Mr. Real (Code of Shadows #1) (16 page)

He could barely teach the class after that. Could barely focus. He felt happy when she messed up the drills and happy when she didn’t. He’d tried to keep a lid on it—Veecha had a strict code about his instructors flirting with students, and Paul would never cross him. But Paul planned to ask her for a date once the class was over. Four weeks. Veecha wouldn’t like that either; Veecha thought girls eroded a fighter’s will and regimen, but Paul felt strongly about Alix.

She’d galvanized him with that brightness, and he wanted to…what? Engage with her, capture her, grasp her—
something
,
anything
.

He was training for nationals at the time, and sure enough, his regimen fell apart. Master Veecha accused him of being distracted, but really, it was happiness overshadowing the hunger and misery and fear that had always driven him. He cared only about the excruciatingly beautiful agony Alix created inside his heart.

And he got trounced in the ring at Nationals.

Paul was devastated; Nationals was supposed to have been his big break. He’d been favored to take it all, and instead he’d lost. Master Veecha’s disappointment was even worse than the humiliating loss. The man had rescued him from the streets and given him a home, been a father to him, had molded him into an elite fighter, and this is how Paul repaid him?

The next day back in class, he found himself standing behind Alix, holding her arms, moving them in the correct pak-sao motion. And she’d laughed, playing the floppy-handed puppet, and then he’d had the impulse to laugh. Even after losing at Nationals, he wanted to laugh with her. He felt happy. It was such a new feeling she woke within him.

It was then that everything flipped—he remembered the moment exactly, when he decided, in a flash, that she had to leave. He’d pointed at the door and ordered her out, saying something asinine about her only wanting to play games. He was really saying it to himself. It was as if she’d woken something inside him, and he wouldn’t survive if he didn’t tamp it down, cut himself off from it. As if this new feeling she evoked was so beautiful and fragile, it might turn his life inside-out.

It was like a dream, even then, watching himself do this terrible thing, as though he was cutting himself off from his own heart, becoming his own torturer.

He remembered the bewilderment in her eyes, right before she’d covered it with bravado. “Come on,” she’d said to her friend, and she went and snatched her bright bracelets and strutted out. The sound of the door shutting behind her hit him like a shock wave. And right afterwards, perversely, the familiarity of the pain and misery comforted him.

It was a good minute or two before he realized somebody was speaking to him, a student with a question; he answered in a haze as the enormity of his mistake came over him.

What had he done?

He had an assistant take over and ran out onto the street, up and down, but Alix and her friend were gone. After class, he rooted through the desk and located her sign-up form in the files, thinking to get her contact information, to call her, apologize, see if she was okay. But there was only one legible word: Alix. The ‘i’ was dotted with a sloppily drawn star; her last name and address were scribbled. Impossible to make out. She’d scribbled her friend’s information in the same way.

His heart fell.

He’d watched for her long after, hoping she’d come back to class, but she never did. Why would she want to? How could he have kicked her out like that? He channeled his anger at himself into his fighting and slowly regained his focus. But, for years after, he kept an eye out for that blonde ponytail and that sassy strut. When his fights started being televised, he sometimes wondered if she was out there, if she might see him.

He lowered the gun to show he wasn’t a threat. He wasn’t the lunatic. He just wanted to gather her up in his arms and take her away from here.

“Were you looking for me? I don’t understand how you’re here.”

He thought about his strange impulse to get to Malcolmsberg with new wonder. Why
was
he there? But thank goodness he was. “I don’t understand, either,” he said. “I just had this sense I had to get here.”

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about all this. I can only imagine how horrible it must be to come here and this guy has your face.”

“You’re sorry?! He was
attacking
you,” Paul said. “But you have a witness. We need to call the cops. He is done.”

“He was tickling me.”

“You were screaming.”

“In laughter.”

“You were begging him to stop. You said
don’t
. When a woman asks a man to stop the way you were asking that man to stop, the man stops.”

Her face went red. “It wasn’t what you thought.”

He swallowed with difficulty. This was like a nightmare. “No, I know what I saw. What I heard. That wasn’t okay.”

