He really should have taped my mouth shut. He carves another line, this time in my right thigh, though he’s careful to stay away from the femoral artery. Can’t have me bleeding out before I answer his questions.
What the hell. He wants an answer; I’ll give him the one that’s been bumping around in my head for days. “You know what I think? I think he called it in himself.”
Another cut, tearing through the delicate skin at the arch of my foot. Gritting my teeth against the pain, because fuck that one hurts, I push on. “He didn’t fight me. He could have. He was bigger, stronger. He knew I was coming for him.” The pain in Isaiah’s eyes leeches out onto his face. “You think I’m right, don’t you? Suicide by assassin. He was unhappy, but he didn’t think anyone would understand.” The psychology of suicide is something I’ve avoided, though I guess in this instance it’s similar to Catholic guilt. Can’t die by your own hand or you won’t get through the pearly gates. Can’t die by your own hand because the family won’t believe it and will go looking for vengeance where none is needed. “He hired me to do what he couldn’t do for himself.”
God, what that must be like. Finding out after the fact that one of your loved ones would rather die than seek help. Does he blame himself? Blame himself for not seeing Marc’s desperation to get out from under the thick cloud bearing down on him?
“You’re lying.”
I grit my teeth as he drags the blade along my ribs, tearing through my shirt. “What reason do I have to do that?”
We play this game for a few minutes, Isaiah asking for the truth, me telling him I don’t know. He adds another new scar to my flesh, but for the most part, he digs his fingers into the wounds he’s already caused, the blood flowing anew.
“Why Nick?” I gasp out. “Why does he need to die too?”
Isaiah pauses with the knife inches from my chest. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? Being seen as the screw-up? I wouldn’t do it nearly as much if Nick could just be patient once in a while.”
His reason makes sense in a twisted, sick sort of way. If I can keep him talking, maybe I can get my hands free. “Have you tried talking to him about it?”
He shifts the knife. “Enough. We’re done,” he growls.
Fear’s a white-hot flash, burning through my veins as I twist my wrists helplessly, trying to free myself. Throat, wrists, or stomach? He opts for the stomach. There’s no escaping the burning pain as he plunges the knife in, twisting it for good measure. It’s what I’d do, cause the most internal damage so on the off chance someone found the body in time, there was little hope of saving the victim.
Blood pours from my belly, soaking my lap, tears streaming down my face as a muddled red haze fills my brain. I should have tried harder to free myself. I shouldn’t have trusted him in the first place. So many things I could have done, and now it’s too late.
He cuts the rope tying me to the pipe. The room’s starting to cool, the blood starting to slow. I’m sleepy. Slipping one arm under my knees and the other behind my shoulders, he picks me up.
He’s carrying me somewhere. “’Saiah? Wha’ you doin’?”
“Shhh.”
Seconds or minutes later, I’m lying on the ground. The cement’s as soft as a feather pillow. I’m colder. Frozen. Everything is numb, and I’m exhausted. There’s a welcoming pool of black looming closer, and I’d crawl toward it if I could, but I can’t even move a finger.
Keeping my eyes open is impossible. The black shows me an end to the pain and the cold, seducing me with promises I know it can uphold. I can sleep forever if I want. And I do. I want it more than anything.
“Cass! Cassidy!”
No no no no, don’t do this. Don’t pull me away from my beautiful oblivion.
“Cassidy. Stay with me.”
I know that voice.
“Give me your jacket.”
Something’s pressed against my stomach, and the pain ratchets back up, my eyes flying open at the impact. Garbled sounds like protests tumble from my mouth.
“Looks like she’s lost a lot of blood.”
I know that voice too. It’s different from the other voice. Why won’t they both leave me alone? The black’s receding, taking its warmth with it, cold insinuating itself into my bones. My jaw tenses against my chattering teeth, but my eyelids still feel like there are one-ton weights on them.
“Come on, love, open your eyes for me.”
Love. Nick. Nick and Constantine. I slit my eyes open, meeting Nick’s frantic gaze. Sorry. I can’t get the word out. Sorry he had to be the one to find me. Sorry I didn’t try harder to fight. Sorry I didn’t see it was Isaiah the whole time.
