by Jamie Canosa
“I didn’t. I swear. I didn’t. Please.”
“You’re lying.” Stryker’s eyes narrowed on me and I shook my head violently.
“I’m not. I swear. I’m not. I was going to bring you the package, but when I got there the cops were already there. I just wanted to do what DJ told me to and get it over with. I swear. That’s all I did. I swear.” Tears were scalding paths down both cheeks, blinding me.
He considered that for a long moment and not even DJ was stupid enough to disrupt his silence. Then his shoulders squared and his frown deepened. “I don’t think I believe you. You want to know the penalty for lying to me?”
His arm swung wide. Mom barely registering what was happening before the gun was once again trained on her. His trigger finger clenched. And I moved.
They say that your life flashes before your eyes. It’s not true. It wasn’t my ugly past that I saw. A series of bad memories I might have been okay with ending. No, death isn’t that kind. It was my future I saw. Filled with light and love and happiness. Family and friends. Peace and joy. A future I would never get the chance to experience.
My feet left the floor, diving toward my mother, before a blast so loud it felt like the sound alone could cause my brain to explode. And suddenly I was flying in a completely different direction.
Pain—overwhelming and absolute—radiated from my chest as my back slammed against the floor. I blinked up at the ceiling trying to figure out what had happened. There were voices. Someone was screaming. And footsteps.
I was cold. I was so, so cold. And yet liquid heat pooled all around me.
My vision was clouded and my eyes felt like they were moving through syrup, but I forced them sideways. Mom was crouching on the couch, hands clamped over her mouth as she screamed and screamed and screamed. I could see her doing it, but it was becoming harder and harder to hear.
I wanted her.
I needed her.
Now more than ever.
My fingers slowly uncurled as I reached for her. She saw my hand straining in her direction. She looked right at it. Right at me. With disgust and revulsion.
She wasn’t going to reach out and take my hand. She wasn’t going to hold me. Comfort me. Tell me the things I needed to hear. And I was too tired to keep trying.
My hand dropped to the floor with a dull thud and I focused on my erratic breathing. It was fast and shallow, but it didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt anymore.
Michael was gone. For who knows how long. He’d left her. And still she hadn’t called me. She hadn’t chosen me over him. She hadn’t chosen me over the alcohol. She hadn’t chosen me at all.
Closing my eyes, I surrendered to the cold and the dark and the loneliness. Because I didn’t want it to hurt anymore.
Twenty Six
*Caulder*
I gripped the wheel tighter and used the sleeve of my shirt to rub away some of the fog from the windshield. It didn’t help. It was damn near impossible to see through the wintry storm mixing it up out there. Maybe Jade was right. Maybe I should have rescheduled my appointment. But I didn’t regret meeting with my advisor. The news was even better than I’d dared to hope. My undergrad requirements were filling up nicely and if I committed myself to working hard through a twenty-one credit semester, I’d be graduating by the end of the year.
Pulling as close to the house as I could get, I threw it in park and scanned the driveway. Not even the near white-out conditions could hide the fact that Jade’s car was gone. Where could she have gone in this weather? She’d wanted to go looking for another job, but most businesses had battened down the hatches and closed up shop already.
That only left one option. An option that raised every last red flag I had and sent me stumbling through the sleet and snow, hoping to find her safe inside with some—any—other rational explanation.
“Jade!” I burst through the front door, shutting out the howling wind behind me and strode down the hall toward the media room, not bothering to remove my coat or boots. I had a feeling I’d still be needing them. “Jade?”
Mom was going to be pissed about the footprints on the stairs, but she’d get over it. I needed to be sure she wasn’t asleep. Pushing open the guestroom door, I took in the empty bed and felt my gut tighten.
“Dammit, Jade.” Taking the stairs two at a time, I hustled back out to my car. “What the hell were you thinking?”
