[Nightmusic 01.0] Serenade

by Heather McKenzie

  Blood trickled down his chin. He put a finger to his lip, and then he looked at me as if waking from a dream, his face changing from rage to remorse. A look of horror passed over his face when he realized what he’d done. I didn’t care. Without hesitation, I raised my hand and slapped him as hard as I could.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, eyes brimming with tears, his own hand pressed to his stinging cheek. “Oh my God, Kaya, please forgive me.”

  I was fuming. The Oliver I knew would have never shoved me, or any woman for that matter. Did something happen on that mountain to change him as much as it had changed me? I was about to slap him again, but Davis caught my arm and Seth came around the corner with a shotgun. He aimed it at Oliver’s chest, and he cocked the trigger. “You need to take a time out there, boy,” he warned. “There'll be none of that bullshit on my property, ya hear?”

  Oliver stood, unblinking and unfazed by the gun directed at him. His face was a mixture of denial and complete heartbreak. “You’re really leaving me, Kaya?” he choked out.

  “Yes!” I shouted angrily.

  My answer hit him so hard he stumbled backward. He stared vacantly at me for a moment, stunned. “Well, maybe we need some time apart,” he said softly, “I guess I can let you go your own way for a little while.”

  “This is not temporary, Oliver. We’re done. ”

  He shook his head and let out a cocky laugh, like what I’d said was ridiculous. So I poured all of my emotion into four very important words. “You don’t own me!” I yelled.

  The cows stopped grazing. Brutus’s hair rose on his back. The world became still.

  Oliver sighed. “Fine. I’ll allow some separation for now,” he said sullenly, “but Lord help that asshole Luke if anything happens to you. Mark my words, Kaya Lowen; I will be back for what’s mine—I’m not giving you up.”

  With that, he turned and marched off across the field.

  Davis looked rattled, conflicted over whose side to take. His hand moved to my shoulder. “Something’s gotten into him, Kaya. He’s not himself. How about you give him another chance?”

  I shook my head. “No. Davis, I’m sorry. But this is how it’s going to be.”

  “You’re sure about this?” he asked sadly.

  “More sure than I’ve been of anything in my entire life.”

  He planted a brotherly kiss on my forehead, and then he ran off after Oliver. And that was it. I was alone. Unprotected.

  Free.

  I took in a deep breath, readjusted the bandage around my arm, and gathered my thoughts while Seth kept his gun aimed at Oliver and Davis until they’d faded into the distance.

  “Seth, do you know where Luke went?” I asked, struggling to hold my sanity together.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Seth, tell me, please.”

  “Listen. You’ve broken his heart, darlin’. He has to go away and do some forgetting about you,” he said, and he pulled out a cigarette from behind his ear. I noticed his fingers were trembling.

  “But I made a mistake…”

  He lit the cigarette and then slowly blew out a thick plume of smoke. His expression darkened. Everything about him, from his quickening breath to his tongue sliding across his teeth, suddenly made me nervous. He had that same look in his eyes he’d had that night on the boat… and my claw marks on his cheeks were a reminder of what he was capable of.

  “Uh, is everything okay?” I asked timidly.

  His voice had become cold. “Depends on whether or not you cooperate.”

  And suddenly, I was face-to-face with the gruff kidnapper who drugged me—the same man who performed surgery on my unfrozen foot and carried my unconscious body over his shoulder like I was a potato sack. I steadied myself against the stair railing. “Seth, what are you doing?” I asked carefully, putting my hands up in defense and wondering if I should run. He moved closer, and now he had the shotgun aimed at me.

  “This was supposed to be an easy job. I wasn’t supposed to like you. Now it’s all too damn complicated. At least I don’t have to sneak you out in the middle of the night, because lucky for me, Luke and that dumbass Oliver left you unattended. What idiots. They’ll never even know you are missing.”

  “What do you want with me?” I asked.

  “I want to hand you over to the bitch who has made my life a living hell for the last eighteen years.”

