by Lisa Simmons
"About time you get what's been coming to you, Evans."
"Samuel-"
"Goodbye, Reece."
"No!"
I watched with paralyzing dread as a dark glint struck his eye, the slightest movement of his hand capturing my attention as he prepared to pull the trigger and shoot the gun aimed right at Reece's chest.
"Freeze! Drop the gun right now!"
I hadn't realized I'd been holding my breath until a breath so big it was painful sucked into my lungs. My gasp sounded out around us followed quickly by the blissful sound of Samuel' gun landing in the dirt with a soft thud. Reece, Samuel, Emily, and I all whipped our heads in the direction of the voice to see flashing red and blue lights so bright it was a miracle we hadn't even noticed until now.
"Down on the ground, all of you!" shouted a cop from a few feet away. There were three cop cars pulled into the street, surrounding us and Reece's car. Six cops stood scattered around, all of them with their guns raised and pointed in different directions at each of us.
My legs collapsed out from under me as I hastened to follow their command. I'd had more than enough guns pointed at me tonight to last me a lifetime. My body landed with a huff in the dirt, followed quickly by Emily and Samuel. Reece lowered himself gracefully to lie next to me. His hand closed around mine that was raised above my head in surrender. I felt his fingers wind around mine before he brought my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.
"It'll be okay, Abby, you hear me?" he whispered. "It will all be okay."
I couldn't respond as the crippling fear flooded through me yet again. I should have been relieved at the arrival of the cops, but now all I was afraid of was them taking Reece away from me for a crime he'd been forced to commit. My head turned toward Reece's, where my eyes locked on his. His gaze was intense and determined as he looked into my eyes.
"I love you. I'll always love you, no matter what happens," he said fiercely.
"I love you, Reece."
He looked almost relieved when he heard my words, his features relaxing slightly as he blew out a heavy breath. I jumped when I felt movement next to me and looked over my shoulder to see a cop hunching behind Reece. Something metallic glinted in his hands before I saw Reece's face get pushed into the dirt when they ripped his hand from mine to haul his arms behind his back.
"No-"
I was cut off by the metallic clicking of the handcuffs that were being tightened around Reece's wrists. The same thing was happening to Samuel a few feet over while Emily and I remained relatively ignored by the police.
"You two are coming with us," said one police officer in a grim voice. I couldn't see who it was but it didn't even matter.
"No! You can't!" I shouted. I placed my hands on the dirt to push myself up in protest but someone placed a hand on my back to push me back to the ground in a huff.
"Don't fucking touch her!" Reece roared from next to me, his voice livid.
"Keep it down, son," said the gruff cop. "Don't make this harder on yourself."
"Then don't touch her!" Reece yelled into the dirt. His cheek pushed firmly into the ground while he fought to release some of the pressure being put on him. Suddenly, two of the cops gripped under his arms and hauled him to his feet while two other did the same with Samuel next to him.
"Wait, Reece!"
"Abigail, it'll be fine," Reece called over his shoulder, his eyes finding mine as the cops steered him away from me and toward their squad cars.
"Wait, you don't understand!" I shouted at the cops, attempting again to get up and run to Reece only to be pushed back down. I watched helplessly as they ripped open the back door and shoved him inside by placing a hand on top of his head. "Reece!!"
"Abby, I-" his words were cut off by the slam of the door, locking him away from me and sealing off whatever he'd been about to say. My heart pounded heavily in my chest as I watched the cop who'd shoved him into the back stroll around the front and throw himself into the drivers seat.
"Reece!" I shouted again. It was pointless- he couldn't respond. Tears flowed down my cheeks again and my fingers dug into the dirt as I watched the car start up, the lights flashing relentlessly while the engine roared to life. A red glow washed over the gory scene from the brake lights before the car pulled way, taking Reece with it.
"And the things that keep us apart keep me alive. There are things that keep me alive, keep me alone."
