I wave back over her. “The girl has no room to talk. How does someone who looks like you make it to twenty three with her virginity intact.”
“I had…” she trails off. Her cheeks flush red and she presses her face against my shoulder, hiding it. “Did you ever have a crush on someone?” she asks, and peeks up at me.
“Of course,” I admit and wonder where she’s going with this.
“The summers we used to go down to Oceans Isle,” she starts, still peeking up at me from her hiding place by my arm, “well, I was kinda crushin’ on you back then.” She rushes through the sentence and I can’t hide my smile when she tries to burrow her whole body behind me on the couch.
“So…” I pull her out from her hiding spot and over onto my lap, “you’re tellin’ me what exactly?”
“Every teenage girl dreams about that boy and you were that boy for me,” she says, and she starts to play with my hand, running her fingers along mine. “It’s really unfair to the others because the girl keeps comparin’ them to that boy and they just never make the cut. And then there was the thing with my parents and I got sick, after that I was really happy to stay single for the rest of my life.” She takes my hand and presses it over her heart. “I was happy with just my dream of you and then there you were, and all of the dreams I’ve dreamt pales in comparison to the real you.”
I sit speechless and stare at her. She grips my hand tighter and a worried look crosses her face.
“Say somethin’, don’t just sit here and say nothin’,” she says, all nervous.
“What you just said,” I start, choosing my words carefully, “is damn near incredible. I just don’t understand. If you feel this way about me then why not be with me?”
People shouldn’t look beautiful when they’re sad, but Scarlett does.
“I told you why,” she says, and she swallows to fight the tears. “It’s because of that dream. I need that dream, Wyatt. I need you to stay a dream so I have somethin’ beautiful to remember.”
Patience is really not one of my virtues. I don’t think I’ll ever understand her.
“You’re gonna have to make me understand, cause I’m lost,” I say and I pull my hand away from hers.
She’s opens her mouth but snaps it shut again when my phone starts to ring.
“Timin’ really sucks,” I groan, as I fish it out of my pocket. Scarlett moves to the couch when I answer it. “Wyatt Holden.”
“It’s Alec. I know you’re not on duty but we got a call for the Ryan’s house. You gonna take it or should I drive on out?”
“No,” I glance at Scarlett, “no, I’ll take it. Thanks for lettin’ me know. Have good one, Alec.”
“Good luck,” he greets.
I get up and wonder how to do this.
“I have to shoot out for just a few minutes. Will you be okay?” She nods. “Make yourself at home, really, do anything. Go crazy.” She smiles and I feel better about leaving her alone at my place.
I shoot into the room and change back into my uniform real fast. When I come out Scarlett frowns.
“When you said out I didn’t think you meant that kinda out,” she says.
“It’s a call I always deal with. It won’t take long,” I assure her. I walk over to her and press a kiss to her forehead before I grab my keys. “Lock the door behind me. I have keys. Don’t open for anyone.”
“Yes, Officer Holden,” she salutes me and I smile before closing the door behind me.
It’s the first time I’m leaving a woman alone in my place. I only brought Julie over twice and it didn’t even cross my mind to leave her here when I got called out. I’d always take her home.
When I pull up to the Ryan’s trailer it’s all dark. It’s not a good sign. I grab my flashlight and start toward the door. I knock twice, just like always.
“Dan, it’s Wyatt, open on up,” I call all nicely, and I wait.
I hear a hard thud, like something falling and then the thud is loud against the door.
“Go away, Wyatt,” Jessie says from behind the door. I can hear the fear in her voice. “Everything’s just fine here.”
“They got a call, Jessie,” I say patiently, “which means I have to write somethin’ down. Let me in so I can see y’all and I’ll be on my way.”
I hear Dan, but I can’t make out what he’s saying, and then Jessie sounds up again. “Please go, we’re fine, just fine.”
“Dan,” I say, and I put the torch in its holster so I have my hands free, “you have five seconds to open this door. Don’t make me come in there,” I warn.
