by A. Zavarelli
His words sounded so final, so hollow, I didn’t want to accept them. But as he eyed the ocean beneath us, I knew what he was thinking. This is where we would die.
He pushed on the gas, gunning it as fast as the little Kia could go. But it was no match for the SUV behind us.
The first time they crashed into the bumper, I screamed in abject horror as the car started to fishtail. Brayden slammed on the brakes in an effort to get it under control, which gave the SUV the perfect opportunity to nudge us over the embankment.
I vaguely heard the sound of glass shattering and the crunch of metal. I was jerked around on the most violent of rollercoasters before everything went black around me.
***
My senses came back to me slowly, and not all at once.
The first thing I felt was a searing pain in my leg, followed by the gentle lapping of water around my ankles. Smoke filled my nostrils and stung my eyes, but I couldn’t quite make sense of it.
I blinked several times, and my head felt like it was underwater. My ears rang painfully before my hearing came back.
I heard Brayden’s voice. But he was no longer beside me. He sounded further away. Too far away.
“What’s the matter?” he taunted. “Can’t do it? You’ve finally got your chance, so take it, you fucking coward.”
I didn’t understand the venom in his tone. I didn’t understand what he was saying. But it all became clear when Ryland spoke.
“Shut the fuck up!”
Brayden grunted, and a strange sort of laughter bubbled up from his chest.
“It’s not as satisfying as you thought, is it?” Brayden sneered. “At least I had the guts to look you in the eye, but you had to hire someone to do your dirty work for you. Now you’ve got me right where you want me, and you can’t even pull the trigger. So fucking typical.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Ryland growled.
“You have to finish this,” Brayden continued. “You know you do. Because if you don’t, I will. Just promise me that when you get home tonight and give Brighton a kiss, you won’t rub it in her face. Let Norma break the news to her.”
I didn’t understand why Brayden was saying these things. But as the fragments of our earlier conversation replayed through my mind, it all started to make sense.
He’d been right all along. Ryland really did plan this. And he was here to kill Brayden. My flesh and blood. But Brayden was trying to protect me because they must not know I was in the car.
As I looked around me, I could understand why. I was crushed into a tiny pocket of metal, with no way out. And judging by the pain, I was in bad shape.
I couldn’t get to Brayden. I couldn’t stop Ryland from whatever he was about to do. A sob escaped from my chest as I tried to push the metal away. It groaned but didn’t move.
“What was that?” another man’s voice spoke.
Brayden cursed, followed by the sound of sploshing beside me. We must have been partially submerged, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t see my feet, but I felt the water.
A knife tore through the airbag followed by the face of a man I didn’t recognize.
“There’s a girl in here,” he said in confusion. “Shit, and she’s bleeding all over the place.”
When I looked back down at my leg, I realized he was right. I clutched the wound and tried to stem the bleeding, but it wasn’t any use. There was too much, and I was too weak.
The last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me again was the sound of Ryland shouting my name.
***
I woke to the steady drone of beeping, and the brightness of fluorescent lights above me.
The smell of disinfectant told me I was in a hospital. I had tubes and wires attached to my body, and I felt like I’d been flattened by a steam roller. But it wasn’t like the movies. I didn’t have the luxury of temporary amnesia or confusion. I remembered exactly why I was there.
So when I caught a glimpse of Ryland’s face beside me, the first thing I did was try to scream.
“Get out!”
It came out like dry sand, scratchy and indecipherable.
“Brighton?” he tried to clutch my hand, and I pulled it away, searching desperately for the call button.
“Get out!” I tried again.
This time it came with more force, and much to my relief, the more I repeated it, the louder my voice became.
Ryland stepped back as though I had slapped him and held up his hands in defeat.
“I won’t touch you…” he said softly. “Please just calm down.”
The nurse showed up a moment later, giving me a concerned expression as she stepped inside of the room.
“Miss. Valentine, are you okay? Are you in pain?”
“I want him out of here.” I pointed a shaky finger in Ryland’s direction. “I don’t want to see his face.”
She looked confused for a moment but nodded and pointed towards the door.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ryland snapped. “She just woke up. She needs some time to come to terms…”
“I’ll call security,” the nurse threatened, reaching for the phone beside me.
Ryland clamped his jaw shut and gave me a pleading expression.
“Please, Brighton,” he begged. “Hear me out. Please… don’t kick me out. I need to be with you, to make sure you’re okay.”
I didn’t respond. The nurse looked at me for approval, and I nodded before she started dialing.
Ryland sighed in defeat and walked towards the door slowly.
“I’ll be in the waiting room,” he declared. “I’m not going anywhere, Brighton. I’ll wait as long as it takes.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Your brother is fine,” the doctor explained. “He’s resting right now. He has a few cuts and bruises and a broken arm, but nothing too serious.”
“Are you sure?” I asked him again. “I want to see him.”
