by Nashoda Rose
“Oh.” The redhead said, her heavily made-up eyes roamed over me sitting on the couch. “You must be the girl he’s been talking about. And you are pretty. Maybe you’ll join us.” She laughed and it sounded husky—sexy.
My heart dropped. No, it rather fell into the pit of my stomach and burned in a bubbling pool of acid.
“Shut it, Lena,” Kite said. He opened the fridge and grabbed a couple of beers, passing one to each of the girls. The brunette stared at me and when I stood, her eyes roamed the length of me then narrowed. She raised her chin and a slight smirk rose which contradicted her sweet appearance.
I walked over. I was not going to be the bitch here, but the real reason was I wanted them to know I was unaffected by them, which wasn’t true. “I’m Haven.” I held out my hand to the brunette.
She glanced at my hand a second before she took it. “Lily.”
“Oh, my God, Haven? Like safe-haven?” The redhead danced over to me and lifted her butt up onto the island.
“No. Like Haven Dust—cocaine,” I corrected and she stared at me for a second before she burst out laughing.
“Wow, cool. I’m Lena.” She held out her hand and I shook it, squeezing a little harder than necessary. It was immature, but I knew exactly why she was here and I didn’t like it. Crisis really was backing off. He was backing off so quick and far that he brought a chick home.
It hurt. No, it ripped me open and gutted me hurt, but it pissed me off, too, because this wasn’t a chick wanting Crisis for the guy he was, but a chick who wanted the bragging rights of fucking a Tear Asunder band member. Crisis was better than that. He deserved better. And to add to my pissed off, he let a girl use him. But he probably saw it as he was using her and maybe that was what he wanted.
Lena. Lena was the name of the girl from Avalanche the night before. Ream had mentioned her. No wonder her body was toned and looking like it was sculpted from clay; she was a dancer. I glanced at Crisis who remained in the foyer by the elevator and a wave of heat passed over me.
Kite quietly came up beside me. “You good with this, Haven?”
Was I? No. I wasn’t good with it at all. But I never thought I’d feel this way about it. I didn’t want to feel this way about it, but I wasn’t going to deny the fact that I did. Just not in front of these girls. “It’s your place. You can do whatever you want.”
“It’s our place. We all live here,” Kite corrected. He moved away and calmly stroked the side of Lily’s face. She tilted her head so his palm cupped her cheek and her eyes flickered up, met mine. I looked away because despite it being a sweet gesture, Kite didn’t have an adoring look. It was intense—serious. “Lena,” Kite said.
“Baby, let me look after you,” Lena said. I didn’t bother looking behind me because I honestly had no desire to see her wrapped around Crisis.
But from the corner of my eye, I saw Lena snag Crisis with her legs around his hips and draw him up against the counter, her hand fisted in his shirt. She said something too low for me to hear, but he scowled and his hands pushed at her legs.
“Come on, sexy. It’ll be fun,” Lena purred.
I didn’t want to see this. I started for the stairs, my stomach rolling with disappointment. But I put that there. This was my fault.
“Not happening—ever,” Crisis said. “Kite, man. Come on. I fuckin’ told you. Keep your chicks off me.”
She wasn’t with him?
I stopped, my heart pounding. I was facing the stairs, away from them when he came up behind me and rested his hands on my hips. I didn’t have to look. I knew his touch, I knew his smell, and I wanted more.
“The chicks leave if you’re uncomfortable with them here. Kite can go jerk off,” Crisis’ graveled voice whispered next to my ear. “Neither girl is with me, okay? I wouldn’t do that. I’d never do that.”
I did know that. He may have backed off, but he wasn’t leaving me. He’d always be there for me. And I wanted to be there for him.
“You want to join us, Haven? Maybe then Crisis will, too, and I excel at licking pussy,” Lena said. I heard the click of her heels as she jumped off the counter onto the marble floor. “I’m down for a little girl-on-girl-on-girl. Right, Lily? Didn’t you say you liked girls?”
I flinched.