Chapter 70
Lights flashed all around me, their colors swirling together in a melted blend that insisted on making my mind swim. I sat in shock on the back of the ambulance, staring blankly off into the distance while a medic waved a bright light in front of my eyes. His lips were moving but I couldn’t hear what he said over the noise of the people rustling around and the screaming in my head. He leaned in close, observing my pupils while he moved the light back and forth across my line of vision. I ignored him, too emotionally drained and shocked to absorb anything else. Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, causing my head to turn in that direction. My eyes felt glazed over and my neck felt stiff as I did so. Two men in black jackets, one of them carrying a large black bag, were moving across the sad excuse for a lawn toward the spot. I couldn’t bring myself to even think of the words Jack or body. Surely they were just going to pick up some trash. Surely he was just resting in the grass, catching his breath after the fight with Reece, exhausted but still breathing. Surely he’d get up any minute, brush off his shirt, and shoot me a scathing look. The fact that the men were crouching next to him now and unrolling the bag was pure coincidence. It didn’t mean what I knew it did.
Jack was dead.
And Reece had killed him.
It was too surreal to absorb. I watched with blank numbness, my features lacking any expression besides pure shock, as they lifted his body only to lower it in the bag. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the gruesome sight. Blood so vibrantly red burned into my eyes that I almost had to look away, but I couldn’t. His face was blocked by someone looking on, the camera in their hands now full of pictures to use for evidence. The man shifted suddenly, turning to speak to someone else and clearing my view.
His ghostly white face shone through the darkness, the skin pale and waxy from the lack of blood flowing through his veins. Bile rose involuntarily in the back of my throat at the sight. I could feel my eyes widening and the blood draining from my face, but still I couldn’t look away. My gaze stayed trained on his ashen face until he was completely lowered into the bag. One of the men in the black jackets leaned forward to zip the bag, cutting off my view. I could feel the way my eyelids fluttered as the world swam in front of me suddenly as if I might faint.
“Abigail!” the medic said, calling my attention back to him. I felt weak. Physically, mentally, and emotionally weak. I turned back toward him and his face swooped in front of me, my eyes nearly closing as I started to drift to the side. His hand landed on my shoulders, steadying me and propping me up against the side of the ambulance.
“Hank!” he called, getting the attention of a second medic standing a few feet away. His face joined the second one that was currently swimming in front of my eyes.
“She’s in shock. We should take her to the hospital,” he muttered while pressing two fingers to the inside of my wrist to check my pulse.
“No!” I shouted suddenly, snapping out of it. “No, I need to go to the police station!”
“I don’t think so, hun, you’ve had a traumatic night and-“
“No! I need to get to Reece,” I said frantically. I was relieved that my vision seemed to be clearing a bit now and my head didn’t feel like it was filled with water anymore. My arms lifted from my sides, feeling like they weighed a thousand pounds as they shoved weakly at the man holding me.
“Woah, woah,” he said calmly. “Let’s just go in to check you out before you go rushing off anywhere.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital, I need t
o go to Reece!”
“Abby, look-“
“No! You don’t get to call me that! You don’t know me... this-, you-, I- this is all wrong,” I said, hysteria mounting suddenly as my voice grew higher in pitch. “You can’t call me Abby. Only Reece calls me Abby.”Why didn’t he understand that? Why didn’t this man understand that I needed to get to Reece desperately? He needed me. He needed me to get him out of this situation, to explain what happened. Reece needed me and there I was having a psychotic break on the back of an ambulance. I shoved his arms again, this time with more strength than I thought I’d be able to muster. He raised his hands by his head in surrender, shooting me a disapproving look as he watched me launch myself off the back of the ambulance. My feet immediately started carrying me away in the direction of the police station. It was far in comparison to the rest of the locations in town- nearly on the outer edge while we were currently in the middle of town. I was surprised when no one stopped me from breaking into a run, sprinting as fast as my clumsy, wobbly legs would carry me away from that place where all hell had broken loose. I needed to get as far away from the crimson stain in the grass and as close to Reece as I possibly could. It didn’t take long for my muscles to burn and for the breath in my lungs to sting on the way in, but I didn’t slow down. The sound of my feet slapping against the pavement reminded me that I was, yet again, without shoes. It was a bad habit I was forming, but I didn’t care enough to stop. Every step that I took that carried me away made it a little easier to breathe, although I was constantly expecting to hear my name shouted after me. I was surprised they hadn’t questioned me at all. Not a single question, not that I would have been much use due to the state of shock I seemed to have fallen under.
