The days that follow, I don’t fight the night or sleep, I fight my brain…fight my heart with the familiarity that Reed himself gave me… that very same calmness more than not. Those are the times I hide how hard it is to stay here and not go running back to the only thing I ever wanted. Because what I want isn’t what I believe in anymore. And that is what’s important now.
Whether I wake up gasping for air or have a calmness spread through me, it doesn’t matter because the moment I’m pulled from my dream, a blood-cuddling scream rips its way out of my throat before I can stop it, and tears come rushing down my face. James couldn’t ignore the screams and it always sent him in my room. Each night I had them, he would come to my bedside, pull a chair next to me, and just sleep there. I needed the reminder he’d whisper in the darkness, that everything I went through was over, that Bennett and Krystal weren’t threats to me anymore. I needed his presence for the safety. I needed someone to see that I was alive.
The lines between James and I were never tangled. We both never even thought about crossing them. But I had one particular bad night terror when Liz visited, and she woke up to find her boyfriend in the bedroom of another woman—me. It caused them to have the fight of all fights. Liz left pissed before either of us could explain what really happened. After that, I knew something had to be done. They didn’t need to fight over me—no one did, and even now, it’s still constant tension between them.
And I hate that I caused that, it disgusts me.
The very next day I found a doctor in the practice, told him about the nightmares, and he prescribed me something. The nightmares still come occasionally, and maybe they always will, but I can feel the glimmer of hope each morning, knowing I didn’t let this kill me like I wanted it to at the beginning. Because the dreams may feel real, they may be a mirror of what I’d experienced, but I survived. And that is something to remember.
One wake-up at a time.
“Hads, get up,” James yells.
My whole body is being shaken awake, and I know it’s too early because my room is still pitch black. “Geez, I’m up,” I say, rubbing my eyes.
He spares a glance at the clock. “I know it’s early—or late, whichever way you look at it—but you need to get moving. I already packed you a bag.” His jaw is set as he speaks.
I yawn and pull my hair into a messy ponytail. “What happened?” My voice comes out groggy from my lack of sleep.
“I got a call from Roberto about a patient of his. I’ll explain more in the car, but get up and get dressed.” He drops clothes in my lap and slips out of my room before speaking another word to me.
We step through the condo doors. The night air brings a cool chill to my body. I turn to the parking dock when James grabs my elbow, pulling me to an SUV where a huge man in a suit is waiting for us. He yanks my bag from my hands, opens the back, and drops it in the trunk. His pant leg slips up and something shiny catches my attention. My eyes must be playing tricks on me because it’s a gun, a gun on his fucking ankle. James notices me gawking and his hold on my elbow grows stronger.
“Don’t.” He ushers us in and slams the door closed before I have a chance to blink.
“You going to tell me what’s going on now?”
“A friend of a friend needs us.” James’s reply is rushed. His tone causes me to halt speaking further to him, and the questions spin around in my head. He ignores me completely, pulling out his phone and feverishly typing out a message.
The driver gets in and the shock of his slamming door shakes the whole car. Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and he narrows his at me, glaring a warning of some kind. I’m terrified to find out what that warning could mean. But before I can jump out of the car the driver puts the car in drive and guns the gas. The force slams my body into the hard seat.
I cross my arms, uncross them, only to fold them yet again. My gaze darts around the car and I look for any sign of what could be happening. Two hours pass and my stomach churns after being boxed in without any real reason or information on what or why we’ve driven off into the darkness. Our deafening silence is broken by the sound of a gate opening, leading us to a private drive. I peer out the window as we pull up to the house, but the only thing that can be seen are guards strapped with guns, covering every foot of the outside. My mind races with worst-case scenarios and my chest tightens the more time we wait to get out.
The door flings open and James grabs his bag and hastily steps out. He’s already halfway toward the house when he notices I’m not with him. The light at the front of the house illuminates and shines on James, his face red and flushed as he snaps at me. “Any day now, Hads.”
James handles stress better than anyone I have ever known, and if this has him twisted…
This is big.
I shake out of my headspace, dash behind him, and keep my eyes set on the back of James’s head, avoiding all the looks from the men surrounding us as we move closer to the house with each step. We enter through a large set of wooden doors and another man at the doorway escorts us into a room off to the side. My foot isn’t an inch in when I slip on something and almost fall to the ground. I look down and see a man lying on the floor, a mask pulled up just enough to detect the outline of his lips. He’s soaked in a pool of his own blood, while people rush in and out and bypass him, some even stepping in the blood and tracking it on the light tile. Yet everyone continues to ignore him. Everyone acts like this person means nothing.
Who does that?
I bend down to check his pulse, knowing that with the amount of blood on the floor, he’s probably dead. Yet I need the confirmation to move on. My fingers suspend over his neck, inches from where his pulse would be, however before I can check, a rough hand grabs my wrist and another hand on my elbow hoists me up. My breath catches as I stare at the man who drove us here. Every inch of my body screams to run away from him, run from this house, but his eyes bore into me. He knew what I was thinking in the car. He knows what I’m thinking now.
