Every Beauty Deserves a Beast

“To the man who lives his job as his life and has been doing so for the last ten years, I salute you, Ray!”

Tom Shaw, my best friend, raised his drink to toast me in the bar just off base. Everyone else who was off duty raised their drinks as they saluted my decade of service. I chuckled, copying them and nodding my head in thanks before we all drank.

“When the hell are you gonna find yourself a woman and give me godbabies!?” Tom joked.

“Who said I’d ever make you godfather to any of my nonexistent kids?” I laughed, slapping his back and watching him stumble slightly under the force of my hand.

I gulped another mouthful of water and felt refreshed as the ice-cold beverage slid down my throat. Even at midnight, the humidity was enough to smother me, and we were in air conditioning!

I felt slightly bad for the newbie officers on duty but brushed it off. I’d been on duty for sixteen hours in the deadly heat and humidity during the day; this was nothing compared to that.

“As if you wouldn’t make me goddaddy! I’d shoot any bastard who tried to date your daughter and teach your son all my very best moves!” Tom shouted with a grin on his face, his eyes stretched wide in absolute seriousness.

“We’ll see… I plan on serving in the Air Force for a long time, bro. I don’t really see kids in my near future.”

I finished off my water and realized Tom had already walked away to flirt with one of the nurses. I chuckled and shook my head at his short attention span.

I grabbed another beer and walked over to the window that overlooked the ocean. Looking at the ocean always made me feel closer to home.

I hadn’t gone back home in years, and despite that, my mom would still send me my hometown newsletter along with some of her baked goods. My hometown, Byzantine Bay, was a small beach town, but I had never seen an ocean as beautiful as when I was there—though I could be biased.

I enjoyed reading through the newsletter and seeing new businesses open, like the new gyms opening.

I sighed in happiness that I was living my dream of following in my granddad’s footsteps of being in the Air Force. I’d never actually met the man, but my mother always told me stories of how respected, determined, strong, and dedicated he was.

She spoke of her father so mesmerizingly that I couldn’t help, from the age of five, to want to join the Air Force as well. I worked my ass off, and as the years passed by in a blur, I was a respected Ground Defense Officer and never took crap from anyone.

I wanted to end up being “that guy” who was spoken about like my granddad was spoken about by my mother. I looked at the reflection in the window and saw Tom behind me with his lips locked on the nurse’s, and I checked my watch.

Half past midnight.

Well, he definitely works fast. My eyes caught my reflection, and I took in my tall stature and my wide build that made me twice the width of the average man.

Due to how tall and wide I was, coupled with the stern expression that I usually wore on duty, I was usually referred to as “The Beast,” which soon caught on and became a nickname of sorts around here.

Suddenly, I felt the ground beneath me shake, and in the corner of my eye through the window, I saw dozens of men in black gear raid the base, taking out the newbie that had nodded off to sleep with ease and without care.

“We’re under attack!” I boomed and immediately ran forward, needing to defend my base and my trainees. All drinks were tossed aside as everyone sank into defense mode.

Another explosion followed soon after; it was so loud my eardrums wouldn’t stop ringing. I hissed in pain when some metal shrapnel was thrown into my torso, leg, and arm.

I pulled out the large piece of metal that was hanging out from my flesh, blood gushing from my wound, and threw it away to the side as my leg throbbed painfully. I couldn’t hear a thing, and my eyes blurred a little before focusing again.

Tom was above me, holding a hand out to help pull me up. He was mouthing something, but I couldn’t hear anything. Instead of the shouts, cries, explosions, and gunshots that had just surrounded me, I could only hear a high-pitched ringing. I pointed to my ear and shook my head, signaling that my hearing was out.

“Beast! Watch out!” I heard him shout, almost like hearing him from underwater.

I looked toward my feet and saw a man completely covered in black raise his rifle straight between my eyes. I was looking down the hollow barrel of his rifle when I quickly kicked upward with my good leg, and the shot rang out as his bullet soared into the black sky.

As he was momentarily distracted, I kicked at his kneecap and watched in horror as he collapsed onto my shot leg.

We both cried in pain; however, his were cut short as a stray bullet streamed through his chest, splattering me with his blood. He fell backward on top of my already injured leg, forcing a cry out of me again.

It was too much. Lightning bolts of intense pain shot through my body, incapacitating me. I was bleeding profusely, and I knew that unless I was seen by a nurse or doctor right away, I’d be dead.

Black spots dotted my eyesight; everything blurred into a mixture of movement before blackness completely took over.

