Eluding Nirvana (The Dark Evoke Series Book 2)

by Brock, V. L.

  “Kady, its Mom. I’m sorry to call again but we’ve left message after message and still haven’t heard back from you, and we really need an answer.”

  Perplexed, my brow knitted as I continued listening to my mom sniffling at the other end.

  “I know that you and Brittany aren’t talking, but you’re not kids anymore. You’re grown adults, so I’m not going to force you both into a room and not have you leave until things are back to normal…”

  Damn right she wouldn’t.

  A crippling sigh from the recording had my lips set in a firm line. “Kady, she’s promised she’ll stay away from you, just please. She had two grandchildren and loved you both dearly, but you were her first…”

  Wait…what? A tremor surged from my knees, up my thighs and hips. I had to lean back onto the unit to maintain holding the weight which was physically crushing my body.

  “You’ll regret it if you don’t say goodbye.”

  Goodbye? My breathing caught. I held my breath, like the longer I held it, the longer time would pass without hearing the words which followed.

  “Your Nan’s funeral is next Thursday. Why am I telling you this? I’ve told you on every one of the messages I’ve left when it is, so you already know. I’m sorry; I’m all over the place. Kady, you didn’t come when I told you she was sick. You didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. Don’t let this chance pass. I love you, Kady.”

  In a daze, I ended the call and set it on the counter. Isn’t it funny how when the world crumbles away at your feet, the only thing you can hear is the air passing your ears as you fall into oblivion. I knew for a fact I hadn’t had any phone calls when I had my phone. Dammit, I hadn’t had any voicemails. The only time those calls could have been made was when my handset went missing.

  Liam?

  Deceived, that’s what it was. I felt deceived and confused, enraged, lost, and…

  Endeavoring to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground and disallow it to crumble farther, I ran to the sink. Everything in my gut was evacuated before I could halt its progression up my throat.

  My head misted over while my stomach flipped, my nails bored into my palms as my fists grew tighter. I couldn’t make heads or tails of anything; it was like I wasn’t really there. It was a dream, a nightmare, none of this was real. I was waiting for the ground which was swallowing me whole to spit me back out and solidify under my feet. But it wasn’t. I was tumbling, freefalling down a chasm with jagged edges, scraping myself on those painful pieces of rock, but still, my body wasn’t physically in pain. Adrenaline was overriding everything.

  Frantic, I recovered my purse and hastily opened the side zipper. With Walker’s number between my fingers, I focused on dialing the number, anything to put my hands to another use which wouldn’t include me smashing up the place.

  “Walker?” I was panting.

  “Kady? What’s the matter, darlin’? Everything alright?”

  I shook my head, although I knew he couldn’t see me. My mind was blurred, dense and screaming. “Where are you?”

  “McGinty’s. What’s the matter?”

  “I need to see you. Now.”

  “Okay, just calm down. I’ll come over, give me a few min––”

  “No, stay there. I’m leaving now.” I hung up, leaving my phone on charge while I gathered my purse, slipped on my flats and scampered out of the door.

  “Hey,” I flagged down the passing cab while making a hasty descent down the steps. He pulled over, allowing me to slip inside. I told him where to take me and offered twenty dollars tip if he could get me there in less than fifteen minutes, and another ten if he didn’t talk to me.

  Safe to say, he earned his thirty dollar tip.

  The back of my left hand was red, scrapped and on fire by the time I arrived at McGinty’s. I barged through the door, spotting Walker at the bar outing his cigarette as he turned to face me, creases marring his brow. Frozen, his large body turned to stone as I charged amongst the throng of people obstructing the walkway, and threw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck while standing on tiptoe and permitting his neck to muffle my sobs.

  I felt one hand in my hair, resting at the back of my head, while the other was set between my shoulder blades. “Jesus, Kady. What’s happened?” When I failed to answer, I heard him ask, “Da, can we go out back?” Carriag must have agreed because next thing I know, I was being steered from the rowdiness of the bar, into the calmness of the back room. “What’s happened?” he pressed again, the sound of him locking the heavy door echoed behind us.

