by C. M. Marin
Chapter 25
Alexia
Leaving the storage room holding a box of gauze, I let a sigh fall on the hallway air. It feels like this shift is going to last forever. For the first time since I’ve started my job, I have no desire whatsoever to be here. It’s not that I’ve gotten tired of it or anything, because I haven’t. I still like my job. But my mind is too fixed on Jayce right now for me to want to be here.
Unease is weighing heavily on my chest at how we parted ways earlier. It’s not like we never argue. We’ve definitely had our clashes over the years, and especially these past few months. But something in his behavior after our rather short argument this morning has had a knot putting down roots in my stomach, and it hasn’t loosened since.
Quitting my job is an option that has grazed my mind several times during the day, though only because of Jayce’s insistence. But in the end, his near irrational worry doesn’t matter. I can’t possibly quit my job, for God’s sake. What kind of life would I have if I started to hide in the club all day long? Because of the lockdown, I’m already stuck there most of the time when I’m off work. I’d give anything to be able to go enjoy a modest ride with Jayce. My arms coiled tight around him and the wind blowing on my face as I take in the beautiful sceneries of the approaching spring. I’d give anything for just a few hours of that. But when I look back to the past few months, I can’t help but think that I could still be waiting for that ride next Christmas. No one can tell me how long this mess with the Spiders is going to last, and there’s no way I can let them dictate my life. No way. But now it’s been two hours since my shift started, and even if all I want today is to go back to Jayce, there are patients I need to be focused on. At least until it’s time to take my break. Then I’ll call him.
“Alex!”
My name being joyfully yelled has me drawing out of my own mind and coming back to the present. I look over to the front desk to see that Martha has an arm stretched toward me, some kind of paper dangling from her fingers.
“What is it?” I ask her, my steps veering from their course as I walk toward her.
“I’d say it’s a letter. There’s your name on the envelope,” she explains. “A courier dropped it here just a minute ago.”
“A letter?” I frown while wedging the box of gauze between my arm and my side, so I can take it from her.
“Looks like it, at least.” She grins widely then. “Maybe it’s from some admirer.”
Martha is a nice woman in her mid-fifties, but I swear she acts like a teenager most of the time.
With my own smile, I tell her honestly, “I don’t need one.”
But any trace of that smile is wiped off my face as soon as I read my name on the white envelope, scribbled in a writing that couldn’t be more familiar. Jayce’s writing.
What…
“Is everything okay, Alex?”
Martha’s concerned voice slips through my confusion, but what’s in my hand keeps all my dreadful attention. I mumble to her that I’m fine as my feet move mechanically and my fingers get busy opening the envelope. I only notice that my steps have taken me back to the storage room when I close the door behind me to find some privacy. Then I slide the letter out of the envelope, swallowing every ten seconds to keep the sickness that once again roils in my stomach at bay.
After I discard the box of gauze to the nearest shelf, no less than three attempts are needed to get the piece of paper unfolded. That’s how badly my hands have begun to shake. And when my eyes reluctantly read my name and the very first words Jayce has written, my heart seems to start pounding as violently as my hands are shaking, and cold sweat coats my body as bile churns more intensely in my stomach.
Alex,
I want to start by saying that until today, writing this letter for you never even crossed my mind. I meant it when I told you I’d never let you go again. I did. I just didn’t know that I was lying to myself. I love you, know that. I always will. There’s not a thing in this world that will ever change what I feel for you and how much you mean to me. But what happened today pushed me to face reality. I’ve been reminded how easily I could lose you, and I can’t stomach that truth. I’ve already had three members of my family be taken away from me while I couldn’t do a fucking thing to save them. Standing here and watching you be taken away from me, too, isn’t something I can allow. As unbearable as I know it will be, I’d rather let you go than lose you that way. I wouldn’t survive it.