I could only hope that my team wasn’t going to die as well.

I stared blankly at the letter Tom had sent me as I sat in my hospital bed. I had read it over and over ever since waking up from my induced coma a week ago.

After I passed out from blood loss, our officers had been able to override the terrorists and suspected it was just a ploy to annihilate our base—a suicide shooting.

Tom wrote of how I was found, lying in a pool of my own blood, and rushed to a doctor at the base to see if I was even able to be saved, seeing as my pulse was so weak. Somehow, by sheer miracle, my vitals settled enough for me to be shipped back to Byzantine Bay to recover fully.

He told me that, after a “suitable amount of time,” if I wanted to rejoin the Air Force, I would need to be examined to see if my fitness reached the standard required to do my original job.

A low growl slipped through my teeth as I thought of the last part. What the hell did a “suitable amount of time” mean? How long was that supposed to be?

What the hell was I supposed to do if I couldn’t go back? I’d built my entire life around being in the Air Force. I lived, breathed, and slept my job—and to find out I might not be able to do that… I couldn’t even fathom what the hell I was supposed to do.

I sighed and looked down at my left leg. Beneath the hospital gown and bandages, I could just imagine the two circular scars that rendered me slightly disabled at the moment. Only one bullet had passed through completely, leaving another scar at the back of my thigh, but the doctors had to search for the one that was stuck inside.

The two bullets that were shot into my thigh had done serious damage, and as a result, I was in terrible pain.

A short man with thinning brown hair sauntered into my hospital room and offered me a kind smile. I stared back at him, not an ounce of emotion showing on my face. I was in a bad mood since waking up.

I was a big man, and the hospital beds were barely wide enough to hold me. The food, though slightly better than at the base, was horrid and lacking any of the nutrients I needed. The constant pain in my leg overrode the pain all over my body.

“Dr. Mitchell,” I greeted him in a deep monotone voice.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Hodges. How’s the leg?” he asked me as he looked over my clipboard.

I grunted and winced when I tried to shuffle back a little. “Still quite painful, I see. I may have to up your dosage of painkillers,” he mumbled.

He hummed a tuneless song as he went about checking my vitals and the movement in my leg after checking how the rest of my wounds were healing. I had several stitches and soon-to-be scars all over my arms, legs, and torso.

A ghost of a smile lit the corners of my mouth before I put my frown back on. I sat patiently as Dr. Mitchell finished up.

“So what’s the story, Dr. Mitchell?” I asked.

“Well, your stitches are all healing nicely along your torso, arms, and right leg. The wound on your side from the metal shrapnel was infected but is healing quite well and shouldn’t be anything to worry about now.” He sighed and continued, “Now…about your left leg, Lieutenant. As you are very well aware, you were shot twice. The bullet that was stuck in your leg was lodged in your femur and had to be surgically removed.

“There was enough force, however, to lodge it into your femur, but luckily it didn’t actually break or fracture it. The other bullet that did go through all the way had damaged the hamstring portion of your adductor magnus—”

“My what? Dr. Mitchell… I’m no doctor or someone who’s too familiar with clinical names of the anatomy…so please, for my sake…speak in English. Dumb it down a little for me.” I interrupted Dr. Mitchell. I was in no mood to listen to how much more doctors knew about how banged up I was and just wanted to know what the damage was so that I could work on fixing it.

“Of course. Sorry, Lieutenant. Basically, the bullet went clean through and left a gaping hole that needed fixing up,” he smiled at the bland way he explained it. “Both bullet wounds will need a minimum of six months to heal, then you have at least a year of physical therapy after that to get back into the swing of things with your body. That’s if you defy the odds and have no setbacks.”

I nodded slowly and thought hard about what I’d just been told.

Months… A year…? At least!

I ran and dove into the water with my surfboard clutched in both my hands and felt the cool, salty water splash against my tanned skin. I smiled as I paddled my way deeper into the water and just let my mind clear and let my body feel free as I sat up on my board with one leg on either side, with water up to my knees.

This was my favorite part of my day.

Sitting in the sea, bobbing up and down with the light waves as I watched the sun say good morning to the beach. This was the only time I really got to myself, and I always made sure I cherished it as though it was my last day.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’d always loved the beach. Anything to do with it, I instantly loved, whether it was the sea, the sand, the sea creatures, or the little colorful shells that I used to string into necklaces. I’d seen photos of beaches all over the world, and I still couldn’t pass up the beaches of my hometown, Byzantine Bay. It was almost like it was a forgotten bay, untouched by pollution and overzealous tourists.

