by Ann, Jewel E
“Cage, hey.” The morning sun burned her retinas as her nipples saluted the crisp morning breeze.
Cage cleared his throat, forcing his eyes to stay on hers instead of her barely covered body.
“Uh … hey. I just brought my dad home from the hospital. He wants to see you. I have to get back to campus, but I’ll be back this weekend.”
“Yeah … I … um, yeah.” She nodded through her rambling of nothing that made any sense. “I’ll shower and be over.”
She started to close the door.
“Jillian?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “For what?”
“For being here and putting up with him. Even if he doesn’t say it. I know he appreciates it. But mainly for me. It eases my mind to know that someone is … looking out for him.”
“Oh … sure.” She shrugged it off. “How’s he doing today?”
“Fine. I think. He’s quiet. Seems a little distracted. I think the accident really shook him up, which is a little weird because he’s been in crashes, around gun fire, and even ejected from a plane that was shot down.”
Jillian frowned. Cage confirmed her earlier suspicions that AJ wasn’t quite right. “I’ll talk to him. Drive safely back to campus.”
“Thanks. I will.”
After a long, procrastinating shower that included a review of the previous night’s declaration made under the heavy influence of alcohol, Jillian slipped on a yellow sundress several shades brighter than her mood, red rain boots, and her best smile to mask the courage she struggled to muster. She considered taking him something to eat, but decided one near-death incident that week was enough.
“AJ?” Jillian called, letting herself in his house.
“On the couch.”
She peeked around the corner to the great room. The closed blinds on every window rejected the light as the stagnant air leadened her lungs with doom. “Hey,” she said, her voice unusually small. Damn nerves. “Are you drinking? Before five?”
AJ tipped back a bottle of beer. Just the sight of it caused Jillian’s stomach to roil.
“Yeah, why not?” He flipped off the TV.
She slipped off her boots and sat on the opposite end of the couch, lifting his feet up to sit and resting them back on her lap.
He nursed his beer, staring at her, but not saying anything.
“About yesterday—”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not … or I was, but I’m not now.”
“Doesn’t matter. Just forget about it.”
Jillian traced her finger along the serpent tattoo on his leg. “What if I don’t want to forget about it?”
“I don’t give a fuck what you do.”
She glanced up at him, lips parted, eyes wide. “Do you need a minute to rethink that?”
He took another pull. “Nope.”
“Would you like me to come back later?”
“You don’t need to come back at all. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”
The twenty-four-hour whiplash left quite a sting. Especially since she’d prepared to reciprocate his expression of feelings. Those feelings had taken a backseat to his anger.
“Are you having a moment or is this about me leaving yesterday?”
“Don’t be so fucking condescending with me. I’m not having a moment, and I told you to forget about yesterday.”
Scooting out from under his legs, she stood. “Call me if you need anything.” He didn’t deserve another glance as she pulled on her boots and walked to the door.
“I won’t—” His voice slurred.
She turned. “AJ!”
He shook, tumbling from the sofa with a thunk.
“Oh my God!”
A seizure racked his body, stealing him from consciousness.
Jillian grabbed his cell phone off the sofa table and dialed 9-1-1. They talked her through it and sent an ambulance. She followed it to the hospital, leaving a message on Jackson’s phone, but waited to call Cage, assuming it was most likely a side effect of his accident and the concussion.
They treated him in the ER, but no one would give her any information because she wasn’t family. An hour later they let her see him.
“Why are you still here?” His words hung heavy with defeat as she entered the room.
“Because I love you, you idiot.” It’s not how she’d planned on telling him, but it came out and she couldn’t stop it. The word didn’t feel right, but it didn’t feel wrong either. It just felt like a word.
He closed his eyes and turned his head side to side. “Don’t.”
She sat on the edge of his bed. “I shouldn’t have left yesterday, and I’m sorry. What you said scared me. I don’t feel worthy of that kind of love and—”
“Stop … just stop.” He opened his eyes. “I meant it when I said it doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?” Jillian’s voice escalated. “Me? Us? Your love for me? Mine for you?”
“All of it,” he said in a monotone voice.
“It mattered yesterday. You said—”
“You didn’t let me finish!”
Jillian jumped.
AJ sighed. “You didn’t let me finish yesterday. You left too soon.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I needed you to know that I love you, but then I was going to tell you that I can’t be with you anymore.”
“Yeah, that makes perfectly no sense whatsoever. You need help. I know you don’t want to talk about the PTSD, but it’s eating you up inside. You may not think anyone can help you, but maybe you just need another opinion.” She refused to back down, refused to be kicked to the curb like an old sofa up for grabs. He could be harsh and hurtful, but she could deal with it.
“Goodbye, Jillian.” He looked away.
“I’m not leaving, you stubborn SOB.” She grabbed his face and forced him to look at her. He was it—her last chance at love and she was determined to take it. Her past had taken too much already. It wasn’t deserving of him too. He was her future—a future she would fight for.
“Is this a bad time?”
Jillian turned.