I’d tried to talk her into calling the police about DJ’s threat, but she’d outright refused. Not that I couldn’t see her point. Her role in the whole situation wasn’t exactly squeaky clean. But, nevertheless, Stryker still posed a danger to her. She knew that. So then, why wasn’t I surprised to see a midnight blue Bentley parked outside her building when I slid across the icy lot?
“Son of a—” A loud bang rattled the railing beneath my hand as I hurtled up the stairs. “Jade!”
There was shouting. Screaming. Her apartment door stood open.
“Jade!” Every muscle in my legs screamed for relief as I flew faster than I’d ever moved in my life down that hall.
Two large bodies exploded into the corridor, racing past me in the opposite direction. One of them was DJ. My fingers itched to grab ahold of that two-timing, low-life bastard and throw him down the stairs head-first. Beat the shit out of him until I was certain he’d never draw enough breath again to utter another lie about the girl I loved. But the screaming continued to batter my eardrums.
And it wasn’t Jade.
“Jade?” I grabbed the doorframe, swinging myself around to a stop on the threshold.
What I saw from there stabbed like a white-hot cattle prod, branding the image on my heart and mind.
“No.” Jade lay sprawled on the living room floor in a pool of her own blood. “No, no, no, no.” For one moment that stretched into eternity, my mind refused to process the image. “No!”
Flinging myself across the room, I dropped down beside her, feeling the warmth of her blood soak through the knees of my jeans. The hole in her chest continued to pump out the vital fluid. Her mother’s screams were drowned out by the rushing of my own blood in my ears.
“Jade. Angel.” Tearing off my winter coat, I stripped off my flannel and balled it, pressing the fabric hard to her wound. “Hang on. You hear me? I’m right here. You’re gonna be okay. Just hang on, Angel.”
Grabbing my cell, I threw it toward the couch and watched it bounce once before falling to the floor, where Jade’s mother continued to stare at it. “Call an ambulance! Now!”
What was wrong with that woman? How could she sit there while her daughter bled out on the floor?
Slowly she reached down and scooped up the phone. If I hadn’t been busy trying to control the bleeding with both hands, I would have slapped her. “Hurry up!”
She dialed 9-1-1 and I tended to Jade, talking to her constantly just so she’d know I was there, while I listened to her mother explain what the hell had happened.
“He . . . he was going to sh-shoot me. And she . . . she jumped in front of . . . She’s bleeding. A lot. You have to hurry.”
I don’t know if she hung up after that or not. The phone fumbled from her fingers and she sat hunkered in the corner, watching her daughter with wide, frightened eyes.
“It’s okay, Angel.” Bile crept up the back of my throat and I choked it down along with my tears. If she could hear me, she’d already be frightened enough. She didn’t need me adding to that fear. “You just hang in there. You’re going to be okay. I promise. I’m here, Angel. I’m right here. You’re gonna be alright.”
Where was that goddamn ambulance? She was hemorrhaging blood. It drenched my shirt and seeped through my fingers. Too much blood. My arms ached to hold her. Cradle her. Rock her. Touch her face. Kiss her lips. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t move an inch. I was putting every last ounce of pressure I could exert on that wound, trying my best to hold her life inside of her. Not let it pour out onto that dingy floor in that awful place. And still it wasn’t working.
/> “Please, baby, please. Just hold on. The ambulance is coming. They’re coming. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.”
The color was draining from her face. The rapid pulse I’d seen fluttering in her neck when I arrived had grown weak and was no longer visible. It was only the slight staggering rise and fall of her chest that assured me she lived.
Time stretched into eternity. Each agonizing second extending into millennia. I continued to utter a million variations of the same reassurances over and over again, no longer certain who it was I sought to convince.
Marilyn sat unmoving on the couch, eyes glued to the darkening window. Snow was beginning to pile up on the sill, a pale glow illuminating the edges from a streetlight outside. She made no move to touch her daughter. Speak to her. She couldn’t even look at her. I’d hated that woman from the very first time I saw her, but never more than right that moment.
I wanted to open my mouth and pour out all of the venom filling up my soul. I wanted to unleash my impotent fury on her. Make her feel the way she made Jade feel. Make her take responsibility for the situation. For her daughter’s condition. Make her give a damn.
