by Zara Cox
“You’re straining yourself, Bethany. That’s enough.” I place the mask firmly on her face. The sedative takes hold and she drifts off minutes later.
Her parents and I sit with her until sunlight slowly creeps across the room. At some point, I see a couple of uniformed officers loitering outside the door. I ignore them until they go away.
Just after nine a.m., a distraught Keely bursts in with Mason on her heels. She promises all manner of fire and brimstone in retribution. Mason’s gaze catches mine and we exchange a grim smile. When Bethany drifts off again, I stand and head for the door. Mason follows me into the hallway.
“Philip brought me up to speed,” he says once he makes sure we’re alone. “Want some company?”
I shake my head. “I need to do this alone.”
He nods in understanding. “Take as much time as you need. I’ll hold the fort.”
“Thanks.”
He clasps me on the shoulder, then returns to the room. I watch through the blinds. Everyone who loves Bethany is in that room. But none of them love her as much as I do. And I placed her directly in harm’s way.
My hands shake as I fish out my phone.
Philip answers on the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“Round the corner from the hospital. Take the west entrance and I’ll be there.”
“I’m on my way.”
I hit the street ninety seconds later and slide into the passenger seat. We don’t talk as he accelerates from the curb.
Ten minutes later, he parks in front of Bethany’s parents house. We head through the house and straight out the back. He keys in the code that lets us into Wanda and Leslie Davidson’s house. We enter through the kitchen and up the stairs to the room at the back of the house.
Philips opens the door and stands back to let me in.
Dillon Davidson is strapped to a chair in the middle of his bedroom, his mouth taped shut.
Every single particle of composure I’ve managed to hang on to flees my body at the sight of the man who made my Bethany stop breathing.
The first punch to his solar plexus knocks the air out of his lungs and sends him crashing to the floor. I plant my feet on either side of him and watch his eyes bulge as he stares up at me.
“Having a little trouble breathing, asshole?” I snarl.
Color washes in and out of his face as he fights to breathe. I wait until he starts to catch his breath. Then I punch him again.
“You know what you did by attempting to take what’s mine?”
Naked fear mushrooms in his eyes, and he looks as if he’s about to pass out.
“You brought hell to your doorstep. And guess what? I’ve decided to stay for a while.”
TWELVE
All The Broken Pieces
Bethany
“Zach.”
The moment I say his name, his head jerks up from where it’s pressed into my hip. His day-long vigil by my bedside has been unwavering.
Grey eyes pierce mine, a thousand powerful emotions fused into that single look.
“Bethany,” he breathes.
I tighten my grip around the hand meshed with mine. I attempt to swallow despite my throat feeling worse than it did last night when I was brought in. Zach sees my pain and his eyes darken.
“Lock. Door,” I manage.
He frowns. “There’s no lock on the door. And I really don’t want you to speak, baby. It’ll just aggravate your throat.”
Irritation and frustration bite hard. “Lock. Door.” I love my family and friends and their concern for me has been beyond touching. But I want to be alone with Zach.
He drags his gaze from mine to the door, and his jaw clenches. “Fine.”
He reluctantly lets go of my hand and grabs a spare chair. He wedges it beneath the handle, then comes back to the bedside. I look up into his eyes.
Zach is doing a great job of being strong, but I see the ravaging anguish in his eyes every time he look at me. The harrowing pain intensifies when his gaze drops to my throat.
I shift to make room on the narrow bed and pat the empty space.
His face clenches hard. “Peaches...”
I pat harder.
He nods and shrugs off his leather jacket. If I was even remotely in the zone, I would’ve laughed at the delicateness of his move to get into bed with me. Eventually, he folds his large frame beside me, and I move into the circle of his arms.
This close there’s minimum exertion on my throat, when I whisper, “I love you, Zach.”
A full body shudder fires through him. “God, Bethany.”
I look up and his eyes are squeezed shut.
“I love you. This wasn’t your fault.”
