Set Me Free

Chapter Fourteen

Juno covered her mouth with shaking fingers. Her first reaction was to go to him but her feet remained rooted. Her heart pulled at hearing Nix’s admission.

“Heh...guess I lied to you yet again.” Nix takes one step back from her, placing a large divide. Looking back up into the ashen sky, his jaw muscles worked overtime as he mulled over a way to continue.

“Ya, seems to be another one of your specialties. Unfortunately, it’s a shitty one.” Nix laughs softly. HIs eyes glittered faintly.

“I will give you one chance to explain.” She holds up her hand and sticks her index out. “Only. One. Chance.” She emphasizes each word. Nix nods slowly.

“Guess there isn’t any way of getting out of this, huh? Heh.” His aim for a light hearted joke fell dead. Rubbing the back of his neck, he took a deep breath. “I knew this would eventually happen. Just wasn’t expecting it so soon.”

“Waiting.” She taps her foot impatiently against the pavement. The driveway gathered a light coat of white with the steady snowfall.

“Remember when I told you about my brother? Following me into a gang?” He asks.

“Yea, you also said you two were inseparable.” She adds.

“I watched out for him. He was my charge and because of my inability to steer him in a better direction, I forced my brother to change.” Guilt riddled his voice. The raw emotioned invades his facial features.

“What do you mean, you forced him to change?” 

Nix’s deprecating laugh died on an exhausted sigh, carried away by the wind. He takes one step closer and stops within a few feet of her. 

“I brought him into that world and all of the so called ‘glory’, we attained only to shove him farther into his own hell.” Unable to sit still he begins pacing around like a caged tiger.

“We were part of the Crimsons and we were the enforcers. Me more so. My brother because he was smaller had more lucrative accounts.” Juno’s brain was firing away like a warehouse full of fast typing fingers trying to retain all of what Nix was saying.

“I don’t think you’ve said his name once. Why is that?” nix was silent for a moment. He drags both hands through his hair pushing his bangs back.

“My brother died long before that night. His soul died. He had a kind heart but the gang turned him into a monster, a killer.” 

Does that mean Nix has killed before as well? Juno wanted to ask but her lips just wouldn’t obey. She still kept her arms wrapped around herself, made her feel somewhat safer, better, whatever it made it, it’s just keeping her calm for the moment.

“I didn’t kill when I was in the gang. Hurt people? Most definitely but I never took pride in it, or joy for that matter.” Guilt and anger riddled him. HIs fists clenching at his sides, memories he’d probably rather forget.

“Why did you do it? Why stay with the Crimsons if you didn’t like it?” Juno felt like that was a stupid question but she didn’t know what to ask. She’s never been in a situation like this. Ever. 

“I was planning on it.” 

“Then your brother came along.” The one thing that makes enough sense on why he didn’t just leave. 

Nix nodded. He takes another step towards her. The snow crunching under his boots.

“Over time I eventually said enough is enough. I talked to my brother about getting out and starting over. Just anything to keep him from being destroyed all together. His very personality changed into the very thing we feared, a monster.” Nix walked back to his truck with Juno following hot on his heels. She was glued to his story, she wanted to know everything and didn’t want to miss it. Leaning against his truck he folded his arms again.

“He killed and enjoyed it, he would boast about it, recount the gruesome act down to the smallest detail. When he started his stories, I saw the glee and the fun he was having. I knew it was that moment it was time to leave, or I may lose my brother forever to the blood. I cornered him that night in the alley of a bar. I begged him to come with me and we can start again.”

“Oh, Nix.” Juno’s heart ached for him.Of course she’s still pissed and raving mad at him, but she isn’t heartless. She could feel and hear the pain in him, it echoed around them, as if the wind mirrored his emotions, it howled around them like a distant cry.

“He refused and told me I was an i***t. That I’d be abandoning him, the only family I had left. I had a few choice words that night. He refused and left pissed. I went home after that.” Juno wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anymore. The agony she could hear, and a part of her wished she remained blissfully unaware. She opened her lips to tell him to stop, that she doesn’t need to know the rest. Nix placed his finger against her lips stealing any words she may have uttered under his warm and gentle touch. Juno’s eye’s shutters briefly. His smile was sad,  his jeweled eyes remorseful and clouded with shame.

“That same night I heard someone banging on my door. When I opened I saw my brother. He was all sorts of messed up. He picked up nasty habits, cocaine, crystal, LSD, everything and anything he could get his hands on that could give him a ‘lift’. He was pissed though, more pissed than I ever saw him. Normally, I can handle him when he’s all hyped up on s**t, but not that time.” Nix says.

“He hit me and the next thing I know, we were duking it out in the middle of my apartment. He hated me, he hated the fact that I was leaving, hated the very existence of the ‘other side’. The side of rules and order, where chaos cannot reign. We fought and fought until we crashed through my patio door and over the 3rd floor balcony.”  Nix spoke somberly, a bleak chill in his eyes that matched the chill in the wind.

“Oh my god…” Juno whispers to herself, unable to say or do anything but gape at him as her heart was torn asunder. So it wasn’t true. Nix didn’t just murder his brother, it was in self defense. 

“He died and I lived. When we came down, he was on the bottom and I was on top, his body cushioned mine on impact. I watched as his soul left his body. He died then and there. I saw it. The police arrived and arrested me on the spot and I watched the paramedics cart my brother’s body away.” Nix shuffled closer to her, his chest inches away from her.

“I was charged with murder and went to prison for 6 years. Got out on good behavior.” He snorts. “As good as it gets I suppose. Then, by some miracle I created my club and made it what it is today.” He lifts her chin so he could look into her eyes, see the answers in her face.

“Now you know…” He says softly. His voice was barely above a whisper then took a step back. The fine layer of snow crunching underfoot.  She immediately missed the warmth from his proximity, missed the heat that bled into her.

“Now I know. I-I think I need to be alone. I-I need…” Her thoughts were all jumbled. She tried to reign in some of her collective thoughts. “Thank you for telling me, Nix. I--I’d like to be alone now please. Actually, another question, though I think I know the answer already.”

Nix’s face falls instantly then quickly back to stone like, unflinching and uncaring. “Then you have your answer. I’m not sure there’s anything left for me to say.” He opened his truck door and before getting in, looked at Juno from over his shoulder. “ I never meant to lie to you, beautiful. Once a con always a con and everyone will always view me as such. I...I didn’t want you to think differently of me. I’m sorry that I lied.” Regret etched into the lines of his face.

“And maybe you shouldn’t have judged me before knowing me.” Juno whispers just loud enough for him to hear. Turning her back on Nix she walked up the few steps to her front door. Nix’s voice calls out after her.

“You’re right. I shouldn’t have.” Then Nix was gone. His truck vanishing down her driveway and into the snowy night. As soon as he was gone she finally released a breath she’s been holding and slid down her front door, pulling her knees to her aching heart.

“God. Why does it hurt so much…” Watching Nix go was painful, like her heart was made of thread and he had one of the ends. The farther he went, the more she unraveled. Tears broke free. Finally crying the tears she held at bay into her hands. Tears for his pain. His torment. Tears for herself, her idiocy for wanting something different, and tears for her hypocrisy. She judged him before letting him come clean on his own terms. Even still, if he truly was as dangerous as the articles painted him as, there would be no way in hell she could remain silent and love him the way she was beginning to.