Crazy Madly Deeply

by Lily White

  With my hands tucked into the pockets of my jacket, I kept my head low to prevent as much wind as possible from stinging at my eyes, making them water and then freezing those tears to my skin. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings, was lost in thought by the time I approached the tracks that divided Tranquil Falls. My plan was to go home and shower, then check on Deli. As long as she was fine, I’d leave for a few hours to have some fun with Kaley. But plans have a funny way of changing at the drop of a hat. They have a way of disappearing when you hear something odd and turn to look.

  It was the sound of a car door clicking shut that had first drawn my attention. But it was the figure moving out of the shadows that forced my heart rate to pick up speed, my body to tense with anger. I heard another voice call from the shadows, fear and urgency riding Michaela’s tone. “Jack! Please don’t do this!”

  Breath poured out of me, hot with rage, but I eyed Jack from a distance, decided he wasn’t worth the trouble of a fight. Not when it would threaten my ability to take care of Deli. There was enough space between us that I could dip into the woods before he reached me, could outrun him if I really needed to. Not that Jack scared me. From what I saw at the diner, his body had lost mass and he had the shakes common to drug users.

  But I didn’t need the trouble, so I ignored him and stalked off.

  “Come back here, crazy freak! Are you scared of me? Is that it?”

  Jack sounded amped, his pitch higher than normal, his words coming out on a rush of furious breath. I kept walking, kept going, kept hoping that he wouldn’t follow me beyond the tree line once I passed it. I wanted nothing more than to cave his face in with my fist, but Angela was right. They’d blame me. I’d go to jail for it. Even if he had been the instigator. Picking up my pace, I could hear the argument occurring behind me, could hear the hurried steps following me.

  “Jack, I mean it, stop!” Sobs tore from Michaela’s lungs. She sounded panicked, afraid. Terrified, really, which made me wonder if Jack had a weapon I hadn’t seen.

  “Shut the fuck up! What? Are you worried I’ll beat the shit out of your freak boyfriend? Because that’s exactly what I plan to do!”

  Boyfriend? Had the drugs messed with his mind so much that he actually believed something was going on with Michaela and me? I hadn’t seen her in two years. That was insane.

  My hands clenched into fists in my pockets and it took every drop of self-control I had in me to keep moving forward. Turning around and destroying him would be so much easier, but look what happened last time I laid a hand on him. I lost my parents. I almost lost my sister. Decisions have consequences and I wasn’t willing to play with fate just to work out the fury inside me toward Jack, the raw, undulating need I had to rip his body apart.

  Urgency pushed my feet faster. I was practically jogging by the time I reached the line of trees. My hope that Jack would retreat was futile. His steps pounded behind me, his mouth shouting out the most ridiculous statements. “You can run, but you can’t hide, freak! Afraid you won’t get a sucker punch in this time? Why don’t you turn around and face me?”

  Pulling my hands from my pockets, I broke into a full sprint. But I was exhausted and didn’t have drugs pumping through my veins, pushing me harder and faster. Not like Jack. The old high school quarterback, a guy who could run much faster than me apparently.

  Michaela’s voice cut through the quiet night sky. “Jack! Stop!”

  It was too late. He’d caught up to me, slammed into me from behind and tackled me to the ground. Adrenaline poured into my veins the instant our bodies made contact. Falling forward, I was launched to the ground, my knees and hands bracing for the impact, but his weight and speed had been too much. My forehead hit and scraped along a downed tree, my arm was gripped and my body jerked over until I was on my back, the tree beneath my head not giving way. Jack straddled me while stars were still bursting behind my eyes from the hit. He yanked me up by my shoulders and slammed me down again. The back of my head impacted against the tree. My vision hazed red.

  “Jack! Please!”

  A figure ran up behind Jack, the scant moonlight lighting Michaela’s face as she reached to grab him and attempted to pull him off me. His fist flew back, the knuckles catching her face, knocking her sideways.

  Everything went black as pure, undiluted rage poured through me.

