After nothing else came up, her eyes squeezed shut as she cried under the cold water. I fell back until my bum hit the floor and dropped my head over my free arm, the other refusing to let go of her. “Why do you always do this to yourself?” Exhaling, I lifted my head and swiped my palm down my face. “You can’t keep doing this. You need help.”
Leigh shivered under my hand, and I helped her to her feet and out of her soiled clothes. She stood naked in the tub, and I averted my eyes, turning the water from cold to warm. “You’ll need to wash the chunks from your hair. I’ll get you clean clothes from my car.”
Leigh’s teeth chattered. “Thank you, Oliver.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, locking the bathroom door behind me before closing it. Initially, I’d come here to confront Leigh and talk to Adrian, but never planned on a party and saving her again. I sent a quick text to Mia, letting her know it was going to be one of those nights before returning to the bathroom. I lightly knocked over the bathroom door when Leigh opened from the other side and peeked her head around to make sure it was me.
I held up some clothes between us. “Here, get dressed. I’m taking you home.”
After receiving a disappointing text from Ollie, I made myself a cup of coffee before climbing the stairs to my darkroom, bypassing Ollie’s stacks and stacks of books piling over the wooden steps on the way. On top of my client list building due to word of mouth, a huge job opportunity had come in to capture images of a local model to advertise a jewelry brand. Officially, it was a step into the big leagues with my photos inside magazines. Thousands of people would see my art, and I couldn’t be more nervous.
I had a lot of favorite spots in the house, but the darkroom was, by far, my favorite. After begging Ollie to move the piano into my darkroom, and him refusing, he’d purchased me a tabletop keyboard and set it up under the window beside my laptop. Inspiration could come from anywhere, and whenever I needed a break from editing, designing, and developing, I’d roll my chair over to the keyboard, flip it on, and drown myself in the notes flowing through my fingers.
No one was allowed up here—no one aside from Ollie. Stepping into the room, negatives of my favorite photos scalloped from wall to wall, mostly of him. Ollie was my favorite muse. Here, I could admire parts of him when he was gone. His smile. The squint in his eyes. The angles and edges of his body. And all the sacred moments I’d caught him without him noticing. In here, I could crop, distort, change, filter …
… but never of Ollie.
The walls had been painted black, including a black-out curtain over the stained-glass window. Against one entire wall sat a work counter, processing sink, holding sink, and print washers. On the opposite side was the heavy-duty equipment I’d saved up for over these last few months.
After hours passing with hushed music playing in the dark from the laptop, and toying around with film, I’d fallen asleep over my desk and woke up to sounds coming from downstairs. Lifting my head, drool stuck to the side of my face, and I swiped my forearm across my cheek and mouth just when another sound clashed from below.
I slowly stood from the chair and tiptoed to the window, and Ollie’s car wasn’t outside in its usual spot. Heart pounding, I whipped and scanned the room for my phone. I’d left it downstairs.
It could very well be Ollie, but usually, he’d find me as soon as he walked through the door. He’d already be up here. He’d be the one to wake me.
It was someone else.
And the single thought drove all fear into existence.
Slowly, I walked across the hardwood floors until my shaky palm wrapped around the door handle. Afraid to make a sound, I held my breath as the door pulled open with a small painful creak.
I peeked my head out and gazed down the steps to where the kitchen was. A girl was leaned over the counter with my phone in her hand, the bright screen beaming over her face. But her back was to me, and though I couldn’t see her, I knew it was Leigh.
She’d broken into my home.
I’d left Dolor a long time ago, but apparently, Dolor never left me.
With my gaze pinned on her back, I went through every scenario of how this would go. It was just her and me here, but this was my house. Leaving the door cracked, I pulled back behind the wall and released a breath while planning out my next moves. Knowing she had relations with the Links could mean she had a gun, but so did I. Under my mattress.