If I had the strength for it, I’d tell him he shouldn’t waste his vengeance on me. I’m a blip on his radar. Now that I’m gone, he’ll need to watch his back.
“Hey.” His quiet voice is still unnaturally loud. “We’ve got paramedics on the way. Stay with me.”
Can’t. Can’t do this anymore. I’ll drag myself to the black if I have to. It’s the only thing that will make this better. The cold’s unbearable, and the muddled red haze in my mind is thicker, more opaque.
There’s a high-pitched wail whining closer. It doesn’t matter. The black’s decided to accept me after all. It shoulders aside the cold and cloaks me with its warmth, encouraging me to shut my eyes. Shut my ears. Just shut down.
“Cass, no!”
Chapter 26
Empty.
It’s like I imagined. The absence of all things. No sound, no scent, no touch. There’s no light at the end of some tunnel. No warmth. It’s a void, one I’m suspended in.
“Clear!”
Death isn’t peaceful. It’s not painful. It’s not anything. It just is. It’s a place to rest for eternity. I guess that makes it peaceful. My heart, my blood, my brain—all finally have a chance to just be. There’s no guilt or anxiety or regret. No happiness or love. I don’t miss it.
“Charging three hundred.”
“Where’s the blood? Someone call the blood bank. Stat!”
“I can’t…come on, you little fucker...there! Found the bleeder!”
If you’re wondering if there’s a heaven, the answer’s no. There’s no hell, either, which is sort of where I expected to end up. I’m being absorbed, atom by atom, into this yawning, unending cavern of black.
“Clear!”
“OR Two is ready.”
“Go!”
* * * *
I am cement. I’m a cement block. I’m at the bottom of the ocean.
This is definitely hell.
Something furry curled up and died in my mouth. My throat is as scorched as the Mojave. Fire scores my belly, spreading its gleeful tendrils through the cement, breaking it into pieces. I’m rising through fog, away from the cool deep, the fire eating away at the wisps.
“Cass?”
Moving hurts. Breathing hurts. My eyelids are glued shut.
Firm lips brush my temple. “Sleep, love. It’ll keep.”
Pushing the words past my lips takes forever. “Hurts.” Hurts to speak. Hurts to think. The red behind my eyelids resembles blood.
“Here.” Cold presses against my lips, parting them, sliding onto my tongue. Ice. It melts and seeps through my mouth, slinking into the crevices and clearing away the fur. It unlocks my jaw, and my lips part, seeking more.
A few more ice chips, and I open my eyes, blinking slowly. Everything’s slightly fuzzy and out of focus. “Hurts,” I whisper.
There’s a short beep, and I manage to roll my head to one side. Nick’s in a chair next to the bed, several days’ worth of stubble covering his jaw, his hair a lazy mess, eyes a little red and bloodshot. But he’s smiling, a gorgeous lifting of lips that wipes away the fatigue. “Welcome back,” he says softly. “A nurse will be here in a minute. She might be able to increase the pain medication.”
Medication. I like the sound of this.
“
You look like shit,” I croak.
His smile turns wry. “Thanks. You look worse.” I stick my tongue out him, and he chuckles. The sound fades as his smile drops. “Wasn’t sure I’d get to see you again.”
“I’ll never deprive you of your cuddle fetish object.”
He laughs, a rusty, unused sound as a pink scrub-clad nurse squeaks in. “You’re awake! How are you feeling?”
Nick jumps in before I can answer. “Can you increase her pain medication?”
The nurse busies herself checking my IV lines and the readouts on the various monitors. “The doctor will be in momentarily. He’ll be able to give the authorization.”
A few more random checks, and she leaves, the squeak of her shoes drowned by the squawking of an intercom in the hallway.
“I met your mother,” he says out of the blue. I stare at him blankly. My mother? I guess that would make sense that she’d be by. I might have cut her out of my life, but she hadn’t cut me out of hers. “She’s been by every evening. Your dad was here the first night. Haven’t seen him since.”
