He slaps me. “You’re going to be sorry.”
I spit in his face. “Fuck you!”
He smiles as he wipes off the spit. I swallow my fear. I lost. Kohen is going to kill me. As if reading my mind, Kohen punches me in the face. My head connects with the pavement as I fall. He makes me feel helpless as he climbs on top of me. I told myself I would never feel helpless again. He stole yet another thing from me.
Clasping my head with his large hands, he forces a kiss on my unwilling lips. Then he bashes my head back onto the concrete. I try to make my mouth work, but it doesn’t cooperate. I can’t even scream. I’m dazed . . . I start blinking rapidly, fighting with everything in me to keep my eyes open. If I lose consciousness there’s no telling what he will do to me. He slams my head into the ground again and my eyelids close. Darkness takes over . . .
I don’t know how long it is until my eyes flutter open again. I blink the rain out of my eyes. I test my legs. They work. My hands obey when I ask them to move. That’s good. I groan in pain and I know my voice is back. My little nap has given me enough strength to fight him. Small blessings.
“Get off me!” I scream as I attempt to wiggle out from underneath him.
It’s then that I realize my clothes are off me. Swallowing the bile in my throat, I touch my hip. I nearly cry in relief when I feel my rain soaked panties. He hasn’t raped me. Yet.
Kohen laughs at me. His weight holds down my body. One hand presses against my throat making breathing difficult, while his other makes a rough grab for any part of my body that he can touch. His intentions become all too clear when his hand roams below my belly button. I start bucking like crazy, trying to toss him off me. Kohen leans down so he can lick my cheek, the same one he punched moments ago.
Something in me snaps. With his face still close to mine, I turn my head towards his and bite the first thing that my mouth comes into contact with, which happens to be his ear. Perfect. I bite down as hard as I can. Kohen’s agonizing screams gives me a sickening pleasure. I won’t go easy. If he wants me, he can come and get me. Kohen slams my head back down on the concrete, causing me to release his ear. I spit blood in his face when he comes back into view and smile at him.
“You’re going to pay for that, Adalynn.”
I smirk at him. “Wort—”
All words die when he bangs my head down again. The world goes black.
My head is spinning, it feels like I got hit by a bus and then a soccer team decided to use my head as a ball. Not good. I try to wipe the rain from my eyes but I can’t. Kohen . . . Oh God! Lightning lights up the sky and I scream but no noise comes out. Kohen has his hands wrapped around my neck. His hands dig into my throat. I can see it in his eyes, he’s going to murder me.
I start thrashing around, but nothing happens. All it does is make Kohen grasp my neck tighter. Kohen smiles down at me, showing the most haunting grin I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t let him kill me. My knee connects with his tailbone. He winces, but doesn’t release his hold on my neck.
I claw at his hands. The evil smirk on his face lets me know that he’s enjoying this. He loves that I’m helpless, underneath him and he’s in control. He has all the power. It’s up to him if I live.
I don’t stop fighting him as I picture everyone I love. I close my eyes so their faces are the last thing I see, not Kohen’s. I picture Jax’s face last. The memory of him is so vivid I can almost hear him shouting my name.
Out of nowhere Kohen is shoved off me. Gasping air, I hold my neck. It’s more than tender to the touch. Someone gently presses fingers to the pulse point on my neck. I keep gasping in air. I have no idea how Kohen is off me, but I know the danger isn’t over. I need to get away from him fast, before he recovers and finishes me off.
Instinctively my head turns to the right to follow the sounds of pounding and grunting. I spot two men fighting. One limps, not fighting back as the other man pounds into his face. It’s too dark to make out who’s who, but I pray that the person on the ground is Kohen. As lightning strikes again, my eyes widen and the tears finally start to come.
Jax.
Jax stands over Kohen, beating the shit out of him. After wiping the rain and tears from my eyes, I attempt to stand, but my legs collapse underneath me. I desperately need to be near Jax, like I need oxygen to breathe. I crawl my way toward the biggest mistake of my life and the love of my life.
When I finally manage to crawl to them, I notice that Kohen is out cold. He’s unrecognizable. All I see is blood. Everywhere. Blood covers Jax’s hands and streams down Kohen’s face. I try to call out to Jax, for him to stop, but nothing comes out. Not a sound. My voice won’t work.
I don’t give up. I can’t. As much as I want Jax to kill Kohen, he can’t. Jax will end up in jail if he kills him. Kohen isn’t worth it. I try again to stand, but my leg isn’t working. Whenever I put pressure on my ankle, I fall over. I know it’s broken. When Jax drops an unconscious Kohen onto the ground I think the attack is over. It’s not. Jax grips Kohen’s head in both hands. Seeing his intentions, I will my voice to work this time.
“Jax,” I choke out.