While her back was still turned, I made swift and quiet moves down the stairs to make it across the living room and into my bedroom. Each step closer was a threat, but my feet still moved forward with eyes trained at her back, knowing every turn of the house better than anyone. All the lights downstairs were off, and as soon as I made it through my bedroom door, I slid to my knees, pulled up the blankets, and shoved my hand under the mattress on Ollie’s side.
My heartbeat pulsed in my ears, and my eyes burned when my fingers never touched metal. I lifted the mattress. The gun was gone. Ollie took it with him.
Suddenly, a rope wrapped around my neck and tightened, cutting off airflow to the point I could no longer breathe. My eyes bulged, and I clawed at the rope, trying to pull it free. Leigh shoved my face into the mattress and pressed her knee into my back, yanking back tighter. My chest burned and my limbs fought, terror consuming my every sense as the twine cut into my flesh. “I’m sorry, Mia,” she said, “but you have to go.”
Ethan transported me to this place before. The place where I could drift into a world where only Ollie and I lived.
I felt myself slipping to that place.
My heart thumped.
It was warm and quiet.
My heart thumped.
Only peace and freedom.
My heart thumped.
But green eyes flashed before me. Promises, dreams, and a fight to never let go. My eyes squeezed shut as a single tear slid over the soaked sheets, and I threw my head back until a jolt of pain erupted inside my skull. The rope loosened, and my chest begged for oxygen, gasping and coughing as I flipped around to face her. Leigh launched back at me, and I bent my leg back and kicked her between the legs before standing to my feet.
Before she was able to steady herself, I took off to the kitchen. My cell phone was gone, and I grabbed the home phone off the wall. After dialing 9-1-1, my entire body shook as I snatched open drawers in search of a knife. I’d set the kitchen up, placed everything in their spots, but couldn’t get my mind together to find a single knife. The call disconnected, and I tried calling again in a desperate panic. By the time my fingers clasped around the handle of a knife, Leigh had gripped my hair and yanked me backward as the knife crashed to the floor.
The two of us fought in a power struggle, hair pulling, fists flying, gasping for air as we both begged for a solid breath. Once I managed to maneuver and pin her to the ground with my legs straddling her waist, she punched my left temple, and my entire body flew to the tile. A deep moan from the pit of my stomach escaped. I lifted my head to see the knife had slid across the floor and against the counter.
Inch by inch, I crawled across the floor as blood dripped from my face onto the tile. But the adrenaline and fight to survive temporarily numbed the pain.
“Bloody hell, I underestimated you,” Leigh muttered under her breath. “You’re one crazy bitch.” She stood over me as I laid over my stomach, crawling and eating away the distance between me and the knife as the taunts continued.
Once the tips of my fingers touched the knife, I grabbed it and kicked her legs out from under her. Leigh fell on her back, and I shuffled back over her, pressing the cold metal to her throat. “You walked into the house of a certified psycho,” I reminded her. “You haven’t seen crazy.” Her dark eyes went wide, and she froze beneath me. Digging the edge of the sharp knife into her flesh, tears held in the corners of my enraged eyes as thoughts of slicing her open invaded me. It would be so easy. I had her right where I wanted her. The pulse in her neck slammed against the silver blade, and I couldn’t pry my eyes
away.
Struggling to hold myself back, I reached my arm up and over the counter for the phone to call Ollie to stop me from killing her.
He picked up on the first ring.
“I’m sorry,” he immediately said, and the sound of his voice granted the tears to fall from my eyes. “I dropped Leigh off hours ago, but had to go back for anoth—” he paused, hearing my harsh breathing from the other end. “Mia, what’s wrong?”
I bit my lip as Leigh stared at me from the ground with tears in her eyes and a knife to her throat. “Ollie …” I croaked through a whisper. Sucking in a quick breath, I let it slowly release between my lips, my knife-holding hand shaking against her throat, threatening to stab her in the neck and watch her bleed out. The war inside wasn’t over. It would never be over. It was always there, lurking, waiting. Evil thoughts blurred. Visions of her life slipping away, her eyes closing, the void taking over the both of us. It seemed so peaceful. Final. And I was exhausted. “… I’m going to kill her.”