  . . .

  When I came to, I was leaning against a tree, my chest beating with labored breath, my knuckles flaring with pain, the skin burning in the cold wind howling past me. Confusion held me in its grip, my mind racing back to remember where I was, how I got here, what happened. I could feel hot blood dripping from my nose, could taste the copper flavor of it in my mouth. The night was quiet except for my hard breathing.

  Images rushed past me, memories of...something.

  Raising my hands to my face, I winced at the torn skin over my knuckles, looked down to see blood covering my ripped jacket. My pants were stained and wet, my hair in my face because my beanie was gone. Blood dripped from my lip and when I followed a hot drop of it down to the ground, I froze in place, my mind begging for this moment to be a hallucination and not real.

  Both Jack and Michaela lay on the ground, their bodies still, their silence lifeless.

  Alarm overwhelmed me, the force of it tight and explosive within my body.

  Oh, God...

  Please let them be alive. Please let them be alive. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

  I got to Jack first and almost vomited. A puddle of blood expanded beneath him, both eye orbitals of his skull crushed in, his jaw hung slack and out of place. Closing my eyes, I sucked in a breath, opening them again to reach out and check his pulse.

  There was nothing. Not even a slight flicker.

  His eyes were as open as they could be with the damage, unblinking.

  Jack was dead.

  Jack was dead.

  Jack was dead.

  This couldn’t be happening. I didn’t do this.

  Judging by my busted knuckles, I did.

  Angela’s voice was a whisper in my mind. “It won’t matter, Holden. They’ll blame you.”

  Another spike of panic drove through me, my head aching with it, my body pulsing with the pain of it, my senses screaming with it, my body frozen in place, unable to crawl forward and check on Michaela.

  She hadn’t moved since I came to by the tree.

  Fighting against the frantic rhythm of my heart, willing myself to breathe evenly before I passed out on top of them, I swallowed hard, trying to force down the screams crawling up my throat, the incessant question thundering in my head:

  What will happen to Delilah if I’m gone?

  How did this happen? Why couldn’t I remember anything? Why couldn’t this stupid son of a bitch just let go of the past and leave me the hell alone?

  I was nothing to him. A nobody.

  But now, I was the man who took his life. I was the last moment he had before he stopped breathing.

  Another surge of panic crashed over me like a tall wave, the undertow of denial and disbelief dragging me under. My thoughts were a jumbled mess, my vitals at a level far above healthy, but I crept forward regardless to see that blood covered Michaela’s cheek. Reaching out with hesitant fingers, I pressed the tips to her neck and found a pulse.

  Oh, thank God...

  The thought raced through my head before I took a second to understand what her being alive meant:

  I’d murdered Jack Thorne, and Michaela Paige had witnessed it.

  Pushing to my feet, I paced the ground beside them, my fingers tugging at my hair, my palms wrapping over the back of my neck while I screamed every obscenity in the book.

  I had to think, had to move, had to fix this somehow.

  I couldn’t fix this.

  There was no bringing Jack back to life. And Michaela would wake up eventually to tell the cops what I’d done.

  They would interview me. And I would have no answers, so I couldn’t ev
en claim self-defense because I didn’t know what happened.

  FUCK!

  I had to think, had to think, had to...I didn’t think. I reacted. Stepping up to Michaela on one long stride, I knelt down and took her limp body into my arms. Cradling her against my chest, I tried kicking leaves over Jack’s body to camouflage him. Nothing I did helped to disguise him from view and I knew it would only be a handful of days before someone came through here and saw him. But those people wouldn’t see me as long as I got the hell out of there right that second.

  Shoving him with my foot, I knocked him away from the small foot-trampled trail, leaving him like trash among the drug needles, plastic baggies, used condoms and empty styrofoam cups.

  I didn’t have a damn clue what I would do with Michaela, but I knew I couldn’t leave her lying there, couldn’t run back home and hope like hell she wouldn’t wake up and go immediately to the police. I needed time and that’s why I kept running down the road holding on to her even when I had absolutely no idea what I would do with her once she was inside my house.

