In Ruins

by Danielle Pearl

  “Tuck,” she breathes my name with such reverence you’d think I’m some kind of divine being, and her word, a prayer.

  “I’m here, Princess,” I assure her, and as soon as she’s free, she flings her arms around my neck. I grab her waist and haul her into a crushing hug so fierce I fear I may do her harm. But she clings to me with equal ferocity.

  Carl buries her face into my chest, my shirt growing damp with her tears. “You’re really here,” she mumbles into my shirt.

  “I told you I was coming for you,” I say meaningfully.

  She sobs louder.

  “Shh. We have to go. He’s still out front. We need to sneak out the back. Can you walk?”

  Carl nods. My strong, beautiful girl.

  I draw the gun, and wrap an arm around her shoulder. “Cap’s out front distracting him. We need to make our way around the side of the house, and then Cap will make an excuse to get out of there. Once the coast is clear, we haul ass to my car. Got it, Princess?”

  She swallows anxiously. “O—okay.”

  She’s obviously overwhelmed, but all she really needs to do is stay close, and I will get her home. “Come on.”

  I lead her out of the room and turn left toward the back hall. “Almost there.”

  But I speak too soon. Suddenly I hear Cap through my phone. “Are you sure you don’t want me to help you find them, man?”

  “No.”

  And then Cap’s whispering urgently, directly into the phone. “Get the fuck out of there, Tuck, he’s coming back.”

  But we can’t move fast enough.

  “Not another step!” Zayne shouts.

  In one smooth motion I shove Carl behind me and aim the gun at Zayne, but his is already pointed right at my head.

  “Get out of here,” I order Carl. “Find Cap, and go!”

  “I can’t!” she wails.

  “Go!”

  “That’s right, Carleigh. Run away, and leave loverboy here to fight your battle for you. I’ll put a bullet right in his fucking head,” Zayne sneers.

  “This was her father’s battle, asshole!” I spit. “Not hers.” I’m tempted to turn to Carl, to convince her to get out of here, but I can’t let Zayne out of my sight for even a second. “Baby, please. I love you. I’ve always loved you. If you care about me at all, then you need to listen to me for once in your goddamn life, and get. The fuck. Out of here.”

  “If she leaves, I fucking shoot you,” Zayne threatens.

  “Not if I shoot you first, motherfucker,” I growl.

  Carl lets out a whimper. “Tuck.” My name is nothing but a broken whisper resembling an apology. And I know. She’s not going anywhere. My heart sinks. “I can’t, Tuck,” she cries. “I love you, too. And I can’t leave you.”

  Fuck. One of us is going to get shot. And I can’t let it be her. “Let us go, Zayne. I have the wire instructions. Let us leave and I’ll still get you your money.”

  He laughs. “Why would you wire the money once I’ve released your entire incentive for doing so? Wire it now, here, in front of me, and I’ll let you both walk out of here alive.”

  Yeah, not falling for that. “Not a chance, Zayne. I’m not putting the gun down until my girl’s safe.”

  “I’ll let Carleigh go, then. You stay, give me the gun, and wire the money. Once it hits my account, we go our separate ways.”

  “Deal,” I readily agree. I’m aware the chances of him actually letting me go aren’t great, but I’ll worry about that once my girl is out of the line of fire. Nothing else matters until then.

  “I’m not leaving you here, Tucker!” Carl shrieks hysterically.

  My heart pounds like a snare drum at rapid-fire speed, my adrenaline spiking dangerously. In most fights, the side with greater numbers has the advantage. But in this situation more people just means more targets. I may have no choice but to shoot and hope Zayne doesn’t notice my aim and pull his trigger first. But he’s watching me so damn cautiously, just like I am him.

  And then I see Cap in my peripheral, edging through the door, careful not to make a sound. He could have waited safely outside, or even left, but I never thought for a second he’d do either.

  I keep my eyes trained painstakingly on Zayne so I don’t give away Cap’s position. But Cap is unarmed, and I need to keep Zayne distracted to give my boy a chance at helping us all walk out of here. So I continue trying to convince Carl to flee, inwardly praying that she either doesn’t notice Cap, or has the presence of mind not to draw attention to him.

