I sighed. This was going to take all day. I walked over to the bar, grabbed it, and ate the top quarter. “It’s not poisoned.”
Derrick glared at me. “Of course, if it had been poisoned, you just ate it.”
I pretended to gag, and he laughed. I grinned at him. Yeah… we had Josh in the house and here we were making jokes. Derrick’s brand of darkness clearly worked for me.
I rounded on Josh. “You’ll want to eat that unless you think you’re feeling up to fighting for your life on an empty stomach.”
Josh jumped up, and I had the good instinct to dart out of the way. It wasn’t until after I’d darted onto the couch that I realized he’d meant to grab me. I’d narrowly escaped being used as some sort of hostage or shield for the Alliance member.
Without me to hold onto, he launched himself at Derrick who didn’t get out of the way. D had plenty of time to get out of the way, but he didn’t. He let Josh grab onto him, but before he hit the floor, he flung all of his body weight onto Josh and ended on top of him instead.
“Evs.” That was the first time he’d used that nickname, and it took a second for it to register in my head that he talked to me. “I thought he and I might do this with civility, but I forgot that there is none in the Alliance anymore.” Derrick grabbed Josh by the throat. He squeezed, and I took a step back. It wasn’t like I was in the way. If this was happening, was really happening this very second, it actually wasn’t taking a huge amount of movement on D’s part.
I forced myself to watch. I said I wanted him to teach me how to do this. I couldn’t look away. This was brutal. I had to somehow own that.
Even if it changed something fundamental about me.
“Do you remember my wife’s name?” Derrick had his hands around Josh’s windpipe. “Do you remember her? It was Alyssa. I realize you can’t really talk right now so I’ll say it for you. Alyssa Smythe Norris. She made a mistake. A big one. When I refused to be your blunt instrument of death. When I refused to burn to the ground a village in the middle of Vietnam that wasn’t doing anything except being in the way of a road that you wanted to build. An act that would have killed children, she thought to intervene.”
I’d never heard Derrick discuss the details of this before, and my body went cold as I did. Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“She shouldn’t have known about any of this.” His hands squeezed tighter. “And she should have known better than to say anything given that she did. But none of that mattered. She was my wife. Judson’s sister. And you showed her no mercy when you personally turned her over to Ben for his nightmare treatment. I can’t fathom what they did to her. I can’t imagine it. Then you helped Ben keep Everly.”
He picked up his neck and bashed Josh’s head back down on the ground. “I appealed to you personally. I asked you to give her back. I offered my services in exchange and you did nothing. So guess what? You guys made me a killer. I am the best one I know. And now you will personally experience my services.”
I never could have imagined that Derrick could kill Josh using just the palm of his hand and a rightly placed smash onto the end of that man’s nose. I laughed. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do. But that was what I did. I laughed out loud like I was a deranged person who had lost any and all control. Derrick had a deviated septum because someone smashed in his nose. Now, he was using what was probably a similar technique to kill this man.
And just like that, Josh was dead. There were noises. Jolts of muscles. A strangled scream. In the end, it ended. D lived, Josh didn’t.
The breathing male in the room sighed. “I thought we could make that more of a teaching exercise. You were supposed to watch from upstairs. That’s how they trained me. I was going to show you that there is nothing that can’t be used to kill someone. If you don’t have a gun or a knife you could take a bottle of whiskey and smash it over their head.”
I cleared my throat. “Don’t do that to the whiskey. It deserves better than that.”
He got off of Josh. “Are you okay?”
“Am I? I didn’t kill him. Are you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t feel anything about death anymore.”
I didn’t believe him. For now, we’d leave this alone.
“I made an appointment for the operation. Tomorrow, we leave for San Diego.”
That was such an abrupt change of topics. “There aren’t ENTs in Montana?”
“Not ones who are on our side in this schism. I know this doctor. He’ll do the operation after hours in his clinic. Then I can recover in Warden’s house. He’s not there. He said it was fine.” Derrick walked to the stairway and banged on the banister. “All right, guys. Come get the body.”
I had learned something, and it wasn’t how to kill. I couldn’t do what he did. I wasn’t physically strong enough. I was going to have to use a gun or a knife. Or a gallon of gasoline and a match. But what I learned was about Alyssa.
The wounds inflicted on him from her death weren’t going anywhere soon. Killing all her murderers weren’t going to settle the pain in his soul. I doubted anything could.
And he’d been willing to deal with these people, to negotiate with them, for me.
He was never going to put me on the street.
* * *
The shower turned on, I could hear it even where I stood on the balcony looking outside at the lake. Rain drizzled, and I stared up at the clouds. The forecast hadn’t called for rain. I stepped back inside, closing the porch door behind me before I headed into the bathroom. Derrick stood in the shower, his head bent, the steamy hot water hitting his back in the large shower. His long hair dripped wet, and his eyes were closed.
I threw my clothes on the ground in a pile and stepped into the shower with him. He lifted his lids, not flinching as the water must have certainly gotten into his eyes.
The water was hotter than I liked it but this was his shower. I invaded it unasked which meant I was just going to have to deal with his level of heat.
