Behold the Stars

by Fanetti, Susan

  “You shot my hand, bitch!” Derek was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he had an astute grasp of the obvious. That thought got her laughing even harder. Tears had started to stream from her eyes, even the swollen one, when she set the gun down and picked up the fancy gold letter opener from Ellis’ fancy teak desk. It was sharp. Turning it inward, she sliced open the tie that bound her hands.

  Derek was still mewling on the floor, holding his mangled hand. What a little bitch—so wrapped up in his pain, he’d stopped paying attention to her. Coming down with her knee on his crotch, making him squeal again, she straddled him, unhooked the strap from the 16 and, grimacing as she put her hands on it, set it out of his reach. Then she began stabbing him. She’d dispatched Ellis quickly. Derek, she wanted to suffer. The others, too, if she got the chance. He was wearing a Kevlar vest, so she stabbed him in his face and throat, starting with his good eye. He put up virtually no fight, merely mewling for awhile and then going silent. She stabbed and stabbed, starting methodically, but soon losing herself in the vengeance, even after there was no one there to wreak it on.

  She felt hands on her shoulders, and she yelled wordlessly—a battle cry—and turned, striking out with the letter opener. She struck true, and the hands released her. But then one wrapped around her wrist, immobilizing the hand that held her weapon, so she tried to yank and overbalance whichever fucker had her.

  “Lilli! Baby, stop! It’s okay. Stop, baby, stop. It’s me.”

  Isaac? She hesitated, tried to get her bearings. The room was full of men, and she jumped to her feet, ready to keep fighting. But hands pulled her close. Familiar hands, coarse and gentle. Isaac. All at once, her legs could no longer hold her up. He held her as she collapsed, and he went to the floor with her.

  “Oh, fuck, baby. Oh, fuck.”

  “Isaac? Isaac, I…” She didn’t know what words would follow. There were no words. She was in Isaac’s arms. Then the blanket was on her again. He was alive. She was alive. Was it over?

  As if he were answering the question she hadn’t asked aloud, Isaac pressed his lips to her forehead. “It’s over, baby,” he whispered. “We’re gonna get you to the hospital, and you’re gonna be okay. It’s over.”

  No. Not the hospital. No cold rooms, no strangers. No. No.

  “Home. I want to go home. Please, I want to go home. Take me home.”

  As the adrenaline waned, pain and exhaustion took its place, and when the world began to blur and go grey, she let it. The last thing she heard was Isaac’s rich, deep, soothing voice.

  “Okay, baby. I got you. Let’s go home.”

  ~oOo~

  She woke in the van, in Isaac’s lap, his arms holding her tight to his chest. She was still wrapped in the blanket. He smiled down at her, but his eyes shone oddly in the flashes of streetlights and headlights. Her first thought was that he hated being in a cage.

  “Where’s your bike?”

  He laughed a little. “Don’t you worry, Sport. I got it covered. Sleep. We’ll be home soon.”

  She slept.

  ~oOo~

  She was in her own bed, the bed she shared with Isaac, when she woke again. She began to weep with relief, but the pain everywhere was too much, it hurt too much to cry, and she choked off her tears. Her head still didn’t seem to be working quite right. All her thoughts were slow now.

  She was alone, but she could hear Isaac’s voice. At first she thought she was blind or something, but then she realized that she was seeing. He simply wasn’t in the room with her. The door was open, and she could hear him talking. To a woman. There was a woman in the house. Who?

  She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. She tried to speak, but only croaked. It was as if she’d used up everything she had in Ellis’s office.

  Then Isaac was standing in the doorway, smiling. “Hey, Sport.” He walked to the bed and sat down carefully at her side. “I have somebody here—a doctor—to take a look at you, okay? I know you didn’t want the hospital, but you’re hurt bad, baby. Can my friend Tasha take a look?”

  Tasha…the name was familiar, but she had no idea why. Isaac reached out and brushed her hair back. She flinched hard, surprised by the gesture. He pulled back, leaving his hand hovering in midair. His forearm was wrapped in a heavy gauze bandage.

