by Sybil Bartel
His hand left my back and his fingers curled around my upper arm as he helped me stand. “We’ll talk about you lying to me later.”
I didn’t have time to protest. He was already issuing another command.
“You’re leaving your car here.” He let go of my arm only to move his palm to the small of my back again, to one of the few places where I wasn’t bruised.
My head a mess, I didn’t protest as he guided me out of the club and past the two bartenders, the other cashier, and Hank, the manager, who all silently watched us leave.
Without a word, Ben led me to his Jeep and held my hand as I stepped on the running board and got in the passenger seat. He crossed the front of the vehicle and got behind the wheel like this wasn’t the tensest, most awkward silence we’d ever had.
He started the engine. “Have you eaten dinner?”
“I’m not hungry.” I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t think I could force down food if you held a gun to my head.
“Not what I asked, Elyssia.”
The slight edge to his voice wasn’t one I’d heard before. “I ate earlier today.”
“But not dinner?”
I didn’t know why he was pushing the issue. “No.”
“We’ll pick up some food before we go home. Can you still eat at Bobby’s?”
Ben knew I had food allergies. He was always considerate, and not just of me, it was who he was. I tried to stop myself from reading into the fact that he’d remembered. He’d known me for eight years. He knew I didn’t eat out often. That was all this was. “You don’t need to get me anything.”
“We both need to eat. Bobby’s?”
I sighed.
“Elyssia?”
“Fine.” I loved the way he said my name. I’d loved it since he’d first said it. But sitting in his Jeep, driving to get takeout from an expensive steak restaurant as he called in an order after kidnapping me from work, it wasn’t surreal, it was incomprehensible.
I kept my mouth shut, and Ben seemed inclined to do the same, until he pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant.
He put the Jeep in park and looked at me. “I want to ask you one question.”
I should’ve known this was never about him simply taking me home. I looked down at my hands in my lap. “What?”
“Does Marcus know what happened?”
I turned toward the window.
Ben grasped my chin and brought my face back to his. “Does he?” he demanded.
I bit my lip. “Don’t do this.”
The hard creases in his forehead disappeared and his voice softened. “He’s your brother. He should know.”
“Please, don’t say anything to him,” I begged. “He doesn’t need to deal with this right now.”
Ben dropped his hand, leaned back in his seat, and stared out the windshield. His huge hands rested on his thighs for a second, then they fisted. “I’m not making any promises, but for now, I won’t say anything.” He turned to look at me. “To anyone.”
I breathed out. “Thank—”
“On one condition.”
I swallowed.
“Tell me who did this.”
It was instinctual. I pushed open the door, jumped out and ran.
My body screaming, my lungs on fire, I made it three strides. Arms closed in around my waist, my feet left the ground and my body swung so fast I couldn’t get purchase for a defensive strike, but it didn’t matter. Everything I’d ever been taught flew out of my head, and suddenly I was reliving last night. Marcus’s blind rage pouring out of his crazed mind, his fists flying, his face contorted—I pulled my arms and legs in. A keening voice filled my ears as the memory of blow after blow hitting my body replayed like it was in real time.
“No. No, no, no.” Make it stop. Please, God. No, I couldn’t do this again.
“Elyssia.”
Hot wetness dripped down my face. “Please, please.” My throat burned. No air filled my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe through the fear.
“Elyssia!”
“St-stop.” Shaking. Everything was shaking. “Pl-please.” Pain. So much pain.
My feet touched the ground, and I was turned as huge hands gripped my face. “Look at me.”
Blue eyes swam into focus.
“You’re safe.”
Blue eyes, not brown. A shudder wracked through my limbs as I barely held myself up.
“I am not going to hurt you.”
Hurt. So much hurt. “Ben.” I choked on a sob, then dissolved into tears.
Warm, strong arms wrapped around me. “Shh, I’m right here. You’re safe. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” Words of comfort poured out of Ben like rage poured out of Marcus. “Shh, you’re okay. I got you.”