  “My nan. I haven’t been able to find my phone for days. I found it in one of Liam’s pockets in the closet. I had a voicemail from my mom saying she’s been trying to get in touch with me,” the words spewed from my mouth at a frantic pace and I saw he had trouble keeping up. “My nan’s dead, Walker, and Liam has been intercepting all of my messages and calls so I didn’t know.”

  His muttering of “Jesus Christ,” was shadowed by careful arms gathering around me, taking special care not to touch my ribcage, while he drew me into the consoling warmth of his chest. It was only the feel of his heart drumming like a brass band against my cheek that managed to appease my sobbing. “I’m so, so sorry, darlin’. Is there anything I can do?”

  My own breaths were ragged when I pulled away. My hands, already fisted into tight balls at my sides, began to gather into my hair. Like a cornered animal, I studied the small, dimly lit room we were standing in, but not actually taking anything in. “I–I…” tears came harder, my chest was tight, my heart thrumming as adrenaline thwarted my system. “I can’t do this…I…I can’t think, I can’t breathe, I feel like I’m suffocating on so much rage, so much…” My words trailed off, only to be molded into a lengthy grief-stricken roar. Before realization could halt me, a balled, bloodless fist, rapidly connected with the white painted brick wall. Twice.

  The shooting pain of the joining surged from my knuckles up my arm into my elbow as it trembled in both shock and temper.

  “Kady, enough!” For the first time since meeting him, he actually shouted at me. His demand had me stopping dead, but I still couldn’t comprehend and extinguish the wildfire which seared through my entirety making it impossible to breathe. My body was swelling and heating with so many conflicting emotions. I couldn’t deal with this. I needed to stop that swelling; I needed to release it, to breath, to free myself of The Devil behind my emotions.

  I needed to feel numb.

  He stepped toward me, his jaw sturdy, his head held high. I’d not seen him like that before, he was virtually…domineering. That look in his eye, he knew…he knew just like he’d known what I had done in the restroom of Hamersley’s that night less than two weeks ago.

  My lips trembled. “Help me.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, his head remained held high, his shoulders back. “Turn around, hands on the desk.”

  I didn’t question him. He knew how he could help me, what I needed, that was blatantly clear. So I did as instructed.

  My head hung low focusing on the swirling patterns of the wooden desk, my palms flat against it. He tugged down my yoga pants in one swift motion. But I didn’t care. I knew he knew…and I trusted in his judgment. Through rough, rutted breaths I heard the wrenching of leather, before he stated sternly, “This is just to help you, Kady. You tell me when to stop. I need to be able to trust you to tell me when to stop. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. “Please, just fucking do it!” I screamed my hysteria, my body temperature so high I was certain I was going to self-combust, while the desk brooked a beating of my right hand in sheer desperation. Tears of irritation and displeasure seeped from my eyes as oxygen lingered in my throat. “DO IT!”

  Then, with a catching of his breath, the sound of his belt slicing through the air followed by the bite of it as it connected with my backside had me stiffening. The polished surface was gripped forcefully by tightening hands. My face contorted on a whimper while another sh
arp bite, followed by another, had me breathless. Still, I wasn’t even close to what I needed. I continued to shake with adrenaline, tears of confusion and frustration bled from my eyes, the wooden surface underneath me catching each splattering. The swelling of emotions was nowhere near alleviated, and in those moments, the fraught urgency I felt alone, would’ve been enough to sway me to do something dangerous just to relieve them within a heartbeat.

  “Harder, please, Walker, Harder…”

  With heavy, ragged breaths and a menacing grunt, he stood aside, and the dividing of air was the loudest I’d ever heard in my life. Whatever air I successfully managed to gather in my lungs between lashes was ousted on a pleading yell as the power behind his belt intensified upon my command. Winded as the sting radiated across my ass cheeks in a form of welts, up to my throat, hands which braced my weight tautened, and my head was thrown back, while every muscle in my body tensed beyond any strength they’d ever endured.