Houses and trees flashed by as I ran, and I could feel sweat pricking at my scalp from the exertion. This was the farthest I’d run in a long time and it started to show as my already shaky muscles began to protest. I pushed on, the thought of Reece sitting alone and bloodied in a jail cell propelling me forward. Finally, gloriously, the police station came into view. It was the only building around with any lights on, seeing as it was the middle of the night. My lungs burned from exertion and my muscles were to the point of nearly giving out but I ignored it as I reached the front door. I threw it open and flung myself inside to the surprisingly quiet station.
I was startled to hear the heavy gasps ripping from my chest, although I really shouldn’t have been surprised. The cop sitting behind the desk looked up in alarm, clearly not expecting a sweaty, bloody, bare-footed girl to burst through the door in the middle of the night. He leaned back in apprehension when I stumbled forward suddenly, my eyes locking on his while I approached his desk.
“Ha-harry,” I gasped. Irritation flashed through me at how heavily I was breathing. “Reece Evans. Where is he?”
Realization washed over his face when he recognized the name. He frowned at me after he recovered, taking in my appearance with some understanding now.
“Who are you?” he asked, ignoring my question.
“I’m his fucking girlfriend, now where is he?!” I demanded, not giving the term ‘girlfriend’ a second thought. We’d been much more than that for a long time now.
“He’s in the back,” he answered disapprovingly.
“Take me to him.”
“I can’t do that.”
An actual snarl left my lips as I glared down at him. He did not look intimidated in the least- simply irritated.
“Take me to him!” I repeated more firmly.
“That’s not allowed, miss.”
I sucked in an exasperated breath, breaking my eye contact with the cop to look away in a grimace. My hands shook by my side while my head rolled from side to side in agitation.
“Why not?! He didn’t do anything wrong- it was self-defense!”
“We don’t know that yet,” he replied calmly. My eyes drilled into his.
“What? I was there, I saw the entire thing! Jack pulled the gun on him and tried to strangle Reece when he tackled him. He had no choice!” I could hear the desperation in my voice but could do nothing to drain it. The cops needed to know that Reece had acted in self-defense without a shadow of a doubt. “Ma’am, we can’t do anything tonight until further investigation. You want him out, you pay his bail,” he said. It grated on me that he insisted on calling me such condescending names. “I’ll pay it,” I said immediately. “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”
“It’s three thousand,” he said skeptically, raising an eyebrow at me.
“I don’t care. I said I’ll pay it now do it!” I said, desperately trying to keep my voice down. It wouldn’t get me to Reece any faster if I pissed off this cop even more than I already had. “Do you have your card?” he asked. His eyes drifted down to my bare feet again, obviously judging my appearance and utter lack of thought before sprinting over here. He knew I didn’t have anything with me.
Fuck.
“No,” I said. “Can’t you look it up? Just get him out!”
“It’ll take a little longer,” he said with a sigh.
“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. I had absolutely no compassion for him having to do a little extra paperwork while Reece sat back there in a jail cell.
“Name?” he asked, leaning forward to fill out a form he pulled from beneath his desk.
“Abigail Campbell.”
“Date of birth?”
