by C C Monroe
Trey hasn’t left my side, and I thank him before my father and Kings get to me.
“Baby! Fuck, baby!” Kingston cries, dropping to his knees in front of me, his body shaking alongside his cries. He touches everywhere, checking I’m really here, and I don’t say a word, too concentrated on soaking him in. His smell, his face, his touch, all of him.
“I’m here,” I sob as he stands and captures Prince and me up in the strongest shield of protection and love. My father spends a second checking me over before he hurries to the ambulance that’s taking my mother. He knows I’m safe with my king, and I know I am too. I don’t leave him. I stay in his safe haven, trying to pretend this never happened, trying to convince myself this was all a nightmare, but that time never comes. It only becomes more real when a body bag carrying Joel leaves our home and the detective comes walking up to us.
He asks me what happened, and with what little strength I have, I tell him. My words are stuttered out, my tears are genuine and never ending, but my nightmare is now over. Joel is no more, and I don’t know if I really believe it yet. Trey as my witness, the cameras in my house bearing as a third witness, and violation of Joel’s restraining order sends the detectives on a trail to close the case.
When they arrested Hilary, she admitted Joel had been using her as a way to send me letters and more outside of prison, and when I found out later that night in the hospital bed that Joel was the man who crashed into me in that hit and run, I felt a little less guilty. I had to defend myself, and I knew if I didn’t it would have been me, my son, and our unborn child who would have lost our lives, possibly even my mama’s and Trey’s.
I fall into slumber after they stitch up my hand and the medicine kicks in. My adrenaline crash takes me away, and in my dreams, I see nothing.
I lived a thousand hellish lives in less than an hour tonight. I called the police first then Trey and Jeffery, needing someone to get there faster than I could have. I’m sure I broke a hundred and one laws, speeding home, running lights, and making my own fucking lanes, just trying to get home.
And the moment I finally pulled up, I was sure I was too late and had lost my world. I prepared to walk into hell, and believe me, I did, but at least my woman and our son were alive. I let her down. I wasn’t there when I promised I would be. For years, I made her out to be someone who was afraid for no reason, when really what she was afraid of was everything I was unable to stop.
I tried to protect her, and in some ways I did. But Lana did this all on her own. She finally saved herself and protected our family far better than I ever could. I’m so proud of her for ending the man who nearly ended her more than once. She’s beyond strong, but I won’t lie and say I may never be the same. I will never be able to let Lana out of my sight. I will never regret the years we fought to have each other, and I will never lose her.
She saved my family, and tonight solidified that trust and love and pride I have for her.
“Hey, how’s our girl?” Jeffery steps into the room, where I’m laid out next to Lana on this tiny-ass bed that doesn’t fit us both. But I’ll take the discomfort just to have her in my arms.
“She fell asleep, poor baby.”
“This might be worse than before.” He releases a deep sigh, sitting in the chair across from me.
“I hope not. I hope she knows she had to do this.”
Nodding, he grabs her hand gently, making sure to not hurt her wounded and bandaged hand. Another scar Joel left her with. Another physical reminder of his rein of torture on her. And if I have to spend the next lifetime kissing it better and putting my name on that mark, I will. I will do this all over again if I have to, because I fucking owe her that much.
“How’s Becky?”
“She’s doing good, just a minor concussion. They said they are going to let her leave tomorrow.”
“That’s good. I’m sorry she was hurt,” I admit through my guilt.
“This isn’t your fault.”
I think this is the first time we’ve had a conversation where he isn’t blaming me for the bad shit happening in our lives.
“Thanks.” I don’t argue, knowing it’s moot.
It’s silent for a while, both of us watching Lana breathe in and out. She has the blanket up around her waist, and I lift her gown to under her breasts and run my hand over her stomach, where our baby is still healthy. We even got to hear their heartbeat. She stirs a little, and her small hand moves instinctively to mine. Before I can stop myself, I drop my head in the crease of her shoulder, letting my tears catch on her skin. I find myself worried and already thinking about the next time we will be here because of Joel. Even though he’s gone, I still fear it.
