by Lily White
He was too strong, and despite the fight we could hear coming from Delilah’s room, I was dragged away from the door, a blanket being wrapped over my shoulders as I was forced toward the cars.
“Get away from my sister!” Holden yelled, just before a crash sounded from the room.
I was being dragged in one direction, my head turned toward the house. “Holden, stop fighting!” I screamed, the tears pouring down my cheeks from the fear he would get himself killed.
“Is there another woman in the house, Ms. Paige?”
“No. It’s not what you think. You have to let me get back to him! Please!”
“You’re not going back to the house.”
“Please!” I screamed, tugging as hard as I could, not caring that his hand was bruising my arm and my feet were being dragged over the icy ground. I had to get to Holden. Had to. If I didn’t stop him from fighting they would hurt him. If I didn’t admit that I never saw Delilah in the house, he would never believe the other officers. This was all my fault and I had to stop them before -
A gunshot blasted against the cold night air before I could finish the thought, a woman screaming so loud that the sound was piercing my eardrums. The world around me spun and shifted, the house going in and out of focus as the screaming went on and on, never ending, never decreasing in volume.
It was the sound of a heart shattering apart.
The sound of a happy future being shredded.
The sound of a soul being ripped from a woman’s body as her world was torn apart.
It was my voice cutting through the chaotic night, my heart crumbling inside my chest, my soul being torn to shreds as I fell to my knees and tried to crawl toward the house.
Everything stopped and started at once. The house going silent as men rushed past. I was grabbed from behind and lifted from the ground before I could process what was happening.
I was still screaming for Holden as I was shoved in the car, left to watch helplessly through the window while every officer abandoned me to run inside.
My fists beat against the window, my throat burning from the sheer volume of my voice.
“HOLDEN!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Michaela
“I get one phone call,” I demanded, my arms crossed over my chest, my foot tapping against the ground incessantly.
Refusing to speak a word about Holden to the police until they let me call Angela, I stared over the exam table at an exasperated man, the legs of my chair rattling against the linoleum floor from the shaking of my body.
From the window beyond my interviewer’s shoulder, I watched people rush past in white coats and cheerfully colored scrubs, each one potentially running in Holden’s direction. My reflection stares back at me, a gray shape with wide eyes that is as transparent as me. Nobody would give me information on Holden, not the nurses or doctors, not Officer Shay with his receding hair and stern expression.
Head canting to the side, Officer Shay lifted one bushy eyebrow, impatience written into the severe arch. “I don’t have time for this behavior. You will get your phone call after you tell me the whereabouts of Mr. Jack Thorne.”
“I already told you, I don’t know. The last time I saw him was when he was chasing me from his car. He didn’t follow me after I ran into the woods.” My eyes were still tracking the people rushing past the window. “Is Holden alive?”
Is this what Hell feels like? The not knowing, the inability to draw a breath as the heart threatens to collapse? Each fetid beat of the overworked muscle felt like its last, my pulse a weak flutter beneath my skin that somehow pounded against the inside of my skull. Frustration had my fingers curling into my palm, the nails embedding in the skin until half moon circles filled with trace amounts of blood. I needed to know what happened to Holden, needed to see him, hear him, know he was okay, despite this bastard’s insistence we talk about more pressing matters.
Jack being that pressing matter, because Jack was the golden child, and Holden was just an afterthought.
Tears stung my eyes.
“So, you’re telling me that Jack Thorne assaulted you in his car while waiting for a drug deal in the woods? That you ran off and you haven’t seen him since? That’s what you’re telling me?”
My head nodded robotically, my eyes searching for a gurney, a flash of bright blue eyes, a man being escorted past who was still breathing, whose heart was still beating, whose light hadn’t been diminished even more by a town that never gave him a fighting chance.
Yes, I was lying to the police. But not about everything. Jack committed crimes the night we went missing. The drug deal and my rape, both of which I admitted to the instant Officer Shay asked. The only fact I was concealing was the other crime he committed by stalking and attacking Holden. I didn’t feel bad for the omission. It wasn’t exactly like I was holding back a detail that would prove Jack was innocent. I was merely lying about which crime he committed that night was the one that actually killed him.
“Jack didn’t assault me, he raped me. And yes, that’s what I’m telling you because that’s what happened. I have the injuries to prove it.” Holding up my wrists, my eyes met his as I asked, “If you found a dead girl with a bruise on her cheek and rope burns on her wrists and ankles, what would your conclusion be as to what happened to her? Would you think she was held against her will? Restrained? Assaulted, as you so willfully demand it be called?”
And maybe I was lying about where all my injuries came from, but still, I didn’t feel bad. Jack hurt people. Lots of people. And I hoped some of those victims would be willing to step forward. “Now give me my phone call.”
Ignoring my request, he leaned against the window, one foot crossing over the other at the ankle, his thick arms crossing over his broad chest. “If Jack attacked you as you claimed, why wouldn’t you have reported him? Why run to Holden?”
It was infuriating that he refused to use the word ‘rape.’