I wasn’t okay. No one had me. Just like Ben, I was an island, but Marcus was my sea, and I was surrounded.
Despair hit harder than Marcus’s fists, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Short, too-little-oxygen breaths made me dizzy, and I felt myself slipping.
“You are not passing out on me,” Ben barked. “You hear me, Elyssia?”
I prayed for oblivion as blackness crept into the corners of my mind.
“Goddamn it!”
My head fell back and I reached for the darkness.
“ELYSSIA!”
Her eyes rolled, her head fell back, and her body went limp in my arms.
I fucking panicked. Then I was moving. She weighed nothing in my arms, and all I could think was please, fucking please, let her be okay.
I set her in the passenger seat of the Jeep and checked to make sure she was breathing. Small and shallow, warm air touched my skin. It didn’t seem like nearly enough was passing through her lungs, but it was fucking breath and I’d take it.
I whipped my phone out and called the only person I knew with a medical background.
Myles’s friend Talon answered on the third ring. “What’s up, Wonderboy? I heard y’all were back in town. You sick of the tour bus yet?” Talon laughed.
“I’ve got an emergency. My friend just passed out.”
“Did you tell him alcohol’s the devil?” Talon drawled lazily.
My nostrils flared. “Her, not him, and she’s not drunk. She’s injured. I need to know if I should call an ambulance or drive her to the ER myself.”
Talon’s voice sobered. “What happened? She breathin’? Bleedin’? What?”
Shit, I didn’t even check for blood. I glanced at her shirt, her legs. “She’s breathing, but shallowly, and there’s no blood. She’s….” Fuck. Fuck. “She was beaten. Yesterday, last night, I don’t know.” Goddamn it, I didn’t even know when exactly it’d happened.
“Okay, tell me what she was doin’ when she passed out.”
Guilt hit me in the chest, and I rubbed a hand over my face. “She was running away from me.”
“Jesus fuck, dude.” Talon exhaled. “All right, all right, I’m in my car and I’m in town. Where are you?”
“In a parking lot.” I rattled off the name of the restaurant, but I couldn’t fucking stand here and let something worse happen to her. I carefully closed her door and rushed to the driver side and got behind the wheel. “I’m heading to the hospital now.”
“Shit. Listen up, Stark,” Talon warned. “You bring her into the ER beaten all to hell, there’s gonna be hard questions, most likely from a cop. Not to mention what’ll happen once you get recognized.”
“Fuck!” I slammed my hand against the wheel.
“Call your manager and wait for me in the parking lot of the hospital.”
“I’m not calling Myles.” Or that fucking leech prick manager from the label. “This stays between us.”
“Unless you were the one usin’ her as a punchin’ bag, it’s already gone past us. Anyone see you at the restaurant?”
“We didn’t go in, and I didn’t fucking touch her.” I sped through two intersections, then held on to her arm as I took a corner. “Why the hell isn’t she waking up?”
> “Don’t know yet. Could be a number of reasons. Where’s she injured?”
Where the hell wasn’t she injured? “She’s bruised all over her back. And her legs.” I wanted to murder whoever did this to her.
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Talon swore. “If she quits breathin’ altogether, then take her in. Otherwise, I’ll be there in a five.” He hung up.
I pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and regretted every fucking decision I’d made with her.
I never should’ve left for the tour without telling Elyssia how I felt. Fuck, I should’ve done more than just fucking stand by her side when she fell apart after her mother died. Taking her hand, I remembered the promise Helen had made me swear to before she’d died. I’d promised Helen I’d look out for her daughter after she was gone. I gave that woman my word. And now I was fucking failing.
I stroked Elyssia’s hand. “Come on, baby. Wake up for me.” She looked so fucking pale and small, my chest hurt. “I’m so damn sorry I left you alone the other night.” I didn’t know who the fuck Marcus was hanging with anymore. For all I knew, he brought some asshole MMA fighters home and one of them did this. The way he’d been drinking, a few more and he would’ve been useless to protect her from anyone.
