Within Temptation

by Tanya Holmes

  Bev cleaved to Icky, her gaze fused to the floor.

  Shannon stepped around me. Her face was red. “Why Patrick? What did I do to warrant this? I only tried to help.”

  “It wasn’t about you,” Icky yelled at her. Blood poured from his mouth. He spat out a tooth and looked at me fiercely. “It was about him. It was always about him!”

  Beverly’s head shot up. “I’m sorry for what he done, Tracemore. Real sorry. But tellin’ you would’ve made stuff worse. Now we see I was right.”

  “Bullshit, Beverly!” I stabbed a finger over Shannon’s head. “You were protecting him. Can’t you see how he destroyed us? How can you forgive him? And don’t go hiding behind no Bible verses. It’s too damn late for that!”

  Icky hocked another bloody tooth on the floor. It took effort, but he rose to his feet on shaky legs. Prideful insolence painted his bludgeoned face.

  Shannon curled a steady arm around mine. She looked mad and disgusted as I gave my sister a fiery once-over.

  “You were in pain.” Bev lifted her teary eyes. “I-I didn’t want to add to it. I did it for our family. I did it for you.”

  I looked from Bev to Icky, and back again. “For me.” I sniffed hard. Tried to stuff my emotions inside where I could control them. When that didn’t work, I gave my throat an exaggerated clearing. Aw, hell. I had to get out of here.

  “Tracemore!” Bev cupped a hand over her mouth. Tears and drool leaked from between her fingers. “Please forgive me!”

  As I staggered from the house like a blind bull, I heard Shannon yell, “God help you both!” before tearing off after me.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Breakthrough

  SHANNON

  ____________________________

  Moonlight bathed Jefferson Boulevard in a pale wash of silver while I drove. The car was quiet, except for an Ed Sheeran song filling the silence. Trace had said nothing during the ride back, leaving me unsure of what to do.

  Every now and then I’d reach for his hand to give it a sympathetic squeeze, and he’d return the gesture, though absently. Less than three feet separated us, yet he seemed miles away.

  The scene at the O’Dell’s still haunted me, but one cryptic exchange screamed the loudest:

  ‘After everything I’ve done for you,’ Trace had said. Patrick’s reply? ‘…Oh, you mean Nyle Weathers?’ More damning words followed. ‘…My contacts are sure Dawson was involved in his death,’ Darien had said. ‘They just didn’t have the evidence to prove it.’

  I drew a shaky breath, not liking the path my thoughts had taken. Did Trace kill that prisoner? If so, what could have driven him to it? Every part of me, from my flesh to my soul, desperately hoped my suspicions were wrong.

  I found an empty space half a block away from his house and rolled in beneath the hulking shadow of an overgrown pine. After I cut the engine, I faced him, squeezed his limp hand again. This time he didn’t squeeze back.

  Winter’s chill seeped into the car, and when Trace finally looked at me, I could see his breath. He rested his head against the seat. His doleful eyes were dark and haunted, telegraphing a thousand hells.

  I’d seen him furious. I’d seen him indifferent, and I’d seen more than a dozen of his emotions in between.

  But this?

  Never.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Naw.” He shook his head. “You?”

  “I’m still numb, I guess.”

  He shifted. Moonlight poured over half his face. “Icky, I get,” he said, his voice hoarse from yelling, “but Beverly….”

  “Can you forgive her?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno, but if you don’t press charges against him, I will.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  His eyes narrowed. “We’re talking theft, forgery and a bunch of other—”

  “What about Nyle Weathers?”

  A wall crashed between us and he looked straight ahead.

  “Patrick knows what happened in Gainstown,” I said. “He’ll likely hold his tongue as long as you do.” I watched the subtle changes on his face while understanding registered. “Please. I need to know the truth. Did you kill him?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes or no, Trace?” He didn’t answer, so I grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at me. “How can I believe anything that comes out of your mouth?”

  He jerked his chin away. Fury sharpened his expression, as if I’d punched a button inside of him—the wrong one. “You got no idea what I’ve been through. So spare me your self-righteous bullshit.”

