by Ella James
It makes me feel ill.
I look up when I see the darting blue-green light coming from the pool. A light breeze ripples the water’s surface, casting shadows through the glowing water. It’s so pretty, compared to the devastation around it, that for a second I just stare. And that’s when I notice: There’s something big and dark at the bottom.
I walk slowly forward, because the firefighters have said to be cautious, and the pool is right behind the charred remains of the house. My eyes are trained on the object at the bottom of the water—something about it tugs at my attention, but I have no idea what it is. A chunk of the roof? A piece of the window Cross and Merri jumped out of?
I step onto the pool’s cement deck, and all the air goes out of my lungs.
Holy shit, that’s a person!
I hesitate for a moment—long enough to ask myself if this person might still be alive—before realizing I’m wasting precious time. I kick my shoes off and dive into the deep end of the heart-shaped pool.
The water is breathtakingly cold. I open my eyes and kick toward the bottom, stretching my arms to reach for this person.
It’s dark at the bottom of the pool, so it isn’t until I’ve grabbed the person’s large shoulders that I see the outline of his face.
NO FREAKING WAY.
It’s him.
It’s Marchant Radcliffe, I think.
I know.
The shock of it is almost enough to send me racing for the surface. But I can see him laughing at my panic. I thread my arms under his, kick off the bottom of the pool, and scissor my legs as hard and fast as I ever have.
Don’t be dead.
Please, you freaking asshole, don’t be dead.
Oh God, what if he’s dead?
I can barely get my face above the water; he’s so heavy. When I do, I take a deep breath and begin to sob.
“Marchant… Oh, Marchant. Shit. Oh shit.” I’m babbling as I kick, reaching for the pool’s side. I grab onto a metal ladder and I let myself sink a little, swimming beneath him to turn him over, face up. His hair is in his eyes and his face is limp and lifeless as I scream, “HELP! HELP, HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE!”
I can’t get him out of the pool, so I wrap my legs around the ladder and clutch his torso. His face is so pale. Is he breathing? I can’t see his chest move. I grab his chin. Isn’t that part of CPR? It is. It definitely is. Except there’s water in his lungs! Surely there’s water in his lungs and how do you do CPR if there’s water in the lungs?!
“HELP ME! HELP!”
Why won’t anybody come?
I try to tilt his head back but he starts to sink. Shit! I don’t have a good enough grip on him. I hear footsteps and clutch him closer to me, kicking hard to keep my head above water, craning my head so I can see, over my shoulder, two figures moving fast with clomping footsteps.
“HELP ME! PLEASE!”
With difficulty, I turn a little more and see two EMTs—a man and a woman—reach for us.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! I think he might have drowned!”
Faster than I can get the words out, they haul him up out of the water and dump him face down on the deck. I scramble up the ladder. I stand there dripping, shaking violently, while one of them pounds on his back and the other one messes with his head.
Please let him live. Please God, let him live.
They roll him onto his side. While the man holds his head, the woman does something to his mouth. They push him onto his back. One of them shouts something, and then the woman begins CPR.
“Marchant, please! You’ve got to breathe!” I’m sobbing, now on my knees. I reach out, because I feel like I should touch him, but one of the EMTs knocks my hand away.
The next second, Marchant’s body heaves, the woman rolls him on his side, and I can see his back heave as he gets sick.
The paramedics hold his shoulders, and the night is filled with retching sounds and the splash of water on cement. I scoot away to give them space, but I can’t take my eyes off him. It’s impossible to reconcile: this image with the one from the bathroom at the Wynn. The charming rogue who held my hand, and later, at the hospital, the drunken asshole. His shoulders are shaking now. He’s groaning and gasping, almost sobbing. I can’t see him from the front, but suddenly I wish I could. I wish I was holding him.
I take a few steps closer, and the woman barks, “Stay back!”