“Who, Mia? Talk to me. What are you doing?”
“Leigh. She broke in. I’m sitting on top of her. A knife to her neck. She can’t leave this house with her life. This is my home. Our home,” I rambled as Ollie muffled the phone and talked low to someone else to call the police. “Ollie?”
“I’m right here. I’m on my way. Listen to me, Mia, I’m begging you. Don’t do this and stay with me on the phone,” his voice was frantic, and Leigh swallowed with tears staining her cheeks. “Are you listening to me?”
A beat passed, and Leigh wiggled under me to try to break free. I pressed the edge of the blade against her flesh, and the teeth bit into her skin. Blood trickled down her throat onto the tile. Leigh stopped. “Yeah,” I whispered.
“Close your eyes, baby,” he calmly said. “Are they closed?” I slammed my eyes closed and tried to inhale through my nose as I fought the urge to cut deeper. I nodded, but he couldn’t see and continued anyway, “Over two years ago, back in my dorm, you came through the vent with this crazy belief that kissing was more intimate than sex. Do you remember?”
I nodded, sniffling.
“Mia?”
“I remember.”
Ollie let out a breath. “Then you slid over my lap, and my heart stopped inside my chest. I couldn’t think. I could hardly breathe, love. But when your eyes hit mine, a change happened. Inside you. Inside me. Your eyes, they lit up, and I was no longer afraid. You went on, talking about science and this forbidden kiss, and all I could think about was the fact you eventually would be gone, and the panic returned. I never wanted to lose that contact. I never wanted to be without you,” he choked and paused to take a breath. “I dragged you closer, laid my head to yours, living in that moment for as long as possible. Because you managed to give me something I’d been searching for my entire life, Mia. You gave me you, all of you, without even realizing it,”—chaos erupted as police broke through the door, guns raised, and the knife slipped from my trembling hand onto the tile as I fell back against the counter with the phone clutched to my ear, tears spilling from my eyes— “The funny thing about it all, you were wrong all along, love. Sex, a kiss … it took way less than that. I only said those things at the time … Because, so badly, I just wanted to kiss you.”
Men in suits and gear dragged Leigh away while another one gripped my arm and pulled me off the floor. The phone dropped, breaking once it hit the tile.
Blue lights flashed up and down our street from outside and through the windows of my home. I sat over my couch with two officers standing before me, questioning me about what happened with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.
It wasn’t but minutes later when Ollie ran through the front door. He pushed through the two officers and crouched down before me, wordlessly examining my face, my eyes, with worry and terror etched in his. “Mia?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t do it.”
Ollie grabbed the back of my head and kissed my forehead before our heads connected. And we stayed like that for a moment, my body still trembling from the close call until the officer cleared his throat and dropped his card over the coffee table. “If you have any questions, here’s my number.”
“What will happen to her?” I asked, and Ollie stood and sat over the arm of the couch beside me, his hand never leaving mine.
The cop closed his spiral notepad and adjusted the hat over his head. “It’s too soon to say, but from what I can see, there may be a chance for Leigh. She’ll most likely end up at the reformatory school in Guildford—Dolor.”
A week had passed. Refusing to go to the emergency room, Mia healed on her own. My little explosion of hope. I could never fathom or understand the internal struggle she’d faced at that moment, the need to kill when your entire being had been threatened in your own home, but she had been strong enough to fight it, and that, I was sure she’d always been capable of.
We were halfway to Christmas, and Dex hadn’t made the call yet or gone over the plan. The police had arrested Leigh, which put a kink in his plan, and if he’d known, he would’ve called. Either way, we couldn’t use her anymore. But with or without Leigh, I was prepared to use the bullet I’d saved. I was still ready to kill Ghost more than ever. It was the only way.
“What about this one?” Mia asked, standing beside a Christmas tree. Rosy cheeks, hidden eyes behind large black glasses, and hair piled high, I admired how tiny she stood against the monster of a tree. Mia’s fingers tugged the frosted branches, and ice chips fell from the tree. “Think it’ll fit inside the door?”
