The Thunderproof Sky

by Loretta Lost

  “Okay, Scarlett. Don’t move. I’ll be there soon.”

  “Please hurry.”

  When I wake up this time, I am in the bed, wearing a dry robe, and covered in blankets. When I lift my arms, I see that both wrists have been bandaged up. I look and see that Levi is sleeping on the couch, not far away.

  “Levi,” I whisper.

  He wakes up instantly and is at my side, holding me. I hug him tightly, crying into his neck. “I don’t want to die,” I tell him. “I don’t want to die.”

  “You won’t,” he assures me.

  “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I keep passing out. Levi, I think there’s something really wrong with me. I think I’m sick.”

  “I’m here now, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Thank you, thank you so much for coming,” I say, clinging to him.

  “Why hasn’t Cole noticed you’re missing?” Levi asks.

  I shrug, glancing at my phone. “He doesn’t care. I told him I’m okay. I told him I’m busy. He said we’ll talk later.”

  “Scarlett.”

  “I don’t know where to go,” I tell him. “Please don’t leave me here, alone.”

  “I’m staying with you,” he assures me. Then he smiles. “You memorized the number.”

  I smile. I lean forward and try to kiss him, but he evades me.

  “Hey, hey, hold on a second. Are you sure?” he asks.

  “Yes, please. I need you.”

  “What about Cole?”

  “What about him? You know he doesn’t want me.”

  “Scarlett…”

  I pull away, crying, and limp. I curl up on the bed.

  “What did Cole do to you?” Levi asks.

  “Nothing. He just said something very Cole-like. And now I can’t go home. I tried to go home, but I keep blacking out. I just can’t bring myself to go near him again. I would rather die.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It’s over. I don’t think I’m ever going to see him again.”

  Levi sighs, and rubs his hand over my shoulder. “Scarlett, I’m so sorry. What can I do to help?”

  I take a shuddering breath and push myself to my feet, and begin pacing the room.

  “I’ve never seen you like this, Scar.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?” I ask him. “Can I trust you?”

  “Sure.”

  “You promise you won’t tell Cole?”

  “Never.”

  “I’m not Scarlett. I’m Savannah.”

  “What?”

  “She did this,” I tell him, holding up my wrists. “She wanted to die, but I want to live. I had to stop her, and take control.”

  “Oh my god. Okay. Okay. I get that.”

  “Can you take care of me?” I ask him. “Can you watch me, and make sure I don’t die?”

  “Sure, of course. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  I move to stand closer to him. “Will you please fuck me,” I ask, removing the robe and standing naked before him. “Can you just fuck me to make me feel better, make me forget all this pain?”

  Levi inhales sharply. “Of course, I can. The same way I did when Cole was in prison. The same way I did when you were nineteen. I’ll always help you when you need me.”

  “Thank you,” I say, wrapping my arms around him. I know that it’s a lie, but for a few seconds, when I have a man inside me, I feel loved. I feel better.

  “I told you before that Cole was too weak to give you what you needed,” Levi says, standing up and pushing me up against the wall. “I told you that you shouldn’t get married at age fourteen.”

  “I really loved him,” I tell Levi hoarsely, as he lowers his pants.

  “Don’t worry,” Levi says, cupping his hands under my thighs and lifting me so that my legs circle his waist. He grinds against me with his hips, until he enters me. “I’ll make you forget all about Cole Hunter.”

  My head rolls back against the wall as he thrusts inside me.

  And that is how I made Levi Bishop think he had gotten me pregnant.

  And that is how I stayed alive, when the other parts of me wanted to die.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “She had a seizure,” the doctor is saying. “Are you sure there’s no history of epilepsy?”

  “No,” Cole responds, “but she’s currently receiving therapy for a dissociative disorder.”

  “Oh, that makes sense. There is a rare phenomenon of dissociative seizures associated with trauma and emotional stress. In that case, I won’t recommend you to a neurologist. Is she currently seeing a good psychotherapist?”

  “Yes, I think so. We’ve only had a few sessions,” Cole says, squeezing my hand.

  I feel his hand against mine, but it is very far away. The voices are also far away. I’m very numb, and very, very far away from my body. It is peaceful here. They can do whatever they want, but they can’t reach me.

  “Our therapist is in Switzerland, and we’re doing it over Skype,” Cole explains.

  “I’ll recommend someone local as well,” the doctor says. “These seizures are quite dangerous.”

  “Can they hurt her?”

  “Not really—but they are a sign of very serious depression. I believe there’s a statistic that a large percentage of people who have such seizures end up attempting suicide within a year or so. So you’ll have to watch her closely.”

  “Don’t worry, Doc,” Levi says, entering the room. “Scarlett attempting suicide is a pretty regular occurrence, so we know how to handle it.”

  “Can you blame her when her closest friends steal her children?” Cole asks angrily.

  “Wait a second. Scarlett is Savannah?” Priya is asking Levi. “The children’s birth mother? I thought you said she abandoned the twins with you.”

