Unfortunately, my life wasn’t a simple old romantic movie. It was more like torture horror porn fucked three ways on Sunday.
Twenty minutes later Zander made his way down again, this time wearing a shirt and a soft looking pair of cotton pants, his hair still saturated. “Good evening, love.” My forehead furrowed over love, but my lips remained sealed. “I take it you’re feeling better.”
“Seems my ass will recover.”
As he leaned over the back of the sofa, his expression turned sultry, and I saw the corner of his mouth twitch, his hazel eyes slowly becoming more gold than green. I narrowed my eyes and boldly told him, “I’m not sleeping with you.”
Amused, he still took the time to look my body over. “Still haven’t asked you to.”
Yet was the word his mouth neglected say. But yet was what his smile was screaming at me right now.
“But I certainly wouldn’t mind putting my dick where your mouth is if you’re game.”
I could pretend to be surprised and repulsed, but it wasn’t anything unexpected. “That’s a little vulgar, don’t you think?”
His body leaned even farther over the sofa, swallowing up most the distance between our heads. His scent was strong and fresh with body wash. “When you finally accept that your sexuality is one of your most valuable weapons, you’ll be capable of great things.”
“I’m capable of great things without using sex to get them.”
“On the contrary, you have a history of using sex with me.”
“I’m not using it now to get what I want,” I rebutted coolly.
“You will before this is over.”
I half-assed the eye roll as I turned away. I wasn’t going to let him suck me into this any further. Holding my hand up in the air between us, I said, “Phone me.”
Back in the day, me commanding him to do anything would’ve earned me some kind of beat down. Now, he simply handed over the phone without a word.
Fucking Twilight Zone.
I wanted to dial Nick, but when I realized Zander wasn’t leaving, I got myself off the sofa – which took three forward rocks to get to my feet. Now I knew how a pregnant lady felt. Gravity just wasn’t my friend right now.
I awkwardly stumbled the first few steps, trying to shake out the cramped muscles I got from laying on my side so long. I dialed Nick once I turned the corner into the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said sweetly.
“Megan?” His voice was miserable and filled with pain.
“What?” I immediately demanded. Was he okay? Was his mom?
“Shit. You don’t know. I thought maybe Zander had eyes out.”
“Know what? What’s going on?”
Nick cursed under his breath again. Then louder. “Megan, I’m so sorry.”
Air shot deep into my lungs, the force of it stinging my insides before it shot back out again. My lungs felt squashed, like an enormous giant sat down on them. My immediate thought was Thea. That they found her. That they found her body, and there was no stopping the downpour of tears. I cried, “No,” then muffled my sobs with my hand.
“No, Megan. It’s not Thea. It’s your parents. They’re… They found them this morning.”
“What do you mean found?” I asked way too quietly, with a voice that wouldn’t quit shaking.
“Someone got to them. No one will tell me where or how, but it’s bad, Megan. Someone wanted something from them.”
“You mean me, don’t you? Someone wanted to know where I was, didn’t they?”
“I don’t know. No one knows except…”
Except my parents. My dead parents. I should’ve called them earlier. Should’ve made sure they were better hidden once Thea was taken. I should’ve called them every day to tell them I loved them. I shouldn’t have been so afraid to open up to them. I was so afraid they’d never love me as much as Claire, and that fear of rejection kept me at bay. They would’ve been so much better off without me.
“WHY DID YOU HAVE TO COME FIND ME? WHY?” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Without waiting for his reply, I kept on going. “YOU WERE ALL BETTER OFF WITHOUT ME! I WAS SAFE! HE NEVER WOULD’VE FOUND ME IF I HADN’T GONE TO THE POLICE! THEA WOULD BE SAFE RIGHT NOW LIVING THE LIFE SHE CHOSE!” Beginning to choke on my very words, I could barely add, “Mom and Dad…”
My knees hit the floor hard. I welcomed the sharp pains that followed, half-tempted to do it again just to distract myself from the other kind of pain searing through my insides. My lower jaw began to quiver, first slow, then violently. My hand began to fist, my other falling to my side, gripping the phone more tightly.
Zander was on me in a second, his hand encapsulating mine, literally squeezing the phone out of my grasp.
“Don’t break that,” he commanded, his voice surprisingly soft despite the firm demand. Nick’s words were muffled and they sounded like he was pleading.
I couldn’t breathe. My throat was swelling so fast barely anything got through. My stomach burned, acid boiling and popping like a volcano – it was only a matter of seconds before it blew. I bolted through the living room and out the back door, an obnoxious alarm blaring about my escape. Tears poured down like a crashing waterfall, blurring the world until all I saw were abstract shapes of brown and green and white. I tripped and stumbled down the stairs, amplifying the pain where I was cut. My bare feet hit soft snow but it soon became rough, dry earth as I reached the forest floor. Something large and pointed like a pine cone stabbed my sole as the weight of my body crushed it to pieces. I yelped, my body instinctively hopping from pain.
My stomach let loose the contents of my stomach, bile singeing my throat as it exploded upward like a shaken champagne bottle blowing its cork.
