by Chloe Walsh
Mitch cleared his throat. “You coming with me doesn’t change a damn thing.” His voice was more like a snarl and I knew damn well the only reason I was driving this car was because Kenz had all but knocked the guy out with my bat less than an hour ago.
“No,” I replied in a tight voice. “It doesn’t.”
“I’m disappointed in you.”
“I really don’t think that matters right now.” Nothing Mitch or my mother thought about me mattered. All that mattered was finding Mackenzie and her fucked up shrink that had stepped so far over the line it wasn’t even in her rearview mirror.
“She’s vulnerable, Cade,” Mitch continued, ignoring what I’d said. “And you took advantage.”
Now it was my turn to snarl.
“I love her.” Clenching the wheel, I forced myself to breathe slowly and calm down. “I adore her.”
“You just don’t get it, Cade,” Mitch said almost wearily. “Mackenzie’s like a newborn baby. She has to start all over again – learn social skills – figure out who she is now...”
“And I can help her do that,” I shot back, adamant. “Mitch, I can help her,” I reiterated. “Just give me a fucking chance.”
“And you can do that, can you?” he said sarcastically. “You can help Mackenzie in between bottle feeds and diaper changes?”
“If I have to,” I choked out.
Mitch raised a cynical eyebrow, but he didn’t respond.
We remained silent throughout the remainder of the drive and I was glad. I didn’t have a whole pile of self-restraint left. And my patience was running thin on the ground.
SITTING IN THE COOL metal bathtub, I tried to stop my body from shivering, but the racking sobs wouldn’t cease.
He was gone from me now.
He had slipped through my fingers and I had no idea how to make him not the most important part of my world. Cade Mathews had been my reason for breathing since I was ten years old. I’d kept my heart beating and my lungs filling for the sole purpose of lying in his arms again while I was in the nest.
Emily McAllister had taken it all away from me again.
God, I couldn’t stop my heart from bleeding.
I felt like I was dying.
And maybe I was.
Who knew anymore?
My heart was breaking. It had been shattered and torn apart – smashed into a million pieces and I didn’t think I would pull back from this one.
Curling into a ball on my side, I wrapped my arms around my legs and allowed myself to sob as the frigid water lapped against my goose pimpled skin.
Evanescence’s “My Immortal” wafted through the radio I’d found in the adjoining bedroom Anna had allocated me, followed by Maroon 5’s “She will be loved” and the lyrics caused the tears that were streaming from my eyes to scald me.
The choking sobs retching from my chest hurt so bad, I could hardly breathe through the pain of it all.
“Emily’s pregnant. It’s your baby, Cade. Now you know – be a man and deal with it.”
I had heard a lot of painful things in my eighteen years, but nothing had ever wounded me quite as deeply.
Emily had won.
“In a little over five months you’re going to be a father…”
She would always win.
Twisting around in the tub, I pulled myself back into a sitting position, but nothing was helping ease the aching – the agony. Clenching my eyes shut, I shoved my fist in my mouth, bit down on the flesh covering my knuckles, forcing myself not to scream even though I felt as if I had been doused in gasoline and set on fire.
Pain. That was all I could feel; it was smothering me, and I wanted it to stop.
I wanted it all to stop.
And that’s when I noticed it – the glint and shine and way out of this hell that it offered me…
Reaching forward, I took the razor from the shampoo rack, holding it between my thumb and fingers, enthralled with the way the cool metal already drew my attention away from the pain I was feeling.
I was drawn to the physical.
I wanted to feel it.
It would be easier to deal with than the emotions wrecking me.
Slowly, I lowered the blade to rest, sharp edge facing downwards, against the bare skin of my upper thigh.
Closing my eyes, I shuddered, racking in a sob of sheer despair.
And then I sliced.
Light stabbing pain shot up my leg, followed by a steady stream of bright red blood.
That was all it took.
The sight of the blood dripping down my skin, blending with the frigid water was all I wanted.
