Monster

by Holly C. Webb

  “I have to go back,” I said, giving my dad a determined look. “Teddy’s parents are still in Europe on their holidays, so she is all alone in the hospital. I need to do this for her.”

  “No, you don’t,” Dad tried to reason. “She has people taking care of her. She is safe, and you’re safe here. If you go back there, then he can get to you. Ally, please.”

  “But we can’t hide out here forever,” I replied, looking into his eyes. “Hiding isn’t the answer anymore. I want my life back.”

  Kissing him once more on the cheek, I turned and walked towards the door of the car.

  “Then I’m coming with you,” Dad announced, following me towards the car, sounding even more determined than I was.

  “What? No!” I exclaimed as I quickly turned to face him. “You can’t! You need to stay here with Mom; you’re safe here.”

  “And so are you!” Dad shot back, and I knew he was making a point. “Yet, you’re going back there.”

  “I need to go to Teddy,” I said, trying to reason with him. “But Mom needs you here.”

  “I can’t stay here and do nothing,” he sighed. “You’re my only daughter, and it’s my job to protect you.”

  “I know you want to,” I said, knowing how hard this was for him. “But Jaxson will be with me; I’m going to be just fine. I need to know you and Mom are okay too. Please, Dad.”

  “If anything happened to you…” he repeated, but this time it was less forceful.

  I leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.

  “I’ll be okay,” I assured him, giving him a broad smile. “I promise.”

  “I need you to promise not to let her out of your sight,” he said, turning his attention to Jaxson. “She is all we have.”

  “I give you my word,” Jaxson said, giving my dad a reassuring smile. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

  I said goodbye to my mom, who was, of course, in tears, then finally opened the car door, ready to leave when Travis appeared in the doorway, carrying his bag. He walked straight to the car and threw his bag in the back, then opened the back door.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, giving him a worried look.

  “Your parents are safe here,” he said, giving me a look that I’d never seen from Travis before. “But you and Jaxson are the only family I have. I’m going back, end of discussion.”

  Before either Jaxson or I could reply, Travis climbed into the back of the car, closing the door behind him.

  “I guess we’re doing this,” Jaxson said, giving me a look that said he was less than happy about this whole situation.

  As I sat in the car, a stab of uncertainty filled me. Maybe going back was a stupid idea. Maybe I should have just slipped away during the night alone. That way, no one would be coming, and no one else would get hurt because of me.

  As the car finally pulled away from the house, I suddenly felt a lot less confident than I had moments earlier. Like it or not, I was going back home.

  It was way past midnight before we reached the hospital. The roads were pretty clear for most of the drive, so we made good time.

  When the car stopped, Jaxson told me to wait for a moment before we climbed out. He got out first, closing the door behind him, then slowly walked around the car as he searched the area, ensuring that it was safe for me to get out too. While he did that, he spoke on his phone.

  Finally, Jaxson opened the door for me as he slipped his phone back into his pocket.

  “Ally,” he said, his eyes meeting mine for the first time since we left the house. “I need you to do exactly as I say, okay?”

  “Okay,” I replied with a nod of my head.

  “Stay close to me,” he continued. “Walk when I tell you to walk; stop when I say stop.”

  “Okay,” I repeated, but for some reason, I suddenly wanted to cry. I knew Jaxson was angry that I had insisted on coming back, and right at that moment, I wished I had listened to him.

  He reached out for my hand before he looked into the back of the car, nodding at Travis, too, telling him he needed to get out as well.

  “We’re going to walk straight to the elevator,” he explained as I climbed from the car. “Richie has uniformed cops stationed all over the hospital as well as a protection detail outside both Teddy and Thatcher’s room. He said he would meet us upstairs.”

  I nodded but didn’t say a word as we hurried towards the elevator.

  As we stood in the small space, I watched Jaxson closely, and I could see that he was worried. I wondered if maybe I had pushed him too far now, and if we would be okay after all of this was over. The fact he couldn’t seem to look at me, made me wonder if perhaps he’d changed his mind about us. Maybe I was just too much trouble for anyone to love.