“No, definitely not,” I said through a chuckle. Mia frowned, wearing black jeans, combat boots, and a large grey trench coat over a plain black hoodie. The sun would set soon, and we didn’t have much time. “Think small, love. We’ll put it in front of the window in the living room, yeah?”
“The one by the piano?”
I shook my head. “On the other side of the front door. Closer to our room.”
“Oh, yeah. Okay,” Mia jumped in front of another tree, “this one!”
The tree had half the height and half the life, but it would fit. I walked toward her. “You’re sure? This is the one you want?”
Mia bounced on her toes, the daylight dying. “Yes, now let’s go.” She blew hot air into her hands and tightened the coat around her. “It’s bloody cold out here.”
I chuckled. “Stick with your accent, love. The only British in you is me.”
The chap at the tree farm had helped tie the tree on top of the old station wagon, and it held steady the entire way back to our cottage. I’d set up the tree in the corner by the window, and Mia sat on the floor with decorations she’d collected over this past week from the village scattered around her. She’d changed out of her jeans into pajama pants, Christmas socks warming her feet.
Flames danced in the fireplace, heating the small house as old Christmas tunes played from the record player, and I was in the kitchen, making homemade hot chocolate using the milk chocolate bars I’d picked up from a shop in London. Once done, I topped both mugs off with candy canes and walked back into the living room where Mia had the corner of the ornament box between her teeth.
“Is it giving you a hard time?” I asked, chuckling, and walking toward her, but I knew better than to help her. For the most part, Mia was determined and never asked for help, wanting to do everything on her own.
She growled into the box, and I sipped from my mug while handing her the other.
After a back and forth battle between Mia and the packaging, I strung the lights around the tree and pulled out a box of our things from Dolor. Between the two of us, we’d saved every origami rose I’d given her. But the one that we hung first, was the one she’d ripped apart and I’d pieced back together again. The rose rested in the middle of the tree, and I looked over at her to see tears in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” she waved her hand in front of her face. “I don’t know why I’m so fucking emotional right now.”
I p
ulled her into my arms, and she pressed her face into my chest. My hands smoothed over the back of her head. “As long as they’re happy tears, love.”
My mobile phone rang, and Mia pulled away, sucking in a long breath. “I’ll be okay,” she laughed, “you should get that. It could be Dex.”
Mia was right, and I walked over to the fireplace and grabbed my phone from the ledge to look at the screen. My heart flipped inside my chest. Dex. I answered.
“I need you to come by the house tonight,” he stated. “We have to go over a few things.”
Mia’s watery eyes watched mine for a reaction.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
The call disconnected, and I pocketed the mobile and walked up to her, clutching her face in my hands. “I have to go.”
“I know.”
“What’s the emergency number here, love?”
She rolled her eyes. “9-9-9, not 9-1-1.”
Nodding, I forced a grin. Leaving Mia had always been my biggest repeated mistake. One I’d been making over and over again for months now, but I’d always come back to her. “Wait up for me.”
“I always do.”
It hadn’t been the call I’d been anticipating, but I also didn’t want to drive across town to see him tonight—especially with the chance of him knowing Mia was involved with Leigh’s arrest. My knee bounced under the steering wheel, tensions rising as I pulled in front of the chain-linked gate against the curb. No music played from the house, which only meant one thing. Tonight meant business.
I blew hot air into my hands and rubbed my palms together, my feet moving forward up the path toward the door. Upon entering, Dex, Smith, Adrian, and another guy I’d seen with Dex stood in the kitchen, huddled in a circle while Mum sat over the torn couch in the living room. “Baby, O,” Dex called, waving me over to the group of blokes. I passed Mum, and her apprehensive gaze never left mine, causing my palms to sweat. Dex stepped to the side, making room for me. “I have to ask you something, mate. Do you know where Leigh is?”
Now Open Your Eyes (Stay With Me series Book 3) Page 31