“For exactly the reason that you’re showing me now! You want to believe Jack is innocent. You want to believe that something happened to him, instead of Jack being the criminal. You and I both know it. You would have just tossed me back to my parents and wiped your hands of it. And they would have just tossed me back to Jack. I’m tired of being his puppet. His father practically owns this town, which means you’re on his payroll. That’s why the police have never investigated the weekend parties. As long as the team is still scoring on the field, you don’t care how else they’re scoring. So how would running to you have done me any good?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but a nurse walked in with the most convenient timing ever. Sneering in Officer Shay’s direction, I said, “Oh, look. They need to examine me. I guess that’s your cue to leave.”
Sneering right back at me, he surged forward as if to make demands that I answer his questions - to intimidate me, I assumed - but the nurse jumped in his path, her intimidation skills a lot more effectual with the finger she had pressed against a call button and her raised voice practiced and professional. “Take one more step toward the patient, and I’ll have security in here to handle the situation.”
It was immature of me, but I grinned. Being a patient apparently warranted more of a demand for consideration than being a victim. And what did that say about the town and its police force? It said exactly what Holden had claimed during the first nights I stayed with him: that unless you had the money to pay for respect, you didn’t get it. Thankfully, the hospital wasn’t bound by the Thorne payroll and they weren’t willing to put up with mistreatment of their patients.
Officer Shay vacillated where he stood. It was obvious he wanted to jump across the exam table and pull me from my seat, but with the nurse scowling up at him as her finger hovered above the security button, he reconsidered his plan of attack. Pointing a finger in the nurse’s face, he demanded, “Let me know when you’re done so I can continue questioning her.”
Storming off, he slammed the door shut, leaving me with
a pretty nurse with black hair and purple scrubs. Turning to me, she cocked a brow at the fact that I was refusing to go anywhere near the exam table. Technically, I was fine. My injuries were healing. So I’d chosen to sit in a visitor’s chair. “Are you planning on sitting there all day, or will you let me do my job?”
I didn’t want to be rude to her. She’d just done me a huge favor by chasing Officer Shay out of the room, but I still had questions I needed answered. “I have no problem letting you examine me, but I won’t let it happen until somebody tells me what happened to Holden Bishop.”
She froze at the sound of his name, a medical chart in her hand, her eyes lifting to me in question. “Holden Bishop? What are you talking about?”
Apparently she hadn’t heard why I was here. “He’s my boyfriend and he was shot. The police won’t tell me if he’s alive or dead and I need to know.”
The tears I’d been fighting the entire time Officer Shay was in the room finally fell along my cheeks, my body withering beneath the stress and fear I’d kept bottled up since I was driven away from Holden’s house. “Please,” I begged, “I’ll cooperate with you completely if you can just find out what happened to him. They won’t tell me anything.”
Although the nurse had no clue who I was, she obviously recognized Holden’s name. Her eyes narrowed on me just before she flipped through a few more pages of my chart, her lips pulling into a thin line before her head lifted again, her eyes locking to mine. “Are you telling me that poor man has been put through more hell by that town?”
Nodding, I swiped a tear from my cheek. “You know him?”
“Yeah, I know him. He broke my heart into a million different pieces two years ago. I’ve been worried for him ever since.” Looking toward the door, she tapped the toe of her shoe against the ground, dropped the chart on the exam table, and glanced at me again. “I’m not supposed to do this, but let me see what I can find out.”
“Wait!” I called, my hand locking over her wrist before she could get farther away. “I need to make a phone call. Holden doesn’t have any family, so nobody has been notified about him being hurt. I need to talk to his boss, but the police won’t let me.”
Her expression softened as she glanced between the door and me. Lowering her voice, she whispered, “The phone is right over on that table. Make your call and I’ll distract that asshole who was interviewing you. But make it quick.”
The nurse left the room and I dove for the phone. Dialing zero for the operator, I begged the woman to connect me to the diner. The line was ringing a second later, a low din of noise in the background when a woman answered, “Tranquil Fall’s Diner. Angela speaking.”
“Angela? Hi, um, this is Michaela Paige-“
“Michaela Paige?” she barked in response. “Why are you calling me instead of the police? Because of you and that jackass of a boyfriend of yours, my employees are being harassed. You better have a damn good reason for bothering me after all the crap you’ve put me through.”
“I’m at the hospital,” I started to explain before she cut me off again.
“What happened? Let me guess: That entitled dickless prick you’re dating turned his fists against you since he couldn’t get to Holden? No woman deserves that kind of treatment, so I won’t congratulate you on your ignorance for staying with a creep like that, but-“
I deserved her gruff demeanor, but I didn’t have time to argue with her. “Holden’s been shot,” I blurted out. “And he doesn’t have anybody besides you who can help him.”
“WHAT? Girl, you better not be screwing with me right now.”
“Please, Angela,” I begged, my voice breaking apart on sobs, “I don’t have time to explain, but you need to get down here. I don’t know what’s happening with him and you were the only person I knew to call.”
“Does his sister know?”