Typical Turner. “Who else?”
“Constantine. Liana. Denise and her boyfriend. Charlie?” I nod. “The guy who walked you to drama class. Scott?”
“Scott came by? Wow.” The list of names brings the one I’ve avoided so far to the surface. “Nick? What happened with Isaiah?”
Whatever good humor he has flees, his face shutting down. “He’s dropped off the radar. No one can find him.”
The memory crashes over me: the Taser, the ropes, the random cuts, the horrific pain as he twisted the knife. Being carried and laid out on the floor of the garage. My stomach throbs. “Why did he do it? Carry me out into the middle of the garage? He could have just left me.”
He takes my hand, lacing our fingers together, tight and neat. They fit together scarily well. “He wanted you to be found. And I think he wanted me to find you. The security cameras caught everything. You didn’t see it coming. Tasered you right in the back.”
“I know.” My tone’s as dry as toast. “I was there.”
He squeezes my hand. “He placed you in full view,” he says quietly. “Motherfucker knew what he was doing. Con says the guy normally manning the security desk takes a break around the same time every day. I think Isaiah got lucky, saw you walking toward my car, and headed you off. Not so much a crime of opportunity since he was prepared, but if it hadn’t happened that day, it would have another. Some place else where I might not have been so lucky.”
I arch a brow. “You got lucky?”
“I got lucky.” He doesn’t sound all that happy about it, just grim. “You died on me a couple times that day. Once in the ER, once on the operating table. You’re really fucking lucky to be alive, Cassidy, but you’re really fucking lucky because I was lucky. Con and I were on our way out to meet Isaiah. He’d called me, saying he was grabbing lunch, and since you weren’t around, maybe I ought to join him. Con tagged along because he wanted to talk to the security guard about the possibility of extra security. We both saw Isaiah carrying you through the garage.”
He leans over the railing, cradling my hand in both of his. “He was staring right up at the camera. A set up. You probably should have been dead by then, but he wasn’t going to leave you wherever he’d taken you. You were meant to be found, and found quickly.”
Pain flares, tearing a gasp from my abused throat. Nick strokes my hand until it relaxes. “We can talk more when you’re better.”
The why batters me. I understand why Isaiah tried to kill me. Why Nick, though? Isaiah’s explanation made sense. I know what it’s like to be viewed as a failure and a screw-up. But does his hatred of Nick really run deep enough to want him dead?
And how could I have been so wrong about Constantine?
The doctor strides in, stethoscope sticking out of his pocket, the green scrubs not doing his complexion any favors. “Ms. Turner. I’m Dr. Smith.” His smile is perfunctory. “You want the short version or the long version?”
“Short, please.” I’d really like to go back to sleep.
“You lost a lot of blood and suffered a great deal of internal damage. Since you’re awake, we’ll mark that as a sign of improvement. You’ll be staying in our fine establishment for a while.” He picks up my chart and flips through it. “What’s your pain level, scale of one to ten?”
“Nine.”
He glances up, then makes a notation on the chart. “We can bump you up a bit. Not too much, but should be enough to help you sleep.” He fiddles with one of the machines next to the bed and then hands me a remote attached by a covered wire. “Pressing the button will give you a boost. It’s not a constant flow, and it’ll only allow you a hit twice an hour.” I press the button. I’m rewarded with a soothing warmth spreading through my limbs. Dr. Smith grins. “Maybe now you can convince your boyfriend to go home and sleep.”
Boyfriend? Confused and overwhelmed with exhaustion, I glance over at Nick. In my fatigued state, he looks even worse than he did before. “Go home,” I mumble. “Sleep.”
He plants a kiss on my forehead. “In a while.”
The next few days blur together, spent in a fog of pain and sleep. When I’m awake and coherent enough for conversation, Nick’s there. He’s commandeered the other bed in the room over the hospital’s protests. If someone, a security guard, a nurse, Dr. Smith, tries to kick him out of it, he glares at them.
