"Xander Barrett, speaking."
"It's Charles St. George." My car swerves onto the wrong side of the road, forcing me to right it before I can answer the man on the other end of the call. He's the last person I expected to hear from. Amber's paternal uncle. The fellow black sheep in her family. Although, unlike Amber who they’d love to reel back into their fold, Charles is dead to the rest of them, and has been for as long as I've known her.
"This is a surprise. How did you get my number?"
"Listen. None of that matters. What matters is I saw Amber today and she's—"
With wheels that screech their indignation at the NASCAR move I pull so that I can reach the shoulder of the road as quickly as possible, I pretend that I can't feel the pricking behind my eyes as I throw the gear lever into neutral. "You better not be fucking with me."
"I'm not. She was at the hospital today."
Relief floods me. It silences the worry that's been circling my head like a pack of vultures for weeks, lifting the weight that's been bowing my shoulders. She's alive. The realisation makes me feel like a kid at Christmas.
Shit. My excitement dies. Does that mean she is hiding from me? That she's left me, but is too afraid to tell me, just like Cynthia and Malcolm have been saying the entire time?
"Did you speak to her? What did she say? Where has she been?" The words fall from my tongue in a rush. The questions tripping over themselves in their hurry to be answered.
"Xander. Xander." Charles raises his voice. "I'm confused. She was in an accident. I thought you knew that?"
My core gives out and I flop forward, my forehead hitting the steering wheel with a thud. Closing my eyes, I pray to God for clarity.
"An accident? I didn't know. I've been looking for her months."
I hear Charles exhale, his breath rushing against the phone. In it, I recognize the same frustration and cluelessness that's gripping me.
"I don't understand. I'm phoning because she was with Jaxon and she didn't recognize me which worried me. Not because I knew you were looking for her."
If I thought this situation couldn't get any worse, I was mistaken.
Dread—pure, potent, panic-producing dread—threatens to swallow me alive.
Please tell me I heard wrong.
"Jaxon Ray? As in her childhood friend?" I emphasize the word "friend", knowing that Charles knows as well as I do that Jax wasn't Amber's friend. He was her childhood tormentor turned abuser come potential husband if her father could've persuaded her to fall in line with his plans. Dr. Jaxon Ray is the reason why Amber ran away from her home the minute she could—penniless and psychologically damaged. He's the reason why, even after ten years together, my beautiful, broken bride-to-be can't bear to sleep in the same bed as me.
"Yes, him."
"What the fuck is she doing with him?"
Silence greets me. As it drags on, a million scenario's—each one worse that the one before it—run through my head.
Has he kidnapped her?
If he's kidnapped her, why is he taking her out in public?
What if her father has found some way to bully her into doing as he says?
"Xander, I think we need to meet. Discuss this in person."
It's the tone in his voice that tells me I need to know what he knows right now. Waiting until we are looking at each other isn't an option. It's abundantly clear that he has information that I need to learn ... right bloody now.
"Tell me."
After a noticeable pause, Charles clears his throat. "Jaxon said she's with him now. That you two were over."
Violent shaking overtakes my body; hitting so hard that my mobile slips from my hand onto my lap. Charles voice fades as the phone falls and I tumble headfirst into a stupor so deep that I lose contact with reality. One question reverberates around my skull. It becomes the center of my universe, making everything else cease mattering to me.
Why would Amber be with Jax?
It doesn't make sense. Not after the hell he put her through in their teens.
My attention is drawn back to the device lying forgotten on my lap. Charles is screaming my name down the line with increasing urgency. I pick it up and jam it against my ear. Without waiting for him to stop speaking, I deadpan my instructions. "Meet me at the hospital. I have some questions for the illustrious Dr. Ray."
“Dr. Ray.”
A high pitched squeal punctuates the receptionists request through the intercom. I grab my forehead. It feels like it’s stuck in a vice. A low-pitched groan escapes me and I screw my eyes shut to minimise the aggravation of the brightly lit office. Jax holds my head gently on his lap as I feel him lean toward his desk. “Marta. I said I didn’t want to be interrupted.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Ray. But, there’s an irate gentleman here demanding to see you.”