  “She didn’t really abandon them. She just has multiple personalities, and when she switched back to being Scarlett—she didn’t even remember that she had given birth. I thought it would be wrong to tell her.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you Levi?” Priya asks. “Why would you keep a secret like that from her? Look at the poor woman.”

  “Okay, but Savannah asked me to keep it a secret until Scarlett was ready. I promised her. Can you imagine, telling an emotionally unstable woman: Hey! By the way, you gave birth to twins while you were someone else, and totally forgot about it.”

  Priya sighs. “But Levi, why the hell would you introduce the children to her like that, without warning her?”

  “I didn’t think she would recognize them! I have no idea how she recognized them. I never sent a picture, or anything.”

  “Rodriguez,” I whisper, and everyone quiets down. I don’t open my eyes, but I speak. “When Cole faked his death, there was a huge investigation into the company, and Rodriguez showed me pictures of Levi and Joy. Some part of me knew. But I didn’t know I knew.”

  “Fuck,” Cole says. “Look Levi, you have worked for me for fucking ten years now. You’ve been my friend since I was a child. You couldn’t have told me that—"

  “I’m sorry, man. I know it was awful of me to conceal the fact that I was seeing Scarlett—but Savannah asked me not to. And Savannah is my wife, so I hope you’ll understand.”

  “Your wife?” I ask him, trying to pry my eyes open.

  “Yeah, babe. We got hitched in Vegas after we found out you were pregnant. Not a legal wedding of course, but the Elvis impersonator was hilarious. The drag queen Cher was also fun.”

  “I don’t remember any of this.”

  “Of course, you don’t. You were so depressed back then, Savannah had to take over and call me to keep you from slitting your wrists in a bathtub.” Levi grabs my arm with the new tattoo, and points to the scars. “She begged me to take care of you, so I did.”

  “Levi…”

  “I understand that part of you will always love Cole—I love Cole, too. I get it. He’s a great guy. But part of you belongs
to me, Scarlett. And that part is Savannah. And she’s real, and she’s fucking amazing. She can hack better than you can. One time, you should see what we did in this Vegas casino—” He looks up at Cole. “How do you think I can afford a house like this, man? With the money you pay me? My wife, Savvy—she hacked a Vegas casino and helped me rob it.”

  “I did what now?”

  “Yeah,” Levi says, grinning. “You might have given Cole the most epic proposal of history, but you gave me the most epic honeymoon of all time. Of course, we had to lay low after the robbery, and we split up when Cole offered me the job in Karachi, and you went to work for the CIA…”

  “What the fuck,” I whisper, pressing my hands over my eyes.

  “Look, Cole, I know you really loved her—but Scarlett had a really rough childhood, and abandonment issues. The whole time I’ve known her, she’s come to me for sex when you rejected her, or told her she was too young. I thought it was just sex, but it became more than that. Even when you were in prison…”

  “What? She was fourteen!” Cole roars.

  “See? You didn’t understand what she needed. And as she got older, you kept hurting her, and she kept coming to me, and after the suicide attempt, when she revealed herself as Savannah—I realized we had a real connection. We fell in love.”

  “This isn’t happening,” I murmur to myself. “This isn’t happening.”

  “I don’t understand,” Cole says.

  “She couldn’t bear to go to you even one more time, and hear you reject her and tell her ‘later.’ She completely snapped. You broke her, Cole, and I was there to pick up the pieces.”

  “Levi,” I whisper. “Can you please leave for a minute?”

  “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Please. Priya,” I say softly, opening my eyes to see the shocked expression on the woman’s face. “Priya, I’m so sorry. Can you just take Levi out of the room and give me a minute alone with Cole?”

  She nods, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “You’ll be okay,” she says softly. “And the twins will be okay, too. No matter what.”

  Her kind voice gives me a sense of reassurance, and I am able to breathe again.

  She argues with Levi to get him to leave the room, and I try to force myself up to a seated position. Once they leave, I force myself to look at Cole, and I immediately begin to sob. I put my face in my hands. “Oh my god, Cole. Please forgive me, I had no idea.”

  “Are those my children, or his?” Cole demands.

  I stare at him, with tears sliding out of my eyes, shaking my head. “How on earth would I know? I didn’t know they existed until today. I thought I miscarried—but the blood in the bathtub was just from slitting my wrists. It was all just a fever dream. Joy was in my imagination in my darkest moment, and that was the only hint I had. She wasn’t an alter, Cole. She was a hallucination. Of my daughter. Maybe Savannah sent me that image of her, to keep me going when I was with Benjamin…”

  “So what do we do now?” Cole asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “A DNA test?”

  “Cole, maybe we don’t want to know—Levi raised those children for years, all by himself. Those are happy, healthy kids, and they love their probably-fake father. Whatever we do, we need to think of them first.”

  “Scar,” Cole whispers, crawling over to me and holding me against him. “We might have twins.”

  “They look exactly like you,” I murmur, then I begin crying again. “I don’t need a DNA test. They are yours. I wouldn’t do that with anyone else.”

  He kisses my hair. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel unloved or unwanted. We were just under so much pressure back then. I went over those last words I said to you so many times, and I hated myself for it. I was so cold to you, for so long.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. We have to tell Roddy and Lucy they can stop looking.”

