by Webster, K
“You know,” Marjorie’s voice sounds distorted. I can make out the sound of running water and her shadowy figure standing in the doorway to the bathroom. “Jack was born to become president. With a little push in votes, he could have it all. This,” she says, gesturing with her arms at me. “You coming home alone like this was fate. I planned on asking Jack to bring you home. I was going to show him the distasteful images I had my guy taking of you.”
“What?” I slur, attempting to stand, but my legs become Jell-O. I fall back to my ass on the bed.
“You think I would allow those men to take you off without me keeping tabs on you?” She lets out a mocking laugh. “You’re a product, Clove. Your very being can make or break your father. A scandal right now when he’s this close would destroy him. Us. I know you’re fucking those men like a disgusting whore who gets passed around like a bottle of cheap whiskey. Everyone gets a swig and buzz. They devalued and disgraced you. Is it them who had you running back here? Were they done playing pass the parcel?”
“Stop,” I snap, my thoughts swimming in mud. Her words are making sickness crawl up my throat and invisible dirt stick to my skin, covering me in shame.
Who is this woman replacing the Marjorie I’ve known nearly my entire life?
Walking over to me, her face comes so close to mine I can smell the cigarettes on her breath. I didn’t know she smoked. Her lip curls as she studies me, her face saying all the things her words never have. I’m a problem. An insignificant bug that’s flown into her home that she needs to get rid of. Humming begins pounding in my skull.
“What did you do to me?” I weep, trying to clasp onto her but grasping air.
“I added something to your tea to help you relax in the bathtub, and you’ve been struggling to cope after the near miss. And then, of course just breaking up with your future husband William. Everything combined just took its toll on you. The many nights I found you crying in your bedroom. My heart breaks for how lost you were, and I couldn’t do anything to help you. You were just so broken.”
My stomach twists at her words.
“Marjorie,” I breathe.
“You were so depressed and we should have seen this coming. I mean, you were never the same after your mother’s sad end. This was inevitable.”
“Don’t speak of my mother,” I heave out, losing my breath.
“Your mother was a sacrifice to a greater cause. With her tragic death, sympathy poured in, launching your father’s political career. Of course the idea of getting her out of the way was so I could take her place. I didn’t think it would take this long. Once you’re gone, though, he’ll find comfort in my arms and together we will start anew.”
“No.” I try again to stand but fall to the floor. Tiny pinpricks cut into my knees as I land on the broken china. The bedroom door opens and heavy footsteps pound over the wood flooring, coming to rest at where I’m struggling to right myself. Strong hands reach under my armpits and tug me up, before I’m thrown back onto the bed like I’m weightless.
The air whooshes from my lungs as my limbs flail around me, completely detached from my will. My motor skills are shot, and my body feels weighted with lead.
“Strip her and move her to the tub,” I hear Marjorie instruct. The man from the front gate comes into my misty vision, his lips in a thin line as his hands mistreat me.
“Stop it,” I bark, but it’s weak, the volume not computing from my brain to lips.
“Don’t rip them, idiot. It needs to appear as she undressed herself,” Marjorie snaps. Cold air creeps over my exposed flesh as he removes my clothing. Tears build in my eyes and fall to my cheeks as humiliation stains my soul.
“Shame we couldn’t take another route with this.” The guy sneers, lifting me up to tug my shirt from beneath me. Attempting to fight him, I thrash my body and end up kicking out and gaining purchase. He howls out and growls, “Bitch.” His backhand whips out and collides with my cheek, rattling my teeth and making fire explode over my face.
“Don’t mark her, you imbecile. Get her into the bathtub if you think you can handle a drugged little girl on your own,” she mocks cruelly.
