Lost King

by Piper Lennox

  The sight of them like this sickens me worse than the whole versions ever did. It doesn’t feel like a display anymore. It feels like a graveyard, robbed and ruined.

  Suddenly, I hear them.

  Callum is shouting. Theo’s answers, low and wary, float from somewhere behind me.

  I turn around. My eyes focus on the glass wall and shift past my own reflection, past the blazing lights and crushed skulls, to the figures out on the deck.

  Callum stands on one side of the pool; Theo, the other. His back is to me. His hands are up, moving slowly as he talks.

  I approach the opened section of the door, so relieved they aren’t fighting, so relieved Theo is okay, that I don’t think. I just move.

  The air’s gone still. There’s no moonlight, just a void stretched around us. The deck is bathed in the ethereal green glow from the pool lights.

  I look at Callum. Drunk, drugged, blacked out in rage: I can’t tell what he is, but I know it’s something from the sideways stagger of his feet, and the heavy-lidded scowl on his face.

  In his hand is a gun.

  “Call!” Without thinking, I run closer.

  Callum’s hand swings to me. The sight of the gun pointed in my direction makes me freeze, right beside Theo.

  “Go inside, Ruby,” Theo says, voice low. He glances at me when I turn, but doesn’t move; his hands stay up near his shoulders. “Now.”

  “No.” I’m panting so hard I’m dizzy, but the word comes out clear. “I’m not leaving you.”

  At last, common sense strikes. I guide my shaking hand to my pocket and get out my cell.

  “Don’t,” Theo grits out. “He’s already fired it once, in the house. He’ll do it again.”

  “Better listen to him, Ru,” Callum calls. That sick grin plays on his face. In the green glow, he looks ghoulish. The gun angles back to Theo. “Tell her where to put it.”

  I take this opportunity to really look at Theo for the first time. His shirt is torn at the collar. Already, his knuckles are bruised. His left eye is swollen, and there’s blood splattered underneath his nose. When he sways on his feet, it makes me wonder if he knows it’s there.

  His eyes slide to me. “Drop it in the pool,” he says.

  I look down past our feet, aligned on the coping. At the bottom of the pool, I see Theo’s phone, rippled and warped.

  “Now,” Callum barks, taking aim again.

  I drop the phone into the water. All three of us watch it sink.

  “Okay,” I breathe, hands up and out like Theo’s, “no phones. No cops. See? This doesn’t have to turn into a—a thing.”

  For his awkward footsteps and slurred speech, Callum’s arm holds shockingly steady. The gun stays aimed at Theo, perfectly on-point, while Call strides to our side of the pool.

  When he reaches us, those glazed eyes flash. The smile strengthens.

  “Well,” he says, sweeping his stare back to Theo, “maybe I want it to.”

  39

  I taste nothing but blood.

  It’s all I smell, too. It drips down my nose into the back of my throat, competing with the bile my stomach’s churning out.

  The fear didn’t hit when Callum jumped me in the foyer. Even the sight of the gun didn’t do it, because I was more shocked than scared.

  But now that Ruby’s here…I’ve never been so afraid in my life.

  Stop staring at the gun. It pisses him off. He prefers eye contact. That warning shot he fired at the living room ceiling made that real fucking clear.

  I pry my eyes up to his.

  “Let her go inside.” My head’s swimming, that coppery smell getting to me, but I refuse to show it. “Your problem’s with me, right? So let Ruby go, put the gun down, and we’ll settle this like men.”

  “Oh, my problem’s with her, too. And I’m gonna settle this shit however I want.”

  He steps close. The gun brushes my chest.

  Behind me, I hear Ruby stifle a panicked cry. His finger is on the trigger, and I already know the thing’s loaded. It’s not just pissing him off we need to worry about. One slip or stumble, and it could fire.

  “Don’t fucking move,” Callum growls, when a deck board pops; Ruby freezes and puts her hands back up. “You take one step away from me and he’s dead.”