I take a step back, then turn because I hear an ambulance cutting through the grass. It parks close and two people jump out, one with oxygen and the other with a neck brace and a board.
They all converge over Marchant as he’s rolled onto his back. They’re speaking quickly, but I hear, “found him in the pool…”
“…administered CPR…”
“…pulse is weak…”
All too soon, they’re lifting him onto a stretcher and strapping down his legs.
He makes a terrible groaning noise and tries to pull the oxygen mask off his face, and they strap down his arms and someone holds the oxygen on. He starts shaking, violent shaking, and they turn his head sideways so he can be sick again.
More water.
When he’s finished, he’s moaning and gripping the sides of his stretcher.
They take off toward the ambulance, and I dash after them. It’s not my place. I know that, but I can’t help myself. I put my hand on the door of the ambulance as they set him down inside. When one of them gives me an inquiring look, I blurt, “I feel like I should come with him.”
“Well, come on.”
The doors slam shut behind me, and I scramble to a little seat by his head.
The ambulance jolts into motion, and all I can think is this was a mistake. I don’t belong here. The EMTs are pulling his jeans down and I can see his hips, and they’re beautiful—underwear model hips—but I have no right to them. He keeps opening and closing his mouth under the mask, and his eyes peek open and drift shut, and his hands still clench the stretcher.
I can’t do anything but sit here while he shivers and clenches his jaw and opens and closes his mouth like a fish. He takes a few deep, raspy-sounding breaths, and the EMTs fly into motion again.
I pick a spot on his side to stare at, but I don’t like the frenzied way his chest is moving, so I train my attention on his arm. It’s well-shaped, well-muscled, like he works out a lot. I take a deep breath and wonder if I should take his hand or something. I climbed into the ambulance. Shouldn’t I at least, I don’t know, put my hand on his arm?
Maybe I shouldn’t.
Maybe he wouldn’t even want that.
I don’t know what he would want.
I don’t think he’s awake, or aware at all, but when they start to jab a needle into the crook of his arm, his eyes flip open. He blinks twice in quick succession, taking in his surroundings, and then he fixes his eyes on the woman sticking him.
“STOP!” he roars. “NO NEEDLES!”
My heart thunders as he strains against the restraints. Then he pops through the restraints, jetting up into a sitting up position, and looks dazedly around the inside of the ambulance. His eyes land on me and they widen. “Suri Dalton.”
I nod, reaching for him. “It’s okay,” I murmur. “Just lie down. You’ll be okay.”
He shakes his head at me and turns back to the EMTs. “No more IVs,” he says sternly, even though his voice is breathy and cracked. “I don’t…do needles.”
He gives me a brief look, one that’s helpless, infuriated, and confused at once, and then he passes out.
10
SURI
When we arrive at the ER, I rip a page out of Lizzy’s book and tell the intake nurse that I’m Marchant’s kin: his cousin, as I have no fake ID.
When I’m allowed into the sick bay, I find Marchant in a half-seated position, under a thick, gray blanket, shivering slightly, looking perturbed.
A pretty blonde nurse is telling him his burns need to be treated, but he shakes his head. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine.”
“You’re his…cousin?” the nurse asks me.
I nod, and Marchant arches a skeptical eyebrow.
The nurse shifts her weight, now facing me. “Your cousin has burns on his back and his hands, and he’s refusing treatment.”
I step closer, tentatively taking one of his wrists. His hands are red and blistered. I wince. “That’s got to hurt.”
“I can’t feel it,” he says simply.
“Well it needs treatment anyway.” I look from his petulant face to the nurse’s concerned one. “Why don’t you bandage it or do whatever you would do.”
She blows her breath out. “To do that, we’ll need to give him an injection of numbing medicine.”
“Can you do it without that?”
She frowns. “It would be unethical. Excruciating.”
“And there’s no other option? Nothing you could, say, paint onto his skin or spray on?”
“Not really.”
