Murder

by Ella James

  I try not to think about what Dove and Michael told me, about how Barrett only had some bear spray and the throwing star because he’d moved all of the knives and guns out of his house. And why he did that.

  I like to imagine when he wakes up, all of that will be forgotten. He will say my name first thing, and we will hug. I’ll get under the covers with him and we’ll snuggle. I can give him water, wash his hair…

  I’ll shave his beard and kiss his lips all night. And I won’t care that we’re still here. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but this man beside me. His warm skin, his old familiar scars and tattoos. I know everything about him now, every mark and curve of muscle. I will see him sleeping in my dreams for all my life and think how beautiful he is, and want to wake him up and see his eyes.

  How much have I fantasized about that moment? Seeing his eyes open, focus on me. God, I want it more than life itself. Barrett wakes up, and we can talk. We can move forward. We can heal together. I know things like walking will be hard because he’ll be weak, so I can take him to my house since it’s a one-story. I’ll do what his physical therapist here does to help his muscles stay active. He’ll regain his strength, and I’ll cook all the best foods for him. They’ll take out the tiny yellow tube that’s threaded through his nose into his stomach, because he’ll eat my food. He won’t need that. In my fantasy, he won’t need anything but me.

  And so, of course, it has to happen that he wakes up on a Wednesday night—the first night I’ve been booked to sing at the Bluebird in almost five years.

  I get the text when I dig in my purse for my car keys, after. I’m already sweaty and exhilarated, so when I see Cleo’s words, I nearly pass dead out.

  Barrett’s awake!!!!!!!! Don’t come back yet though. They have to do a few things first. I’ll keep you posted!!! :D

  What the fuck?

  Just…what the fuck?

  I drive straight to the hospital. Cleo can sit on a cactus. When I get near his room, I bump into Kellan on his way out. I know something’s wrong the second his gaze touches mine.

  “…Gwenna.”

  My knees are so shaky, I’m forced to grab his arm. Compassion overtakes the weirdness in his eyes. He leads me not into Bear’s room, but over to a hallway chair.

  “Sit down.”

  “I don’t want to sit down! Kellan…”

  “He’s okay. He’s doing great. Ray the PT was in there and Barrett didn’t like the way Ray moved his left hand.” Kellan’s eyes widen. “He could feel it.”

  “His left hand?”

  He nods. “Not sure if it’s all the way or what. He’s pretty sleepy, but he said some things to Ray and asked ‘What’s this shit in my nose?’ and tried to pull the NG tube out.” Barrett chuckles. “He did pull it out. It’s gone. He’s drinking juice.”

  My pulse surges. “What’s the catch?”

  Kellan’s eyes dart down to his feet. I see his jaw flex. “Gwen… He asked where Lyon was. He remembered when I told him. He asked how I got cleared to come to Germany.”

  “He thought he was at Landstuhl.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is that a problem? Does that mean—”

  “After a few minutes, he remembered what happened. With Nic.”

  “You’re scaring me! What aren’t you saying, Kellan?”

  “He called you Snowflake. He said, ‘that girl. The snowflake girl.’ I started to ask him what that meant and he said the one with red hair. I told him you were okay, and he tried to ask about the accident. We kept telling him you were okay, but he got upset. They weren’t going to give him anything but they ended up giving him a small amount of Xanax. When we asked if he wanted to see you, to see Gwen, he told us no. I’m so sorry, Gwen. It might be different tomorrow. But tonight, they want us all to go. He’s very tired, he’s sleeping. I’ve woken up after a long sleep before, and trust me, he’s not going to be looking for us. I doubt he’s even quite that with it yet. They think that this is big for him. Hell, it’s amazing. They just want us to leave him starting now until sometime in the morning. Let the nurses and the doctors check him over. See if he’ll wake up in another few hours and say more then.”

  My throat is so tight, when I try to speak, nothing comes out. “You would leave him?” I manage.

  Kellan’s face goes gentle. “He’s my brother, Gwen. I’m not saying we go far. We can stay at that hotel across the street. If he wakes up again and asks for us, we come right over.”