Jax sounds angry, his tone clipped when he answers her. “Well, at least do part of your job and call security. I’ll be out momentarily.”
I let a long breath out from between clenched teeth when Jax moves from beneath me. His movements make my stomach churn, the dull throbbing in my head gaining strength until it becomes unbearable. I pat the floor next to the couch I’m lying on with urgency. Finding nothing, I crack open one eye and spy a wastepaper basket near me. I scramble to my knees and grab it with both hands. Holding it under my chin, I vomit with violence.
“Damn it all. Belinda, clean this mess up.”
In between episodes of retching, I watch Jax and try to regain my bearings. I haven’t a clue why I was sleeping on the settee in his office—hell, my mind is drawing a blank when I try to remember why we’re at the hospital. The recesses of my mind are dark—like the huge, flat screen in the cinema after the credits of a movie have run—and the edges of my memory feel like a smooth unused surface.
My internal search is halted when I become aware of the waves of animosity flowing from Jax toward the woman he called Belinda. His eyebrows are drawn together, the muscle in his jaw is visibly working, and he’s clenching his hands into fists—opening and closing them; almost like he’s readying himself for a fight. I lower my lashes and cover my mouth with my hand when he catches me watching him. Heart pounding in my ears, hands shaking, I sneak another peek.
“Oh,” I squeal like a teeny-bopper at a concert when I find Jax towering over me, bent as I am over his couch with the bin clutched in my hands. He’s too close for comfort. If his rage was a heat source, he could warm the entire continent with the flashes of fury emanating from him. My heart leaps into my throat as my vulnerable position becomes clear. I’m tiny compared to him and his demeanour scares the crap out of me.
When he reaches for me, I flinch away from him without thinking, leaving his well-manicured hand hanging between us. Hurt flickers across his handsome features before they settle into something that resembles satisfaction. Jax reaches for me again. He intertwines his fingers into my hair, clutching the tresses at my nape, and pulls my head back so he can leer down at me.
“Baby, I never want you to be scared of me.” The sweet way he speaks is in direct contrast to his painful grasp. Nodding as much as I can, I open my mouth to question him. He shakes his head and tuts at me, “Nuh, uh. I didn’t say you could talk.”
I press my lips together. Terror—tendrils of frantic fear that have a familiar taste to them—wrap their way around my mind, warning me not to antagonise Jax. Wracking my mind for reasons why, I draw another blank. My stomach sinks, my heart jumping further in my throat, as I realise that I can remember exactly three things.
One. My name is Amber St. George.
Two. I’m engaged to Dr. Jaxon Ray.
Three. The man staring down at me, with absolute assurance of his dominion over my being clear in his gaze, scares me to death.
“Baby.” Jax’s even tone pulls me from the panic that’s rising within me at my mind’s revelations. “I don’t want you to fear me but I do want you to heed what I say. I need you to stay in here. Quietly. I want you to promi
se that you’ll stay in here even if the building catches on fire.”
Using his hand in my hair, he tilts my head back further. An unspoken promise of painful retribution should I dare deny him what he wants shines from his eyes. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I drag my bottom lip into my mouth and sink my teeth into it, before nodding my acquiescence.
“Good girl.” Jax lets go of me and turns toward Belinda. I sink down onto the couch, drawing my knees to my chest, hugging them in an effort to calm myself. With wide eyes, I watch my fiancé bark his orders at the older lady. “You’re in charge of her. I don’t care what you hear. She is not to leave this room until I come to get her.”
Belinda flicks a somewhat smug glance my way. She sidles up to Jax, a seductive sway to her hips. Leaning her head nears his, one hand runs down his right bicep while her second grasps his hand in hers. A shudder runs through me at her blatant display. Even lost in my fear of him, I’m surprised to find that jealousy rears its ugly head. The flirtatious, conspiring tone she uses to address him just adds insult to injury, ratcheting my displeasure up another notch.