  With that thought in my mind, I stepped from the elevator when it stopped. Even though Jaxson had said there would be police waiting on us when we got off, I was still surprised to find them standing there.

  Somehow, them being there made this all seem more real.

  “Jaxson Stone,” Jaxson quickly held up his ID to one of the officers as we stepped into the corridor. “Detective Monroe is expecting us.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Stone,” one of the officers replied as he turned and led us down along the corridor towards the nurse’s station, where we stopped, and Jaxson quickly asked for Teddy’s room. The nurse gave us directions but told us that we couldn’t stay with her for long as she needed to rest because her condition was still critical.

  When we reached the door of her room, I could feel my stomach heave when I saw my best friend lying in bed, looking almost unrecognisable. There were tubes and machines everywhere, but the rhythmic sound of beeping was almost drowned out by the sound of my heart hammering in my ears.

  “Teddy!” I exclaimed as I hurried towards the bed, instantly taking her hand in mine. “It’s me; it’s Ally. I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you a long time ago about him, but I’m listening now. I need you to be okay.”

  I looked down at her bruised and battered face, almost unable to believe that this was my friend, her face looked so swollen and distorted.

  “Teddy,” I said as I leaned in closer to her, softly kissing her forehead. “I’m here. Please don’t leave me.”

  She made no movement or any indication that she could hear me. I looked up at Jaxson, who was standing by the door, watching me closely, but his face was completely unreadable.

  “She’s going to be okay, right?” I asked, looking from him to Travis, who was standing next to him. The moment I spoke to him, Travis hurried further into the room and picked up Teddy’s chart from the end of the bed, quickly going through it before he looked up at me once more.

  “She has been sedated,” he explained, giving me a reassuring smile before he returned to focus to the chart. “That’s why she isn’t responsive. There is some swelling on the brain, so they are trying to keep her as calm as they possibly can, allowing the swelling time to go down…”

  “But she’s going to be okay?” I asked, quickly cutting him off. I just needed to hear the words.

  “Her condition is serious,” Travis replied honestly. “She isn’t out of the woods yet, but there is no reason to believe she won’t make a full recovery. It will just take some time.”

  “Thank you,” I said, quickly blinking back the tears that were now burning my eyes. “I can’t believe this is all happening. How was I so wrong about him?”

  “This isn’t your fault,” Jaxson assured me, repeating the one thing he’d said over and over since this nightmare had started.

  “Then why does it feel like it is?” I whispered, suddenly unable to look at him any longer. I closed my eyes, wishing I could wake up and realise that all of this was just a nightmare.

  Before he could respond, there was a soft tap on the door behind Jaxson. I opened my eyes once more to find Detective Monroe standing there, looking as worried and worn out as Jaxson did.

  “Hi, Ally
,” he said, nodding towards me, smiling at me before he turned to Jaxson. “Can I have a word.”

  “Sure,” Jaxson said before he glanced at me once more. “I’ll be right back. Just stay here, stay with Travis.”

  “Okay,” I nodded, hating that he seemed so distant from me now.

  I turned back to look at Teddy as a sudden wave of grief washed over me.

  “Ally,” Travis said, taking a step closer to me. “Jax is right. This isn’t your fault, no matter what you think. Jacob did this, no one else.”

  “I just wish that Jaxson hadn’t found me that night in the bath,” I sighed, giving him a sad smile. “Everything would have been so much easier for everyone else…”

  “You really think that?” Travis but in, sounding almost angry. “You think that would have been easier for your parents or Teddy? You think that your mom and dad losing their only child… or Teddy losing her best friend. And what about Jax. Ally, he loves you, more than I ever imagined he could love another person…”

  “He won’t even look at me,” I retorted, knowing he was right about my parents and Teddy, but not about Jaxson.