  His words cut into me like a switchblade.

  “Hell,” Trace said, “why should I tell you anything?” He pushed the hair off his face. “You yank down the blinds when folks see us together. You show up at my house wearing a damn hood—and you expect me to trust you? I won’t spill my guts to a woman who’s ashamed of me, much less get involved with her.”

  “For the last time, I’m not ashamed,” I said, forcing a calm I didn’t feel.

  Trace flicked a glance at my hood. “That says otherwise.”

  Okay, he was mad and hurting. What better way than to take his rage out on me? Small wonder he’d try to turn things around, but I wasn’t about to let him get away with it.

  “My hood has nothing to do with this situation. We’re talking about your inability to—”

  “It has everything to do with what just happened.” He laughed, but it sounded cruel. “You want honesty? So do I. Can you really see us together? Here or anywhere else?”

  My face fell and I sank against the driver’s side door. I told myself his words were meaningless. That he was wrong, but he’d hit his mark. “Why are you pushing me away?”

  He sighed. “Because I’m beer nuts and you’re…you’re truffles,” he said bitterly. “You know words I’ve never heard before. You’ve built a successful business on your own. You’ve got book smarts, money and I-I don’t have a pot to—”

  “No.”

  He did a double take. “No, what?”

  “No, I can’t see us together,” I told him. “And it’s not because of your education level or social standing. Given everything you accuse me of, don’t you think it strange how I always find my way back to you? Even after all these years. But none of that matters because I can’t possibly be with a man who doesn’t trust me.”

  “So go marry that rich prick and be done with it!”

  “This has nothing to do with him,” I yelled. “You lied. Now you say you want to help me, but you insist on keeping secrets. I can get that at home. I don’t need it from you.”

  “Tell you what.” He gave me a scathing once-over. “When you lose that hood, when you can admit to your family—to Montgomery…hell, this whole town—how you feel about me, then maybe this ‘friendship’ won’t be such a damn joke. Right now they all prob’ly think I’m a pet project of yours. Just like Icky was.” He laughed bitterly. “Who knows? Maybe I am.”

  An eternity passed before I trusted myself to speak. “I’m sorry Beverly lied,” I said in a painfully controlled voice. “And I’m sorry Patrick wrote that hateful letter.” When fire flashed in his eyes, I narrowed mine. “Yes, you had a terrible night. We both did. But you still have no excuse for lying. And you want to know what hurts most? That you feel no guilt for your dishonesty.”

  “Why should I? I told you I didn’t kill your mama, but you still didn’t believe me. So yeah, I lied. At the time, I didn’t think you deserved to know the truth, but since Icky spilled the beans, I’ll tell you exactly how Nyle Weathers died.”

  “I don’t want to hear it!”

  “Tough shit.” He jerked all the way around to face me. “Icky was in stir two years before he got transferred to my cell. So he asks for my help one day. Seems he was having problems with three inmates. They were ass raping him. Butt fucking. Fudge packing. You know what that is, don’t you?”

  My mouth fell open. He wa
s being deliberately base and crude. He wanted to shock and upset me. “Stop it!”

  “Naw, you asked for it, now sit there and listen!” he barked. “They raped a bunch of other cons too, but Icky had it ten times worse. They lent him out to people. Made him suck cock. Take it up the ass. Pissed on him. Some of the shit they did, I can’t even name.” A muscle in his jaw pumped hard and fast. “I had to do somethin’, so I went to talk to Nyle and his boys, but we had…words.” He looked away. “A week later, Nyle pulled a shank on me—in the shower, of course. Said he wanted me to dance for him before he made my ass bleed.”

  My stomach hit the seat as the frost in his eyes chilled me to the bone. “So I decided to make him bleed instead.” When he spoke next, his words were ice cold. “I wrestled the shiv away from him. Then I cut his dick off and shoved it in his mouth. He bled out in the shower.”

  I struggled to breathe, but he kept talking.