“Bullshit.” The word is visceral. Definitive. Condemning. “He was right next door. I perform double background checks on complete strangers who board my planes so I can ensure they don’t come to any harm. What the fuck fiancé does it make me when I don’t check on the guy who already attacked you once?”
My heart shakes at the finality of the indictment. I know he’s going to blame himself for this for a long time, possibly forever.
“No,” I attempt anyway. “Please, Zach. Don’t put this on yourself.”
“Stop fucking talking, Bethany,” he pleads in a ragged voice.
I sigh and move closer. His eyes are still shut, his nostrils pinched white as shudders continue to rack him. I cup his jaw and force him to face me.
His eyes are bleak pools of self-loathing, his lashes damp from emotions he can barely contain.
“I love you.”
His jaw quivers beneath my palm. “I don’t deserve your love.”
I clutch him harder. “I love you. Kiss me,” I mouth.
His gaze drops to my throat and he starts to shake his head. I don’t let him deny me. I shift closer until I’m a whisper away.
A moan shakes from his soul and he breaches the gap, his mouth infinitely gentle on mine as he sears my lips with his torment. My hand clutches his nape and I open my mouth to take it, to alleviate a guilt that shouldn’t be his.
Unrestrained emotions buffet us both. I fight to reach him and he fights to protect me. Dampness wets my cheeks and I realize we’re both crying. Our tears mingle, slip between our lips. We taste the evidence of our altered reality, and Zach gives a hoarse, agonized groan. The sound threatens to break something inside me. I hold him tighter.
“Stay with me, Zach. Don’t leave me. Please.”
He slowly pulls away, his face stamped with harrowing regret. “I’m sorry, baby.”
My heart freezes. I swipe at the tears on his cheek. “Don’t be sorry. Just be with me.”
He kisses my palm and exhales raggedly. “I’m sorry.”
The knock on the door startles me, but Zach doesn’t even twitch.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
The knock comes again, and the door handle is turns downward.
Zach touches his forehead to mine as the pounding begins. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“Miss Green? Are you awake? The police are here. They need to speak to Mr. Savage. Is he with you?”
My eyes meet Zach’s and I read the grim inevitability. “What’s going on? What did you do?”
“What I had to do, baby. I had no other choice.”
He grips my hand, and brings it to his lips in reverent anointment. That’s when I see the black bruises and cracked skin on his knuckles. “Oh, God.”
His gorgeous eyes turn black. The only light that burns is the light of pure, unadulterated love for me.
The pounding on the door intensifies. I want to scream for them to go away. But I’m frozen in place. Zach’s gaze never leaves mine as he rises slowly and backs toward the door.
He kicks the chair away and rushes back to me. Once again his places his forehead against mine. “I love you, Bethany. More than life itself. Never forget that.”
“Zach.”
“Mr. Sav
age, step away from the bed.”
He doesn’t. His eyes and hands remain clamped to me. “Never forget, Peaches.”
Men in uniform surround the bed. One thick hand lands on his arm, pulls him away. “Zachary Savage, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent...”
“Zach!”
“Never forget.”
In less than an instant he’s gone.
I thought my life was over as I drowned last night.
I was wrong. Today is the day my life ended.
***
The love of my life is convicted of assault two short weeks later. April thirtieth, my wedding day, comes and goes without a single ripple of recognition. My parents and Keely take care of the cancellations.
I’m too numb to dwell on might have beens.
My throat is healed, but I’ve taken to wearing scarves. Not because I’m ashamed of the glances it draws when I attend court during Zach’s trial. It’s because each time I see my own throat, I’m reminded of the harrowing look in Zach’s eyes.
The trial was swift, the newly elected District Attorney eager to land his first high profile case. He’d been almost disappointed with Zach’s confession to assaulting Dillon Davidson.
But Zach chose not to hide behind the bullshit pleas his team of lawyers recommended. He sat next to me in our apartment once he was granted bail, his eyes fixed squarely on mine as they sweated for their fat retainers by trying to keep their client out of jail. Pride wouldn’t let Zach allow an insanity plea.
