Bitter Angel

by Megan Hand

  I keep careful watch as the needle tilts. I wait for him to lose himself in me. When he does, I can reach, just a simple reach. Stretch out my hand and—

  A sudden and violent slap sends me sprawling to the bed. I scream from the agony of my back sliding against it. Pain slices up my vertebrae, spiderwebbing into my nerve endings.

  Alpha’s smirk shifts to a sneer. “What? You thought it’d be that easy? Knock the thing out of my hand and you’d be free?” He shakes his head slowly. “Uh-uh. I’ve been waiting all night to fuck you. I even waited until the boyfriend showed, so he’d be out of the way. I own you.” He chuckles at that. “And don’t worry, with the shit I’m on, it’ll last all night. You’ll be begging me, just like I promised.”

  I close my eyes briefly, tightening my face to block out the mental picture.

  How did he know Jay was coming?

  Opening my eyes again, he yanks his T-shirt over his head and flings it aside. Shirtless, he approaches me, needle still in hand, and I remember how I tried the same thing when he was bathing me. I thought I could get the knife out of his hand, and it resulted in a slice to my cheek, which left me bleeding on the bathroom floor.

  But just like in the alley, I’ll never stop fighting him. It doesn’t matter how many times he thinks he’s bested me. This is me. I’m a fighter. Despite those half-conscious moments on the mattress, me wavering, what felt like giving up. Now that Alpha’s here, I know this as certainly as I know my love for Jay. I’ll never stop loving Jay. And I’ll never stop fighting Alpha. It’s inside of me to win this, even if it costs me my dignity, my honor, my body, my life.

  With that decision made, I mentally prep myself. Whenever I make my move, it has to be timed just right. I’ve had enough carelessness for one day.

  I wait while he lowers on all fours down on top of me. I wait while he resumes sucking the blood to the surface of my skin, breaking the fragile blood vessels in my neck and chest. I wait while he claws my shoulder, scraping out spaces for thin trails of blood to stream down my arms. I wait while he scratches other parts of me, gropes me, paws me.

  I let all of this happen while I lie very still. Light panting breaths are the only sound I make. Beneath it all, I’m plotting, counting. He’s got a death grip on the needle, but he’s losing himself in my body again.

  Maybe if I kiss him back…

  I tilt my head and put my lips to his shoulder, biting slightly. He jerks back, scanning my face for the plan he knows is there, but I’ve erased all signs. My features are awash of anything but complete and utter supplication.

  “Like I said,” I whisper, stroking his ego and clearing away his suspicions, “anything you want. Just let Jay go.”

  His hunger is palpable, like a lion positioned for the kill. “Alright. Bite me. Bring back the alley cat. Those claws were fucking sexy,” he growls.

  I clench my teeth. My lip curls. He wants a struggle.

  You want a fight, prick? Here it comes.

  I lean forward and bite his shoulder, hard enough to draw blood. He howls a menacing laugh and slaps me again, only hard enough this time to thrust my face away.

  His eyes are wild, the deadliest version yet. “This was definitely worth waiting for.”

  He doesn’t ask for anything else because I lose it. I go rabid on his ass, and he eats it up. I’m screaming and flailing. Now I’m the lion, and he’s the lion tamer. Or what was it he called me? The alley cat? What he doesn’t know is there’s nothing uncontrolled about me. I know exactly what I’m doing and exactly what I’m waiting for, down to the quarter inch of movement.

  Here comes my opportunity.

  He has one of my hands pinned down with his free one while my other is incapacitated by the weight of his chest. I’m going nuts, struggling to free myself from him for the third time in twenty-four hours. I see the needle drifting farther from my neck. I hoist a leg up and kick his back with my heel, shifting his concentration to my left side instead of my right.

  He hasn’t even gone for my panties yet. He’s enjoying the foreplay too much. His fingers that are clasped around my wrist momentarily lose their grip, and my hand goes free. I take one giant swipe across his face, and—

  “I said get the fuck off her!” Jay yells from the doorway.

  “Jay, no!” I had this! Why didn’t he listen?

