Till The Sun Dies: Checkmate, #2

by Finn, Emilia

  “No? Well that’s too damn bad. I’ll never give you up, so you need to find a new plan. A plan that leaves you with a long, happy life. I refuse to let you take the other way out.”

  “That’s not fair,” I cry. “It’s not you that has to live with the poison! It’s not you that has to live with the memories, Ang.” I choke on fresh tears. “You don’t get to make that decision for me.”

  His angry eyes soften. “I promise to help you. I’ll try to make it better.” He reaches across the space between us. He doesn’t touch me, he doesn’t reach for my hand, he simply lays work stained fingers on the very edge of my bed and gives me something other than my own filth to focus on. “I promise to be with you every step of the way. You’re not alone in this, Laine, and together, I promise we can beat back your monsters. But for right now, we need to sleep.”

  My jaw wobbles, my nose runs, and each time I swipe a hand to clean the mess, the rough bandage on my sore skin reminds me of what I did. “I’m scared, Ang. I’m scared to sleep.”

  Wordlessly, he turns his hand over in invitation.

  I want to be brave, I want to stop crying, I want to feel something other than disgust in myself. But all I manage is a brand-new bout of uncontrollable tears as I slam my hand against his, our fingers locking together.

  He closes his strength around me and holds on in silence while I purge the poison from my blackened veins.

  * * *

  Seven or so hours after my middle of the night breakdown, a woman steps into my room with an air of elegance only women of advanced age can manage. She moves across my room in a suit of soft blue – sharp and beautiful, despite its gentle color – and an elegant bun that pulls mid-length hair away from her face.

  She studies me in silence for a long beat, and each second that passes leaves me feeling more and more exposed.

  I don’t like this.

  I don’t like her.

  “Hi, Laine. My name is Sonia.” She stops beside my bed and slowly lowers into the plastic chair. Resting a folder in her lap, she smiles and gentles the vice that squeezes my chest. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Angelo left only because this woman made him. Slowly backing out with eyes that promised retribution if she hurt me, he closed the door and stood by the window.

  He still watches us.

  I don’t dare look at the window, but I feel his stare.

  I never knew this protective side of Angelo before. I mean, he always came running when I called. He always bailed me out of silly trouble, but this new hardness is surprising.

  Angelo has always been a constant in my life. Always ready to listen, always there for a ride home if I needed it, or a pizza and beer if I was lonely.

  He was always just there; like furniture…

  Sonia tilts her head and draws me back to the now. “Laine?”

  “Yeah, hello.”

  Mid-sixties, perhaps even her seventies, this woman smiles the way a big breasted grandma might. She’s not big breasted. She’s not big anything, but she’s comfortable, even in fancy clothes and tight hair.

  Sonia is a contradiction, and contradictions are too much for me to process right now.

  “You don’t have to worry so much, Laine.” She leans forward and pats my leg. “I’m just here to talk. To get to know you.”

  “But you’re a therapist.” When she nods, I add, “For crazy people.”

  Her soft eyes turn sad. “No. I’m a therapist, but you’re not crazy. I’m here to help, to talk about what happened, and to help you find different coping mechanisms.”

  “What will happen to me?” I sit higher in my bed and pull the blankets up. “Are you going to send me away?”

  “Send you away? Send you where?”

  “To a mental hospital or something. Because I tried to…” My arm throbs as I stumble over the horrible words. “Because I tried to kill myself.”

  “No.” Sitting back in her chair, she crosses one tailored leg over the other and links her hands in her lap. “I’m not sending you anywhere, honey. I just want to talk. I want to become your friend.”

  I don’t believe her. And the machines that monitor my heart announce my distrust with loud, insistent beeps.

  “Why don’t we just get to know each other?” She forces a gentle smile. “This doesn’t have to be scary. I promise I’m here to help you.”

  A lone tear slides along my cheek and stops on the swell of my lip. “I didn’t want to live anymore. I didn’t want to hurt anymore.”