  I open my mouth and try go get some air into my lungs. “Did he remember you?”

  “He did.”

  “Cleo?” I rasp.

  “Yes. He remembered Cle.”

  My voice wavers. “He didn’t ask for me?”

  “That’s why I didn’t want you to go in just yet. He had the Xanax, now he’s sleeping. If you get upset Gwen, Barrett might, too.”

  “No he won’t! Not if he doesn’t remember me. He called me Snowflake New Year’s Eve! In 2012.” I grab onto Barrett’s wrist. He wraps his arm behind my back. “If he didn’t call me Gwen or Pig, he doesn’t know me! Kell, I have to know! I have to know if he knows who I am…” Against my will, I start to cry.

  He pulls me close. “You want some Xanax too?” He makes a sound like a chuckle, but it’s darker. His face, when I draw away and look into his eyes, is tight and pale.

  “I don’t want Xanax. I don’t want your help!” I run blindly down the hall, and I don’t stop until I’m outside in the parking lot.

  THIRTY TWO

  GWENNA

  Kellan is crazy. You couldn’t pry me away from Bear right now to save the planet. Also, it’s not true what Kellan said. What he implied. That we can’t see Barrett right now.

  We can if we want. Even I can. All the doctors are saying is they want him to have a solid night’s rest because sleep is important for healing of the brain, and if we want him to stay conscious, he needs to sleep.

  Did Kellan think I would run into his room and make him more upset? The thought fills me with fury until sometime in the wee hours when I’m dozing in the waiting room—and I realize that if Kellan hadn’t kept me away, maybe I would have burst into Bear’s room and made a fuss.

  So what?

  I can still be mad at Kellan.

  I can still be mad.

  I look out the window in front of me, out at the Smoky Mountains, green hills wreathed with blue-gray fog, and I wonder what I’ll do if he doesn’t remember me. Doesn’t remember us. How will I cope with that?

  How is this even happening right now? After everything…

  I shut my eyes and think of myself up there on stage last night at the Bluebird. How good it felt. And how I thought of Barrett the whole time because I knew how proud he’d be of me.

  Once his friends told me how he felt, and I saw that pig tattoo, everything shifted back to normal in my head. Even if it had been me he hit… It would have been weird, yeah. Of course. A sensitive subject. But I think we’d have learned to joke about it. I think we could have gotten through it.

  What kind of universe—what kind of God—takes that kind of love and just…erases it?

  Tears fill my eyes. I need to get up. Walk around a little. Breathe, before I go into hysterics and the woman at the waiting room security desk makes me leave.

  She’s talking on her phone as I elbow through a one of the double-doors, bound for the cafeteria. I give her a tight smile.

  “Ma’am?”

  I look over my shoulder.

  “Gwenna, right?”

  I nod.

  “They need you down the hall.”

  My stomach flips. “Which hall?”

  She laughs. “The other way.” She waves across the room, toward the other double-doors. “The one with all the patients.”

  I push through that set of doors with clammy hands. Is something wrong? I’m met mid-hallway by Nancy, one of the nicer nurses. When I see her face, my head goes airy.

  “Gwenna.” She looks troubled. “I’m glad you
’re here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  I grab out for the wall, leaning against it as her dark brows draw together. “Barrett is awake, which is phenomenal, but he’s…”

  “What?” I snap.

  “He’s very upset. We can’t seem to get him calmed down. The charge nurse, Sue, is in there now and has paged the on-call, but…I think it’s psychological rather than physical. Honestly? I think he’s having some kind of flashback.”

  I suck a deep breath in and start off toward his room. “I’ll know what it is.”

  Nancy trots along beside me. “He has said your name a few times.”

  I burst through the door to find the room still dark. Barrett’s on his side, curled up and shaking with soft, muffled sobs.

  “Barrett?” I reach his bed, then freeze. My head is spinning so hard, I almost feel dizzy. I reach out for him, my hand touching his arm. “Bear? It’s Gwenna.”

