by Amity Cross
“Archer,” I began, trying to keep my voice even. “There’s a right way to do this.”
“Would you listen to me, Hol?” he asked, taking a step closer. “I tried to talk to you so many times. Show you how I really felt, but you pushed me away.” His lip curled. “You treated me like shit.”
His fist connected with the boot of the car next to us with a boom, making me flinch away from him.
Josh wasn’t here. My declaration of love hadn’t been enough to sway him to stay. Nobody was coming to save me. It was just me and Archer, and I had to run now, or… I didn’t know how this would end.
“I’m in love with Josh,” I said, taking a step back toward the lights of the hospital.
“He left you, Hol. He doesn’t love you. I do.”
Terror began to rise, and I shook my head more firmly. “I’m sorry, Archer. I can’t control who I have feelings for.”
He ground his teeth, the arrogant, cocky Archer I knew all but gone. In his place was a cold, angry monster. How could I have been so blind? He had the entire hospital under his thumb. Fuck, he was a surgeon. I’d operated beside him, consulted on patients, joked around…
I had to get away. I’d run back into the hospital, alert security, and call Charlie. It was now or never.
So I ran…but Archer was too big and too strong. He lunged after me, his arms curling around my waist. I struggled against him and screamed, but my cries for help were abruptly cut off as his hand slammed down over my mouth.
“Shh, little one,” he murmured into my ear as he dragged me across the car park toward his car. “You’ll realize how much you really love me when I make you come. You’ll see the truth then, Hol.”
I thrashed against him, but I wasn’t strong enough to break his hold. He’d always been so…normal. Archer could have any woman he wanted. He was intelligent, good-looking—albeit arrogant—and rich. He had to have been carrying this secret for a long time. He liked the struggle, the chase, the manipulation… His sick fantasies all culminated in the rape of his victim. A sick, twisted game he thought would make the object of his desire fall in love with him.
I’d unknowingly been the object of his dark desires, an oblivious victim in waiting. A victim he could watch in close quarters.
As I was being dragged away, all hope slipped through my fingers that someone would save me—that Josh would come—and I wondered if Archer had planned to strike so close to home. What did that mean for me?
If I made it through this, then… Then what? There was no making it. I was going to become a statistic and a blurry photograph on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. There was no way Archer would let me go after he’d had his way with my body. It would blow his secret right out of the water. I was a liability.
I was done for, and that was that, but at least I wouldn’t go quietly. Like an act of defiance, I’d fight until the last. I owed myself that much.
End of the line, Holly, I thought to myself. End of the line.
28
Josh
He shot my mum.
I stood there and watched my father put a bullet in her head, his eyes wild with rage.
He’d turned on me—a nineteen-year-old kid and his own fucking son—and pointed the gun right at me, the gun that had killed the only person who believed I could be anything I wanted.
His pupils were blown, and I knew he was high again. Ice, coke, heroin. It didn’t matter how ‘only’ he was.
Don’t you move, boy. Don’t move so I can kill you.
The same rage that had run through my father’s veins ran through mine. I lunged for him, and we struggled, the gun going off with a boom. Plaster rained down on us as the bullet hit the roof, but I was possessed with anguish as blood pooled underneath the body of my mother. He’d killed her.
I don’t remember much about how I got the gun from him, but I did. My hands shook so much I wasn’t sure what to do with it now that I held the upper hand. I was a fucking kid who shouldn’t have had to make the decision I was forced to make.
He’d lunged for me again, and at that moment, I knew if he got the gun from me, he’d kill me just like he’d killed her. He’d go on living while we were busy dying.
So I pulled the trigger.
I killed him like he killed her.
He deserved it. Like father, like son.
How could a man like that deserve a spark like Holly Walsh?
I was so terrified of losing her I’d hidden my shame from the one person who might be able to help me come to terms with it. I’d done everything to try to keep her away from the darkness, but I’d lost her, anyway.
Even as I pushed her away and spat empty words to hurt her, she still fought for me. Me. Could she understand if I explained it to her?
I wasn’t sure what made me get into my car and drive across town to the hospital. I was in a daze, the absence of Sparks messing with my head like nothing else. I’d never experienced loss like this, not since I lost my mum.
Pulling my car into a free spot near the west entrance of St. Vincent’s, I killed the engine and slid out into the murky light of the multi-level concrete lot.
What could I even say to her? The look of absolute anguish on her pretty face as I smashed her heart was the only thing I could see. How the fuck could I repair that? At least I had nothing left to lose if she couldn’t handle the truth of how murderous her boyfriend really was.
A scream split the still air of the car park, echoing off the concrete before being abruptly cut off. I stilled, my repair falling away until all I could see was my mother in my mind’s eye. If someone was in trouble… My head whipped around, trying to pinpoint the direction the scream had come from, but the echo made it near on impossible.
Jogging down the row of cars, I scanned the lot for movement. A boom echoed from ahead to the right, then the definite sound of a female screaming for help, and I burst into a sprint.