  “And we have to tell your therapist.”

  I shake my head, sighing and hiding my face in Cole’s shirt. “If I didn’t already have a therapist, I sure as hell would need one now.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Scrolling through my emails, I look at all the projects Luciana has been sending me.

  Forgiveness is hard. But Cole and I have decided to try to forgive Levi for everything, because he might have saved my life, and he did take good care of Josh and Joy. I have been going to therapy for several months now, and trying to connect with my children after missing years of their upbringing. Cole and I have continued to live with Levi, and the men have been working on building their tower together, and trying to rebuild their friendship. It’s been a strange time, but things are slowly getting better. Priya and I have also become friends.

  And I have begun hacking again.

  Luciana has found ways for me to help with her investigations, even from this distance. I’ve found great joy in doing my own work, and I am starting to feel like myself again. Indeed, since the seizure, Serena has resurfaced, and I’ve been able to switch almost seamlessly between being Serena and Snow. I haven’t had many memory gaps. There has been no sign of Savannah.

  But when I open one of Luciana’s emails, there is a picture of a suspicious vehicle attached. A logo on the side of the van makes my fingers hesitate. I stare at it for a long time, trying to remember where I’ve heard these words before. Cole comes into the room then, but I don’t even look up, because I am so focused on this image.

  My vision starts to grow blurry, and I can hear that voice inside my head again.

  I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry. I’ve made a terrible mistake.

  “Cole,” I say softly. “Can you come over here please?”

  He is at my side in an in instant, and I grip his arm.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “I’m getting dizzy. I’m hearing… Savannah. I think it’s Savannah.”

  “What triggered it?”

  I gesture to the computer screen. Cole’s face lights up in recognition.

  “I’ve seen that before,” he says. “That’s one of the companies my grandfather uses to hide his mafia business dealings. Corsetti’s Flooring and Roofing Installation.”

  When he says it out loud, something snaps inside me, and I grip his arm tightly. I feel myself dissociating, and everything goes black.

  The next thing I know, I’m standing by the window, and Cole is still in the spot where I left him. “Who was it?” I ask. “Was it Sibyl?”

  Cole shakes his head, and his face grows very pale. “I just met Savannah.”

  I rush over to him, and touch his shoulders. “Cole? Are you okay? What did she say? Did she say something hurtful?”

  He shakes his head. “Savannah just told me that she was in love with Levi, and she was happy with him. She said that he worked for the mafia—my grandparents—and she helped him do certain jobs. And one of the jobs involved arson, and burning an entire family to death.”

  “Oh my god, Cole.”

  “And Levi admitted to her… that he was the one who was hired to kill my whole family. But he let me live because he was my friend. And that’s why Mr. Bishop knew all about my family, and what happened to them—because all along, it was his own son who ruined my life. And that’s why they’ve been so nice to us. Guilt. Levi killed my parents. I tried to forgive him for everything—for hiding our children for years, for committing statutory rape against you… but my parents…”

  “Cole,” I whisper, but he is rising to his feet.

  He briskly walks to the door, and I run after him. “Cole, wait! What are you going to do? The twins love him. He would have only been twelve when the mafia hired him—he wasn’t responsible.”

  “I can’t let this one go, Scar. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m coming with you. Let’s at least think about this, okay?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this my whole life. I’ve been thinking about what I would do to someone if I could find who was responsible for killing my family. I
didn’t expect that person would be masquerading as my friend for over two decades.”

  “But Levi’s kind of our family, too,” I tell him. “He’s trying to redeem himself. He’s trying to be good, Cole. He loves you. He was supposed to kill you, too, but he didn’t. He only kept the children from us because Savannah wanted to remain a secret.”

  “Savannah kept saying that she made a terrible mistake. That trusting Levi was a terrible mistake, and she should have let you die instead. And since she found out who Levi really was, she’s wanted to die, too. That’s why she hasn’t come out to talk to us. Because he destroyed her.”

  “That poor girl,” I say softly.

  “Are you coming with me, Scar?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Cole and I are taking the elevator up to the top of the tower, where Levi has been working on the botanical gardens with the crew. The tower is almost complete, and it is schedule to be finished in about a month. It’s mainly finishing touches, now.

  This elevator ride with Cole is only a few seconds, but it is so tense that it feels like years. I can feel the anger radiating off him in a heavy, dark cloud.

  “What are you going to do?” I whisper.

  He does not respond.

  I try to imagine myself in his shoes. When I received the news of Jim Larson’s death, I didn’t care at all. But Cole had good parents, and he loved them.

  This would be more like when I learned that Cole had died. That’s how this feels for him.

  Remembering how crazy I felt, I know that I would have killed anyone who was responsible. There’s no preventing it—Cole’s anger is unbridled, just like Snow’s.

  When the elevator opens, Cole stands there for a second, looking out at the atrium. There are a few people remaining in the area, including Levi.

  “Um, excuse me!” I say to the crew. “We’ve received notification of a safety hazard we have to examine up here. Can everyone vacate the area and go downstairs, while we just check it out and make sure everything is safe?”