by Vivian Lux
The second I saw him, old Scarlett rose to the surface, meek and mild and accepting. Why are you overreacting, Scarlett? He's just asking a question. It's nothing.
I cleared my throat. "Why are you here?" I felt like I was frozen, a statue.
He stood up and slid closer to me. I could smell him now, the same aftershave he loved to slather himself in. I had convinced myself it smelled sexy at one point, ignoring how it made me sneeze.
My eyes watered. I blinked once, two times.
"I was worried about you," he said, his voice soothing. "Your new apartment--it's not safe. I knew you were being silly with that place, but I was ready to let you have your tantrum." He slid over to the bedside table and turned the alarm radio on. The blaring, static noise made me cringe. "But when you ran off without telling me where you were going?" he shouted over the noise. "Then I knew I had to do something." He stalked over to the open window and shut it.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up, but I could not have said why.
Keep him talking, a voice in my head piped up. Think. You need to think. Keep him happy, let him talk about himself while you think. That'll make him happy. You need to keep him happy.
"What do you have to do?"
He looked at me, and for a flash I saw hatred in his eyes, like a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky, but he quickly masked it with a sloping smile. "Bring you home again. Where you belong. With me."
"Kevin... I--I broke up with you," I whispered.
"What was that?" he asked, calling over the din of the radio.
I gritted my teeth. "I broke up with you!" I shouted.
He huffed a little. "Yeah, and I'm not going to lie, that hurt my feelings, Scar-Scar." He slid around the bed and knelt down, rummaging underneath the bed. "You really shouldn't have done that." My heart started pounding. "It was really stupid and selfish of you." He smiled blandly over the top of the bed. "When I talked with your mother, she agreed with me. Told her you were in Buffalo, and she cried. Did you know that? I can handle your selfishness, I'm used to it. But to make your own mother cry like that?"
The alarm radio blared on, deafening. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straighter and goosebumps marched down my arms. Fear, a nameless terror, was taking hold of me. I could hear pounding on the walls, someone shouting for us to turn it off, but I couldn't hear what they were saying over the noise. Who could hear anything over a din like this? I couldn't hear anything.
The closed window. The blaring radio.
I can't hear anything but the radio.
No one could.
No one will hear you.
Kevin stood up, the knife glinting in his hand.
My mind started racing.
Keir is waiting for me. I'm supposed to be meeting him so we can run away together.
Again.
I'm not going to be there.
Again.
Reality filled my chest like ice water, but my mind still refused to grasp what was happening. Kevin was going to kill me, and all I could think was, I have to go meet Keir. He's waiting. I can't do this to him again.
I reached behind me and closed my fingers around the door handle...
But I was too slow. Kevin swung out, a vicious snarl curled across his face, and the blade sang through the air. I ducked under his arm, throwing myself forward as I wrenched the door open and landed on my knees with a scream. "Help!" I shouted over the noise of the radio. "Help!"
Kevin looked down at me, startled. I knew why. I'd never called for help before. He didn't expect this. He expected me to quietly submit while he carved my heart from my chest.
Keir is waiting for me.
"Fuck you!" I screamed instead, lashing out a vicious kick to his shin.
Kevin roared. "You stupid! Fucking! Bitch!" he bellowed, stabbing wildly with each word. I threw my arms up to protect my neck, shielding my face. The blade lashed out, and I felt the sting. Blood streamed from the gash in my forearm...but I did not scream. It wouldn't have mattered, no one would hear me. But I didn't scream.
And I did not cry.
If he wanted me to cry, he was going to have to try harder than that.
Kevin had no idea how to fight. And even after four years together, he never knew I had it in me. He never thought to consider that I grew up the youngest of three brothers. I never showed him the fight that lived inside of me because I never thought I was worth fighting for until now.
Keir is waiting for me.
"Help!" I screamed again. I swung upward, hoping to connect with his groin, but he jumped backwards, his big body slamming into the door, closing it tight.