Each vein looked more promising than the last. My eyelids fluttered as memories I fought so hard to keep out flooded me.
“Pretty sunshine.”
Master’s tobacco scented hands groping me, pulling at my flesh, making me raw, were all I could think about – all I could smell.
Mary’s face… Her dead baby – blue, black and lifeless between her legs haunted me. But the worst of all, Emily was pregnant.
Cade was going to be a father.
And life as I knew it was over…
It was over.
I was alone now, the same as I’d been in the nest. I didn’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t have a reason to want to – I didn’t have a reason to even try to want to. Everything inside of me had… deflated. Died. Disappeared. Each cut gave me comfort. My vision blurred…blood tinged with tears and water.
My tears.
My blood.
My white flag.
I HAD LEARNED A LOT about myself in the past two months. Like how much of a coward I had become, and how I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore. I had always prided myself in being my own person – my own man. I had never been the bad guy, or the rebel; but tonight I found myself becoming both. I wasn’t the person I used to be. I wasn’t a good enough man for her. But I would be...
“That’s it – that’s the house. The white one,” Mitch barked out, breaking the unnerving silence that had been building up between us.
“You’re sure?” I asked as I maneuvered into the driveway of the fancy looking house in the middle of an upper class estate. My question was rendered pointless when I noticed Anna’s car parked in the driveway.
I had the engine killed, was out of the car and up the driveway¸ with my finger pressed firmly on the doorbell, before Mitch closed the car door.
“I know you’re in there, Anna.” I used my free hand to bang on the glass panel of the door. “Open the fucking door or I’ll knock it down.”
“Cade, calm yourself,” Mitch warned, joining me at the door. “Take a breath.”
“Fuck no,” I choked out, as I continued to hammer on the door with my fist. “Mackenzie?” I couldn’t draw air into my lungs until I saw her. Until I knew she was okay... “It’s me, baby – it’s Cade.” I had a bad feeling – dread was blooming in the pit of my stomach. The same kind of dread I had felt when I was fifteen and watched those bastards drive away with Mackenzie. There was no room for calm in my body right now. “Open the goddamn door.”
Finally, after what felt like hours, the door opened inwards and we were facing a guilty as sin shrink. “Cade, please calm down and listen to me before you go…” Anna began to say but shriveled the second I stepped closer.
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down,” I snarled, chest heaving. “You’re a sorry fucking excuse for a shrink.”
“Where is she?” Mitch demanded from beside me. “Bring her out here. Right now.”
“She needs space...”
“She needs me!” I was clenching my fists so tight I couldn’t feel my fingers. “She needs me,” I repeated emphatically.
“What’s going on here?” an unfamiliar voice called out from behind us and I swung around.
I watched as a huge bald dude dressed in a paramedic’s uniform marched up the driveway. He looked as confused as I felt inside. “What the heck is going on here, Anna?” he d
emanded. Stepping around us, he walked over and stood beside her. “Who are these men?”
Anna looked up at him, chewing her lip nervously. “Remember the girl I mentioned – well…this is her family.”
The man’s brow rose in surprise as awareness clearly dawned on him. “Oh Anna, please tell me you didn’t…”
“I couldn’t turn my back on her, Dean,” Anna protested, looking guiltier by the second. “She needed my help. It was just for the night…”
“So you brought her home – are you insane?” he bellowed. “You could lose your license for this.”
“I’m sorry okay, I didn’t know what to do.” Anna barely had the words out of her mouth when I barged past her in my mission to find Mackenzie.
I wasn’t standing by a second longer.
The man I’d come to learn was Dean stepped in front of me, blocking me entry. “Now wait just a damn minute, kid,” he started to protest but one glare from me and he had the good sense to step aside.
“Kenz,” I called out as I raced down the hallway, opening each door in the process. “Kenz, baby, where you at?”
“She doesn’t need this – not tonight.” That was Anna’s feeble attempt at diffusing the situation, but I wasn’t listening. “Cade, for goodness sake, stop this.”
