Untouched

by Lauren Hawkeye

  Alexa couldn’t breathe. And then she could, but the air hurt her lungs. “You meant for me not to know? To believe a lie?”

  “You didn’t remember.” Tracy looked stricken. “The doctors said... once your brain damage had healed. They said that the memories might be lost forever, because of the damage to your head. The other thought was that they were so traumatic that you couldn’t deal with them while you were healing, so your subconscious shoved them down. That they would surface when you were ready to deal with them.”

  A choked sound came from Nate, but Alexa’s attention was on her mother.

  “Either way, you didn’t remember. And I couldn’t see a point in telling you something so horrible, when it might keep the rest of you from healing.” Tracy looked at her daughter pleadingly. “And then the months went by, and you still didn’t remember, and... I just didn’t know what to do.”

  Alexa shook her head, absolutely overwhelmed. This still didn’t make any sense. “But the accident. I saw a newspaper article. It happened,” she insisted, her brain still rejecting the notion that all of this had happened to her—was, in fact, still locked away somewhere in her subconscious.

  Tracy smiled sadly. “There was a car accident, that same night. But you weren’t in it.”

  Alexa started to tremble. Wrapping her arms around herself, she turned her attention from her mother to Nate. “Who? How did you... you found out today. How?”

  A flicker of pain crossed Nate’s face, furthering the sick sensation in Alexa’s stomach.

  “His name is Eugene Higgins,” Nate replied levelly, his eyes locked on Alexa’s. “He’s incarcerated at the prison where I work.”

  “What?” Alexa recoiled, the betrayal like a jagged knife. “You... you...”

  “I didn’t know.” Nate caught her wrists before she could shrink away from him, holding her up. “Do you hear me? I did not know. Not until today.”

  The caring, the raw empathy that was clear in Nate’s voice was the final straw. Heat spilled over her cheeks, but she didn’t realize that she’d started to cry until she tried to speak.

  “Why?’ She finally managed to spit out the one syllable. Nate tried to draw her into his arms, but she pushed them away, closing in on herself. “Why? Why did this happen?”

  “There’s no rhyme or reason here, Alexa.” Tracy tried to reach for her daughter, without success. “You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like with... with your...”

  Her voice trailed off, but Alexa finished the thought in her head. Just like with your father.

  What a cosmic joke. She was the flesh and blood of a murdering rapist. And she must have been imprinted with that, somewhere on her DNA, because she’d managed to attract one herself.

  She didn’t know how long she sat there, locked in the shell of her own mind. She was vaguely aware of Nate and Tracy talking to her, to each other around her, but she’d once again encased herself in a protective shield of ice.

  The noise ended when she abruptly stood, fighting her way from the tangle of well-meaning arms.

  Putting a safe distance between herself and... them... she hugged her arms to her chest. “I need to be alone right now. I need you both to go.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea—” her mother started, but Alexa shook her head violently, desperation making her lash out.

  “I said get out!” Her voice rose to a shriek, echoing off of the walls. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  Spinning, she ran down the short hall to the bathroom, where she slammed the door hard enough to make the walls shake. Locking it behind her, though she knew that wouldn’t keep out anyone determined, she began to shake, violent tremors that wracked her body as she collapsed back against the door, sinking down to the floor as her legs gave out.

  She couldn’t think. She couldn’t handle this. She was splintering into pieces.

  Crawling across the tiled floor, she heaved herself onto the ledge of the tub. She turned the hot water on full, and didn’t bother with any cold. Like when she’d found out about her father, she hoped that the heat, the steam would help to thaw the icy shell that had surrounded her heart, but if anything, the moist air kissing her face only made her feel colder.

  When the level of the water rose close to the edge of the tub, she slid in. Her jeans were heavy, her T-shirt bloated with air, neither providing a barrier against the nearly boiling water. It hurt, it was too hot, but finally she felt something, she felt pain, and so she stayed in the bath, reaching for the white heat, until she couldn’t bear it any longer, and she screamed. The scalding water cascaded over the lip of the rub, and she continued to scream, wordless sounds of anguish as the damn of her emotion broke, and all she felt was pain.