  “I did it as a warning for the ass-raping animals who hung with him. Had I not gone through with it, had I not been as vicious as I was, they’d’ve thought me weak. They’d’ve come for me again, and the next time, they’d’ve killed me. That’s just the way it is. You gotta hit back hard to send a message. Let ‘em know you’re willing to take things to the next level.” He stared forward. “We were on lockdown for days after that. Everybody’s cell was searched, but my…friend got rid of the shank for me, and any DNA evidence went down the shower drain.”

  I listened in rapt silence, my heart hanging on his every word. When he looked at me again his eyes were filled with unshed tears and a flood of emotions. Pain, defiance, remorse, grief, anger. They were all there.

  “From that day on, Icky was under my protection,” he said matter-of-factly. “And they never bothered either of us again. So yeah, I killed Nyle. Not by choice. I did it to survive.” He sniffed and looked away. “Wasn’t nobody goin’ backdoor on me.”

  I moved to touch him, but he dodged my hand. His rejection hurt even more than his words had. “Why is Patrick so bitter toward you?”

  “He resents me, but he’ll never admit it.”

  “Why?”

  “The baby Bev aborted, it reaffirmed his sexuality. I was there. I’m the only one who knows what really happened to him. Nyle and his boys turned Icky out—took his manhood. Then Bev gave it back with that baby, but now she’s barren.”

  I tried to make sense of the bombshell he’d just dumped on me. “But aren’t you afraid the others will tell?”

  “What others? One was killed in an attempted robbery two days after he got paroled. The other guy’s in a coma. Cancer. They don’t expect him to ever come out of it. Icky and my friend are the only ones who know the truth.” He paused to stab a look at me. “And you of course.”

  Trace had killed a man with the same hands he’d used to caress me tonight. I should’ve been terrified of him, but instead I was ashamed—of myself.

  He’d lied because he didn’t trust me. Surprisingly, I couldn’t blame him.

  He cracked the door, bathing us in light. “Meet me at Rascal’s at two on Wednesday.”

  I blinked away the daze. “Rascal’s? Isn’t that a bar?”

  “Hole-in-the-wall would be more accurate. It’s at the seediest side of town. I know you don’t want me showing up at your office.”

  “Trace—”

  “Naw, this way’s better. The garage and the club aren’t options either. Neither is my house. And Briar is out of the question. So Rascal’s is the safest place. We won’t be alone and the regulars are discreet.”

  “I have no interest in drinking with you at a bar.”

  “We won’t be drinking.”

  Curiosity burned hot. “What then?”

  “We’re meeting to ride to Wyatt together. Mrs. Campbell’s house is an hour’s drive. I don’t trust my bike for a trip like that.”

  TRACE

  ____________________________

  I let myself in the house just as the answering machine cut on. It was Amber.

  “Hey, shug. Yeah, I’m drunk dialing.” She laughed. “Okay, but seriously, I didn’t mean to hang up on you like that. I’m just a little down about us. Maybe I was rash. I dunno. I’m going to be busy for the next week or so. We’re training some new hires. Soon as I get them squared away, I’ll try and come by for my stuff. We can talk then.”

  I fell back on the sofa. Now she wanted to talk? Unfriggenbelievable. Naw, I wouldn’t waste another brain cell on Amber or any of the other insane women in my life.

  Not tonight. I’d had my fill of crazy.

  From the kitchen, a sleepy ballad on the radio drifted through the shadows like a ghost, filling the darkness. Diana Ross crooned slow and lazy. She sang a sad hello to a faithful, but gloomy companion—some specter named ‘Heartache.’

  Speaking of heartaches, my mind gravitated to the basement door and down the stairs to the place I’d avoided since I got out, to the demon roused by Bev and Icky’s lies.

  Hey, ya little shit. Do ya miss me?

  Icky had shamed me tonight. Called me a coward. Right now, I couldn’t argue the point to save my life, but I was tired of being afraid.

  I needed my freedom.

  I shoved off the sofa, stalked down the hallway, and stood by the door. Leaned my forehead against it. I told myself it was just a piece of wood, and this basement was just the place where my parents had breathed their last, nothing more. Fear almost did me in once I unhooked the chain. The rusty metal scraped pendulously against the wood as it fell. I threw the deadbolt back and gave the knob a turn. The thunderous groan of ancient hinges reverberated when I tugged the door open, and musty dampness smacked my face and crept into my throat. I could taste the smell. My stomach heaved, then settled.