Thundering along the concrete, I caught sight of movement ahead. Weaving through the row, I almost died when I saw a flash of red hair. Wild, fiery locks that I would recognize anywhere. Sparks.
Skidding to a halt, my heart leapt into my throat, and I froze. I just froze like that scared boy who held a gun on his own father. It was Holly, but it was my mum.
Sparks’s gaze met mine, and she thrashed violently against Archer.
Holly, Holly, Holly… SPARKS.
Don’t you move, boy.
The sound of my father’s voice haunting me from beyond the grave snapped me out of my daze, and I shot forward. If I didn’t move now, what would happen to Sparks? Something more terrible than a bullet, that’s for sure. I could save her.
I grabbed Archer’s shoulders, wrenching him off her, and she fell to the ground, but I couldn’t let him go. Not yet.
Turning his pathetic ass around, I punched him square in the face, and his head snapped back, blood erupting from his nose.
“No!” he roared, lost in his own rage.
Like the fucking idiot he was, he lunged for me, but he probably didn’t know he was going up against a cage fighter, retired but still used to fighting guys ten times his size. I sidestepped his pathetic attempt at a punch and fisted my hand into his hair. I slammed his head against the boot of the car, the sound of his skull connecting with metal echoing through the parking garage. He flopped like a rag doll, sliding to the concrete in a heap.
Dead to the fucking world.
Assholes like him preyed on the weak to disguise their own pathetic asses. I should do the world a favor and cave his skull in on the concrete. He was dragging Sparks off into his car. He was going to—
“Josh!”
I stumbled as Sparks leapt into my arms, her sobs a mixture of terror and relief as she held onto me for dear life. I should do the world a favor and cave his skull in on the concrete.
“I’ve got you,” I murmured, “I’ve got you.”
29
Holly
Everything that happened after that was a
blur of color and noise.
I clutched Josh like he was my lifeline as shock set in. It had been such a close call. If he’d been a minute later, then…
“Holly?”
I blinked hard and Charlie’s face came into focus. I was sitting on a gurney in an exam room inside the hospital. How had I gotten here?
I nodded, tightening my grip on Josh’s T-shirt. He was beside me where he’d been since he’d beaten Archer’s face in.
“We’ll need to take a statement,” Charlie said. “Not straight away. When you’re ready. Your friend Dr. Gunner is here to check you out.”
Glancing out the window at the assembled people in the hallway, I caught sight of Gunner talking with the Chief of Surgery. Uniformed police lingered in the hall along with a man I recognized as the other detective who came to talk to Josh all that time ago. There were several other suits lingering, and I pegged them to be members of the board of St. Vincent’s. Talk about an epic scandal for the hospital. One of their top surgeons turning out to be a rapist and suspected murderer.
To think Archer had done this to other women before me made me feel sick.
“You okay?” Josh asked.
I nodded, taking deep breaths.
Charlie laid her hand on my knee and smiled. “I’ll let Dr. Gunner know you’re ready. Josh?”
He went to slide off the gurney to follow her out of the room, but I tightened my grip on him.
“It’s okay, Sparks,” he murmured in my ear. “I’ll be just outside the door.”
Reluctantly, I let him go, and Gunner appeared. I watched Josh linger outside the window, his brow creased as he started talking with Charlie. Giving his statement no doubt. He glanced up and caught my gaze, his lips curving into a smile.
Gunner swept the curtain closed, hiding us from Josh and the people assembled outside. Turning toward me, she looked pale and about as sick as I felt.
“Fuck, Blue,” she said, shaking her head. “I pushed you toward him.”
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said, realizing I was still trembling as the shock of what happened wore off. “It was nobody’s fault. He fooled us all.”
She grimaced and stepped forward to examine me. She poked and prodded, making notes for the police report, but there wasn’t much to say. Josh had caught him before he could do much, so most of the wounds were going to be mental.
The Chief came in after Gunner left and offered his support and the full backing of the hospital. Time, counseling, the whole nine yards. I allowed him to speak, the night blending into one long blur of sound that hardly made any sense. I knew it was standard procedure in an event like this, but it was a different kettle of fish being on the receiving end.
Once everyone was gone, Josh slid back into the room, reclaiming his place beside me.
“Can we go yet?” I asked.
“The whole place is in chaos,” he replied. “Someone tipped off the media, so they’re camped outside. Your boss said to wait a little while until he can clear them out.”
“Good.” Last thing I wanted was a camera shoved in my face only hours after I was almost murdered by my coworker. It wasn’t the front-page news I’d envisioned earlier, but it was a sight better.
“Sparks—”
“I sent you a text,” I said, worrying the hem of my jumper.
“Did you?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Don’t read it,” I pleaded. “I thought that might’ve been why you came.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
I glanced up at him, hopeful that he came because he might’ve wanted to apologize and patch things up.
“I don’t know why I came,” he murmured, watching Charlie and Detective Frommer talking to the Chief through the window. “I just… I ended up here.”