“Maybe Kite can tie us all up and fuck us one by one. Or is she the reason you won’t touch me or Lily, Crisis? You get this one pregnant or something? Is that why she lives with you? You knock her up?”
“Shut the fuck up, Lena,” Crisis threw over his shoulder.
“Well, she’s not fat yet. So, I’m still game. Just met Lily last night, too, but she told me she wanted to come here and fuck you both.”
“Lena. Stop,” Kite ordered.
Maybe it was her mentioning me being pregnant that was the trigger. Maybe it was her voice. Maybe it was the fact that I was feeling vulnerable after contemplating all night what I was going to share with Crisis. It didn’t matter what caused it, but I knew it was going to hit me before it did.
The coldness sunk into me. It was like I stepped from the center of the tornado and into the churning winds, its monstrous arms taking hold of me and squeezing so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
“Haven?” Crisis pulled me around to face him. “What’s wrong? Why are you shaking? Fuck, Haven?”
The image I’d buried surfaced like the tornado unearthed it.
I was lying on the bed, Alexa holding my shoulders down as I screamed and screamed. The pain excruciating as my body tore apart from hours of pushing. Olaf stood to the side, his hand on my bent knee, the doctor with his hands between my legs.
Hours of pain. Sweat dripped down my face, my hair plastered to my cheeks. And then . . .
It stopped. The pain stopped and a new pain began. One so crushing that I knew I’d never repair from it.
The silence. No wail of my baby’s first breath.
Charlie.
My baby.
One I’d cradled inside me for six months. I wanted to hold him, see him. But I never saw his face. I never held him.
The doctor passed him to Olaf who looked at me briefly as he held him.
Then I begged.
I’d never begged. I fought. I screamed. But I never once begged until now.
I knew he was dead, but I just wanted once to hold him in my arms.
My cries were ignored as Olaf turned away with my baby.
The memory imploded.
I imploded as the pain of losing Charlie broke through the ice and shattered me.
I crashed.
“Get away. Get away from me.” I shoved Crisis hard in the chest and he hit the wall with a loud bang.
My knees shook so violently I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make it to my room, but I ran anyway. My mind screamed as my body careened down into an abyss that I feared I’d never crawl out of again.
This was why I blocked it all out. This. This. This.
Everything in me roared and trembled, and threatened to give way. I was at the top of a tower and free falling, and any minute, I’d land and collapse, and never get up again.
I made it up two stairs before an arm snagged me around the waist and I was picked up off my feet. “Haven.” Whose voice was that? Olaf? He was dead, though.
I had to reach Charlie. “Haven, baby. Breathe.” I kicked my legs, frantic to get away.
“No. No. No.”
“Damn, what a crazy bitch.” It was a girl’s voice, but I was having trouble deciphering where I was and who was with me as reality and my past clashed together.
“Get the fuck out of here.” Crisis. That was Crisis and he was next to me. “Now. Out. Kite, man, get them out of here.”
The arm tightened around my waist and I screamed wildly. My vision was blinded by tears and all I pictured was Alexa and the white coat of the doctor.
“No. Please. Let me hold him once.” It was Olaf holding me down now, preventing me from escape as I screamed so loud my voice broke. “It’s all my fault
.” Charlie was dead because of me.
“Jesus. Crisis, take her to my room. It’s sound-proof at least.”
Kite? Was it Kite talking? Sound-proofed? Were they locking me away? Was Alexa going to lock me up again? Would she put me in the cage?
I felt movement as I was carried up the stairs. All I saw was what my mind was telling me. Olaf, Charlie, Alexa and the doctor.
I screamed. “Noooo, I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m sorry.” It was my fault he was dead. I killed him.
The images surfaced again like pellets shooting into me over and over again. “Nooooo.”
“Baby. Please. Jesus. Calm down.”
I knew it was Crisis’ voice and yet I couldn’t stop what was happening. I’d held everything in for so long that now that it leaked out of me, I had no control. I was in the tornado going around and around without an end. Spinning out of control.
I felt something soft beneath me. The bed. The bed. “Nooooo.” It was months too early. I couldn’t have him now. But the pain . . . it wouldn’t stop.