  I took a chance. “Your wife, right? Luke told me about her. He said she was, um… dead.” I asked while contemplating every escape route I could think of.

  “Nope. Unfortunately, the crazy, raving, selfish bitch is still alive. You look like her when she was younger, but you are nothing alike. She would have never have risked her life for another person like you did for Regan. She would have thrown us all to the wolves to save herself.”

  “She doesn’t sound very nice,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “You know, you don’t have to do this, Seth. You’re being used. And I know exactly how that feels. It sucks.”

  He laughed. “Ha! Why yes. It does suck.”

  His gaze drifted to the doorway where Lisa now stood, her hands on her hips as she shook her head back and forth disappointedly, and the sight of her caused an enormous amount of turmoil to take residence on Seth’s face. He gulped and looked at his feet for a while, and then he pointed the gun to the ground. “Aw hell. I’m sorry, girlie,” he mumbled sheepishly. “I don’t know what comes over me sometimes. That bitch wife of mine poisoned me. I’ll do what’s right from here on in. You can count on it.”

  I cleared my throat and hoped my voice still worked. “Then can you tell me where Luke went?” I could barely control the trembling in my legs.

  “Nope. But I’ll help ya find him,” he said.

  I stared into the eyes of the only person who could help me. I was crazy to trust him. If he wanted me dead or as his hostage, I would be. I forced a smile. “I hope he still wants me.”

  Seth reached for my hand and pulled me toward his truck a little too eagerly. “Well, let’s find out,” he said as he opened the passenger door.

  I got in without hesitation, because really, I had nothing left to lose.

  Five minutes from town, the Bronco ran out of gas. Using every swear word I could possibly think of, I rolled it off the dark highway and into the ditch. Then, instead of driving, I walked down the middle of the road. I realized that a car could come speeding up behind me at any moment and I could be scattered all over the place—but my heartache would be gone for good. So, I stayed in the middle.

  But no noise from car engines broke the night, only a bored dog barking as I made my way past overgrown front yards, chain-link fences, a few trash cans, and a green sign that said ‘Welcome to Jude, Population 78’.

  I found myself ‘downtown’. The convenience store had conveniently closed, and the lights were off in the hardware and grocery stores. I realized, as I passed an hours-of-operation sign at a Laundromat, that I didn’t even know what day it was. With the exception of a couple streetlights buzzing, the town was quiet and without a single soul in sight. I longed for a crowd to get lost in or noisy traffic to drown out the pounding in my head. This place made everything that hurt feel so much worse.

  I dropped to the curb. The gun in my pocket reminded me that there was a way out—a permanent end to my foreseeable lifetime of misery and heartache. I took the metal beast out of my pocket and pondered the selfish cowardice of ending it all. There was only one bullet left, but that was enough…

  Louisa…

  No. I finally had her back, and I’d be damned if I would ever let her down again. I had to stick around, for her.

  So now what? I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath, but the vision of Kaya standing in Oliver’s arms kept replaying over and over and was impossible to erase. I couldn’t shake it. His hands were on her face, her body pressed tight to his. He had her—he could do whatever he wanted with her—and that killed me over and over… I didn’t need that l
ast bullet. I was already dead.

  An empty beer bottle rolled down the street. In a daze, I followed it toward a flickering light. The light grew until it became a half-burned-out sign advertising the word ‘BAR’. I stopped in front of a windowless, black building with a mass of shiny Harley’s angle parked in front. A fair amount of noise snuck out from around a slightly bent door, and someone was singing along to Johnny Cash.

  I had a feeling that this place would offer just the kind of distraction I needed.

  The door squealed as I opened it, and within two steps, I was standing among a collection of leather-clad men and women. A chubby man with a face only a mother could love stood in my way.

  “I ran outta gas a few blocks from here, been having a really crap day. Just need a drink,” I said loudly, making sure to address the table of men who looked like they wanted to crush me like a bug, “is that all right?”

  I sounded cockier than I’d intended. Ugly Face got the nod of approval from a heavily tattooed bald man in the corner and stepped out of my way.

