I fling a look back toward the rear entrance where few have thought to go. The others, my former audience, scream and trample each other as they push to get out through the front, even though by now it’s a wall of flames.
I suck in a breath and turn to run. Coughing, nearly blind with smoke, I stumble. Someone catches my arm, and I jolt to awareness.
It’s him. Colonel Kent Barry. “Too good to be true, I guess.” The wrath in his eyes presses in on me, but in my panic all I can do is stare at him like it doesn’t really matter. Nothing matters. He must see something in my expression, I don’t know what—desperation? Horror? Grief?—but it wipes his face clear of emotion.
“Come,” he says. “Out the back.”
Tears fill my eyes, and I nod. I fling a glance over my shoulder, toward Axel, and that’s when I realize how close he is.
“Run!” I cry. “He’ll kill you!”
We only make it a few steps before my arm is practically wrenched out of its socket. Axel seizes me by the hair, pulls me close, and bares his teeth. He’s not sane, not at all. I look into his eyes and see my death. He appears to struggle with himself, and in the end he flings me off and turns toward the colonel.
I slam face-first into a support beam. Something cracks. My eyes go blurry, and I stumble to the floor.
Flames are taking the Moonlight Bar as Axel pummels the colonel like he’s made of nothing but sticks and lint. My face is sticky. Wet.
“Stop!” I scramble to my feet and grab Axel’s arm, but he flicks me off like I’m a spider. “Please, you don’t know what you’re doing!”
The look he flings me should have opened my carotid artery. “He touched you,” he spits, “and you let him!”
I shake my head but weakly. “Axel, he didn’t. He let me go.”
The colonel grabs Axel by the neck and tries to gain the advantage, but he ends up with a fist slammed into his face.
“Is that why you asked the other girls to leave?” he snarls. My Axel.
The colonel grabs him by the throat and rolls him over. He’s got Axel on his back and he’s pressing down on Axel’s neck with his full weight, murder in his eyes.
Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. It doesn’t feel real. I’m dizzy, and I think I’m going to puke.
Axel gains momentum and rolls the colonel onto his back. He slams the guy’s head into the floor once, twice. He picks him up and throws him face-first into the fire.
“No!” I cup my hands over my face as I hear the colonel scream. It’s the worst sound I’ve ever heard.
“He didn’t do it! He didn’t!”
Axel bears down on me. I wag my head as I back away. “I would have done anything to save you. Anything. I would have slept with every single one of his men if it meant you got out of it alive, but he said I looked too miserable and he let me go, Axel, I swear!” My voice rises toward the end, but it’s cut off by his hands around my throat.
“I loved you,” he rips out, but his eyes are full of tears. “You were my girl, the only good thing that ever happened to me. I believed in you.”
“I’m pregnant,” I manage to choke.
His face scrunches up, and I think he’s going to snap my neck. At the last second he lowers me to the floor, grabs me by the hair, and drags me out the rear door.
I struggle to look behind me, and I meet the eyes of Colonel Barry. His face is half melted off. Terror overcomes me, and I can’t control the sobs.
Axel gets me fifty feet from the building, flings me to the ground, and stalks away without a backward glance. Just before the roof collapses on the Moonlight Bar, a solitary figure staggers out.
My neck hurts. My head hurts like it’s been cracked in half. The world spins and I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
Felicia finds me passed out right where Axel dropped me. Between her and Zack, they get me to my feet and to the section of the fence where our men took out the guards. No one has come to replace them, so I assume they are out fighting the fire.
Trying to save the lives of anyone who’s left.
“Axel.” I choke, and hack at the smoke that still burns my lungs.
“He’s all right,” Felicia assures me. “Just breathe. You can do that, right?”
I don’t know. Can I? I’m not even sure I want to. Those things he said to me, the things he did… I know there’s no way to convince him he’s wrong.
But he is wrong.