Thick fingers grab at my flesh, digging in and ripping me from the bed. I’m scooped up into an unwelcomed hold, a hard chest I don’t find comfort in, the touch of a man I don’t know breathing over my naked skin. This is all wrong. Emotions clog my throat as he marches me through my own bedroom. Attempting to struggle is futile. His grip is painful, and whatever was in that tea has left me weak. Cool water consumes my body with a splash, cocooning me in its watery depths as he drops me like a stone in the ocean. Gasping for air as my head surfaces, the man’s face sneers above me. His square chin juts out, and slimy eyes creep over my body. Roughly, he pushes down on my shoulders. Maddening panic races through my muggy mind, causing me to call out in incoherent screams, which allows water to infiltrate my mouth.
He’s going to kill me. Drown me and make it look like I did this. My guys will blame themselves. They will think I did this because of the truths I learned from Rachel. They will never know how much I love them. How none of that stuff matters when you’re faced with your own mortality.
I was so stupid.
I had everything and instead of reaching out and grabbing hold, I let pride break me. I let outside interference sway me. Allowed Rachel to infiltrate our happy bubble and burst what we built.
I’m so sorry, Seb. And Ford and Leo and Zac. My heart aches.
“Such a shame you took too many pills and fell asleep in the bath. Suicide is an epidemic lately.” Marjorie’s voice penetrates through my drowning ears as I fight to surface.
I can’t go out like this. My guys need to know.
My hands ball into fists, the nails piercing the skin as I fight for my life, willing my heavy limbs to work, to move, to save me. The blood seeps from my skin. Try and convince people this was suicide, bitch, my mind screams.
I try with every cell in my overwhelmed fatigued body to fight to live, but the strength and water overpower me. I sink deeper, beneath the heavy weight of the drugs and the water. The arms submerge me harder, forcing me to stay under, keeping me there until I’m choking, weakening, losing. The cold liquid chases down my throat, stealing my life from me.
Darkness consumes me.
My life had finally just begun. They made me theirs, and I ran.
Now I’m dying…
I’m dying…
I’m dying…
I’m dy—
There’s no one at the gate when I arrive, which makes my muscles ripple over the bones beneath them. Even if Jack isn’t at the property, there’s always a guard at the gate. I jump from the vehicle and check inside the small security booth, hitting the button for the entrance to open. Climbing back inside the shitty Malibu that almost choked out halfway here, my fingers drum rapidly on the steering wheel, willing the gate to move fucking faster. I check my rearview mirror, but the guys haven’t caught up yet. Hopefully they’ll get here soon.
I’ve never felt anxiety like what she’s put me through in the past several hours. When Zac said she called her father, my heart almost exploded in my chest. I knew I loved her, but I don’t think I truly grasped just how damn much until the prospect of not having her became a real possibility. She witnessed something innocent with Rachel and us, but who fucking knows what shit Rachel has been whispering to her, making it out to be more than what it was.
This is all so new to Clo, and the circumstances so abnormal. I clearly haven’t shown her just how damn much she means to me. How fucking deeply rooted she is inside me. She is in the very essence of who I am. I can’t bear to think of a life where she’s not at the center of it. I need to tell her and prove to her that it’s only her for us. Make her understand that no one else compares or matters. Let her know that Rachel is as insignificant as a mouse finding its way inside your house.
Finally, the gate clanks open and I hit the accelerator, punching forward the small tin can, pus
hing its limits. Screeching to a stop in front of the house, I jump out and race up the steps. I wiggle the handle to no avail. It’s locked. No surprise there. I didn’t think to bring keys with me in my mad rush out of there.
Banging my fist against the wooden panel gets me nowhere. Is no one here? I take off around the house and try each door and window, coming up empty. Garage. It has a code lock on the outside. My heart thunders in my chest as I approach the panel and input my old code. When the red light beeps to green, I sag in relief.