  I can’t breathe as I lean there against his mattress. So surreal…

  I see his shoulders shake a little, and the shock of seeing him in motion wakes me back up.

  “Beary… Hey, it’s Gwen.” I squeeze his shoulder. “You all right?”

  With a knot in my throat, I look behind me at the nurses, and then climb carefully up on the bed.

  “I do this at home,” I murmur to them as I move in close and wrap an arm around him. He’s so thin. He’s shaking. God, my Barrett. It’s so weird to feel his body moving…

  My clumsy hands sift through the sheets, feeling the smoothness of his shoulder, then his neck, his face… His throat still sports a small bandage. I stroke alongside that, the way I always used to when I’d try to wake him up.

  “Bear? It’s Gwennie.” My voice cracks on my name. What if he doesn’t know it? I inhale as his head comes to rest against my shoulder. “Bear.” Tears fill my eyes. I cup his warm neck. “We’re okay…”

  I can feel his face against my shoulder, feel his body pause…

  His forehead tips back, eyes rising to mine. “Pig?”

  A little sob slips out, mixed with a crazed laugh. “Yes.”

  Bear’s arms come around me, pulling me to him. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever felt.

  Epilogue

  BARRETT

  May 28, 2016

  It’s hot today, but I don’t care. Gwenna likes to hold my hand, and I like holding hers. We’ve taken Brian to the enclosure, into Piglet’s house, and now we’re walking to the open-roofed gazebo behind mine. I squeeze Gwen’s hand as Brian climbs the step and takes a seat on the wooden bench that wraps around the inside of the octagon.

  Pig and I sit down across from him. Brian takes out his tiny, black recorder, and Gwenna draws my arm into her lap. Her free hand starts to stroke the inside of my forearm.

  I can’t bring myself to be bothered by the PDA. Three weekends ago, we sat in Gwenna’s living room while Brian heard her side of our story. She and I sat leg-to-leg and hip-to-hip, my arm around her shoulders, while she talked for four and a half hours, taking breaks to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. As we served Brian dinner, she found small moments to peck me on the cheek and rub my hip and whisper, “Good?”

  I smiled for her, just like I always try to, even when it’s not all good. Because she smiles for me. Because, now that she has my mother’s emerald on her left hand, I’ve vowed to make her life the best that it can be, to be her strength, her shield, the second heart that keeps her breathing when she can’t.

  Brian’s a cool guy, and I like him. If I didn’t, or she didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. We don’t have to be. It’s not because we need the money. It’s because, if Brian does make the movie, our share of the profits and one fourth of his will go to veterans. I get to choose the charities myself.

  So when Brian smiles at us, and Gwen looks at me, I take a slow, quiet breath and think about my buddy Breck. And all the guys I’ve been getting to know with the veteran’s group, the guys who will work with me in a few months, when I’m back in fighting form and the building is remodeled, and I open the doors of Freedom Martial Arts.

  I give Brian a small nod.

  “So we’ll do just like we did with Gwenna. Trying to get notes on you for the actor, and for me, of course.” He smiles, his glasses shifting on his face. “Let’s start off with something lighter. Tell me how you felt when you woke up that night and Gwen was there.”

  I shift my eyes from Brian’s to the bench beside him. Gwen’s hand squeezes my wrist. What do I tell him? They don’t make words for it, not for something like that. The way it felt to have her arms around me, just her smell…

  I inhale deeply. My throat aches.

  “Surprised.” It comes out a whisper.

  “Why?” he asks.

  I feel Gwen’s forehead press against my bicep. Grit my teeth. A prickling hive of anger washes through me. I don’t even know at whom. Myself.

  I’m still not over this. Doc says I will be. But I’m still mad, for now. At me.

  I bite the inside of my cheek and shake my head. “Didn’t think I’d see her there.”

  “But Gwen said her feelings didn’t really change.”

  I raise my right hand to my forehead, rub; I stretch my fingers to my temples and press down. “Well, I didn’t know that,” I say into my hand.