“Who do you think it is, Jaxon? Charles?”
Jax extricates himself from her octopus-like embrace, soothing the green-eyed monster that’s taken hold of me. Through narrowed eyes, he looks her up and down, the left side of his top lip curling in a sardonic smirk when his gaze comes to rest on her pursed lips. “It’s really none of your business, Nurse. You made your feelings quite clear earlier.”
I don’t what he’s alluding to but Belinda certainly does. Her white face pales further and she takes a large step away from him. “I was simply worried that you were giving her too much. I wasn’t questioning your authority or reneging on our agreement. I apologise if you felt I was.”
With a sharp incline of his head, Jax accepts her apology. He looks in the mirrored door of the small medicine cabinet that hangs on the wall, adjusts his tie and smooths down his hair.
“Belinda, I’m counting on you. If I was a betting man, my money would be on Charles having run straight to Xander. I imagine that’s who’s causing the ruckus in my waiting room.” The men he speaks of both ring bells in my head, yet I can’t pull free the reason why. The name Xander, especially, feels sacred. A sharp pang of longing tightens my chest and I almost give in to my urge to ask Jax who he’s talking about. Common sense—a sense of self-preservation, if you will—stops me at the last moment. Instead of demanding the answers I want, I watch in silence as Belinda promises Jax once more that she’ll keep me in his office until he returns.
The second the door latches shut behind him, I push to my feet. Taking a moment to breathe through the vertigo that threatens to topple me, I put my hands on my hips and face Belinda once the room is upright and stable. “Tell me what’s going on?”
I’m short. A little over five three, I think. The frosty looking blonde woman towers over me, even without the four inch heels she’s wearing. However, in the face of my request, she quavers and looks at the door Jax left through as if he’s going to come back and help her. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Shaking my head, I screw up my nose and regard her through hostile eyes. “Bullshit. I mightn’t have my memory, but I’m not stupid. Jax is hiding me from someone. What I can’t work out is if it’s for my own good or not?”
“It’s not my place to say.” She pauses, looking back at the door and then at me. Sympathy softens the harsh angles of her face, making her appear friendlier. “Actually, I will tell you one thing, Amber. It’s for your own good to do as Jax says. I could tell that he was scaring you before. That was nothing. Push him; and you’ll find out what true fear is. That man is an evil genius who wants you. And I, for one, am not getting in the way of that. I want to live to a ripe old age, if you catch my drift.”
My stomach sinks into my dainty ballet flats with her warning. I don’t know if she meant to be so forthcoming, but I’m equal parts thankful and terrified. Without saying it outright, Belinda has answered my questions. I am being hidden. And, it’s not for my own good. Resolve straightens my spine as her words sink in, and before I realise what I’m doing, I’m running at her. With my arm bent and my elbow out, I charge through her. The loud cry that echoes off the walls when she hits the floor should make me feel bad. It doesn’t. The crazy bitch just admitted that she’ll never help me.
I pull the door open, pausing for half a second as I try to decide which way I should head in the stark white hallway. Some sort of sixth sense screams at me to go left so I do. Feet sliding, my flats unable to find traction on the shiny surface, I round a sharp corner and run straight into Jax’s back. We hit with enough for to knock me to the floor and send him stumbling forward
“Amber!” A deep, gruff voice exclaims my name. “Sugar. Are you okay?”
My hip throbs from its impact with the floor and my heart is racing from my attempted escape, yet a sense of peace floods me when he calls me sugar. Lifting my head and brushing my hair out of my face, I look up into the face of a bear of a man. Familiar, kind, blue eyes and sandy-blonde hair that falls with unencumbered grace over his forehead and curls at the collar of his shirt triggers something in my head. Tiny fragments of memories start to fit together like a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. Mental images of the man in front of me on bended knee with tears running down his face as he holds out a diamond ring to me attack; followed by picture after picture of our life together.
