Fallen

by Karin Slaughter

  The wall got higher, stronger.

  “You like what we have. You know you can’t be with somebody else. Not really be with them. You can’t walk out on that ledge. You can’t open yourself up to someone like that, because you know at the end of the day they will always leave you. And that’s what your precious Sara is going to do, baby. She’s an adult. She’s been married before. She had a real life with somebody else. Someone who was worthy of being loved and knew how to love her back. And she’s gonna see real fast that you’re not capable of that. And then she’s gonna drop you on your ass and be gone.”

  The taste of blood got stronger in his mouth.

  “You’re just so fucking desperate for somebody to give you a little attention. You’ve always been that way. Clingy. Pathetic. Needy.”

  He couldn’t stand her being this close to him. He walked over to the sink and filled a glass with water. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Have you told her what happened to you? She’s a doctor. She knows what a cigarette burn looks like. She knows what happens when somebody holds two live wires to your skin.” Will drank the water in one gulp. “Look at me.” He didn’t look up, but she kept talking anyway. “You’re a project for her. She feels sorry for you. Poor little orphan Will. You’re Helen Keller and she’s whoever the fuck that bitch is who taught her how to read.” She grabbed his chin and made him face her. Will still looked away. “She just wants to cure you. And when she gets tired of trying to fix you, when she realizes that there’s no magic pill that’ll take away the stupid, she’s going to drop you back into the trash where she found you.”

  Something broke inside of him. His resolve. His strength. His flimsy walls. “And then what?” he yelled. “I’ll come crawling back to you?”

  “You always do.”

  “I’d rather be alone. I’d rather rot alone in a hole than be stuck with you.”

  She turned her back to him. Will put the glass in the sink, used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. Angie didn’t cry much, at least not for real. Every kid Will grew up with had a different survival tactic. Boys used their fists. Girls turned bulimic. Some, like Angie, used sex, and when sex didn’t work, they used tears, and then when tears didn’t work, they found something else to cut into your heart.

  When Angie turned around, she had Will’s gun in her mouth.

  “No—”

  She pulled the trigger. He closed his eyes, held up his hands to block his face from the pieces of brain and skull.

  But nothing happened.

  Slowly, Will dropped his arms, opened his eyes.

  The gun was still in her mouth. Dry fire. The echo of the hammer clicking was like a needle piercing his eardrum. He saw the magazine on the table. The bullet he kept in the chamber was beside it.

  Will’s voice trembled. “Don’t you ever—”

  “Does she know about your father, Will? Have you told her what happened?”

  His whole body was shaking. “Don’t ever do that again.”

  She dropped the gun back on the table. Her hands cupped his face. “You love me, Will. You know you love me. You felt it when I pulled that trigger. You know you can’t live without me.”

  Tears came into his eyes.

  “We’re not whole people unless we’re together.” She stroked his cheek, his eyebrow. “Don’t you know that? Don’t you remember what you did for me, baby? You were willing to give up your life for me. You’d never do that for her. You’d never cut yourself for anybody but me.”

  He pulled away from her grasp. The gun was still on the table. The magazine felt cold in his hand. He shoved it home. He pulled back the slide to chamber a round. He held out the gun to her, muzzle pointing to his chest. “Go ahead and shoot me.” She didn’t move. He tried to take her hand. “Shoot me.”

  “Stop.” She held up her hands. “Stop it.”

  “Shoot me,” he repeated. “Either shoot me or let me go.”

  She took the gun and dismantled it, throwing the pieces onto the counter. When her hands were free, she slapped him hard across the face. Then again. Then her fists started to fly. Will grabbed her arms. She twisted around, turning her back to him. Angie hated being held down. He pressed his body into hers, forcing her against the sink. She fought furiously, screaming, scratching with her fingernails.

  “Let me go!” She kicked back at him, grinding her heel into his foot. “Stop it!”