  “Easy, Lilli. It’s just me.” He let his arm drop. “Can I bring Tasha in?”

  She knew the pain she was feeling was too much not to need medical help. She knew a doctor would hurt her more—it’s what they did—but she nodded. Maybe at least she’d get some painkillers out of it.

  Isaac nodded and called out, “Okay, Tash.”

  Tash—she should be able to remember. She was good at names and faces. A tall, fair redhead walked in, and Lilli got it. This was the doctor who helped Show and Holly. There was something between her and Isaac. Lilli had never asked—it hadn’t seemed important in the midst of everything, and then she’d forgotten. It still wasn’t important.

  “Hi, Lilli. I’m Tasha. I’m a doctor. We met once before—I don’t know if you remember.” Lilli nodded. “Good. That’s good. Isaac asked me to examine you. Is that okay?”

  Lilli nodded again.

  ~oOo~

  Yes, it hurt. A lot. But now it was almost over. Her nose was set, and she had stitches in her face and elsewhere. Tasha had asked Isaac to leave the room for the last, longest part of it, but Lilli hadn’t wanted him to go. She felt anxious about him being away from her, so he sat with her and held her hand. She squeezed hard as Tasha did her thing, trying to put her pain in her hand. Isaac’s body shook next to her. The look on his face, when he wasn’t looking at her, was dark and violent.

  Other than to ask Lilli to move in certain ways, or to tell her if something hurt, Tasha said very little during the examination. When she was done, she pulled off her gloves and gave Lilli’s raised knee a gentle pat. She looked shaken.

  “I’m so sorry you went through this, Lilli. God, really sorry.”

  Lilli said nothing. Nothing to say.

  “Okay. There’s a lot of damage, but it will heal, if you take it easy. The sutures I put in will dissolve on their own.” She sat at the end of the bed. “Lilli, Isaac told me that you found out you were pregnant a few days ago.” She paused, and Lilli stared. She’d come to terms with the reality that she’d lost the baby. But Isaac’s grip on her hand tightened.

  After a silent beat, Tasha continued. “There was a lot of blood, I know. But your cervix is still closed. The damage doesn’t appear to go that far, and the blood wasn’t uterine. In a couple of weeks, if there hasn’t been more bleeding, we can do an ultrasound and make sure. But I think there’s a good chance you’re still pregnant.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Isaac woke when the bed shifted as Lilli got up. Lying still, he watched in the dim moonlight as she left the room. She was walking better, less gingerly, now, a week after her encounter with Ellis. He hated to be alone in their bed, but he let her go.

  He should let her go. She should leave him. They’d barely been together six months, and in that time she’d been horribly hurt and almost killed twice—both times a direct result of her association with him.

  What Ellis’s men had done to her—if he let himself think too long about it, his blood eddied to a poisonous froth in his heart and head. He was out of people to kill, but he felt the need no less. When Tasha had first examined her, she’d given Lilli an injection of morphine. When Lilli had fallen into an opiate sleep, Tasha had pulled him into the living room and explained in detail what Lilli’s injuries suggested. He’d called Bart immediately afterward and forced him to say what was on the video feed. Then he’d left Tasha with Lilli, had gone outside and, with no other outlet for his frenzied rage, chopped about a cord of wood.

  The guards he and Show had killed had gotten off far too easy with bullets to the head. Even the guard he’d found Lilli destroying with a fucking letter opener had gotten off too easy.

  Forever burned into his bra
in like a brand was the image confronting him when he’d entered Ellis’ office. His beautiful woman—naked, bruised, bleeding, her hair caked, her face hugely swollen—straddling a guard, holding that letter opener in both hands and driving it into the guard’s face and neck. Into his eyes, his mouth. She’d been making guttural, bestial sounds, and she was splattered gorily with blood.

  Without thinking, he’d run to her and grabbed her. She’d turned on him, and there had been no sign of recognition in her face as she’d stabbed him. That moment, when she’d turned those feral, unknowing eyes on him, had chilled him. But then she’d seen him, and she’d come back to him.

