by Malcom, Anne
Her friend Rain was with her now.
Every single person she’d helped, she’d given to, had been around. Dropping off some scary and meat-free food. Crystals. Prayers. Affirmations. All sorts of shit. People who loved her, whose lives she’d touched wanting to show her she wasn’t alone.
Heath had hated how much she’d given to people before, because he was selfish. But he was so fucking glad of it now.
“She’s handling it well,” Keltan said as he sat his wife down on his lap.
Quite a feat, considering how pregnant she was, but the men didn’t seem to willing or able to let go of their women these days.
“That’s just it,” Lucy whispered. “She shouldn’t be handling it well. No one handles this well. Handling it well means that she’s not handling it at all. It means it’s eating her up on the inside and she’s too worried about preserving the outside in order to save everyone around her. She’s always done that. She’s always going to try and save everyone before she saves herself,” she whispered, but it was a roar in Heath’s ears. “She would sacrifice every part of herself if it means someone she loves is saved even an ounce of pain. And that’s what she’s doing now. She’s sacrificing all of it, whatever’s left, whatever he didn’t take and ruin, and she’s holding it together on the outside because she knows how much we love her.”
Heath hated the words. Hated the pain in them because it showed him the depth of his own. Hated them because they were fucking true.
Apart from the night where she’d screamed bloody murder at being taken to a hospital, she hadn’t reacted to what happened to her.
But that reaction was burned into his brain. Her breaking, falling apart right before his eyes as she pleaded, fucking begged to not be taken to a hospital.
She needed a hospital.
Fuck did she need one.
But no one could say no to Polly. Not before. And surely not fucking then.
So they’d made her a hospital in the security offices. Pooled all their collective contacts, Luke’s, Rosie’s, Keltan’s and the Sons of Templar.
Got her better treatment than a hospital would ever offer.
Physically, at least, she was almost fully healed.
Not the best doctor in the world could stitch up the wounds that Heath saw, that cut him to the fucking bone.
He couldn’t do that, though he’d carve his own heart if it would repair hers.
But she was the only one person who could do that.
And it fucking terrified him, the knowledge that she might not. That the dead in her eyes and her soul might be permanent.
* * *
“Give me a second with Heath, babe,” Lucy said, kissing Keltan.
Keltan paused, hand on her belly and nodded.
He clapped Heath on the back on his way out, closing the door.
“How has she been sleeping?” she asked the same question she asked every week.
“Good,” he said.
Lucy’s face pinched. With most people, being able to sleep, not having the nightmares of the past reality keep you awake was a good thing. Polly was not most people. She didn’t sleep much because she had too much light, too much life in her to do so. She didn’t like missing out on life, she wanted to suck as much out of it as she could.
But lately she’d been eager to curl up on Heath’s chest and lapse into unconsciousness. It didn’t mean he didn’t like the weight on his chest. He did. He barely slept himself because he couldn’t give in to a world where he couldn’t feel her.
“Has she told you what happened to her yet?” he asked, dragging the words from his throat was a physical exertion.
Lucy blinked away the pain on her face. Or attempted too. Her hand went to her swollen belly, rubbing it for some kind of comfort.
“No,” she whispered. Her eyes shimmered and she focused on him. “Has she said anything to you?”
He resisted the urge to openly scoff. Not just because he respected the fuck out of Lucy, liked her, considered her a sister already, and doing such a thing in the face of her pain was callous even for him. But also because he didn’t even have the energy to acknowledge the dark humor of it all.
“No,” he said. “And you know what?” he found himself saying. “A tiny part of me is glad. I want to know, I’m consumed every fucking day with not knowing. But I also am glad I don’t know yet because...” he pushed his hand through his hair in frustration and shame. “Because, fuck, I don’t know if I can handle hearing it, not from her. What kind of coward does that make me? I can’t even handle the thought of hearing it, and Lucy, she had to fucking live it. And she still does. She’s fucking good at hiding it, so good it scares me, but she’s not that good. So she lived it once and she’ll continue to live it for the rest of her life. And whether she’s handling it badly or not, she’s fucking handling it. And I’m not.”
