She

by J. S. Cooper

  “Yes.” My father nodded. “He tried to do the same thing to me. When he put the patents in my name, I asked him what was going on. He said Jeremiah thought it was the smart thing to do. I didn’t really know what to say, but Oliver and Jeremiah both agreed, so I went along with it. By the time I realized that Jeremiah was still angry at me for stealing Angelina, it was too late. The patents were already in my name, and Oliver had proof that he was the inventor and designer. I was going to Jeremiah’s apartment that day to tell him that I wanted to come clean and that I didn’t want to be a part of the company anymore. And then I walked in on him and Oliver, in bed.”

  “My father really loved Jeremiah. That’s what Penny told me,” Steve interrupted my dad. “He would have done anything for him.”

  “Yes.” My dad nodded. “I should have seen the signs when I was younger. Oliver was so protective of Jeremiah, even from the beginning, but I was so focused on Angelina. I loved her so much that nothing else was important after we got together.”

  I wanted to ask him why he cheated on her, then, if he’d loved her so much. But now wasn’t the time or the place, and I didn’t want to hurt Jakob. It was a weird situation to be in—I was in love with the son of the woman my father had had an affair with. Did it make it better that she had loved him? Had my dad been the love of Jakob’s mom’s life? Knowing that her poems were about him made me feel funny, awkward even. I wondered how Jakob felt. I couldn’t tell anything from his face. He didn’t even look shocked. Or scared. Or nervous. He looked apathetic, except when he met my eyes. Then he seemed passionate and determined. He gave me a small secret smile as if to tell me he loved me and to stay strong. It was a miracle that I hadn’t fainted when my father had walked into the room. I guess I was growing stronger day by day.

  “That’s what love is,” Steve said, his voice suddenly energized. “Love is being there and doing whatever you can to be with the one you love.” All of a sudden he grabbed my arm and pulled me to the door.

  “What are you doing?” I squeaked.

  “Let go of her!” Jakob ran toward us, and then everything seemed to happen in a blur. All I heard was a bang from Steve’s gun and my own voice screaming. Jakob fell to the ground. Then Steve fumbled with the door as I started crying. Rosie stood in the corner of the room, her eyes wide and her face white. I wasn’t sure if I imagined it or not, but I thought she mouthed sorry to me.

  “Steve, let Bianca go. Let her come with me,” my father said softly as he walked toward us in slow motion. The room started spinning as I heard another loud bang. I watched as my father fell to the ground, and I tried to push Steve away, but my movements seemed to make no difference. “Jakob!” I screamed. “Dad!” The tears were completely blurring my vision now, and I kicked Steve as hard as I could. He looked at me with murderous eyes, and I saw him pull something out of his pocket.

  “Remember, Bianca, this is because I love you,” he said as the world went black.

  fourteen

  I   awoke to the feeling of something crawling on my  face,  and stifled a cry as my eyes adjusted to the dark dingy space. I could see Steve standing in front of me, his eyes focused on my face as he watched me looking around the room. I tried to move my arms and legs, but found they were tightly tied to an uncomfortable chair. My whole body ached as I sat there. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came. I felt something on my face again and shook my head. A trail of water slid down my lips and I looked up. The crawling sensation was from drops of water falling from the ceiling.

  I looked at Steve again, not knowing what to say. My mind was on Jakob and my dad. Were they okay? Were they dead? The thought of losing them sunk my spirits even further, and my head dropped forward. I heard Steve humming something softly as he walked closer to me. His voice grew louder and louder.

  “Hush little baby, don’t say a fucking word,” he sang in an ominous voice, twisting the lyrics to the old nursery rhyme. His voice was the only sound in the small damp space aside from a low rattling in the corner; I didn’t want to know what or who was making that noise. Steve’s fingers ran down the side of my cheek, and I kept my expression blank and my eyes downward as I sat there uncomfortably. The room was cold and dark and smelled of mold. I coughed as the mildew filled my lungs, and my body shivered on the old rickety chair I was tied to. I wanted to beg Steve to let me go. I wanted to plead for my life, but I didn’t. I didn’t even bother trying to scream; no one would hear me. No one would be coming to my rescue now. It was just the two of us. After everything, it had come to this. Me and Steve. Not even Jakob could save me.