  In the first couple of days, when she’d stayed in bed, she hadn’t wanted him to be away from her at all. She’d slept a medicated sleep most of the time, but she’d gotten panicky if she woke and he wasn’t with her. He’d spent those days lying on the bed at her side, watching her sleep, leaving only when Show brought business that would not wait to be discussed, or to prepare her meals.

  He wasn’t any kind of a cook, but that didn’t matter. Their fridge and freezer were chock full of ready-to-heat casseroles, soups, and stews. They had loaves of fresh bread, baskets of fruit and vegetables, cakes, pies, cobblers. He could start a restaurant in their kitchen from all the homemade meals the women of Signal Bend had brought. Thanksgiving had happened since Lilli had been taken, but they hadn’t missed it. The town had brought it to them.

  They were heroes. The Horde, Isaac, and Lilli. Heroes. And not just in Signal Bend. He wanted to talk to Lilli about it, but she wouldn’t. Any mention of what happened caused her to shut down hard and immediately. Even a week later, she had no idea what had transpired since she’d killed Ellis. He and the Horde had held off the outside world, making a quiet bubble for Lilli to recover in peace.

  And she was recovering. She was stronger, healing. Her face, though still discolored, was back to its normal shape. She’d have a scar through one eyebrow, and her nose had taken on the slightest bump across the bridge, but she was healing well. Tasha had told him she was healing well everywhere. And she had not bled any more. She was still sick in the mornings. They had another week to wait before an ultrasound could tell them anything, but Isaac felt hope that their baby was still growing inside her.

  But she was so damn quiet. He understood—or, God, he understood as well as he could—but he was scared and lonely. Even as she clung to his hand, unwilling to have him out of her sight, he could feel her closing up inside. In the past few days, as she’d gained strength and had been able to move around with less pain, he’d noticed her stiffening if he touched her anywhere but her hand. As if she had to prepare herself for his touch. It made him ache.

  Knowing in his head that she would be right to leave him did nothing to settle the fear in his heart that she might. He couldn’t let her go.

  After the first few days, Lilli stopped the Percocet, but still she hadn’t dreamt, at least not violently. Isaac thought that was a small blessing. But she didn’t sleep through, waking in the early morning and leaving the bed. This was the fourth night it had happened. He’d let her go every time, and had found her sleeping on the sofa she hated a few hours later. As if she’d come out to get away from him.

  This time, he couldn’t spend the last hours of the night sitting in the dark. He felt like he was letting her down somehow by letting her go off in the middle of the night. At least, it should be him sleeping on the couch. He got out of bed and headed to the living room.

  She wasn’t there. Or in the kitchen, or upstairs in her office, or anywhere in the house. His heart had a hair trigger these days, anyway, and it began to race erratically now. God. Where was she?

  Her boots were missing from the front hall. So was her jacket. It was below freezing outside, but she must have gone out there. Isaac pulled on his boots and jacket and went onto the porch.

  Everything was quiet. He didn’t see her anywhere, nor any sign she’d been out here recently. But then he saw the barn door open, a faint yellow glow. She was with the horses?

  She was. As he got to the open doorway, Isaac found Lilli standing with Gert, forehead to forehead. He stayed back for a few minutes, watching. Neither she nor the horse moved. It was a picture of a melancholy peace.

  “Lilli.” He spoke loudly enough for her to hear him halfway through the barn, but he didn’t shout. Nevertheless, she jumped as if he had. Gertie threw her head up and turned an indignant glare on him. He walked in.

  He hated to see her react to him like that. “Sorry, Sport. Didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t know where you’d gone.” He’d reached Gertie’s stall. When he put his hand on Lilli’s lower back, he felt her body go rigid. Just for a moment. Then she swallowed, blinked, and relaxed. He hated it. He knew what she’d gone through, and he knew that it had only been a week, but he had to say something. He could give her all the time she needed, but he couldn’t give her silence.

  “It’s cold out here. Come inside and talk with me.”

  Without turning to look at him, she shook her head. All week, she’d never initiated a conversation, and rarely did more than answer questions he’d asked.

