by Natasha Boyd
She sat up at my entry, the light from the hall ghosting over her pale features, her eyes wild and not quite lucid, as if she didn’t see me. A dream. She was in the grips of a dream. Relief flowed through me at the same time as I felt utter helplessness that she was fighting some unknown thing every night that I couldn’t protect her from.
Not even stopping to think, I went for her. To hold her like I should have done when I’d left her on the floor. The way I should have done when I’d known how scared she’d been of Tyler earlier. The way someone should every night she woke up.
Hearing my name on her lips with such desperation sent chills down my spine.
The moment I had her in my arms, she tried to push me away, still half dreaming, but then she was crying. I’d never seen her really cry until tonight. Until I’d made her cry.
Every sob seemed to suck more strength from me, leaving me weaker and more lost as to how I could help her. And so I held her. And soothed her. “Shh, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”
I don’t know why I said that last part. But I realized in that moment, I would do whatever I could to keep her safe. Even against a specter in the dreams I couldn’t see. If it helped to hold her, hold her I would.
“I was so s-scared.” Her voice was weak. “God, I was so scared tonight. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so stupid. Th-that I went there. So s-stupid.”
“Shh, I know. I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay,” I assured her. The craziness of the situation she’d been in earlier hit me full force. If something had happened to her tonight… fuck. How would I even survive it? Having abandoned her twice? I needed to come clean, tell her everything, seek punishment or forgiveness, and I wanted to echo her words… I was so stupid. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I was so stupid. “God, we’re a pair,” I muttered.
The way I was sitting, having climbed across the queen-sized bed and pulled her up into my arms, meant I was sitting at the most awkward angle. My liver, which was busy processing my evening, was folded in on itself, my spine bent. Prone and strained. My leg was cramped.
“Do you want to tell me about your dream?” I asked.
“I dreamed of my Uncle Mike.” She inhaled deeply, her face buried in my shirt.
God.
I’d suspected, but hearing her say his name…
“I think I was Abby in my dream,” she added.
I concentrated on not reacting. My cramped leg screamed, but I didn’t want to end this moment where she was actually talking to me. Where I actually felt useful to her. She was so light in my arms. If I just stretched out, head against the headboard, she could lie down easily, without having to be shifted too much. I eased my leg to the side and lay back and tried not to think about the fact that we’d gone from barely exchanging three words a day to her lying in my arms. Maybe if I didn’t think about it too hard, it would be okay?
For a moment I couldn’t feel her breathing, and I worried I’d gone too far by lying back. “When you wake up in the night, is it always because you dream of him?” I asked, desperate for her to keep talking, to keep letting me in.
Her body quaked. “Sometimes I just wake because I feel like I can’t breathe, or I have a nightmare but I can’t see who it’s about.”
I didn’t know where to go from there, and I felt like she hadn’t really answered my question. So I stayed quiet, settling for the fact that she seemed to be calmer.
“My head hurts,” she whispered. “Do you think they drugged me?”
God, I’d kill those motherfuckers. My arm tensed around her and I squeezed as I swallowed thickly. “Did you drink much?”
“No, and I drank a ton of water after…”
After a while, her breathing evened out.
“I’m sorry I hurt you tonight,” I whispered in case she was already asleep. There was no response and before I questioned myself, I ran my fingers over her jaw, the skin smooth over her delicate bones, wishing I could take back the bruises that would be sure to come. Her skin was hot and feverish under my fingers. The scent that was pure her was hard to detect under the smell of the shampoo we both used, but I inhaled deeply, not allowing myself to question what the hell I was doing. I didn’t know my violets from my patchouli, but I could safely say her scent described her. Dark subtlety, mysterious and fragile, but also full of imprisoned light.
I snatched my hand away. God. What the hell was I doing? It was one thing to comfort her and… well, that was it. Comforting her. Like an older brother.