“It’s fine. I’ve got things under control.”

He didn’t believe her. She was frightened, feeling ashamed—he could tell. He could see it in her eyes. Probably didn’t help that Paul had almost killed the guy. He needed to seem calm if he was going to gain her trust and help her. “Look, maybe I got a little intense, but I know what I heard.”

“No, I’m handling this.” She planted a hand on her hip. “It’s my responsibility. You have to let me—”

“This shit only escalates,” he interrupted, “and it ends with you in a pine box. Bottom line, that lunatic is done attacking you. And he’s done with the Sir Kendall act. I won’t have it. This is how it’s going to be…I’m telling you how it’s going to be.”

“You’re
telling me
? You can’t just go busting into people’s homes and telling them what to do. This is a free country, where you can look and act however you want. This situation—you need to just leave it.”

“Leave it? The man looks like me. I think that gives me a stake.” A horrible thought came to him. “Did you have a part in this? Making him look like that?”

“Oh,
please
. Please!”

Had
she? “How did you even get hooked up with him?”

“I uh…” she sputtered. “It doesn’t matter. We’re fine, okay? Please trust me, okay?”

“So a man who has gone through insanely drastic plastic surgery, and voice training, and who knows what else, to style himself as super-spy Sir Kendall, a character from a commercial, has you handcuffed and screaming. Do you not see a red flag anywhere?”

She flicked a shock of bright hair from her eyes. “Am I getting a lecture on sane behavior from the man who attacked my guest in my home and is now holding us at gunpoint?”

Yes, he’d done that.

“God—” she stared at him with an expression of wonder. “Look, I know this must look completely weird and bizarre to you. I’m sorry, too. And I get it. I get that you thought I was in trouble.”

“I
know
you were in trouble.”

“It’s Sir Kendall who’s in trouble—”

“Stop calling him that.”

She pointed at the house. “He’s in trouble, he’s somebody I’m trying to help, and this whole thing is my responsibility—”

“You think it’s your fault he was attacking you?”

“Stop it! Stop acting like…this is not battered woman syndrome, okay? And I’m not the person you remember from class. I take my duties seriously now, and I have a solemn responsibility to the man in there, and part of that is keeping you away from him because it’s pretty obvious you have a violent rage against him and…well, hell if I’m going to explain it to you, because you need to leave. I agreed to talk with you. You can see he’s not coercing me.”

She remembers the class, too,
Paul thought with stupid excitement. “I’ll help you help him,” he said. “We can get him psychological help. Do you know what his real name is?”

She looked alarmed.

He swallowed, hating the fear in her eyes. “We’ll find it out,” he said. “I doubt he’s changed his fingerprints. And somebody crazy like that has probably been in the system. There’s probably family somewhere that wants the real guy back.” Paul was starting to feel hopeful. They would make this guy stop being Sir Kendall, get him away from her. “There’s a million ways we could get him help—”

She straightened up, seemed to steel herself. “Listen up, Rambo 2000, here’s a better plan—I’ll forget about the breaking and entering and property damage you’ve created here, and you’ll go around the driveway and leave in whatever monster truck you rode in on.”

He didn’t buy her bravado. It was forced—he could tell. It was as if he could read her in some deep and essential way.

“I will not leave you here with him. I’m going to call the cops and report the assault I witnessed, and I’ll report this guy pulling a gun on me, and guess what? I bet this thing isn’t even registered, and I bet the cops aren’t going to be very happy about a mentally ill person waving around firearms.”

“I’ll say it’s your gun.”

“I wonder who they’ll believe? The reputable athlete? Or the man who is claiming to be a TV character? Or maybe the girl with the raw wrists because he was handcuffing and assaulting her?”

“Uh!” She glanced at the screen door. “Why can’t you leave it alone?”

Of course she didn’t want interference. The woman never did. “The man’s deranged, and he needs help. He needs to be committed.” He turned back to climb the stoop.

“No—” She raced around and jumped in front of him, pressed a hand to his chest. “You can’t!”

“I can.” Actually, he wasn’t so sure about that, but Alix was buying it. He’d do what it took to get her away from that man. He’d play the heavy. Maybe this is why he’d been drawn here—to save her. He still couldn’t believe it was her.

