I glanced down the hall. I hadn’t been behind bars for the last few years, but I’d been living in a prison all the same. That dingy eight-by-eight bedroom barely big enough to hold a nasty mattress wasn’t exactly the escape I’d been hoping for.
But it was better than going home.
Penn
Just as I’d suspected, rest was nowhere to be found that night. Though I’d often heard that sleep required a flat surface that didn’t make a person fight the urge to gag, which was exactly what had happened each time I’d so much as thought about Hugo’s disgusting mattress. No amount of sheets, blankets, or plastic wrap could convince me otherwise. So, after I’d spent hours cleaning, sweeping, and mopping, I’d stood the mattress up against the wall, retrieved the sleeping bag that lived under the seat in my truck, changed into a pair of sweats, switched the lights off, and settled in for some heavy-duty staring at the ceiling. It was midnight and I’d made it a solid five minutes without losing my mind before Drew came knocking at my door.
“Hey, Penn? You up?”
I propped myself up on my elbows. “Yeah.”
The door swung open, light flooding in around his dark silhouette. Leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, he crossed his arms over his chest. “You think there’s anywhere around here that sells full-body condoms?”
Squinting, I put a hand up to block the blinding light. “This neighborhood? Probably.”
He chuckled. “That couch is a nightmare. I swear something’s dead inside it. I’m gonna see if I can find a place open that sells an air mattress. We should probably start thinking about buying some new stuff.”
“We gonna be here long enough to warrant furnishing the place?”
He shrugged. “Maybe we should hold off on hiring an interior decorator and the custom addition of a second bedroom, but a futon that’s not covered in another man’s cum stains and a TV that turns on don’t seem like too much to ask.”
Shaking my head, I aimed a grin at the floor. “You always were a diva.”
“You know it. Wait until tomorrow morning. I’m gonna start demanding shit like coffee that doesn’t taste like asphalt.”
Drew was crazy, but I’d missed him so damn much over the last few years. Losing him during such a traumatic time in my life had only made my anger and isolation that much more devastating. He got on my nerves to no end, but he was also the only person who made me feel human.
After Lisa, there weren’t a lot of people left in my life. My parents had passed away shortly after I’d graduated college, and the few friends I’d had who didn’t remind me of her had wisely hit the road when I’d transformed into a miserable bastard. There had been a lot of dark days for me.
Dark weeks.
Dark months.
Dark years.
But Drew? He hadn’t judged me when I’d shut down, nor had he attempted to force me to move on when I could barely breathe through the rage. He understood my pain on levels no else could. And I loved him beyond measure for that alone.
“Any chance I can get the keys to my truck?” he asked. “I’m not feeling up to getting mugged tonight.”
“Your truck?”
“Uhhh, did you not sell it to me? Because I distinctly remember handing you a dollar and you writing me a bill of sale.”
“You dick, it’s still mine. We only put it in your name because if something happens to me you wouldn’t have been able to buy a new one.”
He squinted one eye. “See, I hear what you’re saying, but I’m pretty sure no matter how you spin this, it all ends with the truck being mine.” He grinned.
I rolled my eyes, snagging the keys from my bag and then throwing them his way. “Whatever. Be careful with her. You break it, you buy it. For real this time.”
He caught them in one hand, a wicked smile splitting his mouth. “I’ll get a twenty-five-dollar IOU ready.”
His footsteps disappeared down the hall, and then, with the slam of the front door, I was alone and trapped inside my own head again. It was a terrible place. One filled with blood and despair, built on a foundation of helplessness and failure.
It was where I’d lived every night for the last four years. And where I was so desperately hoping to escape.
“Please!”
One in. One out.
At some point, I must have dozed off, my body finally trumping my mind, because when I rolled over, the clock read three and I’d yet to hear Drew come home. Obviously, he’d gone in search for more than just an air mattress. Like a warm bed that included the bonus accessory of a naked woman.
I couldn’t blame him. My life had never been the revolving door of women that his had been, but there had been a few drunken nights when I’d found myself with a woman in my bed since I’d lost Lisa. They were usually hollow, meaningless one-night stands dictated by biology. But I was no saint. They’d happened. And I understood why Drew would be out searching for that. When a mind was so consumed with hate and pain, even a single second of distraction felt like a monumental reprieve.
And, God, did I need a reprieve from the chaos in my head right about then.
The curve of Cora’s ass flashed into my mind.
“Shit,” I breathed, scrubbing my hands over my face as if I could erase the thoughts.
Giving up on sleep, I sat up, my back screaming in protest. At thirty-seven, my body wasn’t nearly as forgiving as it had once been. I ate right, worked out, all that shit that would supposedly extend my fruitful journey on this wonderful planet. Cough. Bullshit. Mentally and emotionally, I felt like I was at least two hundred—and dead.
I tugged a shirt on and wandered down the hall to the kitchen. Hugo’s crap was still everywhere. Obviously, Drew had not been doing the Mr. Clean routine the way I had in the bedroom. I was digging through the bag of food we’d brought, in search of my protein powder, when I heard footsteps pounding on the stairs. I froze, trying to figure out if they were coming or going, and then the pounding hit my door.