My parents…
Mom…
Dad…
…it was all my fault.
Groaning, I curled inward as misery flooded my every emotion. My forearms scratched against the bark of the tree. My cries were so loud I never realized the alarm stopped, not until his arms turned me around and pulled me into his chest.
But I didn’t want to be held. Not by him.
“No!” I tried to scream, but it came off as more of a groan. I pushed against him but he refused to let go. “Let me go!”
It only made him hold me tighter. And I wished I hadn’t looked into his eyes. There was so much pity there, and all it did was fan the fire. My pushes became slaps. Which turned into beating fists. When he slackened his hold, I began to throw punches. “This is all your fault! You’re the reason they’re dead! You did this to me!”
He let me swing every punch I needed, but he began to block them after about the fourth one, slapping my hand down and away. He never made a real move to stop me, just stood there and accepted my firing rage.
I couldn’t even hurt him. All the anger raging inside and nothing to stop me from lashing out and I still couldn’t hurt him.
My whole body gave way and crashed to the earth. Awkwardly positioned on my hands and the side of my thigh, I wailed and let the tears run free, my foot and butt both aching fiercely.
His phone rang, and its tone got softer as his footsteps headed off. Instinctively, my entire body shut down the sounds, too curious about the call.
“Hello?” he asked quietly. “No, we’re fine. Just forgot the alarm was set…Mmm-hmm. Pin number 981239… Okay, thank you.”
I sighed, just as extreme exhaustion reared its ugly head. My neck, my head, even my chest felt heavy. When he returned, his hand found my knee. “Your skin is icy. Come inside.”
“Leave me alone,” I muttered, my eyes too tired to open.
“You’re not dressed to be out here.”
He was right. I was wearing a thin pair of shorts and a tank top, and now that he had brought it to my attention, I was freezing my ass off, goosebumps bubbling so high they stung my skin. But it was soothing in a twisted way, numbing my insides in a way that couldn’t be done any other way right now. “I don’t care. Just leave me alone.”
I was trying to rev myself up for another round when I heard his footsteps returning. But he surprised me by sitting beside me on a blanket, then wrapping a second around me. Hands grasped my hips tightly and pulled me against his chest. Now he was leaning against the tree and I was leaning against him.
Whatever… His heat was comforting.
I was still crying, but the tears had lessened. They were still a long way from shutting down completely though. I lay there going through the memories of my parents, or at least those I had managed to tap into since my brainwash. They were all just random memories. Nothing too significant. A moment in a day here, a day there. A joke passed at the dinner table. My mother smiling at me from where she watched me twirl around during a dance recital rehearsal when I was little. My father laughing when I gave him a look for suggesting I learn how to change a tire when I was practicing to earn my driver’s license.
I’d never see them smile again. Never feel the warmth of their hugs again.
The walls of my stomach clinched tighter. They didn’t just die either. It’s bad, Megan… They were tortured first, and I had no doubt Friggs was the one behind it. He’d already hunted down Thea. And now… Was she even still alive? For all I knew he killed her and did a better job hiding her body.
I couldn’t even think about it anymore. With a heavy exhalation, I gave in and fell into Zander, letting him carry all my weight. He shifted slightly to accept it, even moved his hand behind me, lightly stroking my arm. It felt good, and allowing myself to focus on the repetitive movement temporarily distracted my grief.
I don’t know how long we sat like that. I might’ve even drifted in and out, I wasn’t sure. But I was incredibly sleepy when he quietly told me, “My father met a brutal end, too. He wasn’t tortured, but the men who killed him weren’t kind about it. Or swift.”
My eyes opened after the confession, when silence ensued. “You know, don’t you?”
“I recorded your phone call. I listened to it when I went inside.”
I wanted to shake my head at that, but my body refused to move. Of course he recorded it. He probably recorded all of them, listening in to make sure I wasn’t saying anything that would give away our location or pass along anything I learned that could be used to imprison him later.
Trust no one.
“Why’d they go after your father?”
The silence that followed was so long I began to wonder if he regretted sharing something so personal.
“My father was a powerful man. He was in deep in both the drug and sex industry. The men who killed him worked for another drug lord. He wanted my father’s territory.”
I just assumed the drug lord got it, because this wasn’t a conversation I wanted to continue. It would probably only piss him off.
“And your mother?” I asked. “Is she still alive?” Because she did a bang up job raising him...
“My mother died in childbirth.”
“Oh,” I said numbly. I didn’t have much, but at least I had some memories to think back on. And I knew that my mother loved me with all her heart, despite the emotional distance I suffered as of late.
“She was one of his captives.”
My eyes shot wide but my mouth stayed shut. I wasn’t liking the similarity, and suddenly I wasn’t so opposed to the birth control shots he’d been giving me.
“Birth control wasn’t as easy back then as it is today. My brother was also born to a captive but she died of natural causes when he was six.” After another long bout of silence, he quietly added, “I apparently also had a sister. But given the industry, my father feared she’d be used against him one day, so he placed her up for adoption.”
“And her mom?”
“No idea.”