The sound of it slamming shut sent chills up my spine. He now stood between me and my only path to escape. I looked around wildly, but there would be no time to make for the shut windows, and even then I was twelve floors up. The radio drowned out my calls for help. I could try calling 911, but I'd be dead before they even started driving.
Kevin knew this too. Some of the tension drained away from his face, and he relaxed. The casual arrogance took hold again.
The radio blared on and on, a garbled burst of static nonsense that sounded just like the noise in my head.
Kevin smiled a gross parody of a loving smile. "That was a good show, Scar-Scar." He glanced from his bloody knife to my bleeding arm. "I'm actually really proud of you."
He stepped away from the door, one step closer to me. I turned to run for my life.
Chapter 37
Keir
After the fact, I always wondered what would have happened if I had insisted on going upstairs with her. After all, Scarlett didn't have a good track record of meeting me when she said she would. Surely I could have called Keith while I waited in her room. Tell him who to call, whose palms to grease so we could be on the charter jet within the hour while still keeping her in sight.
I could have taken the fucking five minutes to walk her to her room.
But I was so damn eager to get everything fixed right then and there that I couldn't even take the time to go up with her.
I was complacent, comfortable...and also damn eager to get on with it. Our new life together. I had her again, after all. Everything I had known about our history had started over again, a new page in the book of Scarlett and Keir. I was acting like fucking Rane, forgetting that the past had consequences. I was so ready to just move on with my favorite girl at my side that I just nodded and did what I always did.
I told her I would meet her.
I sent her upstairs and didn't think anything of it. Instead, I went to the lobby bar and finished my call with Keith. He was pissed about it, I could tell, and I guess I didn't blame him. He sounded hung over from last night's afterparty, but I knew he'd get the job done.
I hung up and turned to greet the bartender. He looked at me, then looked again, recognition fighting with disbelief.
"Bourbon. Whatever you've got. It's a celebration," I told him.
Then I turned back to stare at the elevators.
The lobby bar had at least three screens that I could see from where I sat low in my booth, and one of them was showing preseason football on satellite. I sipped my drink and watched the Bills quarterback get interviewed. I idly wondered how much longer Scarlett was going to take. She'd laugh at me, drinking and watching the Bills. You can take the boy out of Buffalo...
That's when I decided to go get her.
It was just a passing thought that I'd like her company. I'd like to see her laugh.
Only ten minutes had gone by, but maybe on some subconscious level I was trying to make up for letting five years pass. I slid from the booth, feeling a little relaxed, a little wobbly from lack of sleep. I blinked sleepily and stretched, scratching like a bachelor, and then I headed to the elevators.
Once I started moving, Rick and Caleb slid into view and fell in step behind me. I hadn't even noticed they were there. "You guys should be ninjas," I complained as they followed me into the elevator.
"N
ah, boss. You're the ninja," Caleb grinned. "Slipping away like that. Don't pull that shit again until after our paychecks for the tour clear, okay?"
"Sorry, man, I had shit to do. And how many times do I gotta tell you not to call me that?" I grumbled. A headache was starting to collect at the base of my skull.
"We're security, boss," Caleb grinned, emphasizing the hated word. "We're not too bright."
"Probably gonna have to tell us at least ten more times," Rick echoed.
I rolled my eyes as the door slid closed. The car moved smoothly upward.
To this day, I don't know what it was that I heard. Maybe I didn't hear anything. Maybe I just knew...somehow.
The chills that marched up my spine sent actual goosebumps over my skin, and the hair at the base of my neck stood up. Panic flooded my mouth with the bright, warm taste of copper.
"You guys packing?" I choked, nearly gagging on the taste of pennies. My stomach roiled. I had no idea why I was asking that.
"Of course," Rick said, confused. Caleb nodded and lifted the hem of his T-shirt to show his holster and 6mm.
The feeling of terror mixed with adrenaline surged higher the higher we climbed. "Get them out," I ordered.
They obeyed without question, slowly moving their hands to their pieces.