Jade needed her. She had to know that. And, if she didn’t, she damn well should have. Jade was fading fast. She needed something to hang on to. A reason to keep fighting. And as much as I wished it were so, I wasn’t sure I was a good enough reason.
But nothing I said would make a difference. Nothing would change who Marilyn was. A heartless, bitter woman. My attention was better reserved for what mattered. The only thing that mattered. My Angel.
“You’re gonna be alright. Everything’s gonna be alright. You still have so much ahead of you. Ahead of us. It’s going to be okay. Just hang on, Angel. Just a little longer. My beautiful Angel. Don’t let go. Don’t you let go.”
My arms were beginning to cramp when the wail of sirens pierced the snowy night. Flashing lights pulsed across the ceiling. I heard them come through the front door of the building. Radios squawking, people shouting, the bang of the gurney being lifted up the stairs. Bending over Jade’s cold body, I shut my eyes and silently begged them to hurry. To come running through that door with their magical hands and heal her.
The noises grew louder. Closer. Doors opening. More voices as neighbors came out to investigate. Police and paramedics—men and women in uniform—stormed through the door, filling the room, surveying the damage.
And beneath my palms, I felt Jade’s chest deflate and still.
Twenty Seven
*Caulder*
I vaguely recognized the haze that engulfed me throughout the ambulance ride, the emergency room, the police questions, the doctors, nurses, tests, and machines as shock. Mom arrived somewhere in the mess of all of that activity, though I couldn’t remember calling her. I wondered if I had or if someone from the hospital had recognized me and done it. Either way, I was glad to see her when she had a quiet word with someone and Jade was moved to a private room.
Through the fog, a few key pieces of information had burrowed their way into my brain. Jade had lost a lot of blood. Too much. She needed to stabilize before they could risk surgery. And without eyes on the inside, there was no way to tell what kind of damage had been done. She wasn’t breathing on her own. Her vitals were all over the place, spiking one moment and then plummeting the next. I may not have been in medical school yet, but even I knew how bad that was.
My hands felt numb, hanging limply by my sides as I waited at the entrance to the critical care unit for Mom to get the go-ahead for us to see her.
“This ward is generally restricted to family only.” Mom’s hair was a frazzled mess. Her pale face looked drawn and tense. She was wearing two different shoes. Whatever she’d been doing when she’d been notified, she hadn’t wasted a moment in getting here. “But I know the doctor on duty. They’re willing to look the other way so long as it doesn’t cause problems.”
“So, I . . .” Shaking my head, I hoped to sharpen my focus. I needed to be here for Jade. Not a million miles away. “I can see her?”
“Cal . . .” Mom fortified herself to tell me what I already knew. That Jade was in trouble. That it was bad. That there was nothing I could do. But she didn’t say any of those things. Letting her shoulders slump, she simply nodded and pointed to a closed door near the end of the hall.
There weren’t words for this moment. We both knew that far too well. So I didn’t offer her any, either.
Sweat pooled in my palms as I neared Jade’s room, despite the fact that the rest of me felt cold as ice. The door had no window, so I had no way to prepare myself for the sight I was slapped with when I stepped inside.
Recoiling, I slammed the door harder than I’d meant to and choked on my next breath. Christ, she looked so small. A tiny little body, outlined by crisp white sheets. Her face was so pale it nearly matched the pillow, standing in stark contrast to the dark hair spilling all around it. Even her lips, stretched around the goddamn tube shoved down her throat, were nearly white. I didn’t want to look, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.
The wires running from beneath her gown to a machine proved her heart still beat, but she looked like a ghost. The little green line on the monitor rose and fell at a terrifyingly rapid pace.