“You will,” he assured me. “But we had to give him a sedative when he came in. He won’t be awake for another few hours. In the meantime, I need to talk to you about your condition.”
The last thing I cared about was my condition, and I tuned him out while I plotted how I could get to Brayden’s room. But then something he said caught my attention, and all the blood drained from my face.
“Eight weeks pregnant, give or take…”
“I’m sorry,” I stopped him. “Could you repeat that?”
“I said are you aware that you’re eight weeks pregnant?” the doctor arched a brow.
“That’s not possible,” I stuttered. “I’m on the shot.”
The doctor frowned and flipped through his chart. “When was your last shot?”
I tried to tally up the months in my head when a sick feeling washed over me. I vaguely remembered getting a message from the doctor that Ryland had organized for me before Brayden had stormed into his office. That was two and a half months ago. Nearly six months total since I’d had the shot.
“It’s been six months,” I sobbed. “Oh my God… I’m such an idiot.”
“I’m afraid the shot only lasts for three,” the doctor replied. “But you do have options, Miss Valentine. I could send someone to discuss them with you if you’d like…”
“Is it… is my baby okay?” I blurted. “The accident…”
“The baby is okay.” He gave me a hopeful smile. “We managed to detect a heartbeat, and all looks well. You do have a rather large cut on your leg though, and a mild concussion, so we will need to keep you for observation.”
He continued to talk, but I didn’t hear a word. I was going to be a mother. To Ryland’s baby. Another sob escaped my chest, and the doctor clutched his chart before checking my IV.
“I think perhaps you should get some rest,” he said gently. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal tonight. Everything will feel better in the morning.”
There was hope in his voice, and
I didn’t want to dash his optimistic attitude. Because it wasn’t going to be alright. But either way, I would be a mother, and my whole world was going to have to change.
***
Brayden came to see me in the middle of the night, followed by an angry nurse in his wake.
“Sir, I told you, you can’t be in here right now.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “Please, let him stay. He just wants to make sure I’m alright.”
She gave him another stern expression before handing him some paperwork.
“Fine, but you still need to sign the discharge papers.”
She walked out and closed the door behind her, and Brayden reached down to clutch me in his arms.
“I’m so sorry,” he rasped. “I’m so sorry, Brighton. Are you okay? God, you were bleeding all over the place. I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m okay,” I assured him. “What about you?”
“I’m fine.” He collapsed into the seat beside me where Ryland had been earlier.
He looked exhausted, and his clothes still had blood on them.
“Why did you discharge yourself?” I asked. “You should be resting.”
“I’m fine,” he replied. “And I can’t stay here, Brighton. Now that I know you’re okay…”
He trailed off, but I knew exactly what he was thinking.
“Brayden, please…”
“He tricked me just to get me here. I played right into his hands. Frankie’s wife has known about us all along. She doesn’t give a shit.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Norma-Jean spoke to her,” he explained. “She called to try to reason with her. It turned out, Frankie had been lying to us all along. He never had any ties to the mob. He was a hired gun for some sort of loan shark, but he told us that so he wouldn’t have to be responsible for us.”
“So we’re not in danger then?” I asked in confusion.
“Not from Frankie’s family. It’s why he’s dead. He paid for his sins, but it doesn’t change anything. I have to end this, Brighton,” he said calmly. “I know you think you love Ryland, but this is never going to stop.”
“No.” My lip quivered, and I looked away. “It isn’t ever going to stop. Because you both keep trying to kill each other. I can’t fucking handle this anymore, Brayden.”
My voice rose, and I was becoming hysterical, but I didn’t care.
The door burst open a moment later, with Ryland and the same angry nurse.
“That’s it,” she growled. “I’m calling security.”
“I want them both gone,” I snapped. “I don’t want to see either of you again.”
They both looked at me with pained expressions while the nurse made the call.
“Brighton…” they pleaded simultaneously.
“You can both keep playing this twisted game,” I cried. “But I’m done. I’m out. I have nothing left to give anymore. ”
An eery silence fell over the room while they both processed my words. I meant what I said, and they could see that.
I was done. I wouldn’t be like Norma. I wouldn’t raise my child living in fear and holing myself away.
Security arrived a few minutes later, and neither one of them said another word as they were dragged from the room. It was the first peaceful feeling I’d had in six months.
***
Stutter
A Bleeding Hearts Novel
by
A. Zavarelli
My heart is a compass, and it always leads me back to you.
Chapter One
Ryland
Obsession was a fickle beast.
One minute, it was bloodlust, and the next it was sunshine wrapped in silk. I’d never been one for poetics or waxing philosophical, but I could write a bible about Brighton fucking Valentine. The red-headed bombshell came into my life and tipped the whole world on its axis.
Obsession.
It clawed at me and burrowed deep into my skin, eating at the layers of self-entitlement I’d constructed over the years.
I was entitled to my rage. My hatred. I was entitled to purge the world of the very life essence I despised with the fire of a thousand suns. And, finally, I was entitled to her.
