Bait

by Jade West

  “You joining me?” I ask as he slips his jacket from my shoulders. He smirks as he drapes it over a railing.

  “Not tonight.”

  My heart falls.

  He has to.

  The pool has no barrier on the far side, just a smooth ledge onto nothing. I imagine swimming up to the drop, staring down at the moonlit world.

  “Come on,” I protest, and he smirks.

  “Get your pretty ass in the water before I throw you in myself.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “A promise.”

  An electric moment, me bared to the whole world, naked in his back garden while he stares on from the shadows. And then he moves. Quickly.

  He hoists me up before I can run. His hand clamps over my mouth, just as always, but this time I don’t go easy. I kick my heels off in a beat, my arms snaking back around his shoulders to grab hold of him.

  I pick the perfect moment as he reaches the edge of the pool. My feet hook his legs and hold. I don’t let go as he drops me.

  Don’t let go as he fights for balance, teetering over the side.

  Please, God.

  It works.

  My soul air-punches as I topple the monster. Surprise was my only real advantage. I doubt I’ll have it on my side ever again.

  But that’s ok.

  It’s ok, because as I splash hard into that beautiful water, he’s falling right behind me.

  He recovers at the last second, manages to catch himself on the ledge before he goes under. He’d haul himself right back out if it wasn’t for an impulsive moment of bravery that sees me throw my wet body at his and wrap my arms around his neck.

  “Please,” I whisper. “Be with me.”

  My tits flatten to his chest and soak his shirt clean through. He’s ridiculously ripped, muscles taught as he supports my weight as well as his.

  He lowers himself slowly. Carefully. My mouth is on his before he can protest.

  He kisses me back as his feet touch the bottom.

  This time I won’t be thwarted. My bravery knows no limits. My fingers are lightning on his shirt buttons, hunting out his bare skin. I tug his bow tie loose and my hands slide up his bare chest in victory.

  I break the kiss with a smile. Push away just enough to look at him.

  He’s inked from pecs to throat. A monochrome display of pure brilliance. My jaw drops.

  I’ve never seen anyone so sculpted. Never seen ridges of hard flesh as perfect as they look on him.

  “You are incredible…” I whisper, but his expression is grim.

  He pushes himself across the pool to the ledge that leads to nowhere, and there’s something very wrong here. Wrong enough to hitch my breath.

  I’m staring at the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, pale in the moonlight, in the most glorious state of undress as the water glitters. There’s a whole universe of stars behind him as the world falls away.

  But it all feels wrong.

  He feels so wrong.

  I stay back, dropping myself down into the water until my hair fans all around me. I wait for him to wrestle whatever demons he’s up against, praying he’ll come out the other side and still want to know me.

  Right now I’m not so sure.

  I’m not so sure of anything.

  He looks tortured. Broken.

  Haunted by demons worse than any I’ve seen in my nightmares.

  I remember our initial conversation online. It feels so long ago.

  I loved hard. I lost harder.

  Him the same as me.

  The question is in the air, just as it was back then. The same question that landed in my inbox amongst the idiots out for a cheap lay.

  The one that I asked him right back.

  The one he never really answered.

  Secrets.

  I can hear them twitching.

  I take a breath. Summoning every last scrap of bravery I have left.

  And then I ask him, my breath barely more than a whisper in the moonlight.

  “What happened to you?”

  Phoenix

  “I loved hard. I lost harder.”

  My words are instant. My reply vague as shit.

  I’m cranking open the trapdoor and staring the secrets right in their twisted faces, not knowing which one to pull out first.

  I hate the way she feels so far away, her eyes so sad as she stares at me.

  My breath feels tight. I feel like I’m on the edge of a confession, for sins I’m not sure are even mine.

  “Me and Jake, my brother, we had a haulage company.” I begin, then correct myself. “Have a haulage company. Mariana appeared out of nowhere. Backpacking through the countryside. Wild. Looking for something she wasn’t sure she was searching for. She found us.”

  I meet her eyes.

  “She found me.”

  Abigail nods. The water ripples as she kicks her way over. She rests against the ledge just a short way away. It feels like miles.

  “She’s the one you lost?” she asks.

  “I lost her long before she left,” I admit. “We were enemies sharing a bed as lovers. In the end, I wasn’t sure whether she wanted to fuck me or kill me. Probably both.”

  She smiles. “Turbulent, then.”

  “It was like riding a tornado. A white-knuckle ride of fucking chaos.”

  “But you held on pretty tight?”

  “Until the end,” I say.

  “She left you?”

  “In a form.” I take another breath. “She passed away just over a year ago.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she says, and she is. She looks mortified.

  “Passed away isn’t the right term for it,” I clarify. “Passing away is a gentle phrase. Soft. Like slipping underwater. Like falling asleep and never waking up. What happened to Mariana wasn’t gentle.” Her screams are ringing in my ears. My fists are clenched underwater. “There was a fire at the warehouse. We were storing chemicals for a client up in Huddersfield, a whole batch of them ready to truck down to Dover. The whole fucking lot went up. It was a fucking inferno. So fierce the sprinklers couldn’t hold it.”