When Colonel Barry ordered me to strip, I froze. He was a stranger, a cold-staring enemy seated across the desk, assessing me like a prize cow. I got about as far as peeling off one bra strap before he stopped me.
Why, he’d asked, would I go this far when I’d just told him no way? I’d told him I had other people to think about, not just myself. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.
He’d given me a funny look and told me to put my clothes back on.
When I’d worked up the nerve to ask him why, he’d told me he liked his women either wild and untamed, or submissive and ready to suck dick. A frightened teenage girl repulsed by the thought of his touch didn’t meet either of his criteria. He was an asshole, he told me, not a monster.
A monster. Like Axel.
He’d guided me out of his office and instructed his aide to take me to the others and see that we had food, clothes, and a decent place to stay. Then he’d promised to come to my concert.
My heart sank when he said that, because I knew if he came, he’d be in the battle. All the way up to the fire, the knowledge sat in my gut like a flaming snake.
It starts to snow. Axel helps Juicy scale the debris pile and then comes back for Felicia. He ignores me completely. Doesn’t even look in my direction. I count to fifty, slowly, before I admit that he won’t be coming back for me, and I start my own climb, but I’m unsteady. My hair is in my eyes, sticky with blood and sweat, and I’m dizzy. I stumble.
“Need some help?” It’s Michael Centos, that leader guy from the Sadie’s Bend raid.
I moisten my lips. He holds out his hand, and I take it.
“Thank you,” he says as he half pulls me up the side. “You did a good job back there.”
A good job of what? Burning a hundred soldiers alive? Of melting the face off a good man and alienating the only person who’s ever really loved me?
“Thanks,” I mumble. I don’t look at him. I try not to look at anybody, but when we reach the other side, Axel is chatting up Juicy—Olivia, I mean.
The ache in my chest is unbearable. How can he talk to her and not me? I can’t let him believe I slept with the colonel. I can’t. I edge closer. Olivia catches sight of me and stiffens. She nods at Axel and bleeds off to join the others.
I swallow. “Axel?”
His shoulders bunch, but he doesn’t turn.
“You have to talk to me.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You’re dead to me.” His voice is low, savage.
I choke back a sob. “But I didn’t do anything!”
He spins around and lunges for me. His fingers dig into my shoulders. “Don’t you lie to me. Two people—two!—told me you ordered them out of the colonel’s office. You’re a goddamn slut!”
I cry openly now. “I would have done anything if it would have saved you—”
“You’re a whore!”
“—but I didn’t. He let me go.”
He steps back and shakes his head. His eyes are hard, like a wall of steel has grown between us. “I don’t believe you. But even if he let you go, you would have. You said so yourself.”
“Please!” I reach out to touch him, and he seizes my arm and yanks me up against his hard body. He grabs my ass, grinds his dick into me, and kisses me viciously. I don’t care. All I want is him. I let him do whatever he wants. Then he flings me away, and I barely catch myself from falling.
“Is this what you want?” he demands, wiping me off his mouth.
I nod. I can’t speak. I sob like some weak, pat
hetic girl, but I can’t help it.
He grits his teeth and clenches his fists, as though he wants to punch me. He visibly restrains himself. “I fucking loved you!”
My heart clenches. “I love you, too.”
“Don’t, okay? Just don’t. It’s over, Mel. We’re over. Don’t even bother coming home.”
This can’t be happening. It can’t. I wrap my arms around myself, half bent with grief. “But I’m pregnant,” I squeak.
He looks me up and down. “You ain’t pregnant. No way could you know that already. You’re just using it to get yourself off the hook.”
I shake my head. “That’s not true. Axel, I love you. Only you.”
I reach for him again, but he bats my hand away. “Funny. A minute ago, you said you’d have fucked that guy if he hadn’t said no.”
“Yes,” I sob. I’ve got snot dripping down my face, and I can’t even care. “I would have done anything to keep you alive.”
“I don’t need this shit. Go back to Sadie’s Bend, Melody. Go anywhere.”
