by Jeff Shelby
A layer of clouds hovered menacingly on the horizon as I unlocked the shed and pulled out the chairs and umbrellas. I only set a few out, unsure of what the weather might hold. Rains could roll in in an instant, drenching everything in sight, and the beach furniture weighed twice as much when it was wet.
Tourists trickled out to the beach as the morning wore on, eyeing the sky as they walked down the wooden ramps to the sand. By noon, I only had five umbrellas rented and the beach was as quiet as I’d seen it in weeks. The clouds darkened and billowed at the edge of the water, casting ominous shadows on the water.
My stomach rumbled, the result of the long night and no breakfast. I locked up the shed so I could find some lunch and headed up the ramp toward the parking lot and the street. There was a deli about a block up that I frequented and a gigantic sandwich sounded good.
I descended the ramp toward the lot and stopped.
Bella was standing next to her car, her back to the passenger door window. I couldn’t see their faces because their backs were to me, but I recognized David and Colin standing in front of her and it looked like they were preventing her from going anywhere.
The frustration from my last conversation with Bella immediately flared and my initial instinct was to turn around, walk back to the beach and find another way to the street to get my sandwich. She’d made the choice to keep from me whatever she was into and I didn’t need any more complications. She didn’t want my help and I had enough to worry about. I was better off by myself.
But then I saw Jackson’s head bob up and peer out of the window from the backseat. His fingers grabbed at the door and his nose pressed lightly against the glass, his eyes filled with fear.
I hopped down the stairs and walked across the lot toward them.
Colin turned around first, his eyes masked by the shades from the other day. He tapped David with the splint that encased the finger I’d broken. David followed his gaze and an amused smile emerged on his face.
“Man, you seem to be everywhere,” he said. “Like fucking Superman or something.”
I looked past him at Bella. “You alright?”
“She’s fine,” Colin snarled, sticking his chest out.
“Last time you spoke to me, I broke one of your fingers,” I said. “Answer for her again and I’ll break the other nine.”
David chuckled as Colin’s chest deflated a fraction.
I looked at Bella again. “You alright?”
The cut beneath her eye had puckered and scabbed over, the dried blood turning a dark red. The bruising around her nose had darkened and the swelling in her lip was gone. None of the defiance I’d seen in her eyes in the restaurant the day before was present. Confusion and fear had replaced it all.
Jackson knocked on the car window behind her and waved at me. I smiled and waved back.
“We were just talking to Bella,” David said, shrugging his shoulders. “Just hanging out.”
I didn’t like that he was so at ease.
I looked at Bella again. “You wanna go have lunch?”
“Yes,” she said, quickly.
“You aren’t invited,” I said to David. “I don’t eat with assholes who beat up women.”
“Man, you are such a…” Colin said before I shoved my elbow in his mouth.
He stumbled back, blood staining his teeth bright red before he could get his hands to them. He looked at his hands, then at me and charged. I held my ground, then stepped to the side, just as he got to me. I caught him around the neck and moved behind him, locking my arm around his throat and pulling hard. He gagged and his hands pulled at my arm.
But I was stronger.
David watched us, again with amusement. “At least he didn’t break your fingers this time.”
Colin tried to respond, but managed only something between a scream and a gag.
“Let him go,” David said.
I turned to him. “Why? Better to beat the shit out of a woman than some asshole like this? Because that’s what you do, right? Send your shit scum to do the work,” I said, tightening my grip around Colin’s thick neck. “Or was it you? Did you do this to Bella?”
David’s only answer was a thin smile.
“Get in the car, Bella,” I said through clenched teeth.
She hurried around the back of the car, fumbling for the door handle. She slid into the driver’s seat.
“Let him go,” David said. “I won’t ask again.”
Colin’s hands pulled at my forearm, pinching and scratching at the skin.
I held on. “Fat chance.”
David reached into the waistband of his shorts and produced a gun, aiming it at us. “I might hit him first, but eventually I’ll get one in you, too, Superman.”
I heard Jackson’s muffled voice in the car and Bella very clearly telling him to get down on the floor of the car.
I yanked hard one more time and then shoved Colin toward David. He stumbled and fell at David’s feet, coughing and gasping, his hands going to his throat.
“Leave her alone,” I said.
David squinted at me. “Seems like I’m the one with the gun and I’m pretty sure in the movies, the guy with the gun is the one telling people what to do.”
“I don’t watch movies.”
David smiled, nodded. “Good one.”
Colin got to his feet, rubbing his neck, adjusting his sunglasses on his bright red face. “Motherfucker.”
Bella started the car and the door lock popped.
David kept the gun on me and walked in my direction. “I can tell you are going to be a problem.”
“Most likely,” I said.
“I hate problems.”
“I hate assholes.”