“Are you okay?” I didn’t know why I thought he might tell me here when he so clearly wasn’t going to tell me downstairs. There was something about the shower. I always had my best thoughts there, performed concerts I was sure were the best ever, and considered my day with new eyes. Maybe this could be a place for truth. Naked like our bodies, stripped down where there was nothing, not even clothing to hide behind.
He didn’t shrug. That was the first good sign.
“I’m not ever okay. I can’t even see okay anymore. I’m not sure I would recognize it if it was right in front of me. You should be running away so fast and so far that I can’t ever find you because, Evs, I am fucked up. So fucked up that I won’t let you go. I’ll want to. I’ll say to myself Derrick you need to leave this girl alone. But I’ll come find you. I have feelings for you, whatever is left of my heart manages that much, and I killed a man right in front of you. What is the matter with me?”
I put my hands on his cheeks. “Guess what, D?” Yep… I used the letter not the name. “I already knew you were really far gone. I am, too. I didn’t feel horror when you did it. Maybe my crazy matches your crazy.”
“Your crazy matches my crazy.” He repeated it several times. “Okay. Let’s go with that.”
He hoisted me up, pressing my ass against the shower wall. Derrick didn’t kiss me. He took possession of my mouth. My nipples pebbled, aching almost immediately. It was like he knew that without me having to say a word. While he kept one arm around me, he pinched my nipple hard. I cried out. Fuck. This man could make me come from just touching me if he wanted to and that was saying a lot. I really didn’t know if that was possible, but damned if it was, Derrick could do it.
I reached between us. It was awkward, but I managed. I took his cock in my hand, and I squeezed the tip hard. He cried out and set me down.
“Hard. Like that. That’s what I need right now.”
We didn’t have a condom on us, and I hadn’t even been on the pill twenty-four hours. I was glad he was
thinking because I hadn’t been. Yes, I’d get him off with my hand. I hadn’t done that in a long time.
“Show me how you like it,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “As hard as you can. If you think you can hurt me, that hard.”
“Really?” I bit down on my lip. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Do it.”
Okay. I wouldn’t question him. If he didn’t like it, I’d stop. I did as I was told. I gripped him tightly in my hand, and I rubbed up and down his cock, from his balls to his tip. It must have been tight enough. He flared his nostrils and closed his eyes. I stroked him faster, trying to keep the tightness as it was. Friction was what he needed, that was what he’d get.
It didn’t take him long. The noises he made coupled with how instantly hard he got in my hands were all the signs I needed that I was right on track.
“Harder.” The muscles in his neck strained. “Please.”
The please got me. I went faster and harder. On my third pass, he came. His forehead hit the wall over my shoulder. The noises he made were not pleasure sounds. No, this was something else for him, this was like needing to breathe. I put my free hand around him, holding him tightly against me. Derrick shook.
I was never going to bring this up again. He lifted his head and stared into my eyes.
“Better now.”
That was good. Derrick dropped to his knees. The movement was so sudden I almost fell but managed to right myself. His mouth was on me all at once. His tongue found my clit, and he tongued it. I caught my breath, letting the moment rush through me. I didn’t have to do anything but stand there. He played my body like it was an instrument.
The slight bite of his facial hair added to the experience. Goosebumps broke out all over my skin, and I moaned. Pleasure washed over me in waves. It sizzled, it burned. My head swam. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to think. Maybe ever again.
As the water pounded down on us, I came on Derrick’s lips.
How could there be so many highs and lows in the same day?
I wasn’t going to solve the questions of the world standing there in the shower. For now, I was just going to let the aftershocks of Derrick’s tongue take all the questions away.
* * *
I stared at the list of possible complications that could happen to Derrick in his septoplasty. They handed it to me on a print out that I was expected to read like I had any idea what the heck I was doing. Derrick had signed off on everything, which was funny since none of this was legal anyway. Five former Alliance members hustled around, all of them getting ready to operate on Derrick at two o’clock in the morning.
We’d eaten like old people at four in the afternoon and then boarded the plane. I’d had enough time to pack clothes for a week, and I supposed I’d soon be getting to see Warden’s apartment, sans Warden, of course, since he was somewhere else that Derrick didn’t specify.
So why he had to sign off on something acknowledging risk and promising not to sue was beyond me. It wasn’t like any of this would be ever discussed anyway.
I poked at my phone.
Warden kept sending me funny jokes, Trace book suggestions that he thought I should download, Judson an occasional remark that said hi or the equivalent, and Kade links to articles about Doctor Who.
They’d wheeled Derrick away a few minutes earlier and now all I had to do was wait.
The surgeon’s name was Oliver, the anesthesiologist was… shit, I couldn’t remember. I didn’t even know the nurse’s name. I’d never done this before, waited in a hospital for someone to have an operation.
I chewed on my fingernail. Anxiety settled in my stomach. Derrick was going to be okay. He just was. Thirty to ninety minutes. And then he might be swollen for quite a long time. Was he really going to be at risk for bleeding?
I was going to be the one with him at Warden’s house, dishing out his pain meds and watching to make sure he was okay. Well, at least I assumed I was. He hadn’t said anything about it, and given that we couldn’t really have other people around, it was obviously going to be me.