“Hey hey hey! Open up!” a female voice shouted. The panic in her tone spiked my own.
I dropped the bag and hurried over to the door, snatching it open.
The young girl Cora had introduced as Don’t even look at her the day before shoved past me, demanding, “Bolt cutters.”
“What?” I asked.
She was in pajamas, and her dark hair was in a pile on the top of her head. I’d known she was young when I’d briefly met her, even younger than the one we’d found in the shower. But with terror in her eyes and fear etched on her pale face as she turned in a circle, scanning my apartment, she looked like a baby.
When she saw my toolbox on the counter, she sprinted over, flipped the lid open, and then began frantically rifling through it. “I need bolt cutters.”
“For what?”
Before she had the chance to answer, Cora yelled from somewhere in the distance. “River, hurry up!” Her tangible fear sliced through me from all angles as it echoed off the walls.
“I’m trying!” she replied, her voice cracking as she continued picking up and dropping tools in her frenzied search.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. But she’s gonna die if we don’t get that damn door open.”
A blast of adrenaline rocked me back a step. “Who?”
With tears in her eyes, she paused long enough to level me with her brown stare. “Does it matter?”
No. It didn’t. Not even a little. And, finally, my confusion transformed into purpose.
“Move,” I ordered, reaching around her. The best I had was a pair of cable cutters, but they would have to do. After snatching them up, I took off.
“First floor!” she yelled, running behind me. I barely heard her over the thundering in my ears.
With the all-too-familiar sour in my gut fueling me forward, I took the steps three at a time, launching myself down to the landing. Then again with another flight. The minute my foot hit the first floor, I saw Cora still wea
ring the same jeans and tank top she’d been wearing earlier, standing outside one of the apartments. Her face was shoved into a two-inch opening, a chain at the top of the door preventing her entry.
“Oh God, Angela. Please hang on! I’m coming, sweetheart. I’m right here.”
“Get out of the way,” I rumbled.
Her back collided with my chest as I leaned over her and clamped onto the chain. The damn thing didn’t budge.
“Hurry!” she cried, squeezing out from in front of me.
“I’m fucking trying,” I snapped as if my inability were her fault.
Using my thigh, I leaned my weight against the door to keep the chain taut and brought both hands up for extra leverage. My arms shook and my muscles screamed as I gave it everything I had. Just as I thought my tool was going to crack before that damn chain, the door flew open, sending me stumbling inside.
But I didn’t just stumble into an apartment.
I stumbled through time.
Four years, three months, two weeks, and four days to be exact.
On the floor, covered by shitty, gray commercial carpet, a woman lay face down, pools and pools of blood forming all around her.
Her skin was pale.
Her hair was brown.
And I couldn’t fucking move.
Pain and memories, past and present, agony and regret all rained down over me like a million rusty razor blades slicing through the numbness.
As if it were in slow motion, Cora raced past me and dropped to her knees at the woman’s side.
I’d spent a lot of years trying to change the outcome of the night I’d lost Lisa. Playing the what-if game so often and so intensely that I barely knew what was real anymore. In most of my scenarios, I’d saved her. A few, I’d lain down next to her and died too. But, in all of them, I’d actually fucking done something.
Yet there I stood.
Bare feet to that goddamn carpet. Unmoving. Completely unable to process the all-too-familiar massacre in front of me.
“Help me!” Cora yelled.
Like an involuntary reaction, my eyes slid to hers.
And then, like a bullet from a gun, she said the only word that could have destroyed me any deeper. “Please!”
My mind splintered. Time collapsing upon itself. Reality warring with What-if.
And then all at once, I exploded forward. “Lisa!”
Cora
The boom of his voice rattled the walls, but it was nothing compared to the screaming inside my skull. My heart raced at a marathon pace, and my lungs were more than following suit.
With wide eyes, Penn stormed over, bent, shoved one arm under her shoulders and one under her legs, and then lifted her off the floor.
“No!” I yelled.
She dangled in his arms, her long, dark hair brushing his thigh. But he just stood there, his gaze bouncing around the room without actually focusing on anything.
“Not on the carpet,” he rumbled. He didn’t spare me the first glance as he marched to the sofa, deposited her flat on her back, and repeated on a mumble, “Not on the fucking carpet.”
The carpet. Right. Because, to a dying woman, that mattered. I didn’t have time to question him.
Penn became a man on a mission.
Shoving me out of the way, he tugged his shirt over his head, and then, ripping it at the seam, he tore it into two long strips. With fast but precise movements, he tightly tied off the exposed slash on her wrist. Then he moved to her other arm, doing the same.
With nothing to distract my mind, reality crashed over me. Tears stung my eyes as I watched him check for a pulse and then listen to see if she was breathing, but I refused them their dire escape.
“What did you do?” I whispered to the beautiful woman dying on the couch. As messed up as it was, I was angry at her.
For not talking to me sooner.
For not letting me help.