Jeffery sniffs next to me.
“Sorry to interrupt, but how is she?” Shayla and Trey fill the doorway.
I hurry and wipe away my tears, not much of a crier in front of others. “She’s finally asleep, but she and the baby are fine.”
“Baby?”
I catch my mistake too late. “Uh, yeah, Lana’s pregnant.” My eyes never leave Lana, but I hear Shayla gasp and know she has a smile hidden behind it.
“Oh, bubs! This is so exciting! Oh, I’m so happy they’re okay!” She moves to behind me, putting her hand on my back as I keep focused on my woman.
“I know, me too. Hey, Trey?” I look up to him standing behind Jeffery.
“Yeah, man?”
“Can you tell Kathy thank you again for taking Prince? My phone died. Can we call and make sure he went down for the night okay?”
“Of course, and congrats, by the way, you sly motherfucker.”
Jeff grunts and me and Trey share a sideways smirk.
“Boys, have some respect in front of Daddy James,” Shayla chimes in, and Jeffery gives her a soft smile.
“Thank you, Shayla. I knew you were always my favorite.”
“Besides our girl here, I would like to think I’m a close second.” She beams, making the somberness in the room disappear, which is what my sister does best.
“True, now if only my favorite girl would wake up.”
I feel for Jeffery, he and I—all of us—have been here before, and this time is much more daunting, more traumatizing, because we weren’t there. Other people were involved, like Becky, and that shit has to be hitting him harder. His only two girls, his life. My children and my woman were in danger, and I couldn’t be there to protect them like I said I always would. And what’s worse is we don’t know who Lana is going to be when she wakes up. Will she be the timid, afraid-of-the-shadows woman who feared everything and everyone? Or is she going to stay strong and free, now that she is, in fact, free from Joel?
Hilary is another story, and that’s my fucking cross to bear. I invited the enemy in without even knowing she was on the front-lines with a pitchfork waiting to help Joel slice through my very own Achilles’ heel.
The hours pass, and everyone leaves me with my girl. The nurse came in and asked if I could lay on the couch in the room, since they prefer no one but the patient sleep in the bed. I nodded without a fight and waited for her to check on Lana. The second she cleared the room, I was back on the bed with Lana, falling asleep against my will.
“Baby?” I hear the softest angel voice calling out to me in my dreams. Lana sounds so sure, almost motherly and nurturing, as if I’m the wounded one. “Kingston, wake up.” I hear it again, and this time it sounds louder. With a soft touch of her hand, my eyes open, burning from lack of sleep, loads of stress, and hot, heavy tears.
“Queen, you’re awake.” I look into her brown eyes. The red mark on her face where Joel hit her is starting to bruise, but it shows no signs of scarring.
“I was really hot, felt like I was wrapped up in a wool blanket. Then I opened my eyes and saw I was, in fact, snuggled by a wildebeest.” She giggles, those dimples blossoming, and in that instant, I lose all train of thought, all chance of speaking.
“Kings?” She pets my face, comforting me when I should be comforting
her.
“You...you seem fine. You’re not even shaking.”
She shakes her head and her brows set in confusion.
“Talk to me, angel. Tonight was fucking madness and it’s fucking me up. Please tell me what you’re thinking.” I bring my forehead to hers and connect us, needing to feel as close as possible to her. She takes a few deep breaths, closing her eyes as she does, a tear so errant that she doesn’t want it to fall, but she can’t stop it.
Waiting a brief moment longer, she opens her eyes slowly, and the honey brown irises dilate as a whisper leaves her swollen lips. “I’m alive,” she says simply.
“You are. Fuck, baby, you are.” I kiss her lips, careful not to upset the bruise on her face. It’s gentle, our lips against each other’s, our tongues teasing and lapping at one another, healing her brand new scars and bandaging my fragile heart.
She pulls away after minutes of long, lazy kisses, and I linger in place, still feeling the spark on my lips as she settles back.
