by Bella Jewel
“And I think you should be limiting the time you spend with Scarlett. You don’t have time to be disappearing, chasing some music dream. It was bad enough you went away for a month. You need to look for work. Settle down here.”
I exhale, inhale, exhale. “Okay,” I say, my voice small.
There is no point in arguing with her.
It’ll only add fuel to her already raging fire.
Besides, I can talk until I’m blue in the face. She won’t hear me.
She never does.
“Good,” she tells me, nodding her head. “Let’s go then.”
I exhale quietly and nod, grabbing my purse that I only just put down, and turning to follow her out the door. My mother walks with grace—she was born into wealth and even though she no longer obtains it, she lives as though she does. She moves as though she has money dripping from her fingers, she holds her head up like she has not a financial care in the world. Like she is the best. And there is nothing beneath her.
My father is a hard worker, and he covers everything she wants and needs, but it is no way near the lifestyle she thinks she’s entitled to. My dad is a good man. Loving. Kind. And I’ll never understand, for the life of me, why the hell he sticks around with her. I love my mother, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll never see eye to eye with her. She’ll always make me feel like the accident she wished never happened.
We reach her car and she glares over at mine. “You know you’re not supposed to be driving, Amalie.”
I’m fully aware of that. But part of conquering my demons was getting behind the wheel again. It healed something within me. And although my hearing makes it hard and I have to be on high alert, there is no reason I can’t drive to and from basic places. I wouldn’t go long distance, but I do need some freedom.
“I was cleared to drive,” I tell her.
She shoots daggers at me. “Well, you shouldn’t have been.”
I swallow.
That hurts.
I wish I knew why she hated me so much.
We get in her car and I say nothing as we drive into town toward their house, the house I hate walking into, the house that no matter how many times I enter makes me feel like the devil has just waltzed through its doors. Nobody there likes me. I can’t say I blame them. But I go, every single day when I’m home, because I owe him that much.
Even if it slowly eats away at my soul.
We arrive at the mansion that is lacking in nothing. His parents are both rich, and thankfully so, because the care he requires is around the clock. They provide the best for him, though none of it is what he wants. He doesn’t leave the house. He doesn’t go outside. He doesn’t work. He stays inside, refusing help, refusing to allow life to be lived again.
I can’t say I blame him.
I slide out of the car, swallowing my anxiety and following my mother to the front door. The house is big and luxurious and nicer than anything I’ve ever been into. My mother comes here purely because she thinks she fits in. I don’t think it has anything to do with compassion and care but merely some hope she might gain something out of acting like she’s being the woman to push me into doing the right thing.
“Carmela, Amalie,” their butler, and the only kind man in the house, Theodore, smiles when he opens the front door.
“Hi, Theo.” I smile at him, and he reaches out, giving me a warm squeeze on the shoulder.
“How are you, Amalie? You’re looking a little worse for wear.”
I only recently got the cast off my broken fingers, but I’m still not able to play for a few more weeks. It feels like a piece of my soul has been taken from me. Everything else is healing slowly. My face is no longer terrifying to look at, because I was so badly beaten. Everything is healing well, all my stitches are out, now it’s just the road to recovery.
“I’m getting there. How are you?”
“Doing well, as always.”
Theo glances at my mother, who strides past him, tossing her coat in his direction.
“They’re in the tea room,” Theo says to her back, clutching the coat and giving me a look.
I sigh. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck, Amalie. Don’t let him treat you poorly. Contrary to what you believe, you do not deserve it.”
He tells me this every time I come here, and every time I smile and say, “Thank you, Theo.”
I move down the familiar halls, ignoring the expensive paintings and the lush rugs, and step into the tea room. My mother is already in and chatting with Caiden’s mother about some expensive gala coming up that she simply must attend. My eyes move straight over to Caiden sitting by the window. He doesn’t turn when I walk in. He never does.
His mother, Chantelle, looks over to me with those piercing blue eyes that make my blood run cold. She rarely speaks to me now. She allows the visits, I suppose for the same reason my mother pushes them, because they think it’s the least I can do. But she makes it loud and clear she has no time for me. She does not like me. Because I ruined her son’s entire life.
“We’ll leave you alone,” my mother says, taking Chantelle by the arm and leading her out of the tea room.
I sigh and take a hesitant step toward Caiden, then another, until I’m standing beside him. He glances at me, purely so I can read his lips, otherwise I don’t even think he’d do me that honor.
“You continue to come, and I continue to tell you not to. I don’t want you here.”
His voice is emotionless. Scathing. Angry. Broken.
“And I continue to tell you, it’s my duty.”
“You are nothing to me,” he scowls. “Nothing. I’d be happy if I never saw your face again, Amalie. Why can’t you understand that?”
The same old words.
The same old hurt.
“Okay,” I tell him. “How are you?”
I ask him this daily. Ignoring his anger.
And he spits fire back at me, nothing changes.
“How the fuck do you think I am?”
I study him. I used to flinch. When I first saw him. But now it’s almost like I’m used to it, like I don’t expect to see him any other way. It’s been a year and a half since the accident, but time doesn’t heal all wounds. It certainly doesn’t heal these.