  “Princess, I need you to listen to me, okay? Once I wire Zayne his money, he will let me go. He has nothing to gain by hurting me.”

  Cap charges. He pounces from behind and Zayne falls forward from the force and surprise. He manages to flip onto his back, and Cap delivers punch after punch to his face and gut, Zayne grunting with the impact. A resounding crack resonates through the hall as Cap’s fist shatters Zayne’s nose, blood spraying everywhere.

  Zayne doesn’t have a good grasp on his gun, but he gets a grip on the barrel, and slams the butt into Cap’s jaw.

  Shit.

  Carl gasps behind me, and I wish I could reassure her, but I can’t turn around. Every instinct I possess tries to thrust me forward to help my friend as I have so many times before, in fight after fight, first in schoolyards then in bars, but rationally I know my advantage lies vastly in the weapon in my hand.

  But Cap knows how to fight, and he can take a couple of blows, and though it feels all fucking wrong to stand on the goddamned sidelines while my best friend fights my battle in my stead, I have no choice but to be patient—something that doesn’t exactly come naturally for me. But my utmost priority is protecting Carl, and knowing I’m a wall between her and Zayne’s gun makes it easier to just stand here and fucking aim, readily waiting for a clean shot as Cap and Zayne wrestle for it.

  I try to keep my gun trained on Zayne, but the two of them are a single unit as they each struggle for the upper hand.

  Zayne’s elbow nails Cap in the stomach and he finally gets a firm grip on his gun, but instead of focusing on his assailant, he turns his back to him. A maniacal smirk stretches across his face, and he ignores Cap as he points the gun at me.

  No. not me. Carl.

  I hurl myself in front of Carl just as Zayne’s gun goes off.

  My arm explodes with searing, blinding pain as the bullet rips through muscle and tissue.

  Motherfuck that hurts!

  But it isn’t enough to take me down, and just as Zayne shoves Cap off his shoulders and turns to aim another shot, he gives me a clear line to his fucking chest.

  I don’t hesitate. I pull the trigger.

  My bullet hits about two inches south of my target, and for a moment Zayne just stands there in shock as wet crimson gushes from under his shirt, the spot growing and growing until, without warning, his gun falls from his hand and he collapses to the ground. Cap dives for the gun, but Zayne’s fight is over.

  I lower my weapon, and Carl is on me in seconds. “Tuck! You’re shot! Oh, God.”

  Fucking fuck!

  Agony shoots through my arm as she tries to touch it, and I shrug her off.

  “It won’t stop bleeding!” she cries.

  It fucking hurts like death, too. But I can’t think about that just yet.

  “Don’t move,” I order her. Keeping my gun at the ready, I tentatively approach Zayne.

  A river of red rushes to paint his formerly white shirt, its mirror image flowing in a puddle beneath him.

  Not good for him.

  But he is alive. His face contorts with a grimace of torment, his eyes blinking in shock at his turn of fortune. Randomly I recall overhearing him boast to his ex-boss yesterday about coming into a large inheritance. I realize now he’d meant Carl’s ransom. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way. But even in his failure, he stole something vital from my strong, innocent girl. Something she can never get back.

  My hand tightens around the gun’s grip, my
trigger finger itching with intent.

  “He’s down, man,” Cap points out the obvious. But I know what he’s really saying. That it can be over. Carl is safe and Zayne isn’t in any shape to threaten us anymore. But he’s also saying that it’s my choice. And I know the one he would make if it was Rory.

  I raise the gun.

  “Tuck!” Carl screeches.

  “Get her out of here,” I order Cap.

  He hesitates, but moves toward Carl, ready to guide her outside. She’s been through enough trauma; she doesn’t need to see this shit.

  But as Cap wraps a supportive arm around her shoulder, she wrenches defiantly from his hold. “No! I’m not going anywhere, Cap. Tuck, you’re bleeding. We need to take you to a hospital. Like now. And we need to call the police.”

  But I don’t respond. Because Zayne isn’t going to jail, he’s going to the fucking morgue.