I screamed over and over again as I was held down on the bed. I sobbed, my breath choked by the tears as they relentlessly fell for the first time since that night I lost my baby.
The hold on my wrists released and I punched as hard as I could, hitting something solid but unmoving. “Get off me. Get off.”
It was Gerard on top of me and I was suffocating. His zipper, his hands between my legs and then the pain. Oh, God, the tearing pain as he entered me. The tearing pain of giving birth.
“Open your eyes. Damn it! Open your eyes.”
Hands cupped my head and his breath swept across my face. I sucked in gulps of air.
“It’s me, Haven. Please, I need you to look at me.”
My fists stopped punching as Crisis’ voice slipped between the cracks of my breaking mind and found me.
“That’s it. Deep breaths. Now open your eyes.”
I was afraid. I was terrified that it wasn’t Crisis’ voice I heard and one of the men from the club was on top of me. I couldn’t go through that again. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter and screamed, the sound matching the ones so long ago when they carried my dead child away. “No. No.”
“You’re safe, Haven.”
No, I wasn’t. I’d never be safe again.
“WHAT THE FUCK do I do?” I asked Kite.
She wouldn’t stop fighting me and refused to open her eyes. Her body trembled violently underneath me while her head rocked back and forth on the pillow as she repeated, ‘No,’ over and over again.
Kite stood beside the bed. “Maybe if you let her go, she’ll calm down.”
“Yeah. Fuck, yeah, okay.” I had no clue what set her off or what the hell was happening. But it was scaring the crap out of me. I’d never seen anyone break like this and I knew it had to do with whatever horror she’d lived through, but this was more than Kite and I knew how to handle.
I slowly released her arms and lifted off the bed. I took a deep breath as she lay completely still and silent for a second.
Her eyes flashed open and she scrambled off the bed on the opposite side of Kite and me. She fell to her knees, but was up and running for the door faster than I could jump across the bed, and my hand just missed her arm.
Kite went to intercept her at the door and caught her around the waist. He lifted her off her feet as she kicked and yelled, tears streaming down her cheeks. Fuck, I’d never seen her cry. Even when she broke before, she hadn’t cried.
“We need to call someone. She needs a sedative or something,” Kite said.
Haven went wild. Her fists pounded his arm which was locked around her waist as she screamed. Kite didn’t even seem fazed as he calmly carried her back to the bed.
From the glassy look in her grey eyes, she wasn’t really seeing what was right in front of her. It was like she wasn’t here; she was somewhere else, locked in a nightmare.
Kite gently laid her down, but the second his hands let her go, she tried to get up and go for the door again. This time I was ready and pulled her body up against mine as we went down on the bed together.
“Call Ream.” I pulled us up to the headboard and leaned against it, Haven secured in my arms. My hand soothingly stroked her hair and I had no idea how I could do anything calmly when inside I was freaking out. But she needed me calm, despite the blood rushing through my veins like a river with a broken dam; I had to give that to her.
Her chest rose and fell in deep breaths, but she stopped screaming and mumbling, ‘No,’ over and over again. “Kite—call Ream.”
Kite took out his cell. “It’ll take him a half-hour to get here.”
Her chest was up against my side and she clawed at my shirt, the material ripping under her distress. I kissed the top of her head. “Shh, baby. You’re going to be okay.”
My heart thudded violently and I felt as if I was shaking just as hard as she was. Fuck, she was cold, but I was afraid to move her under the blankets and have her freak out again.
“Maybe we should call an ambulance?” Kite suggested. “Shit, we might have the cops here if anyone in the building heard her screaming before you got her in here.”
He was right. And then this would look really bad, me holding down a chick in a sound-proof room with . . . I looked at the rope on the bed posts . . . yeah, it wouldn’t look good.
“Please, bring him back.” She clawed at my neck, her fingernails digging deep enough to have blood rise to the surface of my skin.
“Ream,” Kite said into his phone. “Yeah, man, you need to get here. Now.”