At the end of the hallway, the last door on the right, I hit a dead end. Music blared from behind the door. The lyrics of Maroon 5’s song ‘She will be loved’ rang clearly through my eardrums.
Turning slowly, I inhaled short, fast breaths as I desperately tried to keep my head. “Unlock the door, Anna.”
Shoving me aside, Anna tried the door handle once before her entire frame froze.
Mitch came to stand beside me. “Do as the boy said.”
“I can’t.” Now Anna was the one who looked worried, as she tried the doorknob almost frantically. “It’s locked from the inside – Mackenzie, open the door right now.” Turning around, Anna looked up at Mitch, eyes wide and full of fear. “The bathroom. I didn’t think. She could be –”
“No!” Fear climbed inside me at a rapid pace. “Don’t fucking say it…”
“Mickey, it’s Daddy, open up sweetie.”
“Mackenzie, open the door.”
Fuck this…
“Move.” Backing up a few steps, I raised my raised my leg before launching my foot full force at the door. The hinges groaned in protest, but I didn’t stop. I continued to kick at the door, weakening the timber frame until finally, one last shove from my shoulder blew it inwards.
Scrambling blindly over the splintered pieces of timber, I moved like lightening toward the half open bathroom door, but what I saw when I turned the corner caused my legs to buckle beneath me.
Blood.
Blood…and water… and blonde hair splaying out in the tub…
Mackenzie’s pale, fragile body lying in a fucking bathtub full of blood and bitter regrets.
Her eyes were closed.
Her skin was blue.
But her face, Mackenzie’s face, was above the water – barely.
I had done this to her.
Not those men in the nest.
I had caused her this pain.
Me.
Everything moved in slow motion after that, a weird sort of trance, as I lurched towards her and fell into the tub, soaking myself in her blood tinged water in my bid to pull her to the surface.
She was cold. Her skin was freezing cold and I couldn’t breathe.
Shaking like a leaf, I dragged her out of the tub and held her in my arms, desperate and frantic. “Kenzie?” I shook her.
Mitch was somewhere nearby – I could hear him repeating the same damn sentence over and over. “All my fault… All my fault…All my fault…” He was muttering almost frantically but I couldn’t worry about him now as well.
I kept my focus on the girl in my arms.
“Baby, open your eyes.” My heartbeat thundering in my ears was all I could hear as I held her fragile little face in one hand and used the other to scoop her into my arms.
Climbing out, I lowered myself to floor, cradling her in my arms. “Kenzie.”
No one tried to move us.
No one tried to take her from me.
Her short, puffy little breaths was all that was keeping me from losing what was left of my sanity, but I just knew that the fucking blood on these white tiles would forever be etched into my memory.
“Come on, baby, talk to me. Open those pretty eyes.” I was cracking into pieces. I was going down with her. Right here. Right now.
And then the man from earlier was kneeling in front of us, doling out instructions to everyone in the room. “She’s okay,” he told me in a surprisingly comforting voice, with his fingers pressed to Kenzie’s neck. “Keep that wrapped around her.” A blanket was draped over her, covering the both of us. I held her tighter. “That’s it…Keep her warm. Skin on skin.”
Something shiny on the bathroom floor, near the edge of the bathtub caught my eye, and when I realized what it was I balked. “Get rid of it,” I snarled, both kicking it away with my foot and tightening my hold on Kenzie, as if my arms could somehow protect her from the fucking razor she had used to inflict all this pain on herself.
“Cade.”
One word.
My name on her lips, the best damn sound I’d ever heard.
“Cade.”
“I’m here.” I held her tighter, dropping kisses to her drenched hair. “I’ve got you.” The blood had come from her body, but I was the one hemorrhaging.
“The baby,” she whispered and then she began to wail – a truly gut-wrenching, heartbreaking sound that tore me apart, and pulled at my heart from every corner.
“It changes nothing between us,” I told her – I fucking vowed, desperation thick in my voice. “You and me, Kenz. That’s all I want. Nothing else matters.”