I’m riding out of town today, and I’ll be gone for a couple of months. The guys will call me if they need me back, and Liam will keep an eye on you. I wish we could live the life you deserve together, but it’s for the best that I face the truth now. That life isn’t an option. I told Liam to move your stuff to his place until you decide where you want to go. This is going to sound harsh to you, but the farther away from this world you go, the better. You’re not safe in Twican, and you never will be.
I’m sorry.
I’m aware I should find plenty of air around me to help me breathe, but it’s like every drop of it has vanished in the span of thirty seconds.
It’s happening again. He’s doing it again.
The foreboding that has followed me all day just found its meaning. That letter and my newfound hell were waiting for me. It’s happening again, just like my heart and gut knew it would.
The quavers ruling my hands have gotten fiercer, and my mind has raced back to the first time it happened. Back then, going through the day without Jayce felt like all that was left in my chest was a colossal hole that would stay empty for the rest of my life. And that hollow void is expanding again right where it was back then. No more than a couple of minutes ago, that spot was filled with my heart, which now seems to melt away and leave nothing behind.
But unlike eighteen months ago, a consuming wave of rage swells in me, pressuring the hollowness into sharing some of its space. Slowly, I breathe through it. Diligently, I feed on it. And then my head clears out of both the hurt and the fear that kept any constructive thoughts from entering my mind, and I can think again.
This time, I’ll fight. I’ll fight more fiercely than I did last time. Hell, I barely even fought at all last time. Looking back, I believe that the hurt, the pain, the grief, and the memory of Jayce’s acerbic, cruel words coerced a numbness in me. And I was in such a piercing suffering that I reveled in that numbness. Now, however, I’m more enraged than hurt. Or maybe I’m as enraged as I am hurt.
The farther away from this world you go, the better.
How can he say that? How can he even think that?
The swirling sickness that first attacked me has dwindled some, even if my stomach is still in tight knots and the tremors in my hands have barely waned. Trying to keep it together by focusing on my breathing, I leave the storage room, my supply of gauzes forgotten, and walk straight toward the locker room. Getting to my phone is the only thing that’s on my mind. I won’t let him do this to me again. I won’t let him do this to himself again either.
“Alexia? Are you alright?”
As if I wasn’t at the hospital where I should expect Dr. Emerson to be addressing me, my brain cells seem to all need a second to adjust to what’s around me as my steps come to a sudden halt in the middle of the hallway.
“You look pale,” he adds, scratching his thick heap of salt-and-pepper hair absently.
Dr. Emerson is approaching his sixties, and the wrinkles drawn around his eyes deepen with his genuine worry.
“I…”
What I should probably say is something like “Oh, really? I don’t know, I feel fine.”. But I only contemplate that answer for a short moment before a thought flashes in my mind, and I decide to seize the opportunity he has unwittingly thrown my way.
“I’m not feeling so well, actually. A bit nauseous. I was fine when I arrived, though.”
When you think about it, it’s technically the truth.
He hums thoughtfully. “You definitely look sick, and there’s a
stomach flu in the air. It could be that. Why don’t you go home, take some anti-nausea medication and get some rest? We’ll see how you feel tomorrow. With Erin here, it’s like we have a full team anyway,” he smiles.
Even considering lying so I could leave my workplace is something I’d normally feel a hell of a lot guilty for. Not now. Not at all.
Nodding, I do my best to smile back. “I’ll go, then.”
“Let us know how you’re doing, and don’t worry if you need more time.”
After I let him pat my arm in a compassionate gesture, I nod and walk the small distance separating me from the locker room. Enough time has been wasted.
Alone again, I’m back to dealing with the thoughts spinning restlessly around in my head. All of them are about Jayce, and I can’t tame them or the fear pulsing in my stomach as I get out of my scrubs and change faster than I ever have. I need to get to him before he’s gone. Once he has left town, I won’t find him. The guys will never tell me where he is. They will never betray his trust. Not even Liam, even though there’s no doubt that he’ll be back to being seriously pissed at him. He’ll still stay loyal to him. But he also won’t tell me anything because the only thing he’ll want is for me to forget about Jayce’s very existence.