  She heard banging at the door, heard Nate’s voice, was vaguely aware of him pounding his way through, of her own voice shrieking at him to get out.

  He ignored her, pulling her from the tub, ignoring the cascading water as he ripped the steaming clothes from her body, cursing as he burned his own hands. And though her skin steamed as it frantically tried to release heat, still she shook, because while she still didn’t remember, now she knew. She knew what filled that great gaping hole in her memory, and wished she could go back to blissful ignorance.

  She was vaguely surprised to see Tracy wading into the bathroom behind Nate. Her brow furrowed as her very proper mother slogged through the water to turn off the tap. When she turned, her grief filled eyes meeting Alexa’s, there was no judgment about the fact that a man she’d never met before today was wrapping her naked baby girl in a towel.

  “I’ll clean this up,” Tracy said quietly, nodding at Alexa. “I think Nate can take care of you the best right now."

  Alexa frowned, since something about that wasn’t right... Tracy wasn’t the type to hand over control. She should have been right in there, trying to force Alexa back to the land of the living.

  Part of Alexa understood that it was because her mother loved her, that she was letting go.

  Her screams quieted. The tears started to dry, though she was a raw, seething mass of hurt and ugliness, both inside and out. She stopped shoving against Nate, going limp as he set her down on the bed, gently dried off her skin and assessed the damage the overly hot water had done to her skin.

  “You’re lucky.” His eyes flashed with anger as he stood and pointed a finger at her. “I’m going to look for some salve for this. Don’t move.”

  Why was he upset with her? Didn’t he understand that she was broken?

  She didn’t care. In fact, she wasn’t even sure that she was still in her right mind, she felt so very far away from reality as Nate returned and knelt at her feet.

  Slowly, methodically, he began to rub ointment into her skin. Earthy lavender and maybe a hint of mint drifted to her nose, soothed the most jangled of her nerves, and provided a blessed coolness to her boiled skin.

  His eyes met hers again as he rose up to smooth the cream over her shoulders, and she understood that he was, in fact, upset with her.

  “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I will spank you so hard you can’t walk for a week.” His mouth pressed together in a tight line even as her own lips parted in surprise. And yet his hands were unfailingly gentle as he reached for the oversized shirt that she slept in, pulled it over her head, and urged her arms in like she was a doll.

  She let him, feeling her first trickle of relief when he smoothed the snarls of her wet hair away from her face and urged her to lie down on the bed.

  She waited until he’d stripped, climbing into bed behind her. Pulling the quilt over them both, he pulled her against him, her back to his front, letting his warmth and the solidness of his frame steady her.

  She felt like she should speak, but she had no words. Yet she suddenly wanted desperately to thank him for staying, for not letting her push him away, for not leaving her alone.

  A strangled cry escaped her throat as she tried. And what came out was not what she inte
nded to say.

  “I don’t want to remember anymore.” Her throat was raw. “But I am. Like a... like a broken dam. And it hurts.”

  “Baby.” Nate’s arms tightened around her, but he didn’t push, instead just letting her know he was there.

  Her fingers went to her neck, trailed the raised lines of scar tissue. “Barbed wire. He used barbed wire around my neck.”

  Her voice cracked, and she again felt tears come streaming down her cheeks. Nate gathered her against him, stroked her, soothed her, held her as she grieved. He didn’t speak until she was quiet again, and when he did, she felt her first spark of hope—maybe, just maybe, she could survive this, so long as she had him at her side.

  “Let it out, Alexa. You don’t have to be strong right now.” He squeezed her tightly. “I’ve got enough for us both. And you can borrow some of mine, until you find your own again.”

  * * *

  “Don’t go.”

  Nate was pretty sure that Alexa didn’t know she even uttered the words, floating as she was on the edge of sleep.

