CHERISH

by Dani Wyatt

  “I’ll go in first, second, third, whatever you need.”

  I tuck my head into that perfect spot against his chest as we take the first step toward the back of the police station. It’s cold. I curl myself even closer to Beck. His body radiates like a furnace. He shows no sign of acknowledging the drizzle that is misting around us.

  “It’s strange,” I say. “Strange that we are going inside to see her again. The last time we both saw her we were together. We weren’t really together—” I correct myself as Beckett interrupts.

  “Yes we were. You just didn’t know it yet.” Another reassuring squeeze and he keeps us moving forward.

  The American flag flaps and whips itself around a pole atop the building, booming and rumbling in the wind. One moment the fabric stands out in flat rectangles, the next it bends and snaps in a sudden gust, rattling its chains and clanking them against the flagpole.

  “God, it’s freezing. What is with this weather in the middle of summer?”

  The fact that I’m at all interested in the weather right now startles me.

  We wind through the parking lot, squeezing past a giant, gas-guzzling 1970s Vista Cruiser when we hear a woman scream.

  Our heads snap behind us toward the sound and I cower. Beckett immediately pulls me tighter as his eyes dart around the back of the building. Whoever it is, she’s mad as a skinned cat. Before we have time to figure out if the woman needs help, a male voice joins in, yelling over her.

  “You fucking drag me down here for your bullshit! It’s always your bullshit. I’m sick! Fucking sick. And I’m sitting in a goddamn police station?” The man’s ragged voice has a cut to it that makes my heart stop and my breath catch.

  Whoever they are, they're on the move because their voices are becoming louder and more clear as Beckett moves us carefully forward. I want to go in the opposite direction, even with the comfort of Beckett’s hand, warm on my shoulder. I can feel his energy change. The soldier is on alert.

  I catch the first glimpse of the man as we come closer to the back corner of the building. The screaming is louder and more vicious than before, but their words blend together, making it impossible to make out what they're saying.

  The screaming man comes into full view when he spins on his heel and turns the corner, bringing him behind the building. He’s as tall as Beck, wearing a visibly filthy denim jacket. Tendrils of matted brown hair hang to his shoulders. His jaw is covered with a graying brown, unkempt beard. His eyes are narrow, his hands gripping the sides of his head as he tips it back letting out a long train of obscenities into the mist coming down.

  Beckett speeds our steps, taking us off in the opposite direction, away from the man. His soldier’s eyes stay locked onto the potential threat, but he's not interested in confrontation if he can avoid it.

  The hairs on my arms stand tall. Our feet crunch on the asphalt. My legs muscles tighten, wanting to move faster.

  Beckett leans his head down until his breath is warm on my cheek. “Ssssshhhh. It’s cool. We’re fine, babe. No one is going to hurt you today; you’re on my watch.”

  His hand drifts down from my shoulders to the small of my back, guiding me between the last row of cars before we reach the walkway to the front of the building.

  The man has stopped talking, stopped screaming. Nothing comes out of his mouth except for a few grunts. He’s stomping his feet and swinging his arms violently back and forth, but we're almost away from him; we just need to take two more steps.

  We take two steps and round the sidewalk to the front of the building.

  My feet turn to lead.

  My eyes feel like they are on fire and my stomach is coming up fast.

  It’s her, the woman.

  The screaming woman.

  My hand plasters over my mouth, but it can't stop the high pitched sounds of horror that are coming out of me.

  “Fuck.” Beckett sees her at the same moment.

  I don’t need to tell him who she is. There is no mistaking us for blood. And that thought horrifies me.

  A mass of doll-like, ivory hair is in chaos on top of her head as she screams into her hands, crouching down, her back against the bricks. She holds a quivering cigarette in the fingers of her right hand, smoke rising in a zig-zag of white as she rocks back and forth.

  “There is no fucking way we are doing this here,” Beckett says to himself as he starts to spin us away from the building and back into the grid of parked cars. But it’s too late.