It’s eerily quiet when I make it into the main house. No staff litters the halls. My shoes creak over the polished floors, causing an echo. The tiny hairs rise on the back of my neck when I hear a faint sound coming from upstairs. Jack wouldn’t hurt Clo. I believe that deep down. Not with his own hands anyway. She’s going to be in her room sulking, and I’ll scold her for leaving and being reckless and then she will cry and shout at me. I’ll fuck all the hate out of her until she’s brimming with only love. We will all laugh about it on the way back to my house and decide she’s never allowed to take off again. She has to stay, not because she’s our job, but because she’s ours period. Taking the steps two at a time, I follow the hum of voices to Clo’s bedroom. The door gives way under my hand. A cold dread saturates my body before I’m even inside.
Fury unfurls in my chest as I enter. An overbearing ache pulses in my gut as I see straight to her bathroom through the open doorway. There’s some big fucker leaning over the bathtub and Marjorie looking down to whom he has submerged. A roar, wild and unrestrained, tears from my lungs as I take off toward him, colliding with his middle and taking him off his feet. We crash through the glass wall of the shower, shattering the glass and hitting the cold tiles. Marjorie’s shouts echo around me, but all I see is him and the red mist clouding my mind. The guy hits his head with a thud and becomes limp beneath the weight of my body. Rushing to stand, ignoring the pain of glass shredding my flesh, I stumble to the bathtub.
No. No. Fucking no.
Water splashes everywhere as I step inside and pull my girl up from beneath the water. Her lips are turning blue, and she’s as white as a sheet.
No, no, no, no.
“Baby! Baby, it’s okay, I’m here,” I weep, pushing the dark strands of her hair from her cheeks and dragging her limp frame from the bathtub. Her naked body sags in my hold and fear like nothing I’ve ever experienced roots itself inside me like a plague, consuming me.
Focus, Seb.
CPR.
She needs CPR.
I won’t let her die on my watch.
Before I can act, hot, white pain tears through my back, making me almost drop Clo and collapse from the agony of it. Marjorie screeches as she attempts to pry the shard of shower glass from my flesh so she can stab me with it again. Placing Clo onto the floor, I swing my elbow around, finding purchase with Marjorie’s stomach, robbing her of breath. She staggers backward, giving me time to advance on her.
“You fucking cunt,” I roar. “It was you this whole time.”
I should have known. I should have connected this big fucking dot.
She snarls at me. “She’s a whore! She will tarnish all the hard work we’ve put into getting to the White House!” Her eyes are narrowing on me into evil slits.
How could I not see the dormant beast lying in wait within her?
“You hired that motherfucker to run her down?”
“Milo wasn’t hired to kill her,” she sneers. “Just to appear as a threat. It would have been enough too, but the little whore had to go opening her legs for you perverts. After everything I’ve done to get us here, she won’t ruin this. I won’t allow it.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” I bark. “You really think you’d get away with this?”
A weird cackle rips from her lips. “Milo is at the bottom of the ocean, and once you bleed out, you’ll join him.” She attempts to swing out at me like a rabid cat.
I rear my fist back and smash it into the side of her head, knocking her clean out, her small frame collapsing with a soft thud.
Too much time wasted on fucking crazy.
I drop to the floor beside my girl and tilt her head back, pinching her nose. I breathe into her lungs and then begin compressions.
One…two…three…blow…
One…two…three…blow…
“Please, baby,” I beg. “Please, baby…don’t leave me. You can’t leave me.”
Driving up toward the house, we see the garage door open and head straight for it. The energy thrumming in the air shrouds around me like a storm cloud waiting to erupt. Every muscle in my body aches from being rigid since learning our girl took off on us. There’s this pit in my gut like a black hole swallowing all the happiness from these past weeks into its cavernous pit.
We all exit at the same time, me from the Tahoe and Leo and Zac from the Mustang they borrowed from Rick. They’re both armed already, and I fling open the backseat of the car to grab my own weapons. Once we’re ready, in less than thirty seconds later, we take off in a jog into the garage and through to the house.
“She’ll be fine,” Zac barks for the thousandth time since he came back to get us, reading our minds because he feels it too. A shift in the air, the dread weighing us all down. We shouldn’t have let our guards down. We let her slip through our fingers. If anything happens to her, I’ll never forgive us. “She’ll be fine,” he says again. But there’s a tone to his voice I’ve not witnessed before. Fear.