It’s barely audible to my own ears. I have no hope that Jax hears me, especially with the roaring noise of the storm over us. By some miracle, at the last second, Jax whips his head in my direction. Kohen forgotten, Jax lets go of his lifeless body and rushes to me.
“Ads,” Jax says quietly as he crouches beside me.
He lifts a red hand to my face. I cringe from instinct, from memory. My body remembers being hit, again and again. Jax mistakes me shuddering away from the blood and drops his hand. I grab his hand that is pulling away from my face and press it to my swollen cheek. Even with the rain soaking his hair, dripping in his face, washing the blood away, he is still the most breathtaking man I’ve ever seen.
As my mind realizes that I’m not in immediate danger, the adrenaline pumping through my veins recedes, and in it’s place is pain. All the pain I was pushing down, ignoring so that I could escape from Kohen, rushes forward. Tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
Silently I scream. No noise comes out thanks to Kohen crushing my windpipe.
I’m safe. Jax is here. I can rest.
“Don’t close your eyes!” Jax yells above the storm.
Blinking, I try to focus on him but I can’t. With a will of their own, my eyes flutter shut. Vaguely I’m aware of the ground moving underneath me, making my head spin and intensifying the nausea I’ve been feeling all night. My gag reflex has had a workout tonight so when another wave of nausea hits, I can’t swallow it down as I’ve been forced to do all night. Nope, instead I turn my head and throw up all over the warmth that is surrounding me.
In the back of my mind, I’m aware that the warmth that I’m throwing up on is Jax, my savior. Time slips away from me after all of the bile is out. One minute Jax is squatting down on the ground with me in his lap while he holds my hair out of my face, and the next I’m sitting in his car with the lights on, his phone flashlight in his hand, as he regards me with pure hatred.
I shrink back. I’ve never seen him look at me like this, or anyone before, even Wyatt. On closer inspection, I notice that he isn’t glaring at me, not really. He’s glaring at my neck, I can only imagine what it looks like. Jax holds his hands up, silently letting me know that he won’t hurt me. I know that. Jax could never hurt me. Yeah, like Kohen could never hurt me. Gah! I’m so stupid!
“I would never hurt you, Adalynn,” Jax says, reading my mind.
Closing my eyes, I nod. I know this. I hate how much he is suffering, how angry he is. I know it’s not directed at me, but it’s my fault. If I wasn’t so consumed with having someone love me, truly love me, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be bleeding, in pain, and unable to talk because the man who’s been telling me he loves me had his hands around my neck.
“Open your eyes, Adalynn,” Jax pleads.
I comply, hating that he didn’t use his nickname for m
e. My eyes water again, but I force them not to spill. I will not cry. I’m a survivor. I won’t cry because of Kohen. Turning off the flashlight on his phone, Jax stares at me, all signs of hatred gone.
“Keep those beautiful eyes on me. Don’t close your eyes, Adalynn.”
He waits and I nod even though he didn’t ask a question. He maintains his focus on me while calling 911. As he tells the dispatcher where we are and what’s going on, his eyes never leave me. They roam my face, pausing over my swollen cheeks and again at my throat. He pales as he hangs up the phone.
For some reason, I try to cover myself. I know it’s stupid. There really isn’t hiding anything from Jax at this point. I’m wearing rain-soaked bra and panties.
“FUCK!” Jax curses while squeezing his hands into fists. I can’t help tensing, as the waves of anger rolling off him, even though I know he will never hurt me.
“FUCK!” Jax curses again while throwing the phone in the back. I jump at the sudden movement and wince.
Angrier than I have ever seen him, he rips off his bloody shirt and uses the only clean portion to apply pressure to my still bleeding hip. I swallow, moistening my dry throat so that I can talk.
Jax doesn’t say anything with words, but says everything with his gentle touch. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but nothing comes out. Not because I can’t, but because I have no idea what to say. What do I say him? He just came to my rescue. That’s who I was running to, the headlights, it was him. On some level, I knew it was him, that’s why I never gave up. He was the strength I kept finding when I didn’t have any left. I knew he was near, I knew he would find me.
Tentatively, I extend my good hand and caress Jax’s face, needing to feel him again, needing the reassurance that Kohen didn’t kill me and that I’m here with Jax.
“You found me,” I whisper.
“I’ll always find you,” Jax promises right before his lips crash into mine.
I welcome the sweet taste of Jax’s lips. The pain I was feeling seconds ago vanishes and all that remains is his lips on mine. The kiss isn’t anything like our “goodbye” kiss, it’s something more, much more. This is the kind of kiss that makes promises that I’m afraid to acknowledge.
“Ads,” Jax whispers against my lips before diving back into my mouth.
Arching up so that I’m closer to his mouth, I’m suddenly blindly aware of my ribs. I suck in a painful breath. After placing one last chaste kiss on my lips, Jax pulls away.