  “Baby! Is that you?” The woman’s voice cuts through the air and into my heart like a rusty knife. Her hands jerk out from her body in a gesture of resignation and self-centered drama.

  “Beck.” I look up to see his jaw muscles flex and his nostrils open with a snort of air. Suddenly, it all crashes into me and I realize that I can't handle any of this. Beckett is going to have to take it all because I can't. I just say his name again, “Beck.”

  The filthy man spins around. “Holy shit!” He meets my eyes just as my mom struggles to her feet. She’s wearing dirty fleece plaid pajama bottoms and layers of t-shirts. She’s barely a hundred pounds, even with the thick clothes, and I see the indents under her cheekbones, the raccoon darkness around her eyes.

  “Holy shit, is that her?” The man yells toward my mother, his head jerking back and forth between us, probably unable to believe what he's seeing. The whole thing is surreal.

  Beckett picks up the pace, practically dragging me through the rows of cars toward the glass doors about thirty feet away. I want to look away but I can't.

  My mother.

  Is here.

  Right here.

  The ground is spinning and I’ve forgotten how to inhale.

  The woman that would rather leave me with strangers than miss a date is here.

  The woman that locked Jordan and me in the closet and told us to keep quiet, so whomever her man of the week was wouldn’t know she had kids, is here.

  The woman that sat in court, with me only ten feet away, telling the world she didn’t want her own son and daughter.

  Is here.

  And I can’t stop looking at her. She’s coming toward us as Beckett moves us away, but still she's getting closer.

  “Baby, it’s me! Mom.”

  “Don’t stop moving, Promise.” Beck stiffens as her voice breaks over us like echoes from some old movie that you never want to see again.

  He pushes me to his back and I grab the back of his jacket, turning my face away like I’m hiding from some prying paparazzo.

  “Baby!” Her voice breaks on the word, hoarse, making her cough out smoke.

  I hiss at her, like I'm a cornered animal.

  “Step back.” Beckett is trying to keep his voice steady as we pass about three feet in front of her. “Step the fuck back.” We’re only ten steps from the glass doors but it feels like miles.

  “Who the fuck is he?” The man points at Beckett. He’s a few feet behind my mother now, his nose crinkled and his hands hanging limp at his sides. He tips his head with a snarl. His lips are wet and his face sports a handful of scabbed sores, deep and rimmed with red.

  The dark circles around his eyes match my mother's.

  She steps off the walkway, pushes a hand against the man’s chest.

  “That’s her . . . Carl . . . that’s my baby. Promise, please . . . It’s mom.” Her voice crackles and croaks as Beckett gains us the last three steps, putting his hand on the door as my mother shuffles forward. She reaches out, grabs my back, and I shriek.

  Beck turns in an instant. “I said back the fuck off!” He drops the door handle, corralling me behind him and I swear he grows three inches, filling the gap between me and my mom. His voice turns dark, with a hint of something a wise man would be smart to run from.

  “Don’t you fucking talk to her like that.” Carl steps up. “Who the fuck are you?” His voice is full of idiotic bravado.

  I wish I could disappear into the sidewalk.

  Everything slows
down. I see my mother’s mouth moving but no sound is coming out. She is an older version of myself. Hair, eyes, skin, even the shape of her face—I could be looking into a mirror from some kind of nightmare. The kind where you see yourself in another life, one that was open to you but you chose not to take it. You see what things could have been like, and all you want to do is wake up. But there is no waking up from this.

  “Dude, you do not fucking need to know who I am.” Beckett’s voice falls an octave and shakes me down to my toes. “What you need to do is step back before I relocate you myself.” He shifts forward, keeping me behind him with one hand on my hip.

  “Promise, you’re so beautiful. I just want to talk to you. I’m here now, baby.”

  Hearing her voice, I feel like I’m six years old again, hiding behind a social worker when she comes home drunk after a two-day disappearing act.

  She comes within a foot of Beckett, and a rush of terror covers me, a sense of detachment, before he extends a locked arm as his final warning.

