edged closer to him, unsure whether or not she should call the police.

She took a breath and decided to see if she could defuse the situation herself, “Robert…baby…give me the gun…”

“I’m gonna burn,” he blubbered with his chin buried in his chest, his finger wasn’t on the trigger, but the safety was off, and Robert was a quick shot, “I’m gonna burn…from what I’ve done…oh God forgive me I’m gonna burn…”

Sophia gently asked again as she now stood in front of him, “Robert give me the gun…give me the gun baby…”

At this point, he went into a near hysterical state flailing his arms around with the gun forcing her to back up a bit, “All that blood! All those people! I’m gonna burn! I’m gonna burn…”

She decided best to take a more direct approach not going for the gun as she knelt down in front of him, cupping his face and looking him dead in eyes, “You’re not going to burn…you hear me…you’re not gonna burn…”

Robert sobbed dropping shoulders, “Sophia…you don’t know… what I’ve done…you have no idea what I’ve done.”

She shook his face fighting to get his full attention, “You served your country…you gave them everything…but you’re mine again…you hear me?”

Tears now poured as she lost control of her own emotions, “You are mine again…And they are not taking you away from me…you hear me? They’re not taking you away from me…”

She kissed him, he pulled away but she kissed him repeatedly, and then ripped the front of his shirt open kissing his shrapnel scarred chest. He pulled away clearly not in the mood, “Sophia…stop…stop…please stop…”

Refusing to be rejected this time, she jumped up straddling him holding on by his ripped shirt, which sparked his now hair trigger rage, “I said stop!!”

This time she was not having it, as she gripped his torn shirt and screamed back, “I’m not stopping! You are mine! You hear me…you are mine…so hit me…throw me off…shoot me…do what you have to do, but I am not stopping till you put down that goddamn gun…and touch me! Please! Just touch me.”

She does not stop as she kissed and nibbled all over his torso and neck holding onto his ripped shirt for dear life until she reached his lips as he gave a weak attempt to fight her off. Unable to fight anymore he laid down the gun lifting her into the air as she wrapped her legs around his waist letting him take her as willingly as she came to him. He ripped the front of her medical blouse with ease as she did his shirt. A night of trembling passion from bodies that had not touched in so long, they slept that final night entangled in one another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She pulled out of the memory knowing what was going to happen next. She clutched her chest trembling and weeping; it was a thousand times more intense being there and reliving it, she should not have come back, but she had to find out why was Robert so distraught. What was he going to burn for? The answers to her questions were not there. As she opened the doors to an empty bedroom, the entire house was bare; their furniture and belongings gone God knows where. This was no longer her home, and she had to leave it for good this time.

Sophia snuck out of her home with a clearer vision of a gritty memory, but no clues. As she locked the door for a final time, she decided to take the key as a keepsake; the only thing she had of her old life now. Nevertheless, as she prepared to take flight again to figure out her next move, another familiar sound pierced her ears like nails on a chalkboard planting her in her tracks. A screaming woman and glass breaking; the Martins were at it again.

Craig Martin was a senior executive for a major insurance company in Houston, he was also an abusive prick who liked letting his hand fly especially against his wife Tammy. Tammy was a stay at home wife and mother, by Craig’s choice. Sophia saw very little of Tammy, because of her sometimes long work hours as a surgeon, but when she did see her, she remembered the shy like smile that went with the light blue eyes. She remembered how that smile would disappear when Craig pulled up, and the first time her scream woke both her and Robert out of their sleep.

The many times they either went over there or called police to go over there and deal with the situation. Sometimes the police would walk away giving him a warning, a couple of times they walked him out in cuffs, but then Tammy would go and bail him out an hour later. He would stop for a couple of weeks, but then Tammy would supposedly do something to set him off again.

It became so redundant that the neighbors decided not to get involved anymore; Tammy became the joke and gossip of the neighborhood, while Craig became the person you avoided all together.

It did not stop until Robert finally had enough and decided to take matters into his own hands, having a little “man to punk” chat with Mr. Martin. He gave Craig a warning that made him stop cold turkey. He did not go into much detail of what he said, but the gist of it was that he refused to live in a neighborhood where there was a wife beater living next door to him, and since he was not moving; Craig had two options.

Option one, was for Craig to move himself. Option two, was to stop hitting his wife. He also gave him option three if he refused option one and two, again there was not much detail into it, but the gist of it was that he was a Marine, he had Marine friends, Special Forces friends, and Black Ops friends.