Lucy was across the room, putting her arms around him the best she could with her belly.
He wasn’t one for physical contact that didn’t come from Polly or didn’t come from violence. But he found himself putting his arms around Lucy, kissing her head.
“She’ll get through it,” she whispered. “And she’ll get us through it. Because she’s Polly.”
He didn’t answer because he was fucking terrified that was a lie. That she wasn’t Polly anymore.
Chapter Seventeen
Polly
The door slammed shut and I jerked awake, sweat both cold and hot on my forehead, my heart in my throat as my nightmare still held onto me and taunted me with the thought that the bang of the door was the sound of it being brought into reality.
“Okay,” Rosie sang, her voice ripping through thoughts of violence and confinement.
Rain had only just left—or had only just left before I nodded off—and now I was getting sure that they were rotating on some kind of shift. Rain had arrived just as Heath was leaving. Though I knew he didn’t want to, leave that was.
I knew that because for the first week, he didn’t leave my side. Not once. Granted, for the first two days I was drugged up and barely conscious. That had been nice. All my wounds dull at the edges, the pain only a nagging ache. And I could almost pretend that it wasn’t that bad. That it never even really happened.
My only constant, the only solid thing had been Heath’s grip on my hand. His presence. The utter pain in his eyes. That had made it impossible to believe it never really happened. His mere presence was the reason I couldn’t sink into a fantasy. Couldn’t escape.
I didn’t tell Heath that his presence, his pain was a reason I couldn’t escape mine, even for a second. Because if I did, he’d leave. Even though no one could make him move from my side the first week and it seemed like a physical exertion every time he did it now, he’d leave in a heartbeat if I told him the truth.
Because he cared for me.
I’d been so dumb, so blind to it before because he was so good at acting like he didn’t care about me. But no one put that much effort into an act if they didn’t care.
I was too caught up in my own pain to truly see that.
Or what I’d thought was pain before.
Now I was drowning in pain, getting choked by it, I saw how much Heath cared. How much he loved me. Just in time to see how much that love was torturing him. And if he knew it was torturing me too, he’d leave. And though my mangled, bleeding heart was barely beating, I wasn’t going to completely destroy it with Heath’s absence.
It was selfish of me. So fucking selfish. I needed to push him away. Needed to somehow get him away from me. From the pain my presence, my healing bruises, cuts, and broken soul caused him.
Caused everyone around me.
My parents didn’t know.
That fight had been almost as big as the one about me not going to a hospital. I’d needed a hospital. I knew that. I knew the extent of my injuries. I’d lived them. Every single one was lined up in a neat and tidy list in my otherwise messy mind. The list was long. But I wouldn�
�t survive a hospital. That clean, stark environment. All sorts of strangers’ hands on me.
No.
I could barely stand the kind doctor who had worked on me in the Greenstone Security office.
She was the only one that knew every single one of my injuries. I couldn’t quite remember how she’d gotten Heath out of the room to examine me. There was shouting. Swearing.
Her voice had stayed calm and constant.
And she’d managed the impossible, to out-stubborn Heath.
So she knew.
And respected my wishes to keep my filthy, tarnished and dirty secret. On the proviso I let her examine me once a week. Let her talk to me.
Heath wasn’t around for that, of course.
No one was.
But the rest of the time, there were people.
Always people.
People I loved.
Adored.
Even Jay turned up.
Heath had not reacted well to the attractive, cold and dangerous man in a suit at the door. I was sure he’d been bracing for some assassin. Even though I knew the danger was gone. In other words, everyone was dead.
That should’ve bothered me more than it did.
But I was still focused on the fact that the danger wasn’t gone. And they couldn’t kill it. Unless they wanted to kill me. Because the danger was inside me, my memories, my waking nightmare.