  Will tightened his grip. She leaned into him. All the anger and frustration of the last two days pooled into one place. He could feel his body responding to her, yearning to release. She managed to turn back around. Her hand went behind his neck, pulling him closer. She put her lips to his. Her mouth opened.

  Will stepped back. She moved to put her arms around him again but he took another step away. He was breathing too hard to speak. This was their dance. Anger. Fear. Violence. Never compassion. Never kindness.

  He took Betty’s leash off the hook. The dog pranced at his feet. Will’s hands were shaking so badly he could barely clip the leash to her collar. He took his keys off the hook and tucked his wallet into his back pocket. “I don’t want you here when I get back.”

  “You can’t leave me.”

  He reassembled the gun and clipped the paddle holster to his jeans.

  “I need you.”

  He turned around to face Angie. Her hair was wild. She looked desperate, ready to do anything. He was so tired of this. So tired. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to be needed. I want to be wanted.”

  She didn’t have a good answer to that, so she went with a threat. “I swear I’ll kill myself if you walk out that door.”

  Will left the room.

  She followed him down the hallway. “I’ll take pills. I’ll slit my wrists. That’s one of your favorites, isn’t it? I’ll slit my wrists, and you’ll come home and find me. How’s that gonna make you feel, Wilbur? How’re you gonna feel if you come home from fucking your precious little doctor and I’m dead in the bathroom?”

  He picked up Betty from the floor. “Annie Sullivan.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the woman who taught Helen Keller.”

  Will went into the garage and closed the door behind him. The last thing he saw was Angie standing in the hallway, fists clenched in front of her. He got into his car. He waited for the garage door to open. He backed the car into the driveway and waited for the door to close.

  Betty settled down into the seat beside him as he drove away. He cracked the window so she could enjoy the night air. Will didn’t think about where he was going until he pulled into the parking lot in front of Sara’s building. He grabbed the dog and carried her to the front entrance. Sara was on the top floor. He pressed the buzzer. He didn’t have to say anything. There was a responding buzz, and the lock clicked open.

  Betty squirmed as they got into the elevator. He put her down at his feet. When they reached the top floor, she ran out into the hall. Sara’s door was open. She was standing in the middle of the room. Her hair was loose and down around her shoulders. She was wearing jeans and a thin white T-shirt that didn’t do much to conceal what was underneath.

  Will closed the door. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, but when he finally managed to speak, none of it came out. “Why didn’t you tell me you saw Angie?”

  She didn’t answer. She just stood there looking at him. Will couldn’t stop himself from looking back. Her shirt was tight. He could see the swell of her breasts, her nipples pressing into the thin material.

  He said, “I’m sorry.” His voice broke. He would never forgive himself for bringing Angie into Sara’s life. It was the most awful thing he had ever done to anyone. “What she said to you. I never wanted …”

  Sara walked toward him.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  She took his hand and turned it so that the palm was facing up. Her fingers moved nimbly over the buttons on his sleeve.

  Will wanted to pull away. He need
ed to pull away. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t make his muscles work. He couldn’t stop her hands or her fingers or her mouth.

  She pressed her lips to his bare wrist. It was the gentlest kiss he had ever known. Her tongue flicked lightly along the skin, tracing the scar up his arm. Will felt like a current was going through his body, so that by the time she kissed his mouth, he was already on fire. Her body curved into his. The kiss deepened. Her hand wrapped around the back of his head, nails scraping through his hair. Will was dizzy. He was in free fall. He couldn’t stop touching her—her narrow hips, the curve at the small of her back, her perfect breasts.

  His breath caught when her hand slipped inside his shirt. Her fingers brushed over his chest, down his belly. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t falter. Instead, she put her forehead to his, looked him in the eye, and told him, “Breathe.”

  Will let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding his entire life.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SARA WOKE TO HEAR THE SHOWER RUNNING. SHE TURNED OVER in bed. Her hand traced along the indentation left in the pillow. The sheets were twisted around her body. Her hair was a mess. She could still smell Will in the room, taste him in her mouth, remember what his arms felt like when they’d wrapped around her.