He knew where Craig worked, and could easily track his routine whether it was going to the strip club or going to bang whatever whore he was cheating on with behind his wife’s back, and something about never finding the body. He also hinted that his father was a highly decorated four star General, so there was no way he would do any jail time, much less see the inside of a prison.

Craig needing to be as close to work as possible decided to take option #2, apparently this lasted until Robert’s death.

Sophia narrowed her eyes, and hissed her teeth in disgust, “Dumb bitch…”

In her head, she was thinking that her now dead husband was the reason, her psycho for a husband ceased and desisted pounding her face into Playdough, and now that he was not here, four years later she was still too stupid and weak to leave his friggin ass. It was not fair, and she had her own problems, which were mountainous to another late night ass kicking session at the Martin’s house. She went to slink away in the dark never to return when a squeal once again stopped her from taking another step.

A crying child wailed, “Daddy! Please stop! Daddy! Please!”

To which Craig Martin barked back, “Shut the hell up and go back to your room! Come here bitch!”

Little Ethan, he was one years old before she was locked up, she remembered him being delivered in her hospital. Tammy was by herself. Craig did not even show up until the afternoon the next day. She looked up into the dark starry sky cursing the heavens; this had to be a cosmic joke of some kind, God was up there pissing Himself with laughter; and it was spraying all over her. She about faced as the second cry was louder radiating down her spine, she marched right through their yard heading for the back door. As she neared the door she hesitated; doing this would alert everyone looking for her that she was indeed in Houston; it would be extremely difficult to near impossible to do what she came to do. She still had time to walk away, until she heard the sound of a fist pounding flesh like hamburger followed by a pleading yelp, followed by another fist and another fist.

She growled as she stabbed the custom cherry wood door through with a knife hand, before gripping the door ripping it out with part of the frame tossing it into the yard to god knows where.

They forgot to arm their system probably due to the hell going on which meant she had time to get out of dodge when she was finished. She was surprised no one heard her rip the door off as she rushed into the living room area only to find no one there. Her ears propped up to the near hoarse cries of little Ethan over the commotion going on upstairs.

Sophia darted up the stairs, each step she took caved in whatever wood step she hit sending splinters flying. She turned left running down the hallway toward the noise, which happened to be from the master bedroom. Stopping in her tracks, she saw something no decent human being should ever see.

An animal standing over a woman barely half his size with a now unrecognizable bloody and beaten face as a little boy bawled uncontrollably in the corner of the bedroom. She found it ironic sentenced to death for a murder she did not commit, when she wanted to commit murder at that moment.

A huffing and puffing Martin looked up from his dirty work to see a lioness standing in the door of his bedroom, he asked, “Who the fuck are you? What the hell are you doing in my house?”

He did not recognize her because of the large hood covering the upper half of her face, and probably because Sophia was originally much shorter with long curly black hair instead of dreadlocks before going to prison. She did not answer him as she broke into a stride with the intension to break his neck.

“Crazy bitch!” Craig proved to be an equal opportunity woman beater as he hauled off and slugged Sophia, not expecting to hit skin denser than probably steel itself.

He hollered coiling away as he broke at least three of the knuckles on his right hand. Sophia stood there stunned with disbelief, not that she felt a thing, but the fact that he actually hit her. Aside from the fight at Mountain View, which was sheer chaos, she had never been in a fight in her life, not even as a child. Except for a couple of paddling from either her mother or father when she was naughty, no one had outright hit her before. Superhuman or not it was still startling.

Craig Martin groaned clutching his hand, “Wha…wha the hell are you?”

The startling was fleeting was she turned to beat Craig into pink sticky stuff, when the son of a bitch bad hand and all grabbed his wife’s vanity chair delivering a cliché chair shot to the skull.

Obviously, it smashed to pieces on impact, but the sheer gall that he up and hit her again made Sophia lose it.

In the middle of it all, Sophia did not notice a badly beaten Tammy crawling out of the way of the new ruckus in their bedroom.

With her one good right eye and whatever senses were not knocked out of her, Tammy witnessed a woman three inches shorter than her husband grab him by the front of his shirt, and charge shoving him back first into one of the walls of their bedroom putting half of his body through it. She then pulled him out of the hole she made with his body, hoisted him effortlessly into the air, and with a swing hurled him back first through the door and part of the wall of the master bathroom. Part of his shirt torn during the throw which she still had in her right hand; she gave it a quick look before letting it fall on the hardwood floor.