I tried to keep her quiet by using my chest to muffle her moans, not wanting Ream to completely freak out hearing his sister.
“She’s in a bad way. I think a hospital . . . yeah, okay. We won’t. You have any sedatives or anything? . . . Okay.” Kite hung up and looked at me. “He’s coming, but no hospital. She’ll freak.”
Fuck, right. It was the last place Ream had seen her when she was taken away by the fuckers who’d had her prisoner since she was sixteen.
The frantic beat of her heart slowed and her grip on me weakened. I kept rhythmically stroking her hair and rocking back and forth with her curled up against me. She was calming, but I was sure it was more from exhaustion than anything.
“I’m sorry. So sorry.” Her voice crackled.
My chest hurt and it wasn’t from the torn skin, it was seeing her like this. Haven, the strong fierce chick who met me head-on. “It’s bad,” I said more to myself than to Kite.
“Yeah.” The floor creaked as Kite walked to the door. “I need to make sure lobby security isn’t buzzing or anything.”
The door clicked closed behind him and it was then I let the tear that was teetering on the edge, slip from its confines. “Ah, fuck, baby. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make it better.”
She no longer fought me, but her breathing was harsh and she wouldn’t stop shaking. No matter how close I had her against me, the shaking wouldn’t ease.
Seeing her like this . . . it broke me. It was like she crawled inside me and was slashing at my insides.
It felt like hours before Ream burst through the door. I briefly caught a glimpse of Kat in the doorway with Kite talking to her, but neither came in.
Ream’s expression said more than any words could—devastation. His eyes glassy with tears, brows creased together, and his skin colorless. Our eyes met and he nodded.
It was a thank you. And I suspected as he looked at his sister trembling in my arms that he needed a moment before he could speak.
He sat on the edge of the bed and I went to move to let him take over, but he shook his head. “No. Don’t move her.” He ran his hand back and forth over his head. “How bad?”
“Bad, man.”
He nodded and closed his eyes. “Kat has something like valium for when her symptoms act up. It’s safe.”
Kite opened the door. “Security had two complaints about a girl screaming and police are on their
way.”
“Shit,” I said. “They see her. The blood . . . Ream . . .”
“Yeah, I know. I know.” He got up, reached into his pocket and passed me a pill. “Put it under her tongue. I’ll call Luke and see if he can do anything about the cops.”
“Already done,” Kite said. “Luke is on his way.” He walked over to the dresser and grabbed a t-shirt from a top drawer. “Put this on.” He passed it to me then helped me out of my ripped bloodstained one without shifting Haven around too much. She complained a bit, but she was pretty much half-asleep now.
Ream took my shirt and tossed it into the closet. “Okay.” He glanced at me and then at Kite. “Let’s deal with this. No one takes her out of here. You get me?”
Kite and I both nodded and I knew what he was saying. Do everything and anything to make certain Haven was kept clear of this. Ream would never risk her being taken away again. To him and his sister, a hospital was what had destroyed them.
Not that we could stop the police if they insisted on a hospital, but we’d lie and use our influence any way we could to make sure it didn’t happen. They’d need a warrant to search the place and there was no question Ream would insist on that. “Take the rope off, for fuck’s sake,” I told Kite before he had a chance to leave.
“Fuck.” He quickly untied the ropes on the bedposts and tucked them away in a drawer.
Then they both walked out to handle the situation.
It was only ten minutes later when the door opened again. I expected Ream or Kite, not Logan. “Hey.”
And this was what we were—family.
There would’ve been no question Kite or Ream would’ve called him. I would’ve, too, if I was thinking straight. I was pretty sure Emily was here, too.
He strode over to the bed and looked at Haven sleeping in my arms. He put his hand on her head and lightly stroked. “Shit,” he whispered, his voice breaking as he met my eyes. “You okay?”
“I’m not sure. But I have to be for her.” Whatever was fucking with my head was being put in a jar and sealed tight, because Haven needed me to be her strength.
“You up for this?” Logan asked.
If it involved Haven, I was up for it. “Yeah.”