All He'll Ever Be

by W Winters

  I offer him a small smile, but I don’t say anything and neither does he.

  Until that knife slices so easily through the tomato again. I imagine the way it would go down, but it’s hard to focus. I couldn’t kill him. He’d have to push in the code and then I’d run.

  “Is he treating you alright?” he asks me, and my grip tightens on the knife. He could so easily push in a code and grant me freedom. And then I could tell my father they’re coming.

  Raising my eyes to his for the first time, I ask him, “What do you think?” I’m surprised by the strength, but I crave more of it.

  His gaze flickers to the door behind me and then back to me.

  Silence descends upon the kitchen.

  “He’s in a difficult position,” Daniel offers me when I start to cut the slices into chunks, trying not to think of what would happen if I failed. What Carter would do to me if I tried to escape and failed. My chest hollows and my stomach drops at the thought. The cell. Or worse, the box. He knows what that box would do to me if he put a lock on the outside of it.

  My blood runs cold.

  “He’s not a bad man,” Daniel says, and I watch as the knife in my hand trembles as it hovers over the remaining slices.

  Bad man? He’s not a bad man? If only Daniel knew what I was thinking.

  “Good men don’t do what he’s done,” I tell Daniel without looking at him. “I begged him last night to spare my father. My family,” I say and my voice cracks.

  “I’m sorry, but you know he can’t do that.” It’s his only response and I crumble inside. My heart twists in a painful way. It’s a horrible ache that I can’t explain when I hear Daniel turn to walk away.

  He’s leaving me. Because he can. Because it doesn’t matter if he leaves me to wallow all alone. All I’ll ever be is alone and pathetic if I don’t even try.

  My fingers wrap around the knife until my knuckles are white and I cry out for him. “Daniel!” His tall, lean body stiffens, the muscles in his shoulders rippling as he turns around.

  He’s maybe five feet from me. But the kitchen island separates the two of us.

  Be smart, I remind myself. But at this point, nothing I’m about to do is smart. Lowering the knife to my side, the blade nearly caresses my skin when I clear my throat.

  “I’m sorry,” I offer him although I can hardly hear myself over the furious pounding of my heart in my chest. “Could you show me where the seasonings are?” I have to swallow before I can add, “Please.”

  Daniel’s mouth is set in a grim straight line; his eyes pierce deeply into me like he knows exactly what I’m about to do. But he walks toward me. He walks to my side of the island. Inside I’m screaming that it’s a trap, that he knows. My blood rushes in my ears and the sweat from my hand nearly makes the knife slip.

  Five feet becomes four, becomes three, becomes two.

  And he turns his back to me, reaching at eye level to open a cabinet before turning around and finding that knife pointed at his throat.

  The sweat that crawls along my skin is sickening. It covers every inch of me as I try to speak, but my dry throat won’t allow it.

  Stupid girl! I hear the voice yell at me. Regret and fear are instant, but the knife is in the air and I can’t take it back. My hand feels as if it’s shaking, but the knife is steady.

  I can’t go back. “Get me out of here,” I breathe as he stares at me with disdain.

  “You don’t want to do this, Aria.” Daniel’s words are so genuine, so sincere, that I almost regret taking the step forward and nearly pressing the blade to his throat.

  “I want to leave.” I somehow push the words out. How strong they sound, although I’m panicked.

  Daniel’s eyes turn sympathetic, or maybe they just look back at me as if I’m the pathetic one. I can’t tell. He deceives me so.

  “I can’t help you with that.” My heart plummets and races at the same time. This is my only chance, my only hope.

  “Open the front door.” As I give the command, I step forward and my trembling hand pushes the knife closer to him, slicing the skin of his upper neck, just slightly. A small nick, but it cuts him. I cut him.

  The horror of seeing the bright red blood distracts me for a moment, a moment long enough for Daniel to shove his hand in front of me and try to grip the knife.

  He may be fast, but my fear is faster. The knife pierces through his shirt and bicep, easily cutting into him, slicing his arm as I stumble back.