“I had to protect myself. I had to protect our children. I felt guilty at first, but now I just feel...normal. I feel like I’m drifting in wide-open water, the sun high in the sky as I chase the slow moving clouds.” She closes her eyes as if picturing what she’s describing. I keep my hand on her belly and my gaze on her. “I’m lying there, on my back, unable to see the water, but I hear it. I feel weightless, free, miles away from trouble.” Her hand finds mine, lying gently atop it and moving as I rub her stomach with small circles.
“I used to feel him here, like I knew somewhere in my body his cold heart was beating. There was always this sound that never silenced, and now it’s gone. The ringing in my ear. Everything he tainted feels reborn.” She sighs dreamily.
I don’t know what to even say. Lana killed the one man determined to kill her, the man who savagely abused her for years and left scars for a lifetime. But, in this hospital room, on this highly uncomfortable bed, talking about the end of dark times, instead of mourning or feeling consumed with guilt, she is breathing again.
“So is it you in there? Are you the same woman you woke up as this morning?” I wait on the edge of my seat for the fucking answer, because if she says no, I don’t think I will emotionally be able to hold my shit together in front of her.
“No.” She turns in on me, her eyes softening. “I’m better than that woman. I’m that little girl you met years ago. I’m the vibrant teenager who never got to flourish. I’m a mother with an abundance of love to give, and maybe one day, I’ll be the best wife.” She leans in and kisses my lips gently, and knowing there is no better moment than now—with her heart completely healed and her words of solitude—to make her that wife.
“How about we make that now?” I ask, reaching into my jean pocket, removing the simple gold band, and slipping it on my pinky finger. “Marry me, Lana. Give me the best thing a best friend can, and pledge this beautiful heart, body, and soul to me. Give me fucking everything,” I whisper. Water pools in her eyes, gathering then falling perfectly.
“Yes, make us that forever thing you’re always boasting about.” She winks, and her eyes pinch with her broad, dimpled smile.
“I can do that.” Winking back, I take the gold band from my pinky and slide it onto her ring finger, the bandage around her palm not in the way.
“You mock the sun. It appears duller whenever you’re around. You outshine it,” Lana whispers against my chest. Nestling into me, her bruised cheek seeks the warmth of my hot skin under my thin shirt.
“Did you plan all this? This whole fucking time?” I implore.
“Plan what?”
“To come and fuck me all up and be my everything?”
“Yeah, you’re kind of a sucker when it comes to me,” she banters.
“Well, good thing our egos are big enough for the both of us, smart ass.” Reaching under the blanket, I grab a handful of her ass, and all she does is giggle carelessly.
Lana’s right. That sound, that looming unknown, is gone. Our haven has come.
It’s been two months since my nightmare officially ended. Kingston and I sold the house faster than we bought it. I couldn’t have that place be our home. It will be in the past, along with Joel and everything he ever did to me.
We settled into a new home, just down the road from Shayla and Trey. Funny how the boys gave us a ton of crap and pleaded their case, saying Shay and I would be together more now. But, they ate their own words when they ended up seeing each other more and more. You can never break up a bromance that strong.
We leave for Portland tonight to get married at Kathy and Pops’s estate, and I’m a ball of nerves. The move and the wedding planning—fast wedding, might I add—have been the perfect distractions. I don’t want to think about Joel anymore. I don’t want to think about him, even after his death. He’s gone, and I’m no longer afraid of the things that go bump in the night.
Defeating the enemy. That’s my new story, and I will never regret protecting my children, or myself.
When I pulled that trigger, I felt the dark demon in me leave; it left this earth with its keeper. Call it vengeance, call it vindication, call it whatever you like, but I call it freedom. If Joel wouldn’t have come for me seconds before I pulled the trigger, I wouldn’t have shot him. I would have told him all the ways I hated him, and then I’d let the justice system take him away again and deal with him, but he didn’t listen.