“Please don’t do this!”
He looks at me one last time and snorts. “You know, you turned out to be exactly like the Melody I imagined you’d be. All horny and dying for it, no matter who’d give it to you.”
I gasp. I’m too stunned, too choked up to answer.
“Just stay the fuck away from me, Mel. I’ll fucking kill you.” He stalks off to join the others.
I stay where I am. I can’t move. If I take even one step, that means it’s over. It can’t be over. It can’t.
“I’ll claim you, if you want.” Zack stands beside me. I didn’t even hear him approach. I take in his soft brown eyes, the kindness that radiates from him, and I realize I know only two truly decent men: Pastor North and Zack.
“Honey, you’re all bloody. You’re a mess.” He smooths the hair away from my eyes, just like Axel used to do. I screw up my face and turn away.
I should push it. I should follow Axel, demand that he listen to me, let me prove that I love him.
The others are moving off, and it’s only Zack and me now. “Come on, Melody,” he says, taking my arm. “Let’s get you home.”
I could go with Zack. I could go back to the fort and try and try and try. It won’t work, though. I’m looking truth in its terrible red eyes, and it spells death to even the smallest hope. All that’s left now is to face Colonel Barry and any consequences there are, or run off to a new town.
“You should go, Zack.” My voice is clear, steady.
“I’m not leaving you here. These people—”
I cock my head to the side. “I think we both know it’s just as dangerous for me here as it is at the fort.”
“Miss Melody.” It’s a plea, one laced with dismay.
“Axel hates me.” I swallow. “I just killed a hundred men. I don’t feel very good, Zack. I think I’m going to stay here for a while.”
He opens his mouth like he’s about to argue, but the words fade on his lips and he takes a step back. After a moment he turns and follows the others.
I hold myself up until I can no longer see them. I’m dizzy and I’m sick and a slab of grief too heavy to bear presses down on me. I lower myself and sit in the fresh falling snow.
I’ll sit here for a while. It feels good to let the snow cover me and cover me and cover me, just like it buries everything else. I can let it paint me clean.
I close my eyes.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They’ll let me go soon. Though where I’ll go from here, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I clutch my belly, just like I have so many times these past few weeks. My poor baby never had a chance. Too young even for me to know if it was a he or a she. Ectopic, they said. They tell me I almost died during the rupture, and then of course infection set in. I’ve been in the hospital nearly a month.
A doctor told me I might never have children.
Voices rise in the hall as I move to the bathroom. My hair hangs below my waist, and I feel its weight as it swings with my steps. I flick on the light. Such a little thing, one I used to take for granted. There’s a mirror, and for the first time in weeks I raise my eyes and look.
“You can’t go in there,” comes a shrill voice from the hall. “The last thing she needs is to see you.”
I should have died the night of the fire. Then I wouldn’t have to feel this desperate regret, this hopeless emptiness. I never thought the role I played in the attack that night would end with eighty-seven men burning alive. Naively I thought the fighting would happen outside, or perhaps we could just free the prisoners and let them disappear into the darkness. Barry’s men were all at the Moonlight because I lured them there. And now some girl named Shannon is grieving for a boy who was crazy in love.
When Axel thrust me away so he could charge the colonel, I smacked face-first into the pillar and earned a concussion. Mia returned and found me the following morning, unconscious and hypothermic. I never asked why she came back. Maybe she felt guilty for ratting me out. Who knows? But Barry’s guards discovered us just after Mia showed. Their medic marveled that I survived so long in the cold. It didn’t surprise me at all. You don’t go to hell after you die. You earn it, and then you feel it with every breath day after day after day until, mercifully, you fade into nothing. God means for me to live a long time, I know.
Colonel Barry had me moved to a working hospital at the territory headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina. I don’t know why he didn’t just chuck me back into the flames. Maybe he realized I was supposed to die with the others that night. Maybe he felt sorry for me. I really don’t know. All I know is that for two days I hugged myself constantly, hugged the tiny baby cradled in my belly like it was my sole reason for living.