I look at Marchant’s face. It’s burned deep pink on the forehead and cheeks. His lips are cracked. His eyes are wild. “Are you sure you can’t do needles?”
He nods once, looking as desperate as he did on Hunter’s plane.
I turn back to the nurse. “There’s got to be something else. Some kind of spray.”
“Nothing that would be effective.”
I’m shocked when he climbs out of the bed. He’s still wet, he’s pale as death, and he’s wearing only slacks. His hair drips as he turns to look at me.
“Thanks for your help,” he says. “But you shouldn’t have.”
And then he’s out the door.
*
MARCHANT
I hear Suri Dalton scrambling behind me as I stride through the hospital parking lot. She’s calling my name, I think. I can hardly hear her over the rush of blood inside my head.
I pick up the pace, hoping she’ll get the point and turn around. Instead, I hear the patter of her bare feet on the asphalt, and her tiny hand closes around my bicep. “Do you have your wallet?” she asks as I come to a halt. “Marchant, can you even call a cab?”
Careful not to look her in the eye, I point to a hotel across the street. “No cab needed.”
“Do you have any money for a room?”
I inhale deeply. I don’t, of course, but at the moment I don’t care. Maybe I’ll just sleep outside.
“Let me come with you. Let me at least get you a room, and then I’ll leave if you want.”
“Fine.”
I stride ahead of her, because I can’t stand to look her in the face. I’m so fucking embarrassed. That she’s here right now, seeing me like this.
There’s no telling what I might say or do right now. I think I’m nearing the end of this shit—I think I’ve begun to feel the icy fingers of depression work their way into my chest—but I can’t say for sure. I haven’t been this fucked up since college.
I weave between rows of parked cars, and I hear her on my heels. I’m having trouble breathing—my lungs still feel wet, and they’re burned to boot—so I slow down, and I feel her hand on my back.
Humiliation and shame twist through me. “You don’t have to do this.” I turn around to scowl at her. “I don’t need your help.”
“Okay.” She says it slowly, like she’s speaking to a petulant child. “You can pay me back if you like.”
Payback reminds me of Hawkins, which sends a cold wash of guilt over me. Then I remember abruptly that Cientos started the fire—he came for Missy King—and I shot him. Didn’t I? I can hardly remember.
“Where’s Hunter?” I ask, rubbing my forehead. It’s just occurred to me that there were other people in the fire. Almost everyone I know and care about. I turn around to face Dalton. “Are he and Libby okay?”
She nods. “They’re at another hospital with Cross and Meredith.”
“Meredith?”
“She…used to go by Missy.”
I nod slowly. I remember that now. Cars whoosh past us on the road between the hospital and the hotel across the street. “What happened to them?”
“Missy’s really bad, they said. I mean, Meredith.”
“Do you know if anyone else was hurt?”
She shakes her head. “Everyone got out, though.”
I feel a swell of guilt about the whole thing, and especially for Missy. I told her she’d be safe with me. I didn’t keep my promise. I wonder if Cientos found her before Cross Carlson did.
“I remember…” I swallow hard, looking down at Suri Dalton’s beautiful bare feet. “I remember the window.”
Suri nods. “Cross and Merri jumped out the window, into the pool. Marchant…” she starts; her eyebrows pull together, all concerned, and I know where she’s going. I know what she’s asking. And I don’t intend to tell her one damn thing.
I turn around and start across the busy street. I don’t give a fuck that I’m not wearing shoes or a shirt. I don’t care that there’s no crosswalk either. As I dash through traffic, I feel confident I’ll be alone when I get to the hotel parking lot.
I clear the curb, and a patch of grass pokes my bare feet. I glance at Dalton, who is one step behind me. I fix her with a ‘fuck off’ look and try to set things right. “Could you go? I’d like to be alone.”
The breeze blows a strand of hair across her rosy cheeks, and I watch her mouth as she bites down on her lower lip. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you almost died tonight, for one.”
I sneer. “What’s two?”