“You and what fuckin’ army!” he screams and then Jessie screams as well.
There are few sounds on the planet that puts the fear of God in me. A gunshot is one of them.
When the shot blasts behind the door I draw my gun and yank open the door. Dan is right in front of me, breathing hard. His whole frame is shaking. The gun is shaking in his hands.
He looks at me wide-eyed. “I work so hard, “he whispers, “why can’t she just listen to me?”
“Give me the gun, Dan,” I say calmly. I keep mine on him while reaching out to him real slow. “Nice and easy does it.”
“I just want someone to listen to me,” he groans.
“I’m listenin’,” I assure him. “Give me the gun so we can talk some more.”
He shakes his head, the look in his eyes daunting. He lifts the gun to his head and I move.
The blast is loud and it makes my ears ring. Ring isn’t the right word, it sounds like someone is saying ‘shhh’ the whole time. Like a broken television.
I blink a few times. It takes seconds to register that Dan just shot himself. I drop to my knee to feel for his pulse and when I feel nothing I turn to look for Jessie. She’s a bundle on the floor. I move to her and the pool of blood fills me with dread.
“Jessie,” I say, and don’t recognize my voice. It’s thick with fear. I feel for her pulse but there’s nothing. Fuck!
I stumble to my feet and out of the trailer. I close the door behind me and walk out to the car to call it in. Alec answers again. Looks like he got stuck on nightshift.
I hesitate to say the words.
“Wyatt, you there?” he asks.
I swallow the bile back and I start nodding. “Call in a murder-suicide. You need to come on over to the Ryan’s place.”
“Oh man, I’ll be there in five,” he says.
People start opening their doors when Alec’s lights flash all over the place. When emergency services arrive, it’s a free for all. People just don’t have respect for the dead.
~*~
By the time I get home it’s just past midnight. Every muscle in my body is aching. I close the door behind me and lock it.
I’ve never shot someone but it sure feels like I did tonight. I failed Jessie and Dan. I lean back against the door and slide down to the floor. I can’t close my eyes, because then I see Dan’s eyes, and that haunted look he had just before he pulled the trigger.
“Wyatt?” I look up at Scarlett as she comes out of the living room. She waited up.
“Why didn’t you go sleep?” I ask. My voice still doesn’t sound like my own. It’s all raspy, as if I’ve been crying for hours.
She just smiles and kneels down in front of me. I shake my head when her eyes ask me the questions I don’t want to answer.
I don’t know who moves first, whether it’s me grabbing for her or her taking hold of me. She wraps her arms around me, holding me to her chest and I cry for the two people who took each other to the grave, just like Scarlett said.
I can’t tell her. It will just push her further away from me.
“It’s okay,” she whispers, “I have you. I’m here.”
I cry out my anger in her arms. I let her soak up the pain and guilt of failing Jesse and Dan. I failed them.
~*~
I lie awake staring at Scarlett. I try to focus on her and not what happened. I try to focus on us. Not all couples are doomed.
My parents are happy. Aiden and Emma are happy. We can be happy too.
Her whole body jerks and the sudden movement has me wide awake. She takes one of those painful sounding breaths. The next one she takes slams into her throat and it’s the previous night all over again. She grabs at her neck and starts to claw at whatever she’s fighting.
I take hold of her hands and pin them down. I do what I did the night before.
“Babe, wake up,” I say at first, and then I just take her gasping mouth, and I kiss her. It only takes seconds for her to wake up, and to respond. She takes deep breaths of air but she doesn’t stop kissing me, as if she’s been starving and I’m her only source of nourishment.
She becomes more desperate-like, straddling me and dropping hot kisses down my chest. After the night I’ve had it would be easy to get lost in her, but I force myself to stay focused. Her breaths come fast over my skin as she trails down and when she takes holds of my pants, I reach for her.
“Babe, come here,” I say.
Before I can pull her back up to my chest she moves away, turning her back on me just like the night before. I feel too drained to do this again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, “I don’t know what came over me.”