  The blissful place I had frantically sought was found thanks to the man behind me. During each stabilized pant as my breathing regulated, the lashes, although lessened in power, continued. Each thrashing now dispensed, my body sank into, practically unresponsive as I stood, hands braced on the desk without so much as a tensed muscle after each additional belting. My limit was found and reached. Walker knew that without so much as me telling him, and now, like a pro, he was reeling me back, working me down, leveling me out…prolonging my feeling of clarity, of emotional numbness…of bliss.

  My own blissful oblivion.

  When tears ran dry, I closed my eyes, my inhalations shallow and even. The sound of leather clattering to the floor was shadowed by Walker’s own heavy gasps. Unmoving, my head remained hung, the swelling gone, my head no longer aching, just…silence.

  Flinching wasn’t an option when I felt calloused hands clutch my hips, and turned me around. I was practically catatonic when we sunk to the ground, Walker cradling me in his understanding, reassuring arms, his legs open, as I avoided any pressure on my behind and positioned myself on my hip in between them.

  Into his heaving chest I nuzzled, while relaxing fingers twisted in my hair.

  “Thank you, Walker,” I whispered, my voice low and smooth, my gratitude bountiful.

  “Shush, don’t speak. Just savor it. Savor that numbness, darlin’.” And oddly enough, I understood exactly what he meant.

  “I don’t want you to be left on your own tonight, darlin’.” Walker’s concern was broached while we were in the pick-up, drawing the seatbelt across our bodies.

  For the first time since that afternoon, I sniggered ironically.

  “What?”

  “Funny enough, I was about to say, I really don’t want to go back home.”

  One word was posed that had my head rearing up and our eyes locking over the bench. “Mine?”

  I couldn’t say anything. The simple faint nod of my head was his indication, and with a grin, he promptly pulled out of the gravel lot, and headed west.

  Just by the dilapidated buildings, the graffiti surrounding the area and the not too distant sound of sirens, I knew that this was a bad part of town. And I didn’t even need to work years on the force and get promoted to detective for that one.

  Putting the truck into park, I perused the area. A basketball court surrounded by a metal fencing along my right, and what looked like a never-ending row of run-down, dark terraced properties, some with boarded up windows, others with yet more graffiti, spanned along my left. The corner building was tall, bay windows stacked above one another. The scorch marks on the exterior were evidence that the structure had seen more than one fire in its time.

  “The Pavilion. Home sweet home,” he murmured with a somewhat derisive undertone in his husky, lilted voice.

  I wasn’t going to lie. A name like that and a structure like this, really should be immeasurable miles apart. But, I kept that to myself and flashed him a wistful smile.

  “Come on, in we go.”

  Inside the small entry hall, my heart lurched. With each flight of creaky stairs we ascended, and each vandalized wall with X-rated doodles and certain curse words scrolled, my heart eventually gave up lurching, and merely sat clogging the space in my throat. Walker really lived here?

  When we graced the third level, I was startled by shouting from beyond the door to my right. “Ignore those, they’re always at it. You learn to block it out eventually.” If I was the one living here, I didn’t think I could ever ignore an argument which was that heated. I meekly followed up behind him, my hands forgoing natural instincts to clasp hold of the balustrade that looked ready to crumble at any moment.

  The green door ahead of me stated that I was standing outside apartment 4b. Walker slipped the key in the lock, twisted it and gave the bottom of the door a swift kick, before the door swung from the frame. As he went inside, I lingered just on the threshold. I finally took a cautionary step inside, when the side lamp next to the couch chased the shadows of the apartment away, and closed the door behind me with a press of my back.

  “Welcome to the humble abode,” he teased, his hands gestured to the surroundings that were the living room then fell deeply into his denim pockets.

