“Can I help you?!” I ask.
“I don’t know, can you?”
“What? What the fuck does that mean? Do I know you or something?”
He sets his glass down. “Not exactly. But I know you. I work for Shayne McAllister.”
The mere mention of the name has me grabbing my drink and getting up to leave.
“You don’t have a clue of what you’ve done, do you?” he asks, shaking his head and swirling the liquid around in his glass.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Ava.”
The somber ass way he says her name has a sickness crawling into my gut, and I sit back down. “What about her?”
He takes a long sip and sighs. “You changed him, you know. After what you did to him. And not just his face, but him. He’s always been cruel, and I sort of accepted that side of him because of how he grew up, but…now…” He shakes his head, staring into his drink. “Now, he’s done lost it.”
“And that’s my problem, how?”
He looks over, glaring. “Who do you think’s been paying for what you did to him?”
I stare back at him, a slow realization curdling my blood. I turn away and gulp down the Jack. “I tried to get her out. She wouldn’t have it.”
“Yeah, well, she probably figured Shayne would’ve come after you. And he would’ve, without a doubt. He’s obsessed with her. Flat out mad in the head about her. Has been, ever since we were kids. And it wouldn’t have been just you. He’d have gone after your family, your career. Anything you care about, he would’ve found a way to hurt. And he wouldn’t have stopped until you were ruined, or dead.” He pauses to rub at his forehead, then looks my way but I can’t face him. He turns back to his drink. “Surprised he didn’t do it anyway, after what you did to him, in front of the whole town. She must’ve given him something big to keep him off you.”
A strange ringing sounds in my ears, listening to him go on.
“He already sold her place off, so whatever it is, she—”
“Wait, her place is gone?”
He nods. “Sold it not long after they got married.” He downs his glass and motions to Buck for another. “I don’t know what went on between you two, but knowing Ava, she probably did what she did to keep you safe. She was always like that. Always looking out for others, no matter the cost to herself.”
I don’t want to hear the words. I can’t. So I spit out whatever I can come up with to justify my actions. “She married him for fuck’s sake. What do you—”
“You think she had a fucking choice? You think she wants to be married to him? Jesus, you movie stars aren’t too bright, are you?”
I hunker over my drink, wishing his words would just fade away, but they don’t. They just keep going.
“If she had refused, or if she ever left him, he’d destroy anything and everything she cares about.” He pauses. “He’s ruthless that way. Knows how to trap you, get you to do things you don’t want to do.”
By the hurt that settles into his voice, I know he’s not just talking about Ava anymore.
Buck makes his way over, fills up his glass, makes me another, and walks off. I stare at mine while the man next to me downs his entire drink then stares randomly into space. “He’s got her locked up in his house. She’s been there ever since that day. They both have. And I don’t know what he does to her, especially at night, but—I hear the screams. I hear them all the way into the barn we sleep in.”
I start to shake, unable to even speak.
He continues, his voice distant. “I work with some mean fuckers, but even they have to cover their heads with a pillow, sometimes. Whatever debt she had, she paid it off a long time ago. Hell, she paid her debt, and then some, when he—” He stops short.
“He what?”
He stares at his empty glass, looking about as sorry as a soul can.
“He what?” I press again.
He sets the glass down and closes his eyes. “He…branded her, like she was cattle. Did it the day he married her.”
I don’t think I heard right. I couldn’t have heard right. “What?”
The man doesn’t need to repeat the words. His face says it all.
I rest my hands flat on the bar, on either side of my drink, my breath shallow, my pulse erratic. In my mind, I’m destroying everything around me. The chairs, the tables, the world. I hear his voice in the distance. “I thought about going to the Sheriff, but he won’t do nothing, because he’s on Shayne’s payroll, and I got a feeling Shayne’s got something over him too. And Ava would be too scared to press charges or leave anyway. She knows if he went to jail, he’d get out at some point, and there’d be no place she could hide where he wouldn’t find her, eventually. And something like a restraining order wouldn’t mean shit to him. And I’ve thought about trying to get her out myself, but even if I could figure out a way to hide her and keep her safe, she wouldn’t trust me to help her anyway. I’d only—”
“Why? Why wouldn’t she trust you?”
His chin drops to his chest and I know shame when I see it. “Like I said, Shayne has a way of making you do things. Things you don’t want to do.”
I’m off the stool and on him in a second. I have him pinned up against the wall, my forearm against his throat. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
His eyes are closed. He’s not fighting me. Not doing anything but hanging limp by my arm, when I see a tear break through his lashes and slide down his cheek. Then another and another. “I love her,” he mutters. “I’ve always loved her. And I hurt her. I hurt her so bad.”
I barely feel the contact of my fists against his face, his stomach, anywhere and everywhere I can make the man hurt. I have no sympathy, no compassion for the tears that fall. Nor do I care that he’s not fighting back. Just standing there, like a punching bag, letting me wail on him.
Large hands pull me back and I hear Buck’s voice. “Enough, Gavin. He’s had enough.”
I step back and shake Buck’s hands off me as the man staggers into a nearby chair, coughing and clutching his stomach. I stare at him, my body still pulsing with a frenzy to kill.