Sure, he may have been technically out of his mind when Dillon lobbed a grenade at the foundation of our existence, but he was clear-minded when he delivered vengeance.
The sentencing judge commented as much, with an almost regretful tone: You took justice into your own hands. I cannot allow that to go unanswered.
So now my fiancée is in Rikers, serving a six-month sentence. His lawyers had succeeded in pleading down from nine months.
The day he was sent down, I walked into our penthouse and locked the doors behind me. I haven’t cried. I have to remind myself to breathe in and out.
The only think I live for is my first visitation order when I get to see Zach. His lawyers have no idea when that will come through.
I wear Zach’s T-shirts. I sleep on his side of the bed. I clutch his pillow and live in abject terror that his scent will fade...
THIRTEEN
A Place Called Intervention
Keely
“We have to do something!”
“Easy, kitten—”
“Don’t easy me, Mason. She’s barely eaten a thing in the last four days. She’s wasting away in that bed, and I’m damned if I’m going to lose my friend.”
“You’re here for her, baby. She knows you are.”
“Here isn’t doing a damn thing if it isn’t registering. Have you seen that vacant look in her eyes? She might as well be one of the extras on The Walking Dead.”
“I can hear you, you know,” Bethany murmurs.
I wrench myself from the doorway, where Mason and I have been arguing for the last few minutes, and rush to her side. I jump onto the bed and peer down at her. The woman huddled beneath the covers is as alien to me as a newly discovered fossil, and I’m slammed with complete helplessness. “Can you, B? You wanna help me out here, then?”
Her eyes drift shut. “I’m fine. I’m just taking a nap.”
“Really? Naps generally tend to last an hour, maybe two. Not five fucking days.” My voice is gentle, firm, and coated in fear for my best friend.
“I want you to get out of my bedroom, please. Respect my privacy and leave me alone.”
“Fuck that.”
“Watch that mouth, kitten.”
I glare over my shoulder at my boyfriend. “Seriously?”
“You’re upset, I get it. But our rules haven’t changed,” he warns.
We agreed very early in our relationship that I’d reserve my swearing for the bedroom. Apparently my trace-his-ancestors-back-to-the-confederacy boyfriend has a stick up his ass about me being a lady. I love him, so I let him have that. Even when, right at this moment, I want to swear longer and harder than a one-legged Irish sailor.
“Fine. Frack that.” I turn back to Bethany. “I’m not leaving. Not until you do at least one thing that doesn’t involve you wasting away in this bed.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why should I do anything?”
I’m genuinely stymied by the question. I look to Mason for help, but he stares back at me in silence.
“Because you’ll want to be alive when Zach comes home?” I venture.
It seems the effort it takes to hold my gaze wears her out. My heart sinks as her eyes drift shut.
“I won’t make it,” she whispers.
“Sorry? What did you say?”
“I won’t make it,” she repeats, her voice a shadow that drifts, wraithlike into the ether.
I stare down at her, more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life. I watch her chest. It’s barely moving, her breaths shallow and insubstantial.
“She’s sleeping now, kitten. Let her be.”
“No...I have to...I can’t leave her like this.”
“Keely.”
I turn my bewildered gaze to Mason. He’s holding out his hand. “Come. Now.”
My steps are marred in terror. The enormity of what could happen slams into me, and I collapse into Mason’s arms. “Mason, I’m scared.”
“I’m worried too, baby, but her mom’s here. If you want to help her, you need to eat. And I need to make a phone call.”
Bethany
The day the dam breaks, I’m in the shower, driven there by the terrifying realization that my ripeness is beginning to overcome Zach’s scent. In a desperate attempt to keep that from happening, I staggered out of bed in the middle of the night and sprayed all his clothes with his aftershave. Now, I’m removing my own scent from the equation in the hope that his essence will return to me.
But as I stand beneath the spray, the loyal numbness that has been my constant companion abruptly deserts me. Strobes of memory flood in, every single one of Zach and me, every single one a variation of his reaction to my happiness.