In some ways, this was going to be a lonely life.
Fuck. I couldn’t think like this anymore.
I grabbed the phone and dialed Kade. He picked up on the first ring. “Hey. How’s it going? It’s the middle of the night.”
Did they not know where I was? Not that they had to keep track all the time. I was hardly the center of the universe. Still… it was odd to think they weren’t all communicating all the time like they used to when I’d been their prisoner.
I hated that word. I wasn’t going to use it again. Captive. That was somehow sexier in my sick little mind.
“Derrick is having deviated septum surgery and we have to do this secretly and only with people on your side, so I’m here in a clinic in San Diego in the middle of the night. And it’s not the middle of the night where you are. It should be almost morning.”
He laughed. “Well, I’ll be. You got Derrick to have the surgery. Who knew we just needed you to get Derrick to take care of himself?”
“Yes, well, I’m obsessing. I don’t like this sitting around and not knowing if he’s okay.”
“He’s okay. He’ll be fine. Derrick is amazingly resilient. And I’m on the West Coast, too. Warden and I both are. We’re meeting with some of our people. This general idea of making a database to better keep people in line. You saved the day with Josh. Now that we know they used your dad, we’re checking all of the low-level accountants. It’s a whole thing.”
I sighed. “Well, I’m glad I could help, I guess. I didn’t do anything but get beat up a lot.”
“Fuck him. He’s up next.”
I shook my head even though Kade couldn’t see it. “No. I asked Derrick to save him for last. I want to kill him myself. We’ve been working on that.”
“On the killing?” He cleared his throat.
“Yes.” I might have had a little bit of a tone when I said that, almost like I dared him to take offense at the idea.
“Well, Derrick would be the one to do it. I miss you. How long are you in San Diego?”
I looked up at the clock. Derrick had been back about ten minutes. He probably wasn’t even under the anesthesia yet. “I’m not sure. Until he’s well enough to travel, I guess. I have all of the things that could go wrong here on this list. I don’t have, what’s it called, discharge instructions, yet.”
“I’ll pop on down if I can. I’m in San Francisco right now.”
He wasn’t far and neither was Warden. It was ridiculous to feel like they were close. They absolutely weren’t, but it still felt that way.
Maybe it wasn’t such a lonely life.
Chapter 11
“Everly.” Oliver came out in his green scrubs and white coat, looking better than anyone should at almost three in the morning. “All went well. He’s up. Not loving the pain but he’s okay. Waking up, very slowly. Derrick has a hard time throwing off the gas. That’s the technical term.” He laughed like he was funny, but I was still just thinking about the word okay. That was key. Derrick was okay.
“They’ll wheel him in here in just a bit. We’ll all be here until we let him go around seven, assuming his vitals stay fine and all goes well.”
He was a nice man. He was probably a psychopath like all The Letters and everyone in this mess of whatever it was now, but he was a nice man despite it all.
I stood up. “Thank you so much.”
“We’re so glad you’re okay, Everly. I can’t believe how much money Warden was going to give away to get you. How much did he end up paying?”
“I…” Actually, I didn’t know. And my estimation of Oliver tanked, too. “Thank you so much.”
I sat back down.
This was almost over, and I was hugely relieved.
Derrick, who looked thoroughly beat, hooked up to machines with bandages all over his face, didn’t really wake up when he came in. The nurse was a beefy, tattooed man who winked at me a
s he fussed at Derrick’s IV bag.
“This one is clogged. Be right back. Big deal to have Derrick Norris here. I’ve never seen him in person. Kind of a legend.”
He didn’t look so legendary to me right now. “You like baseball?”
I ran my hand through his hair. It was always so ridiculously soft. He said something but it wasn’t intelligible.
“I don’t. I mean, it’s nice to have him here because he’s… you know… they said you know.”
Oh, we weren’t talking about what it was D did when he wasn’t being D. “Right. Well, thanks. Is he in pain?”
“Not currently, but he will be. We’ll need to stay ahead of it. I’ll go over all of that with you in discharge.”
I nodded. “Great.”
Maybe if I pretended I had any idea what I was doing, it would all just work out.
“I’m going to go get another one of these bags. This one is just not hooking up.”
I sat down in the chair to watch Derrick sleep. His eyes fluttered open, and he looked at me. “Am I done?”
I took his hand in mine. “You did great. All over.”
His eyes closed again. Was that normal? The waking up and the falling back asleep like that? I was going to ask the nurse as soon as he got back in here. Derrick’s hands were so much bigger than mine. I spent a minute looking at them together. My phone buzzed, and I looked at it.
Derrick had an operation?
Kade or Warden must have talked to Trace.
I answered him quickly. To fix the deviated septum.
Where was the nurse? How long did it take to get an IV bag? I got to my feet. Had he forgotten us? Fallen asleep? I doubted that, but I didn’t like that he wasn’t back. Maybe I just didn’t want to be alone with a person who might suddenly start bleeding. I really wished I hadn’t read that sheet of paper.
Maybe some people were just not natural caregivers.
I wandered into the hall to see if I could spot the nurse.
What I saw caught a scream in my throat.
Dark Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #2 Page 12
