by Zara Cox
“Excuse me?”
“I saw you making out with that guy out front earlier. Heck, I thought you two were about to do each other right there on the lawn.”
“That guy is my fiancé. And he’ll be here any minute.”
His mouth twists. “Sure he will.”
“It’s true.” My voice quivers as I try to work out how long I’ve been in the pool. Five minutes? Fifteen? Would Zach have landed by now? What if traffic delayed him on the way to the penthouse?
Dillon shrugs. “If he gets here, he can join us.” He reefs the wife-beater over his head. The moment he starts to lower himself into the pool, I make a mad dash for the side.
But fear and the water slows my momentum. He lunges and grabs my leg before I can climb out. I hit the water with a loud splash and start to panic the moment the water closes over my head. My flailing allows him time to secure me properly. When I come up for air, I’m plastered against his body.
“Hey, hey, hey. Come on, now.”
Every inch of my skin crawls and I fight harder.
“Stop!” The hiss is deadly enough to paralyze me.
I manage to drag one arm between us and over my breasts. His fingers dig into my arms as he leers at me.
“Why is it so difficult for you to be nice to me, Bethany?”
“Oh, I don’t know...possibly because you tried to drown me?”
His face hardens. “All I wanted was one goddamn kiss. You acted like I had the fucking plague.”
I pull at my arms, but his hands are shackles. I think of screaming, but it will take my parents at least two or three minutes to get to me. Anything could happen in that time. “Let me go, Dillon,” I try to reason with him, but his gaze is fixed squarely on my chest, on the parts of my breasts I can’t cover.
“You know what that day did to me?”
My breath shudders out. “What are you talking about? I didn’t tell anyone what you did.”
“You didn’t tell, but the way you acted that summer, you may as well have screamed it out. My parents certainly noticed. They kept on and on at me until I told them, just to get them off my case. I told them what happened was harmless but did they believe me? Hell no. You know what they did?”
Numb with fear, I shake my head.
“They set a team of fucking shrinks on me and got them to diagnose me with some bullshit condition. You never wonder why I changed schools, or where I was sent?”
“Dillon—”
“I was sent to a special school, so I could receive special treatment on the side. All because you wouldn’t give me a simple kiss. Well, guess what? You’re gonna give me that kiss tonight. You owe me one fucking kiss.”
His head starts to descend. I open my mouth and scream at the top of my lungs. Rage flares in his black eyes and his fingers fly around my throat, choking off the sound.
“You fucking bitch!”
I clamp my hands around his wrists, but I’m no match for him. In the next instant, his mouth is on mine. He tastes of rancid French cheese and cheap wine. His lips are doughy, and I feel a bile-filled gag build up in my diaphragm.
But I have no time to vomit. He’s cutting off my oxygen and my vision is blurring. I release his wrists and claw at his face. But like a mosquito intent on gorging itself, he stays clamped to me. He kisses me harder, his tongue attempting to breach my mouth.
I make one last, desperate attempt to wound him. I try to kick him in the balls, but the water slows me down and I barely make an impact.
I’m losing strength. His teeth sink into my upper lip and I jerk back. I lose my balance and fall backward.
He follows me, his hands around my throat, his mouth still on mine as the water swallows us. My eyes bulge. Chlorine blends with tears to sting sensitive membranes.
My mind tries to grapple with what’s happening.
I’m drowning. I’m dying.
The part of me, which secretly lived in terror that my happy castle in the sky with Zach would tumble down hard and fast when I least expected it, wants to gloat a fat, bloated I told you so.
But it can’t. It has no oxygen. So it flops on the side of the pool and gives me a weak finger as I go under.
As I drown.
As I die.
NINE
We All Fall Down
Zach
There’s a certain peace I feel when I swim. The sensation of the water closing over my ears, over my body...engulfing me in a powerful cocoon, is a rush that has no parallel. My demons set me free when I’m under water. Before I worked through my guilt about Farrah, it was the only place I could escape to.