He knows I want to run, race away as fast as I can to the safety of the condo. Away from all this.
With a slight shake of his head and a raise of his eyebrow, it’s like he’s daring me to do it, silently warning me that at the moment I make my move, he’ll be ready to strike me, too. I open my mouth only to close it just as fast when he grips my arm harder, he’s locked on every movement I make.
“You are not here for him.” His words bite out with just as much demand as his tough body language.
A woman’s cries reverberate through the room, breaking our stare down. I swing my gaze toward the sound and it lands right on her and the deep, red rag she presses into a man’s stomach as he slumps over the couch. Her screams and cries rise higher and higher, louder and louder…scarier and scarier.
“Help him. That’s who you’re here for.”
He jerks me over. His hold doesn’t lessen till I’m right at James’s back. He drops his grip on me, moves to the fireplace, and crosses his arms over his chest.
Two men stand to the left of James talking in Spanish. It’s too fast for me to understand, and when James says something, it’s too low for me to make it out. After a few words, James opens his bag and hands them his hospital ID card. He turns back to get gloves for himself, then he hands me a pair.
Two hours later, James pulls the last stitch through the skin and wipes his sweat off his brow, stress and tension surrounding him still. I recheck the IV bag, and the heart monitor that seemed to magically appear. An older woman dressed in a maid’s uniform cleans the blood-drenched materials around us.
An enormous man with wrinkles covering his face, and in a top-to-bottom black suit, comes over to us. His voice booms with authority. “I know you are American and may not know, but what you just did stays between us and only us.” His accent is barely there as he threatens us.
I glance down at the older man who’s passed out from the pain meds. I have no clue who he really is, but I know this is bigger than anything I�
�ve ever done.
“I won’t be saying anything at all. Roberto already informed me of the importance of this. Hadley, too. We do need to stay and check on him for a couple of days to make sure no infections or complications happen. It will be slow, but he should make a good recovery. He’s lucky though—usually those exploding bullets hit more than one major organ.” James’s answer is all business, none of the passion he usually has when he saves someone’s life.
“If he was lucky, he wouldn’t have gotten shot to begin with. We have a guesthouse in the back of the property. It will give you privacy, but you will still be close. Gus will show you to it. If anything happens now, I will come get you.” He dismisses us as the driver, Gus, stands behind him and nods for us to follow him.
I look to the ground where, just hours ago, a body lay with blood seeping onto the floor. And now it looks like none of it ever happened, like it was just my imagination.
As soon as the door closes in the small house behind me, I have to have my answers. “James, who was that?”
“You didn’t recognize him?” Shock shows in his wide eyes and creased brow.
“Nope, not a clue. And why is it such a secret, and how did they already have all that equipment? I mean, who has a portable ultrasound machine? And don’t get me started on the drugs they had on hand.”
“That’s what happens when you are a former president.”
“Former?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
The thought of violence never crossed my mind after the first initial couple of days I stayed, because we were always safe. Even at the hospital, nothing major happens like in the ER at home. James mostly does minor surgeries from accidents, and only a small amount of them are from violence. But here this is, anything but safe, anything but minor, and the farthest away from an accident you can get.
“What about the guy on the floor? I mean, people were acting like he wasn’t even there.”
“The president made a lot of enemies in office. He stood up against the drug problem years ago, and some people still hold that grudge. He was just one of them, or the son of one of them.” James says this like it’s something we deal with every day.
“How did he get past the guards?”
“No clue, and it’s not our business, either. We keep our mouths shut, for everyone involved.”
“But…”
“No buts Hadley, don’t open your mouth. Don’t ask questions about it to anyone. This is how they want it dealt with, and we will do just that.” James cuts me off yet again as he slumps against the wall.
“Hey, are you okay?”
He shuts his eyes, inhales and exhales, and seems to be thinking too hard. “Listen, Hads, sorry about that earlier. I should have said what was happening in the car. I just never had a call like that. I didn’t know when Roberto said that we will be doing stuff under the table, that this is one of those things. Fuck, just fuck…” His voice trails off as he runs his hands through his hair.
“If that means we have to stay here, that means Liz won’t be able to come.”
“She’s not coming anyway. She broke up with me after you went to bed last night.” He avoids my probing gaze.
“What are you talking about? You said she might be coming this weekend.”
“I guess she couldn’t wait till then. We’ve been having problems for a while, and looking in the past, coming here didn’t help any of them,” he says, drawing a breath in.
“You could have told me. You know that, right?” I stare up at him, and wonder how much pain he is really hiding from me.
“I know, but you would think it was about that night she ran into your room, but it wasn’t. And you just now started to get better, and I needed to think everything out in my head before I told anyone else. I’ll be fine, though; it’s nothing that won’t take time. Now you should get some sleep. You are looking rough.”
“Geez, thanks for that.”