I brushed her hair from her face. “Can you hear me?” I swallowed past the crushing guilt and impotent rage at seeing her like this. “You’re all I got in this damn world. Come on.” I squeezed her hand and begged. “Please fucking open your eyes.”
My cell vibrated.
I touched my lips to her forehead then glanced at my phone and answered Talon’s call. “Goddamn it, where are you?”
Her fingers twitched in my hand.
EVERYTHING HURT.
I tried to take a breath, but it was as if my lungs decided to stop working.
“She’s waking up.”
Something warm stroked across my forehead.
“Elyssia.”
I blinked my eyes open to the interior of Ben’s Jeep.
Holding a cell phone in one hand, Ben cupped my cheek with the other. “Can you hear me?”
I opened my mouth but only a whisper of sound came out. “Hard to breathe.”
A voice came through the phone’s speaker. “What’s her pulse doin’?”
Ben moved his hand and put two fingers on the inside of my wrist. “I don’t know. I need to take her into the ER.”
“No,” I tried to yell, but I only sounded slightly more audible than my last words. “No ER.” Too many questions, too much money. “No.” I pushed up slightly in the passenger seat.
“All right, all right.” The voice came through the phone again. “I’m almost there. Can she hear me?”
“Yes,” Ben answered.
“Hey darlin’, I’m gonna ask you a few questions. You with me?” The Southern-accented voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.
“Yeah,” I breathed out.
“Tell me what’s goin’ on.”
“Hard to breathe, can’t take a deep breath.”
“When did this start?” the familiar voice asked.
“In the studio.” Last night, now, today, I didn’t remember.
“I’m not followin’, darlin’.”
“She means karate class earlier tonight,” Ben answered for me.
“All right. I’m pullin’ in. Where you parked?”
“East lot, right by the ER entrance. You know my car.”
“Gotcha.” The line went dead.
Ben pocketed his phone as tight lines drew his eyebrows together. “I want to take you into the ER.”
“I can’t afford it.” Marcus had VA benefits, but I didn’t have health insurance, and an ER bill right now would send Marcus over the edge. “I’m okay.”
Ben’s chest heaved as his jaw went rigid. “You are not—”
The passenger door swung opened and six feet of blond-haired, green-eyed, muscled surfer filled the frame.
“Hey, darlin’.” Talon grinned.
I groaned. “Talon.”
“The one and only.” He winked. “We gotta stop meetin’ like this.”
Talon was the last person I wanted to see. He’d been the resident manwhore at the club where I worked, except I hadn’t seen him in a while. But worse than that, he was good friends with Myles and Neil, and I didn’t want anyone else to know about this. “What are you doing here?” I should’ve recognized his voice on the phone.
“Savin’ your boyfriend from havin’ a heart attack.” He reached across me and lowered my seat back, then picked up my wrist and looked at his watch. “You still havin’ trouble breathin’? What were you doin’ when you passed out?”
“Nothing. And he’s not my boyfriend.”
Ben narrowed his eyes at me. “She was running.”
I turned away from him and looked at Talon. “What are you, some kind of doctor?”
“Nothin’ that fancy. Wonderboy here says you took a beatin’.”
Embarrassment edging out the pain in my chest, I looked accusingly at Ben. “I’m fine.”
Ben didn’t look the least bit sorry. “Talon was a medic in the Marines. It was either call him or take you into the ER.”
I glanced at Talon. “I thought you moved out of Ocala.”
“Never lived here,” Talon vaguely answered as he gently rolled me to my side. “So don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.” He lifted the hem of my shirt.
My reflexes kicked in.
I swung back and down, aiming for his forearm, as pain shot up my back. Before I could make contact, Talon caught my elbow and immobilized me.
Humiliation swept across my cheeks as I fought for a breath. “Don’t touch me.”