Brother. It was literally the only role I could play here. Friend too. She sure as shit needed one of those. Had she ever had anyone? A best friend? Just a female friend of any kind? The loneliness that pulsed around her said no. Then again, I wasn’t exactly the most gregarious person I knew.
I didn’t know what I was feeling. It wasn’t brotherly, and it wasn’t friendly, it simply felt dangerous being this close to her.
LIVVY SLEPT IN. I guess. She wasn’t up when I finally woke late. Her door remained stubbornly closed. The door I’d closed after leaving her room last night.
I wasn’t sure what today would bring between us. And I had shit I needed to take care of. I showered and threw on some jeans. I needed a damn haircut, or I was going to have to start borrowing ponytail things from Liv. And I needed to track Bethany down and apologize.
Pete was already at Mama’s dock when I arrived, having presumably stayed with Marjoe after our little late-night escapade. Sitting in a fold-up chair, a fishing line in the water, he held a steaming cup of something in his large callused hand and was chewing on the end of an unlit cheroot.
“Are you ever not trying to get a fish onto land?” I asked him, walking down the jetty.
He smiled and removed the brown tobacco from his mouth. “Mornin’, y’all get home all right?”
“Yeah.” I set down the flashlight by his feet, clad in hiking boots that had seen better days. “Thank you for last night. I’m sorry.”
“Needed to be done.” He waved his hand. “That Cal Richter that Tyler hangs out with ain’t good news. I been hearing he may have a record somewhere near the Okefenokee. Ran into a spot o’ trouble over in Folkton, Georgia. I reckon he stays on the Carolina side o’ the state line for a reason.”
“I guess that’s why Tyler needs a legit way to deliver to Savannah.”
Pete took a sip of his coffee and squinted up at me, the low morning sun having just crested the trees behind us. “He still askin’?”
“Yep.” I nodded out to the waterway that reflected the ice-blue sky. “You’re awfully late getting out on that smooth-as-glass water today, Pete.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard to get outta that woman’s bed. And the ol’ ticker ain’t what it used to be.” He winked at me. “’Bout time I took a day off.”
Pete taking a day off. Never heard of it. I stayed quiet. He knew I understood his unspoken words. He wasn’t feeling good. He’d had a lung cancer diagnosis last year, and it didn’t look promising. I only knew because I’d taken him to the doc in Savannah, having foiled his plans to sneak off and do everything by himself. “Have you told Marge yet?”
Pete let out a long sigh.
“She deserves to know, Pete. She deserves to have time to come to grips with it.” To say good bye.
“Look, son, I don’t want to waste my last God-given times livin’ in a puddle o’ woman tears. Her fussin’. Lookin’ at me like I’m gonna keel over at any moment,” he groused, shaking his shaggy gray head.
We disagreed on this almost weekly.
I stuck my hands in my pockets and leaned against the piling.
Pete shifted in his chair. “On the subject o’ talkin’—”
“Don’t even.” I cut him off.
“Just sayin’.”
“Well, don’t.”
Pete’s eyes crinkled up, and he stuck the cheroot back in the corner of his mouth and bit down. “You find out why she came down here at least?”
“I have a fair
idea, and I don’t think I’ll like the story.”
“Things are never as bad as you make them seem in your head.”
“This will be, trust me.”
“Whatever happened to her wasn’t your fault, you know.”
Pushing off and walking a few steps to the end of the jetty, I looked out across the mirrored water that lapped gently beneath my feet and inhaled the sticky organic smell of pluff mud and salt marsh. “It is, Pete. There are no two ways around it. I’m as much to blame as if I did it to her myself.”
Pete clicked his tongue. “That’s bull. You were a bystander to something her parents should have been responsible for. But anyway, ain’t nothin’ to be done about the fish you missed yesterday. You can only mend your nets so you don’t miss none tomorrow.”