“Hello?” Leo calls out when silence greets us inside. “Hello?” he tries again as we each take a room, searching them.
“Up here,” a desperate call penetrates the air from upstairs. Sebastian.
I’m closest and first up the steps. A drumming pounds in my ears as I race to Clove’s bedroom. The world spins when I go inside to see her limp body soaking wet on the bathroom floor.
Blue.
So fucking blue.
What the actual fuck!
Sebastian leans over her, his huge palms pumping at her chest.
No, no, this isn’t happening. This isn’t real. She’s not dead. This isn’t real.
I’m barged out of the way as Zac and Leo race past me and take over for Sebastian. Tears drip from his eyes as he watches them frantically work on her.
One…two…three…breathe…
One…two…three…breathe…
“Ford, in the garage there’s a medical cabinet with a defibrillator. Go now,” Zac orders, jerking me from my state of shock. His voice is more desperate than I’ve ever heard him.
My feet stumble and my heart leaks its essence into my chest cavity when I witness no life coming back into the woman we love. Lead fills my bones, making them heavy and off-kilter.
“Now,” he barks, jolting me into action.
I rush through the house to the garage, locating the huge white cabinet standing from floor to ceiling. Inside is everything you may need in case of emergency. I grab the defib and take off faster than I’ve ever moved in my life back to the bedroom. They’ve moved her now to the bedroom floor. Leo snatches the box from my grip and begins placing the two pads onto Lucky’s chest. My eyes trace over every inch of her, sending up a silent prayer to a god I’m not even sure I believe in.
She’s so pale. Her lips are darkening to an awful shade of blue. Crescent blood moons mark the skin on her palms, and bruises litter her flesh like a mirage of her will to survive.
She wasn’t going without a fight.
Fuck, she looks so broken lying there with strong, broad men moving her body around, trying to breathe life back into her. She’s fading from us with each passing second. If she doesn’t come back from this, none of us will.
Movement from behind them in the bathroom, snags my attention. A groaning sounds and a guy is getting to his feet inside the smashed shower stall.
“Who the fuck is that?” I snarl.
Sebastian’s eyes follow mine, and he winces as he tries to stand. That’s when I see the torrent o
f blood flowing down his back from a massive shard of glass wedged into his shoulder blade.
“He did this,” he wheezes, wobbling as he manages to stand. “He fucking drowned her.”
My eyes track the stranger now pulling a knife from a sheath on his belt and glaring at us. We didn’t come unarmed. Both Leo and Zac had time to gather our weapons before Rick showed up and they took off with his car, but this motherfucker deserves more than a bullet. I lean down to pull my own knife from my boot. It’s jagged-edged with my name carved into the steel.
He will wear my name on his insides.
Prowling past Leo, I hear the beep…beep…beep of the defib before the low hum as it shocks our girl. Her body rises and thuds against the floor.
He fucking did this to her.
He killed her.
I advance on him, and he grins, blood from his obvious tackle with Seb staining his lips.
“It was nothing personal,” he hisses. “I’m just here for the paycheck. Jack has more money than sense. He didn’t even notice where Marjorie was spending it. Fucking idiot. Another moron in politics.”
“Oh, you’re wrong,” I growl. “It’s way fucking personal and you’ve cashed your last check.”
He swipes out with his knife, missing me as I dodge with ease. I bring a boot down on the side of his shin, making him nearly topple over. He gains his feet fast enough to swipe at me, missing me by an inch. He throws a punch, landing a fist to my jaw. We trade blow for blow, testing the other. The room is small and gives me plenty of surfaces to use. I grab his head and bring it down to connect with my knee, stunning him. Using his dazed status to my advantage, I ram his skull into the sink and then toilet before slashing out and cutting him across the arm with my knife.
Bleed, motherfucker.
You’re going to bleed so fucking much for what you did.