“Are you leaving?”
I spin around at Erin’s voice.
“Are you okay? You look pale,” she adds as she takes a couple of steps toward me, and according to the worry etched on her face, mine must actually be deathly pale.
“I need to leave,” I tell her as I reach for my purse and close my locker. “Dr. Emerson thinks that I’m sick, so could you just go along with it?”
“Of course. But you do look sick. You’re shaking.” Her eyes have fallen on my hands. “What’s going on? Is it… Is it Liam?” she asks quietly.
I take a deep breath. “No. Jayce had a letter delivered here for me. I have to go see him and talk to him,” I explain quickly so she doesn’t worry.
But I can’t waste any more time. It could already be too late. I walk past her and push through the door, praying that Jayce isn’t already on the road, riding away from me.
“Is someone picking you up? You shouldn’t leave alone, Alex,” I hear her say, but I can’t waste time on pointless things like how I’m going back to the club.
Too impatient to wait for the elevator, I take the stairs and rush down them as I put my phone at my ear. A cab is on its way to the hospital before I even leave the building, and once I’m outside, I don’t pause before striding to the end of the parking lot, straight to the spot where the driver will get me. Maybe there will even be one waiting for some potential client.
I’m not surprised that I don’t have such luck when I get there. The spot reserved for the cabs is deserted, and the only thing I can do is stand here uselessly. And soon, there’s nothing left for me to do than let my thoughts clash in my head some more. With them comes the fear and the sickness fighting one another in my stomach, and I decide to call Jayce. Deep down, I know I won’t be able to reach him. I know he must have turned off his phone, knowing I’d call him, but there’s nothing else I can think of doing. Already chanting prayers in my head to hear him pick up, I scroll on my screen with a desperate speed.
But my thumb has barely started to work before it freezes on the screen as my hand suddenly holds on to my phone so tightly that I’m probably about to crush it. My other hand reacts instinctively as it flies up to clutch the forearm someone just folded around my neck. But I barely have time to comprehend what’s happening when whoever is locking me in place presses something on my nose. The weird smell emanating from the fabric steals all of the strength from my body, and I only make out the thump of my phone crashing on the ground right before everything goes black.
Chapter 26
Jayce
I don’t weigh my strength when I slam one more of Alex’s boxes on the floor in a corner of my bedroom. This one’s only stuffed with clothes, so at least she won’t find anything smashed to pieces when she opens it.
“Truck’s empty,” Brent says after placing a smaller box on top of another stack and leaning against the wall.
Only Blane went back to the club after he dropped Alex at the hospital a couple hours ago. The rest of the guys helped me with the moving. It took some time because we also moved all the stuff she brought from Dallas that she had at Liam’s.
“Want us to start putting some furniture together?” Ben asks.
I shake my head. “Not sure what furniture Alex wants put back up. I’ll see to that with her. Let’s just get back to the club.”
I just want to go back, sip a glass of liquor to unwind a little, and wait the six hours left until I have to pick up Alex from the hospital.
My mood has been terrible since the moment we found out about the Spiders breaking into Alex’s apartment. My blood boiled with lethal fury, and her stubbornly going to work didn’t help the matter. I stupidly wished she would quit, but she’s always been so obstinate that I should have known there was no point in even asking her. While I was sulking in my corner to avoid fighting with her, focusing on taking apart furniture and loading up endless boxes, Liam attempted to make her change her mind more than once. But she just ended up ignoring him altogether after a while. And although I gave her a brief kiss when she left for work, I was still mad at her. She’s hellbent on taking unnecessary risks, and I can’t wrap my head around it.