The last thing I expected was an apology.
~*~
Chapter Fourteen
Scarlett~
The dreams are getting worse. I’ve been having the panic attacks for the last year, but coupled with the dreams, it’s a whole new playing field.
“I hate the color red.” I say, because if I don’t say it my chest will explode. “I dream of a red light, those kinds you use for emergencies, but in the dream it’s shining on a red door. I don’t want to open the door but I do, no matter how much I tell myself I don’t want to. I open it every time.”
He moves in behind me, and his arms come up over my chest again, making it a little easier to breathe. I take hold of his hand and press my face to it, breathing him in.
“What happens then?” he asks, warming my hair with his breath.
“He comes at me, grabbing hold of my neck,” I say, and then I move Wyatt’s hand down to my neck, needing to replace the lingering feeling of the dream with his touch. “In the dream he doesn’t stop. You’re not there to make him stop.”
Wyatt moves my hair and when I feel his mouth at the back of my neck I stretch out against him. He tilts my head back and continues to trail kisses up to my throat, turning my body to him.
But that’s all he does. He just kisses my neck and then he holds me. It’s frustrating the hell out me.
“Why do you do that? Don’t you want me?” I ask directly when the anger starts bubbling up.
“Oh, believe me I do,” I says “But I need it to mean more.” He throws my words back at me again.
Anger explodes behind my eyes. Little pops of electric pricks.
“Stop throwin’ my words back in my face! Dammit, so I wanted my first time to mean somethin’.” I get out of bed and head for my bag.
I unzip it and yank my clothes out, but when I stand back up Wyatt’s standing in front of me.
“You’re understandin’ it wrong, Scarlett. I’m not throwin’ them back at you.” He looks angry. “I’m glad you wanted your first time to mean somethin’ and I’m happy as hell it was with me, but I’m sure as hell not gonna have sex with you just because you feel like it,” he snaps. “I need it to mean somethin’, too. I need to know you’ll be there when everythin’ is said and done and not bail on my ass again.”
I think I hate the color red because it’s associated with anger, too, and then there’s rage, the next level when I just lose it.
I have a problem thinking and speaking then. I have a problem doing just about anything when I see red.
“Just because I feel like it?” I hiss.
I’m not thinking straight.
If I was thinking straight I’d realize I was still in my slacks and ratty old t-shirt.
I’d realize I’m not wearing any shoes.
But I’m not thinking straight as I push by him, grab my keys for my apartment and yank his door open. I slam it closed behind me and I run.
I’ll show him what it looks like when someone bails on his ass!
~*~
I run home, really fast. I’m glad for the cover of dusk and that the streets are quiet.
I push open my door. Relieved to see no note, I lock it and head to the fridge. I ran too fast. I open it and take out a bottle of OJ when the sound system starts up. I take a few sips and then I freeze.
It’s not Bed of Roses that’s playing. It’s another song.
I always reset the CD back to Bed of Roses. Only Lonely isn’t even on the same CD.
I hear movement behind me and I can’t bring myself to turn around. My heart leaps to my throat, and the juice I just drank pushes back up.
The song gets to the chorus and then I hear him. He whispers along eerily, “Only lonely, I can’t stop hurting you.” I drop the bottle when he steps in right behind me. I will myself to move, to do something but I can’t. I’m frozen in fear. “Only lonely, I can’t stop loving you,” he whispers against my hair and bile pushes up my throat. “Only lonely, how much pain does it take?”
His arms grab me to him and I scream, but he smothers it away when he closes his hand over my mouth. I clasp my lips together, tightly, so I don’t get the taste of his hand in my mouth.
“Scarlett,” he breathes my name over my neck and chills race over my body.
I hear nothing but his breathing. I feel nothing but his disgusting breath wafting over my skin. I need to do something! I can’t just stand here and do nothing.
“I got this time bomb ticking in my head,” he continues to quote the lyrics of the song that’s long finished. “This time I think she’s gonna blow. How can I say get away, when I just can’t let go.”