The doors slid open on the twelfth floor. There was a loud burst of static, a radio stuck between stations. Rick looked at Caleb right as the piercing scream hit our ears. "Help!"
"Fuck me, that's Scarlett!" I shouted, and broke out into a dead run down the hallway.
"Which room, which room?" Rick shouted behind me. The noise of static grew louder, but not as loud as the roar in my ears.
"Help!" Scarlett cried again, and terror robbed me of my ability to speak. I ran like hell, lungs bursting, the hallway seeming to lengthen out ahead of me. I couldn't get there in time, I would never get there in time.
"Not again, not fucking again!" I may have said that--I probably didn't--but it was what I needed to push through the seeming miles. Her door was closed. I slammed into it with all of my weight.
"Fuck!" My shoulder was dead, useless. The latch was engaged. We needed a keycard to get in. I couldn't hear anything over the noise of static in the room. "Scarlett!" I roared. "Scarlett!!"
The sound of static filled my head. I couldn't hear anything, but I suddenly felt it. A heavy thud, and then the handle moved, just a millimeter.
I grabbed it and pushed, helping her. The door slammed open then stopped, something heavy blocking its way. A high, piercing scream filled my ears, and I roared in response. I was an animal, a predator, a cornered, wounded beast. Scarlett's scream took a hold of me, leaving me blind with rage.
I started swinging.
Chapter 38
Scarlett
Kevin was too slow, more suited to pushing around girlfriends than all out brawling. Keir was lean, strong, not an ounce of extra weight left on him after sweating out his soul nightly on tour. It was never going to be an even match, except for one problem.
Kevin had a knife.
"Watch out!" I screamed, kicking my legs uselessly into the air. It wasn't enough to connect with Kevin's swinging arm, but it was enough to draw Keir's murderous gaze downward.
He saw me lying there, bleeding. Fear and anger blazed in his eyes.
He lunged to cover my body with his.
That was just enough to save him from Kevin's knife.
Keir slammed us both to the ground, punching the breath from my lungs before I could scream out another warning. Kevin lifted his knife again.
"Fuck you, Kevin!" I shouted over the noise of the radio. "No! Do you hear me? No!" I pulled myself clear of Keir, struggling backwards. I crab-walked to the bedside table and slammed my hand down on the snooze alarm.
Silence rang like a bell so that Kevin's shout was loud enough to be heard by everyone in the building.
"You cheating bitch, I'm going to kill you!"
Keir flipped from his stomach to his back, lashing out with his legs to sweep Kevin's out from under him. He fell heavily, the blade still arcing downward.
"No!" I rushed to catch his arm, to stop...to stop...
The noise that Keir made when the blade caught him was nothing more than a ragged whisper. In the silence, I swore I could hear the blood as it dripped...and then began to pour onto the tile floor.
Kevin lifted his head, his mouth frozen in a snarl.
"No," I told him.
He always hated to be told no.
"Yes," he said. "Right in front of your boyfriend." He stood up, grabbing his knife, and glanced at the blood that dripped from it, fascinated. "Don't scream or I'll make it hurt even more."
I opened my mouth to scream anyway. But the next voice that rang out was not mine.
Chapter 39
Keir
They say when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes.
I closed my eyes, and I saw Scarlett.
It was a sweltering afternoon in June, made worse by the fact that the garage door was closed. Her naked skin was slick against mine, slippery under my thumbs as I caressed the sensitive peaks of her breasts before curling my tongue around the tips.
She gasped and arched upward, her body meeting mine, and I slid inside of her easily.
"Keir..." I loved the way she said my name when I was inside of her. Sometimes it was the only thing she could say, especially when I reached down between her legs to brush my thumb over her clit before thrusting deep inside of her. "Keir! Keir!" She chanted my name like a prayer, my personal angelic chorus. She was so wet and so hot, clutching me so tightly that I got too wild. I wanted to be gentle, thought that's what she needed, but when she wrapped her legs around my waist and pulled me to her, clinging like a drowning person to a life raft, I let go of gentle and I fuckedher. I fucked her so hard, the wet slap of our bodies the only sound in that steaming hot garage. I fucked her like I had never fucked her before, and it felt so good, so fucking good to be inside of her. It had never felt this good before, and I wanted more of her, so I fucked her heedlessly, mindlessly, so hard, so hard and...