“There is only one bedroom, so I’ll just take the couch.” He glances down, his face lost in his thoughts.
I look to the sofa and back at him, and have to suppress my laugh. James isn’t a small guy, and that thing is certainly not made for comfort let alone any good amount of sleeping. “Don’t be silly, we can sleep in the same bed.”
James looks over at me, pinching his eyebrows together, and takes his time thinking it over. “Sure. I’m going to go shower. I’ll head to bed after that.”
Bennett slings me over his shoulder. Each step he takes causes my head to bounce and the urge to puke once again rises in my throat. But I fight it back down, Bennett will only hit me more if I get him dirty. He opens the bathroom and throws me in the tub like I’m simply a bag of garbage. The sound of water hitting the tile of the bathroom makes my brain work overtime, and I try to fight with every ounce in me but the drugs paralyze me. Bennett hovers over me, his head getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger as more of the drug works through my system. Krystal steps in my view, cheering him on, spewing each vile word to fuel Bennett to keep going. Not like he needs anymore gasoline to the fire inside him.
The water hits my nose. I lock onto Bennett’s raged-filled eyes once more, but I can’t take anymore. The fight within me has disappeared.
Bennett is going to steal every last pant, wheeze, and air from inside me. And he’s going to love doing it.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Not one single thing.
But I don’t die this time. Bennett’s angry scrutiny isn’t fixed on me anymore, but James’s concerned eyes remain locked on me.
“Hads, you haven’t had a nightmare in forever.” His forehead creases as he stares down at me.
I take in a couple of jagged gulps before I attempt to open my mouth to speak. Each time the air fills my lungs, the physical pain inside hurts less and less, but that’s not what gets me, not what holds me down. No, it’s the emotions these dreams spark that stab me. “For the most part I haven’t, but I’ve also been taking sleeping pills. I think it has something to do with me not taking them before I laid down, add the new environment and the mess that happened earlier. Mix all that together, recipe for terror so I should have known I was going to have one. My fault. I’m sorry, just lie down and sleep. I’m going to watch some TV in the living room and pray something’s on in English.” I turn away from him, ashamed I have to take the stupid pills to make Bennett leave my mind, and to stop the memories that are too powerful for me to block out without something to help.
I lift the blanket and swing my legs over the bed, but as my feet hit the hard ground, James’s soft touch on my lower spine freezes me from moving any farther away from the grounding he’s giving me.
“You can stay here, Hads. I wasn’t sleeping anyway, so you won’t be keeping me up.”
I spare a look over my shoulder and see the dark shadows under his eyes. I know he’s telling the truth.
James is hurting, all thoughts of my terror stuffed down. He needs a friend right now, not me to wallow in the aftershocks of something that can’t be changed. Ever.
“You thinking about Liz?”
His stare drifts down to the bed. “Not really, just a lot of things. But you need to tell me about that dream.” His harsh voice betrays him.
“It’s not that big of a deal; same dream, different night. This one ended right when I give up, so thanks for that,” I say between the invisible hold strangling my throat that continues to burn.
I almost died—almost lost my life because I didn’t trust my gut, what it warned me against. I loved Reed too much, to the point it turned painful, bled toxic through us. I hate him for that.
But I hate Reed the most for continuing to be the imperfect piece missing from me.
I was too busy thinking he fixed me—centered me because I thought he possessed all my happiness on his own. I never thought once that I could be that way without him. Because I never gave myself any chance to prove otherwise. My life almost ended because I was t
oo madly, too hopeful, too stupid.
I loved him like I shouldn’t.
But that’s all on me, and that’s what hurts. What I hate the most about me.
James slides his hand up around my neck. “Come lay back down. I’ll get you some more sleeping pills tomorrow. I’m sure one of the guys here has some around.” He brings me down with him and I lay my head right by him, staring into his dark-brown eyes. I let myself wonder…if I’d met James first, or if I could have gotten over Reed years before, or if I was a simple, normal girl, what would it feel like to share a bed with him like this?
Would I be nervous? Excited? Would it make my heart race?
But I’ll never know because I’m not normal.
One day I will be. At least well enough to get a semblance of a small beat in my heart.
This isn’t that “one day,” and those things aren’t happening now with James. Because as much as I wish my hatred for Reed could stop me from loving him, it never will. He is my one and only and he will have a spot in my heart forever. But no matter how much he is my soul mate, I can never escape the past we’ve both hidden from each other, never break the bond that continues to suffocate us.
I hear the beat of James’s heart. I feel every small movement he makes in this bed and this closeness to another person I haven’t had since my last night Reed held me. It all plays tricks on my fragile being. I can’t do it—it’s not remotely right for James or me. I’m cheating on both of us.
On all three of us.
But James, he deserves someone to love him, and not use him to make old loves disappear. I will never take someone into my heart without being ready again. And I’ll never use another person—or substance—to fill a void within me, either.
Fighting to Stay (Fighting Madly Book 2) Page 2