“I deserved that, and more,” he says, wiping at the blood on his face. “Much more.”
I sway on my feet, and collapse into a chair across from him, ignoring the other eyes that drift our way.
His weary eyes meet mine. “I’ll help you get her out. I don’t think she’ll last much longer. Hell, I don’t think either of them will. Not with the way he’s going. But you got to be ready for this. You gotta protect what you care about, and you gotta figure out all that he’s got on her. Cause you’re gonna be poking a stick in a hornet’s nest, and he’ll know it was you. He’s crazy in the head, but he’s smart, and he crossed the line some time ago on caring whether something’s right or wrong. Don’t underestimate him when it comes to Ava.”
Buck walks over and places a drink in front of each us. “On the house,” he says, then tosses a towel on the table, and heads back to the bar.
I rub at my temples and look at the man—at the boy really, watching him as he grabs the towel and wipes at his face, a lost look in his brown eyes. It’s a look I once had. It’s a look I have again, since losing Ava.
“What about you?” I ask. “Won’t he know I had help?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, tossing the bloody towel on the table and falling back in his chair. “Shayne’s been my best friend my whole life, but I’ve always been afraid of him. And not just because he’s bigger than me, and stronger than me, but because he knows how to hurt. Something he got from his daddy. And I’ve never been able to stand up to him. Not once. Always calls me a coward when I don’t do something he tells me, knowing I can’t stand it. And maybe I am a coward. That’s what my momma always calls my daddy. Never met the guy so have to take her word for it. But I’m not going to be that anymore. Not anymore. Not after what Ava’s suffered. I’ll do anything for her, no matter the cost. Won’t make up f
or what I’ve done—and I’ve done my share—but life ain’t worth living if I don’t make this right.”
His words hold the hurt of a boy becoming a man. I watch as he leans forward and grabs his drink and downs it, then sets the glass back on the table. I look at my own drink, but don’t feel so thirsty anymore.
“So how do I figure out what he’s got on her?” I ask.
“Well…her ranch is gone. What’s left that she cares about?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ava
I lie curled up in the corner of my closet, my eyes swollen shut from crying, my body exhausted from sobbing. I haven’t eaten. I’ve barely moved. My hand hurts, but the pain brings me solace. Something he’s trained in me. I’m also naked. That brings me solace too. Something else he’s trained in me. But the solace is wasted. Because all I feel is terror. Pure terror, ripping apart my mind.
Please don’t let him die.
Please don’t let him die.
Please don’t let him die.
I chant the words over and over. I’ve been chanting them since Shayne left. All because I wasn’t strong enough. Wasn’t strong enough to keep my word. Wasn’t strong enough to pull the trigger.
Then there’s the beast, and all he revealed. All his dark secrets that flayed me open, forcing a new kind of torture on me, more painful than anything in The Cage.
I don’t sleep, I drift. In and out. In and out. Between green eyes and black eyes, between a turquoise pool and a dingy basement, between a dark forest and a grey cell, between guilt and madness. Guilt over the destruction my choices have caused, and madness over not being able to regret any of it.
I have no idea how long it’s been. Just an eternity. An eternity of horrors so painful, I think I’ll just wither up and die. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of that razor. But if I haven’t doomed Gavin already, then that certainly would. And then there are three gentle souls and a cranky old man. I seek them all out, holding them tight against my chest while I wail in the darkness.
But they’re not all I cry for. I cry for the beast too. Because I’m bound to him now, in so many ways. In ways I can’t understand. Ways I’m not meant to understand. Because it’s too dark. Buried too deep within the shadows.
Like me.
All around me it’s black. So black I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to find my way back. I’m not sure I want to find my way back. That’s a devastating thought, knowing I’m drifting to that edge, knowing I’m flirting with that dark void that whispers to me from the other side. Taunting me with numbness. Calling to me with emptiness.
And then a voice drifts into my head. Not my voice though, her voice. Helen’s voice. ‘You can kick and scream and cry when no one’s looking. But don’t you ever give up, Ava. Never give up.’
Her words hit me like a jolt of lightening and I scream. I scream so loud because it hurts. It hurts so much. It hurts when I pound on the floor. It hurts when I kick at the walls. It hurts when I sob so hard I think I’ll break in two. It all hurts. Everything hurts. It hurts because I want to give up. It hurts because I can’t give up.
I can’t.
I can’t.
I won’t!
I lie flat on my back now, panting, staring up into darkness while the tears carve a canyon down my face. It feels like I’m falling. Falling down some bottomless pit. All I’m missing is the wind at my back.
I keep falling, like I’m falling through time, memories of my life slipping by me. Memories of orange poppies and mustard fields. Of precious horses and kind neighbors. Of my mom leaving. Of my dad dying. Of green eyes. Of a pool on the edge of the world. Of black eyes. Of a glass room with books and wild roses. I pass them all in a blur until I land with a thud in a basement. And then I’m there again, holding a gun in my hand, mine and Gavin’s freedom just a click away. I can see it now, see myself huddled on that stained mattress, the pistol shaking in my hand. I see his bared chest. See the carved up tattoo over his heart, with my name in broken script. See the roses and thorns and barbed wire all around it. I see the damaged face and the snarling lip. See the black hair and the black eyes. Eyes filled with pain—so much pain—and rimmed red from crying. Crying over me. See myself pulling the trigger. See the blood spreading out. See Shayne falling. See myself falling too. Because he’s part of me now. Just like I’m part of him.