“She was lucky,” I heard Dean tell Kenzie’s father. “Most of the cuts are superficial – they’ll heal over in time. She’ll need a few stiches on her thigh – I’ll do that in a moment – but her vitals are strong. A couple of more minutes in the water and things could’ve been very different.”
Mitch just stood there, staring at his daughter with a vacant expression. He had fucking checked out on me.
“We should get her to a hospital,” Anna offered when Dean had finished stitching the open gash on Kenzie’s upper thigh. Her voice was torn and haggard. “Dean’s one hell of a paramedic, but she needs… professional help.”
“What, professional help like you?” A bead of sweat trickled down my brow. My heart continued to slam against my ribcage as I turned my face to where Anna was kneeling. “She was with you,” I spat. Fear fucking socked me straight in the heart. “She was in your care and you let this happen.”
Anna balked. “Be that as it may, she needs to see someone.”
“Please,” Kenzie begged me, clutching my shirt with her tiny fist. “Don’t let them lock me up again. I can’t… Oh god, please don’t let them take me away.”
“Nobody is locking you up anywhere,” I choked out, voice torn.
“This has nothing to with you, Cade,” Anna shot back. “This is her father’s decision.”
“Like hell it isn’t,” I snarled at Anna. Turning to Kenzie’s father, I began to plead. “Mitch, listen to me. If you let them take her – if you send her away – she will never forgive us. That girl was caged for three years. Don’t let them lock her up again. Please.”
I looked into Mitch’s vacant eyes, willing him to understand – to fucking hear me. Finally, after what felt like forever, something inside his eyes flickered; a sob tore from his throat, and he nodded his head. It was gone as fast as it came – back to blank and unfeeling – but it counted. He knew I had her best interests at heart.
And I think in that moment Mitch got it.
He finally understood that I needed Mackenzie like I needed the air in my lungs and it was the same for her. We couldn’t survive without the oth
er. We were corded together – had been from the age of ten. I wasn’t ever letting her go. I wasn’t ever getting over her. She was my weakness. I was her strength. We couldn’t be separated again. It would kill us both. And if it were a case of Mackenzie burning out, then I would gladly go down in flames with her – because I sure as hell wasn’t leaving her.
“Promise me you’ll never do this again,” I rasped, looking down at her. Her green eyes were wide and full of remorse.
“I do.” She nodded eagerly as tears poured down her cheeks. “I promise.”
“You better keep that promise, Kenzie,” I warned her before dropping a hard kiss to her forehead.
“Take me away from here, Cade,” she whispered, and her words curled around my heart like the warmest blanket of comfort.
Climbing to my feet with Kenzie in my arms, I turned to face everybody in the room. “She’s not going to any damn hospital.”
“This is crazy,” Dean spluttered, though he stepped aside to let me pass with Kenzie in my arms. “You cannot be serious. It’s madness.”
“Call it what you want,” I hissed, setting Kenzie down on the bed. The aching pain in my chest fucking spread like the flames of a fire. “But it’s not happening – and if you want your girlfriend to keep her job, I’d advise you to forget any of this happened.”
Dean stood in the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom. Disbelief and utter outrage were etched on his face. “Wife. And this is blackmail.” He turned to Mitch. “Your daughter needs to be in a hospital – being treating for PTSD and whatever else is going on inside her head.”
Mitch flinched for a moment before dropping his head to stare at his feet. “All my fault...”
“Now’s not the time for self-pity,” Dean retorted, his voice laced with disgust. “And if you don’t do something then you’re as delusional as he is.”
Stepping back, I looked around for something – anything to dress Mackenzie in. “Have you ever been caged like an animal and tortured?” My eyes locked on the jeans and sweater in a crumpled ball at the foot of the bed and I reached for them. “Do you know what it feels like to be gang raped and mutilated, Dean?” I demanded.
“Exactly,” Dean exclaimed. “Those are all valid reasons for her to be hospitalized.”