His cheek, chin, and part of his neck is burned. Third degree. He has had numerous operations and skin grafts to try and fix the damage, but it will never ever be normal, not even close. His skin is damaged beyond repair, his features forever broken. There is no direct damage to his mouth, eyes or nose, but the skin he damaged around those areas takes away from his once rather striking beauty. All because of me.
And that’s only the start.
Not only did he suffer third-degree burns to thirty percent of his body, most of which is thankfully on his torso and stomach, but he had spinal damage which took the function of his lower legs. With intense therapy, he has been able to use a walking frame for a few hours a day, but after that he is utterly exhausted. The doctors are confident over time he will walk again, but the road is long, and painful, and requires dedication.
Dedication he doesn’t have.
And I don’t blame him.
I got away lucky.
They still aren’t sure how or why the car caught fire, they said it was so incredibly rare, but something must have broken the gas line and sparked it. They never could tell us what. I lost consciousness for a while; I don’t know how long, and when I came to for a second time, help had arrived, and I was pulled from the vehicle. I was mostly uninjured, outside of a few deep gashes and some broken bones, and of course the damage to my ears, a combination of the explosion and hitting my head so harshly.
Caiden wasn’t so lucky.
When I was freed, I helped the people who stopped to help us pull him out. I remember being dazed, struggling to hear, and being in so much pain I don’t know how I ever assisted them. But I knew we had to get Caiden out. I, like everyone else, could smell the gas and knew how dangerous the situation
was.
We’d only just gotten half of him out when the car caught on fire. Caiden caught a big burst of flames as we pulled him back, burning his skin as we struggled to fully free him from the car before it exploded. By the time we got him free, he was already so badly injured. We pulled him out just in time, because minutes later it exploded into a fiery mess on the side of the highway.
I have some burns to my stomach and legs, but nothing, nothing like what Caiden lives with daily.
“How did your therapy session go this morning?” I ask, trying to ignore his anger.
“Why the hell do you keep coming back, Amalie? Nobody wants you here, so why do you come?”
I exhale, and a run a tired hand through my hair. “Because I owe it to you, to support you, even if you don’t want that.”
“You didn’t support me when you caused that accident.”
I flinch.
“If you didn’t try to break up with me, in a car, none of it would have happened. Now you want to do the right thing? You couldn’t wait to get away from me then, I don’t know why you’re bothering to stay now.”
I swallow. Take a deep breath.
Arguing with him will only make it worse.
I need to be the calm one in this situation.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly.
Because what else is there to say?
“So you tell me every single day. I don’t want to hear it anymore. Your actions caused this, and now I have to live here, trapped and damaged, while you’re out there enjoying your life.”
That frustrates me, and I snap before thinking. “I’m hardly enjoying my life.”
His eyes shoot daggers into mine. “You’re free, aren’t you? You look the same, you sound the same, you can still play music. What’s the worst you got? Hearing damage? So what. It’s fixable.”
It is.
My doctor has told me they can restore a portion of my hearing with some fairly intense operations.
I simply won’t allow it.
If Caiden has to live like this, then so do I.
For a while, I just told people I was born like this, so they’d stop asking me about it.
Then I didn’t have to try and explain why I refused to make my hearing better.
“I understand why you’re angry at me, believe me I do, but nothing you can say to me is going to stop me coming here, Caiden. I know what I did. I know I ruined your life. I also know I’m the only person you have left outside of your mother and father.”
He flinches, and his jaw gets tight. “So you’re here out of pity?”
I exhale and breathe deeply.
“Have you thought about joining an online community? Talking to other people? You’re not the only person out there living like this. You might meet people.”
His face goes red, and I know right away I’ve said the wrong thing. “Meet people? Join a group? What, so you can get rid of me and not have to feel guilty every day? You ruined my fucking life!” he roars. “I wish I never fucking met you, Amalie. Get out of my house.”
“Caiden …”
“Get the fuck out!!”
I swallow the pain bursting forth in my chest and I turn, rushing out of the house, head down. Tears explode and roll down my cheeks, and my hands tremble. I run into Theo at the door, and he takes me by the shoulders, looking down at me. “You do not deserve this, Amalie. That accident was not your fault. I wish you could see that.”
I swallow, hiccup, and then go to answer but my mother’s loud, but muffled voice fills my ears and I turn. “You’ve upset him again,” she’s saying. “I don’t understand why you can’t just have a normal visit with him, Amalie!”
Theo jerks his head up and glares at my mother. She ignores it, reaching me and grabbing my shoulder, turning me toward the front door.
“Let’s go before you do anymore damage.”
I turn and look at Theo, and he shakes his head sadly.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth at him.
And I am sorry.
So, so incredibly sorry.
-2-
MALAKAI
I rub my fingers over the chocolate stain on my jacket and grin. That girl is the clumsiest, most fucking beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’ve come across a lot of girls, but none of them capture me the way she does. There is something about her, something so fucking perfectly broken, and yet so perfectly pure. It’s like two of the most dangerous traits mixed together and made the angel that haunts my dreams.
I can’t get her out of my fucking head.
No amount of pussy, no amount of club shit, no amount of trying to avoid her is working.