I buckle beneath the sudden influx. My knees give way and sobs explode out of me like tiny bombs. I prostrate myself beneath the unrelenting shower spray and weep until my meagre reserves are exhausted.
Then I weep some more.
I have no idea how long I lie on the hard marble floor and I care even less. With the last remaining fibres of my being, I wish I could follow the rancid water down the drain. I can’t, so I tuck my hand between my legs and let the memories have free reign.
“Christ, Bethany, what are you doing?” The shower door flies open and Keely falls to her knees beside me.
Her hands feel cold against my cheek as she brushes back my hair. “Can you hear me?” she cries.
“Zach...”
“I know, sweetie. But I promise you, I’ll get you through this.”
I shake my head.
“Yes,” she insists, reaching up to shut off the shower. She grabs a towel off the heated rail and wraps it around me. “There’s a guy downstairs waiting to talk to you. Trust me, B, you want to hear what he has to tell you.”
I’m too weak to fight the ploy to get me out of the bathroom, so I go with it. I tug on my underwear, then sit in catatonic silence as she blow-dries my hair. When she heads for my side of the dressing room, I struggle to find my voice.
“No. Zach’s T-shirt.”
She looks at me, nods and changes direction. The indigo-colored tee falls to my knees and is respectable enough, so I’m surprised when she returns to my side of the room and retrieves sweat pants.
I obediently step into them. She smiles and slides her arm around my waist.
“Now, let’s go see a guy about a break in.”
I’m still processing her poor taste in jokes when we get downstairs.
Mason is talking to an older guy who’s cradling a glass of Zach’s bourbon.
They look up as we enter the living room. Mason smiles and touches my cheek, then turns to the guy, who nods at me.
“Lovely to make your acquaintance, Miss Green. My name is Paddy.”
The thought of making pleasantries punches nausea through my gut. I grit my teeth and force the words out. “Can I help you with something?”
“I’m hoping I can help you.” He shrugs. “You and your fiancé are friends with Noah and Leia King?”
I jerk a nod, wondering where this is going. “Mason, here, contacted Mr. King...one thing led to the other...long story short, I’m here to facilitate a smooth transition through this difficult time any way I can.”
I frown, his words barely making sense. “Facilitate. What does that mean? And what is your job, exactly?”
His casual shrug and pensive gaze remind me of an old TV detective series I watched as a kid. Come to think of it, there’s something Colombo-like about the man with his sad eyes and the worn out jacket.
“Let’s not bother with job titles, my dear. As to what I do, it’s...fluid.”
I pass my hand over cried-out eyes, and try to think past the boulder of pain crushing my heart. I’m afraid to voice the fears multiplying inside me, afraid to give them life.
“Anything you need. Just ask,” Paddy presses. “I’ll help if I can.”
I want to scream for the torture to stop. Well meaning or not, I want to be left alone to manage my loss in peace.
“Ask him, B,” Keely prods gently.
I look at her. She nods. I link my fingers in my lap and bite the bullet. “I want to see him. If you want to help me, get me in Rikers today. I want to see Zach.”
There, I’ve asked the impossible.
I wait for him to tell me that my request is absurd. That learning to adopt the fetal position and riding out the next six months is the only way to get through the Hiroshima-sized wasteland my life has become. I await his response so I have the excuse to show him the door.
He doesn’t speak.
I raise my head and meet the steady gaze trained on me. “You won’t be able to see him today.”
The way he says it screams ‘but’, which I immediately hang all my hopes on. I scramble from the sofa before I’m even aware that my feet work after all. My whole body shakes as I ball my fists and scrutinize every cracked line on his weathered face, trying to see if this man is fucking with me. As I work my tongue round the word I want to scream, I imagine the various ways to commit homicide if it turns out he’s pissing on the open sores of my putrefying heart. The word gurgles from my throat, lubricated in hope. “W-when?” I spit it out.