by Nashoda Rose
His hand came beneath my head and when I opened my eyes, he was leaning over me. “Jesus, baby. Talk to me. Who did this?”
I shook my head. “Ream. How did you …” Was all I managed to get out.
But he seemed to know what I was asking. “Saw Matt running like hell out of the bar. I jumped in his car as he was pulling out. Only something to do with you could make him look that fuckin’ scared.”
That must have pissed Matt off.
Then suddenly my brother was holding my other hand and talking to me. Everything else happened in a blur as I was lifted onto a stretcher and taken away.
I knew Ream never left me. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it was him holding my hand and him talking to me in the ambulance.
I woke briefly to a white room with a loud beeping sound. I saw a shadow of a man standing by the window, his shoulders stiff, arms crossed. I was still groggy and my vision blurry, but I knew who it was. I’d recognize Ream through a dense fog.
My throat was all scratchy as I spoke, “Don’t you dare leave me this time, asshole.” And then I fell back into obscurity.
***
It hurts. Please, no more.
It was a silent plea. They always liked it when I pleaded for them to stop. It made it worse.
Friday night. It was him. Always him. I hated him.
He pressed harder then groaned.
I screamed louder, but there was never any sound.
A silent scream for help that never came.
My eyes flashed open as I woke from the worst nightmare. But as the pain registered, I realized it hadn’t been a nightmare. It had been real. The intruder. The pain. The violation of my body. I wiggled my fingers, feeling the weight of a hand in the cradle of my palm. But it wasn’t the hand I wanted it to be.
“Sis. Hey.” Matt stood and kissed me on the top of my head. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a bull hoofed me in the stomach then raked his horns across my face.” Matt winced. “He left me alive and didn’t …” I couldn’t say the word, “so I’m happy dancing inside … quietly … without moving, ’cause to move sucks. I’d still like to gut the bastard though. Did they catch him?”
Matt shifted and his face tightened. “The police want to talk to you. When you’re up for it.”
I was so disappointed in Ream. I … God what was wrong with me? I knew he’d run. He’d told me he couldn’t deal with hospitals after his sister was in and out of them all the time. I was fooling myself to believe he’d suddenly get over it.
For me, it was vital to have a guy who’d stick by me and be there when I need him. And Ream obviously wasn’t capable of that.
Maybe I was jumping the gun here. He could be getting something to eat. Maybe he was in the washroom or went home for a shower. Shit, it was selfish of me to want him here when I woke up. Fuck, I was just being girlie-stupid over a guy. I was never girlie-stupid … gah, this sucked. But the truth was I wanted Ream, I just didn’t know if I could trust him to stay.
“Did you recognize the guy?”
I shook my head then winced. My head felt like an axe had cracked open my skull and someone was slowly chipping away at the bones with a chisel and hammer. And that was only my head. The throbbing in my ribs and abdomen produced a wave of nausea with every breath. Damn, men and their steel-toed shoes.
I told Matt what I remembered, which wasn’t much. Lance walking me to the door, how I broke it off with him and then curled up on the couch and watched a silly chick flick. I’d woken to the door rattling and thought it had been him struggling with his key.
“The lock was picked. He knew what he was doing,” Matt said. “Jesus, Kat if Neville hadn’t heard your screams … I can’t even think about it. Fuck.” Matt ran his hand over his head and then down his face.
“What is it?”
“The police think the guy knew you. Or of you, maybe followed you and Lance from the bar? This wasn’t random.” Matt’s hand slid from mine and he cleared his throat and then sighed. “Listen, Sis. There’s something else. I don’t like the guy and really I don’t give a shit, but I know if I don’t tell you someone else will and then you’ll be pissed I never told you.” He ran his hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “Ream was taken in for questioning last night. A person of interest they said.”
“But … No he was with you. How could they even …”
“Calm down. It’s fine. They just want to talk to him because he had that freak out at the bar.”