  “Call, why are you doing this?” Her voice breaks. “Look, what—whatever you’re feeling about me right now, just don’t—”

  “If I were you, I’d shut my mouth before it digs me into even more trouble than it already has.”

  Ruby steps up beside me again. I hold my breath and whisper at her not to move. She doesn’t listen.

  “What do you want, then, Call?” Her hands lower to her sides. “Tell me. We’ll make it happen.”

  “You know what I want?” He tilts his head, stare sliding between us. “I want what you didn’t give me in the beginning, babe. I want in.”

  “In?” she asks, reeling with confusion.

  Then, slowly, she looks at me.

  “No,” she says, turning back to him. Her lip trembles from fear, but I see her chin angle higher.

  His eyebrow lifts. Briefly, he sweeps his gaze down her body. “No?”

  “No.” I hear her draw a deep breath. “There’s nothing for you to be ‘in’ on, anymore. It’s over.”

  “Not until I say so.” He presses the gun against my chest again.

  Nausea rolls through me. I don’t know if it’s the scent of blood growing stronger, or the feeling of the gun against my sternum. It fits too perfectly.

  “Money?” I venture. I nod at the backdoor. “Take anything you want.”

  “I don’t want your money, asshole.” Callum staggers back, but the gun stays against me. “Typical. Think you can buy anybody off. Get whatever you want. What the fuck do you see in him, Ru?”

  “I’m not with Theo,” she says sharply, but I hear another break in her words. “And I never will be. He hates me for what I did.”

  I move my eyes, not my head, to try and look at her. I can’t see much.

  But I see exactly what I heard: that break, that hopelessness. Acceptance.

  Suddenly, all I want is to tell her she’s wrong.

  Wrong about me hating her.

  Wrong for using the word “never.”

  I know I can’t, though. As much as it hurts, I have to follow the script.

  “She’s right,” I tell Callum. As subtly as possible, I eye the shrinking distance between his foot and the pool’s edge. Four inches. Maybe five. “We’re not together. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  Callum leans close. I smell rum and cigarettes on his breath. “You think I’m worried?”

  I look at the gun again, then his foot. “I just meant....”

  “Is that it, Call?” Ruby blurts, stepping out of our arrangement, over to his side. “You want to be with me? Okay. You win. I’m yours.” Tears fill her eyes as she places her hand on his shoulder. I hold still.

  I pray to God she knows what she’s doing.

  “You said you don’t love me.” He smirks again, but I see tears gather in his eyes as he turns his head, almost looking at her.

  Steadily, the gun lowers, now pointed at my stomach.

  “Forget what I said before. Listen to what I’m telling you now, okay?” She takes another breath. It sounds like a hurricane shaking windows in a long, empty hallway.

  For just one second, her eyes flicker to mine.

  “I love you,” she whispers. “And...and I’m done trying to be someone I’m not. No matter what the rest of the world sees...you know the real me. You know exactly who I am, even when I forget. If I could take it all back, I would. In a heartbeat.”

  She swallows, and I see a tear skate down her cheek as she reaches to touch his face. It’s so gentle. So kind.

  “But I can’t,” she whispers. “We can’t go back in time. We just have to start over. And we can’t do that unless you decide to do something I know I don’t deserve.”

  A
little at a time, Callum’s stance relaxes. He lets her guide his chin, turning his face toward her.

  “You have to trust me again,” she says.

  As soon as he looks away, I grab his wrist in one hand and knock the gun out of his grip with the other.

  Motions blur. I see the gun sink to the bottom of the pool. I watch his feet shift, sliding on a patch of ice when he lunges forward and grabs my throat.

  I throw him off. He stumbles back, only a few feet away from me. But a safe enough distance from her.

  “Ruby,” I cough, “go.”

  She doesn’t listen to me. She’s already moving towards him.

  She grabs his arm when he rears back to punch me, pulling him down and screaming at him to stop. “Go,” she orders me.

  Like her, I don’t listen.

  Because as soon as she speaks, he turns and grabs her by the throat, throwing her to the ground.

  I shout her name. My legs bolt me closer, but Callum tackles me before I can reach her.