He doesn’t trust anyone else to keep me safe. Not even Constantine, which leads to a shouting match. They stop when my pillow hits Nick in the face. “Nick, go home. Constantine will stay with me until you get back.”
He stalks to the bed, pillow in hand, the gentleness of his touch at odds with the anger on his face as he helps me sit up and places the pillow under my head. “Cass—”
“Nope. Not hearing it. Go home. Get some real sleep. Reacquaint yourself with your house. You come back here looking like a bum, I’ll kick you out again.” His fear isn’t unreasonable, but his constant presence is…weird. Very, very weird. Completely out of place for someone he barely knows.
But a part of me, a big, selfish part loves it, thinks it’s sweet, uses it to spin new dreams of a future, complete with the two-point-five kids, picket fence, and a dog.
After more grumbles, he gives in, threatening Constantine with bodily harm if anything happens to me. His cousin flips him the bird and settles into the hard plastic seat next to the bed and picks up the TV remote.
He clicks through the channels, too fast for me to see what’s on each one before he’s on to the next. “Is he always like that? Uber protective?”
“You mean with the women he dates? Not really. Cecelie’s the only one I’ve seen him do anything close to that, but since she was pretty much in the dark about the family business, there wasn’t much call for it.” He shoots me a sidelong glance. “He feels responsible for what happened to you. Thinks if he’d insisted on going with you, nothing would have happened.”
Responsible. That explains it. Guilt’s what’s keeping him here, not his feelings for me. The guilt’s much more realistic. It sucks the breath from my lungs and refuses to give it back. I pack my sweetly fuzzy dreams into a box and nail it shut, heart shuddering with the final hammer blow. “What’s going to happen now?”
If Constantine’s surprised by the question, he doesn’t show it. “Dom thinks Isaiah’s the one who hired you to take him out, though he’s still unsure as to why.” Our thoughts align there; getting stabbed banished my misgivings about Constantine, placing blame firmly on Isaiah. “Once we confirm, we’ll start at the bottom. Isaiah didn’t get as far as he did without help, without people loyal to him. We’ll weed them out. It might be time to trim the fat, anyway.”
From the little Nick’s told me about his family, they’ve got all their fingers in all the pies. What Constantine’s describing sounds like cutting off some of those fingers. “So things might get a little…unstable,” I say s
lowly.
“That’s probably the most accurate way of describing it.”
“Nick will need to focus on work.” Not me. Not me and my safety.
Constantine turns away from the TV. “What are you thinking, Cassidy?” The question is quiet with the barest hint of inflection. Like he knows what I’m going to say.
I pluck at the blanket covering my lower body. “I’m thinking it’s time to call my dad.”
* * * *
Turner’s expression is impassive, as usual. “You’re certain about this.”
“It’s the right thing to do.” I hold his gaze, that steady, unflinching, X-ray stare. He knows I’m right, which is the reason I asked for his help in the first place. Believe me, if there was a different way to accomplish this, I would have gone that route.
The plan is to get me away from Los Angeles. I need a place to recover in peace. Since Isaiah didn’t accomplish what he’d set out to do, there’s a strong chance he’ll come after me again. I’ll tell Nick where I am once I’m gone so he won’t worry. He needs to concentrate on staying alive.
The plan isn’t an entirely selfless act on my part. Knowing why Nick’s spent so much time, first waiting for me to wake up, then refusing to leave, has dulled any shine his devotion had. Simply put, it hurts, far more than I’m comfortable with, and I want distance. I want to hide away and lick my wounds. If I try hard enough, they’ll be nothing more than bittersweet memories.
It’ll give me time to stop playing what-if. What if Isaiah had never gotten his hands on me? Would we have continued how we were?
Turner glances at the clock on the wall. “He’ll be here soon. I’ll talk to the doctor. Plan to leave tomorrow night. I’ll have your mother pack a bag for you.”
Swallowing against the lump in my throat, I nod once, then snuggle deeper under the thin hospital blankets. It’s for the best. It’s the safest option for both of us.
The right thing to do sucks balls.
Epilogue
Game of Shadows Page 20