  Subtly victorious, she taps her file and unclips a pen. “You speak in past tense. You don’t feel that way anymore?” When I stare with confusion, she adds, “Do you still have thoughts of self harm, Laine? Do you still want to go away and not come back?”

  I stare down at my blankets and the lumps my feet make. “I dunno. I haven’t had much time to think since I woke up. Ang has been here, so…” I shrug.

  “Can I ask, Laine… were you having these thoughts for long before this week? Is this something that’s been in your mind for long?”

  “About a year, I guess.” I nibble on my bottom lip. “I wanted it all to stop about a year ago, and then the other week, when I accidentally cut my finger, it became a little more real to me.”

  She jots down her notes. “What happened a year ago?”

  “He…” My stomach jumps. “Graham took me to a club that had not very nice people in it.”

  She barely reacts, which makes me think she knows more of my story than I’ve told her. “That was the first time?”

  “Yeah. He said it would be fun. A special club for special women who liked to be…” Tears flow over my cheek. “He said women shouldn’t be shamed for having broad sexual appetites, and that there are clubs that adults go to that have all these new and exciting experiences.”

  “Just so you know, women shouldn’t be shamed for having broad sexual appetites. You’re allowed to enjoy sex however you like, so long as it’s consensual.”

  I swipe at the tears that won’t stop. “But it wasn’t consensual. I didn’t want that. I don’t like sex. I used to like it… before Graham, but I didn’t like it anymore. He said I wasn’t doing it right, so he took me to that club to… to learn. It was fun for a minute, it was exciting, but then I…” My chest lifts and drops. “I tried some stuff they had there. Umm… Drugs.” My eyes meet hers. “I did drugs, because everyone else was doing it. Graham said it would be fun, and that he’d take care of me, so I did it. Then these other men came into the room… I didn’t want it anymore.”

  She writes her notes and doesn’t make a big deal about the torrential tears that won’t let up. “Okay.” Her eyes come back to mine. “You’re okay. You’re safe with me, Laine.”

  Hiccupping, I reach to the bedside table and snatch a handful of tissues. I bring them to my nose and blow, and when I feel the burn on the side of my head, I turn and come eye to eye with Angelo.

  He watches me through the glass with furious features like my sniffling enrages him.

  He can’t hear my words.

  He doesn’t know my shame.

  But he sees my tears.

  Sonia follows my gaze and lifts a brow at his watchful gaze. Standing without a single word, she walks toward the door and snaps the curtains around to cut him off.

  No remorse, she locks him out and brings it back to just me and her.

  “What happened two days ago, Laine? You said you thought about self-harm a year ago; what happened two days ago that allowed you to take it from theory to practice?”

  “He keeps calling me.” I drag in a deep breath until my lungs ache. “He calls me every single day. He says he’s sorry. He says he didn’t know he was hurting me.”

  Her soft eyes narrow. “Go on.”

  “I’d rather be dead than go back, but sometimes… sometimes I wonder if maybe I should.” A loud sob crawls up my throat. “I’m broken and dirty now. No one will ever want me, and my family don’t need my kind of filth around. My ki
nd of shame.” My chest bounces with suffocating cries. “I did it, because it’s better if I’m just gone.”

  “No.” Pushing her file away, Sonia stands and pulls me into her arms. “No, honey. You’re not broken. You’re not dirty or tainted or shameful. You’re brave.” She pulls back and stares into my eyes. Hers are steely and sure. “You’re so brave.” She nods toward the door. “And you’re so unbelievably loved. Don’t ever forget that.”

  6

  Angelo

  Where To Lay The Blame

  Kane forced Jess to go home last night - I don’t know how or what he said - but he forced her home when she was falling asleep, and promised to be back first thing this morning.

  It’s first thing already, it’s barely after seven, but the therapist was faster.

  Footsteps on the linoleum floor draw my attention away from the back of the thick curtain that blocks my view of Laine, and I glance up as they come to a stop behind me.