  “Because he is terrified, he is going to let you down,” Travis reasoned, then his expression softened. “He is scared he is going to lose you, and you seem so determined to make it harder for him to protect you.”

  “I know,” I sighed, knowing he was right. “But look at her. Look and her face. He did this to her because of me, and maybe you’re right, it’s not my fault, but I am still the reason. How could I not come here and sit by her side? She is my best friend, and she is hurt because I brought a monster into our lives.”

  Travis stared at me, but he didn’t reply, and I knew that he knew I was right.

  Suddenly I felt like I was going to be sick.

  “I need to use the restroom,” I said, breathing through my nose, out through my mouth, to try to settle my queasy stomach.

  “You should wait for Jaxson to come back,” Travis replied, but I knew I couldn’t hold it back much longer. I could feel the bile rise inside me, and I knew I was going to be sick.

  “I can’t,” I cried as I pushed past him, hurrying down the corridor as my stomach heaved and my hand clasped my mouth to prevent me from getting sick on the floor.

  “There, on the left!” Travis called out, as he closely followed me down the corridor. He pushed open the door, holding it for me as I hurried inside, barely making it to the toilet before I threw up in spectacular style, over and over until there was nothing left inside me.

  Finally, I lifted my head, and I stepped back from the toilet, flushing it as I did, before I turned and walked out of the stall, heading straight for the washbasin to splash water on my face and rinse my mouth.

  “Feel better?” Jacob’s voice said suddenly from behind me.

  I spun around to face him, and my heart slammed against my chest the moment I spotted Travis slumped in the corner of the restroom, with Jacob standing next to him, wearing a white doctor's coat.

  “Travis!” I exclaimed as I instinctively went running towards him, but Jacob raised a gun, pointing straight at me, stopping me in my tracks.

  “He’s fine,” he said, his voice strangely calm and even. “And he will stay that way as long as you don’t make a scene.”

  “I need to check on him,” I tried to reason as I took a step closer once more, but Jacob instantly waved the gun, stopping me again.

  “I said he’s fine,” Jacob assured me. “Why can’t you just do what you’re told? Why do you always have to test me?”

  He dropped the gun from me, now pointing at Travis’s head as he lay lifelessly on the floor.

  “Maybe I should just kill him?” Jacob continued, sounded completely devoid of any emotion. “Maybe I should kill all three of us right here, right now.”

  “NO, PLEASE!” I begged, raising my hands to him in a calming motion. “I’m the one you want. No one else needs to get hurt.”

  “Then, if you want it to stay like that,” he hisses, and for the first time, I can hear the anger in his voice as he continues to point the gun at Travis. “You will leave here with me now, without making a fuss. It will be just you and me where we belong. It’s time to go home, Alexandra.”

  “Okay,” I said, knowing that I didn’t have a choice. I needed to do this to keep Travis safe. I needed to do this for Jaxson too. No one else would be hurt because of me. This was how it was supposed to be.

  I walked slowly towards Jacob. Once I was close enough, he grabbed my arm, pressing the gun into my back.

  “We are going to walk out of here, and you’re not going to make a single sound.

  “Okay,” I said, knowing that whatever happened now, no one else that I loved would be hurt. This was almost over.

  Chapter 27

  Jaxson

  “Tell me you’ve found him?” I said, giving Richie a pleading look as we made our way down the hallway to the office the police had been given to use as a temporary base while in the hospital. When we walked in, a hush fell over the officers sitting in the room, and Richie quickly gave them a nod to leave us alone to talk. “Surely there has to be someone that knows where he is. What about the lowlife, Mike Farrell, or Jacob’s flunky, Harry Granger?”

  “We’ve picked them both up,” Richie replied, but I knew by his face that the news wasn’t good. “They both claim that they have no idea where Wallace is, but he has to turn up soon.”

  “So then,” I said, feeling more than a little bit pissed off with this whole stupid situation. “What was so important that you had to talk to me about?”