  My heart beats so hard I swear I’ll die from terror alone.

  The hot grip of his hand burns into my forearm even after he’s let go. My back hits the counter and I jump slightly, but I keep the knife up and sidestep slowly around him. The adrenaline is higher than I’ve ever felt before.

  This is bad, my heart screams in terror, this is fucking bad. And I’ve lost the advantage of surprise, the threat of the knife minuscule compared to what it was a moment ago.

  “Let me go!” I yell at him as he seethes at me. His grimace grows to something else. Something that looks hurt for me once again. And I want to sneer at him and his pity, but I feel sorry for me too. And there’s nothing lower than that.

  “I said let me go!” I’m too afraid to get closer to him and every step feels like my knees may give out from the pure adrenaline pumping through me.

  “Even if I opened the door, there are two guards at the gates and I’m not leaving anytime soon. They know that.” His voice is stern, and he takes his eyes from me to look at the cut. “Damn, you got me good,” he says, still not even bothering to look at me. As if I’m not a threat.

  “You could hide me in your car.” My voice skips over my words as I struggle to think about the next step.

  “And be scared of your knife that’s with you in my trunk?” he asks and my head sways. My body threatens to sway with it. I failed. I already know I’ve failed.

  Stupid girl, the voice says, but even she pities me and the earlier anger from her is absent.

  My heart sinks and it doesn’t stop like it’s in a never-ending free fall even though I can already feel it in the pit of my stomach. “Get me out of here, please. You can get me out of here,” I say although my voice cracks and I take a step forward with the knife. “Please,” I beg him.

  He finally glances up at me and says, “Put the knife down.” That’s all he says, in that disinterested tone that all of the Cross brothers seem to have. A tone that’s utterly dismissive.

  “Fuck you,” I almost cry as I tell him off. I have to step closer to him, I have to go through with this. He nearly got the knife from me last time and if he does this time, I’m going back to the cell. Fuck. My throat closes in on itself.

  As if hearing my thoughts, Daniel tells me, “I could grab my gun, Aria, don’t make me.”

  His words kill the last bit of hope. What would I do? Throw the knife at him if he ran to get his gun? “Put the knife down.”

  “Please don’t,” I plead with him. Tears prick my eyes at how stupid I am. At what’s to come.

  The cell. I’ll be in the cell tonight. And for however long it takes for Carter to let me out after.

  The heavy knife feels heavier and I want to point it at myself. A very big part of me thinks I could get farther if I would threaten to hurt myself. But I don’t want to be in pain. “Please help me,” I barely get the weak words out.

  Daniel’s response is immediate, his steps deliberate and powerful. My body shakes as he comes close enough to grip the knife, but this time when he wraps his hand around my forearm, I loosen my grip and the knife falls from my hand to his other hand and only then does he let me go.

  I cower like a disobedient child or worse, a dog who knows he’s about to be beaten.

  Silent tears fall, and I wipe them as I listen to the knife drop into the sink before Daniel turns on the faucet to clean his cut. The cut I gave him.

  “I’m sorry.” My words are choked, and I try to repeat them again but fail. My breathing comes in shallow pants.
“I can’t go back. Please, I can’t.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.” Daniel’s voice is soft as he approaches me, but fear is the only thing I have to give him until he says, “We don’t have to tell Carter.”

  His words make me stare into his dark eyes. They’re so like Carter’s. But the heat and desire aren’t there. Just sincerity.

  “I won’t tell him, okay?” His comforting voice soothes the fear in me. “This will stay between us.” The relief that replaces the anxiety nearly makes me throw up.

  “Why would you do that?” I question him. “I hurt you.”

  “Because I would have done the same.” His simple answer is comforting, but it doesn’t give me any hope.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble my apology and have to clear my throat. I’m choking on my words. “I didn’t want to… to hurt you.”

  “Why’d you have to do that?” I shake my head, wiping under my eyes. He adds, “I would have done it, but I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say. “I need to get out of here,” I insist, and my words bleed with despair.