“Jade?” My voice sounded rusty as though it hadn’t been used in years. And that’s what the past few hours had felt like. Forcing myself to move closer, I saw a large swath of bandage plastered to her shoulder and rounded the bed to reach for her other hand, fighting my way between the IVs and wires that tangled around her. It felt cold and clammy in mine. And small. So small. “I'm here, Angel. I'm right here with you. Everything’s going to be alright. You're going to be alright. You have to. You have to, Angel.”
A lead weight settled on my shoulders, forcing me down into the chair beside her bed. Seeing her that way made me sick to my soul. There had been machines and wires in Kiernan’s room, but right up until the end he’d been him. The kid I knew and loved. Awake. Alert. Alive.
This? This wasn’t Jade. This was some poor shell cast in her image. Empty packaging sustained my machinery. Reaching through the railing, I ran my fingers over her cheek, careful to avoid the swollen bruise there.
“Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you call me? I would have gone with you. I would have taken care of it. I would have protected you.” My hands shook. My arms. My legs. My lips. My entire body trembled. “But I didn't. I wasn't there. You needed me and I wasn't there. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Angel. Please. You have to give me another chance. Please. Just hold on. Just give me another chance to make it up to you.”
My eyes burned like someone had shoved a lit match in them, my throat ached, and my teeth were beginning to chatter. Scrubbing my face with one hand because I refused to let go of her with my other, I fought for control. I wasn’t giving up. I wasn’t going to cry.
“I love you.” The bed railing rattled as I used it to lift myself and lean over to kiss her cold, dry forehead. Why not? It worked in fairytales. But my life wasn't a fairytale. It was a goddamn horror story.
I’d begged and pleaded, prayed and bargained. I’d done it all for Kiernan and nothing had worked. There was nothing left for me to do. Machines breathed for her. Her heart struggled frantically to keep beating. But she was so weak. So delicate and frail. She couldn’t withstand that kind of abuse for long.
Sometimes I hated studying medicine. I hated the knowledge it afforded me. The rational conclusions it drew me to. The disillusion of hope. The crippling awareness. The razor sharp truth that clawed its way inside and left my heart nothing more than tattered shreds.
For the second time in my life, I prayed for death. Not to take her place—though I would have in a heartbeat—but it wouldn’t have worked. Death didn’t make deals. I prayed to go with her because I couldn’t bear to be left behind again. I wouldn’t survive it.
Not on my own. Not without her. I wouldn’t want to.
“Don’t leave me here. Please, A
ngel. Don’t leave me here.”
I squeezed her hand, pleading with her to give me some sign that she was still there. That she could hear me. That she would fight for me. Stay with me. A single ounce of hope.
I got nothing.
Breath sawed in and out of my lungs as rage set my blood on fire. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. Not. Again.
“You can't have her! I won't let you, you son of a bitch. You've already taken too much from me." I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. Rage without even knowing who it was I was raging at. God? Death? The universe? Whoever was listening. But I wouldn't risk disturbing my sleeping Angel. I wouldn't risk being removed from her room, leaving her there alone. My throat burned with the pressure of withholding. My voice escaping as a raw, coarse hiss. "My brother. My father. My family. My home. I lost it all. But not her. Not. Her. You took away my past, but she's my future. You can't take that away from me. I'm nothing without her. Noth—" My voice cracked and I gave up the battle. Surrendering to my grief and fear, I buried my face in her arm,
And I cried.
***
“Cal?”
I didn’t know how long I’d laid there or when exactly I’d fallen asleep, but my neck was sore and my eyes were puffy when I woke to find Mom standing in the doorway.
“Why don't we go for a walk? Get some fresh air?”
“I'm not leaving her.” My grasp tightened around Jade’s slender fingers.
“Just for a little while.”
I scanned the room. Her face, her body, the tubes, and wires, and machines, but everything looked the same. No change. “No, Mom. I'm not gonna leave her here alone.”
“She won't be alone. There's someone who wants to see her.”
“Who?” Who thought they were going to take my place at her side?
Mom stepped aside and Jade's sorry excuse for a mother filled the doorway.
“No. No way!” I found myself standing without any memory of how I got there. “I'm not leaving Jade with her.”