A cozy bungalow that we call home.
The car with the chipped paint that we share.
Dilapidated buildings that make up the inner-city school we both work at.
Xander’s rugged face flushing with color as he reaches his release at the same time as me. Our cries of pleasure coming in unison, my nails leaving red trails down his wide back as I clutch at him, never wanting to be separated.
It all hits me at once. Who Jax is. What Jax has done to me—now and in the past. What I did with Jax this morning. Oh, my God, I let him use my body again. Bile rushes up my throat, choking me; my heartbeat thunders in my ears, and vicious shaking overtakes my entire body. I reach a hand out to the one man who’s always kept me safe. The man who helped me put myself back together after I escaped from the monsters who terrorised me from the day I was born until my seventeenth birthday.
My vision dims. The implications of where I am hit home hard and rob me of my faculties. Remembering the drugs that Jax has been injecting into me, my panic increases, as does my fear that he’ll find a way to stop me getting to the safe harbor that my true fiancé represents. My prayers are answered when he drops to his knees next to me, shrugging off Jax when he tries to stop him from touching me.
“Tell security to hurry up.” Jax orders. He sounds irate and slightly unhinged. “Then, call Malcolm St. George and tell him to get down here ASAP.”
“Xander,” my voice cracks when I say his name. “Thank God you’re here.”
“I never stopped looking, sugar,” he croons to me. With what is left of my sight, I try to drink in every detail of his face—just in case, he disappears once again. “Didn’t believe them for a second when they said you’d left me.”
“Never,” I vow. He leans down and kisses me on the lips. I breathe in his scent, more memories flooding me at the smell that has been a backdrop to my life for so long.
Jax appears over Xander’s shoulder, holding a heavy, ornate bookend with both hands. He lifts it over his head and it’s then that I realise what he’s about to do.
“XANDER!” I scream. I push against him, trying to get him out of the way, but I’m too late. The bookend makes a sickening sound as it collides with Xander’s skull. His heavy body falls over mine, trapping me under him, and silencing the agonising terror that tears at my throat.
“You’ve lost your bloody mind, Jaxon.” My Uncle Charlie scolds Jax. “I’m calling the police.”
I don’t know why my uncle is here but I’m grateful. My dad hates him, but I don’t. He was one o
f the two lights I had in my otherwise bleak childhood. My savior. The man who helped me escape the horror of my father and his crazy plan to join the St. George and Ray families in unholy matrimony.
“I wouldn’t do that.” Jax threatens. I crane my neck, trying to see what’s going on. I can’t because of Xander’s weight pinning me to the floor.
A gunshot rings out a second later, the bang reverberating around the waiting room with frightening clarity. A woman screams, then sounds of furniture overturning fills the room.
“Shut up.” Jax sounds coldly efficient.
The sound of a second shot bounces off the walls making my heart jump into my throat. It’s followed by silence. Pushing against Xander, I rock his large frame in an effort to rouse him. What if we’re next? Jax has obviously lost the thin veneer of normality he usually fakes if he’s shooting people in a public hospital. My hand encounters something warm and wet on Xander’s head. I pull it back and confirm my suspicions that it’s his blood.
He’s out cold and I’m trapped beneath him.
A third gunshot jolts me out of my stupor, filling me with increased urgency. I ramp up my efforts to get out from under Xander, the only thought in my head that I need to drag him around the corner and into the hallway until I can get some help. I’m halfway out from beneath him when I lay my hand on a shoe. Looking up, the trembling that’s been afflicting me since I ran from Jax’s office becomes impossible to control.
I’m staring the devil straight in the face.
Dark, emotionless, brown eyes that plagued every nightmare I had as a child regard me steadily. The wide mouth with generous lips that can bring me to heel with a simple smirk opens and the words I never wanted to hear again in my life spill forth.
Amnesia, a Psychological Thriller (Centrifuge Duet Book 1) Page 4