  “It’s better that you’re here,” he tells me. “You’re not safe at your father’s and I know Carter may not seem like the best person to you right now, but I know there’s a reason for all of this.”

  “My father.” The words tumble from my lips. I’m failing him.

  “You need to eat,” Daniel says, backing away from me and not acknowledging me. It’s the same thing Carter told me. I just need to eat. And obey.

  “You’re going to kill him,” I say and it’s a statement, not a question. I can’t even think about eating. The thought is repulsive.

  Daniel opens the fridge and ignores me, although he angles his body so he can see me in his periphery.

  He closes the door to the fridge with his elbow as he twists off the top to a beer and takes a quick swig, making the dampened shirt of blood glisten in the light and that bit of red on his throat stare back at me.

  I almost tell him I’m sorry, yet again. Even with knowing his plans for my father. It’s a sickening feeling to not know what’s right and wrong, but regardless, you have no choice.

  The bottle smacks down on the counter and he finally answers me. “It was going to happen whether or not we stepped in.”

  “What was?” I ask him in a hushed voice, cautiously, barely raising my eyes to meet his gaze. The only thing I keep thinking is that I need to be nice to him, so he doesn’t tell Carter.

  “War.”

  The one-word answer forces my gaze to the polished tile floor. It’s quiet while he drinks, and I clean up the mess of the cubed vegetables I won’t eat.

  “You won’t tell Carter?” I feel selfish for daring to bring it back up, but I need to know he won’t. If Carter were here for that… I can’t even begin to think of what he would do.

  “Look at me,” Daniel’s voice beckons and I do as he tells me. “I am not going to say a word to Carter. Not one word.” His voice is soothing, but I find it hard to be anything close to being okay.

  “Thank you,” I tell him and press my hand to my face to cool it down.

  He finishes the beer, all the while I stare at the spot on the floor until I turn instinctively at the sound of his name being called out by a feminine voice.

  “Shit,” he says under his breath. He’s quick to grab me by the arm. His grip is tight, demanding and catches me off guard with that fear returning and spiking through me.

  “Go to the den,” he demands beneath his hushed breath and attempts to push me out of the kitchen from the other threshold. My feet slip across the floor as he pushes me toward the den.

  “Daniel?” the voice calls out again, this time closer and he urges through clenched teeth, “Go.”

  My shoulders hunch forward and I feel like nothing. Like absolutely nothing. Worthless, pathetic and a weak thing to be pushed around at anyone’s whim.

  “Don’t do it again, Aria. You’re smarter than that,” he tells me before turning his back to me and walking briskly to the other side of the kitchen.

  His words numb me for a moment, even though my feet move of their own free will.

  I’m supposed to be smarter than that. Maybe I used to be, but a mix of desperation and the feeling of falling into a dark abyss is all I can see anymore… that mix is deadly to any semblance of intelligence that I have.

  My hands tremble and I struggle to breathe, but I try to remember Carter’s words from what seems like so long ago. I try to remember what he said that made me feel like I had hope. I try, and I fail.

  It doesn’t matter what they were. Everything is insignificant when there’s nothing you can do to change your fate.

  And now that I’ve been so fucking stupid, he’s going to put me back in the cell.

  I shouldn’t have done that. A heavy breath nearly suffocates me. I need to listen.

  With my eyes closed, I whisper, “Daniel won’t tell him.” But the words have little mercy on my pain, because I know I won’t be able to hide it from Carter. He sees me. He sees all of me. And he watches everything.

  “What the hell did you do?” A woman’s voice carries through the kitchen with shock and worry, startling me and cutting through my thoughts. As quietly as I can, I slink to the side of the doorway, so I can listen but won’t be seen.

  I didn’t know another girl was here. But the way she’s talking to Daniel make it obvious that she’s with him. Not a prisoner of him. Jealousy and fear mix inside of me and I don’t know why I’m so scared of being seen by her. Maybe the trickle of shame as I grip the doorway is indication enough.