  He wasn’t going anywhere—couldn’t have torn himself away if he tried. He needed to be here, with her, reassuring himself over and over again that she was whole, that she was alive.

  As her breathing evened out, and her body finally relaxed in his arms, he allowed himself to sink down into the mattress. This situation was in no way about him, and yet his own emotions had been through the wringer in the last few hours.

  Never, until the day he died, would he forget the look on Alexa’s face when she understood that the entries in that damn book had been about her.

  Hell, he would never forget how he had felt when he’d finished that note from Higgins. It was a great cosmic joke, or maybe the fingers of fate, that had orchestrated all the little connections between Higgins and himself, Higgins and Alexa. Hell, even the parallels between Higgins and Alexa’s father.

  The heat of Alexa’s grief and rage had burned his own away—it was inconsequential in the shadow of something so huge. Not that he wasn’t entitled to feel what he felt, more that his perspective had shifted.

  He gathered her closer to him, needing to reassure himself that she was still there. Still breathing.

  Earlier that day, when he’d finally understood the truth—understood that Eugene Higgins, the inmate who thought Nate was his best friend, had tried to kill his woman, had left her for dead...

  He’d been out the door of the warden’s office, blind with rage, before he’d been able to draw his next breath. It had taken both Block and Preston to hold him back.

  He’d worked through his rage because he’d known Alexa would need him to. But next time he saw Higgins...

  It was probably best if he never saw the inmate again.

  For now, though... for now he would just hold Alexa tightly in his arms. Would be there when she needed him. And if nothing else good came from this godawful day...

  Understanding that he could have lost her before he’d ever met her? It made the short length of time that they’d been together inconsequential.

  He loved this woman. He was hers, as much as she was his.

  And he was never going to let her go.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Swallowing the last sweet mouthful, Alexa set her empty glass on the top of the bar, where it promptly adhered itself to the brownish flecked surface, with what, she didn’t want to know. A hand reached towards it, releasing a shiny stream of quarters.

  The hand was almond brown, skinny and unhealthy looking, and had a tattoo in the fleshy part between thumb and forefinger. Dark spikes, inky lines—barbed wire.

  It seemed to come alive in the dim, dancing lights of the bar. It was creepy, and Alexa moved instinctively away from its owner. Well, she tried to, but bodies crowded so heavily around her, against her, that she didn’t actually move as much as she’d have liked.

  The man looked hurt that she’d tried to move away. Always the peacemaker, even though this was her night, she squashed the weird jumble of feelings that were roiling greasily around in her belly and worked up a smile.

  “Sorry. I... uh... you just startled me.” She laughed, a shaky sound that would have fooled no one had it not been sounded underneath the harsh shrieks of the band’s lead singer.

  He smiled, revealing a prominent gap between his two front teeth. Somehow that imperfection endeared him to her, just a bit.

  “Not much room to move in here. I’m just tryin’ to see if I’ve got enough for a beer.” He resumed counting out his quarters, adding dimes and nickels to the pile when he ran out of the bigger silver at three dollars and twenty five cents.

  Alexa still felt a trickle of uneasy remorse undulating over her skin, but it made her feel guilty, so she reached into the tight pocket of her torn, faded blue jeans. Extracting a crisp ten dollar bill, she dropped them beside his somewhat pitiful pile of change.

  “Here. Let me buy you a beer.” She smiled up at him, the expression still not entirely genuine, because she was still kind of uncomfortable, but instead of an answering upturn of the lips, he scowled fiercely.

  “I don’t need no charity. You hear me?” Eyes narrowed to beady jet slits, he scraped his change off of the bar, intending, she thought, to take it and move elsewhere in the room.

  She should have let him. She was here to celebrate her own success. But... wasn’t this part of going out, of being young? Meeting new people?

  And the guilt wouldn’t let her leave it alone.

  “No!” Reaching out, she clasped her fingers around his upper arm, surprised at the chill of his skin in the room that was heated with the crush of warm, hormone-riddled bodies.