“What hurts?”
Everything. “My ribs.”
He opens his mouth, but pauses when we see red and blue flashing lights. Jax curses under his breath so I know whatever he’s looking at is bad. I don’t glance down. I can feel it just fine so there is no reason to look. The wailing of the police cars and ambulance coming closer are the last things I hear before everything goes black.
Immediately I panic when I open my eyes to bright blinding lights.
“Jax!”
“I’m right here,” he says into my ear.
I nod, regretting the decision to wake up as soon as I realize I’m in an ambulance. Which is stupid, I know that’s how it works. You get hurt, nearly choked to death, you get to ride in an ambulance. It just never occurred to me when Jax was dialing 911 that I was going to have to be in an ambulance. My past rushes forward.
“I can’t . . . I can’t be here,” I attempt to sit up and try to pull the oxygen mask off of my face, but my hands are restrained. “Let me go! I can’t be here! Please!”
I start sobbing, hating that I’m in the back of an ambulance against my will. Aren’t there patient rights about these kind of things?
Jax leans as close as possible to my face without disrupting my mask. “Look at me.”
“I need to—”
“I know. Just look at me. Focus only on me, Ads.” Jax strokes my hair. “Let everything else fade away, the ambulance, the past, and only focus on me.” He kisses my nose. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.” I choke out.
“Good. It’s just you and me from now on.”
It isn’t lost on me what he said. He’s talking as if we have a future. That thought makes me want to laugh. I know his game. He’s distracting me with pretty words. I’ll take it. Anything to get my mind off the last time I was in an ambulance. I feel a pinch in my arm, a tell tale sign of an IV being inserted.
“Why am I strapped down?” I squeak out when the paramedic comes into view.
“We were told you might be . . . overwhelmed in here so we had to strap you down since he refused for us to sedate you. So as long as you stay calm, I won’t have to put you to sleep.”
As she continues to talk, she begins inspecting my injuries. I gaze at Jax with a questioning expression. Jax sighs heavily.
“I know you hate to be drugged more than strapped down so I went with the lesser evil.”
I nod and struggle not to scream when the paramedic that I’m going to nickname the Angel of Pain inspects my ankle.
“It’s broken. I know it. Let’s not touch it,” I gasp through gritted teeth.
Jax glances at my leg, then back at the Angel of Pain, and leans back over me so that he’s all I see. He smiles down at me and I smile back. Subtly he nods, and before I can scream, his lips are on mine.
Jax doesn’t play fair.
The kiss before was urgent as if he needed to kiss me as much as I needed him. He kissed me like he needed oxygen, like he couldn’t help it. Now he’s kissing me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
He continues to press feather light kisses to my lip. I know I only have a few more kisses left before he stops and we’re back to “just friends who don’t kiss” so I’m going to take full advantage of Jax. I slip my tongue in his mouth and I’m only vaguely aware of the Angel of Pain tending to my ankle. All I can focus on is the taste of Jax.
All too soon, he slows the kiss down and pulls away. I think I let out a small whimper. Hopefully the Angel of Pain passes it off as a whimper of pain instead of what it was. Jax gazes at me. God, he’s beautiful.
“So are you,” he says with a grin.
Wonderful. I said that out loud. I open my mouth to speak again, but someone beats me to it.
“Mr. Chandler, I’m going to need you to come with me,” someone says after opening the back doors of the ambulance.
I lean up while Jax turns around to face a police officer. Jax nods before turning to me again.
“No! You can’t go. He didn’t do anything! He was protecting me! You should be arresting Kohen!” My voice cracks, it’s barely audible but the officer hears me.
Jax’s body tenses at the use of Kohen’s name. I ignore him and focus on the officer.
“I’m not here to arrest him.”
“Oh.” I sigh in relief.
“I’m here to tell Mr. Chandler that there’s still no sign of him.”
“Him?” I ask even though I know who he means. I just need confirmation.
“Kohen Daniels.”
He’s missing. Somehow, he was able to escape without being seen. And I know that he will find me again. I won’t be safe as long as he’s out there. He won’t let me go. Jax squeezes my hand, letting me know he’s here for me. Kohen might not be able to let me go, but neither can Jax. For just a second, I forget about the secrets he’s keeping from me and bask in his warmth. With Jax, I’m safe.
The End.
Stay tuned for the second
installment of the beautifully series.
Beautifully Mended.
About the Author
Courtney Kristel graduated from The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, but she couldn't shake her true passion for writing. She’s currently working on the second novel of the Beautifully Series, Beautifully Mended. When she isn't creating stories to share with the world, Courtney usually has a book in her hands or is searching for new music to add to her writing playlist.
sp; Kristel, Courtney, Beautifully Shattered (The Beautifully Series Book 1)
Beautifully Shattered (The Beautifully Series Book 1) Page 48