  “Thanks,” I said with a forced smile and made my way to the bar.

  A bartender strolled over, sweat clinging to his upper lip. “What can I get ya?” he asked.

  “Beer—whatever’s on tap—and a shot of rye.”

  “Must be a bad day if you’re in here,” he said and tilted an icy mug under a running tap.

  “Yup.”

  I got in one sip of the cold brew, barely tasting it, before the empty barstools on either side of me became occupied.

  “What’s your business here, boy?” asked a man on my right who looked to be in his forties with absolutely no friendliness about him. A dirty bandanna was wrapped around his bald head, and I wondered where the long, grey ponytail at the back was coming from.

  “Was just passing through town and ran outta gas. Bad day. Ya know how it is. Drowning my sorrows,” I said casually.

  “Nobody just passes through this shithole; it’s on the way to nowhere. Now, I’ll ask you again boy. What’s your business here?”

  His breath would have peeled the paint off the walls had there been any left. I ordered another shot of rye as I sized up the guy on my left; he would be a handful: tree stumps for arms and a belly that prevented him from getting close to the bar, but Bandanna Man, who was on my right… I could take him out in two moves.

  “Whatcha’ waiting for, boy?” Bandanna Man said gruffly.

  Stumpy’s lip curled up at the corner. “Yeah, c’mon and git talking,” he ordered.

  “Well… it’s a bit of a long story…”

  “Just give us the short-and-sweet version, asshole. And make it good,” said Bandanna Man as he cracked his knuckles.

  I took a sip of my beer and cleared my throat. As I eyed my new companions, I decided to start at the beginning—the very beginning. It was either that or just start swinging… “Well, when I was nineteen, my mum died and left me to care for my little sister…” I began. I told them about Louisa and my roommate Claude and what he had done to her and how I desperately searched for a way to earn enough money to get her back. The scowl started to leave Bandanna Man’s face.

  “I’d like to kill that mofo myself,” he said.

  “Well, now he’s dead,” I said flatly.

  I explained how I conspired to kidnap a girl to get enough ransom money to get my little sister back and seek revenge for my mother’s death.

  “How much cash are we talking here, boy?” said Stumpy.

  “A million,” I answered.

  “Ooh wee!” he yelped and snapped his fingers at the bartender for another round.

  I told Bandana Man and Stumpy that we succeeded—we made it happen—but there was one problem: I fell in love with the girl I’d kidnapped.

  My audience had grown in size at this point, and Johnny Cash’s “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town” had been put on pause. I told them about the mountain lion and I opened my shirt to reveal the wounds for effect; there was a slight gasp from the ladies. I told them how I ran down the side of the rapids and then how I jumped in to fish Kaya out of the water when she had become impaled on a fallen tree, and how I used my knife to cauterize her wound and found a cave to hide in while we waited out a storm. I even told them how I saved her fiancé from falling off a cliff, even though he had tried to slit my throat.

  And then I stopped. I stopped because it became too difficult to continue. Now I was at the end of the story: the part where the girl left me. Bandanna Man passed me a sympathy beer. “She is going home tomorrow morning, and I will never see her again,” I muttered, my eyes stinging.

  Stumpy shook his head like someone who truly understood and not someone who wanted to kill me anymore. Even Ugly Face wandered up and gave me a pat on the back. Their leader, however, the tattooed bald guy in the corner, wasn’t having any of it. “I call bullshit!” he barked and stood, letting his chair tip backward and crash to the floor.

  The entire room grew quiet as he made a beeline toward me. My audience scattered with the exception of a pretty brunette with fingernails that looked like knives.

  “I think your story is bullshit,” he said in the deepest, scratchiest voice I had ever heard. Tattoos covered every inch of him except his face. On his bald head were flags, some roses, what seemed to be a dinosaur, and of all things, a giant maple leaf. “Tell the truth,” he demanded.