When I met Bethany, she became the extension of that salvation. I never underplayed the importance of her near-drowning twelve years ago. On the contrary, I know salvation turns on fate’s whim. But her fear was cloaked in the abstract. Her reluctance to deal with her past trauma became a malleable wall between the incident and our present lives.
Everything in my life shatters when I see the two things I love most in the world mutate into a visceral monster intent on violating the very fiber of my existence.
This time, the roaring in my ears is different. It’s jagged, with tendrils of Bethany’s blood curdling scream—and its abrupt demise—wrapped tight around it. It fills my entire being as I launch myself at the monster. We wrestle. I gouge. He lets go of her. I pull him out of the water and throw him to the side of the pool.
Horrified voices echo from far away as I reach down and drag Bethany to the surface.
Her eyes are half closed. As if she’s caught mid-blink. Those lids are going to lift. She’s going to blast me with those blue orbs of perfection. My peace will return.
But she doesn’t.
“Zach!”
The frantic scream does nothing for me. It’s not the voice I want to hear. “Bethany?” My voice is ice thin and suspended in disbelief.
“Zach, get her out of there! The ambulance is on its way, but she needs CPR!”
C...P...R
I raise my head in time to see Todd jump into the water. I charge to the side of pool with my precious bundle and lay her down. A T-shirt is thrown over her as I vault out of the water, and I plant my interlinked fists on her chest.
I pump her heart once, twice, thrice.
Her father blows into her mouth.
Her eyes remain at half-mast.
“Bethany...” my voice is weaker than before. I feel my life blood draining away before my eyes. Pump. Pump. Pump. “Bethany.”
“Sweetheart, wake up.” Todd Green’s voice is a cocktail of command, fear and entreaty.
Pump. Pump. Pump. “Bethany.”
Her head jerks sickeningly to the beat of the compressions, as if she’s performing some macabre dance. That makes me angry. Hell, that makes me fucking furious.
“Wake the fuck up, Bethany. Right now!”
“Oh God!” Felicity’s voice catches with dread. There’s a burgeoning acceptance in there that enrages me even more.
“No! Wake up, Peaches.”
Sirens tunnel through my roar.
Her lips are blue and droplets of water cling staunchly to her face like decorative diamonds.
Her eyes remain at half-mast.
“No! Jesus, no. No. No. No. Don’t you dare leave me, Bethany.”
Running feet. “Sir, please step aside.”
Pump. Pump. Pump. “Bethany!”
“Sir—!”
A weak, watery cough. Followed by a stronger one. “Sweetheart!”
I turn her body sideways and water gushes from her mouth. The moment she gasps for air, I snatch her up into my arms. “Oh God.”
Her skin is ice-cold and I can’t tell where my shivers end and hers begin. But she takes another breath and the sweet relief that claws through me is almost painful.
“Sir, we need to check her over, give her—”
“Get the fuck away from me,” I snarl and hug her tighter. A convulsion rattles through her. I pull back a touch and I see her eyes
. They’re no longer half-masted. But the blue is dull, and the whimper she gives is barely audible.
“Zach, she needs to be checked over. There are...” Todd stops and swallows. “There are marks on her neck. There could be damage.”
I look from his face to Bethany’s throat, unable to fathom his words. That’s when I see the fat, garroting imprints around her slender neck. When Todd holds his arms out, I shake my head, another snarl ready to unleash itself.
“Please, son. Let’s make sure she’s okay. Then you can have her back.” Letting her go feels like I’m ripping my own heart out. Todd nods to someone behind me. I stagger to my feet and stumble back.
The paramedics rush past with a gurney, and she’s lifted gingerly onto to it. I watch her face with rabid intensity. She seems to be looking at me, but she’s not blinking. There’s no expression of recognition.
“Bethany,” I whisper.
