Shattered (Koa #5)

1. Asher

Chapter 1

Asher

“ B e careful with my shit!” I snap at the two movers carrying, and nearly dropping, my enormous flatscreen TV. One rolls his eyes, and Bane grips the sleeve of my T-shirt with a white fist as if to hold me back. “Why aren’t you helping?”

“Aren’t we paying them for that?” We’re sitting on our back deck in chairs we stole from the house next door, watching through the back door as the movers carry everything inside the front as slowly as possible.

I roll my eyes. “At this rate, we’ll be unpacking at midnight. Get off your ass.”

“Right, what’s your excuse?”

If eyes could cut through skin, Bane would have a hole where his face should be. While a decent friend would tread carefully around my fucked leg, Bane practically beats it with a stick. It’s like he never wants me to forget it.

“Do not make me regret letting you move here with me.”

“You would’ve gone crazy, hiding out here all alone.”

He may be right, but I’ll never admit that.

“I still don’t know why you were stupid enough to fuck Raven.”

I shoot a warning glare his way. “Bane.”

“Screw you, I’m allowed to be mad. It’s your fucking fault we had to leave Kingston and move in the first place, and why I haven’t gotten a paycheck in three months. You’re telling me you couldn’t get pussy anywhere else?” he growls.

“Bane, shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you.”

Bane has been my best friend for years since he moved in as my roommate. We look more like brothers than Rocco and Rooney. We’re both tall and fit, with lots of muscle to show, and we have similar facial features, such as a square jaw, prominent nose, and brown eyes. Our only real difference is our hair, his being short and red and mine being longer and darker. We met when I put up an ad since rent is expensive and I had a two-bedroom. He went to college, though you wouldn’t know it. He started in forestry and quit after three months. From there, he moved on to personal training and then construction. He lost that job after getting drunk with two of his friends, one of whom operated an excavator. He talked that guy into swinging them around in his bucket and then threw them off a rock wall. They all lived, but their jobs didn’t. After that, I got Bane a job at the shop as the receptionist, where he worked until Raven took over when she got together with Rocco. Over the years of working there, Bane got into art, eventually becoming my apprentice. It’s been two years since he started on skin, and this career seems to be sticking for him. Thank fuck.

But even if he wasn’t my apprentice, I know Bane would have followed me after Rocco and Rooney turned on me. Neither of us has any family we actually like, so we’re all each other has, not that the stubborn asshole will admit it.

And neither will I.

I haven’t spoken to my parents in thirteen years since I moved out at eighteen, and it’s fine by me. They didn’t give a fuck about me when I lived with them, so I don’t know why they’d start caring after I left. While I’ve never lost sleep over it, it does sometimes rub me the wrong way that the two people whose job it was to give a shit about me just… didn’t.

It’s nearly five, and the movers continue to drag out the transfer of our things. Bane doesn’t get up to help, and I don’t give him shit for it. I know he’ll be picking up my slack when unpacking.

There’s a nice summer breeze out here; it feels cleaner than Kingston. It whips through the thick trees beyond my new backyard. There’s a house beside me, the only other house along this bend in the road. It’s deep yellow, with an enormous decorative sun facing the road. The lawn is freshly cut, the siding and shingles are clean, and even the silver SUV in the paved driveway is spotless. It looks so cheerful; the longer I stare at the property, the more I consider painting the brown exterior of my new house black to make it look like death next to the sun.

I turn my attention back to the movers just in time to see two of them carrying my bed frame through the doorway that leads to the den .

“What the fuck are you doing!?” I shout, making Bane jump beside me.

The movers freeze in place, the one in my view looking at me like a deer in the headlights.

“Why the fuck are you putting my bed in the den!? I told you it’s going upstairs!”

“He told us to put it here,” the man says, motioning to Bane.

“I don’t give a fuck what he said, put it upstairs!”

As the movers reluctantly redirect my bed, I feel my best friend turning to ice beside me. I slowly turn to him, my anger boiling.

“Don’t you have an appointment to get to?” Bane asks, running his fingers through his short red hair.

“Don’t fucking change the subject!”

Bane’s anger explodes across his face. “Just take the den as your bedroom, you stubborn asshole. Why do you make everything so fucking hard on yourself?”

“I can walk up a flight of stairs,” I growl.

“Until you overdo it, which you will, because you refuse to admit that you need something to help you get around like, I don’t know, a fucking cane? You’re gonna push yourself until there’s nothing left, and then you’ll fall down those stairs and break every bone in your body.”

Anger boils in my blood, and it takes all my strength not to punch Bane out for that one. “No one fucking asked you.”

“Fine, be a dick. Don’t you have an appointment to go to?” he repeats.

“It can wait. These guys will be done soon.”

“No, they won’t, and you know it. Go!” he snaps .

“I wouldn’t have let you move here with me if I knew you were going to nag me worse than my mother did back in the day.”

“Is that your line for everything now?”