  Numbly, I thought of Blake. Maybe he could team up with Rosie and come to my rescue. I almost laughed then. Rosie wasn’t my friend. She’d never been my friend. She hated me. She’d set me up. She was never coming to save me. And Blake, well, there was nothing he could do by himself. My head dropped forward with fatigue. I just wanted to sleep and forget that any of this had ever happened. I wanted to forget, not because I was scared of this moment or of Steve, but because my heart ached for all the moments of the last week, for the devastating truth that I’d had to accept. My heart was laden with guilt and regret for the actions that had brought us here. This moment was fate: cold, hard fate, and I knew that there was nothing either of us could say or do to escape the tangled paths of our forefathers. If only my father hadn’t met Steve’s father. If only he hadn’t introduced Oliver to Jeremiah. If only he hadn’t dated my mother. If only someone had realized how evil Larry was. But it didn’t matter. Not now. And not ever. For there was no way to go back. No way to change the past. And if we changed the past, then there would be no me and Jakob. No true love filling my heart, even as I sat there with pain weighing me down. And I knew that even after everything, I wasn’t sure I would have changed a thing.

  “I didn’t want everything to go like this.” Steve held the gun to my head. “You understand that, right? I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want it to come to this.” His voice broke as he spoke, and I nodded my understanding, my throat too constricted to speak.

  “A life for a life, right?” His voice sounded broken and raw. “That’s what they say, right?” His voice echoed his sorrow. He didn’t want to do this, but I knew he thought he had no other option. I couldn’t allow myself to look up at him. All I could think was, Is this how it’s all going to end for me? Is this how my story’s going to end?

  “He shouldn’t have done that to my parents, Bianca.” His voice was pained. “He ruined my life.”

  “I understand,” I said softly, my voice cracking as I spoke. I did understand. I didn’t know if I could blame him. “It’s not your fault.” I took a deep breath and tried to reason with him. “But my father wasn’t the one to blame. My father didn’t do this. It was Larry.”

  “You’re making this hard for me, Bianca.” He sighed and kneeled next to me, moving the gun away from my head. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. His eyes bored into mine, and I could see the regret shining at me. Regret and another emotion I recognized. My heart thudded as I stared back at him. I still had a shot at changing my story. The emotion in his eyes was one I knew well—adoration. He had feelings for me. That was the opening I needed to try to change his mind.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said softly. “You don’t have to go through with it.”

  “I do,” he said, but his voice was unsure as he gazed at me, his eyes scrutinizing my face. “I know what I have to do, but I wanted to make this last moment special. I wanted it to just be you and me, just once. The two of us together—alone. Without Rosie or Jakob or even your dad.” He sounded wistful as he spoke. “So yes, I have to do this, but at least when I do, it will be special. Something the both of us will share and never forget.” He laughed then. “Though I suppose in death, one will forget anyway.”

  “Steve,” I said, my voice cracking as I swallowed hard. “Don’t do this.”

  “I have to.”

  “No. If you do, we can
’t be together.” I nearly choked on the words, but I knew I had to say them. It was my only chance.

  “You would want to be with me?” He froze. “After all this?”

  “Yes.” I nodded and made myself smile. “We’re meant to be together, don’t you see that?”

  “It was always you, you know.” His fingers touched my leg. “From the first time I saw you, I knew. You’re here because your father told me I couldn’t have you. He told me that we weren’t destined for each other. After all I did for him! After all the lies I told. The secrets I kept. I’m responsible for you still being alive. I’m the one who deserves you. Not Jakob.”

  “So then don’t do this,” I pleaded with him. “This doesn’t have to be the end for us. This can be the beginning.”

  “A new beginning?” He spoke softly, his eyes glazing over as he considered what I’d said.