And I know.
I couldn’t have done it.
But then I see Gavin. My beautiful Gavin. I see him falling. Falling because I couldn’t pull the trigger. Then the pain explodes, choking me to the point I can’t breathe.
I roll onto my side and clutch at my stomach, crying so hard and breathing so fast that I pass out.
When I come back around, I’m in a daze, staring into nothing. It’s quiet, except for the heartbeat echoing in my chest, slow and weak. My mind begins to wander, trying to search for a way out of this, not willing or able to give up. I begin falling through time again, only this time slower, and another memory drifts into my mind, of that moment when everything changed.
I’m back in my house, watching Shayne walk through the door. I see his dark eyes shift from me to Gavin, then back to me. And then I see it—the hurt I didn’t see before. I hear it too, in the groan he makes, before launching himself at Gavin. And I know now. I know Shayne was telling the truth. He would’ve taken care of me, in his own way. It still would’ve been brutal, but I would’ve survived him. Just like I survived Gavin. It’s not the same, I know. But while my night with Gavin was tender in some ways, it was still brutal in other ways. He left his own marks. He had his own beast inside him, making him need things, want things. And who knows, maybe I do too. Maybe this is how life has shaped me as well. I didn’t have to go running out into the night, knowing I was feeding the beast inside Gavin. Maybe I wouldn’t have known what to do with someone gentle, someone kind. That in itself is a terrifying thought. So I guess if I think about it, it came down to choice. I wanted the right to choose. And Shayne had taken that from me when I was at my most vulnerable.
And while some might think that’s a choice I could’ve made—turning away Shayne’s offer—it wasn’t. It was never a choice. Just like I couldn’t hate my father for all his faults, so too I couldn’t let him go homeless when he got sick, no matter the price. The same way I couldn’t stand by and let a dark eyed boy throw rocks at a cat, no matter the consequences. For a cat, like he said, who would’ve bitten me if I’d tried to pet it. Because that didn’t matter to me. I knew the cat could only be what life had made him to be. A beast. And when you know what makes a beast the way they are, you know they’re just trying to survive, any way they can. Some try to fight their way through, like Gavin. Others give up, like my father. And then there are those who get lost, like Shayne.
Shayne, the boy who grew up in a basement. The boy who loved me. The boy I betrayed. The boy who was there for me, at a time when my world was giving way. He never questioned a bill I sent him, never questioned money I asked for, never touched me until my father was gone. They’re painful truths I’ve chosen to look past, because all I could ever see was a beast. A beast who frightened me. A beast who tormented me. A beast who did horrible things, to so many people. And while the beast is still there, maybe doing something horrible now, I see the man inside too. Because I know. I know what made the beast. And it changes things. It changes everything.
I feel myself falling again, when another memory appears, of Shayne in the kitchen, when I’d walked in to find him standing at the big window, hands in his pockets, staring out at the mountains.
By the way his head moves ever so slightly, I know he’s aware of me. He stands there, his hair down today. My eyes linger on it, on the way it hides his face, but I look away as soon as he talks.
“You’ll make a grocery list,” he says, still staring out the window. “I’m sure you did all the cooking back home, so assume you know how to cook. If you need a cookbook, you’ll find a few in one of these cabinets. You can ma
ke what you want, but no fish and I’m allergic to peanuts. Not deathly allergic, so don’t get any ideas. All it’ll do is scratch up my throat a bit and make me uglier than I already am.”
He sounds more man than beast again, and I feel that strange feeling running through me, stronger than ever. It’s a feeling that makes me hurt, a feeling that has me wanting to go to him. To comfort him, like one might want to comfort a wounded wolf, even though you know he’d just as soon kill you as let you help him.
And then I know.
I know how to make things right.
I just hope it’s not too late.
For Gavin’s sake, and for Shayne’s.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ava
I wait, curled up on my side in the middle of the room, not because he’s at the door, but because I know I won’t have the strength to get here in time once I hear the lock turn. But I’m ready. As ready as I’ll ever be. I used up the last of my energy to shower and shave, then had a piece of bread, drank a little water, and wrapped my hand up tight. Now I just wait. I wait for Shayne. All the while, chanting in my head…
Please let him be alive.
Please let him be alive.
Please let him be alive.
I drift off twice before I hear the click of the lock. In an instant, I’m on my hands and knees, trembling, not over fear of what he’ll do, but over what he may have already done.
He comes in quietly and I peer through my hair to see the familiar dark figure, the same black clothes, the hair tied back. By the time he’s standing in front of me, barefoot like always, my eyes are already down.
It’s like nothing has changed.
Like it’s just another session.
But so much has changed.
Everything has changed.
Shayne crouches near my head and gives a couple gentle tugs on my hair. “Miss me?” he asks.
Tragic Beauty Page 22