A doctor in a white lab coat stood at the door.
“No … sorry, come in.” She smiled past her anger and released AJ’s face as if she hadn’t just manhandled a patient.
He nodded, walking toward them. “I’m Dr. Rinehart from oncology.”
Every last bit of air evaporated from the room. Jillian couldn’t find a single breath.
“Doctor.” AJ nodded. “This is my friend, Jillian.”
Jillian looked at AJ, not Dr. Rinehart. “W-why do you need an oncologist?”
“Tell her, Doc. Why do I need you?”
Dr. Rinehart gave Jillian a regretful smile. “AJ has a brain tumor. It was discovered on his MRI after his accident yesterday.”
The air. Where was all the fucking air? The migraines, the personality that flipped without warning, the PTSD pigeonholing for everything … how could everyone have missed it?
“Cancer?” she whispered.
“We’re not sure,” Dr. Rinehart replied.
“When will you know?”
Dr. Rinehart looked at AJ.
“When I’m dead and an autopsy confirms it.”
Jillian turned, glaring at AJ. It wasn’t the time to be mad at him, but she was. How could he say that? Why would he say that?
“You’re not dying!” She looked to Dr. Rinehart for confirmation.
“I’ve consulted with the neurologist that saw AJ yesterday. The tumor may be inoperable.”
“But … you can do radiation or chemotherapy or something else, right?”
“Yes, there are other options.”
“But the neurologist confessed that the success rate is lower with tumors like mine. And I’m sure as hell not going to be a guinea pig, so—”
“So what?” Jillian snapped
at AJ. “You’re just going to do nothing? Wait until your headaches get even worse? Wait until you’re having seizures every day? Wait until you—” The familiar pain in her chest crashed like a wrecking ball. She didn’t notice the tears streaming down her cheeks until she tasted their salty presence.
“Die?” AJ grabbed her hand and squeezed it so hard that pain in her chest exploded into something irreversibly destructive. “Yes, Jillian. I’m going to die.”
Chapter Two
There was nothing and yet everything to say, but the nothing won over. AJ left the hospital with a grim nod from the doctor and a handful of medications to help with the migraines and lessen his chances of having seizures. Jillian opened her mouth to speak at least a dozen times on the way home, but nothing came out.
“Thanks for the ride.” AJ mumbled, getting out of her car.
“Have you told Cage or your parents?” She jumped out and chased him toward his door.
He shook his head and kept walking.
“Don’t shut me out.” Raw emotion bled from her words. Everything had happened so fast she couldn’t process it.
The man that dared anyone to cross him stood in defeat at his door with his back to her, head bowed, hands on his hips. “Why? You shut me out all the time.”
“I don’t—”
He turned. “You do. You’re orphaned Jillian from New York. You have a sick need to make men bleed. You’re thirty and your greatest skill is selling sex toys. That’s so fucking pathetic. Yet somewhere along the way, I bought into all of it. Part of me loves you, but I don’t know how and I sure as hell don’t know why, because I don’t really even know you!”
Her teeth clenched. “You didn’t want to know. You said it yourself.”
“Well I do now.”
“Well I … can’t,” she whispered, shaking her head.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.” She would never be able to make him understand. “I don’t want you to die.”
Why couldn’t he see the pleading in her eyes that said everything she couldn’t?
“Tell me what happened to you. Tell me and I’ll make an appointment with the oncologist on Monday.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I have a goddamn tumor in my head. Life’s not fair!”
She continued to shake her head. It was a nightmare. Eventually she would have to wake up. “You’re blackmailing me with your fucking life? What’s wrong with you? You have a son and parents who love you.”
“You don’t trust me.” He narrowed his eyes then turned toward the door.
“It’s not about trust!” She grabbed his arm. “Just…” the anger and desperation pulled the pin to another grenade inside her chest “…forget it ever happened. Please.”
He laughed. He actually laughed. Her anger held back the tears.
“Forget what? The biting and clawing? The broken nose? The fact that we can’t sleep in the same bed?”
“Yes,” she whispered, closing her eyes as shame stole the last bit of fight she had left.
He pulled away from her. “I can’t.”
*
As she pushed open the front door, feeling weak with defeat, her phone vibrated with a text message.
Hebrews 9:22
“How’s he doing?”
The thundering of her pulse muffled the sound of Jackson’s voice. Some fucker kept vying for her attention, trying to cripple her with fear, when AJ’s doctors had already given her an overdose of it.
“He has a brain tumor.”
“Jill …” He pulled her into his arms, but still no tears, just a cold numbness. “Cancer?”
“They’re not sure yet, but it seems inoperable and AJ doesn’t want treatment.” She stepped back, laughing at the morbidity of the situation. “Let me rephrase that … he’ll agree to treatment if I tell him about my past.”
“Oh … you’re not thinking of—”
“No, I’m not going to tell him.” She shrugged. “What’s one more death to my name?”
“It’s not your fault.”
Shaking her head, she held up her phone. “Doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll probably die before him.”