  “I was drinking and cutting up shit and I thought it would be cool to toss the knife.” I hear Daniel give an excuse that’s not at all believable. But the girl believes him.

  “You could have killed yourself,” she reprimands him, although her voice carries a tinge of disbelief. Guilt seeps into my blood. And a part of me knows it’s ridiculous to feel sorry for trying to save myself. But so is all of this.

  Daniel chuckles. “Of all the ways to die, I don’t think it’s going to be this, Addison.” I can hear him take a drink before telling her, “I got you a beer.” I almost walk away, but Addison’s next words keep me planted where I am.

  “We need to talk.” The severity of her tone is sharp.

  “Not right now.” Daniel talks to her differently than the way he talks to me. Differently than the way Carter talks to me. There’s an edge of comfort in his voice and I don’t expect it.

  “It’s always not right now,” she responds. “Something’s going on.” Her tone softens, pleading with him. “Why can’t I leave?” she asks him with desperation clinging to every word.

  “It’s just better to be safe,” he replies so lowly I hardly hear him. The thrumming of curiosity flows through me. She can’t leave either?

  A moment passes and another, I can’t see what’s going on and I inch forward, hoping to get a peek before the conversation continues. Hoping to see this woman.

  “You don’t need to know,” Daniel says firmly and with that I creep around the corner to see Daniel leaning against the stove. I see him and a beautiful girl around my age shaking her head so hard that her dark wavy hair falls around her shoulders. She covers her face as she gasps, “You keep lying to me.” Pain is etched into her ragged voice.

  Daniel makes a weak attempt to wrap his arms around her before she pushes him away, his ass hitting the stove and she leaves the kitchen, heading back the way she came. Small sounds of her crying linger behind her. Daniel opens a large drawer that blends into the cabinet and he drops the empty beer bottle and cap into the trash, with a wretched pain in his expression that tears at my own heart.

  As he turns to leave, I creep further back into the kitchen, but he hears me and peeks over his shoulder.

  Not hiding his pain and then leaving me to mine.

  Chapter 27

  Carter

  I checked the bedroom first. The dep
raved side of me hoped she would be waiting for me, already warming my bed.

  But it was empty.

  The den was next, after assuming I’d see her drawing on the floor of the hearth like she enjoys doing.

  But the fire wasn’t burning, and the room was silent.

  Then the kitchen. The empty fucking kitchen. My teeth grit as I pull up the security monitor and cycle through the cameras.

  My pulse races and I can hardly see straight as the monitor flickers from one to the next, each proving to be useless in showing me where my Aria is.

  I told her to wait for me in the kitchen, den, or bedroom. Those were the only rooms she was permitted to be in, yet my obedient Aria isn’t in a single one of them.

  My heart pounds and my temperature rises.

  She didn’t get away.

  I only left for three hours. Just enough time to drive to the club for the meet and then back. Daniel was watching her. I have to remind myself that she’s still here somewhere as the cameras loop back around to the beginning.

  “Fuck!” My anger gets the best of me, but as I spit out the word and feel the tension in my shoulders and chest rise, I both see and hear her at the same time.

  The wine cellar in the corner of the kitchen passed in a blur on the screen the first time, but there she is, in the corner, cross-legged with a bottle in her lap. And the sweet sound of her humming travels through the kitchen.

  I walk quietly to the cracked door, only a sliver of light shining into the kitchen.

  Listening to the cadence of her soft voice, her humming rises and a word slips out, but I don’t recognize the song. The melody is somber, somewhat melancholy.

  I inch closer, careful to be quiet and slip the door open as a bottle clinks against the tile floor, notably empty judging from the hollow sound.

  Aria’s dark locks fall back away from her face and chest as she lays her head back against the wall, her nose pointed toward the ceiling as she hums a little louder.

  It’s addictive, listening to those sweet sounds. Her voice has always captivated me and I suppose it always will. What saves you from the darkness is something extraordinary.