  He gets his palm against my temple, pinning my head against the boards. His other hand twists my right arm behind my back, while the left is stuck under my own weight.

  She’s two feet away. Eyes closed, motionless. A small trickle of blood runs down her forehead and onto the wood.

  “Ruby.” My windpipe feels crushed, and I can hardly breathe. Her name drips out of my mouth like a prayer. Let her open her eyes.

  Callum’s knee digs into my back. I go still.

  When his free hand moves to my neck, fingers digging in to close my throat again, I feel his leg shift exactly like I knew it would: just a little off-center. Just enough to redistribute his weight from directly overtop me, to my side.

  With strength I don’t think I actually have anymore, I push up on my left arm.

  Callum falls off me. I hear him curse.

  I hear the tiled edge of the pool crack when his head makes contact.

  He goes in. I turn just in time to see him sink into the glowing water. A plume of red rises to the surface.

  “Ruby.” I slip my way towards her. “Ruby. Ruby, wake up. Stay with me, okay?”

  I shake her. My hands leave streaks of blood on her face when I push back her hair.

  Her eyelids flutter.

  “Oh, my God.” I laugh. It’s mangled and choked, but it’s the realest one I’ve given in days.

  I kiss her forehead and rest my lips there. I don’t care about the blood.

  I don’t care who she was, or pretended to be. I know who she is.

  And I can’t believe I almost let myself lose her.

  “Theo?” She blinks hard, trying to sit up. I shake my head and make her lie back.

  “Stay still. I don’t think anything’s broken, but just in case. Okay?” I take off my sweatshirt and drape it across her. “Be right back.”

  First, I go inside and shout at the phone system to activate. As soon as the 911 operator picks up, I pant the basics. My address. There was a break-in. People are hurt.

  Ruby asks where I’m going as I slip past her on the deck, but I’m already halfway there—scrambling into the blood-tinged water, fighting every last instinct until I get my arms under Callum’s.

  I push off at the bottom and bring us both to the surface, then drag him to the stairs.

  “Oh, my God.”

  I turn. Ruby’s right behind me, looking pale and sick as she takes in the massive wound on Callum’s head. Blood gushes across his face. We can’t see how deep it goes, but there’s no mistaking the strange change in profile. His skull is cracked.

  “Give me my sweatshirt,” I tell her.

  The rest feels slow-motion: her shaky, slipping walk back to where I left her; the tremble of her hands as she passes the sweatshirt to me; the careful way I wrap it around Callum’s head, trying to stop the blood.

  The way she and I just stare at each other, breathless and silent as sirens grow close, and a wash of red and blue lights mingle with our pale green glow.

  40

  “Seven stitches, a little blood loss, concussion...” The doctor scans his clipboard again. “...and some soft tissue damage in the neck, right here.”

  He gives a pitying smile when I flinch, even though all he did was graze my neck with his pen, and passes me the ice pack I’m supposed to be using.

  “Ice and rest. A few weeks, and you’ll be good as new. You were really lucky.”

  I nod, twisting the sleeve of my hospital gown between my fingers while he talks to a nurse. “How’s my...my friend?” It feels wrong, calling Theo that. I want him to be so much more, yet I know he’s even less.

  He points his pen out into the ER. “Just sign these discharge papers and you can go see him.”

  Without reading it, I sign everything they shove my way. I need to see Theo, even if he doesn’t want to see me.

  Our moment by the pool feels too hazy. After hours in this bed answering police and getting examined, I’ve started to wonder if I dreamed the look he gave me when he saw I was all right.

  Maybe I imagined it all—his lips pressed to my forehead. The happy cry of relief when he saw me open my eyes.

  While I dress, the fear heightens.

  There was no “moment.” Just a shared glance of survivors, a quiet and flickering pause when the worst of it was over.

  Now, with the adrenaline fading, reality framed under all these fluorescent lights, he’ll remember. He can’t trust me.

  I pause and rest against the edge of my bed, my winter coat making me sweat. My fingertips run up and down the zipper as I remind my hands we’re not allowed to touch him; I bite my bottom lip until it accepts we won’t be kissing him.