He laughed again, now right in front of me. He pressed the barrel of the gun to my forehead. “Now who do you hate?”
David’s biggest problem wasn’t me. It was that he didn’t know me. He had no idea what I’d been through, that I’d had plenty of guns stuck in my face, that I’d shared space with guys far scarier.
And he had no idea that I wasn’t afraid to die.
“Still you,” I said. “Because you’re an asshole. An asshole who beats up women. Your buddy, too.”
“Pretty ballsy calling me an asshole,” David said, raising an eyebrow. “Me holding a gun to your skull and all.”
“Pull it,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Pull the trigger,” I repeated.
“Do it,” Colin urged from behind him.
But he wasn’t going to. I could already see it in David’s eyes. I felt sure he was capable of pulling the trigger, but he was too smart to do it in such a public place.
Which made him even more dangerous.
“You are going to wish you never met me,” he whispered.
“Already do,” I said.
I heard the window slide down behind me.
“David, don’t,” Bella said. “Just don’t. Please.”
His eyes never left me. “You’ll call me later, baby? Finish the discussion?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Noah, get in the car.”
I stood still, leaning into the gun, letting the steel bite into the skin on my forehead.
David slid the gun to the side, then jerked his arm and slammed the weapon into the side of my face.
Colors exploded in my eyes and pain seared through my skull as I dropped to a knee. I heard both Bella and Jackson scream.
The steel crashed into me again and I went down on both knees, the colors brighter, the pain hotter as it spread through my forehead and cheeks. I leaned forward and rested on my hands. Drops of blood fell to the asphalt next to them.
I felt David’s breath on my ear. “Lucky the kid was here. Only reason you’re alive.”
Nausea swept through my stomach and I swallowed hard to keep it at bay, the red droplets near my hand beginning to form a pool.
“See you soon, Noah,” David said, sweeping my arms with his leg.
I hi
t the ground, my body heavy and I rolled to my side. The black clouds, thick with rain, were the last things I saw before I blacked out.
EIGHTEEN
The side of my face was frozen.
My eyes fluttered in protest as I tried to open them. I lay still for a moment, finally realizing I was on Bella’s couch, staring at her ceiling, with something extremely cold pressed to my face.
I reached up and grabbed a massive freezer bag full of ice. The plastic stuck to my skin and stung when I pulled it free.
“Are you okay?” Jackson asked.
His voice startled me because it was so close. I turned to the side and he was right next to my face, kneeling on the floor. His eyes were wide, rimmed with red.
“I’m okay,” I mumbled.
“You don’t look okay,” he said. “Your face is all messed up.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“You have?”
I shifted on the couch and pain shot through my jaw and up into my temple. I bit my lip.
“I was kidding, Jax,” I said. “But I’m okay.”
His tiny hands held onto the sleeve of my T-shirt. “They’re always mean to Mommy.”
“Who?”
“The boys who hurt you.”
“She see them a lot?”
He nodded. “They always come here.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She says I’m not allowed to ask.”
“Are they mean to you?”
He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Not really. But they never wanna play Legos.”
“Jackson,” Bella said from somewhere I couldn’t see. “You were supposed to come get me when he woke up.”
“He just did.”
“I just did,” I said.
She appeared next to her son, dropping to her knees, too, on the side of the couch. “Okay. How are you?”
“Great.”
“Yeah. You look great.”
“Figured.”
She nudged Jackson. “Hey, buddy. Can you give me a minute with Noah?”
“Why?”
“Because I’d like to talk to him for just a minute.”
“I won’t listen,” Jackson said.
She smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “I know you won’t. But just give me a minute. Maybe go grab a couple of your stuffed animals and bring them out here to keep Noah company?”
His eyes lit up and he jumped to his feet. “Okay! I’ll be back.”
He sprinted out of the room.
Bella took the bag of ice from my hand and pressed it gently against my face. “You need this. Trust me.”
The cold bag stung my face.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
She put her elbow on the sofa next to me. “For showing up. Even though I was a complete bitch yesterday.”
“I was going to get a sandwich,” I said.
She smiled. “But you stopped. For me. For Jackson.”
My entire head throbbed and my eyes ached. I closed them.
“You should go to the hospital,” she said. “You probably have a concussion.”
I grunted my disapproval. There was nothing they could do for a concussion and going to a hospital would mean showing up in a computer somewhere.
“Sorta thought you’d say that,” she said. “I won’t argue. Right now, anyway. Are you thirsty?”
I managed to move my head enough to indicate that I was not.
“Rest then,” she said. “When you feel better, I’ll tell you. What’s going on. You at least deserve that.”
“Here, here!” Jackson said.
I opened my eyes to half-mast.
He set a small, brown monkey in the crook of my arm and a bright green cat on my stomach.
“Bert and Ernie,” he said.
“Wow,” Bella said, raising her eyes. “Your two favorites. That is big time.”
