Spike: (#3.5 The Beat and the Pulse) by Amity Cross

something’s the matter…”
    Rubbing my eyes with my free hand, I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”
    “ Ash ,” she scolded. “I’m totally awake now, so spit it out.”
    I sighed heavily, the darkness in the apartment echoing how I felt on the inside. “Something’s happened.”
    “What do you mean? Are you okay? Is Ren okay?”
    “She left me.”
    Violet gasped audibly, and it didn’t help my psyche one iota.
    “What do you mean?” she asked, the disbelief plain in her voice.
    “It means exactly what it sounds like,” I retorted.
    “What happened?” She sounded distraught, echoing what was happening below the surface of my passive exterior.
    “I went to see Mum and Dad.”
    “You what?” she shrieked, making me hold the phone away from my ear. “Why would you even consider it?”
    “I guess I wanted to know if…” I trailed off, not even knowing why I’d gone there in the first place. Everything was so fucked up, I couldn’t tell up from down.
    “What?” Vee asked.
    I sighed heavily, really beginning to feel both her and Ren’s absence.
    “ Ash .”
    “I guess I wanted to know if I was still like him,” I spat.
    “Like him?” she scoffed. “Not a chance.”
    “I am, Vee.” I stood and began to pace the length of the lounge room. “I am like him. A monster .”
    “A monster? Shit, Ash, you get angry sometimes, but you’re not a monster.”
    “I get so fucking angry I lose all control, Vee. I can still feel it inside me—” I cut off abruptly as I came face to face with the empty spot where I’d hung the photo of Ren and me. The hole was still there from when I’d ripped the hook out of the wall. A broken, jagged hole.
    “Ash?”
    “What if I hurt her?” I whispered. “Of all the things I’ve done… Hammer, The Underground… What if I hurt her by accident, Vee?”
    “Is that why she left?”
    “No, I never touched her like that. Never .”
    “Then you kept all of this from her. Is that it?”
    I grunted. That’s exactly what it was. Keeping secrets like this from Ren was pretty much the same thing as cheating. Her dad had cheated when she was a baby and left her for a new family, and she’d been lied to about that by her mum her entire life. Her whole childhood was based on secrets. Of course she felt like I’d ripped her heart out.
    “Ash, you know—”
    “ Vee .”
    “She brought you back, remember? You told me all about that day at Beat, and she was the only one who took that chance.”
    She was right. That day was one of many that were burned into my brain. I’d gotten a threatening phone call from Hammer trying to put me off my game so he could edge me out of the Championship at The Underground. After he and I both got kicked from the AUFC, I’d gone to prison and he’d gone straight to cage fighting. He’d been king until I was invited along for the ride, and I inadvertently took what was his yet again. He’d threatened Violet that day, and he’d had his sights set on Ren even though she and I weren’t together at that point. I vaguely remembered smashing glass and her hands on my face. That was all. Being apart was just as dangerous as being together, so I gave in and fell in fucking love.
    Everything was different now because this time, I was the one who was dangerous. I was a ticking time bomb without a countdown. That shit could go off at any time.
    “It doesn’t matter,” I spat. “She’s gone.”
    “Then you need to go and get her the fuck back!” she exclaimed. “Do I have to come and get her again?”
    I remembered when I’d been under house arrest, I’d sunk into depression so badly, it had forced my then reclusive sister to go out into the world and find Ren. I’d been so stuck in my own darkness that I’d forced an agoraphobe to go do what I couldn’t. How was that being the right man for Ren? It wasn’t.
    “You need to tell her everything, Ash,” Violet said. “You need to let her in all the