  “Lilli. Baby, please. We don’t have to talk about that, if you don’t want to. I want to talk about us. I feel like I’m losing you. Let me back in.”

  At that, she looked up at him. First they just stared into each other’s eyes. Then she reached out and put her hand on his side. Other than needing his help to get around at first, or the way she’d stayed curled against his body the first day, this was the first time she’d touched more than his hand all week. He stood still, resisting the powerful urge to pull her into his arms.

  Then she slid her own arm around his waist. The other arm followed. She rested her head on his chest. He let himself put his arms around her, gently. She tensed a little, but then he felt her really relax against him.

  “You’re not losing me. I love you. But I just need some time. I’m not ready to talk. About any of it.”

  That scared him, but he wouldn’t push harder. “Okay. All the time you want. But let me stay close.” He kissed her head. “Come inside with me, baby. Please.”

  “Okay.” She took his hand, and they walked back toward the house together.

  ~oOo~

  A couple of weeks later, things were a little better. Christmas was around the corner, and Lilli had turned her attention to planning a party for the town at the clubhouse on Christmas Eve. Having something to accomplish seemed to be doing her a lot of good. And the town deserved a celebration, while they were in the midst of the cleanup and still reeling from Ellis’s attack. They had survived. They had won.

  Lilli hadn’t lost the baby. Though the confirmation that she was still pregnant had not seemed to have made a marked difference in her still-quiet demeanor, for Isaac the news had lightened his spirits considerably. They were still intact, still bound together. And there was hope now for a good future. A safe future.

  They had survived. All three of them. They had won.

  He went upstairs and knocked on her office door. She no longer did secret work for the government, but this room was hers, and she had a need for privacy.

  “Come in,” she called. He went in to find her reading, curled up in the leather armchair he’d built—the first new piece of furniture he’d finished for the house. Her face had almost healed, and she was curled up in a big sweater and jeans that had gotten a bit baggy over the past few weeks. She looked fresh and lovely, even though the bruises and cuts weren’t entirely gone.

  There were stacks of books everywhere and boxes more that hadn’t been opened yet. The contents of her storage locker had arrived. In the kitchen, there was a pretty amazing set of Italian dishes and crockery, too, from her grandmother. And drooping over a stack of boxes in the corner of this room was a decaying, black and white spotted, stuffed dog.

  He walked over and kissed the top of her head. She leaned into it, and he sighed his relief. She was warming to his touch ag
ain. It would be some time yet before they could again be intimate together, until she’d healed completely—if she was even ready then—but she no longer stiffened when his skin touched hers, and that was enough.

  “I gotta get going pretty soon.” He’d called the Horde in to discuss what appeared to be the end of the Ellis problem. In the few weeks since Lilli had been taken, a lot had changed. “But before I go, I want to talk to you about something. Got a minute for me?”

  She set her book aside. “Sure. What’s up?”

  He got down on his knees in front of her chair and took her hands in his. “I want to marry you, Sport. Now. We’re clear of the shit, and the baby’s okay. I want to do what you said—fly out to California and get your dad’s ‘Cuda, then stop in Reno and get married. I want to go tomorrow.”

  The incredulity had grown in her eyes as he’d talked, and now she said, “Isaac…,” making it clear in the way she drew out the syllables that she thought he’d lost his mind.

  But he hadn’t. This was right. There was no good reason in the world that they couldn’t elope right now. “Come on, baby. Let’s put it all behind us, get to our future. Come on. Come away with me.”

  “Isaac, it’s December. If it’s snowing, we’ll never get through the mountains without chains, and I’m not putting chains on my dad’s car.”

  “If it’s snowing, we’ll go south and get hitched in Vegas.”

  “It’s almost Christmas. I’m planning that big-ass party.”

  “You’re good at giving orders. Delegate. The guys will help. And there’s a whole mess of women who’d be all for gettin’ involved. We’ll make sure we’re back in time. Come on, Sport. It’s my Christmas wish. All I want is a wife.”

  “You’re insane.”