  Her eyes are wide as she intuits what I’m about to say.

  “Mariana was in there. So was Jake.” My breath strains. “The place was already burning when I got there. They say it was an explosion. It blew the roof out. It was like running into a tunnel of flames.” I gesture above my head, seeing them right there, the heat on my skin. “They licked the ceiling, moved like they were alive, a blanket of flames. The heat…” I take a breath. “Jake must have been in the loading bay. The first explosion sent him flying. His head hit the concrete as he landed. He was barely conscious when I reached him. I dragged him out of there as his feet caught fire.” I hold up my palms. “I put those flames out with my bare hands. His shoes were melting. He lost most of the skin on his heels.”

  She’s shaking her head as I go on.

  “He was screaming at me all the way. Begging me to get Mariana first.” My voice catches. “But he’s my brother… I couldn’t…”

  “You saved him,” she whispers.

  “If you can call it that.” I shake my head. “When I got back in there the whole place was up. The explosion must have blocked the door through to the store. The other exits were on fire. She was in there…”

  I hear her breath catch.

  “She was right on the other side of that door, and she was so fucking scared.” I close my eyes. “I told her I’d get to her. Promised I’d get to her. We had this racking, huge steel rigs to the ceiling. One of the bays fell when the drums blew and blocked the door. She couldn’t move it. Couldn’t even try. It was too hot to touch, she said. Everything was too hot to touch.”

  I gesture to my shoulder without even thinking. “The door was heavy, it burnt like a hotplate. I shunted it with everything I had. Even still, I couldn’t open it more than an inch. I told her to get back, to run, but she had nowhere to go. The whole fucki
ng world was burning around me and I couldn’t get through that door, not for the fucking life of me. My skin…” I take a moment. A long fucking moment. “I can still smell it. Still hear her screaming.” My gut churns. “You know the last thing she said to me?”

  She shakes her head.

  “She begged me not to let her die in there. Screamed that she didn’t want to burn.”

  I have to look away as Abigail wipes tears from her eyes.

  My heart fucking breaks all over again as the memory comes back. “She was so fucking scared. I was too. I promised I wouldn’t leave her. Swore I’d get to her. Told her just to hang on, that I was coming.”

  I stare at the sky as I finish up the rest.

  “The second explosion took the wall out. That’s the last I remember. I didn’t come around until I was already outside. The flashing sirens were hurting my eyes. My throat.” I put my fingers against my windpipe. “It hurt so bad to even fucking breathe, and I was screaming for her, fighting to go back in there, even as they held me down.”

  “They didn’t get her out,” she says, and it’s not a question.

  I shake my head. “They say that would’ve been the last she felt of it. That explosion would have been the end.” I rest back against the ledge. Fight to stay steady. “Jake says if I’d have got to that door earlier… if I hadn’t taken him out first…”

  “No.”

  “He says I’d have had more time… that I could have got to her… could’ve taken it off the hinges, driven a fucking truck through it…”

  “No,” she says again. “I don’t believe that.”

  And I’m not sure I do either. Not anymore.

  I look her straight in the face. “I have scars. On my shoulder, mainly. My back too. They’re bad. Deep.”

  She fights back tears. Nods.

  “I didn’t want to…”

  “You didn’t want me to see,” she finishes for me.

  “I don’t talk about it. It’s not much of a conversation starter.” I feel so fucking grim inside as I try to explain. “The scars aren’t just out here.” I gesture to my back. “They’re inside, too. Guilt. Hate.”

  “What you went through…” she says. “I can’t even imagine…”

  “You don’t want to imagine.”

  “Your brother,” she asks. “Was he okay?”

  “Physically.”

  She nods.

  “We don’t speak anymore. He hates me. Blames me for all of it. Blames me for her being there. Blames me for saving him first.”

  “How can he blame you for what happened?” she says. “It was an just accident. A horrible accident.”

  “That’s just the thing,” I say, and her eyes open wide. “I’m not so sure it was.”

  Thirty-Two

  My longing for truth was a single prayer.

  Edith Stein

  Abigail

  The broken parts of my heart bleed, and it’s all for him.

  For the love he lost.

  The scars he bears.

  The sadness in his eyes as he relives this all for me.

  “It wasn’t an accident?” I ask, hating myself for even pushing.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “They’re still to deliver the absolute verdict. There are signs it was electrical. It may have been an unfortunate combination of a faulty chemical canister and a spark from one of the generators. It burnt so hot it’s hard to call. So many factors to wade through, and a lot of the evidence was incinerated. They had to identify Mariana from her teeth. Officially, I mean.”

  I hate the way I flinch as he tells me.

  “Sorry,” he says.

  I shake my head. “Don’t be. It’s amazing you’re still alive.” I inch a little closer. “If it was electrical, surely that’s an accident?”

  He smiles a terrible smile. “The fire happened at midnight. Two people in that building, Jake and Mariana.”

  “That’s pretty late to be working,” I comment.

