Read Online The Death Match by Christa Faust - Free Book Online Page A

whispered.
    Matt backed away, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. He wanted to say something supportive to help her through her anguish, guilt, and grief, but the words just wouldn’t come.
    “What am I supposed to do with her things? Take them down to Brazil and give them to the mom that pimped her out before she even had her period? Be, like, ‘Sorry I killed your daughter with my bare hands, but here’s her toothbrush’?”
    Matt was going to say he didn’t have any idea, but she cut him off before he could speak.
    “You know what? Fuck it.”
    She started gathering armfuls of stuff and throwing them blindly out the open door into the driveway. Clothes and shoes and books and training gear and anything she could get her hands on. Matt just stepped back and let her wind down on her own. Eventually she stopped throwing things and covered her face with her hands. He led her to the sofa and made her lie down, covering her with a fuzzy purple blanket that looked like it had been picked out by a child.
    She turned away from him, curling her body in on itself.
    He probably should have left, but looking at Stacy with her tangled red hair in her face and clutching the blanket up under her battered chin, he knew he couldn’t do that. He owed it to her to make sure that she was going to be okay on her own before he took off.
    There was a large, puffy easy chair opposite the couch, and Matt eased his sore body down into it with a grateful sigh. It was amazing how good something as simple as a comfortable chair could feel. It almost made the madness of that strange and endless night seem worthwhile. Maybe they hadn’t stopped Mr. Dark for good, but they’d certainly put a major dent in his latest scheme. That was enough for one night.
    Matt slept. He didn’t dream.
    * * *
    The next day, Stacy seemed intensely grateful to discover that Matt hadn’t left her. She didn’t want to talk about what had happened, but she was glad to have company and offered Matt a place to stay for a few days. He let her think that she was helping him out by letting him sleep on her couch, but really he wanted to keep an eye on her, to make sure that she was coping with what she’d been forced to do.
    They spent a lot of time in her large, weedy backyard, Matt chopping wood and Stacy hitting a large truck tire with a sledgehammer. Not speaking, just sweating and enjoying the silent companionship and good, clean physical labor. And as Stacy sweated through her grief, she became gradually more comfortable with Matt.
    Stacy didn’t talk much, but she turned out to be an excellent listener. He found himself sharing details about his own experience with losing Janey that he’d never told anyone before. Details about what he’d been through with Andy. She was sympathetic and understanding, and eventually she started to open up about Tanya.
    At first she wouldn’t talk at all about what had happened in Long’s underground arena, just about the complex nature of her relationship with Tanya. Stacy had never been with another woman before Tanya, or even in love at all for that matter. She really had no standard to compare the relationship to, but she had to admit that there were times when she wasn’t sure if Tanya’s feelings were as strong as hers.
    “She…she said something to me during the fight,” she told Matt, leaning on the handle of her sledge with one hand and using the hem of her T-shirt to mop sweat from her freckled brow with the other.
    This was the first time she’d made any reference to that fight, so Matt didn’t want to spook her. He just nodded and waited for her to continue.
    “She…she said she never loved me. That she was just using me for a place to crash while she was fucking every guy at the gym behind my back. I mean, that’s exactly what I was afraid of. Exactly. But… This is gonna sound really weird.”
    “It’s okay,” Matt said. “Go ahead.”
    “Well,” she continued, “it’s like in that moment, for