  “Maybe this is why everything happened,” I said, my voice shaky. “Maybe we’re meant to be together. Maybe this was fate’s cruel joke on us. Maybe this was the only way.”

  “Maybe.” He nodded and stepped back. My body was trembling as I waited for him to decide what he was going to do next. “You really think we’re soul mates?” He stared at my lips, and it took everything in me not to shudder at his gaze. And then suddenly there was a loud bang. I screamed. He fell forward, his head hitting my lap hard, and I screamed again.

  “No!” Tears fell from my eyes as a pool of red blood filled my lap. I felt momentary relief that it wasn’t me he’d shot, but seeing him like that made me feel sick to my stomach. “No!” I screamed, and looked into his face. What had just happened? I wasn’t even sure. Had he shot himself? He gazed at me with a weak smile, the life draining from his face.

  “Your father did this to us,” he mumbled. “He did this to me.”

  “No,” I whispered, my stomach churning as I felt a wave of arctic coldness fill me. “I’m sorry,” I said honestly. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

  “Hush, my little baby, don’t say a fucking word,” he said again, though this time his voice was but a whisper in the coldness. “This is how it should be.”

  “Steve?” I shook him as I stared around the room, desperate to find the source of the gunshot. “Steve!”

  “We’ll be together forever now, Bianca,” he mumbled as his eyes fluttered. “There’s no getting out of here for either of us. We’ll be together forever.” And then he stopped speaking, and his body slumped to the floor. I screamed then. I couldn’t control myself. I screamed and screamed and screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore. And then I started crying. I sobbed until I was hoarse, but no one came for me, and Steve’s body remained immobile at my feet.

  Then the creaking started up again in the corner. I peered into the darkness and made out a rat scrabbling along the wall. And that shut me up. I sat there staring at the rat, praying that it wouldn’t see me. It took a few steps. And then a few more. And then it stopped when it reached Steve’s body. I didn’t see what it decided to do next because I closed my eyes as soon as I heard the munching. But I knew what was going on. It was impossible not to know. I wasn’t dumb, but I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. And a part of me was pleased that Steve’s body was there, so that it wasn’t me that the rat was chewing on.

  I must have fallen asleep then because I awoke to water falling on my face again. I shook my head and bit my lower lip. My hands were almost completely numb now, and it didn’t look like anyone was coming to untie me. I looked at Steve’s body again, but I didn’t see the rat. I didn’t hear him either. That made me pleased at first, but then scared. If I didn’t know where it was, that meant it could creep up on me and scare me. It didn’t make a difference to me that the thing must have weighed three pounds. It was a rat. And it could gnaw my toes off. I took a couple of deep breaths. I knew I was close to a panic attack. I screamed to let out my pent-up energy, but it didn’t help. I shifted in the chair and tried to move my hands, but Steve had done a good job with the rope. I wished Jakob was with me then. He was the rope man. Just like on the island, he would have known what to do to get the rope off my body. My heart ached as I thought about him. If you can hear me, Jakob, answer me. Send me a sign. Just send me a sign. I was pleading with him in my head, but I got no answer.

  “Please, God, please let him be okay. Please let him be alive. Please.” I bit my lower lip and tried to remember the prayers I’d said in church as a child. I wasn’t much of a religious person, but I supposed that I, like most holiday Christians, came back to God when I needed him. “Our Father,” I said, remembering the Lord’s Prayer that we’d said before all of our prayers. The priest at my church had always told us that whenever you wanted something really badly that we should pray and always say the Lord’s Prayer before our own personal prayer. I’d never really listened before, but now I was determined to try everything. “Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” My voice choked as I kept speaking. “Give us this day our daily bread,” I said, and my stomach growled, reminding me of how hungry I was. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever, amen,” I said loudly, my voice growing more and more energetic as I spoke. I felt an odd sense of calm as I sat there and I wondered for a moment if God was going to come down from the heavens himself and untie me from the chair.