But it’s been a couple of hours since I watched her walk away, and it’s me I’m pissed at now. I have this feeling that we’re back to the time I was more or less ignoring her, and I don’t like it one bit. Unease dug into my bones the moment she turned away from me and talking to her is the only way I can rectify that. Problem is, her phone is only turned on when she’s on a break, and that’s not always at the same time. I’ll just have to settle for a drink and a few more hours of sulking before seeing her. And if I get too antsy, I’ll just ride to the hospital and talk to her. She’ll want to have my balls for it, but I’ll deal with that later.
“Hey, beautiful. I started to think you lost my number.” We all glance at Liam as we leave my bedroom. His phone is to his ear, and he’s smirking even though whoever is on the other line can’t see him. But his playful grin switches to a scowl and his steps stop in the middle of the hallway as he asks, “Wait, what? When? Alex left the hospital,” he urges, his gaze finding me.
A savage whirlwind of incomprehension and fear crashes into me.
“Who’s on the phone?” I ask Liam, striding until I’m right beside him.
“Erin,” he tells me while putting the phone on speaker.
Ben, Brent and Nate join us, and we all listen to Erin. And nothing she has to say appeases the dread that has a death grip on me.
“Something didn’t seem right, Liam. I asked her if one of you was coming to get her, but she was already leaving. I told her she shouldn’t leave the hospital alone, but she just rushed away. She said she needed to go talk to Jayce because of the letter he had delivered for her here.”
What the fuck?
“I’m calling because she looked so upset. Almost sick, to be honest.”
“What?” I say out loud when my brain can focus enough to form words, and I can feel Liam’s stare on me even though mine doesn’t stray away from his phone. “What letter?”
Erin heard me, because she answers right away, though she stammers slightly with an unsure voice, probably understanding that I don’t know anything about a fucking letter I’m supposed to have sent her. “I… I’m not sure, I… A courier delivered it, that’s all I know.”
“Did you see the guy?” Liam asks her.
“No, I’m sorry. I grabbed my phone and tried to catch up with her, but when I got outside, she was gone.”
Gone.
The word doesn’t have the same meaning for Erin that it does for us right now. Alex left that building because someone lured her out of it, and now…
“I’m heading over there,” I s
ay, pushing past Ben and Nate to stride down the stairs.
My brothers’ thumping steps follow me as Liam asks Erin, his voice tight with the same panic I feel, “When exactly was the last time you saw her?”
“Not even a couple of minutes before I called you. Just the time it took to get outside the hospital.”
“Thanks, Erin. I gotta go,” he tells her and hangs up just as we run out of my house.
“Her phone’s dead,” Nate says, but my heart is pummeling my ribcage so violently that I barely hear him speak. We climb in the truck and slam the doors shut. As I crank it, Nate goes on, “I’m texting Blane. He’ll trace it.”
Dammit! Why did she go out by herself? The only fucking thing I’ve asked from her is not to leave that damn building alone. None of this makes any fucking sense.
“It doesn’t make sense,” I express my thoughts out loud. “She should know I wouldn’t send some courier to her workplace to give her a fucking letter. And she’d have recognized my writing.” Shaking my head, I add, “Something doesn’t add up. Fuck!” I slam a furious hand on the steering wheel, making the horn roar into the silent evening and possibly breaking the damn thing.
But I can’t lose my shit right now. Gripping the wheel tightly, I remind myself that I need to keep my composure, because every second counts. Whatever the hell has happened, Alex needs me to keep my head straight.
“Blane located her phone outside the hospital,” Nate informs us. “He’s already working on hacking the hospital cameras to see who dropped the letter. But maybe she’s still there,” he suggests hopefully, but at the same time sounding like he doubts it.
It takes us close to fifteen oppressive minutes to get to damn hospital. Even before I pull over alongside the jammed parking lot, not caring that I’ve stopped the truck on a bus stop, my frantic gaze is searching for Alex. But just like Erin said, she’s nowhere to be seen.
We climb out of the truck, and Liam races to the entrance without looking back or saying anything. I’m not sure whether he’s going to talk to Erin or look for Alex around the building, but my internal questioning is forgotten when Blane’s voice breaks through Nate’s phone behind me.