  Carl’s fingers close around my uninjured biceps and I turn to face her. “Tuck, I know what you’re thinking. But you can’t. Okay?”

  Fuck. I shouldn’t have met her eyes. They affect me far too much—they always have. And as I gaze into my beautiful emerald sea, all I see is her concern for me. My caring, thoughtful, loyal, selfless girl. And I once thought her none of those things. I destroyed us because of it. And, I realize, as much as I despise Zayne for what he’s done, it’s me I hate most. But him—him I can punish.

  I cup Carl’s jaw, letting the pad of my thumb trace the angelic line of her cheek, grazing over the swell and blush from where he hit her. “He hurt you,” I breathe, and I mean far more than just the blow to her face.

  “You’re better than this, Tucker,” she says pleadingly.

  I shake my head. It’s so like her to think so, but she’s so very wrong. “No, Princess. You’re better than this. I’m actually not.” I brush my lips tenderly over hers. Because I’m not. At least not when it comes to Carl. There’s no line I wouldn’t cross for her. “He violated you, Princess. And there’s just no way I’m going to let a man take that from you and live to see another fucking day.”

  Her eyes go wide, and suddenly she shakes her head. “No. No, he didn’t.”

  What? Is she seriously trying to lie to me to save the life of this piece of garbage?

  “He fucking broadcasted it to my phone, remember?”

  Another adamant head shake. “He wanted you to think he did. He wanted you to know he was serious. So you’d get him the money. But—”

  I drop my hand, not wanting to have it on her as I succumb to my anger. “He sent me a fucking photo, Carl! Of you, with his…his…” My throat closes, refusing to finish the sentence.

  Carl’s eyes close, and her shame strikes me right in the chest. She swallows audibly and lifts her face, but she can’t quite meet my eyes. “He climbed on top of me, and…he used his hand…on himself.”

  It’s repugnant in its own right, but as soon as she says it, every cell in my body wants so desperately to believe it’s true.

  I grip her chin and demand her gaze. Strangely, the room spins. “You swear to me he didn’t rape you?”

  She nods.

  I know better than to doubt her honesty. I’ve already learned that lesson. The fucking hard way.

  A weight that would have burdened the remainder of my lifetime lifts from my shoulders. But what he did was still disgusting and most definitely assault. “He still hurt you, baby.”

  “Yeah, Tuck, he did,” she admits. “But I’m really okay. He could have gone through with it, you know.”

  “You’re defending him?” I growl.

  “No. I’m not. I’m just saying that if he wanted to do it, he would have done it, instead of come up with a convoluted plan to convince you he did while sparing me the trauma.”

  I swing my gaze over to Zayne’s still body, and the quick glance makes me stagger. I’m fucking dizzy.

  “I don’t know that it’s going to matter in a few minutes,” Cap murmurs. He’s staring at what was once a puddle of blood beneath Zayne, but is quickly beginning to resemble a small pond.

  But my vision dances uneasily, and, frankly, Carl’s revelation that the worst didn’t happen—it makes me feel almost elated. Or it would, if my arm wasn’t throbbing with brutal pain.

  I grit my teeth and use my good arm to reach for my girl. I pull her into my chest and roughly press my lips to her forehead. “You crazy, stubborn, beautiful fucking girl,” I rasp.

  She shakes her head, unapologetic. “I couldn’t leave you.”

  I swallow down the emotion threatening to make me look like even more of a pussy. “I know.”

  Vaguely I’m aware of Cap in the background, on the phone with the police, and suddenly it feels really fucking cold. It’s because my arm is soaking wet, I realize.

  “Cap,” Carl calls. “Cap! He’s bleeding too much.”

  Finally I look down. My arm has been tattooed with a crimson tide.

  Shit.

  I look ridiculous, and vaguely I know it isn’t good, but it’s Carl’s distress that worries me most, and I’d do anything to fix it for her. “Looks like my arm is PMS-ing.”

  She shakes her head and rolls her eyes at me.

  “Sit down, man,” Cap says, guiding me to sit on the one step that leads to the small kitchen.