She looks me over, head to toe. Her lips pinch. “Because you’re a raging mess. I think you need me.”
“You fucking wish.”
She’s shivering violently now, wrapping her arms over her chest, where I can see hard nipples through her shirt. Her pretty face is hard; pissed off. Score one for me. “No I don’t, you arrogant ass. I wish I was at home, in my warm bed. But I’m here, with you, because I found you at the bottom of a fucking pool! What’s wrong with you?”
The wind carries her voice across the hotel parking lot, where it dies amidst a line of neatly parked cars and SUVs.
I take a step closer to her, hoping to evoke emotion in myself. But when I look into her hazel eyes, I feel nothing.
“Go the fuck away,” I tell her. I inject a heavy dose of disdain into my voice and add a dismissive wave I hope will piss her off enough to make her disappear.
I can feel the darkness start to gather in me, collecting just below my throat like a weight on my breastbone. I need her to go before things with me get bad again.
She shakes her head. “I’m not leaving.”
“I don’t need a fucking friend.”
But those big eyes are irrationally kind. Did you do it on purpose? That’s what she’s wondering, but she would never put it into words. Funny, because I almost want her to. I dare her with my eyes, and her gaze drops down to our feet. When she looks back up, her face is sad.
I stuff my hands in my jeans pockets, enjoying the way the denim burns my singed skin as I try it one more time. “I said go the fuck away.”
She tosses her damp hair over her shoulders and gives me a tired sigh. “After I get your room,” she says. “If that’s what you really want.”
We walk in silence past the curbside drop-off and through the automatic doors. She goes to the desk while I pace around by the coffee machines. I can hear her talking in hushed tones to the clerk, and I wonder what the fuck she’s saying. Finally, she turns around, armed with a little paper packet of room cards.
She hands them to me, but she doesn’t leave. When I head to the elevators, she follows me. I don’t look at her. Not when she pushes the “2” button, and not when she gets off the elevator before I do. I don’t look at her as I clench and unclench my hands because I’m feeling so damn edgy.
She gets a card into the door before I can, and pushes it open. As she steps away, those pretty hazel eyes peek up at me. “You sure you want me to go?”
I don�
��t know what I want. I don’t know anything—except I fucking hate myself.
So I do the worst thing I can do. I grab her shoulders and kiss her.
11
SURI
This is entirely different than the time at the Wynn.
He’s forceful this time—from the moment he grabs my shoulders and spins me around so he can take my mouth. There’s this millisecond when his lips first touch mine where I have a choice. Where I can pull away if I want. But I don’t.
Because I pulled him up from the bottom of a pool but I’m not sure I saved his life. Because he is both cruel and broken, and despite both, my body screams for his.
When his lips touch mine, I can barely keep my knees from giving way.
Marchant sweeps the door open and wraps an arm around me, dragging me toward the king-sized bed. He turns me around and urges me down onto my back, with my legs hanging off the side of the mattress. He parts my knees and stands between them, leaning down over me so he can kiss my throat, my chin, my cheeks, and finally—when I can’t stand it anymore—my mouth.
His lips close over mine with a harsh groan, and I sink my hands into his wild hair and pull him down on me. His body is warm and hard. I run my fingers from his biceps down his taut sides, and they leave trails of goosebumps. He’s hard in seconds, pressing himself urgently against me.
I can feel his abs jerk as he breathes between our kisses: ragged breaths that do nothing to slow the fury of his mouth on mine.
His taste is a drug—hot and sweet and just a little salty.
With all thought stalled by the rhythm of our mouths and hands, I notice everything about the way he moves and feels. How when he breathes, his ribcage presses into mine so hard it hurts. Each and every kiss brings him down on me a little heavier. There’s something predatory about the way he grabs my shoulder, yanks my hair, nips at my neck, crawls up on the bed and tosses me back a few feet. He climbs up on top of me, and I’m reminded of a lion.