  All I can hope for is that he’ll look at me with anything but that black-green stare. I need one ember of color.

  I’m walking out of his life tonight, and I need just that little bit of comfort before I do: the knowledge I didn’t really break Theo Durham, after all. Not completely.

  Outside his room, I draw a breath and touch the curtain.

  I could just leave. A clean break is the only way I can even start to make all this up to him. I should leave without a trace, the way I did before.

  Only this time, he’ll know better than to try and look for me.

  “I see your feet, Ruby.”

  I start, all the swirling thoughts in my head snapping to a standstill as I look down. Sure enough, there’s a six-inch gap between the curtain’s hem and the floor.

  I open it and step inside.

  His room is dimmer than mine, but not enough. The maroon stains of his eye socket and jaw, every fingerprint on his neck, stare back at me. There’s a brace on his wrist, and another on his ankle. His nose has a soft splint in place, and a cut rests in the center of his bottom lip.

  “Theo….” I cover my mouth and step back, pressing my spine flat against a cabinet.

  “I’m okay,” he says quickly. His voice sounds strangled. I keep picturing Callum’s hand, closing around his throat.

  The gun, digging in so close to his heart.

  “Don’t.” He sits up. It looks like it takes all his strength. “You didn’t do this, Ruby.”

  All I can do is shake my head while the tears overtake me. Yes, Callum is to blame. No, I never predicted he’d do anything like this. But I’m the one that set it all in motion.

  “Here.” Theo motions to the empty chair nearby. I don’t feel my legs take me there, but suddenly, I’m seated.

  The crying won’t stop. My breathing feels out of control, and my hands shake like the entire night’s finally caught up to me.

  It’s more than that, though. It’s every day since Thanksgiving. It’s every moment since that hardware store, and every year since I first found Theo Durham on the bathroom floor. All that time I spent, hating a boy I shouldn’t have.

  “I’m sorry.” The words hitch with another sob. They’re so inadequate. I wish there were more ways to apologize than there are to hurt someone.

  I look up when
I hear movement, and the sharp sips of air he takes as he moves to the edge of his bed. My insistence that he lie still is useless. He’s determined to face me, no matter how painful it is.

  “Stop,” I say, as soon as he touches my chin. “I don’t want you to do or say anything that—that might not be true tomorrow.”

  “Would it make you feel better,” he says softly, thumb brushing a tear near my mouth, “if I told you it’s already tomorrow? Technically.”

  I shut my eyes. Even the joke hurts. As relieved as I am to hear him make one, that little kite-tail of “technically” guts me. That’s how we ended up here.

  “I don’t want you saying things you don’t mean, just because I’m crying, or because we’re exhausted...or because things tonight could’ve gone so much worse than they did.”

  There’s a beat of silence. “What things would I say?”

  “Like that you forgive me. Or that it isn’t my fault. I know it is.” My eyes open, but I stare at the brace on his wrist, not his eyes. I don’t want to find out the color yet. “I keep thinking about everything I should have done differently. If—if I’d dumped Callum sooner. If I’d done what I should have weeks ago, and gotten a restraining order—”

  “You think a guy like Callum would pay attention to restraining orders?”

  “—anything that could’ve kept it from going this far.” I turn my head, pulling away from his touch. “If I’d just never met you.”

  He’s quiet again. The soft storm of the ER syncs to my heartbeat.

  “Which time?” he asks.

  I don’t answer. It doesn’t matter which time. I want to erase them both.

  “You know...I could sit here and say a lot of stuff I should’ve done differently, too.” He sits back to lean on his hands, but winces, already forgetting the brace.

  The way he just smiles the pain away kills me.

  “Should’ve locked my fucking door, for one.”

  My brain betrays me. The smallest laugh escapes.

  “I should’ve thought to check for a camera, the night we....” He clears his throat. Even that pains him. I wish the bruises on his neck were in any other shape but Callum’s handprint. “Paige had done that to me before.”