“Oh…” It was just another item on a long list of crap things that had happened today. He’d saved me, but had it changed anything?
“I never told you the entire truth,” he said. “Even when you thought you were getting the whole story.”
“Josh, I—”
“Don’t make excuses for me, Sparks,” he said. “I’ve been an asshole from the beginning. Even when you told me about your ex, I still didn’t let you in. Even after you pretty much told me you were falling in love with me.”
He was right, but after he’d let slip that he’d seen his father murder his mother, I didn’t hold it against him. Grief affected people in different ways. Mine paled in comparison to his.
“But—”
“Just listen, and then you can make your decision,” he interrupted.
I nodded, curling my arms around my stomach. “Okay.”
He cast his gaze away and swallowed hard. Then he began.
He told me everything while we sat in that room, our shoulders touching as our feet dangled over the side of the gurney.
He told me about the night his father killed his mother in cold blood. How he’d come home and seen the gun pointed at her head…how he’d been too late to stop him from murdering her.
He told me about how he’d fought his father and how he got the gun from him.
Then he told me about how he shot his father to save himself.
I couldn’t fathom how Josh had carried around a burden like that and not confided in anyone. To see his own father murder the one person who believed in him, then take the same gun and kill the man in self-defense. He believed he wasn’t strong enough to save her, and that had shaped his life. He didn’t think he was good enough for anything but violence. He thought he wasn’t good enough for me despite all those times I told him he was.
“Josh,” I murmured, not knowing the right words to convey all the things I was feeling in the wake of my ordeal with Archer.
Josh stiffened next to me on the gurney, his hands tightening around the edge of the mattress.
“It’s haunted me my entire life,” he said after a moment.
“That’s why you fight?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“It’s why I fought.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t strong enough to save her, so that’s why I trained. That’s why I fought.”
“You are strong enough,” I murmured, reaching for his hand. “You were strong enough to save me, Josh. If that’s a kind of redemption, I don’t know, but I’m glad for it.”
“I shot him,” he said, distraught. He was still waiting for the moment I’d get up and leave him, but that was never going to happen. Not if I could help it.
“It was self-defense,” I declared. “You did what you had to do to stop him.”
“How can you say that?” His eyes sparkled with tears, and it was strange to see a hulking man like Josh so emotional. He’d always been so closed, but now, everything he was spilled out without anything to stop it.
“Come here,” I murmured. He stood and positioned himself before me. Staring into his emerald eyes, I said the words I should have said the night we fought outside The Underground. “I love you, Josh Caplin. For better or worse.”
Fisting my hands into the front of his T-shirt, I pulled him close and kissed him, my lips firm on his. When he managed to tear himself away, he sighed, looking as tired as I felt.
“I love you, Sparks,” he said out of nowhere. “I know I’ve got nothing to offer a woman like you, but I’ll figure something out.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You have everything I need just by being you.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” I said firmly. “Money, career… Those things don’t matter at the end of the day. I’m a surgeon because I like it, not because of the accolades. I want you for you, Josh Caplin. Thick head and all.”
A knock at the door interrupted us, and the Chief stuck his head into the room.
“You’re good to go, Holly,” he said. “The vultures have gone.”
“Let’s get you home,” Josh said, tugging me to my feet.
I melted against his side as he guided me from the hospital, my head down as we emerged out the
west entrance. It was the same place in the car park where Archer had snatched me, and I screwed my eyes shut, letting Josh lead me to safety.
There was a click as his car unlocked, and then the sound of the door opening. Opening my eyes, I slid into the passenger seat, reluctant to let him go for even a second lest Archer rise from the dead and try to drag me under again. That’s what happened in all those horror movies, right? The bad guy was defeated and everyone relaxed…then he came back for one last shot at the hero of the story.
But this wasn’t a horror flick, it was real life, and Archer had been taken away in handcuffs to the nearest cell. He wasn’t coming back.
“Hey,” I murmured as Josh clipped the seat belt around me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” he replied, kneeling beside me.
“I don’t really want to be alone in that big apartment anymore.”
He nodded. “He’s in the slammer, Sparks. He can’t get you.”
“I know,” I replied. “It’s just my roundabout way of asking you to move in with me. You’re there most of the time, anyway. I have an empty car space I don’t use. The security guard knows you, and you know the passcode to get into the building. I don’t have enough shit to fill up the place. That bed is so big, and the shower… I like you in my shower. It makes sense.”
His eyebrow quirked. “Did you just diagnose your way into convincing me to move in with you?”
“Yeah?”
He seemed to think about it for a moment while he stood and closed my car door. When he slid into the driver’s seat, he asked, ”How much is rent on a place like that?”
“I’ve got it,” I replied. “I pay for it, anyway.”
“Sparks.”
“Oh, sorry, am I emasculating you?”
He laughed, and it was a blissful sound after the night we’d just had. Terrible fear followed by a dizzying high powered by love.
“I’ll cut you a deal,” he declared, bringing the car to life.
