The Dark Paradise Trilogy Box Set

by Heather C. Myers

  Andie stepped out of the elevator, hastily brushing her tears away. She headed past the nurse’s station, down the long, carpeted hallway then hailed a right before stopping in front of room 351. Two police officers stood in front of the door and Andie had to show photo identification before they let her go in. She didn’t stop to knock; she opened the polished wood door, pushed past the drawn blue curtain, and found Keirah lying in a bed by herself. When Keirah looked up at her sister, all of Andie’s anger at her mother vanished for the time being. It probably had to do with the fact that her mom was nowhere to be found at the moment, but Andie refused to dwell on that. She came here to see Keirah.

  “Oh my God, Keirah.”

  In all honesty, Andie had meant to stay composed. Keirah was injured and Andie had wanted to stay strong as not to worry her. Upon seeing Keirah looking so beautiful in her ugly, baggy hospital gown, she noticed her dark brown hair messy and tangled as it fell around her sickly face, her darker eyes shining. If anything, Keirah was the strong one. Because the moment Andie’s eyes fell on her sister, she crumbled. The tears, the snot, the blotchiness all returned to Andie’s face, and she all but collapsed in the chair next to the bed.

  “Andie?” Keirah asked. Her voice was raw and she took a sip of lukewarm water in a plastic white cup that rested on the plastic table next to her. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “What’s the matter?” Andie asked in disbelief. She sniffled and wiped her face with the back of her hand. “You’re in the hospital, Key, because some crazy lunatic stabbed you. I shouldn’t have let you leave last night.”

  “You wouldn’t have been able to stop me,” Keirah murmured. “You may be blunt, And, but I’m much more stubborn than you.”

  “What happened?” Andie asked, locking eyes with her sister. “Where’s Mom? Why did Noir stab you? I mean, shouldn’t you be dead? No offense, but he never leaves his victims alive. How injured are you? I mean, you’re going to live, right?”

  Keirah surprised her by laughing. At least, she tried to laugh. After the first couple of chuckles, she cut herself off with a hiss, her face contorting in pain.

  “Andie,” she said, “you’re doing that thing where you overanalyze everything. Calm down. Mom’s in the cafeteria grabbing food for herself. I think she feels guilty about her little quips about my weight right before this happened. She’s been here since eight o’clock this morning.”

  “She has?” Andie ground out through clenched teeth. She sighed through her nose, needing to grab control of her temper. “Look, Key, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what happened to you. I only found out like a half hour ago from Commissioner Jarrett or else I would have been here sooner.”

  “It’s all right,” Keirah said. “I promise. It’s just a flesh wound. Mom’s driving me a little crazy and I’ve seen too many I’m-not-the-father celebration dances on Maury than I ever thought I would. But otherwise, I’m fine.”

  “So what happened?” Andie lowered her voice and leaned forward as though the two were sharing a secret. “Can we talk about it or do you need more time?”

  Keirah leaned back against the pillow, closing her eyes. Andie winced. She shouldn’t have pushed Keirah for answers. She should have let her sister rest and heal and feel better before diving right into why this happened in the first place.

  But then, Keirah started talking, her eyes closed. She talked about how Noir wanted sleep, how Keirah was a security blanket, how she actually slept in the same bed as him. She told Andie she was afraid but really wasn’t all that scared—whatever that meant—how the next morning he used her as a hostage and managed to escape with her in tow. The climactic end of Keirah’s adventure was when Noir pulled her down an alley and stabbed her in the side before disappearing in the city. There was something Keirah wasn’t telling her, something important, but Andie kept her lips together to keep from asking about it. When Keirah was ready to talk, Andie would be there to listen.

  “Why didn’t he kill you?” Andie muttered, her eyes searching Keirah’s face, hoping for the answer.

  “I don’t know,” Keirah replied. Andie knew she wasn’t lying, but there was something there … It probably had to do with what she wasn’t telling her.

  “Do the cops have any theories?” Andie tried again. “I’m sure they interviewed you about it, right?”