I breathed in a deep breath and smelled the salt as the wind blew lightly on my face. “Good morning, world,” I greeted no one in particular before leaning down again to paddle toward the bigger waves.

As the waves began to build, I turned my board around back at the shore and paddled faster and faster before heaving myself up and standing with my knees slightly bent as I rode the swell of water. The wind whipped my hair back, and the smooth glide of my board over the mass of water kept a bright smile on my face until I was out of the waves.

I walked into Shell’s Gym, still smelling faintly like seawater, even though I’d already showered, and smiled at Naomi, who was manning the reception desk. “Morning, Mimi,” I greeted her with a smile. She looked up, flicked her black fringe back from her face, and greeted me back.

I walked into the gym that I was proud to call my own and silently congratulated myself on all the hard work that I’d gone through to finally pay off the mortgage of the building. No one understood why owning a gym would be a dream of mine, and I never told them the reason behind it.

It was barely past eight in the morning, and yet there were the usual amounts of regulars that attended the gym, the majority of them running on the treadmills before they were off to their jobs. I loved my job as a personal trainer. I loved being able to help people reach their goals and become fitter, and I gained plenty of clients because I made it my mission to make them feel comfortable as well as push them.

I was greeted by a few of the regulars who didn’t have earphones plugged into their ears and made my way to my office, which was really just a room outside the locker room big enough to fit a desk, filing cabinet, a few chairs, and a closet. I didn’t really need to be at work until ten, but I liked to take over some of the paperwork from Naomi so I actually felt like I was running the gym instead of just owning it.

I was thrilled to see that every day there were more and more people wanting to join my gym instead of a rival gym. According to the little survey at the bottom of the contract for each client, most were joining up because of good word-of-mouth advertising.

I did a little happy dance as best as I could while sitting down in my chair at the thought of clients telling their friends to join my gym.

“I’ll see you later, Mimi. I’ve got a few personal training sessions in the park throughout the day, so I’ll probably just catch you the next time you’re working.” I smiled as I left the gym with my duffel bag full of gear flung over my shoulder.

Even though I loved my gym, I preferred to have my PT sessions out in the park or by the beach with my clients unless they asked otherwise. I threw my bag on the backseat as I hopped into the car and began to drive to Macintosh Park.

I worked through my five sessions and finally was able to go home. It was the time of day when there was just enough sunlight to illuminate the roads, but the trees were darkened into silhouettes by the side of the gravel.

I parked outside my rundown beach house that was left to me in my father’s will and walked inside, practically dragging my bag behind me.

I tossed my bag to the side and flopped onto the sofa, listening to the low howl of the beach wind streaming through the little gaps in the side of the windows. My house had definitely seen better days. It used to be painted an ocean blue and was as sturdy as a house could really get, but it was old.

It was originally built by my father’s grandfather and passed down through the generations, only to land with me and practically fall apart. Having concentrated on paying off my mortgage with the gym, I didn’t have any spare cash lying around to have it fixed, but I was hoping that could change soon.

I was thankful that it wasn’t raining today. Lord knows I couldn’t be bothered setting up the eleven buckets to catch the drips that passed through the ceiling. Even when it did rain, I no longer had to wait for the ceiling to start leaking to put the buckets down because I’d already memorized all the spots for every bucket to sit on.

It was pretty sad, really…

My stomach growled and I groaned, clenching my tummy through my baggy tank top. I forgot to buy food on the way home! I eventually hauled myself off the sofa and dragged my feet toward the fridge. I swung it open to look for something to eat and picked up a promising-looking plate of leftover chicken.

I sniffed it cautiously and grinned when it seemed fine. I heated it up and brought it over to the kitchen bench before digging into it like a starved lion.

After eating my bland dinner, I took a long, hot shower and fell into bed.

It was only nine o’clock, but I felt exhausted. I really wasn’t one of those people who could stay up for hours. I was a morning person and enjoyed the stretch of time in the morning where it was a cross between night and day, and most people were still tucked in bed.

As I closed my eyes, I let the sound of the waves crashing against the sand fill my ears. Who needed to watch TV or listen to music constantly when there was the sweet sound of nature just outside the door? The ocean always calmed and relaxed me, and whenever I was away from the beach at night, I could never sleep properly.

I could feel my eyes becoming heavy and my brain becoming a little fuzzy as the sweet waves outside my window lulled me to sleep.