“Fuck off. You’re still my apprentice; I am still technically your boss.”

Bane opens his mouth but makes the smart decision to shut it again.

My appointment is at the hospital. The parking lot has lots of free spaces, but there’s nothing available near the front except handicap spots. I can still hear what that asshole doctor in Kingston said when he told me to get a handicap parking pass. “You may not want it, but you’ll need it.” I’m pretty sure I told him to get bent.

I slam my car into park near the back of the lot and begin the long trek inside on foot. My damaged leg nearly gives out halfway up, and I catch myself on the bed of a truck, just managing not to fall on my ass as pain pulsates through my thigh.

Thankfully, I don’t have to walk much further before I’m directed to a stuffy waiting room. I sit there for a while, trying to discreetly rub my pained leg before I’m called into the exam room. A few minutes later, the doctor enters briskly, nodding a cold hello.

“Hi, Mr. Wallace. I’m Dr. Ramos; what can I do for you today?”

“You’re not the specialist,” I say simply.

“No, I’m not. She’s on leave at the moment, so I’m helping out. Thankfully, you don’t need a specialist,” he says as he sits at the desk.

“Perfect. My leg is fucked. How long before it’s un-fucked? ”

His brows pinch in confusion before he examines what must be my medical documents on the monitor on the desk. When he looks back at me again, he has that same abysmal expression that the bastard doctor in Kingston had when we spoke the last time.

“Your femur was shattered, it’s being held together with plates and screws. It won’t get any better than it is right now.”

Anger boils in me. “I want a second opinion.”

“I’m your third opinion, aren’t I?” His expression softens. “Asher, I know adjusting to something so serious can be challenging. We have resources that will help you.”

“Not interested.” Pain shoots through my leg when I stand up, and I fall right back into my chair.

“Why aren’t you using a walking aid?” he asks, almost bored.

“Not my style.”

“It’s been six months since your accident. You’re telling me you’ve never tried a walking aid? How many times have you fallen on your ass?” Ramos asks angrily as I stand again. “Do you wanna get injured worse?”

“I’m not using a fucking cane!” I snap.

“Would you at least sit down so we can talk? I have you for fifteen minutes, and there are some things we should go over.”

I hobble to the door before spinning in place and glaring at the doctor.

“I don’t think you hear me, doc. You can take your opinion and shove it up your ass.”

“You can’t keep running from this, Asher. You’ll only make it worse.”

“Eat a bag of dicks. ”

Halfway through the door, his hand clamps down on my forearm. Before he can speak, I turn around, burning a hole through his eyes with mine.

“My busted leg is not going to stop me from laying you out in a world of pain if you don’t let go of my fucking arm,” I hiss.

Ramos does the smart thing and immediately backs off.

By the time I make it back to my car, my leg is throbbing like hell. It does this when I walk too much, and it’s downright excruciating. I’m in no mood to be lectured, so I drive around for a while. When I return to the house, the movers are gone, and Bane is at the kitchen table, writing a list on scrap paper.

“How’d your appointment go?” Bane asks hopefully, not lifting his eyes.

“The doctor was useless,” I say, shifting my weight onto my good leg. All the movement has my leg throbbing.

Bane shakes his head. He’s tired of fighting this with me. “I’m going to pick up some groceries. Want the usual?”

“Yeah.”

Once Bane takes off, I go to the stairs, hellbent on mastering them before he sees me struggle. Thankfully, it has a railing on each side. Though the rails are narrow and challenging to brace against, I can use my arms to offset my weight and limp up the stairs. It takes longer than it should, and I’m tired when I reach the top.

Before going to my bedroom, I head into the bathroom beside it. Bane is the one who picked this house, so I didn’t know what I was walking into. My blood boils when I see the toilet low to the ground and the raised seat placed above it. The thing looks untouched as if it was just bought from the handicap store or wherever people get this equipment from. In a fit of rage, I grab the thing by its handles and biff it into the bathtub with a massive crash.

There are no railings or anything to grab by the toilet, just a towel rail mounted to my right and the counter that I can reach, but it’s too far away to be of any leverage. I yank down my pants and put all my faith in the mounted towel rail, putting most of my weight on it and utilizing the counter for balance. I lower myself about halfway down before my leg cramps, and I drop, tightening my grip on the towel rail. It rips straight out of the wall, and I’m gashed in the cheek by an attached screw as I bounce off the edge of the toilet and hit the ground, my legs tangling in my pants at my ankles. I toss the useless piece of shit rod and swipe my hand across my face, finding a sticky patch of blood. With pain lingering everywhere, I try to lift myself to the side of the bathtub and stumble, my left foot shooting out to hit the wall, sending pain pulsating into my busted thigh.

In a fit of blind rage, I somehow get myself to my feet before taking the towel rail and slamming it into the back of the toilet, cracking the porcelain. I use that rail to beat the fuck out of everything I can find, only stopping when the vanity mirror explodes in shards of glass.