He looked down the barrel of the gun and thought he would still win and remain untouchable. But the little bubba in my belly and my son just down the hall, screaming for me, were my only concern. Them or Joel. My choice was my motherly right.
“Lana, you bride-to-be! You ready or what?” Shayla bursts through our front door and shouts at the bottom of the banister. I finish packing up the rest of my suitcase, adding in my makeup bag and personal care products.
“Up here!”
A few seconds later, Shay enters the room twin-free. “Yay! Wedding weekend!”
“Where are the babies?” I avoid wedding talk for now. I’m already a wreck and don’t need to add to it.
“Kathy stayed behind so they could nap. I will pack them in the car once we get back to my place.”
“Perfect, Kingston said he will meet us at your place with Prince after his haircut.”
“Did he take him with?” she asks, plopping down on our fluffy bed.
“Yes, I had to work this morning, and he wanted some daddy time.”
I zip up the bag, and Shayla picks at the bed with no more questions. She’s stewing and I know it.
“Ask,” I push her.
“What?” She plays dumb, but I don’t buy it.
“You want to see it?”
Biting her lip, her brows draw in, indicating pain. “You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to.”
“It’s fine. You don’t ever have to be afraid to ask.”
As I lift my hand up to her face, she touches the scar, just days fresh of stitches. I don’t wince when she barely, with a light touch, runs her finger over it. The scar starts at the crease between my thumb and pointer finger, and stops dead center of my palm.
“Does it hurt?”
“Only when its cold or you touch it really hard.” I smile, looking down at her assessing it as if she were a medical professional.
The white scar will hopefully fade enough to where it isn’t the first thing you notice when you touch my hand, but not enough to take away the mark of my survival. Because I want it. That scar is my proof that I lived.
“I’m so happy you are here, Lana,” she whimpers, and my eyes jack up and I see her crying.
“Oh, sissy, don’t cry. I’m fine, everything is fine.”
She wipes away the tears, and I would almost chuckle over the fact she’s so emotional, but I decide against it.
“But you almost weren’t, L, you’re my best friend. You don’t understand how much it would kill me if I lost you.”
I help wipe her tears away and she leans
into my palm. “But you won’t. Through every ultimate fall, remember?” I smirk, leaning to bring my forehead to hers.
“Yeah, you’re right. Gosh, I swear being with Trey has made me, like, the biggest crybaby.”
“No shit, he’s a whiner.” I wink, and she wipes her eyes dry.
“True.” She chuckles. “Let’s get going. We have to hit the road soon. I’ll grab your wedding dress!”
“Weirdo.”
“Can you believe our monkey is going to be a year old soon?” Kingston pulls my attention from the cheesy romance novel I’m reading. Interestingly enough, it’s all the things that Kingston is—a hotheaded sex expert with a huge ego and cock—a true alpha to the max.
“I know, and little baby is almost four months along. It’s a boy. I know it.” Really, I do. I found out last week but kept it a secret, because I plan to surprise him. But that’s not what I want to tell him.
“Oh, you do? And how is that?” he questions, adjusting his hand effortlessly on the wheel and tightening his grip on my knee. I haven’t told Kingston about the vision I had the night Joel attacked me. I can’t see into the future, but I did that night. I swear of it. A glimpse of serendipity in a moment of unclarity.
“The night he attacked me.” I don’t use his name, no longer giving it a place in my memory. “I had this vision or something like that of you and our little babies. We had three little boys and one baby girl.” I smirk happily, tucking my hair behind my ear.
“What a lucky vision to have. I bet they were perfect. Shit, a little baby like you, Mama? I don’t think I could handle that.” He shakes his head, digging his hand deeper, resting it between the back of my thigh and the seat.
“You don’t? Imagine her,” I laugh. The image of her at prom or on her first date is frighteningly humorous.
“I will be a fantastic daughter-daddy. Hush it, woman.” As he monkey-bites my thigh, I chuckle.
“You will, but that doesn’t mean you won’t have those days that will make us all mental.”