  She could not recall the last time good reasons had made her not want to get out of bed in the morning. Obviously, it had happened when Jeffrey was alive, but for the first time in four and a half years, Jeffrey was the last thing on Sara’s mind. She wasn’t making comparisons. She wasn’t weighing differences. Her worst fear had always been that her husband’s ghost would follow her into the bedroom. But that hadn’t been the case. There was only Will, and the absolute joy she felt when she was with him.

  Sara had a vague recollection that her clothes were somewhere between the kitchen and the dining room. She pulled a black silk robe out of the closet and made her way down the hall. The dogs gave her a lazy look from the couch as she walked into the living room. Betty was sleeping on a pillow. Billy and Bob were piled into a crescent shape around her. Will had to be at work in an hour or Sara would’ve joined him in the shower. Yesterday, she had told the hospital staff that she didn’t need time off after her ordeal, but this morning, she was glad they had insisted. She needed to process what had happened. And she wanted to be home when Will got off work.

  Her clothes were neatly folded on the counter. Sara smiled, thinking she’d at last found a good use for her dining room table. She turned on the coffeemaker. There was a yellow Post-it note on the wall above the dog bowls. Will had drawn a smiley face in the center. She saw another note with the same graphic above the leashes. There was something to be said for a man who fed and walked the dogs while Sara was sleeping. She stared at the blue ink, the arc of a smile and two dots for eyes.

  Sara had never pursued a man before. She had always been on the receiving end of the wooing. But she’d realized last night that nothing would ever happen if she didn’t make the first move. And she had wanted something to happen. She had wanted Will more than anything she’d wanted in a long while.

  He’d been tentative at first. He was obviously self-conscious about his body, which was laughable considering how beautiful it was. His legs were strong and lean. His shoulders were roped with muscle. His abs would be perfectly at home on an underwear billboard in the middle of Times Square. It wasn’t just that, though. His hands knew exactly where to touch her. His mouth felt wonderful. His tongue felt wonderful. Everything about him was wonderful. Being with him felt like a key sliding into a lock. Sara had never dreamed that she would ever again be so open with another man.

  If there was any comparison to be made, it was between Sara and her old self. Something was altered inside of her, and not just her moral compass. She felt different with Will. She didn’t have to immediately know everything about this man she’d shared her bed with. She didn’t feel the need to demand answers about the obvious abuse he had suffered. For the first time in her life, Sara felt patient. The girl who had gotten kicked out of Sunday school for arguing with the teacher and driven her parents, her sister, and eventually her husband crazy with her unyielding desire to understand every last detail about everything on earth was finally learning how to relax.

  Maybe seeing the Polaroid of Will’s sutured mouth had taught her a lesson about prying. Or maybe it was just the nature of life that you learned from past mistakes. For now, Sara was content to just be with Will. The rest would come in time. Or it wouldn’t. Either way, she felt remarkably content.

  There was an insistent knock at the door, probably Abel Conford from across the hall. The lawyer had anointed himself czar of the parking lot. Every board meeting Sara attended started with Abel complaining about visitors parking in the wrong spaces.

  Sara pulled her robe tight as she opened the door. Instead of her neighbor, she found Faith Mitchell.

  “I’m sorry to barge in on you.” Faith pushed her way into the apartment. She was wearing a bulky navy blue jacket with the hood pulled over her head. Dark sunglasses obscured half her face. Her jeans and Chuck Taylors completed the ensemble. She looked like a PTA mom’s idea of a cat burglar.

  Sara could only ask, “How did you get in?”

  “I told your neighbor I was a cop and he let me in.”

  “Great,” Sara mumbled, wondering how long it would take for everyone in the building to think she was being arrested. “What’s going on?”