"Fuck!" I shouted, right as she screamed my name. I felt her clutch me from the inside just as I exploded inside of her, and then--and only then--I came to my senses.
"Fuck," I repeated, pulling out of her, my heart already sinking. "Scar, honey, are you on the pill?"
Her eyelashes fluttered, and then those amazing eyes narrowed, then went wide. "Why?" she panted.
I pushed myself off of her and watched the condom slip uselessly off the tip of my cock and fall to the floor.
No wonder it had felt so good.
"Shit, Scar. Shit." My heart started to race. "You're on the pill, right, honey?" I was begging her now.
But the glazed, dumbfounded look she gave me told me what I already knew.
She was Catholic. And what's more, her mother, the one who should have taken her to get birth control, didn't know she was having sex. It was all on me and the condom that lay broken on the floor.
I started to laugh and I didn't know why.
"Keir?" She said my name again. "What's wrong?"
I leaned forward and kissed her. "Fuck it, you know? If we just made a baby, well, then we're having a fucking baby, Scar. That cool with you?"
She looked at me, then down to the ring that was already on her finger. "Are you serious?"
"Dead serious."
She shook her head. "Keir, I can't have a baby! My mother...my parents, they'll..."
"Kill you?" I said flippantly. I still remembered how quickly I dismissed her fear, how I glossed right over the terror in her eyes. "Well then, fuck 'em. We'll leave. Start our own life." I grabbed her hand. "Let's run away together, Scarlett. Come with me to New York. You can write,and I'll play music,and we'll love each other, and we'll have a little baby to love too." I ran my thumb along her jaw and tilted her lips to mine. "I hope he has your eyes."
"Oh, we're having a son?" She laugh
ed.
"Yup." I nodded. I was sure of it already. "A little hellion, just like his father."
She took a deep breath then. I'll never forget it. A deep, hitching sigh that made her perfect breasts bob ever so slightly. I was a horny kid, barely twenty years old, so I was staring at her breasts when I should have been watching her eyes. Maybe if I had looked at them, I would have seen the wild panic, the absolute terror. Her eyes would have told me the truth, even as her lips spoke the lie.
"Okay, Keir," she said, and now I was watching the pulse at her neck, getting hard for her all over again. "Okay...sure."
*****
Thoughts travel faster than light, flickering like shadows on the wall. All the memories, they felt so real, more real than this hotel room, this madman with a knife...
I heard a thump. Once and then twice. Was it outside of me? Or inside?
I felt warm now. Strangely warm. My heart was thumping so strongly, and with each thump I felt more blood spill from the slash across my thigh.
There was another thump, louder this time. A shout too. This time, I knew it had to be outside of me.
Scarlett screamed, then there was an answering thump. Then a crash and a bang that could only be the sound of a door flying open.
"Fucking freeze or I'll blow your skull open."
It was a struggle to open my eyes, but I did it just in time to see my security detail burst through the door and the madman with the knife drop it to the floor.
I closed my eyes again, happy to leave this place and go back to my memories.
Chapter 40
Scarlett
The hours flew by as I talked and talked and talked some more. First to the police, giving my statement, giving the same information I had given to the officer in LA yesterday so that she could file the restraining order that never manifested. I repeated the words dully, mechanically. "Domestic violence....abuse...stalking. Yes, I want to press charges. Yes, for all of it."
Then I had to talk again. This time to the band. Rane looked like he wanted to finish the job that Kevin had started, but Pepper was oddly sympathetic. She took my hand in hers and gave me the first genuine smile I had ever seen on her face. "You did what a lot of us only dream of," she said, and I swear I saw a glint of angry pride in her normally narrowed eyes.