  I didn’t know why I felt so angry, but I did. I was also feeling somewhat angry with Ally for insisting she came back here. I got it; I really did. Coming back here was exactly what I would have expected from Ally because she was sweet, kind-hearted, and she cared for people more than she cared about herself. Coming back here was exactly the kind of thing she would do.

  What pissed me off was, if I knew this, Jacob knew it too. So, by coming back here, she did exactly what Jacob wanted her to do.

  “We picked up Martin Stroll,” Richie began, and instantly he had my full attention. “He confirmed Lynn’s story about Jacob hiring him. He said he told him he thought his wife was cheating on him, and he’d hired him to tail her. He said Jacob asked for the photos; he had nothing to do with how they were delivered.”

  “And you believe him?” I asked, not believing this scumbag’s bullshit.

  “Not really,” Richie shook his head. “But it’s what else he had to say that is the part that interested me. He said that Jacob came to him yesterday, looking for a gun. He told Stroll that he didn’t have time to get one from a store and that they would ask too many questions anyway.”

  “He’s looking for a gun?” I repeated, knowing that could only mean something bad.

  “Stroll said he told Jacob that he couldn’t help him, but that Jacob was all over the place,” Richie continued. “He said Jacob insisted he just needed it to scare his wife, but Stroll believed he wanted it for a lot more than just scaring her. He said that Jacob kept saying that the bitch had ruined his life, that he may as well be dead because he had no future now and that he wanted to teach her a lesson. Stroll said he thinks he’s planning on killing her, then eating a bullet himself.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I asked, a feeling of dread suddenly settling deep inside me. If Jacob was planning to kill both Ally and him, then a bunch of cops was not going to stand in his way. If he was going out, then he had nothing to lose, and death by cop was always the easiest way to go for these assholes. Suddenly, I got the strangest feeling settling over me. Like something in my gut was telling me something was very wrong. “I need to go check on Ally.”

  I turned hurried out of the room as the sense of dread inside me grew stronger and stronger.

  Even though everything in the corridor seemed normal, and the cop was still sitting outside Teddy’s room, each step I took, my feet felt hea
vier, and my heart hammered faster and faster. I didn’t know why, but I knew before I even reached Teddy’s room that something was wrong.

  I was right. Ally and Travis were gone, even though I told them to stay right there. They could be anywhere in the hospital now, and so could Jacob.

  “Where did Ally and my brother go?” I hissed at the officer sitting outside the door, and I stepped back out into the hallway.

  “I uh… I think they went to the restroom,” the officer said, sounding less than convincing, as his face flushed with embarrassment.

  “You think!” I exclaimed as I turned and hurried down the corridor. “How about you do your fucking job and know!”

  I couldn’t believe how clueless these cops actually were. I blew out a deep breath, trying to control my temper.

  I burst into the ladies’ bathroom, and for a moment, I sighed when I found it empty. I was just about to step back out and pull the door closed behind me when I heard a groan from one of the stalls.

  Without thinking, I hurried towards the door I thought the sound came from and pushed it open to find Travis slumped down between the toilet and the wall of the stall, blood trickling down the side of his face.

  “Jesus, Travis!” I exclaimed as I hurried towards him to check on him. “What the hell happened? Who did this?”

  “I… I don’t know,” He groaned as his eyes opened, and he tried to push up from the floor, but he was still woozy and a little disoriented. “One minute I was standing there watching Ally getting sick and… ALLY!”

  I helped him up from the floor, his legs wobbler than a new baby foal.

  “Where is she, Trav?” I cried as my heart jumped up into my mouth. For the briefest moment, when I saw Travis lying there on the floor, I didn’t question where Ally might be. Now, my mind was working overtime with thoughts of her. “Where did she go?”

  “She… she was here!” He groaned as I lead him out of the stall, then out into the hallway, scanning if for her quickly, but she was nowhere to be found.

  “I NEED HELP HERE!” I cried out, and suddenly we were surrounded by both hospital staff and police, and instantly one of them called for a gurney for Travis.