I snorted an unamused puff of air from my nose. Again the thought of something happening to her last night crawled under my skin. My immediate concern this morning was how to remove the threat of Tyler and now Cal. Knowing Cal had a record made it worse.
“What are you cookin’ up over there, son?”
I shrugged, not wanting Pete to know I might need to borrow his boat for—
“I reckon we might see about luring that Cal fella over the state line.”
Swinging around, I sized Pete up.
He pursed his lips. “Maybe shut down Tyler at the same time.”
He was serious.
“What are you looking at, boy? There’s life in me yet. An’ if you think I’m leaving this mortal coil without makin’ this world a slightly better place, then you’re gravely mistaken.”
I raised my hands and grinned. “No offense, Pete. I was just surprised you and I were on the same wavelength, that’s all.”
AFTER WE HAMMERED out a vague and amateur plan that would make a vice squad shudder, I placed the call to Tyler from my cell.
“Sorry to bust up your party last night,” I said to him when he answered.
“No you’re not. What do you want?”
“I want you to leave Olivia the hell alone. She’s off-limits. To all of you.”
There was silence while I imagined him grappling with his pride. The idea brought me a small measure of satisfaction.
“Becaaaause?” he drew out. If he thought I was going to lay a romantic claim on her, he’d be waiting a while.
“I don’t suppose you’d do it because I asked you, would you?”
Tyler snorted. “She came willingly. Anyway, I don’t see why I should. You know what I want from you, so let’s figure something out.”
I pretended to mull it over and hesitate. “Look,” I said finally. “Some things have changed. I might, uh, need some cash. So if you’ll promise me Olivia is no longer in the game, we can probably work something out.”
“Well, well, she sure is a talented girl. That mouth…” He audibly sucked in a lascivious sounding breath through his teeth. “Guess she got to you too, huh? Is it as good as I think?”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I focused on the vein throbbing in my temple, thankful he couldn’t see my face right now. “Whatever.” I sounded perfectly calm. Bored even.
“What about Pete?” he asked, back to business when I didn’t rise to his bait. This was where it could all fall down.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but Pete has some health issues. Been seeing a specialist in Savannah. They don’t come cheap, and he’s in a bind. He and I discussed it this morning. He’ll do it one time, and one time only. So you best get your contacts lined up to get your shit off the boat as quick as possible, and make it an amount that counts, because we’re not doing it again.”
“How much does Pete need to pay his bills?”
“How much are you paying to get the job done?”
We discussed the amounts; all the while I acted like I was pissed I’d been reduced to doing this for him.
“Expect my call in the next few weeks,” Tyler said. “You’ll only get one hour notice, and one hour to get to the drop point.” He hung up.
“Fuck you,” I said into the dead air.
I figured the time frame was to lessen the chances of us being followed or set up. I didn’t give a shit. If all went to plan, we didn’t need any notice at all. They were going down, one way or another.
Pete was inside handling the other part of the plan, in case Tyler checked out the legitimacy of Pete’s need for cash. Which he would.
I cringed and hung my head as I heard Marjoe crying softly. But in the end, it was the only way. And that conversation was long overdue.
Big Jake and JJ arrived for work and I pulled them aside, explaining that Marjoe probably needed them to run the place without her today.
“It’s Pete?” Big Jake asked. How this guy always knew everything was beyond me.
I nodded.
Big Jake shook his massive dark head and went inside.
“Hey, JJ,” I said, looking at the smaller version of Big Jake. JJ stopped and nodded, his eyes looking over my shoulder. It was disconcerting to talk to someone who never looked at you, but he’d always been this way and never uttered a word. He understood everything, though. I’d venture to guess he probably saw and understood more than anyone.
“You still work packing up the vegetables for old man Graham’s delivery to Hilton Head?”
JJ nodded again, and I told him what I needed. I had no idea if he’d do as I asked, but the plan hinged on it, so I would hope for the best.