My heart skipped a beat and I stopped breathing. I heard the heart monitor start beeping like crazy, and within seconds the nurse barged through the door. She pressed a few buttons and the beeping stopped. The older woman wore her gray hair in a bun. She had soft, plump features and looked sweet, but when her eyes narrowed and mouth tightened, she was fierce.
“Out. Now,” she said to Matt. “I warned you … if you upset her, no visiting.”
Matt swore beneath his breath, and I was silently freaking out wondering what the hell happened to Ream.
My stomach twisted and the nurse put her hand on my forehead and urged me back onto the plush pillow. “I need you to calm down.” She fiddled with my intravenous and within minutes I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. The last thing I heard was the door clicking shut.
The police asked me question after question. I told them I didn’t get a look at the suspect, that he was wearing a balaclava. I gave them what I did know, that he was over six foot and had brown eyes.
“Brown? Are you sure?”
I nodded now remembering the haunting evil glare before he lowered the knife and sliced my cheek. I put my hand up and ran the tip of my finger over the stitches. There were five of them across my cheek and four on my forehead. The doctor explained that they were clean cuts therefore minimal scaring. But I knew the truth; every time I looked in the mirror I’d see the reminder.
“Anything else, miss?”
“The smell. I smelled something. It was his breath.” But I couldn’t place it. “Mint? Peppermint, maybe? I’m sorry, it happened so fast …”
They asked a few more questions about the evening, any suspicious people I’d met at the bar, about Lance, and then they mentioned Ream and a warm then cold sick feeling came over me. What a contradiction, just like us.
“I understand he has a temper.”
My eyes widened and I looked from one officer to the other. I started shaking my head back and forth. “No. God, no. Ream would never hurt me.” Well, not physically at least. “Jesus. I’d recognize him anywhere.
“Miss, you need to calm down. We’re not saying he’s a suspect.” The woman officer glanced at her partner, and I could hear the frantic beating of my monitor again. “We took him in for questioning. That’s all. A witness claimed he was violent at the bar …” She looked down at her notepad and flipped back a few pages. “Avalanche. Your brother’s establishment. He was upset with you? Correct?”
“No. Well, yes. It’s not what you think. Ream and I have—”
The door burst open.
“Get out!” Ream stood in the doorway, still wearing the same clothes as last night. His hair was a mess and there were smudges of blood on his shirt—my blood. I’d never seen him so haggard and completely well … fucked up. He was pale with black circles under his eyes and hard lines marring his face. He looked scary. Really scary and still, I thought he was the best sight I’d ever seen.
The officers looked stunned at the demand, and then the female officer snapped her pad closed and was about to say something when my doctor appeared beside Ream. The doctor didn’t have to say anything; the officers knew with his appearance that they were being asked to leave.
“Thank you, miss. We’ll be in touch.” They hesitated at the door, and I couldn’t see their faces, but I could see Ream’s and he got scarier looking. Then they pushed past and left.
Ream said something to the doctor, shook his hand, and then the doctor left too.
Ream’s walk to the bed w
as the longest four seconds of my life. Just the sight of him was like being bundled up in my favorite childhood blanket, every breath comforting as my lungs filled with warmth. He sat in the chair beside the bed, and while keeping his head bowed, he slid his hands into mine. Our fingers linked and curled around one another, then he leaned forward and rested his forehead on the bed beside my hip.
The muffled sound of his whispered voice swept over me like a sprinkle of rain. “Baby.”
I closed my eyes, placing my free hand on his head, fingers weaving into his hair. We stayed like that for a long time with the only sounds our breathing and the steady beeping of the monitor.
It was how I fell asleep, Ream’s hand in mine, leaned over, his face hidden in the nook of my side. When I woke he was gone and I thought I’d imagined him there until I saw the note in the palm of my hand. It read, I’ll never leave you.