Hence why I slept so much. To escape the nightmare when I was awake.
And Jay had been affected seeing me. It was a small softening of his eyes, a working of his jaw, but to him, it was everything.
He reached forward and squeezed my hand, ignoring Heath’s clenched fists. I held my breath not to flinch from the touch since I knew what a big deal such a simple touch was to him. And if I showed an inch of discomfort, Heath would be there, trying to protect me with violence. I’d had enough of that.
“I’m sorry, darlin’,” Jay murmured, voice still cold but eyes as warm as they’d ever be.
I’d smiled at him like I smiled at everyone. One hundred percent fake.
“It’s okay. I’m here. I’m okay.”
He inspected me, picking apart the lie with a practiced eye.
He didn’t call me out on it. Just squeezed my hand once more before leaving.
He checked in every day. The calls were brisk, almost businesslike, but damn near warm for him.
And warmth was all around. Chester brought banana cake. It should’ve been funny, the goth kid bringing banana cake he’d baked himself. I’d made it seem like I found it appropriately funny. Laughed and joked with him as he pretended not to be shocked with my bruises and cuts.
But like everything else, it was surface.
My friends came in a steady stream so not once was I alone.
Never.
It was a blessing and a curse.
Because I would’ve thought that seeing the love, the light I had around me would chase away the worst of the demons, when really it invited them in.
Because I couldn’t escape my pain in people’s eyes.
I didn’t tell them to leave, didn’t say no when many of them asked if they could visit. Because I knew that they needed to. For their own peace of mind. Peace was lost for me, but I could give it to the people I loved even if it caused me pain.
It wasn’t broadcast, my kidnapping and...everything else. But good news traveled fast, bad news traveled everywhere. Luckily, my parents were switched off to our L.A. lifestyle and news had been carefully kept from them. Lucy understood this, better than anyone, but she didn’t like it.
We’d agreed we’d tell them an extremely sanitized version of the story when I was healed enough. That Craig had lost it and hit me then disappeared.
They would not know the ugly truth.
No way would they ever know that.
I would do everything in my power to make sure no one knew that. Even Heath. Especially Heath. But he saw more than everyone else. So he’d see soon. I’d be unable to hide soon. I had to stop it before it got to that point. But I couldn’t. His was the only touch that I could handle without wanting to throw up. Because he seemed to know that I couldn’t handle a lot of it. Even though he didn’t know the real truth. If he did know, I’d know, because the pain on his face would be something more than was already there.
He didn’t know that, he knew that he needed to be careful touching me too much, even though he needed to. I’d seen him reach for me multiple times, down the street, in the car and then snatch his hand back right before he made contact as if he’d seen the way my skin prickled with revulsion. With fear.
Not from him, from the shadows, the demons crawling underneath it.
Before, I’d been a touchy person. Expressive about my love. Even our short time together had shown Heath that.
But he understood that something inside me had been fundamentally changed and that wasn’t me anymore. I knew that he expected this to be temporary, like my cuts and bruises.
It was not.
I felt temporary. But also horribly permanent in this temporary state.
And Heath was the only one who made me feel real. Falling asleep in his arms every night, waking up to his eyes, his scent every morning.
And he hadn’t pushed me for anything more.
He laid his mouth on mine gently, closed mouth kisses when I knew he couldn’t stop himself. I fought against pleasure and revulsion as he did so.
But that was it.
He didn’t push.
For whatever reason, I was glad. Because if he pushed, then he’d know. He couldn’t know. Which was why I needed to make him leave before he found out. I wasn’t strong enough to push him away because I wasn’t strong enough to be without him just yet.
I needed to figure that out.
“I come bearing gifts,” Rosie said, jerking me back into the present and proper wakefulness.
I sat up and hastily put on a smile that I hoped wasn’t wonky. The last thing I needed was Rosie to take on my demons. She had plenty of her own, they were quiet now, and no way was I going to be the reason her life got loud again.