I answered all of his questions, ranging from my address to my social security number until he had all the necessary information to process Reece’s bail. My answers were quick in an attempt to urge him to move faster, but to no avail. He took his sweet time filling out the form before rising lethargically from his chair to go make some phone calls. “Hurry up, please,” I requested rudely. I wasn’t asking for a lot here and it was his job. It was the least he could do.
I could hear him grumble something in response before he entered a room through a door behind his desk. His back turned to me as he picked up the phone to make the necessary calls, and I glared daggers at the back of his head. My feet carried me across the floor in an anxious pace, my eyes focusing alternatively on the ground and the back of the cop as I threw angst-laden glances in his direction.
My mind was too distracted to focus on a single thought as I paced. Images of Reece alone, covered in blood and injured, sitting alone against a cement wall kept flashing across my mind. I’d never actually seen a real jail cell, but the haunting images I’d seen on TV and in movies seemed to merge together to form the worst possible cell, caging Reece inside. I pictured rats gnawing on his shoes, a toilet in the corner covered in unidentifiable stains, a mattress made out of sawdust, walls of cement with claw marks permanently carved into the sides. I pictured bars on the windows, bars holding him inside, chains around his hands and ankles that anchored him to the ground.
My pacing grew faster and faster as these thoughts bombarded me. Fists curled at my sides while I continued to throw vicious glares at the cop in the room. I glanced at the clock on the wall and learned it’d been nearly an hour since I’d arrived. My impatience grew exponentially by the second and I felt like I was going to explode. Without my permission, my hand slammed down on the counter top as I paced by, the loud slap echoing around the bare walls of the station. The cop turned abruptly, glaring at me as he held the phone to his ear. I glared back, trying to set him on fire with my gaze. I was unsuccessful. My pacing resumed as he turned back around, ignoring my silent outburst and returning his attention back to the call. I could feel my entire body start to shake as I walked, the anxiety coursing through my veins taking over. A chair in the corner of the room caught my eye before I walked jerkily towards it and threw myself in it. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and burying my face in my hands. My knees bounced up and down restlessly while I tried to take deep, even breaths to calm my impatience. This had been the longest hour of my entire life and he still wasn’t free. I pressed the heels of my h
ands into my eye sockets in an attempt to block out the world, but it didn’t work. “How much longer will this take?!” I shouted into my hands, giving up on trying not to piss the cop off. He was taking far too long.
“Abigail.”
My head jerked up from my palms, my eyes widening as they readjusted to the light. I was up out of my seat in less than a second and sprinting towards him as fast as I could. He hardly had time to open his arms before I crashed into them, slamming my body against his as my arms wrapped around his neck. His arms closed around me, encircling my waist and hugging me to him tightly. My face buried itself in his neck as I held him. “Reece, oh my god, I am so sorry,” I whispered weakly. All the fight I’d had in me had drained the moment I saw him, my mission accomplished.
“Shh,” he hushed, ignoring my words as he pressed his face into the space where my shoulder met my neck. He was warm against me, and it didn’t occur right away that he was still wearing his own clothes- his own clothes that were positively drenched with blood. Even then, I couldn’t bring myself to let go of him. We stood there for ages, clinging to each other in silence. My arms stayed locked firmly around his neck and his never wavered from my waist. The only sounds exchanged between us were the sounds of our breath leaving our lungs and the pounding of our hearts, which were easily heard in the otherwise silent station. I’d never been so relieved to have him back in my arms. “It’ll be okay, Reece,” I whispered against his neck.
“Shh,” he repeated gently. He sounded tired, drained. He sounded defeated, which scared me.
“Alright you two, get out of here,” the cop said irritably. I had absolutely no idea when he’d returned or how long he’d been watching us and I didn’t care in the slightest. “You’ll be hearing from us tomorrow, kid. Don’t go disappearing on us or anything stupid.”I opened my eyes to see him standing behind Reece, directly in my line of vision. I glared at him over Reece’s shoulder, annoyed that he insisted on interrupting and reminding Reece of exactly why we were here.