“There must be something I can give you to leave. I’ll give you money to leave us alone. I have tons of money. If you give me twenty-four hours.”

“You think I would accept money to leave you in danger?”

She dropped her hand. “I’m not in danger. Listen, I could have a million bucks for you in twenty four hours. I’m serious.”

Was it possible she was a little bit crazy, too? Sadness sliced through him. “I don’t care about a million bucks. The only thing I want is for that man to never threaten you again. And to stop being Sir Kendall.”

“So you’re going to go tattling on us without knowing the situation and totally screw us up.”

“Call it what you want. My phone’s in the car.” He started off the other way, heading around the house.

“Wait.”

It was like an out-of-body experience, watching himself be this asshole. People often tried to ban UFL matches because they perceived the fight to be violent. Interfering douche bags who didn’t understand the sport. Now who was interfering? But he’d heard what he heard. Her screams still rang in his head. And if she was crazy, all the more reason to get involved.

“Wait up!” She grabbed his sleeve.

He stopped. “What?”

“Money
and
I help you get him help. He trusts me. You know that would make all the difference. For a delusion.” She made air quotes for delusion.

He crossed his arms.

“Look, here’s my offer.” She looked over at the house. “Crap,” she said.

“I’m waiting.”

“You think he’s this deranged guy. I can see why you think it—I’d think it too in your place. And I will be on your side to get him help, I will pay for extensive therapy for him, whatever you decide—but
only
if you think he needs help after you fully understand the situation. So here’s my deal: you will let me explain it to you and give me one day to prove what I say. One day.”

“Prove what? What is there to prove here?”

She glanced up at the house. “That something supernatural is happening here. And he really is Sir Kendall.”

“Do I look like a total fool to you?” He turned and walked on, feeling disheartened. She was lying or crazy. Maybe he couldn’t read her after all.

She grabbed his sleeve. “Paul, please.”

He hating the pleading look in her eyes, hated that he was the one putting it there.

“I don’t expect you to believe me,” she said. “That’s why I’m asking you to let me prove it. I have this power, okay? It’s the power to make anything and anybody appear. And that man in there really
is
Sir Kendall.”

“You have magical powers.”

“Actually, it’s my computer. Please.” She seemed flustered, desperate. “I discovered this thing with my computer—it’s weird—I don’t know really how it works, but it makes things appear. I brought Sir Kendall as a sort of test. It was a mistake to bring a man to life. He’s not exactly equipped to be in the real world, but now that he’s here, I have to help him. I won’t let him wind up in a mental institution.”

She seemed to believe the story. Or was she just buying time?

“I know you don’t believe me. It was hard for me to believe, too,” she said. “My friend and I think it’s from a computer program my aunt wrote. She was into the whole occult thing. But I tested the magic a bunch of times. I got a necklace, a barrel, an outfit, and then Sir Kendall. I know it sounds bizarre. He’s a perfect replica of you physically. You think that’s plastic surgery?”

“That’s exactly what I think.”

“Okay, tell me this, do you have a scar—” she touched her right thigh— “a white line right here?”

Paul narrowed his eyes. “How does that prove anything? Some of my fights are televised. The camera could’ve picked it up.”

“You fight on TV?”

He snorted and turned.

“Wait!” She grabbed his arm and gestured toward her thigh again. “You have a little bend. When you’re, you know.” She crooked her finger out from her pelvis.

Hard.
“Jesus.” He pulled from her grip. It seemed impossible that she’d know this. Had she spoken with some of the women he’d slept with? Had
he
? “A creepy amount of information about my body isn’t going to convince me your computer is magical.”

“That’s why you have to let me show you. Look, you find me a jpeg image of anything you want in the world, and I’ll make it appear on my doorstep in exactly twenty-four hours. Think of something impossible. A robot, a unicorn, a Medieval suit of armor. I mean, what if? What if it’s true? Isn’t there maybe something you want? You choose any image, and if it’s not on the doorstep in twenty-four hours, I am your ally in whatever you want for Sir Kendall.”