  Keirah rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah,” she said. She took another sip of water. “They grilled me for a good half hour. The doctor made Mom wait in the lobby because of how stressed out she was. Can you imagine Mom trying to watch Jerry Springer with a bunch of cops questioning me? But they’re as clueless as we are. Apparently there’s supposed to be cop cars circling the hospital and two officers guarding my door.”

  The dryness in Keirah’s voice made Andie pause. Keirah wasn’t the type to be sarcastic unless she was aggravated about something, which was practically never since she had the patience of a saint. She pushed her brow together. This was the last occasion where Andie thought humor was appropriate, especially from Keirah. Andie knew if she was in her sister’s position, she’d be freaking the fuck out. Some crazy-ass criminal stabbed her in the side before making a getaway. He left her behind for a reason, but why? Noir was unpredictable. His motives—if he had any—were unknown. All Andie knew was that he never left his business unfinished, and Keirah was definitely his business. But why leave her alive in the first place? From what Keirah said, he had plenty of time to stab her heart or some other vital organ. Was she actually beneficial alive? If that were true, it opened a new bag of unanswerable questions.

  “Andie,” Keirah drawled, raising one lone brow. “You have that weird constipated look on your face.”

  “I’m not constipated,” Andie said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m thinking.”

  “I know.” A pause. “About what?”

  Andie breathed in. “Were— Are—” She stopped, trying to sort through the correct diction in her head. “Are you afraid of him, Key? I mean, you don’t seem that freaked out at the fact that you were stabbed by Noir and that there’s a good chance he’ll be back—guards or not—to kill you. I don’t mean to scare you, but at the same time, you don’t seem concerned. At all. Is everything okay? Did you bump your head after he stabbed you? Did you lose a lot of blood?”

  Keirah chuckled, surprising Andie even more. “You need to calm down,” she said, like the fact that she got stabbed and was currently in the hospital was no big deal. “He’s not going to kill me.”

  Andie’s mouth dropped open. “Are you serious right now, Key?” she asked. “Seriously? Oh my God, please don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who purposefully looks for danger on the off-chance the Black Wing will rescue you.”

  “God no,” Keirah said, rolling her eyes. “Look Andie, to answer your question about whether or not I’m afraid of Noir: I’m afraid of the fact that I don’t know what he’s thinking and I don’t know what he’s going to do. But he’s still human, And, with skin and bone and flesh. He’s not evil.”

  “Are you kidding me right now, Key?” she asked. Her voice raised with each word, but Andie couldn’t stop herself. “Are you kidding me? Please tell me you’re kidding because it sounds like you actually see a sliver of good in this guy and you think because he is, as you say, human, he won’t kill you. You know how crazy that sounds, right?”

  “I want to be a criminal psychologist,” she said through gritted teeth. Her brown eyes flashed gold as she looked at her sister. “I got to interact with not only a criminal, but the most sociopathic, deranged, remorseless one Onyx could offer. If I don’t believe that even Noir can be rehabilitated then my entire profession is moot. I am terrified at the fact that he could very well come here and kill me, making me another statistic and I’d never get to help anyone.” Her eyes softened and Andie watched as she relaxed her body against the bed. “I know it sounds crazy, Andie. Trust me, if someone came up to me and started saying the same things to me that I’m saying to you, I’d think t
he same thing. But I know this man. I’ve talked to him. I’ve slept in the same bed as him. I’m not saying he’ll never kill me; he probably will. All I’m saying is that at this moment in time, he doesn’t want to kill me. If he did, I’d already be dead. He had plenty of opportunities to do so during his sessions and even more so last night. Hell, he could have killed me in the alley this morning if he wanted to. For whatever reason, I fascinate him.” The sentence was slow, deliberate.

  “Like the Black Wing?” Andie asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “No.” Keirah shook her hair. It was dry so it curled more so than normal. “No, I don’t think I’m as important to him as the Black Wing. They’re foils to each other, though both could do with psychiatric help. But foils, because they’re so different, are intrigued by their counterpart. For Noir, his fascination borders on obsession. I don’t know the Black Wing, but I’d be willing to bet it’s the same for him.”

