CHAPTER 1

A year ago and nowadays.

                                                         HUNTER

            Every week is the same shit, I lie on this damn couch, look at this idiot and he always asks me the same question, without changing a colon: “What brings you here this week, Hunter?”

            Is this for real? If it is a joke I’m not in the mood, stop this train I want to get off. He could at least pretend he cared, that he is talking notes of what I’m saying, I bet my worst fuck that if I look his notebook there will be a bunch of drawings of flowers, knives, who knows even sickles, because of my nickname, anything, instead something important I have said.

            I start to talk about how I feel, the way I think I suffered injustice being suspended from UFC, the fact that I got pissed off right now for only being able to fight clandestine fights, and he writes down this shit, without looking at my face.

            It had been almost a year since I have been going through psychotherapy to manage anger, my wrath that leads me to doing that much shit and I confess there’s still a long way to go.

            Without me even realizing, I’m screaming and Dr. Franklin gives me a kind of blasé look over his glasses.

            “Ah! Fuck, this little talk of ours every week, because I bet my fucked up hand that you didn’t make a single note on that fucked up little notebook of yours, fuck! I don’t know why I won’t leave here or I will do some shit.”

            That doesn’t shake him, he looks at me closing his wrists and he doesn’t run nor dive, nor even begs for his own life.

            Nothing, absolutely nothing!!!

            He just looks at me and keeps making notes on his “notebook from hell”.

            “Hunter, we have talked about this. I said I was taking notes and unfortunately I won’t force myself to show you. In the relationship therapist/patient, trust is indispensable.”

            “Dr. Franklin, you know I what I want to do when you say something like that, don’t you?”

            “Yes, I know, Hunter. Let me see the actual words, they are here on last week’s notes, I’ll read it to you.”

            I try to stop him torturing me even more, then I speak louder, what a psychological hell!

            “It’s not necessary, I already know.”

            Franklin pretends he doesn’t hear me and scan through the little notebook, reading emotionless.

            “Let me read, start by kicking my ass, fuck me in half, break my nose, rip my arm off, smash my skull with Freud painting, poor Freud. I think that’s it, wait there, I had already forgotten, mark my shitty face with you fingers The Sickle, did I miss anything?”

            I try to remain serious and start to laugh, Dr. Franklin is thicker than me, even though I’m huge like a bear and sharp like a sickle, he doesn’t care a bit about my ugly face and my closed fists.

            He is a very competent motherfucker therapist and only he can stand me, the poor guy has been dealing with my rage attacks for a year, without throwing me from out of his office and without raising his voice a bit.

            I’m a difficult patient, actually I’m a heavy weight good as hell, I was at the peak of my carrear, flying over the octagon, invincible in ten fights, till my girl, who I treated like a little princess, was caught fucking my biggest opponent in the gym bathroom.

            I would be tasting the blood if it wasn’t for a single detail: the person who caught her being fucked in the gym bathroom was me. I was the one who caught her moaning like a cat in heat while I was getting ready for the fight of our lives.

            Thinking that bitch used to tell me she hated fights, she made me swear I would quit MMA. I got out of the bathroom seeing red and when I got to the ring and did only what I was accustomed to do, kissed every finger of my hands, with the black tattooed letters: THE SICKLE and TKO him, in seconds of fight.

            The fucked up thing that got me suspended was after I knocked him out, I kept bend over him hitting till his jaw was broken.

            A deafening roar got out from inside of me and unfocused my eyes. My brother Connor was on the first row, I looked him and saw him shaking his head, he screamed:

            “HUNT, NO.”

            I left running like hell out of the gym and my too brothers, Adam and Kayden only found me three days later in a forest near Oregon, totally naked and dirty with half eaten dear carcass. Since then I was suspense from UFC for an undetermined time and I moved to Portland, where I live with my brothers in a ranch near the town forest park.

            I opened a bar that became a huge point in town and I try to adapt to my new life, away from the rings.

            Away from everything that was always the air that I breath: the training, the fights and the victories.

            Lupita cleans the counter of the bar, and I check the drink stock, besides checking the meat order that arrived in a agitated country show night.

            Today we were missing two waitresses and I will have to make myself in two to make the drinks and to serve them and to attend the patrons tables that preferred to be away from the dance floor noise.

            Jackson Hope came to visit me today and I was very really glad to see him, he was a guy that always treated me right in my contract deals, in my finances. He a friend of many years, when we were younger we trained together, but after a few years, our paths went totally different ways.

            While I dedicated myself to became a fighter, a professional athlete, Jackson is a computer genius, a digital media consultant, who under the table is a hacker working for FBI tough cases.

            We are water and olive oil, while I’m all muscles, he his skinny and pale, one is body, the other is brain.

            It doesn’t matter, he’s my friend and friends are always perfect, after all, they are the ones who endure us in the best and worst days.

            And to get through my bad days, they would have to bet a lot better, they are awful. I need to schedule my every other week appointment with Dr. Franklin, every time I feel annoyed, I’m missing the fights, the training, doing what I like and I always knew what to do, I can’t be stuck behind a bar serving shots to every drunk fellow.

            I settle him in a corner of the bar and we talk about everything.

            It’s good to talk to people that know you for a long time, you don’t have to think too much if what you want to say it’s right to ridiculously personal and sentimental the man simply knows all your shit and is not there to judge you, that’s comforting.

            “What’s up, my brother, tell me what are the last embarrassments you’ve been involved in, Jack!”