  “I am. Why don’t you believe me?” I asked as the world around me instinctively slowed down. I calculated the moves I’d need to execute to take him out, but he would get hurt. So would Stumpy and Bandanna Man, and I didn’t want that. This big biker stared me straight in the eyes with an unwavering glare, and I stared back, not quite sure what to say.

  “You got a death wish, don’t ya, kid?” he asked quietly.

  I shook my head no. Or, did I?

  “I don’t get it. You claim you are in love with this girl—that you can’t live without her and blah, blah, blah,” he said. “Well, if that’s the case, then why the hell are you sitting here? Why are you wasting your time in this shithole with a bunch of dickheads like us? Why aren’t you going after her?”

  I answered him honestly. “Well, because I gave my word that I would honor her decisions.”

  He studied me for a moment, and then he sucked back his drink. The sweating bartender had another placed in front of him in seconds. “And why are you so intent on keeping your word?” he asked.

  That was easy to answer, but hurt to say. “Because it’s all I have left.”

  He rolled his eyes and was about to leave, and then in a complete about face, he turned around and cracked his neck. I rose slightly from the stool, hands ready, but I realized that every speck of ferocity had left his face. If his head wasn’t colored like a comic book, I’d think my kind old uncle, Earl, was talking to me now. “You know, kid,” he said, “honor, integrity and all that crap is noble and all, but sometimes, promises have to be broken. If keeping your word costs you the one thing you love the most, then what was it even worth keeping in the first place?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “I just don’t know what to do,” I confided.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, that’s easy. Go back and get her,” he said, and then he grabbed the brunette by the hair and dragged her outside.

  I dialed Henry from Seth’s cell phone while he lit his third cigarette. The truck sped past the thinning tree line toward town. A deer’s eyes flashed in the headlights and an angry voice came on the line just as I was about to hang up.

  “Who the hell is…?”

  I didn’t let him finish. “Henry, it’s Kaya.”

  Dead silence.

  “Hello?” I said, wondering if I had lost the signal.

  His voice boomed, “Kaya! Are you okay? I’ve been so worried!”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Never better.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Nowhere. Doesn’t matter.” I took a deep breath. “Anyway, I’m calling to tell you I’m not coming back.�
��

  He laughed nervously. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is your home. Stop being silly. You know I’m the only one who can keep you safe. Come home. Now.”

  “No,” I said firmly. Never in my life had that word felt so good to say. Those two letters put together were so powerful. “Listen Henry, regarding my inheritance,” I said, forgetting that Seth was within earshot, “when I turn twenty-one, I’ll see you again, and we will work it out. If you leave me alone till then, maybe I’ll be nice and give you a fair piece of the pie.”

  Seth’s eyebrow rose questioningly. He was now in on my secret, the one Regan was so desperate to uncover.

  “That is unacceptable,” Henry raged, and I imagined his face turning purple. “You are to come home, now!”

  “This is my life, not yours, and I’m going to live it exactly how I want. You are not in control of me any longer.”

  “Well, then maybe you should talk to Stephan,” he said slyly.

  Stephan. The only person who could crumble my new found strength to dust. I pondered hanging up, but his deep, slow-as-molasses voice poured into my ear.

  “Hello, baby,” he said.

  Tears instantly gushed forward, and I could barely speak. “Stephan, oh my God, I miss you so much…” I said, trying to contain a full on sob.

  “I miss you, too,” he said. His voice was strained, like he was in pain.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yep. Never better. For real,” he said, but there was still a slight hesitation in his voice. He was lying. “How about you, baby girl, you okay?”

  “Yes, perfectly fine,” I lied back. There was a long pause. “Stephan, I’m sorry, but I’m not coming back for a while,” I choked out.

  “It’s okay, you go do what you have to,” he said quickly. The words were catching in his throat. My big man of steel was crying, and I felt awful.

  “Stephan I’m—”

  He cut me off.“Wait, listen very, very closely; I love you, Haley Alexandra.”

  “Wha…?”

  “I’ll love you forever and always with cookies on top.”