  Carl stands beside me, her thighs at my eye level, and I stick my tongue out for a lick. She scolds me, but I just smirk and pull her down onto my lap. She shoves her hand in my pocket and pulls out my knife. She uses it to cut fabric from my shirt, and then ties it around my biceps, making a tourniquet.

  “Look at you—my sexy little nurse, trying to rip my clothes off,” I tease. She really is so fucking hot.

  “My hero.” She smiles, but it’s forced, and I double down on my efforts to cheer her up.

  “That’s right, baby, I’m Prince fucking Charming,” I grin down at her.

  But instead of another smile, her brows pinch together, all dramatic. “Cap, help me get this tighter.” She tugs desperately on the material around my wound, until Cap takes over, tying it so tight his grip turns white with the effort. “Why won’t it stop bleeding?” Carl asks tremulously.

  “It must have hit the brachial artery,” Cap says.

  “Really working that A you got in anatomy and physiology,” I joke. But I took that class with him junior year, and I remember enough to know that isn’t good, either. That it’s a major fucking artery. But nothing feels real right now—nothing except my girl’s ass perched on my lap, and I belt my good arm around her waist, binding her to me where she belongs.

  “I hear the sirens!” Carl announces with palpable relief, and Cap gets up to go meet them.

  When I look back at Carl, she’s staring at me with unfathomable emotion, and it strikes me in the chest.

  “You took a bullet for me,” she says softly.

  I’d take a hundred more.

  I stare meaningfully down at her. “When you love a girl more than your own life, you don’t let her go—not for anything, not even a motherfucking bullet.”

  She stops breathing, and I swipe at the tear that trickles down her cheek with my thumb.

  “I thought you let me go a long time ago,” she breathes.

  “I tried, Princess. I really fucking did,” I admit. “But it was never going to happen. I think a part of me always knew it.”

  “You hated me so much.”

  “I loved you. I hated what I thought you did. It broke my heart.”

  “What you thought I did?”

  I swallow down my nerves. There’s no time like the present, and in the back of my mind I know that the dizziness and the way my vision is starting to blur—it could mean there might not be a future. “I thought…you knew,” I choke out.

  “I did know.” Her voice is so small. Or maybe it’s the low thrum of white noise muffling the world around me.

  “No. About my dad. Thought you knew everything.”

  Her eyes go wide, stunned. “You thought I knew your dad w
as my dad’s client? And that it was why he—” She slams her mouth shut, staring at me with aggrieved indignation. And I’ve earned every bit of it. She deserved more from me, and I will always regret my lack of faith in her.

  “I’m so sorry.” Do I really sound that hoarse?

  “How do you know I didn’t?”

  “Heard your mom. And you. In the hospital—after Billy’s accident.” I sound drunk. I feel drunk.

  Carl suddenly shakes her head. “It’s…it’s okay, Tuck. Just take it easy. The EMTs are coming in.”

  “’S’not okay. I’m an asshole. Love you. So much, Princess. Always.”

  Her eyes water as she stares at me with the aftermath of the betrayal of my distrust, but also with forgiveness and boundless love. Because that is who she is. Like her father said—she is everything that is good in this world, despite who her parents are, despite who I am—the man who’s supposed to love her. Despite all those who have tried to hurt her. And even as I feel myself about to slip from consciousness, I can do so without regret, knowing she knows the truth—that she was never to blame for leaving us in ruins. That it was all me. That I do love her more than my own life, and if that means losing mine for the sake of hers, then I am absolutely fine with that.

  Epilogue

  Carleigh

  Six Months Later

  “We’re meeting them there,” I murmur to Billy, who sits between Beth Caplan and me in the backseat.

  Cap is driving, his arm stretched over the center console to hold Rory’s shaky hand. She lost someone close to her once, and cemeteries make her anxious as a result.

  The bright, sunny day seems strange considering where we’re going. For some reason I always picture graveyards under shadowy, gray skies. But we’re not headed to a funeral, and maybe the sun has decided to pay its respects by presiding over the unveiling of the new headstone—a memorial for someone who was very much loved.