He breathes over my neck and I try to pull away from him, but he holds me tighter with his one arm. Then he reaches for my neck, and when his fingers wrap around my throat I grab at his hand, yanking. But he’s so much stronger than me.
“Only lonely, so tell me babe, how much pain can you take before your heart breaks?” He starts to squeeze and I dig my nails into his fingers, clawing at him.
“Please don’t,” I whimper.
A knock on the door makes us both freeze for a second. He slaps his hand over my face real hard, covering my mouth. It relieves the pressure of my throat, but I can’t suck in any air with his hand over my nose and mouth. I grab at his hand again as Wyatt’s voice calls from behind the door.
“Scarlett, it’s Wyatt. Please open up.” I try to yank forward, toward the door, but Jeffrey’s hold on my only tightens.
“I’ll kill you, Scarlett. I won’t share you with him,” he whispers against my ear.
Hot tears burn down my cheeks. Wyatt can help me. I can’t fight Jeffrey on my own.
Jeffrey moves fast and I don’t even hear what Wyatt calls from behind the door. I only see the blinding shimmer of the knife, and then I feel the cold steel as it presses into my neck.
My tears come faster and the shriek slams into my throat, right where he presses the knife in harder.
“Don’t make a sound. I’ll slice you. Don’t make me hurt you, Scarlett,” he whispers again. “Don’t make me hurt you when we can be a family. I know that’s what you want. Morgan is already waiting for us.” Ice cold fear ripples through my body. Morgan! He has Morgan? My whole body freezes up at the horrifying thought.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t hear Wyatt.
The last thing I hear is Jeffrey breathing.
~*~
When I come to it feels as if my head is going to explode. There’s music. Only Lonely is playing somewhere in another room.
I peel my eyes open and blink against the sharp pain. I glance at my watch. It’s ten am. I should’ve taken my insulin already.
I sit up and glance around me. I’m in a room. There’s the
bed I’m on, and an old dilapidated dresser. Against the one wall is a rack with canisters on it. To my left is a small radio with a stack of CD’s next to it.
I move slowly and that’s when I hear the chain rattle.
I dart up and my head throbs. I grab at my skull to ease the throbbing before staring at my shackled ankle.
I’m shackled to a chain! I grab hold of the chain and start following it to see where it goes. The floor is bare, just concrete, and it’s cold beneath my bare feet. I sink down next to the metal loop in the middle of the floor. I yank at the steel ring, but it just clanks.
Whether it’s the sound, or the thought of being tied down, I don’t know. But I lose the sense of calm I’ve had up until now. I keep yanking until my breaths are burning in my throat. I’m trembling and my mouth is dry. All the yanking didn’t help anything, but chase my sugar level down more.
I need to eat or drink something. I need glucose.
I start feeling highly irritated when the song goes to repeat for the fourth time.
The door opens he comes into the room, a huge smile on his sadistic face. I crawl to behind the bed, pressing myself against the cold wall and metal frame.
“Scarlett,” he says my name real slow, as if he’s tasting each letter. “Games we play, words we say.” He stops at the corner of the bed and smiles when he sees me. The same smile I saw every day and now only do I see the madness behind it. “Cutting wounds that run so deep.”
He starts toward me and I press harder against the wall, but there’s nowhere for me to go.
He hunches down in front of me and I turn my face away from him, away from his hand as he reaches out to touch my face. His fingers are cold as they brush over my cheek and down to my neck, and it only makes my stomach roll more.
“You have so much pain inside of you,” he whispers, as if he’s in a trance. “We should get it out of you. Once we’ve rid you of all the pain we can fill you with all the love I feel for you.”
I glance at him in horror. He’s insane.
“Jeffrey.” My stomach rolls and I’m sure if I had any food in it, I would vomit just saying his name. “Please don’t hurt me.” I whimper. I wish I was stronger.
Wyatt Page 10