  With a lingering glance between the couple and a squeeze of their joined hands, Jess bravely steps into the room like that tyrant therapist isn’t in there, and closes the door in our faces with a soft snick.

  I want to go in.

  I want to help.

  I want to know how to make sure this never happens again.

  When the crying in the room grows louder, Kane folds his arms across his chest and turns to face the same curtain I do. “How’s Laine doing?”

  I pull in a cleansing breath and close my eyes. “She’s with the quack. She slept until just after midnight. Woke up, talked a little bit.”

  He turns to me. “She talked to you?”

  I nod.

  “Did she go into detail?”

  “Not really. I heard Sonia’s good, though, which means I’m putting a lot of fuckin’ faith in the people that recommended her.” I turn away and lean against the glass wall. “How’s Jess?”

  “Didn’t sleep.” He rolls his eyes. “I’m the idiot, because I took her away so she could; she would’ve gotten more if she stayed here. She cried a lot. Blames herself. You know; exactly what we expected.”

  “Yeah…” I glance over my shoulder and stare at the back of the curtain again. “They’re not just sisters, Kane, they’re best friends. There are four of them, four friends. Jess and Laine. Then Britt and Kari. Four best friends that were inseparable. They’d kill a guy for each other and none of them would snitch, but Jess and Laine had something else.”

  “What they have is special…”

  “Yeah, what they have is special. For the time you were gone, they were joined at the hip. They just cried, together, all the fuckin’ time. They hung out in their bedrooms, snuggled in bed, and cried. There was nothing any of us could do to get them out, but they were together, you know? It was heartbreaking, but at least they were together.”

  “Until I came back…”

  I push my hands into my pockets and nod. “Until you came back. Laine would never resent Jess for being happy, but once you came back and Jess stopped crying…” I sigh. “Well, Laine was still crying, but now she was doing it all alone.”

  “Fuck.” He scrubs a tattooed hand through his short hair. “This is on me.”

  “No, this is on Graham. This lands squarely on his shoulders, and I intend to do something about it.”

  “You’re ready?” His dark eyes watch me. “We talked, then you dropped it. I figured you got over it.”

  “No, I didn’t drop it. I was getting shit set up, getting all my ducks in a row, but I never once forgot, and I never dropped it.”

  He turns to me seriously. “You sure you wanna get your hands dirty? Don’t you think she deserves better than a two-bit criminal sullied by vengeance?”

  Howling sobs echo through the door. Identical cries of equal intensity bring us back to the glass. “He hurt them both.” I flex my hands at my sides. “He almost killed Laine. It’s not getting my hands dirty; it’s purifying this earth of something fucking vile. He doesn’t deserve to live. He doesn’t deserve to get away with what he did.”

  Standing shoulder to shoulder, Kane rolls his bottom lip between his fingers and watches the glass window.

  I don’t know if he can tell the girls’ cries apart yet. He struggles with their looks, and their cries sound the same.

  But I can tell.

  I can tell the dominant cry reverberating through the wall right now belongs to Jess as she purges her soul of the poison and guilt.

  Does he know it’s his Jess making that sound?

  His nostrils flare with anger. “When?”

  Yeah, he knows.

  “Tonight?”

  “Where?”

  “My garage.”

  He turns to me with narrowed eyes. “You wanna get your workplace dirty?”

  “You got another suggestion?”

  “I have a million. I’ve spent years doing this shit and making sure it’s clean. A bullet through the brain in the middle of the desert is preferable.”

  “No.” I shake my head when Laine’s cries join Jess’. “He’s not getting a bullet in the brain. He’s getting so much worse.”

  “You’re still on the blowtorch train?” He chuckles. “You’re a sick motherfucker, Alesi.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. It’s been my dirty little fantasy for months, and I’m not dragging my shit outta my garage, so…”

  He grins. Turning towards me, he lifts a fist the way I did so long ago in a speeding car. “Alrighty. Let’s make it happen.”

  “You sure you want in? This isn’t your fight, so I won’t call you out if you step down.”