For…leaving me there.
Angela was a first-floor girl through and through. She had little to no ambition to go back to school or get out of the life. She told me often how much she liked her job. Easy money, she’d said. It wasn’t my favorite rationale, but it was one most of the lifers shared. But Angela—she was one of true good eggs in this business. She should have been some middle-aged man’s trophy wife, sitting on a yacht, drinking a martini, not lying on that dingy couch, life seeping from her veins.
I told myself that it wasn’t my fault, yet I still felt undeniably responsible.
Just like when I’d lost Nic.
The pain cut through me so deep that it threatened to take out my knees.
“Cora!” Penn called, snapping my attention up to his. “Lift her arm. Hold it above her heart. And pressure. Lots of fucking pressure.” His face was tight with the same desperation that was shredding me. Even in the throes of such heartbreaking chaos, it honestly puzzled me.
To some, a man helping a dying woman was the obvious expectation.
But that wasn’t the way our lives worked.
To most, we were nothing but trash.
A body to use.
A soul to control.
An object to ruin.
But that wasn’t the way he was looking at her.
Or treating her.
Or treating me.
Rather, he was holding her arms above her head as blood covered his hands and smeared over his chest, regarding her like a person and not just a random prostitute who had finally gotten what she deserved.
I could have cried from that small generosity alone.
I didn’t. I got to work.
Clutching one wrist to my chest, I leaned forward, wrapping my hand around the fabric he’d tied, and pinned it against the back of the sofa.
Penn started CPR, but if she had any hopes of making it, she needed more help than we could ever give her.
“River!” I yelled. “Call Marcos!”
She gasped in the distance.
“It’s okay,” I soothed. I looked at her over my shoulder. “He knows what to do. He’ll call Larry just like last time. It’s gonna be okay.”
She stared at me, pleading and begging with tears streaming down her pink cheeks.
God, she was scared.
But so was I.
“I’ll deal with Marcos,” I assured.
She shook her head and begged, “Cora, no.”
“River. Please. I can’t let her die.” I swallowed hard. “We can’t let her die. This is Angela, sweetie. We owe her this much.”
Her face crumbled, and I wished like hell I could take it all away, but I could only help one person at a time.
“Now. Go,” I clipped.
Thankfully, she took off.
For what felt like a century, Penn relentlessly worked on Angela. Sweat poured from his forehead as he alternated between rescue breathing and chest compressions.
He never slowed.
He never gave up.
As far as I could tell, he never even considered it.
Thirty minutes later, an ambulance arrived.
Angela was already dead.
Cora
She wasn’t the first person I’d lost.
But Angela? She was the first one I’d ever watched die.
That is if you didn’t include Nic.
But as I sat in my bedroom with the door locked, a pillow held to my face, blood crusted on my skin, dry heaves acting as the welcoming committee for my sobs, he was all I could think of.
“Cora,” River called from the other side of the door. “The cops want to talk to you. Oh…and, uh, Drew and Penn are here too.”
I blew out a controlled breath and willed away the tremors in my voice. “I’ll be right out. I’m just”—I glanced at my blood-soaked shirt and gagged—“Changing clothes.”
“Okay. I’ll tell ’em.”
She couldn’t see me, but she was still too close for me to reveal any weakness. I waited until her footsteps disappeared down the hall before I stood up on newborn-giraffe legs.<
br />
“You can do this,” I whispered to myself. It wasn’t a pep talk. It was a direct order from my mind to my nervous system. “Get it together,” I murmured, peeling my bra off and then stepping out of my pants. I wasn’t sure what to put on. Whatever it was, I’d have to burn the very next day.
River and Savannah had tried to force me into one of the showers when the paramedics left, but I’d been too close to breaking down for that.
I couldn’t escape that building—or the life it represented.
All I’d been able to do was race up the stairs, lock myself in my bedroom, and then cry tears for a woman who would never be able to again. It was disgusting, and the guilt I felt afterward was overpowering, but somewhere in those tears was a selfish pang of jealousy that she had gotten to leave.
And I had to stay.
I found my ruined turquoise robe hanging over the back of my rocking chair. The sleeve was already covered in blood from my nose the day Chrissy had left; a little more would seal its fate at the bottom of a burn can.
Using a towel and a bottle of water next to my bed, I cleaned myself up as much as I could, all the while compartmentalizing my emotions.
There was a place for everything.
Anger. Sadness. Resentment. Guilt. Dread. Remorse.
And once they were all tucked away in their filthy little drawers in my head, I tied my robe as tight as I could get it, drew in a breath, and set forth on ending my latest nightmare.
As I entered the living room, my gaze landed on Penn first. He was standing beside the door, still mostly covered in blood, though he was wearing a clean T-shirt. His weight shifted subtly at first. Then he lurched toward me, only making it a step before throwing the brakes on. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he scanned me from head to toe. And then his sad, desolate eyes came back to mine.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
My chest squeezed. “It’s not your fault.”
“I don’t know if that’s true anymore.”
The Complete Truth Duet Page 6