  In the instant it takes Alpha to swivel around to deal with Jay, I ditch my plan and see the brilliant beauty that’s been laid in my lap. Without even a flash of hesitation, I steal the opening. My right arm is still pinned under him, but my left hand, the injured wrist, is free. I cross myself and fasten my fingers around his, jamming the needle into his own neck.

  The liquid drains, but I only have time to get half in before he lurches away, stunned. He wrenches out the syringe and hurls it across the room.

  “You conniving…” His words trail off, and he can’t get out the bitch that I know was coming. He’s far from unconscious though.

  I don’t know what was in that thing. I’m sure whatever’s in him will slow him down at least, but it certainly won’t stop him from going for his gun.

  And it doesn’t. His movements are jerky, but his fingers inch for his pocket. I lunge for Jay, grab his hand, and we run. Well, I run. Jay limps hurriedly. Alpha shouts after us incoherently. The drug must be obstructing his speech.

  “What about—” Jay starts.

  “Move!” I command him.

  We’re out the front door of the apartment. I know he’s talking about Trigger, and I’m ashamed that we’re leaving him behind, but Jay’s safety is my number one priority.

  I hear Alpha’s lagging voice again. We’re halfway down the hall.

  Jay looks like he’s about to collapse. “Stop slowing down for me!”

  “I’m not leaving you behind!”

  Jay is in front of me. I’m covering his back. We’re almost to the stairwell when I hear a metallic click.

  I hadn’t noticed the ringing in my ears was gone. The sound is soft, yet I hear it as if it were right in front of me, like the gun is pointed at my forehead. It might as well be. I glance behind me. Alpha’s not pointing it at me. The barrel is fixed directly on Jay’s back. I don’t know how good his aim is, but I’m not risking it.

  In one swift move, I throw my arms out and knock Jay to the ground as the shot rings out. At this angle, if Alpha’s aim is pure, the bullet should hit my heart. Seems appropriate.

  I wait expectantly for my body to absorb the blast, but I feel nothing. Not even a whoosh of air as the bullet passes.

  I look down. Still whole.

  I turn back again, and there’s Trigger, wrestling a half-lucid Alpha for control of the gun. Beaten up and jumbled Trigger.

  How did he get his hands free? We were leaving him behind, and now he’s risking his life to save ours? I can’t leave him!

  “No, Lila!” Jay shouts as I reverse my course and dash toward Alpha and Trigger.

  Behind Jay’s voice, I hear a layer of racket coming up the stairs. It sounds like an organized uproar, if that makes any sense.

  Trigger is behind Alpha, his arms clenched around Alpha’s waist, and both of his hands are around Alpha’s hand—the hand with the gun. Trigger sees me coming and tries to avert the gun’s direction at the wall. It’s like something straight out of a movie. Good Guy battling Bad Guy in the last few seconds of the climax. Then Good Guy turns the gun into Bad Guy’s chest. It goes off. Bad Guy falls to the ground and bleeds out. Good Guy wins.

  But this isn’t a movie, and Trigger’s not your typical Good Guy. He’s too weak to do what he’s trying to do, and when I’m a few feet away, Alpha wrenches free of him, sending Trigger flailing into the apartment. Then Alpha dives for me, his greedy hands going for my throat as a cacophony of deep voices explodes behind me.

  “Lila, duck!”

  “Get on the ground!”

  “Lower your weapon!”

  “Put down the gun!”

  They all overlap and ove
rwhelm me. My reaction is too slow.

  Police. But how did they…?

  Alpha spins me and thrusts an arm deep into my rib cage. The raw skin at my back rubs against his cotton T-shirt. I’m already in so much pain and on sensory overload that it’s only a blip on my radar.

  “Stay away! I’ll put a fucking bullet in her brain!” Alpha’s words come out slow and cumbersome. He’s making a tremendous effort to sound clear.

  The police—at least five, wearing black with guns outstretched near their faces—do not lower their weapons. They continue to holler orders for Alpha to stand down.

  He won’t.

  He’s shaking so much, the butt of the gun rattles against my skull. I keep eye contact with Jay. Is there any life in my eyes, or have I given into this fate? I don’t know. I feel so numb at this point, but I’m joyous in a way. This will all end now. That means Jay is okay, and he’ll stay that way.