  He looked down slowly, looked at her spread fingers, icy pale against the russet of his skin, and looked at her curiously.

  She realized that he thought she was hitting on him.

  “No!” Well, crap, that hadn’t come out right, either. She blamed it on the alcohol—she’d only had one glass of wine, but she wasn’t much of a drinker.

  “I just meant—I feel like I’m being rude. I just want to buy you a drink. That’s all.” Inhaling deeply enough to make her lungs sting, she added a bald faced lie, because she felt sorry for the guy who didn’t even have enough money to buy a beer on a Saturday night. “Plus I got paid today. Money’s meant to be spent, right?”

  And she had indeed gotten paid. It was why she was here, celebrating her first six figure sale.

  The stranger slowly moved his stare back up from where her hand had touched, and, after a long moment in which he seemed to be considering things, nodded once, slowly.

  Alexa grinned with relief, though why she was relieved that he was letting her buy him a beer when she suddenly wanted desperately to go home, she wasn’t quite sure. She placed their order—another glass of sweet white wine for her, and a bottled, cheap brand of beer available by the truckload for him.

  She thought it was kind of nice that he hadn’t ordered something super expensive on her dime.

  “So.” Alexa felt incredibly unsure of what to do. She’d only bought him the drink because he’d stirred some sort of pathetic pity in her heart.

  Before she could open her mouth, he pulled up the sleeve of his dingy t-shirt, revealing an arm with skin stretched painfully tight over ropy muscles, tightly enough that she could make out the network of veins—fat, blood swollen tubes. The chestnut membrane was decorated with more of those eerie strands of barbed wire, those long, somehow elegant swooping lines, etched painfully deep with obsidian ink.

  She grimaced before she could stop herself. The markings looked crude and primitive, somehow not as clean as they could have been. She’d seen other people with tattoos before—had even wistfully imagined getting one herself, something beautiful and prismatic.

  These looked—cheap. Rough. Kind of scary.

  Alexa bit her lip, sure that he was about to get mad again.

  Instead, he smiled, a long slow upturning of his lips. Like he’d enjoyed her r
eaction—appreciated her fear.

  Without another word, he dropped his sleeve. Lifting his beer, he drained the entire bottle in a series of chugs, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a grotesque dance.

  There was a film of frothy foam on his lip when he was done.

  That foam endeared her to him again. Okay, he might have been a little lacking in the social skills department, but was he really that bad a guy? He clearly just wanted some company.

  Would it kill her to have another drink and a conversation with him?

  He thanked her when she ordered him another beer, coming across as a little surprised and even kind of grateful, which—she couldn’t lie—boosted her own feeling of self worth a bit. She wasn’t alone in that feeling, she knew—everybody did it. A little act of what people considered charity, and they’d live off the resultant buzz for a month.

  “I’m Eugene.” Abruptly, the stranger stuck his hand, the one with the webbing, in front of Alexa’s face.

  Though she didn’t really want to touch that dark meshwork, she made sure that she clasped his hand firmly in her own. It was dry and cool, almost dusty feeling. She didn’t want to look to check, but she felt the imprint of several raised lines pressing tight against her own smooth palm, and was sure that he had some bad scars marring his flesh.

  “Alexa.” Easing her hand out of his own, she took another sip of her wine, the golden liquid coating her suddenly scratchy throat rather than rinsing away grit and refreshing.

  There was something... well, at the risk of sounding completely weird, something darkly sexual in his touch. Something that slithered out of his very pores, sinuous and supple enough to twine around her tightly, leaving her gasping for air.

  Though she couldn’t say that she responded to it, she could certainly feel it. She wasn’t sure that she found it offensive, either—it was just... different. Stronger than anything she’d ever felt any other member of the opposite sex emote in her direction.

  “Alexa.” He rolled the three syllables around on his tongue, appearing to savour them like she’d wanted to savour the wine that now tasted a bit sour in her mouth. “Alexa. Pretty name. Pretty girl.”