  “We’d had an argument,” he says and my stomach tightens. “She spat at me, told me she was going. I’d have chased her… but…” He stops speaking. “I always chased her. We had a… dynamic…”

  I nod. I know exactly what he’s referring to.

  “Anyway. I didn’t chase her that night. I couldn’t.” He looks right at me, and there’s more. I know there is. Whatever it is drifts away before he voices it. “I didn’t chase her. I swore to myself I’d had enough of it.”

  “And she ended up at the warehouse? With Jake? Isn’t that strange?”

  “That bit doesn’t surprise me. Not really. But the rest of it doesn’t add up, not if it was an accident. You see, the chemical vats were stored down the other end of the warehouse. We’re careful with fire regulations, always have been. When the place went up, they were at the top end by the loading bay. You could say maybe someone moved them earlier ready to load, but that doesn’t make sense. It wasn’t on the logs.”

  “Mariana moved them herself?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. Her or Jake. Or both of them.”

  “But why?”

  “I have no idea,” he tells me. “Not unless they were planning on burning the place down.”

  “You think they were?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.” He shrugs again. “Mariana was wild. Unpredictable. She hated the business, said it made me a workaholic, said she was a tiger in a cage, desperate to run free.” He looks away, takes a breath. “I think sometimes that maybe she was trying to punish me, burn down what she thought I held dear.”

  “Seems drastic…” I offer.

  “And unfortunate. A boiling pot of unfortunate coincidences. The chemicals being piled up in that one ridiculous location, for starters. Then there was the fact that another of our clients was a supplier of animal bedding. Tightly packed sawdust on high racking created a dust explosion of epic proportions.” He sighs. “They know everything but how it started. According to our official documentation, the fire risk procedures were followed to the letter. Mariana wasn’t even an official employee when that fire happened. They’ve struggled to assign any liability, but by the same token they can’t seem to definitively rule out arson.” He sighs again. “Then again, nobody seems to be willing to write this off as a freak accident, either. In truth, nobody knows.”

  I think it through. “What about your brother? What does he say?”

  “Amnesia. I suspect it’s selective.”

  His tone is bitter and I think better of prying too hard in that direction.

  When he sighs again I hear just how strained his chest is. How much he’s hurting.

  I notice how his fists are clenched under the water.

  My stomach flips as if I’m falling. My heart pains as I try to comprehend how he feels.

  “How’s that for secrets?” he asks. “Enough?”

  Such pain. Such horrible fucking hurt.

  I think of her, Mariana. Of her last moments. Of being trapped behind that door with the flames coming for her.

  Of the desperation.

  He’s rigid as I go to him. Every muscle tense as I press my body to his and hold him tight. My body feels so soft against his firmness. My edges mould to his, skin on skin. My face in his neck as I breathe.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whisper and he flinches.

  I grip a little tighter, flaying my soul alive against his jagged edges until they come to rest easy. He takes a breath. I hold mine.

  My brokenness feels tender against his. I feel so small against him.

  And then he holds me. Wraps me in arms so huge they could crush me alive but crush me just enough.

  I press my forehead to his, stare into eyes that chase me in my dreams. I see his nightmares staring back at me.

  “I was her monster,” he whispers. “It destroyed her.”

  “You loved her,” I say. “Right until the end.”

  “Just be careful the monster doesn’t destroy you too.”

  “I don’t w
ant careful,” I tell him. “I just want you.”

  “That’s just as well,” he says. “Because it’s now you I’m chasing in the dark.”

  His lips press to mine so slowly. He squeezes the breath from me as he holds me tight.

  And then he looks beyond me, up to the house above. There’s a light on when I turn my head. A curtain moves.

  He answers before I can ask.

  “My sister,” he says.

  “I’m totally naked,” I say, like it needs pointing out.

  It makes him smile just a little. “That comes with the territory.”

  I smile back. “I’m not sure your sister will be all that impressed to find a naked stranger in your garden. It’s hardly a great first impression.”

  He tips his head. “You may have a point. I guess we’ll have to resume swimming pool nakedness another day.”

  I nod. “I think a rain check would be sensible, yes.”

  I smile against his mouth as his lips press to mine.

  “Let’s get you home,” he says.

  Phoenix

  I climb out of the water first. My jacket is waiting as she pulls herself out after me.

  She picks up her shoes and opts to go barefoot.

  I’m drenched right through to the bone, dripping water all the way. I hand her the keys to my truck and tell her I’ll be back in a minute.

  She nods and smiles.

  I’m relieved she still has a smile for me after everything I’ve said tonight.

  I ditch my clothes in the porch. Serena heads into the kitchen even as I’m tugging on a pair of fresh boxers from the laundry.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” she says.

  I smirk. “She doesn’t think her nakedness will make the best first impression.”

  Serena rolls her eyes. “What happened to her clothes?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  She knows me well enough by now to take my word for it.

  “Cam asked for a story tonight,” she tells me.

  I smile. “That’s great news. He’s getting better.”

  “Three full sentences today.”