  I wasn’t thinking straight. I was reacting. And sometimes, quick reactions during an emergency aren’t always the best. Mine certainly wasn’t. I was only complicating the problem, adding kidnapping onto murder, heaping all the possible felonies onto the pile so I could face them at the same time when the cops finally found me.

  But I’d panicked. And taking Michaela was the brilliant plan I came up with.

  What would I tell Deli? Where would she go if I went to jail? How would I get Michaela in the house without Deli seeing me? Where would I put her once I had her there?

  Instinct and intuition took over. I was on autopilot as I ran up the walkway to the front door, autopilot as I snuck inside and ran to my room without Deli seeing me, autopilot as I laid Michaela down on my bed, stepped back and wondered how I would keep her quiet, autopilot as I grabbed rope from the garage, tied her hands together, and whispered an apology against her ear.

  Autopilot as I bound her completely.

  Autopilot as I gagged her to make sure she didn’t scream.

  Autopilot as I went out in search for my sister to beg her to go spend time with our uncle.

  Autopilot as I found Deli sleeping, returned to my room and then slid down the door to sit on the floor while staring at a major, life-altering problem.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Michaela

  Hammers were beating on the inside of my skull, the thunderous pulse traveling down my temple to slide along my cheekbone that felt hot and swollen. I wished it was one of those moments where you wake up from something terrible, but your mind shields you, erasing all the scary parts so you don’t panic when your eyes open.

  But it wasn’t one of those moment. I remembered all the scary parts, they were playing behind my eyes like a movie, over and over.

  Blinking the space around me into view, I knew instantly that my hands and feet were bound because I could feel the pinch of rope on my skin. My mouth was gagged. I wasn’t outside. It was in a bedroom instead. Not mine. Not Jack’s.

  Holden’s.

  I recognized it from the video Delilah had shown me of Holden playing guitar. Tears stung my eyes, the nagging fear that Jack had been right - Holden was crazy.

  Only a crazy man would lose it the way Holden did. Only a crazy man would carry me back to his house and tie me up. Only a crazy man would be sitting on the floor with his chin resting on his knees, covered in dirt and blood while staring at me. There wasn’t a drop of concern in his stare, either. Only pure, naked hatred.

  “Did I do that to you?”

  The question took me by surprise. Not just the question, but the depth of his voice, the fluid baritone that I knew could sing softly. I assumed he wanted me to answer the cryptic question, but being gagged made it impossible. Mumbling behind it, I tried to point out the obvious to him while he continued glaring in my direction, his blue eyes beaming.

  A disgusted grunt rolled off his lips, but he got up, approached the bed, ripped the gag from my mouth and then went back to where he was sitting before. “Did I do that to you?”

  Fear was heavy on my words, the weight causing them to shake and tremble, causing my voice to pitch higher in anxious fits. “Do what? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you the one who tied me up?”

  His head cut left. “No. Your face. Did I do that to you?”

  I wanted to reach up and touch my face, evaluate the damage, determine if the bone itself had shattered when I was struck. But being bound made it impossible for me to move. And maybe that was a good thing. Holden looked like he was only barely clinging to control. His body shook, his jaw ticking furiously. Any quick moment or one wrong word could send him careening over the edge of control into violence.

  Keeping my voice soft, calm despite the circumstances, I answered, “No. You didn’t do this. Jack did.”

  Relief flashed in his eyes just before the hatred returned, but he didn’t say anything in response. I decided to fill the silence for him. I needed to convince him to let me go. Not knowing whether Jack was alive or dead, I needed to get out of this situation one way or another.

  Thankfully my life had taught me to be complacent, had taught me how to deal with strong men who’d lost their damn mind. “Why am I tied up, Holden? Will you please let me go?”

  Holden stared, the shaking of his body stopping as he went perfectly still. The silence returned, ticking by on anxious beats, the tension so thick it was drowning me. Fear trickled through my body, drip, drip, dripping until it was a puddle, a pond, a lake, an ocean churning beneath a turbulent storm.