“Kat.” I looked up and saw Georgie and Emily on the other side of the room by the bouquets of flowers. “You’re awake. Oh my God, we thought you’d never wake up.” Emily rushed over and hugged me, and I winced as the soft strands of her hair brushed against my cheek. She noticed and immediately pulled back. “Sorry, I just had to hug you.”
“You’re going to have to suck it up, ’cause I’m hugging you too, cupcake,” Georgie said as she pushed Emily aside and moved in. “Jesus. Look what that pig bastard did to your face.”
“Georgie!” Emily scolded.
I knew it couldn’t look good, and I suddenly wondered what Ream thought. I’d have scars on my face now; he couldn’t call me beautiful anymore, that was for sure. I curled my fingers around the note.
“Thank fuck he didn’t rape you. Christ, did he touch you?”
“Georgie,” Emily abolished. “I’m sure Kat doesn’t want to rehash what happened right now.”
Or ever. It made me cringe and sick to my stomach to think that his hands were on me intimately. I still heard the snap of his rubber glove coming off just before he touched me.
Georgie was animated as she talked, throwing her hands in the air and pacing back and forth. “When the police catch him, I’m going for his dick. And when I get ahold of it, I’m peeling it open like a goddamn banana.”
Emily groaned.
We chatted, well Georgie and Emily chatted, and they told me Crisis was picking up nurses while Kite was going for the female doctors. They’d supposedly snuck in to see me a few hours ago when I was sleeping with Ream passed out beside me in the chair. Logan was at the police station with Matt giving statements and going through mug shots to see if anyone the police had on their list was seen at the bar and on the condos security cameras. The problem was that the condo only had cameras at the front doors, nothing at the back, so someone could’ve let them in. Emily also told me that Matt and Ream got into a big fight earlier today and that was when Logan took Matt with him to the police station.
“Lance is here.” Emily put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “He’s been asking to see you. But Ream …” she half smiled. “He won’t allow him even on the same floor as you.”
“Where is he?”
“Suit-cake or rock star-cake?”
“Lance.”
“Downstairs in the waiting room. He says he won’t leave until he sees you.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
Georgie kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll sneak him by Ream. That crazy-ass piece of hotness is a vigilante. If Kite and Crisis didn’t lock him down, he’d have beaten the shit out of Lance for even showing his face here. He really doesn’t like that guy.”
Yeah, because Ream was a little crazy. But I realized that no matter how much I tried to stop him or deny it, ‘he’d keep coming,’ just like he promised.
“I’ll take Ream to the cafeteria for something to eat. I swear the guy has paced ten pounds off his weight in the last twenty-four hours.” Emily kissed my head then squeezed my hand. “You sure you’re good to see Lance? Matt told us you broke up with him last night.”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t sure, but his presence here showed he cared and was concerned about me.
Lance was completely distraught, blaming himself, saying that he should’ve stayed with me until Matt got home, thinking that it was a guy at the bar who followed us back to the condo. Both of us knew that no one was to blame and what he was saying was unreasonable.
He suggested delaying the show we had planned at the gallery in three weeks. For a second, I thought maybe he was saying that so that my scars had more time to heal and wouldn’t scare the prospective buyers away. Lance wasn’t like that though; at least I didn’t think so.
Georgie popped her head in. “Copious-orgasm-Lance, off-his-rocker-Ream is on his way back up.”
Lance nodded then turned back to me and ran his finger down my cheek, the one that didn’t have the sutures. “Your face …” He sighed then continued, “I have contacts. They’re looking into who did this.”
I nodded, uncertain what he meant by contacts but too concerned about Ream finding Lance in here and freaking out. The last thing I wanted was a fight between the two, especially when Lance was a master black belt and Ream wouldn’t give a shit.
***
Saturday night.
Anything was better than Friday nights.
Tonight was a young woman and she was pretty, like I’d have wanted my mom to look like.
The woman was nice to me. It didn’t hurt. She made me feel good.