  One of the officers speaks in a measured command. “Lower your weapon, or we will take you down.”

  Is this for real? I’ve never heard cops talk like that. Maybe in the movies, but like I deduced earlier, this is no movie. They won’t shoot at us, not when he’s got a gun to my head.

  “Lower. Your. Weapon!”

  “I said back. The fuck. Off. Or I’ll shoot her. Right now. I won’t think twice!” Alpha wipes his eyes with his arm. He’s sweating like a farm animal. This grip he has on me is all he has left. I wonder how he’s going to defend himself now. Just the idea makes me laugh. Again.

  A tiny giggle becomes a full on body shake. I must be losing it—for real this time. Well, everyone else is, why not me?

  The butt slams into my head. “What the fuck are you laughing at?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  He rubs the sweat off his forehead again. “You want something to laugh at? Here goes, bitch.” He jams the gun into my belly.

  I don’t know what he means by this. Maybe he wants to hurt me now instead of kill me. Maybe this way he won’t have a murder charge on his rap?

  The laugh plunges right out of me, and my eyes dart for Jay’s again just as I hear the shot and feel a rupture. The bullet hits my lower abdomen. I’m too shocked to make a sound.

  A second shot rings out, and Alpha’s arm goes slack around my ribs. I’m free of him. Police are coming at us, Jay is…where is Jay? I take two steps to the side, my hands robotically pressed to the hemorrhaging hole in my middle.

  Then my focus is suddenly on the ceiling, knees buckling in time for soft hands to catch me and lower me to the ground. Blue eyes capture mine. I want to live there—in those blue eyes. I never want to look away.

  Other hands touch me, voices speak through thick layers, and all I know are those blue eyes.

  I’m going to pass out. Aren’t I supposed to be cold or something? Isn’t that what they always say when the bleeding person is dying on the ground—that they’re cold? I don’t feel cold. I’m just tired. I want to sleep.

  How long has it been since I’ve slept? Really slept?

  Oh, right. Hours. Since Jay knocked me out.

  Jay is saying something. What are you saying, Jay? I can’t hear you anymore. I can’t hear anyone. Why can’t I hear you, Jay? No one shot me in the ears.

  I feel like I’m about to sink through the floor, not float up out of my body. Is this the end? Are my bitter angel days upon me already? This has always been a possibility, the forefront risk of today’s mania. I even wished for it at one point. Although, I was secretly hoping God would spare me. However, I got my biggest wish. Alpha will be put away, if he lives, and they’ll get the other guys, too. The police have to have found them by now.

  I say a prayer in my draining consciousness.

  We did it. We stopped him, God, if that is your real name. No disrespect. He won’t be hurting anyone ever again. I hope I did good.

  Hello, blue, blue eyes.

  I could say a few things to Jay right now. I could relive some precious memory or recite words from the private letter I wrote for him in my mind earlier, but I don’t. I have three words for him. The only ones I know he needs to hear because I don’t have time for more.

  While he strokes my hair and says things I can’t hear, I whisper, “I forgive you.”

  I don’t hear my voice, but I know I said it by the look in his eyes, the change in his face, the stubborn tears that finally fall. His forehead meets mine, and a tear plops onto each of my cheeks. It reminds me of the dream I had of Heather and Nilah and the bloody tears in my hands that wouldn’t wash away.

  Goodbye, blue, blue eyes.

  I close my eyes and feel a sudden presence around my shoulders. Again, I’m reminded of the dream. But this presence isn’t like Jay’s hands condemning me. This presence is holding me, embracing me, soothing me as it carries me away into a new dream. Of hands filled with tears and a mournful symphony surrounding mud on a fresh grave. Only now the tears are not bloody. They’re clear. And the grave is not Heather’s or Nilah’s. It’s mine.

  My story ends exactly how it began—by waking up. As my eyes adjust to bright white light, I listen first, waiting for new sensations to flood this rockin’ angelical body that I’m supposed to have. But if you think that when you die, it doesn’t hurt like hell, you’re wrong. It does. Holy Mother of God does it hurt.

