by Paula Cox
“Killian!” she hisses, fingers outstretched. “Killian, no! Killian, please! Why her, Killian? Why her?”
My mind is making connections it has no reason to. Who says this woman is connected with Killian? But she’s not speaking here, is she? No, her words come from faraway, outside the dream, in the amusement park. She’s screaming, “Killian, no,” in real life. Why would she be screaming that? Is Killian here? Or am I imagining this, too?
I glide down through the air where I can see her face. Tears stream down her cheeks and her fists are clenched. She cries for a long time, a dream-long time, and then wipes the tears with the sleeve of her suit jacket and reaches inside her pocket. She takes out a needle, studies it for a few moments, and then slips it back into her pocket.
“You never did like druggies, did you, lover boy?” She grins. I don’t know if the words are in the dream or in real life, things are so blurred. I feel as though I am in that in-between state which comes over you after a vivid dream, when you’re paralyzed in bed, aware you’re awake but the dream still with you. When the shadow of your lamp turns into a shadowed monster. “Let’s see if you like this slut when she’s off her tits.”
The woman paces slowly up the dock, turns on her heels as expertly as a woman on a catwalk, and then sprints toward the water. She dives in and disappears beneath the surface for a few seconds. When she emerges, she isn’t gasping and splashing, like I would be, like any normal person would be. She emerges silently and begins to paddle toward the boat. Or in the direction the boat went in, because the night is dark and the boat is darker.
“It was all a matter of patience, sweet Killian!” she screams, but not from the water.
Is Killian there? Is she telling Killian what happened? Is that how I know?
Now that this woman has moved from the dock, I find that I can, too. I follow her as she paddles and paddles, never once showing any sign that the water is autumn-cold, a cold that would rattle the bones of most people. She just paddles steadily, a determined expression on her face, jaws jutting like rocks from her skin, temples pulsing, forehead creased.
“I did it for you!” she cries, voice floating from a ferris wheel faraway, into my dream. “I did it for you, you silly man!”
I follow her until she comes to the boat. She waits a few yards away, treading water, and—
“I watched you fuck her!” she growls, but still her voice does not come from the water. Yes, the dream and the park are crossing over. Killian is there—here—there. Maybe he can stop this crazy woman. “I listened to her beg and I watched you fuck her! It killed me! It killed me!”
I turn from the woman in the water to the boat, where he moans and I grunt, writhing, pounding, joining in pleasure. I want to slap the silly waitress across the face. She watched this moment? She was there?
When the sex is done and Killian and this begging, sexually awakened waitress go to sleep, the woman paddles to the boat, grips the edge, and pulls herself up, peeking over the top. She sees that we are both sleeping—
“Like angels, sleeping together like angels! You never wrapped your arm around me like that, did you? You never hugged in close to me like that, did you? No, it was all cold. You were a tough man, no time for me. Always so selfish, weren’t you? Well, let’s see how you do with your little baby, shall we? Let’s see how you do without this little holier-than-thou princess bitch—“
And she pulls herself up. Water pitter-patters on the deck, but neither Killian nor the naïve, in-love woman have a clue. The braided woman creeps across the deck and kneels down next to the waitress—
“I should have killed her then! I should have stabbed her in the heart! I should have ended the bitch’s life! You were mine! Nobody else’s! Mine!”
She takes the needle from her jacket pocket, lifts my arm, aims, and sticks the needle in. Suddenly, the floating orb I’ve become drops like deadweight, landing inside the waitress’s head—my head, and I’m in my body. I can feel the needle slide into my skin. I try to bat her away, but it’s too late. The heroin is in my system. My head turns to the side just in time to see the woman drop back into the water and begin her long swim back toward the dock.
“Do you think I’m a fool, Killian, my sweet lover boy? Do you really think I’d tell you any of this if there was any chance you could save her? No, Killian, she’s dying tonight. She’s stone-dead tonight. You better get used to the idea that your little angel, your sweet little baby, is dying tonight! Yes, she is! She is and you can’t stop me!”
With a gasp, I wake up, my throat burning, on fire.
Killian stands less than a yard from the wheel, pleading with the crazy woman. I wonder how long they’ve been talking. Long enough for this crazy bitch to reveal the truth about her sick little plan, I think. In the excitement, she’s let go of my throat. But the needle is aimed straight at my arm, mere inches from the skin. I know if it pierces, if she presses down on the needle, I’m dead. No doubt about it. The syringe is so full it looks like it could burst at any moment.
Killian holds his hands out. “Lindsey,” he says, struggling to keep his voice steady. “You need to put the needle down. Right now. You need to—”
“No one can have you but me!” she screams. “That’s why I did it! Would she swim through ice-fucking-cold water for you, Killian? No! Would she inject someone for you, Killian? No! Only I would do that! Don’t you see? Only I would do anything for you.”
“Then why kill me?” I groan.
The woman—Lindsey—snaps her gaze to me. “Don’t speak,” she hisses. “Don’t you speak.”