  “Yeah, right,” Andie said, shaking her head. “The Black Wing only cares about getting his pretty little muscles in the paper.”

  “You of all people should know the Black Wing’s muscles are not little,” Keirah said, her lips curling up.

  It was a joke. Keirah tried to make a joke. Too bad it didn’t make Andie feel any better.

  “I hate him, you know,” she murmured. Her eyes got foggy as tears accumulated in her eyes. She blinked, looking away in hopes they wouldn’t fall.

  “Noir?”

  “Well, yeah.” Andie swallowed and forced herself to look back at her sister. “But I hate the Black Wing too. I mean, why wasn’t he there to save you? He’s supposed to be Onyx’s savior, like a guardian angel or a superhero or something. He’s saved tons of people by being in the right place at the right time. Where was he?”

  “Andie …”

  There it was again, that knowing sympathetic voice that was supposed to reassure her. Andie hated that voice, especially knowing it came from Keirah in the hospital after she was stabbed. Andie should be the one reassuring Keirah, not the other way around.

  “You can’t expect someone to come save you,” Keirah continued, looking at Andie with her big brown doe eyes. Andie had to look away. “People are people are people. You can’t change them, you just have to accept them for who they are. The Black Wing is someone who catches the bad guys. He’s human too, you know. You can’t expect him to right every wrong, stop every crime. He’s not God.”

  “God doesn’t do those things either,” Andie muttered.

  “Exactly,” Keirah said. “This is life, Andie. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn’t. The great thing about God is that He has the power to control this world He built, but He doesn’t; He lets things play out. We make our own choices. When things go bad, we can’t blame God or the Black Wing. We have to take some responsibility for our actions.”

  “Keirah, you know better than to talk to Andie about a God she doesn’t believe in,” a voice said from behind Andie.

  It was then that Andie remembered how upset she was at her mother for not telling her about Keirah. Her mouth dropped open, ready to go off, correct the statement about her religious beliefs, point out her mother’s horrible parenting as of late, but one look at Keirah stopped her. A hospital was neither the time nor the place for Andie to unleash all her criticisms. Today wasn’t about her, it was about Keirah and making sure Keirah was all right. That didn’t mean, though, that Andie had to sit around and listen to her mother’s derisive comments. She stood up and exhaled, refusing to look in Judith’s direction.

  “I’m going to go home,” she announced, reaching out and squeezing Keirah’s hand. “If you need me, call me any time, okay? I’ll pick up.”

  “Thank you,” Keirah said.

  Andie turned and walked out of the room without another word.

  17

  She woke up in a hospital.

  How did I get here? Keirah wondered. Her eyes suddenly narrowed and she gritted her teeth. Oh. Right.

  She had been stabbed. By Noir. She glanced around the plain room, wondering what it was, exactly, that had woken her up. She was careful not to move so she wouldn’t strain her wound, but her eyes darted around until they rested on the window. Keirah couldn’t tell whether or not it was night because it was so cloudy outside; the rain fell from the sky, hitting the window with a soft tapping sound. It was actually soothing to hear, calming her, causing her to sigh softly and her eyes to drop.

  She was tired.

  Someone turned the knob of her door and opened it. A man in light blue scrubs smiled at her, seeing that she was awake. He had light green eyes and shaggy brown hair that framed his angular face quite nicely. “Well, good afternoon, sleepy head,” he teased, flashing her a smile. “You have had quite the busy five hours.”

  “I’ve been out for five hours?” she asked, her voice croaking.

  “You’ve been out for the better part of five hours,” the medic corrected. “My name is Dan Reynolds and I’m your doctor. I made your mother wait in the lobby because of how frantic she was when she arrived at around eight. The Onyx police requested that once you were awake and stable, I call them so they can question you. If you don’t feel up to it, we can wait for another couple of hours, but they really pressed the importance of questioning you as soon as possible.”

  “That’s fine,” Keirah murmured, glancing out the window again. After a moment’s pause, she fixed her eyes back on her doctor. “What time is it?”

  Dr. Reynolds glanced at his left wrist. “It’s about noon,” he told her. “I’m going to place a call to Commissioner Jarrett. When I get back, we’ll go over the procedure we had to do in regards to your injury. While I’m gone, would you like me to bring you back anything?”