My teeth clenched together. Taking a deep breath in an effort to keep my voice steady, I admitted, “No, his sister,” my voice died off, my heart struggling to beat as panic and sorrow saturated every cell in my body. “Angela, I don’t think Holden’s sister is alive. I’ve been at his house for the past two weeks and she supposedly came home two nights ago, but there’s nobody in the house. Only Holden sees her.”
If not for the hum of background conversation filling the line, I would have thought she’d hung up for how silent she became. A second passed, two, three, and then, “Oh, dear God, what is going on with that boy? Fine. I’m coming up there, but you and I need to have a long talk.”
Relief flooded me. “Thank you. I’ll be here. I won’t let them take me back to town. I’ll tell you everything, just hurry, please. I can’t get to him and he needs somebody.”
“I’m on my way.” She hung up without another word.
I was wiping the tears from my face as the nurse walked back inside the room. Closing the door, she stared at me silently. My heart stuttered, my tongue refusing to ask the question that hung between us.
Shaking her head, the nurse patted the exam table and said, “You need to hop up here so I can take a look at you.”
My body wouldn’t cooperate, every muscle like jelly as I struggled to breathe. Unable to handle not knowing, I wrapped my arms around my abdomen and asked, “Holden? Is he okay?”
The nurse nodded, her expression sympathetic. “He was shot in the leg. It hit the muscle, but didn’t damage the bone or any arteries. A through and through as they like to call it.” Her hand patted the table again. “Come on, honey. Hop up here. Your boyfriend is going to be fine.”
I ran to hug her instead. At first, I thought she’d shove me away, but her arms wrapped around me, her hand patting my back as I sobbed onto her shoulder. Minutes passed as she comforted me, but eventually she moved to hold me at arm’s length, her warm brown eyes locking to mine. Speaking softly, she said, “Honey, I read in your chart that there is a possibility you may have been raped. Do you need me to do a test for that?”
Shaking my head, I wiped away the tears saturating my cheeks. “No. It’s been two weeks since that happened. I think they brought me here because of the bruises.”
Eyeing my cheek, she shook her head. “Was that from two weeks ago as well?”
I nodded, my breath rattling in my chest. “It was much worse when it first happened.”
“It may be a fracture of some type. We should get an x-ray to see. Are there any other injuries I need to be aware of?”
“Yes,” I admitted on a strained voice. “Old ones, so I’m not sure how well they can be documented.”
“You’d be surprised. Even healed injuries from abuse can leave calling cards for us to find.” She paused, her eyes searching my face. “Was Holden the one who did this to you?”
Shaking my head, I answered, “No! Holden wouldn’t do this.” A sob choked my voice. “Holden is wonderful. He would never hurt me. My ex-boyfriend is the one who hit me. He’s been hitting me for a few years now. I just never told anyone.”
She clucked her tongue. “That’s more common than you know. Hop up on the table, honey, and tell me everything. I’ll make sure we do what we can to help you get the truth out.”
Doing as she asked, I climbed up to sit on the table, my body still wracked by sobs. “You’re sure Holden is fine? They’re not hurting him?”
More sympathy drenched her gaze. “Baby girl, I promise you Holden is fine. We’ve got him, and unless we give the say so, nobody will be touching him again.”
I almost collapsed from the relief. “Thank you,” I breathed out.
“We’ve got him. Now let’s talk and see what we can do about helping you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Holden
I’m not crazy. I don’t care what I was labeled growing up, don’t care what the police have told me, don’t care that these voices keep insisting I attacked the men charging in Deli’s bedroom for no good reason.
She was frightened beyond belief, balling up beneath her blanket so that when they finally burs
t through the door, her screams had filled the room and ignited every protection instinct inside me. Helpless to do anything to stop them from tearing her room apart in their mad dash for me, I’d charged them before they had the chance, and despite how loud my demands had been for them to stay away from her, they tore apart the room regardless, after shooting me, after dragging me away and lying that there wasn’t anybody else in the room with me.
I didn’t trust them. Didn’t trust a group of thugs who were bought and paid for by the Thorne family. And due to my insistence that they were lying to me now like they had lied after the night Jack crashed into me with his car, they’d cuffed me and ignored the bleeding in my leg, they’d dragged me out and kicked me when I struggled. They’d tossed me in a car and driven me to a hospital where I was dosed with every tranquilizer known to man.
Waking up in a hospital bed had brought the past rushing back to my mind. Except this time, my sister wasn’t sitting beside me, my parents weren’t rushing down the halls to get to me after learning I was conscious. I was alone in a dimly lit room, kept company by the machines beeping above my head and the restraints holding me to the bed. No matter how hard I tugged, the restraints weren’t letting me go.
The rage inside me was blinding.
And according to the voices filtering into my room from the hallway, I wasn’t the only one planning to tear this place apart.
“Is he under arrest?” The voice was recognizable, a silver haired woman with the patience of a rabid dog. I couldn’t hear the response to Angela’s question, but they must have said something that irritated her. Voice notching a decibel higher, she asked, “Is he a suspect for something? Has he done anything to warrant being kept in a room by himself without being allowed to talk with anybody? What if I brought a lawyer with me? Would you let me in then?”
Again, they answered, but their voice wasn’t strong enough to bleed through the door.