Well, any louder—she was Rosie.
Luckily she wasn’t focused on me, she was placing three plastic bags on my kitchen counter.
“I got all sorts of treats for us, I’m getting good at knowing what to buy post-kidnapping.” She gave me a look that was carefully structured to look jaunty, easy, light-hearted. “Of course, every woman is different, just because I crave tater tots in the month after I’ve been taken captive does not mean you will.” She pulled out a bag. “But I got them just in case. And also, I feel like tater tots. Plus, a plethora of other things, and don’t worry,” she made a face, “they’re all vegetarian.”
She began to pull items out at random.
“I do have one sure fire thing that every woman I’ve encountered post-kidnapping—that being all of my best friends and sister-in-law—has been in agreeance helps.” She yanked up a bottle of tequila, frowning at it. “I would drink it with you, but they frown on drinking while pregnant.”
I smiled, then focused on the bags. “Plastic, Rosie?”
She paused with the tequila still cradled in her arms. “Oh, no, here we go,” she muttered.
“I got you reusable bags,” I chastised.
“Yes, but I forgot them,” she moaned.
I narrowed my eyes. “They sell them at the store.”
“Yes, but they charge like five bucks for them,” she replied defensively. “That’s simply exorbitant.”
“How much was your purse, Rosie?” I asked sweetly, eyeing the distinct double C on the leather.
She scowled at me and stroked the aforementioned purse. “It’s the principle of the matter. And what is this, the Spanish Inquisition? Here I am trying to do something nice for you and all you’ve got is negativity. That’s not the Polly I know and love.”
The words were light, full of joking and love.
But they hit me. With darkness and pa
in.
“I’m not that Polly, Rosie,” I said, the words slipping out before I had the chance to catch them, stop them from causing the pain that I knew they would inflict.
The truth hurt, after all.
Hence me lying to everyone in my life for a month.
But I couldn’t do it anymore.
She froze, her smile slipping right off her face, evidence of the fact it was a mask, just like my own.
“I always knew I’d get a story sometime,” I whispered my words falling out like blood from a wound. “Even with the marriage, the ensuing divorce.” I waved my hand. “And all the other stuff. I had a little hope I’d get a story. After all, you got your story and it only took two decades.”
I smirked, it was fake, but it suited the moment.
Rosie smirked back. It was fake too.
“I didn’t know it would be this hard,” I continued. “But I accepted it, you know? All the best heroines go through trials. Pain. It’s spiritually building. Through pain comes growth. And I’ve known that. But I just didn’t think there would be so much pain,” I whispered. “I just didn’t think my story would be this dark.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “I don’t think I was meant to grow this much. I don’t know if I can handle it, Rosie.”
She had gathered me into her arms the second my voice broke.
It was awkward with her belly, but she managed it and I burrowed into her chest, she clutched my head and pressed her lips into it.
I expected myself to start sobbing. I felt like I was cracking, breaking apart, and it hurt. It was agony, actually. But I didn’t. That one tear that was dried on my cheek was all that left my eyes. I just stayed there, smelled Rosie’s perfume, felt the presence of her strength. The comfort in the moment.
“No one was designed to handle this,” she whispered. “Not you, most of all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t handle it.” She pulled back so I could see her eyes. “I know you can handle this, because you are handling it, my beautiful Polly. You still smile. Even if it’s only because you want to try and hold us together. You’re somehow still you, even though the holes that fucker put in you should’ve made your spirit leak out onto the ground. I’ve seen it. I know it. One of my best friends is forever scarred from it. But she wasn’t exactly light and sunshine and rainbows before.” She grinned through tears and I knew she was talking about Lucky’s wife, Bex. “But now there’s no chance of light or sunshine, she’s just found a home in the darkness, and it suits her soul, the way it was before. But yours, you don’t have a soul designed for darkness.”