  Mom is fussing with her hair, pushing it back from her face. The cigarette still quivers between her fingers, dropping ash over her shoulders before it blows away into the mist.

  Beckett braces his arm toward my mother, putting his fingers on her shoulder as she pushes forward. “We’re going inside. She’s not talking to you out here.” His voice is stone cold.

  Carl finds his balls again and spits toward Beckett before he speaks. “Don’t fucking touch her!” The man begins stomping toward Beckett and my hands shoot to cover my ears. I squeeze my eyes shut. “You fucking freak, that’s her fucking daughter! She can talk to her if she fucking wants to.”

  I barely open my eyes, just in time to see the skinny man come at Beckett with two extended arms, palms shooting to push into his chest. I feel Beck's body shift back as he keeps himself between us.

  His hand is solid on my hip for just one more second.

  The next moment his hand drops from me, and I frantically turn into the glass door, my hand on the cool silver handle and I jerk it with all my strength.

  “I told you to stay the fuck back. You don’t take direction well,” Beckett growls.

  I jerk and pull but the door only gives a millimeter before metal hits metal and I realize it’s locked. I frantically look inside where I can see people moving around. Deep blue uniforms stand at a desk and I focus on the arrow and printed sign taped to the inside of the door.

  Use East Entrance. This door for personnel only.

  “Get away from me!” my mother screams at Beckett.

  “Fuck this.” It’s the last words I hear Beckett say before I look up to see him cock his fist back.

  Mom and Carl lunge at Beck. His reflexes are so fast I barely catch the movement of his arm before I hear the smack and crunch of his fist as it smashes into the man’s jaw.

  The single hammer blow knocks Carl back three feet before he crumples to the ground like a house of cards.

  “You asshole!” Mom flails her arms at Beck, while he holds her back with one hand to her shoulder. I hear a furious cavalry of footfalls coming from behind me. “Why did you let him get Jordan!?” Mom is yelling toward me, desperately slamming her fists into Beck as he stands like a statue keeping her at arms’ length and taking her vitriol without flinching.

  I can't move. She's right; I let Louis get Jordan. Helped him do it. “I'm sorry,” I whisper, but nobody hears me.

  She lands a hard kick into Beckett's shin, still screaming obscenities as Carl moans from his prone position on the pavement. I see blood flowing from his nose which is now sporting a new angle.

  Blue uniforms shoot by the side of my face, then it’s all arms and grunts and orders. Beckett immediately steps back, his hands high in resignation as two officers attempt to grab my mother’s arms.

  “That’s my daughter!” Mom’s voice smacks with righteous indignation. “He can’t keep me from her!” She takes one last shot and manages to land a sickening smack across Beckett’s face. “Who are you? You burned up, ugly, piece of shit. What happened to your face? Huh? You Freddie Krueger’s brother?” Her maniacal laugh matches the grimace on her face as the officers pull her away and she redirects her insults towards them.

  I knew Beckett wouldn’t hit her. He took whatever she dished out without batting an eye, keeping me safely behind him as my mother did her best to tear down his wall.

  I gasp and jump, knocking into Beckett’s back as a hand comes down on my shoulder from behind. I spin around as Beckett does the same and there's Detective Northrup. He tips his head, gesturing for us to follow.

  “This way,” he says.

  Mom is twisting and cursing as the two officers pull her backward. “You can’t keep me from her! Promise! Come back!” Mom screams until her voice gives out.

  Without a word, Beckett turns us around, his arm draping back over my shoulders and guiding us behind the Detective toward another set of glass entrance doors about fifty feet away at the other corner of the building.

  “You okay?” Beckett leans down.

  I’m not sure. The first wave of terror is gone and I feel silently detached. I no longer feel the cold from the mist, which has now turned to drizzle, and I don’t feel anything for that woman behind us. I feel flat. Like I’m disappearing.

  “Yes. I’m okay,” I answer, because I don’t know what else to say. “I need you with me, Beck.”

  “You've got me, babe. I'm not going anywhere.”