Jackson plucked it from her hand. A squint of confusion etched along his forehead. He searched for its meaning. “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
“What if it’s him?”
Jillian narrowed her eyes. “Who?”
“AJ.”
“Not funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“Jesus, Jackson! Did you hear me say he has a brain tumor? It gives him migraines, and seizures, it’s probably the reason his personality flips without a moment’s notice, but he’s not a stalker.”
“Maybe one of his personalities is.”
“It’s not.”
“Nothing else makes sense. Trigger and Four are dead. If it were the people responsible for Mom and Dad, they wouldn’t play this cat and mouse game … we’d simply be dead.”
Jillian put her hands over her face and sighed with a little grumble. “Tell Knox to get me a new phone. I’m going to bed … for the next month. Don’t wake me.”
*
The overprotective and sometimes doting brother hated being the bastard, but someone had to be. After three days of Jillian leaving her bedroom only for water, Jackson yanked her from the black hole.
“Time’s up. I’ll give you five seconds to get out of bed before I start your intervention.”
“Touch me and I’ll kill you,” Jillian warned from under her rat’s nest of covers.
“I welcome the challenge. At this point I’d welcome any sign of life from you. Maybe you need a good ass-kicking.”
“Jackson!” she yelled and flailed as he heaved her over his shoulder and carried her to the bathroom. Depositing her stubborn ass in the shower, he turned the lever until an icy stream of water rained on her.
She clawed at the walls and slipped along the floor like a drowning cat.
“Wash up. You stink.”
An hour later she emerged from her room with clean clothes and wet hair. “He loves me. And he’s dying. That’s messed up, right?” She looked at Jackson through vacant eyes.
He could confirm AJ’s impending death, but not from his tumor. “He’s not dying, not today anyway. I’d call it shock. Once he accepts the reality of his situation, he’ll man up, let them fry half his brain with some experimental treatment, and live happily ever after with his psychotic neighbor.”
“Not funny.”
Jackson cradled her face then sighed at her lifelessness. “I’ll never stop reminding you that you are the strongest person I have ever known because when you hit the lowest depths of hell, you choose to claw your way out every time. It’s not what you do … it’s who you are. You’re a survivor.”
The bravest woman alive sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m not. You … I’d die without you.”
He hugged her. “You wouldn’t. I think a meteor could hit Earth and wipe out the human population with the exception of you.”
She grunted. “I’m not invincible.”
Jackson kissed the top of her head. She encompassed his world. “You are to me.”
Even the protector of this brave woman lived with his own demons. Had he followed his instincts, he could have saved Claire’s life and in turn, his sister’s. Instead he waited for their dad to get home nearly twenty-four hours later.
Twenty-four hours too late.
He never told his sister that, and he swallowed the guilt every day of his life. Nothing but more pain could come from what-ifs.
“I have a lesson in two hours and I have a few errands to run. So eat something and call Dodge and Lilith. They’ve been worried about you.”
Jillian nodded.
“And ice your eyes or something … your face just looks all kinds of wrong right now.”
“Thanks for that.�
��
“Anytime.”
*
Jillian forced down a piece of dry toast then lay down with teabags on her eyes. The man who would always have her heart was alive, but she would never see him again. The man who made her think love was possible without said heart was right next door, but he was on a cruel suicide mission and eventually he would die and she would never see him again.
Maybe she would be the last person standing. It was just her and life—both equally crazy.
The doorbell rang. Tossing the teabags in the trash, she shuffled her bare feet to the door.
“Hi.” Jillian mustered a smile at the woman standing on her stoop.
“Hi, sorry to bother you. I’m Ryn Middleton. I clean AJ’s house.” She pointed next door. “There’s usually a key under his planter, but it’s not there. And the garage code doesn’t work either. I tried his cell phone but it goes straight to voicemail.”
Jillian laughed a little. She had no doubt that AJ was trying to keep someone out of his house, but it wasn’t Ryn. “He’s had some issues lately. I’m sure it’s just an oversight on his part.”
Ryn wrinkled her nose a bit. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable or get you in trouble, but would you happen to have a spare key to his place? I’ve been cleaning his house for over five years so I’m not a thief or anything. I just have a really full schedule, so if I don’t clean for him today he’ll have to wait another two weeks.”
Jillian smiled. “I do actually.” She held up a finger. “Just let me grab it.”
The woman, to whom the rules did not apply, returned with a small black box. Ryn raised a brow.
“I’ll open it for you. I’m Jillian, by the way.”
Ryn followed as Jillian’s boots squeaked with each step through the dewy grass to AJ’s front door. “Uh … that doesn’t look like a key,”
“It’s a universal key. Comes in quite handy. You should think about getting one. I’m sure this isn’t the first house you’ve been locked out of.”
Ryn replied with a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure what the neighbors would think of me using a lock-picking set to open a client’s door.”
“They’d think you’re ingenious.” Jillian turned the handle and the door opened. “Well, at least that’s what I’d think if I saw you doing it.” She returned the picks to the box and closed it.