“We were done,” I sigh, my throat aching with each word. “Why not just let it end like that?”
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see Killian creeping slowly forward, his hands by his sides, ready to act. Inch by inch, he creeps forward. He nods tersely to me. I know the message: Keep that psychopath distracted.
“Because you’re a sweet little angel bitch and I didn’t think a sweet little angel bitch should be allowed to live.” With one hand she holds my arm, with the other she holds the needle. All it will take is a quick wrench of the arm and a quick jab, and I’ll sleep and never wake up. Her fingernails dig into my skin, leaving bloody marks, but I barely feel it. Lindsey grins madly at me. She reminds me of a stone statue of a jackal, torchlight reflecting in the eyes. A picture of craziness.
“I’m a smart girl, Ms. Angel. I’m smarter than you’ll ever be. If you die with Killian right there, no matter about the drugs, he’ll mourn you. I wanted him to hate you. Junkie bitch overdosed, ha! That’d be—”
Killian lurches across me and grabs Lindsey’s wrist in his hand. Lindsey yelps and drops the needle, where it clatters to the floor. As soon as the needle is out of her hand, I tear my arm away from her. Her fingernails scratch down my skin, leaving long gouges, but I just keep pulling, desperate to be away from her. When my arm is free, Killian lifts me under the armpit, hooking his arm around me—all the while still wrestling with Lindsey. One-armed, he swings me about and lowers me to the ground.
My first instinct is to charge through the park and get out of here. To pump my legs until all of this is behind me. But Killian, I think, and turn to face them.
Killian leaps from the ferris wheel. Lindsey throws herself at him. Killian pushes her into the seat.
“Stay down!” he barks.
She ignores him, feral, all but frothing at the mouth. “It was meant to be us! It was meant to be us! It was meant to be us! It was meant to be us!”
She throws herself at Killian; he slams her back into the seat.
“Stop it!” Killian demands. “Just stop it!”
She throws herself again. This time, instead of pushing her, Killian pushes the cart. His muscles strain, rippling under his leather. The insignia of the Satan’s Martyrs, the knife-impaled man, contracts as Killian’s back muscles tense. He grunts as he pushes. Then the entire wheel creaks loudly, an ear-piercing banshee’s cry. It swings up, the cart in which Li
ndsey sits moving up, up through the air, until she is stranded ten feet above the ground, looking down on us.
Lindsey looks around her, down at the ground, and then starts screaming.
It’s difficult to believe that the woman screaming up there is the same woman who swam through icy water without once flinching, who plotted to murder me, and who revealed the entire plan with a super-villain style monologue. She grips the rails and peers over, looking at the ground, and then lets out screams which vibrate up and down the metal frame.
“Shit,” Killian mutters.
We stand side by side, our arms touching. Despite everything, the feel of his arm brushing mine is like a blanket, a warm blanket after a long hard day. Without even thinking about it, I move in close to him. Then I reach down and brush the back of his hand with mine. He turns his hand, brushes my fingers.
“Shit,” I agree. I rub at my throat, trying to massage some of the burn out. “Who the hell is she, Killian?”
“One of my exes,” Killian says. “A crazy one.”
“Yeah, a crazy one.”
“We need to get her down.”
“You’ll have to call the police, or the fire department,” I say. “How else—”
“Police?” Killian sighs. “Goddamn, police? I hate the police.”
“Listen to her,” I say. Her screams go on without pause, shrieks which could rouse the entire town if we were back in the Cove. “She’s terrified.”
“She just tried to murder you,” Killian points out.
“I know, but still . . .” He turns to me, his face as handsome as ever, as strong as ever, his eyes still bright, bright blue. “We can’t just leave her up there, can we?”
“Pity she’s not a man,” Killian mutters. “I could end this damn quick if she was a man.”
“Sometimes, I think you’re a monster.”
Killian shrugs. “Sometimes, I am.”
Lindsey’s scream cuts short, and she shouts downs: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Please help me! I don’t like heights! When I was in the hospital they put me in a room on the top floor and ever since then it’s—Ah, it’s too high! Please! Please!”
“If we call the police,” I call up to her, “they’ll arrest you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Just get me down! I don’t care if they arrest me! I don’t care about anything!”
Killian takes out his cellphone and dials the sheriff, a man named Bob McCrery.
“I’ve got a situation, Bob,” Killian says into the cellphone, pacing up and down near the ferris wheel. “It’s bad. Yeah . . .”
He goes on to tell Bob about Lindsey.
Lindsey stares down at me with eyes full of hatred, eyes which make me think about kicking the ferris wheel so hard it tips over.
“You have to understand,” Lindsey cries, “that Killian and I had a connection. We really did! How would you feel if you saw him with someone else?”
“Bad, sure,” I reply. “But I wouldn’t fill a needle with heroin and frame somebody as an addict. Neither would I try and kill them. You need to get a fucking grip!”