  “I promise I’ll be a good person. I promise I’ll never do anything bad again. I’ll dedicate my life to you, God, please.” I cried as I sat there, but nothing happened. “God, please help me, please make Jakob be okay, and my father. Please. Please help me. I don’t want to die in here, God. I don’t want to die tied up on a chair, next to a dead crazy man. I don’t want a rat to eat my dead corpse. Please, God!” I cried out, and then paused as I heard a noise. Were my prayers being answered already? I sat there in anticipation but realized that the sound that I’d heard was just the rat. He was back.

  This was God’s answer to me. He’d sent a rat.

  I started laughing then, hysterical laughter that reminded me of Steve. Poor, sad Steve. My heart ached for what he’d had to endure. And for what? Two crazy, selfish, power-hungry egomaniacs? How was that fair? How was any of it fair? Such senseless crimes. Such senseless deaths. Too many people had been affected by Larry and Jeremiah. And for what? A childhood rivalry? I sat there thinking about how unfair everything was when I heard a loud banging. I froze suddenly and listened carefully. There was definitely a loud banging coming from somewhere outside the room.

  “I’m in here!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “I’m here!” I kept screaming and screaming. I started to grow excited as the banging continued, growing louder and louder. “I’m in here,” I cried again, and when the door burst open, I burst into tears.

  “Bianca.” Jakob’s voice was hoarse as he gazed at me with bloodshot eyes. He was clutching the side of his body and I could see that his white shirt was stained red with blood.

  “Jakob!” I gazed at him, my heart bursting with love.

  “Oh, Bianca.” He ran toward me, and I could see Blake following him into the room. “You’re safe. Oh my darling, thank God you’re safe.”

  “Oh, Jakob,” I cried out as I stared up into his face. “You truly are a godsend.” I started laughing at my joke. Jakob looked at me for a few seconds, confused, but Blake mumbled something about me being in shock as they both started to untie the rope from my wrists and ankles. I continued to laugh as I sat there and watched the rat scurry out of the room. I’d probably made him a believer as well. I’d said a prayer to God and He’d saved us both. It was a pity I hadn’t said one for Steve as well.

  I slept for eighteen hours on a hospital chair. The nurses told me that that was a record. No one had ever slept for more than an hour before. Eighteen hours was unheard of. They’d offered me a bed, but I’d turned t
hem down. I wasn’t going to leave Jakob’s room, not for love nor money. I’d slept through his surgery, and I was upset with myself for sleeping even when he’d gotten out. I woke up to him staring at me.

  “Good sleep?” he’d asked me softly as my eyes fluttered open.

  “Yes, you?” I asked, and jumped up, touching his shoulder gingerly. “Are you okay?”

  “My shoulder’s fine,” he joked. “It’s my chest that’s a little achy.”

  “They said if he’d shot you a few inches higher, you’d be dead,” I said, my voice catching. “He tried to kill you.”

  “He didn’t though,” he said, and grabbed my hand. “Do you know about your dad?”

  “He died.” I nodded, my heart aching. “I don’t know how to feel,” I said softly. “Does that make me a bad daughter? I feel sad, but I’m not grieving. I think because I grieved for so long before that it doesn’t even seem real now.”

  “You’re still in shock,” he said. “Come lie with me on the bed.”

  “I can’t get on the bed. You’re in pain.”

  “Come lie with me. I want to hold you,” he said, and pulled me up. I settled into the bed and curled into his good side, suddenly feeling warm as his body pressed into mine. “Your father wanted to make sure you were safe. He gave his life for yours.”

  “He didn’t have to die,” I said with a sob, and I could feel warm tears springing from my eyes. “It didn’t have to happen like this.” I grabbed his hand and held it close to me. “And you, how stupid were you to run in front of Steve like that? If anything had happened to you, Jakob, if I’d lost you, I wouldn’t have been able to go on. I wouldn’t have been able to live the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, Bianca, I would give my life for yours in an instant.”

  “I know, and I love you for it.” I sighed and closed my eyes, loving the feeling of being warm and safe. “Is it over? What happened to Rosie? Is Larry still in jail? And where’s David?”