“Miss, can you hear me?” the paramedic’s voice overrides mine.
TEN
The Bumpy Bumpy Landing
Bethany
I’m steeped in chills that won’t stop. They roll through me in time with my heartbeat. I fight to open my eyes. I need to open my eyes, but my lids won’t lift. I’m trapped. My whole body is frozen. The pain so vivid, I know this isn’t a dream.
But if this isn’t a dream, then it must be reality. And if it’s reality...
I force my lids to open a crack. And I see the shimmering glass coffin. I’d reach out and touch it if I could move. If I could speak, I’d describe its beauty to Zach.
Zach...
Zach...
Wake the fuck up, Bethany. Right now!
Why is he so angry? I’m right here. In this beautiful glass coffin.
No! Jesus, no. No. No. No.
It’s the raw, primal fear in his voice that stops my chills. Something’s wrong. Yes, the pressure in my chest is painful, but all I need to do is let go...
Don’t you dare leave me!
Leave?
I struggle to speak, to laugh and tell him not to be silly, that I’m right here. But the pressure is everywhere. Something’s blocking my airways.
Whatever is it, it’s standing between me and Zach.
I can’t let it. We promised each other nothing would stand between us.
Not even death...
I push hard at the pressure as memory rushes back.
Dillon. The kiss. The pool.
I must have done something right because I’m in Zach’s arms. Relieved voices echo around me, but my mind slides away again, locking on those three things.
Dillon. The kiss. The pool.
Fuck.
ELEVEN
Retribution Distribution
Zach
I feel a hand on my arm. I abstractedly glance at Felicity.
“She’s going to be okay.”
I swallow and nod, but don’t say anything. When she steps forward to take her daughter’s hand, I take another step back to give her room.
That’s when I see Philip at the end of the terrace with a guy caught in a chokehold. The man is half Philip’s size, but he’s putting up a struggle, albeit an inaudible one because of his restricted movement.
With a frown, I take in his sodden clothes and bare feet. And from one second to the next, the roar ceases.
Philip stares at me, a clear question in his eyes.
A glance behind me shows the paramedics readying Bethany, and Felicity and Todd rightly absorbed in caring for her. In the distance, I hear the approach of squad cars.
My gaze reconnects with Philip’s. I take in a slow, precise breath as the decision locks into my brain. I mouth, “Go. Now.”
Philip jerks him clean off his feet and backs away through the side gate.
Rage churns through me in a never-ending spiral as I turn to the near-catatonic form of the woman I love. She lies on the upright gurney, a blanket shielding her semi-nude body.
“Bethany.”
I see a reaction and my heart leaps. But she still doesn’t blink.
“Sir, we need to take her to the hospital, get her injuries checked out. She’s also in shock, so—”
“I’m coming with her.”
“Uh...sure. You don’t want to change into dry clothes first?” one of the paramedics suggests.
“No.”
“Okay.” He nods at his colleague and they start to wheel the gurney.
“Zach, we’ll be right behind you. We’ll grab some stuff for her first.”
I probably nod, but my gaze doesn’t leave Bethany’s.
The cops arrive as we’re heading down the driveway to the ambulance.
They take in the scene and one moves toward me. “Sir, are you the home owner? Were you the one who called in the incident?”
“No, I’m her fiancé. And I’m about to get on this ambulance, so your questions will have to wait.”
“Sir, can I at least get your name?”
I pause with one foot on the step. “My name is Zachary Savage. And trust me, I will have your badge if you delay my fiancée’s recovery by asking me one more goddamn question.”
He blanches a little and steps away, but scribbles in his notebook before he looks up. “We’ll be in touch.”
The ride to the hospital is spent with me hunched over Bethany, her hand caught in mine. I’m caught in a riptide of pain, and I can’t stop the need to press my lips against her, thankfully, warming flesh.
“I’m sorry, Bethany. So sorry,” I whisper, but the words feel useless. Too fucking little too late. I vowed to keep her safe, to free her of every single danger and worry.