She starts to say something, but stops when I raise my hand and give her the middle finger.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Killian
When the fire department takes Lindsey down, she begins to sob like a baby, but Hope and I don’t stick around for that. Sheriff Bob wants a statement from us. He wanted to drive us to the station in one of his cars, which I thought was damn funny. I told him no, I’d drive us. And of course he agreed. What else is a man who takes a friendly cut from the Satan’s Martyrs supposed to do?
Hope stops next to my bike, looking down at it. “So everything is just normal now, then?” Her voice is bitter, but strong. “I know you saved me from that crazy bitch, and I’m thankful and all. But does that make up for the fact that you never, not once, returned a single damn text? Answered a single damn phone call?”
She stares across the bike at me. Across the other side of the amusement park, the fire truck beeps and buzzes as the ladder is retracted, Lindsey sobs into the night, and somebody coughs loudly.
I look into Hope’s eyes and try to find words which will make up for all of this. But there aren’t any words to fix this, I realize. No simple words, anyway. No words which will magically make her feel better.
“I thought you were a druggie,” I mutter, knowing it sounds ridiculous now.
“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain,” Hope states, lawyer-like, her voice calm and confident. “You shipped me off with Patrick and not once, Killian, did you give me a second to explain myself. Oh, fine, I couldn’t explain myself. But you didn’t even let me try. You just jumped to the worst conclusion possible. ‘Oh, her sister was an addict so she must be too. Oh, the Jackson clan have all been addicts at one time or another so she must be too.’ Do you know how much pride I lost calling you all those times? Do you know how embarrassed you made me?”
Her words thump into me, each one, thump into my chest and directly into my heart. “Hope,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry. I am. But was I supposed to guess that Lindsey jumped into the water, swam to the boat, climbed aboard and stuck a needle in your arm? Who would guess that?”
“I’m not saying that!” she snaps, her voice wavering. “I’m saying you should have given me the benefit of the doubt. But you didn’t want to hear it. Oh, no, Killian O’Connor has his code, and he’ll stick by it, even if it means dumping his girlfriend at a moment’s notice.”
It’s at this point in other relationships where I’d simply walk away. Women have tried to argue with me many times, tried to pull me into their bullshit, and I just leave them, get onto my bike, and ride into the night. I laugh about it later. Did they think I was really going to get into it? But I can’t do that with Hope, because I care. And I want her forgiveness. I need it. But I’ve never been trained in this stuff. Killing, fighting, outlawing. All that comes to me easy. But navigating an argument with a woman? I have no damn clue.
“Hope,” I whisper. “I—” Words desert me. “I—”
“You, what?” Hope demands, folding her arms underneath her breasts, pushing them up. I can’t help but look, but then I look up into her face, at the hurt in it, and I feel guilty.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “I don’t know what else to say. I’m not just saying that. I really don’t. I never should’ve doubted you. I should’ve believed you, or at least given you the chance . . .” My shoulders deflate. Back at the wheel, when our hands touched, I thought we’d just reconnect in a heartbeat. I was wrong.
“I know you’re sorry, Killian, I do.” She twists her neck from side to side. “It’s just—these past few weeks haven’t been the best, you know? I sat down to paint more times than I could count, and nothing would come out, nothing at all. I just sat there and all I could think about was that night and—” She shakes her head, laughing softly. Then the soft laughter turns into a giggle, and the giggle into a guffaw. When she’s done, she wipes a tear from her eye. “At least I know now,” she says. “At least I know that I didn’t take those drugs. I was going really mad, you know. I started to wonder if maybe I had taken them without realizing it, like you and Patrick and even Dawn seemed to think.”
Though she laughed, I can tell she’s still angry. It’s like a war is being fought on her face: anger and relief fighting for control.
“We better get going,” she says. “The sooner we give this statement, the sooner that crazy lady goes away, the sooner I’m safer.”
“Let’s get going, then.” I climb onto the bike, reach under, and hand her the helmet.
She takes it with an unsteady hand.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’m getting on the back of your bike again,” she says. “After all this time, I’m just getting on the back of your bike again.”
She’s talking in the same tone she might use to describe sticking her hand into a furnace, as if sitting on the back of my bike is something to
fear. I swallow a tennis ball which shifts down my throat in lurches. Will it ever be the same? I wonder. Will she ever forgive me?
“We can drive your car, if you want,” I say. “I’ll send someone by for the bike later.”
She looks into the darkness, biting her lip. Then she shrugs her shoulders. “Whatever, let’s just go.”
She sticks the helmet on her head and sits on the back of the bike, her arms wrapping around me. Not as firmly as they once did, but wrapping around me nonetheless.
My statement is quick and easy. Bob’s an easily swayed guy. Any man would be with the Satan’s Martyrs in his town, I guess. Now I sit in the waiting area which overlooks the office of the police station. A few men and women sit at desks, typing on keyboards and talking quietly into phones. All of this lit under white fluorescent lights which are blinding when walking in from the night. This is Rocky Cove, and crime isn’t exactly booming here. And even when it does, a few greased palms go a long way.