  I’m going to fuck this up.

  I think of Breck. And Gwen. If the movie is made, Brian, one of the writers who helped the author of End of Day turn it into a script, will have some pull with who gets cast as Gwenna. It could even be her.

  I let my gaze wander to her face. She smiles sadly. I smile back.

  Another deep breath, more a sigh, and I force my gaze back to Brian’s. “Because I hadn’t seen her,” I tell him evenly. “After my confession that night, her getting upset, I called her friend Jamie and like Gwen said, they came back here. I thought my friends were there to kill me when they found me in the woods. I wasn’t…” In my right mind.

  Brian nods.

  “Remember,” I say sharply, “that part has to pass review. The part about my friends.”

  “I know.” He smiles. “In this business, I’m well-versed in the NDA, and yours was ironclad.”

  Gwen’s nails stroke my arm. I have to work to keep my eyes from sagging shut.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumble.

  “This is sensitive material. I understand that. And it’s hard to talk about.”

  “I was surprised to see her,” I say, going back to what he asked. “I didn’t know she… Damn.” I shut my eyes and grab a deep breath.

  “It’s okay,” Gwen murmurs.

  I shake my head. I need to spit it out. Quit hedging. Even if my voice cracks. Which it does when I say, “I didn’t realize she would still…want me.”

  “And love you,” she whispers.

  I wipe my eyes, then stroke her hair. “I was surprised,” I repeat quietly.

  “Just as long as you aren’t in the future.” She kisses my arm, and I try to bring the emotion level down while Brian asks more questions about the weeks after I woke up.

  Gwenna finds a way to keep things light and teasing, joking with Brian that she had to wipe my ass. When my face heats up and I swat at her, she cackles.

  I grab the recorder. “That’s a damn lie. Nobody loses that much muscle in a month. I was walking around in a couple of days. Not far, and Piglet held my hand.” I give her a tender smile.

  “We’re hand-holders.”

  “And your hand worked? The left one?”

  I nod. “Not perfect, but yeah. More than it did.” I flex it for Brian. “I broke a rib back there: the second one from the top, here on the left side. The nerves to this hand were never damaged beyond repair, they just had pressure on them. That’s how they explained it to me. Something about that rib breaking gave the nerve more room to breathe.”

  I put my hand down, and Gwen laces her fingers through mine.

  She ends up helping me desc
ribe our coming home, on tax day, as it were. “We both filed for extensions.” She smiles.

  “So tell me what you’re doing now.”

  I tell Brian about the studio, the renovations we’ve got going. “Gwen’s still singing, so we go to Nashville once a week, like she told you.”

  “How’s that going?”

  She beams. “I’m in talks with a small label about a record deal.”

  I can’t help grinning, too.

  We talk about the bears—all doing well—and I go through Kellan and Lyon’s story, and Kell and Cleo’s. When I think I’ve given all the facts and have started thinking about peeling Piglet’s little jean shorts off, Brian says, “Just a few more things. I need more details for the character sketches.”

  Gwen takes a swig from her water bottle, passes it to me. I take a long swallow.

  “I’d— Can you tell me more about when you first came here?” he asks. “You were watching her. What was that like?”

  I look down at my boots. It’s something Gwen and I have talked about, of course. But I don’t want to share it.

  “You liked her right away?” Brian prompts. “Were drawn to her in some way?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it?”

  “Obsession.”

  Brian blinks and glances down at his recorder, then looks up at me intensely. “That’s what you would call it?”

  “I just did.”

  “Obsessed with the outcome?”

  “With her fate, and mine. Obsessed with her. I wanted her from the first time I saw her. When she kicked me, though…” I shake my head. “When we talked in the woods… I— Left. I tried to get away from her because,” I rasp, “it scared me. How I felt for her. It felt…out of hand. I couldn’t stop.”

  I wrap an arm around Gwennie and pull her close to me. “I can’t stop loving her. I tried,” I tell him quietly.