  Um, hello? Aren’t we supposed to leave behind our human bodies in exchange for a brand-spanking-new pain-free one? Where are all the celestial beings hanging from the rafters with their harps and lyres and stuff?

  Something isn’t right. Everything is blurry and white. My entire body radiates with pain, but I can’t really move it.

  Maybe your not dead, doofus.

  There’s that damn voice again, trying to tell me what to do. Isn’t that supposed to go away once you’re dead?

  Unless…

  Huh.

  Sensations do come back to me, one by one. I can move my fingertips. Beneath them is a cotton knit blanket, the very kind I was hoping to feel not so long ago.

  Holy crap, I’m in the hospital!

  What I’d longed to hear before—that first morning after—finally comes to me. The pressure of the pulse ox on my index finger, medical tape plucking at the fine hairs on my arm, the needle of an IV stinging from my movement, the beeping of some monitor to my right. There’s a pressure from a hand holding my left. As I wiggle my fingers, the pressure increases.

  “Guys, she’s waking up.” He’s excited, but he tries to keep his voice low.

  Jay? I hear you. Where are you?

  I wiggle my toes. I’m not paralyzed, but—oh mama—there’s a deep ache sitting on top of me. I want to pop my eyes open, but they won’t, so I peel them apart one at a time. I see colors, swirling smudges like a Renoir painting.

  I hear a whisper from the most beautiful voice in the world. “It’s me, Lil. I’m here.” His nose is pressed against my cheek. “We’re all here.”

  Who’s all?

  I blink Jay into focus. “Hi,” I barely croak. I try to clear my throat. That small action makes the ache burn.

  “Hi, baby.” He smiles big, but the rest of his face is set with worry. “Don’t move too much. They’ve got you on a lot of painkillers, but you’re still pretty fragile.”

  Fragile. Ugh. Never much cared for that word. It doesn’t fit me.

  I blink a few more times and see two clusters of people. Heather and Nilah are at the foot of the bed. My parents are to my right.

  “Mom? Dad?”

  Mom strokes my IV arm. Dad is just behind her, tightly gripping her shoulders.

  “Jay called us,” Mom says.

  Dad pipes in. “We’ve been here since Saturday morning.”

  Their eyes are ringed in red, and their faces are tired, rivaling their appearance after a heavy-duty scuffle. Though I have a feeling they haven’t been fighting for once.

  “Us too,” Heather adds.

  Her face and Nilah’s match my parents. Nilah is quiet,
looking totally traumatized just having to be here. I can’t imagine what’s going through her mind right now after the way I acted yesterday. Yesterday?

  I glance back at Jay. “What is today?”

  “Monday.”

  I’ve been asleep for two days?

  Then I remember. “Your leg.”

  He knocks on the giant black plastic brace doohickey wrapped around his leg. “I was only in surgery a couple hours. Not like you.” He touches my face. “They had you in there for over eight.”

  “But you’re going to be just fine,” Mom’s loud voice interjects.

  I wince from the volume.

  “Leslie,” Dad barks.

  Tears spring to my eyes. “Don’t. Please. Not here.”

  Jay shoots them a look that says, Get lost. He’s defended me in the past, and my parents know this is his turf. I’d choose him over them any day.

  They shrink away from my bedside.

  Mom says in a softer tone, “We’ll give you two some time.” She takes Dad’s hand, which surprises me. They’re almost never affectionate. “Let’s go get something to eat,” she says to Dad. He seems hesitant to leave.

  Jay tells them, “I’ll call you in a bit.”

  Even though they’ve fought my entire life, I know they love me, and they love each other in their own twisted way. I’ve just never figured out why. Is what they have worth fighting for? I mean, fighting in a good way, not what comes naturally. It’s been the giant mystery of my life.

  “We’ll go eat too,” Heather offers. “Back in like an hour?” She looks to Jay for approval.

  “Sure,” he says.

  She tosses me a famous big-hearted Heather smile and takes Nilah’s hand. Nilah follows like an obedient child, her eyes trailing me until she’s gone.

  I return my attention to Jay, unshed tears still clinging to my lower lids. “I’ve been asleep for two days?”