The last link to Axel is now gone.
The face in the mirror is the same and yet horribly different. I see the monster in me. I trace my lips with my finger, lips that kissed and bruised under my lover’s command. I peel a flake of dried skin, and although I feel pain and see the blood, I just don’t care. I’m empty…flesh with no soul, a monster.
That last living piece of me cries for the man I loved and lost, or thought I lost. Axel was never mine. I’m nothing, just a puppet, a slave, a victim; I have been since I was thirteen years old. They gave me a name, Imogen, but it never belonged to me. They called me Melody, but it was a lie. I’m that thing you grab by the hair so I’ll do what you want. Just a stupid cunt that fell for the wrong guy and thought it was love, even reveled in his roughness like it was my salvation.
My eyes are the same coffee brown, but the lips that were made for kissing are pale and cracked. That hair, so often pulled in the heat of passion, later became a means to control and punish. How did I not see my ugliness before? Seductress, murderer, victim. Bile centipedes up my throat.
From my pocket I retrieve the scissors I stole from a nurse. I’m dimly aware of an argument in the hallway, but it’s worlds away. The first lock of hair hits the floor. Another. Ignoring the scuffle outside, I don’t stop until there’s nothing left but stubs. My eyes are dry, but grief claws through me and I can’t stop. When there’s nothing left to scissor, I scrape the blade against my scalp, not caring about the cuts, the abrasions, the blood. I won’t stop until it’s gone, until it’s all—
“Melody! What have you done?”
I turn to Mia, the woman who hates me.
“I need help!” Mia calls, panic in her voice.
But it’s not the doctor who comes. It’s Axel.
His eyes widen. “Melody!”
He yanks me to him and presses my face to his chest. “Jesus! What have I done?”
“Sir! Get out or we’re calling security!” demands a woman in scrubs. She holds a scalpel like she means business.
“I’m sorry I left you,” he whispers as though the woman isn’t even there. “I’m sorry I said those things to you. Melody, you’ve got to believe me. When I thought of you with another man, I snapped and
I—”
“You’re a fucking asshole,” spits Mia.
“Get out!”
“Go to hell!”
He scoops me up in his arms, and I’m far too weak to fight him.
“These people are good to her.” Mia flutters after us as Axel strides out into the hall. “You leave her here, you miserable piece of shit!”
“Axel.” I’m so tired.
He pulls me tighter to his chest. “I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
“Let me go.” Please let me go away.
His jaw hardens as he rushes out a side door to a waiting snowmobile.
“Axel, please. Just leave me. I can’t anymore. I just can’t.” Knowing I’m just his fuck-hole puppet will kill me. I can’t live with the guilt of all the things I’ve done or knowing what he really thinks of me. I deserve all of it.
“You have no choice,” he says, and I swear he sounds like he’s about to cry. “I’m not leaving you like this.”
He plops me down onto the front of the snowmobile and mounts behind me. Seconds later we’re off.
The wind tears against my shorn head and the cuts I’ve made. The feel of his body pressed to mine punishes me. I wanted so badly for him to forgive me, for us to have this baby together, for him to love me like I loved him. None of that is possible. I see now that he’s too damaged to ever feel love, and I could never deserve it.
He gets maybe twenty miles before the motor stutters and he has to stop. He dismounts, lifts a fuel tank off the back of the machine, and refuels. I smell french fries: corn diesel.
He gets back on, pulls me close against his body, and I completely lose it. I always was a crybaby. Now I’m sobbing out every breath in my body. Axel clutches me to him and buries his face against my bloodied scalp. “I’m sorry,” he mutters over and over. “I’m so sorry.”
Slowly, anger replaces despair. “Why did you come back? Why?”
“Because I love you.” His voice catches.
Stolen Melody (Snow and Ash #2) Page 13