  “Water’s fine,” she said with a soft smile. “Thank you.”

  He returned her smile and then disappeared out the door, leaving Keirah alone with the rain.

  She looked out the window again, letting her thoughts wonder. Noir stabbed her even after he told her he wouldn’t hurt her. Maybe the bastard was immune to piercing pain and figured everyone else was as well. Her thoughts drifted back to the moment just after he surprised her with the knife in her side.

  He was coming back for her. Only God knew why. They hadn’t known each other for very long, maybe a few days or so, but apparently Noir didn’t need to know her well for him to decide to return for her. She should probably be scared, and part of her was, but it was repressed; she wasn’t feeling fear right now. However, it wasn’t as though she was looking forward to seeing him again. Who knew what he would do to her?

  A knock on the door caused her thoughts to disappear. A second later, Dr. Reynolds walked in with a plastic cup of ice water complete with a bended straw. He handed it to her and while she held it, she tried to sit up.

  “Careful,” the doctor said. “Your wound is still fresh. When you were brought in, you lost a good portion of blood. Oddly enough, it wasn’t life threatening. Whoever did this to you was careful not to puncture any of your vital organs. I believe, if anything, they wanted to temporarily disable you so he or she could make a hasty getaway.”

  You’re wrong, Keirah thought once she managed to sit up right. She took a long sip of water, relishing in its temperature. He stabbed me in order to leave his mark on me.

  “Anyway, we stitched you up and you should be able to go home tomorrow,” he concluded.

  Another knock on the door interrupted impending silence, and the familiar, tired-looking face of Commissioner Jarrett entered the compact hospital room followed by two uniformed officers. Keirah felt a smile touch her lips. Despite the fact that she knew these men were only here to question her about the events that had taken place, this was more visitors than she expected. She didn’t even expect her mother to be here, though Keirah was glad she was forced to wait in the lobby. She couldn’t deal with drama right now.

  “I knew this was a bad idea from the moment he asked for you specifically.” He spoke after Dr. R
eynolds left the room, sighing through his nose. “Ms. Shepherd, I am so sorry. When we had him detained, I fully believed we had confiscated every weapon he had on his person.”

  “Commissioner Jarrett, I don’t blame you or your officers,” Keirah told him, resting her head back on the crispy hospital pillow.

  He looked like he didn’t believe her but said no more on the issue. “As the doctor probably informed you, I am here to ask you a few questions,” he said as he pulled out a pen and pad. “When did Noir tell you he was planning to escape from isolation?”

  “I think the first time he mentioned it was during a session,” Keirah replied after thinking for a moment. “He said he was getting tired of isolation. Didn’t Dr. Hawkins tell you? I had no idea he was going to put his plan into action so soon.”

  Jarrett tried to smile but it came out as a grimace. “He does that,” he said. “He speaks so casually you can’t ever tell if he’s joking or not.”

  “I knew he wasn’t joking,” Keirah corrected as gently as she could. “Dr. Hawkins didn’t make a big deal about it, so I didn’t either.” She shook her head. “The next time he said something was just minutes before he escaped.”

  Jarett nodded, muttering something under his breath that almost sounded like, “She should have known better.” He looked up at Keirah when he finished writing. “Did he mention anything else we should know? Maybe he said something that didn’t make sense at the time, but when you look back, it does now?” He smiled in amusement. “I’m sorry, that makes no sense.”

  “I understand.” Keirah paused. “All he really said, Commissioner, is that he’s coming back for me.”

  “Don’t worry, Miss Shepherd,” Jarrett said, his voice firm. “We’ll have two guards at your door and a police car circling every half hour. The nursing staff will be informed to check on you regularly. Your room is on the third floor so it might be difficult for him to access.” He stopped as he did a mental checklist of anything else he might suggest to her. “That should be it. If you need anything else, please feel free to call me at any time. I’m going to send in your mother now. She’s been worried sick.” He went over to speak to the two officers, probably informing them that they would be guarding her room for the day.