  “I can’t do that,” he finally answered, his tone curt, the words clipped and forced.

  Swallowing down the dread crawling up my throat, I forced the calm tone to remain in my voice, added some sweetness, hoping like hell it would settle him down. “Why not?”

  He was so big, massive when you were close to him, a man that looked like a runaway train heading toward you that could break you faster than you understood what he planned to do. Even folded over himself with his arms wrapped around his bent legs and his chin resting on his knees, he was as tall as the doorknob, his shoulders stretching as wide as the frame of the door. Black hair hung limp in his face, dried blood caked beneath his nose and on his knuckles. His jacket was ripped at the shoulder, dirt smeared over the knees of his pants. A nasty scrape made the skin of his forehead look raw and broken.

  But his eyes, they were gorgeous, even with the hatred glittering behind them. I’d always noticed his stare growing up, had always been caught in the hypnotic pull of a set of eyes that truly saw me, that looked right through me until every last bit of my truth was revealed.

  Holden knew my life was a lie. He saw past the prim and proper exterior.

  “Because you couldn’t let things go,” he answered, his tone matter of fact. “You just had to make it worse, didn’t you? Had to take everything that was left.”

  There was no fluctuation in his voice. Dead. Monotone. In shock. Holden spoke robotically, answering my question with whatever words filtered into his head, but not really talking to me. He was somewhere else.

  “Where’s Jack?” Whispering because I was terrified to ask the question, I studied every muscle twitch in Holden’s arms, stared at the disgust and rage rolling behind his eyes.

  Holden moved suddenly, which caused me to flinch in response. But he didn’t get up, didn’t do anything beyond stretching his legs out on the floor in front of his body, lean his head back against the door and cross his arms over his chest. Fear had mutated into something else, the shock still present, but fading. A grin stretched Holden’s lips. Feral. Unfeeling. Insane.

  “He’s dead.”

  My terror overwhelmed me, a curtain of dread falling down to distort reality. My heart was beating so fast and hard it must have been a drumbeat that even Holden could hear. My lungs were so frozen that I could only manage short, shallow breaths. My head fell heavier against
the mattress and I closed my eyes, tried to stop the room from spinning. Tried to deny myself the truth that I’d just learned my boyfriend of five years had died and I didn’t care.

  Not about him, at least. Jack Thorne deserved it. He’d asked for it by refusing to let his hatred of Holden go. It was sad that his life was over, but I didn’t pity his fate.

  “You’re not crying,” Holden commented in observation. There was still no life to his voice. No warmth.

  On a tremulous breath I answered, “Because I’m not sad.”

  “He treated you like crap,” he barked out, “and you let him.”

  “I know.”

  As his voice grew in strength, mine softened and became weak. Silence swept in again, a tidal wave slapping over the earth, smothering the life that failed to outrun it.

  “Why?”

  My pulse was an imperfect rhythm fluttering non-stop beneath my skin. A butterfly trapped in a jar, bouncing and bouncing in search of freedom. “Because I’m not strong. I - I’m a-“

  “You’re small,” he answered for me, “but that’s not what I meant when I asked why.”

  His words sent me back two years, to another time I’d been called small. Delilah had screamed it at me over and over again while chasing me out of Holden’s hospital room, her voice so loud for such a tiny girl. I never understood what she meant by it. I just assumed she was so heartbroken and terrified for her brother that it was the only word she could think of in the moment. But judging by how Holden repeated it now, I wasn’t so sure.

  Tears welled in my eyes, the cold in the room combining with my fear until every muscle in my body was painfully tight across my bones. “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”

  “Why did you have to take it all?” He roared, his voice sweeping to fill every crevice of his room, booming from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, shaking the tears free from eyes that wouldn’t stop spilling. Curling into myself in terror, I sobbed, reality finally pulling the curtain of dread aside to shine brilliantly in its danger and torment.