WHEN I FINALLY got back to the cottage later that afternoon, Liv’s door was closed again. Her coat was still by the door, so she was definitely here. I’d been hoping last night wouldn’t make it awkward between us, but the closed door said otherwise.
I knocked softly and got no answer. “Liv?”
Knocking more firmly, I pressed my ear to the wood. A small black kernel of fear uncoiled inside my chest. “Liv,” I said against the door. It was silent. Too silent.
I turned the knob. “I’m coming in.” The last thing I wanted to do was disturb her if she was napping, but I needed to make sure she was all right.
She was lying on the bed on top of the bedclothes in the long white T-shirt she slept in, deathly still, her skin a waxy sheen. “Shit!” I rushed to her and touched her face. I’d almost expected it to be ice-cold, and I was relieved even as I winced at how hot she was. Christ, what the hell should I do? I fumbled for her wrist to feel her pulse. Not finding it at first, I tried her neck. Her skin almost burned under my fingers. Her body was trembling inside. Wait, that wasn’t trembling, that was her heart. Fuck. Her heart rate was insane. I laid my hand on her chest to confirm, feeling her delicate breastbone through her thin T-shirt. Tyler—that fucker.
I snatched my phone out of my pocket.
“Tyler, you motherfucker,” I said as soon as he answered. “What did you give her?”
“Well, hello to you too.”
“Shit Tyler, Olivia’s taken something, or this is left over from last night. Just tell me. I have to hang up and get an EMT.”
“Jeez, calm down. I didn’t give her anything.”
“What about the pills?”
“She gave those back.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. I counted.”
“What about in her drink?”
“Fuck you, Tommy.”
“Would Cal do it?”
There was silence for two agonizingly long beats. “He might.”
I growled. “Did he?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask him and get you back. Call the EMT.”
I dialed the Haig Point fire number, my other hand resting on her chest. Most of the volunteers were at least first aid trained if the main crew were off duty. I waited for my call to be answered.
Shit.
I knelt on the floor by her side, hating myself for being gone all day.
Would there be any end to the ways I could let her down?
I FLOATED THROUGH a deep mist. A grey heavy metal mist, ice-cold where it b
lanketed my skin, making me shudder. And the heaviness. I struggled under it, its weight making me ache deep in my bones. Even my skin felt stretched to bruising.
Someone was saying my name. I strained to hear, but even that hurt. Trying to see through the fog meant using my real eyes and peeling back my eyelids to allow painful spears of the whitest light to sear my eyeballs. I groaned in pain.
“Liv?” I finally heard a voice. A deep voice. Panic ripped through my chest, adding to my pain. I struggled harder. I needed to get out of this fog. Oh God, my body hurt so much. I forced my eyelids unstuck and felt like screaming at the needles that sank through my eyeballs into my skull.
“Livvy? It’s me.”
Wait. I liked this voice. This voice was different.
“Livvy?”
Turning my head was too hard. Thankfully the light faded, and I made out a tall figure leaning over me. “Sorry,” it said. “I’ve closed the curtains now.”
My body spasmed, my bones rattling. Why did I hurt so much?
“Livvy? It’s Tom.” Tom? I liked this person, whoever he was.
“There’s a doctor coming okay? Luckily he’s on the island at the moment. Did you take something, Livvy?”
“I hurt,” I whispered. At least, I think I whispered. I imagined the words and tried to force them out my mouth, but I couldn’t be sure I’d managed. Something cold and wet touched my forehead and then my lips. Despite how cold I was already, I welcomed it.
When I awoke again, the shuddering had gone away. Perhaps under the weight of my bones, I was simply forced to stillness.
I had the feeling someone was lying next to me. When I was little and had a bad dream, sometimes Abby would lie next to me, her hand on my back, until I went to sleep again. Sometimes she’d stay there all night, the two of us thrashing our limbs in wild and abandoned sleep until we woke hot, sweaty, and tangled in blankets. I felt like that now. My body was clammy and warm, desperate for cold air.