“You’re gonna have to be quicker’n that, sweetheart.” Still holding my arm, Talon shoved my shirt up.
Cold air hit my back and I let out a sound that was half cry, half protest, and all defeat.
Ben cupped my face. “Let him look.”
Stupid tears welled in my eyes.
“It’s okay.” Ben’s thumb stroked my cheek.
Rough fingers probed at my back.
I arched away in pain and squeezed my eyes shut as a tear slid down my face.
“Careful,” Ben barked. “You’re hurting her.”
“Sorry, darlin’, nothin’ doin’,” Talon said absently as he tapped his fingers on my back. “When did this happen?”
I didn’t answer. I was so far in over my head, I didn’t know how much longer I could hold it together.
Talon pulled my shirt down and rolled me back as Ben released my face. Talon’s fingers tapped on my chest, then he put two fingers to my wrist again. Neither pushed me to answer Talon’s question, and when Talon placed my hand back in my lap, I crossed my arms.
“Do you feel pain here?” Talon gently pushed on the right side of my chest.
I nodded.
“I know you’re hurtin’, but is the pain worse when you try to take a deep breath?”
I nodded again.
Ben looked nervously at Talon. “What is it?”
“Could be a partial collapsed lung.”
Ben inhaled sharply. “You sure?”
Talon gave Ben a look.
Ben pulled his keys out of the ignition and threw his door open. “I’m taking her in.”
“Wait.” I reached for Ben’s arm in a panic, more fearful of what Marcus would do if he found out than an ER bill. “There’s nothing they can do for me, right?” I asked Talon.
Talon’s usual flirty-ness disappeared and a cold, calculated stare washed over his features. “Who did this?”
A hundred excuses had rolled off my tongue every other time someone had noticed a bruise or a flinch or a limp. I had the routine down pat. I knew how to evade, I knew how to distract, and I knew how to answer questions without giving any answers. I’d become such an expert at it over the past couple of months, it should’ve scared me. But right then, trapped between an angry Marine and a determined Ben, I had
nothing.
“They won’t do anything, right? If I go inside?” I’d been injured like this before, not as bad, but bad enough to have me doing research online.
“X-ray to determine diagnosis, oxygen, overnight observation.” Talon rattled off what would happen as if reading a grocery list.
“Then they’d just send me home, right?”
Talon’s hands went to his hips. “You seem to have experience with this, you tell me.” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “How many times has this happened?” It wasn’t a question, it was an accusation.
“Never.” And then I said something really stupid. “My brother competes, MMA, I hear about their injuries.”
Talon’s shoulders tensed, and his face went completely blank as his voice went eerily quiet. “He do this to you?”
I was shaking my head before I got the words out. “He’s my brother.”
“He’d be on a rampage right now if he knew,” Ben piped in.
Talon’s shrewd green eyes narrowed infinitesimally. “He has a temper?”
Ben answered before I could come up with an excuse. “He’s overprotective.”
“Please,” I begged. “I don’t need to be admitted. I can’t afford it, and I’m already feeling better.”
Talon stared at me a moment longer. Then he dropped his gaze and picked up my wrist again. “When did this happen?”
“Last night.” I dared to hope they were going to let this go.
Talon looked back up at me. “Did you black out?”
I wondered how much was too much to tell. “No,” I lied.
“Is your breathing getting worse?” Talon’s accent had all but disappeared.
I tried to think rationally, but fear was licking up my spine like a hot flame. “In class, running, that’s when it was worse. Right now, it’s okay.” I could deal with short breaths. I’d dealt with a lot worse pain.
Talon dropped my hand and looked at Ben. “She needs an X-ray, and she needs to be watched. Oxygen for twenty-four hours, bed rest for at least forty-eight.”
A vise grip tightened around my heart. “X-rays are too expensive.”
“I’ll watch her.” Ben nodded at Talon, then looked at me. “Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll cover it.” He glanced at Talon, and Talon tipped his chin.