Something about her speaks to me.
“Yo.”
I turn, dropping my hands from my jacket, to see Maverick coming into my office followed by Koda. Maverick is already bringing a cigarette to his mouth, my brother’s green eyes, just like mine, filled with anxiety. Anxiety because we haven’t caught Trey. Anxiety because we don’t know where the fuck he is. Anxiety over who the fuck he is going to put his hands on next.
“Any news?” I ask them, striding over to my desk.
“Nothin’,” Maverick grunts. “Been lookin’ everywhere, been bringin’ people in, nobody knows where he is. Either that, or nobody is speakin’. Both are likely. He got his drugs through, just like he wanted, now he’s disappeared off the radar and nobody is willin’ to give his location. He knows we’re after him.”
I run my hand down my face and exhale with a grunt. “I don’t think he’s just in hidin’. That man had a big operation going. My guess, he’s hidin’ as well as plannin’ his next move. He’s not done here, he made that very clear. He wants a war, we just have no fuckin’ idea when or how he’s goin’ to strike and I don’t like that, not one fuckin’ bit.”
“Feel you, Prez,” Koda mutters. “I’ve got my ears to the ground, keepin’ track of shit goin’ down in the streets. What we need to know, first and foremost, is who the fuck gave information to him. It was someone in this club, and that makes me more than uneasy.”
My chest clenches at the thought. It’s one I’ve been trying to avoid having. I’ve had the backs of every member of this club. I’ve raised them up, and I’ve fought battles with them. It’s a brotherhood, it’s family. For someone to betray that makes my fucking blood boil. When I get my hands on whoever did, I’ll make them wish they were never born.
“Keepin’ a close eye on everyone, only speakin’ to the members I know with my entire fuckin’ soul wouldn’t betray me. None of them have any idea who it is. Could be one of the prospects, could be a member we trust; either way, someone shared some information.”
“Yeah,” Maverick grunts. “On the other hand, I think this fucker is goin’ to be harder to bring down than we first thought.”
I think he’s right.
“Unless …,” Koda begins, looking to both of us.
“Unless what?” I ask him, crossing my arms.
“He’s on the lookout for us, but what if someone else went in, someone who doesn’t know us at all, who has no association with us, who goes in under the radar? Someone smart. Someone who isn’t afraid of the streets. Someone who can get information, names, anythin’ that might help us locate and end that fucker.”
It’s not a bad idea.
“You got any ideas on who we could send in to do that?”
“No,” Koda mutters. “But it wouldn’t be hard to find someone, hell we can even pay them, someone would be willin’.”
“Good idea,” Maverick says. “Koda, you can get on that and get things started. I’ll keep tryin’ to find information.”
I grin at my brother. “Throwin’ orders around now you’re back?”
He raises his brow at me. “You wanted me back here, with that god forsaken fucker you want me to call a brother, then you’ll let me throw some orders around.”
“Still crying about Boston?” I say, digging the knife in a little deeper.
He has
to get over it one day. God knows today should be that day. We have too much else to concern ourselves with.
“Watch it, Malakai. President or not, I won’t hesitate in fuckin’ rollin’ you. Right now.”
I grunt. “Try it, I’ll make you wish you didn’t.”
“Okay, okay,” Koda says, throwing his hands up. “I’m going to find the lucky victim to go undercover for us. You two can continue your dramatic little fight on your own.”
He turns and leaves the room. I dig out a cigarette and bring it to my lips, lighting it.
“How’s Scarlett?”
Maverick glares at me. He needs to loosen the fuck up.
“She’s fine. How’s Amalie?”
I grin at him. “Right in the tender spot, good work.”
He chuckles. “Seriously, bro, you gotta stop starin’ at her.”
“Can’t,” I deadpan.
“Well try. It’s fuckin’ creepy.”
“If you saw a fuckin’ angel I’d guarantee you couldn’t look away, either.”
“See one every day. Speakin’ of, I’m goin’ to see her. Any message you want me to pass on? Maybe that you’ll be peekin’ through Amalie’s window later, since you’re too fuckin’ chicken shit to make a move on her?”
“Eat a fuckin’ dick, Maverick.”
He grins.
I inhale and glare at him.
“Catch you later, brother.”
With that, he’s gone.
And Amalie is back, fresh in my mind.
For the hundredth fucking time today.
She’s like a drug I know I shouldn’t touch, yet I find myself wondering what it’ll feel like if I do.
I gotta stay away.
~*~*~*~
THEN – AMALIE
I can’t hear.
It’s all I notice.
All that is happening inside my ears is a faint humming, a buzzing, a high-pitched screech every now and then, but nothing else. I have opened and closed my eyes, over and over, but the nightmare won’t leave. I’m in a hospital bed, bandages around my waist, my arm in a cast, my head pounding, but none of that matters.
I can’t hear.
A hand touches mine, and I flinch, screaming out, only my voice doesn’t penetrate. I see a nurse standing next to me, looking down at me. She’s saying something. What the hell is she saying? I can hear her voice, as if it’s off in the distance, like she’s slowly fading away and calling to me as she does. I can’t make out any words. I can’t even make out the pitch. Just a hum.