  There are some things that I need to do myself. But I need his strength. I need him to carry me through this.

  Promise

  I want to know what she's said, but nobody is telling us anything.

  We're inside the station. The detective has seated us in a small glass room, but he's not here. It wasn't very long ago that I sat in a room like this and my entire world crumbled around me as they questioned me about setting the fire that killed Beckett's father.

  Beckett won’t sit.

  He stands behind my chair like a centurion, his hands on my shoulders, gently rubbing his fingers along my neck. He leans down now and then to whisper words of encouragement in my ear or kiss the top of my head.

  I’m tapping my feet and my arms hug my waist, holding myself together as best I can while the clock on the wall softly clicks off the seconds. Seconds that feel like hours.

  Finally, Detective Northrup appears outside the glass door and hesitates before entering. His face is pale, his gait resigned. Beckett’s thumbs stop caressing my skin. I hold my breath.

  It’s not a good sign when the detective sighs and is unwilling to meet my eyes.

  “So?” I fire the one syllable question and don’t allow him to answer. “We need to go get Jordan, right? What did my mother say exactly? She could be lying about Louis you know. She’s—”

  Detective Northrup raises his hand to stop me and nods to Beckett, whose hands move down from my shoulders to the tops of my arms. He presses the solid flat of his abs against the back of my head. Northrup clears his throat and his eyes follow Beckett’s hands, slipping from professional to a hint of pervert. His gaze lowers from my face and lands on my chest, where it remains for too long. I can feel my face lighting up in shades of pink. I'm not sure where to look.

  “Hey!” Beckett barks, making Northrup visibly jump. His eyes snap up to Beckett's, then down to his own hands. “Keep your fucking mind on business. I’m not playing. Don’t look at her like that again. I don’t give a shit if we’re surrounded by your fellow uniforms. I’ll take your eyes right out of your skull.”

  Northrup opens his mouth as if to speak, but instead takes an unsteady breath. He is suddenly very interested in the file on his desk. He puffs out streams of air between his lips as he picks up a pen and rolls it between his fingers.

  “Sor–Sorry,” he stutters.

  “It’s okay.” Beckett’s voice lightens as Northrup tries to recover. “I get it. She’s worth the look, it’s just you don’t get the privilege. All mine.”
>
  “Anyway . . .” I interject trying to tame the cock fight that's threatening to break out. I need to know what she's said. Why has she suddenly come back to life? Why now?

  Beckett re-starts the conversation. “Yeah, anyway, so why are we here? What do you know that you didn’t tell us at the loft?” Beckett doesn’t bother to hide his impatience.

  “Well . . .” The detective finally meets my eyes again but hesitates. I nod at him with an open mouth, urging him to continue.

  “Okay. Well, your mother alleges that Mr. Spicer forced himself on her. That meeting resulted in a pregnancy which she never revealed to Mr. Spicer. She indicates she never saw him again. Now, there are a lot of moving pieces right now. Your mother’s allegations.” He nods at me, then looks up at Beckett. “The falsified evidence Mr. Spicer provided to us in regards to the fire at the loft and, ah, Mr. Fitzgerald’s death. Jeremy Rendell’s records showing his less than professional interest in you over the years.” He emits a deep sigh and shakes his head before continuing. “So. Now, we’re investigating the fire again. Forensics is going over the evidence.”

  I swallow the lump in my throat.

  The claustrophobic office is too warm but I’m shivering.

  “Are you saying Promise is a suspect again?” Beckett’s hands are like iron on my shoulders. The tone of his voice says, don't test me.

  “Just don’t leave town.” The detective flashes me a humorless smile.

  I can't believe what's happening. Just an hour ago, Beckett and I were packing for the honeymoon of a lifetime and planning our future. I’d chastised him because the all-night wedding night action caused me a bit of distress with each faltering step I took.

  Now, I'm breaking into a sweat and beginning to hyperventilate. Each time I try to inhale, there is no relief. I'm not getting any oxygen. My chest burns as the air pants faster in and out.