  Faith took off the sunglasses. There were five tiny bruises circling her face. “I need you to call Will for me.” She went to the window and looked down at the parking lot. “I thought about this all night. I can’t do it alone. I don’t think I’m capable.” She shielded her eyes with her hand, though the sun had yet to come up. “They don’t know I’m here. Ginger fell asleep. Taylor left last night. I sneaked out. Through the back yard. I took Roz Levy’s car. I know they’ve tapped my phones. They’re watching me. They can’t know that I’m doing this. They can’t know that I talked to anybody.”

  She was a poster child for hypoglycemia. Sara suggested, “Why don’t you sit down?”

  Faith kept her perch over the parking lot. “I sent my children away. They’re with my brother. He’s never even changed a diaper. This is too much responsibility for Jeremy.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk about it. Come over here and sit down with me.”

  “I have to get her back, Sara. I don’t care what it takes. What I have to do.”

  Her mother. Will had told Sara about his trip to Coastal State Prison, his conversation with Roger Ling. “Faith, sit down.”

  “I can’t sit or I’ll never get up again. I need Will. Can you please just call him?”

  “I’ll get him for you. I promise, but you have to sit down.” Sara guided her over to the stool by the kitchen counter. “Did you eat breakfast?”

  She shook her head. “My stomach’s too upset.”

  “How’s your blood sugar?”

  She stopped shaking her head. Her guilty expression was answer enough.

  Sara made her voice firm. “Faith, I’m not going to do anything until we get your numbers in order. Do you understand me?”

  Faith didn’t argue, perhaps because part of her knew that she needed help. She felt around in her jacket pockets and pulled out a handful of hard candy that she dropped on the counter. Next came a large gun, then her wallet, a set of keys with a gold cursive L on the chain, and finally, her blood-testing kit.

  Sara scrolled through the tester’s memory, checking the stats. Faith had obviously been playing candy roulette for the last two days. It was a common trick among diabetics, using candy to fight the lows, gritting out the highs. It was a good way to get through a difficult period, but it was an even better way to end up in a coma. “I should take you to the hospital right now.” Sara gripped the monitor in her hand. “Do you have your insulin?”

  Faith dug into her pockets again and put four disposable insulin pens on the counter. She started babbling. “I go
t them from the pharmacy this morning. I didn’t know how much to take. They showed me, but I’ve never used them before and they’re so expensive I didn’t want to mess up. My ketones are okay. I used a strip last night and this morning. I should probably get a pump.”

  “An insulin pump wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Sara slid a testing strip into the monitor. “Did you eat supper last night?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Sara mumbled. “What about snacks? Anything?”

  Faith leaned her head in her hand. “I can’t think straight with Jeremy and Emma gone. Zeke called this morning. He says they’re settled in but I can tell he’s annoyed. He’s never been good around kids.”

  Sara took Faith’s finger and lined up the lancet. “We are going to have a long talk when this is over about your noncompliance. I know that saying right now is stressful for you is an incredible understatement, but your diabetes isn’t something you can magically put on hold. Your vision, your circulation, your motor skills …” Sara didn’t finish the sentence. She’d lectured so many diabetics about this same issue that she felt like she was reading from a script. “You have to take care of yourself or you’re going to end up blind or in a wheelchair or worse.”

  Faith said, “You look different.”

  Sara patted down her hair, which was sticking straight up in the back.

  “You’re practically glowing. Are you pregnant?”

  Sara laughed, surprised by the question. An ectopic pregnancy in her twenties had led to a partial hysterectomy. Will wasn’t that much of a miracle worker. “You’re one-thirty?”

  “One thirty-five.”

  Sara dialed out the correct dosage on the pen. “You’re going to inject this, then I’m going to cook breakfast for you, and you’re not doing anything else until you’ve eaten every bite.”

  “That stove cost more than my house.” Faith leaned over the counter for a better look. Sara pushed her back down. “How much money do you make?”