Jackson nodded enthusiastically.
I reached for the green cat-Ernie, apparently-and tucked him into my other arm. “Thanks, Jax. They help.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, holding onto my sleeve again. “I named them from those guys on TV. Those puppet people.”
I tried to nod but couldn’t. My eyes were heavy and I shut them again.
“Rest,” Bella said. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
Her lips brushed my forehead as I drifted off.
NINETEEN
Liz filled my dreams.
Her face showed up in flashes, images of her smiling at me. Some from the ocean, some from her bedroom, some from restaurants, some from places I couldn’t see.
Then she was off in the distance, a stretch of sand I didn’t recognize. Her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t hear her. I called out to her, tried to get closer to her, but I still couldn’t hear. I walked at first, then ran. But no matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t get closer. She stayed off in the distance, now cupping her hands, like she was yelling toward me.
My feet pounded the sand, my legs churning as I tried to get to her.
Her hands were in the air now, waving at me as if she was trying to get my attention and I couldn’t see her.
But I could see her perfectly.
I just needed to get to her.
Finally, I seemed to be closing the distance. I could hear her voice, but couldn’t make out the words.
I ran harder.
I caught my toe in the sand and stumbled, nearly going face first into the sand.
I regained my balance and looked up.
She was gone.
Gone.
TWENTY
Something soft was brushing my face when I woke up.
I pushed my eyes open and the room was dim. I was still on the sofa and the ceiling was still above me. I twisted my head to the side, a flash of pain burning through my face. I winced, then opened my eyes to see what was tickling me.
It was Ernie. The stuffed cat. Leaning against the side of my face that hadn’t been bashed in. He’d somehow moved from just inside my elbow to taking a nap on my face.
I reached up and pulled him down, setting him next to Bert. Stiffness permeated my limbs and every movement felt slow, like I was just learning how to do it again. The side of my head pulsated with heat and pain. I took a deep breath and brought my legs over the side of the couch, pushing myself up to a sitting position.
The room wobbled in front of me and the pain in my head seemed to seep from one side to the other. A soft ringing in my ears got louder for a moment, then died off. I set my hands to the side of me, steadying myself against the cushions.
“You’re awake,” Bella said. “Again.”
I turned slowly to the side. She was standing at the edge of the room, just off the hallway, her arms folded, her eyes tired.
“I am,” I said.
She came over and sat down on the edge of the sofa next to me. “How do you feel?”
“Pretty crappy.”
“You look worse.”
“Thanks.”
“I took the ice off of you awhile ago,” she said. “It just kept falling to the floor because you kept shaking your head in your sleep.”
I nodded and a thin thread of pain rippled through my neck.
“I can help you get to my bed,” she said. “It’ll be more comfortable than the couch.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “I should go.”
“Go? Where? How?”
“Home.”
I pushed myself up. The floor slid out from underneath me and I toppled back into the couch.
Bella hurried over and helped me sit back upright.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” she said. “You’re a mess. You need to rest. And this couch isn’t big enough to hold you. I’m worried you’ll fall off. So I’ll help you get to my bed. I’m going to sleep in Jackson’s room.”
I wanted to argue because I just wanted to go, but the fact that I couldn’t even get to my feet made that a pointless wish.
My head pounded, my face felt like it had been driven over and my legs couldn’t hold my weight. Even my stubbornness wasn’t going to get me out the door.
“Okay,” I said.
“I’m going to get under your arm and help you stand up,” she said, pressing up next to me.
“You can’t hold me up.”
“How the hell do you think you got here?” she asked, taking my arm and putting it around her shoulders. “In my car and into the living room?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, it wasn’t Jackson,” she said. “On three, push up. Lean against me if you need to.”
She counted to three and we stood. My legs were rubbery and I did lean against her. She held me up, far stronger than I expected and we moved slowly out of the living room, down the hallway and into her bedroom.
The sheets and comforter were pulled back on the queen bed and we sat down together on the edge. She got out from under my arm and helped lift my legs onto the bed. She scooted me away from the edge.
“You alright?” She pulled the covers over me.
“I’m thirsty.”
“I’ll be right back,” she said and left.
I lay there, exhausted from the short walk down the hall. I looked around me, trying not to think about the pain still throbbing in my temples. Bella’s bedroom was small, with light blue walls and white furnishings. Small photos of Jackson in silver frames lined the top of the dresser. A short pile of books was stacked neatly on the nightstand. The faint aroma of lavender permeated the bedding and I breathed it in.
Bella returned with a plastic bottle of water. She unscrewed the cap and handed it to me. The frigid water hurt my teeth, but tasted as good as any water I’d ever had.
I handed it back to her, half-empty. “Thanks.”
She set it down on the night stand, next to the books. “Welcome. You should sleep some more.”