Page 43 of The Muse
I stagger, hand eventually reaching for the handle, and swing it wide, ready to deliver every slurred thought that’s in my head. The pain that immediately slams into the side of my jaw sends me reeling backwards towards the floor. Everything around me blurs and changes, both the booze and the pain causing a riot of incoherent images.
Blinking and groaning, I push myself from the floor a little. It isn’t until I manage to find clear vision again that I realise it’s Landon standing over me.
“Get up,” he snarls at me. “You’re getting more of that.”
My feet move, body trying to remember what the hell it's doing, until I’m up and in his face. Another hit comes so quick I don’t even have a chance to dodge it. My head whips sideways, legs staggering to keep me upright this time, and my fingers go to my mouth. Blood seeps through my lips and onto my fingers, the lip already swelling and throbbing like a bitch.
“You fucking dared touch her?” he says, getting closer to me. “My sister?”
My vision through this drunken haze swims, but is he fucking blaming me for something? The front of his arrogance sends me straight towards his waist, shoulder barging him backwards until he slams into a wall. Another punch lands in my ribs, and then his fingers try prising me off him as I get in a few jabs of my own. It’s enough for me to back off and create some room, neck cricking out if we’re going to do this.
“You’re accusingmeof something?” I spit. “You sent her here in the first place, you cunt.” He stands taller than me and moves in again as if this is just the beginning of a long-running hatred. It is. This is years of it, all now building into something neither of us can contain. “Sending a virgin to my bed was a new low, even for your family. Your idea or your father’s?”
He barrels at me, both fists swinging like he’s about to kill. My shoulders tense, ready for it, limbs retaliating with as much as I’ve got. Chairs tip over in our scuffle, my head rebounding off units as he gets the upper hand on me too many times. He’s bigger, stronger, and a damn sight less drunk than I am, and before I know it, I’m back on the damn floor again.
My hair is grasped, face tipped up to look at him as he glowers over me. “Fucking Foxtons,” he growls. “You think I’d send her to fuck you?”
I struggle at the pain twisting my head about, trying to get free of it, and then groan at the impact of my skull being rammed at the floor. Twice it gets sent down, blood pounding through it as I feel the solid impact ricochet through my whole body. Another groan and he releases me, a kick delivered to my stomach before he backs away entirely.
I roll, gagging for air from the winding, and finally start pulling myself to my feet again.
“Don’t you ever lay a finger on her again,” he snaps, picking up a cloth from the counter and wiping his hands.
I’m only halfway up before I feel the full force of his shoe in my ribs again. It sends me straight back to the floor, another groan of agony following. The cloth is dropped in my face as his foot pushes me all the way over until I’m on my back. That’s all I can see—him, his blond hair, his size.
I groan again and try seeing clearly, maybe hoping I can somehow deliver more fight in this drunken haze. I can’t. I know it, and his sneered disgust certainly shows it.
He crouches and looks me over, eyes raking across what is already near defeated. “And here I was thinking you might be a challenge of some sort,” he mutters.
Ipush on the floor, trying to get some leverage against all the pain that keeps telling me to stay the hell down. I’m not staying down. No bloody way is this arsehole thinking he’s won.
Another punch suddenly comes at my jaw, making it whirl sideways until I’m fully down with no getting up. Everything swims in whatever compromised vision I have. There’s nothing but swirls of dull colour and agony.
Retching again, I slowly fall onto my side so I can throw up if I need to.
“You're a pointless fucking entity in my life, Foxton. As is your whole family.” The sound of his shoes hitting the floor makes the pounding in my head worse, as does the thought that at the moment, in this state, he’s right. Pointless and useless. “Pathetic really.”
I gulp in a breath and retch again, hand going to my mouth to wipe away some more blood.
“I suggest you stay down and crawl into a fucking hole. Or die somewhere,” he says as his suit trousers blur in my view. “Either way, stay the hell away from Persephone. And me. Next time, you won’t survive pissing me off. If this was the States, you’d already be dead.”
The shoes disappear from my clouded vision, both of them slowly becoming more distant in sound. It’s then that I realise he’s gone, and I’m nothing but a wreck sprawled out on the floor of my own damn flat. Several gulps and groans pull in and fall out of me as my body lurches between vomiting and passing out. Everything hurts, my pride included. My one chance to get this out of my system, to actually finalise whatever this feud between our families is, and I’m too drunk to be anywhere near effective.
And now I’m just lying here. Still ineffective. Still in pain.
And still fucking pointless.
Time must go by. I don’t know. I’m too wounded to think, let alone track the passage of time or pretend it matters. It doesn’t. My life is nothing but everyday monotony, none of it helping me see a way out of it. The only thing, the only near glimmer of sweetness in it, was her. And I threw her out because of who she is under the lie she portrayed.
I roll at the thought of that, dragging myself over to the screens so I can at least see something of merit in my life while I rot. My fingers push on the screens, just enough pressure behind them that a slither of the painting can be seen, and I fold back onto the floor again to gaze at it.
Pretty.
Pure as the driven snow. A light smile tips my lips, regardless of the pain it causes, and I keep staring at the lines she gave me to play with.
“Scott? The door was open and …” What’s left of my brain baulks at the sound of someone, a man. “Jesus, Scott, what the hell happened?” Someone grabs me, heaving me upright until I’m propped on the wall and still staring at the painting. “Christ. Let me get a towel.”
Shaun?