“Anticipation. Make her wait.” Her voice was sugary and sweet. “Control. That’s what you want. Take it.”
I shouldn’t like this, but I did. I liked her. I liked what she gave me.
Control.
And I was never letting it go.
I hope she comes back.
Ream didn’t leave my bedside again until I left the hospital the next day, which was a bit of an issue with my brother. Actually, a big issue because Matt didn’t want him around. He relented because well, Ream wasn’t going anywhere unless he was “forcefully removed,” his words. I knew about his sister and how being in a hospital brought back memories of it, so it was a big deal that he was here with me. I did notice that he disappeared into the washroom numerous times and when he came back the strands of hair around the edge of his face were all damp.
We didn’t talk about us; actually we barely talked at all and it was … it was soothing. I was glad he never asked me the details of what the guy did to me, although I suspected he’d managed to get everything from the doctor. I mostly slept and he held my hand unless the nurse or doctor asked him to leave the room. His displeasure was made known with his grumbling about how he’d already seen everything. I hid my smile because the nurse had no fear of him or his attitude and shoved him out the door.
When they released me, Matt drove me back to the farm, despite the argument I heard between him and Ream outside my hospital room door. Matt won.
The first thing I did when I arrived home was inject myself. Then I went to the bathroom and looked at my face. It wasn’t a pretty sight, actually it was horrifying to see all the stitches across my forehead and down my cheek. I winced as I touched my finger to the bruising around my wounds. I’d always been confident with my looks, but this was pretty messed up and I felt uneasy with this new me. It looked like my outside was now going to match my inside.
“Babe.” Ream casually leaned up against the door frame. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”
I turned away from the mirror and half-sat on the counter. “Yeah.” But it was a half-ass reply because I didn’t feel strong right now. I felt ruined and confused and like I was falling apart.
“Going to take you a week or so to get back on your feet.”
“I’m on my feet just fine.”
“And you’re the most stubborn woman I know.”
I huffed.
He pushed away from the door frame and strode toward me. A wave of need hit me and it wasn’t the desire, it was the need for him to wrap me up in his arms and ho
ld me. I held my breath as he raised his hand and cupped my chin. His body was inches from mine, thighs so close that if I took a deep breath they’d touch.
“I let him hurt you.”
“I’m fine, Ream. It wasn’t your fault.” I knew Ream had inner demons, most likely from not protecting his sister, so it was just like him to blame himself for this.
“Are you fine, Kat? He touched—”
I cut him off. “Ream, I’m good. Really.” Yeah, I still felt his hand on my breast, my nipple, but I knew how lucky I was. I’d survived him. That was what mattered. I still wanted him caught and castrated though.
He nodded. “Yeah.” He looked down as if taking a second to gather his thoughts and then met my eyes again. “I’m giving you a week. I want nothing more than to look after you and have you all to myself, but you need to be here with your friends. For now.” His thumb stroked back and forth over the slight dip in my chin. “The doc said you need eight days then … things change.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, you need me, I’m here. But otherwise I’m backing off to give you what you think you need. Next week that changes.”
I was speechless because one, he was leaning in close and I could smell him and two, because I didn’t want to speak. I wanted him to kiss me.
But he didn’t. Instead his hand dropped from my chin and he walked out.
I slept for two days straight and I knew Ream had come to check in on me because the note he’d given me at the hospital was now on my nightstand. I’d thought the nurses had thrown it out. The third night I dreamt that he held me while he caressed my hair. When I woke I saw the indent in the mattress and knew it hadn’t been a dream.
Night after night I tried to stay awake to see if he’d come, but I was groggy from the meds and I always fell asleep. I suspected he slept beside me every night, but he never stayed, and when I asked him about it, he merely shrugged and walked away. He was quiet around me and it was so unlike Ream, and yet it was what I needed from him right now. The distance. The time to heal inwardly as well as physically. I still heard the snap of the rubber, but it was getting less and less.