            “It’s very dirty business, Sickle, I’m helping FBI friends in a few things, I can’t talk now, but I’ll explain later.”

            “What are you going to have?”

            “Bloody Mary.”

            “Women’s drink, you have been such a fag, Jack.”

            He laughs holding the drink then takes the moment to make fun of me.

            “You want me to tell everybody here in the bar that the fighter, The Sickle, undefeated UFC champion spends his nights reading romantic novels, this fucked up girly shit, 50 shades of gray, is that it, man? Where is your poetry notebook, you still do that shit, old man?”

            I don’t answer, telling him to speak low, I raise my middle finger and start to laugh alone, while I prepare an orange juice for myself.

            “You know what, Jack, go fuck yourself.”

            We laugh like two idiots, remembering college, before mid-night he says good-bye, leaving with the promise of getting in touch before finishing the investigations he was involved with.

            I get out through the back door of the bar to take out a huge trash bag, and with my really sharp ears, I hear a fight on the alley behind the bar.

            I let my curiosity get the best of me, and I follow the noise of flesh being punched, till I come face to face with four dudes breaking Jack’s face. He can’t even scream anymore, he only moans in pain, while the dudes were punching his face and kicking his ribs.

            I can’t hear the sound of his agony, he won’t last long.

            I run seeing everything unfocused in front of me, an appalling roar came out of my throat and I’m free.

            My briskly hair elongate as I’m stacking the four guys, I jump on one of their throats and tear it in one bite, tasting the acrid of the dirty blood with narcotics.

            I jump on the other, tearing his abdomen in two bites.

            I hear gum shots and I feel the impact of a bullet going through my flesh. The two live guys that were there ran, but one of them got me twice. Jack’s still lying, moaning, I don’t have the strength to get near.

            I try to run and after sometime the piercing pain confounds me, I can only stagger through the streets, the blood running down my two wounds.

            I fall down in front of a store, the light is on.

            I howled longly, my brothers, my life, fuck! I wanted so much to go back fighting.

           

MAGGIE

            I finished the medical report that was missing yesterday of Buggy’s surgery.

            Buggy is a Siberian Husky I was able to save yesterday, just by thinking of Miss Evans sobbing if she lost her best friend, I don’t even want to think about it.

            I have to stop this habit of going over hours, but today it was necessary, slipt myself between the veterinary office and the shelter is becoming harder every day, but I love to do what I do, I love animals, the pleasure I get from taking care of them is bigger then any tiredness.

            I’m already closing the reception when I hear a long and suffering howl by the clinic door. I look through the glass door and see an agonizing huge black wolf.

            I’m alone at the veterinary clinic, but I can’t let this animal die at my door.

            I screw my courage and kneel to examine it, is an absurdly beautiful animal, all black, it looks like an adult Alaskan wolf. 

            I’m not able to fear the wounded and defenseless animal in front of me, I get my hands on its abdomen and he growls, even so I don’t know where I gather my courage from and I go forwards, caressing his long and soft fur, trying to calm it down.

            “Hi, big friend, you are beautiful, don’t be scared, I won’t hurt you, I’ll drag you inside the clinic and examine you. Please, don’t bite me, you’re dying, I can’t let you die like this.”

           

            I need to be fast or I’m going to lose this animal. There’s nothing that makes me sadder than to fail in the fight for life of one of my patients.

            It’s a beautiful animal, pity to be suffering so much, the poor thing growls and moans each time stronger, it’s heartbreaking, to see a beautiful and imposing beast agonizing this way.

            It’s a enormous effort to drag it by the back paws. The street is desert, no one I can ask for help to put it in the surgery room. I’ll have to give it the first aid there in the reception. I get a white sheet and I’m able to move it to an improvised stretcher. Its breathing was more irregular and I need to run against time otherwise its going to die on my hands.

            I sterilized the material and my hands. When I’m prepared to make the first incision, in the agony of pain, it bit me. The sharpen teeth punctured my flesh and it wasn’t a bigger damage because it released my hand. My hand burns a lot and I look for rubbing alcohol to clean the wound. It looks me as if its trying to say sorry, I think that if the wolf could talk, it would say that. Its eyes of a rich brown tear up and continuously, I feel the raspy and warm tongue lick my wound. Thin lines of blood run down through the holes the teeth made, but it stubbornly licks it, as if it want to stop the bleeding.

            I caress its black as the night fur to calm it down and its heart beating starts to go back to normal. 

            “Hi, beautiful wolf, don’t be sad, I know you didn’t want to bite me, you are in a lot of pain, aren’t you? I got to apply a bit more of anesthetic.”

            I get ready another dosage of anesthetic, just a little more so it can sleep and I can finish my job. The wolf still moans and closes its eyes slowly, while still licks its wound.

            After almost an hour of surgery I can retrieve two projectiles that were hurting it, one in the abdomen and the other under the clavicle.

            It snores weakly, it lost a lot of blood, but still is an animal of such strength as I haven’t seen in a long while, just as its size.

            I didn’t know Alaskan wolves grew to be that big, it really is a huge animal and of such rare beauty.

            Now that it sleeps recovering itself, I enjoy the fact I can caress its strong body. My fingers go deep in its fur, its soft and exuberant fur, I can only admire the grandiosity of this animal.

            I go take a nap to keep an eye on its recovery during the night.     

            When I’m not expecting the anesthetizing sleep takes over me.