And I turned my back and let a monster have his way with her.
She stares at me the whole time, even blinks a few times. She attempts a swallow and whimpers. I watch pain-filled tears brim her eyes and it rips me wide open.
I lower my head to our linked fingers and place my cheek against her skin. “Dear God, baby. What did I do? What the fuck did I do?” My throat clogs and my chest is tight with self-loathing.
So many scenarios charge through my manic brain. I’m too afraid to voice any of them just yet. So I hold her hand and stay pressed against her body.
The doctors are quick and efficient. It’s clear word has spread about who the patient is, because I’m addressed by my name and given a private suite. I stay by Bethany’s side as she’s checked over. The only time I let her leave my sight is when she’s taken for an MRI.
Her parents arrive and join me in the waiting room while she’s away. They sit. I pace. My anguish is a living, breathing thing that propels me from one side of the room to the other.
“Zach, the police are asking what happened. We want to know.”
“The bastard attacked her, that’s what happened!”
I see the rage of a father for the pain caused to his only child pass through Todd’s eyes. But his emotions aren’t as volatile as mine. “Yes, but what was she doing out there? She hasn’t gone near the pool in years. And what was Dillon doing there—?”
My steps freeze. “You know the guy who attacked her?”
“Yes, he’s our neighbor’s son. We thought he was in Alaska.”
“Well, you thought wrong. That asshole attacked her when she was fourteen and he obviously saw an opportunity to try it again!”
Todd jerks back. Felicity’s eyes are pools of shock. “What are you talking about?”
“Have you never wondered why Bethany doesn’t go near the pool anymore?”
Felicity and Todd exchange puzzled looks. “We asked her about it. She said she’d lost interest in swimming.”
I want to snarl. I want to pound my fists into the nearest wall. But I’m saving that release for later. For after I know the extent of Bethany’s injuries. “He tried to push himself on her when they were kids. She fought back, and he tried to drown her. She’s had a fear of water ever since. She didn’t tell you because a part of her believes what happened was her fault.”
“My Go
d. Todd...how could she keep something like this from us?”
“Don’t blame her. She tried to handle it the way she thought best.”
Felicity’s mouth trembles. Her tears flow freely.
Her husband comforts her.
I resume pacing. My mind is tearing itself to shreds when the doctor walks in. “Mr. and Mrs. Green.” He nods at me. “Mr. Savage, I have good news. The MRI shows there’s nothing broken. Her trachea is bruised and she’ll have trouble swallowing for a few days. We recommend she keeps talking to a minimum. But she should make a full recovery. We’re going to monitor her overnight to make sure her oxygen levels return to normal and the chlorinated water she swallowed is flushed out of her system. We can discuss her discharge in the morning.”
“I want to see her.”
He shakes his head. “She’s just taken a sedative. She’ll be a little drowsy—”
“I’m seeing her, doctor. That wasn’t a request.”
“Okay, come with me.”
We return to Bethany’s room. Her hospital gown makes her features look pale. The sight of her oxygen mask threatens to cut me off at the knees. But she’s awake and when her eyes meet mine across the room, I groan with relief to see they’re no longer vacant.
She pulls down the mask. “Zach,” she mouths.
I rush to her side and grip her hand. “No, baby, please don’t try and talk.”
She shakes her head and flicks a glance at her parents before settling back on me. “I’m okay,” she mouths again.
I sink into the chair next to her bed and take several shaky breaths before I press the mask back onto her face. “Rest now, darling. Please. Whatever we need to talk about can wait. I’m here. I’m here...” Where I should’ve been all along.
I look over and see her parents staring at her with equal parts of pain and love. I don’t stop her when she pulls down her mask one more time with her free hand. “You know?” she enquires soundlessly.
They nod.
Something akin to relief crosses her face. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Felicity looks like she’s about to burst into tears again.