  Don’t be a pussy, echoed Gary’s rusty voice, a voice scarred by a lifetime of whiskey, cigarettes, and meanness. Come on, you little shit. I’m waitin’ on you.

  I started to back away, but Doc’s soothing voice stopped me: We destroy fear by facing it, son. Instead of letting it remain a chamber of horrors, take control of the basement. Create positive memories in that room and embrace the negative ones. Stare the monster down and it’ll lose its power.

  Taking a strengthening breath, I flipped the wall switch and descended into hell. Light stung my eyes. I squinted and kept a tight grip on the wooden handrail. The dusty old steps screeched beneath my weight. I could almost hear Daddy’s cruel laughter. The same laughter that had trailed me when I, bloody, bruised, and blinded by tears, had stumbled up these same stairs as fast as my young feet could carry me after one of Gary’s vicious beatings.

  Once I reached the bottom, I looked around. The harsh fluorescent bulb, naked and bright, exaggerated every crack and dust ball. As basements went, it wasn’t anything spectacular. Just twelve years older than the last time I’d seen it, smelling of earth and dampness, secrets and misery. I turned in a slow circle and found nothing but empty space. Eight large boxes labeled‘Cole’s books’ were stacked in a corner. A crate filled with Bev’s Barbie collection topped them. My old, urine-stained mattress was propped against the back wall. And Cole’s first Yamaha keyboard lay strewn under the stairs—right below the buckshot holes.

  Throat working, I gravitated there, my attention glued to the spot where my father had died. A dark splatter covered the wall, remnants of blood and brains, long gone, but not forgotten. Remnants of a man who claimed he loved me with every stroke of the belt, or extension cord, or whatever weapon happened to be within grabbing distance. It all went down in this basement.

  I snatched Cole’s keyboard and pitched it across the room. It crashed against the opposite wall, falling in a broken heap of plastic. Exhaustion turned my legs to jelly, and my knees hit the floor. Hot tears slid down my face. Annoyed, I swiped them away, but they just kept coming.

  I wept for my mama, and the goodbye we never said. I cried for my sister, because of the pain Icky would leave her with. I ached for my baby brother, sweet Cole, who never
had a chance in this fucked up world. I even mourned for the father I never understood.

  When I finally climbed the basement stairs hours later, weary and drained, I’d made peace with myself and my parents’ ghosts…for the most part anyway. I also did something I should’ve done my first night home—changed the damn fuse for the ceiling lamp in the living room.

  And then there was light, in more ways than one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Waking Nightmares

  TRACE

  ____________________________

  Two days later, I hung up the phone and slipped back under the covers. Cholly’s call had pulled me from a dream, one that didn't star Daddy, Nyle, or Lilith. This one had Shannon in it, naked and wet for me, but unlike all my other dreams of her, I remembered every erotic detail. Now I had actual experience to draw from. Facts like the sweet way she tasted, the sounds she made, and how a minute of sucking had turned her pink nipples blood red. The memory alone made my cock hard as marble.

  Apart from worrying that I’d scared her off again, I had thought of nothing else but nailing her. I wanted her in my bed, on the floor, up against the wall, outside, inside…any and everywhere.

  Scowling, I tossed the covers back, spat into my hand, and grasped my cock to ease the ache. My jaw worked while I moved my palm up and down with a slow twist, each gentle tug driving me to Hades and halfway back.

  I grabbed Shannon’s hanky from the nightstand, put it to my nose, and closed my eyes. Pictured myself sucking her pink nipples to red peaks. Imagined pushing her legs apart and settling between them.

  Shit. I could almost feel her virgin flesh give way as I eased inside her tight little—oh yeah, that was it. I was there, taking what was mine, claiming her as my own, pumping my hips, feeling her nails score my back and her legs wrap around me. I was driving into her hard, fast, and frenzied, filling her sweet body with….