  The plain boards protested under my feet with each step I took. The mismatched furniture, the barrenness of the cracked and crumbling walls, the chipped gloss on the windowpane of the bay window, everything was… rundown, worn. But it didn’t matter, because it was Walker’s place, and even though it wasn’t much and wasn’t as glamorous as some properties, he managed to make it a home––his home, a home without fear.

  Motioning to the sofa, he told me to have a seat before offering me a drink. I nodded. “Too late for coffee, I’m afraid, darlin’. Beer okay for you?”

  “Sure,” I snorted. With a playful bow, he made his way down the small hall to the right as I strolled toward his couch along the back wall.

  The lamp on the side table to the left of me created a muted glow, one which could be deemed as almost romantic. The gap in the right corner beside the bay window piqued my interest; I noticed the neck of an acoustic guitar. Being nosey, I shimmied across the dark cushions, the springs groaned and twanged like a harp being played by unskilled hands, as I did so, and pulled free the instrument.

  Bracing it on my lap, I admired its simplicity while my fingers caressed the strings. When Walker finally advanced from the corner, he set my bottle of beer on the coffee table separating the couch and a ragged, chair facing the sofa.

  “You play?” I asked.

  He nodded his head, taking a slow draw from his bottle.

  “Any good?” I grinned, my brow arched.

  He sheathed his perfectly straight white teeth with his lips, before his right thumb came up to rub along the center of his upper lip in that adorable, shy way that never failed to have me smiling. “I think it would be biased if I answer that, darlin’.”

  Stroking the orange wood, I plucked one of the strings and nipped my lower lip keenly as it vibrated. I lifted my gaze and came face to face with adoring, enraptured eyes studying me. “Will you play something for me?”

  After a beat, the bottom of his beer clanked as he set it on the coffee table. He took position on the chair opposite after taking possession of the neck of the instrument. “What do you want me to play?”

  I shrugged. After the night I’d had, damn, after the week I’d had, anything would have been a welcomed distraction. “Something soothing.”

  I watched as the cogs behind his eyes turned, his lips pursed with thought. Finally he nodded, and got himself comfortable, perching himself on the edge of the seat and shifting his legs apart slightly. He began to play a soft tune. He was good. Real good.

  What I didn’t expect was for his mouth to open, freeing yet more of a talent that went unknown.

  “Just give me your hand,

  Just give me your hand,

  And I’ll walk with you,

  Through the streets of our land.

 
If you give me your hand,

  Just give me your hand,

  And come along with me.

  By day and night,

  Through all struggle and strife,

  And beside you, to guide you,

  Forever my love.

  For love’s not for one,

  But for both of us to share,

  For our country so fair,

  For our world and what’s there.”

  “Wow,” I gasped with a stunned, unmasked grin. “That was…” I shook my head, his shy smile dancing across his mouth. “That was beautiful. I’ve never heard that before.”

  “It’s an old Irish folk song. My ma used to sing it to me.”

  “Used to?” The curious tone of my voice had Walker’s head tipping forward. “She died when I was seventeen.”

  “Oh, Walker, I’m so sor––” My sympathies were cut short as his tall, muscular form was hastily lifted from the chair, allowing him to slip the guitar back into its designated corner.

  “It’s alright, darlin’.” He swapped the chair for the empty space beside me on the couch. “She’s always with me. Right here,” right arm crooked, he pressed his palm against his heart and smiled. “You look tired, Kady.”

  I yawned. The last thing I remember was saying thank you.

  “What for?” he asked with narrowed, skeptical eyes.

  “For caring about me.”

  A broadening smile along with the warmth of his hand cradling my cheek, I was promptly lost in the bottomless depths of The Indian Ocean. “Forever and a day, Kady. I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The following morning, as I straightened out my limbs, arched my back and fluttered my eyelids, two questions in my mind were found to be contending for the entitlement of first to be answered: when did I get into Walker’s bed, and why was I looking down on myself? Or up at myself, whichever way you want to discern it.