I couldn’t contain the disgust disfiguring my face, my hands absently moving to protect an empty womb. “Real family man,” I mildly sassed.
I felt his body shrug. “My father was a hard man.”
“I bet he beat you too, didn’t he?”
“Plenty.”
No wonder Zander led this kind of life. He was born into it, raised to be his father. At some point I fell asleep, but I woke up the next day between the sheets. Zander was long gone, his side of the bed ice cold. At first I sat up in a daze, trying to remember why my body felt so sluggish. It took all of two seconds for the news of my parents to come slamming back down again. Tears stung until they pushed their way out. I buried myself in a cave of blankets and cried myself back to sleep.
Night came. Then day again. I hardly made an effort to even pee. Zander left me completely alone, only coming and going to bring me the phone to reset my tracker or to leave food and drink on the bedside that I never touched. I had no appetite. No desire to drink. I became more and more lethargic. It was only once I couldn’t take the headaches anymore that I forced myself to nibble and sip.
Bright light watered my eyes even more. I really wished I had some blinds to pull.
I spent the next two hours tossing and turning. I was pretty sure my body wasn’t going to sleep anymore, no matter the exhaustion I was feeling. And quite honestly, I was tired of it. My dreams were having a field day, forcing me to deal with the pain I was trying to ignore.
As if he could sense the end of my hibernation, Zander began climbing the stairs. Soon he was making his way across the loft and standing beside me as I groggily buried my forehead in my hand. Just sitting made me dizzy right now.
He lightly brushed my hair behind my ears. Each stroke of his fingertips made it that more obvious how oily my hair was. I finally batted him away.
“I’m gross. Don’t.”
“You need to call him. You’ve refused for two days now. He’s going to think I’ve reneged on our contract.”
I half-sighed, half-groaned, not wanting to comply. But with Zander, it seemed I always had to. “I don’t want to talk to him right now.”
“Then get him on the line long enough to tell him you need more time.”
I could hear the faint sounds of his thumb pad moving across the screen. Despite my negative grunt, he placed the phone against my ear when it began to ring.
Nick was quick to pick up. “Megan?” he asked urgently.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled lifelessly. “We’re fine. He hasn’t done anything to me. I just don’t want to talk right now.”
“Megan, please,” he begged softly. “You’re not the only one hurting here. They were my family, too.”
My eyes closed, my head dropped slightly. I could feel myself giving in, but one word resonated over all others. Hurting. Why was everyone one around me always hurting? Or being hurt? And why was I so powerless to stop it?
I begrudgingly took the phone from Zander’s hand and he slowly backed away to pace the room.
“I know. I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget all the time you must’ve spent with them after I was taken.” Maybe too much time… “It’s just…” My head fell back, the motion stretching my neck, helping to alleviate some of the aches. “None of this would have happened if I had just stayed gone. Myrtle Creek or wherever I would’ve ended up. Coming back ruined everyone’s lives, not just mine.”
“My life hasn’t been ruined, Megan,” he told me firmly.
I was almost tempted to gaff, but I lacked the energy. He took a bullet in the chest for me. And did he consider Zander imprisoning us and trying to pit us each against other a positive situation in his life thus far? I’d admit it helped our love grow stronger, but it was my love for him that wanted to see him safe. He still had a chance to turn this around. Make a better life. Associate with people who wouldn’t keep his life in constant danger.
“Megan?” he probed.
I swallowed, but my throat felt so constricted that it felt like I was trying to swallow molasses. Finally, I braved, “I can’t do this anymore, Nick. I won’t.”
“Won�
��t what?” he asked fearfully.
“My parents were… Thea’s been taken.” My head continually shook even though he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see the tears moistening my eyes either. It was like I was trying to convince myself most of all. I was doing the right thing, right?
“Megan,” he said more firmly.
“I want you to go back into witness protection. Get a new identity. Get as far away from me as possible.”
“No. Fucking. Way.”
“I’m tapping you out, Nick. Your part in this nightmare is over.”
“Megan, no! You do not get to break up with me over the phone! Not like this. Not right now.”
“I don’t want to,” I admitted softly, “but don’t you see? You’re the only one I have a real chance at saving. You can have a whole new life.”
My voice was surprisingly soft and calm, the realization of the words I was saying sinking in, and how very true they seemed. Nick’s voice, however, was growing angrier and angrier.
“This doesn’t save me, Megan! Friggs won’t know.”
“I’ll make sure he knows. I’ll make sure he understands that you left me. That you want nothing to do with me. That you’ll never come looking should this go south.”
“Of course it’s going to go south! This was always a horrible plan!”
“Goodbye, Nick. I love you.”
I hit the end button just as his voice tried to cut through. All I heard was a don’t before the line went dead. I held the phone out in the air, not even bothering to look at Zander. “Is that what you wanted?”
Bare footsteps softly made their way over and collected the phone. “You were right to do it,” was all he said before making his way down the stairs.
Again I buried myself under the covers. But this time, I was all out of tears to shed, no matter how much I hurt and ached inside.
NEARLY Trilogy Page 70