But in the end, she had been right. I couldn’t have them both.
Cue the cruel and mocking laughter from the puppet master of this fucked up sideshow.
My plans had been derailed and replaced with something else. For purposes of description, I’d call it an unexpected hiccup. But not weakness. Never weakness.
I fucking despised weakness. Weakness was my father, Michael Lockhart. Weakness was the man I’d been six years ago, unable to save Sophia. Weakness had no place in my heart or my mind, and that was the conundrum. In this case, x plus y did not equal z. There was no simple solution. There were no trivial plot points in the story of Brighton and Ryland. No insignificant drivel to drive a wedge between us. Only the hard shit. The impossible choices.
To be horrifically frank, there was only one solution that gave me what I wanted in this scenario. It involved sacrifice. And if you were familiar with my shenanigans and had a lick of sense about you, you’ve surely surmised that I was a selfish bastard by now. You’d be right. A man like me didn’t make sacrifices. Not anymore. Men like me took. And the world bent over and gave it up without a fight, because, well, we were just that goddamn charming, right?
I was raised in a good family. Practically came out of the womb with a silver spoon in my over-privileged mouth. Michael groomed me to be an esteemed businessman like him, all the while my mother doted on me and told me how handsome and sweet I was. I had it made.
But it was an illusion, you see. They had it all wrong. I wasn’t sweet. And I would never do business like my father.
When they were dead and buried in the ground, I’d embraced a new motto in life. Fuck anyone who gets in your way before they can fuck you first. Ruthless. Those were my business practices. I ruled with an iron fist in my personal and professional life. I was accustomed to getting my way by now, and I wasn’t at all ashamed of it. Why should I be? After all, everybody secretly wants things to go their way. Spare me the self-righteous bullshit and just acknowledge it’s a cold, hard truth.
I’d always had a dark side. Dark fantasies. When my grief was so thick I could practically choke on it, I used it as an excuse to indulge. A nip here, a belt mark there, a little rough spanking every now and again. It was all child’s play until Brighton came into my life.
She made the beast rear its ugly head. Stirred fantasies in my mind I would have never otherwise entertained. Owning her wasn’t enough. Controlling her didn’t douse the inferno blazing inside of me. No, I needed more from her. I needed everything. Body, mind, soul.
Cruel?
You’d be the judge on that. Was it cruel if someone asked for it? Begged for it, even? She always begged. Even now, I could hear her whimpering for me. Christ, those noises she made. A one-way ticket to heaven.
If we were going with cheesy metaphors, Brighton was undoubtedly an angel. That milky skin, those rosy cheeks… the way her lips parted just so when I touched her in all the right places. And where did that leave me for wanting to corrupt something so pure? Surely, that would be the devil.
I’d tainted her. Debased and degraded her. And I’d enjoyed every moment of it. I wouldn’t lie about that. My moral compass was broken, sure. But there was something still intact. Something that I’d sort of wished would disappear. Most people would call it a conscience. To me, it was nothing more than a hindrance.
But that was neither here nor there.
Truth be told, none of it made a lick of difference anymore. Good, bad, right, wrong. It all faded and blended together into one giant hole of blackness since she’d gone.
I had a theory about Lucifer. About his true intentions. But as I mentioned before, I wasn’t one for waxing philosophical. So instead, I’d like to skip ahead to the most important question. Could the fallen ever
really be redeemed?
The last five years had been a series of carefully orchestrated events. Every move, every strategy had been poured over in painstaking detail before it was set into motion.
Pieces on a chess board.
A collision of fate and circumstance. I’d planned for every hitch. Every contingency. Except for the one that blindsided me like a vat of acid to the face.
I fell in love with her.
Had it been anyone else spouting such out of character nonsense, you probably wouldn’t have batted an eye. But for a man who already had such obsessive tendencies, it was a recipe for disaster. It was, in fact, the reason why I was sitting in this upscale boutique on a Wednesday afternoon when I should have been working.
The woman across the desk had been sporting fuck-me eyes for the last twenty minutes while I stared off into the empty abyss. She’d informed me that the menagerie of glittering jewels laid out before me were all precious gems. I’d concluded she didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Don’t get me wrong. The jewels were nice. Exquisite even. They reeked of sophistication and money. And therefore, they were completely worthless. Anything this pretentious would smother the very life right out of Brighton’s innocent soul. She wouldn’t wear any of it, and this had been a wasted trip.
How did I ever think this was a good idea? I shook my head in disgust and pushed the velvet display case back to the attendant seated across from me. She wasn’t pleased by this.
“Perhaps if you told me what you were looking for, Mr. Bennett.”
I closed my eyes, and all I could see was Brighton crushed into that pocket of metal. Blood. So much fucking blood. Hollow breaths. Smoke and water. Her tears and my dread, so thick it suffocated me. These images haunted me day and night.
Did I deserve them? You’d probably say yes, and again you’d be right. I knew that now. But did it matter?