  “There’s nothing on this planet I won’t do for Jess. Nothing. There’s no line, no limit, nothing a motherfucker can say while we snap his fucking fingers off one by one, that’ll convince me not to take care of her.” He points to the room. “I can hear her, Ang. I can hear them both. He hurt what’s mine, and for that, I’ll make him hurt.”

  “Fair call.” I bump his fist and commit the first part of this crime.

  We’re fucking Graham up.

  It’s premeditated, and we have zero fucking remorse.

  * * *

  An hour after the therapist walked into the hospital room, Sonia walks out again with eyes that I swear have aged. She lays one hand on my forearm, and the other on Kane’s. She gives a gentle squeeze that says more than any words could convey.

  One session down.

  A lifetime to go.

  But a lifetime of knowing Sonia is better than a lifetime without Laine.

  Quietly, I follow Kane into the shadowed room and stop at the sight of the girls hugging on the bed. Laine lies on her back, and Jess lies on her side with her jeaned thigh hitched on Laine’s leg. Her cheek rests on Laine’s chest, and her fingers play with a string bracelet I haven’t seen in forever.

  Stepping to the left side of the bed, Kane taps Jess’ thigh. “What’ve you got there, Blondie?”

  Three of us answer as one. “Best friend bracelets.”

  Laine’s lips turn up in a wobbling grin. “We made these when we were kids. Wore them for the longest time just in case anyone couldn’t tell we were best friends.”

  “Because you look nothing alike,” he laughs. He sits in the plastic visitor chair and rests his hand on Jess’ thigh. He can’t not touch her. He can’t stay away.

  And yet, I stand near the door and can’t touch at all.

  I’m not allowed.

  “Did you sleep well last night?” Laine asks Jess.

  “Uh-huh. Slept like a baby. You?”

  My eyes come up to Kane’s. He simply shakes his head and leans forward until his forehead rests on her hip and his eyeroll is hidden from the girls.

  “Yeah, I slept. I missed you.” Her voice cracks.

  “I was removed against my will,” Jess huffs. “But don’t worry, it won’t happen again. I hid all the weapons and cuffs. No more keeping me away from you.”

  Snorting, Laine lifts her head from the
pillow and works to catch sight of Kane. “He’s a little bit scary.”

  Without looking, Jess shakes her head and reaches out to run her fingers through his hair. “No, he’s not. He’s a marshmallow. He pretends to be scary because it makes him feel badass, but really, you just gotta know which buttons to push. I’ll teach you.”

  I chuckle. There’s no one on this planet that’d be brave enough to disrespect the scary dude to his face. But Jess isn’t normal. She’s as crazy as he is.

  “I’m sleeping here tonight,” she murmurs. “I’m not leaving.”

  He nods against her hip. “Okay.”

  “I’m not leaving my sister. Never again. We’re gonna be sister wives and live together forever.”

  He chuckles. “Alright.”

  “Ah, no, you’re fuckin’ not.” I step forward and draw three sets of eyes. Shit. Fuck. “She doesn’t mean how you think, Bishop, so get it outta your head.”

  He grins.

  Jess rolls her eyes. “Hush.”

  “No! I won’t hush. They don’t roll like that, asshole, so wipe that stupid grin off your face or I’ll slip with my blowtorch next time you’re in my garage.”

  He flashes a dirty grin and massages Jess’ hip. “You can sleep here tonight, Blondie. You have my permission.”

  She scoffs. “I don’t need your permission. I just told you what was happening.”

  Kane Bishop used to be a badass motherfucker. He was undercover ATF. Drug runner. Killer.

  He’s coming with me tonight, because with Jess, he’s none of those things anymore.

  He’s just whipped.

  7

  Laine

  Girls Night In

  Angelo steps closer to my side of the bed and waits until I meet his eyes. I don’t want to look up. I don’t want to look at him, but when he taps the white sheets ever so gently, I’m forced to look up or be rude.

  He’s been family since before I can remember; I’m not allowed to be rude.