As they drew level to me, one of the younger looking guys tripped over his own foot and stumbled into me, laughing and apologising profusely. I couldn’t help but laugh as I helped him back up to his feet.
“Sorry, lady.” He slurred again.
Lady? Really? How old did he think I was?
A car caught my attention as it sped up the road, coming to a screeching halt in front of us. I felt like I didn’t even have the time to blink before Milligan had jumped out of his car and was aggressively tackling the boy to the floor.
When I say that I was shocked, that was a major understatement. I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen to the spot as he pummelled the shit out of the poor kid. His friends were all shouting and trying to pull Milligan off of him, but a couple of them ended up being knocked to the floor next to him instead.
I didn’t know what actually dragged me out of that state of shock. It would have been the girl that was silently crying as she watched on, unable to find the strength to do anything. Or it could have been the splatter of blood that landed on the floor in an arc in front of me. Whatever it was, it shook me out of it and got me moving.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I yelled at him. Shouting seemed to have no effect on him as he kept on hitting the poor guy over and over again. I’d had more than enough of this. “Milligan!” I screamed and lunged forward.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I knew that I was no match for him. All I could really do was yank at his clothes and scream in his ear while I punched him in the back. It didn’t seem to do much to stop him and he swatted me away like a fly.
It must have only been a matter of seconds but to me it felt like an eternity before Milligan turned to look at me. He saw me sprawled on the floor and watched as I struggled to quickly get to my feet. He stood up himself. It scared me, the way that he brushed himself down. He wasn’t acting like he had just beaten someone to a pulp.
“What the hell did you do that for?” I screamed at him and pointed at the blood covered kid on the floor.
“He hurt you.” Milligan replied in a toneless voice.
“No he didn’t!” I shouted. “You hurt me!” Some of the kids friends were now starting to shout insults and Milligan turned to stare at them with eyes as dead as a shark.
“Get him out of here.” I hissed at the girl who was still crying. They must have seen something in Milligan’s eyes that told them that he wasn’t finished and that they should get moving.
“He hurt you, the drunken little dick.” Milligan glowered over at their retreating backs.
“Will you listen to me? He didn’t hurt me. He fell. That was all. You hurt me.”
“I know what I saw.”
“You clearly don’t because he fell. I helped him up. That was it.”
“I thought that he was hurting you.”
I shook my head at him. How infuriating. Was he even listening to me? “Well, he wasn’t. You had no right to do that to him. Or to me.”
“I thought that he was hurting you.”
“Stop saying that!” I screamed in his face. “You had no right to do that. If I wanted or needed your help, I would have asked you for it.”
“Carrie.” All he said was my name and he tried to take a step towards me, but I held up a hand to stop him.”
“No. You had no right. No right at all. I’m not yours to protect.” I knew that I was focusing on the wrong thing. He had hit me. He may not have realised that he was doing it, but it had happened. But, I didn’t get hurt. I didn’t feel any pain. That poor kid was limping away covered in blood.
“But, Carrie…”
“No.” I took another step away from him. “I don’t want to hear it. That was bang out of order. You have no right to treat anyone like that. That poor kid had done nothing wrong. He was just having a fun night out with his friends, until you came along. Now, he’s probably on his way to the hospital. Don’t you think I’ve seen enough of hospitals? I don’t need to see anymore.” I ranted at him. I was shaking all over, partly from rage but also partly from fear. I hated violence. Even though I trained in kickboxing, it was purely from a self-defence and fitness point of view. I couldn’t get my head around how easily he had dived straight in with his fists.
“Carrie, I’m sorry.”
“Too late for that, pal. And you’re apologising to the wrong person. You should be saying sorry to that poor kid that you have just beaten seven shades of black and blue.” I glared at him in disgust.
We stood silently for a moment. I couldn’t believe it. It was like someone had flicked a switch. I didn’t like that side of him. In a way, I was lucky that I had seen it now before I had gotten in too deep.
“You should get out of here. Someone is bound to have called the police.” I tried to keep my voice neutral. It wasn’t. It radiated my anger at him. I was shaking inside and out.
“Come on, then. Let’s go.” Milligan said as he walked back towards where he had haphazardly parked his car. My sharp laughter had him stopping in his tracks and turning to stare at me.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, looking puzzled.
“You don’t really think that I am getting in that car with you, do you?” I looked at him incredulously. Was he deranged or deluded? There was no way that I was going to go anywhere with him. Not after that brutal display.
“Why not? How else are you going to get home?”
“You know what? I’m a big girl. I am sure that I can look after myself.”
“I’m not leaving you out here alone.”
“Why not? I’m not your responsibility.”
“But, I thought…”
“You thought, what? Never mind. Whatever you thought that this was, it’s not. This is not happening. You and me? That’s nothing. It’s finished before it’s even started.” I got my phone out to text Harper to come and get me. I looked around to work out a street name. Milligan was still standing there, halfway to his car, just staring at me.
“You can’t deny that there is something between us, Carrie.” He stepped towards me. Whatever it was that had been missing in his eyes, or had shown in his eyes during that attack, was gone now. He was back to Milligan again. That in itself scared me.
“Yes. I am denying it. I don’t want it.” I said in a stone cold voice. I didn’t like what I saw and I didn’t have the time or energy to talk about it anymore. I had more important things to do than standing there and talking to a psycho.
It wasn’t exactly what you would call normal behaviour, was it? You didn’t beat the living crap out of someone like that for no reason whatsoever. He thought that the kid had hurt me. That still didn’t warrant that level of violence. That wasn’t something that I wanted to have in my life. I had been through enough shit over the years, I could do without it now. I was trying to live my life out of trouble, not getting into it.
Milligan stayed stock still, looking only at me. He never took his eyes off of me. It was more than a little unnerving. I had nowhere to go. I had already told Harper where I was and he was on his way to come and pick me up. I wasn’t so familiar with this area of the city and it would have been easy for me to get lost if I stormed off now.
I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t want to talk to or about Milligan. I wished that tonight had never happened. Hell, I wished that the last few days had never happened. If we hadn’t of gone to that club, then Dee wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed. And, I would never have met Milligan.
But, you couldn’t turn back time.
Not a moment too soon, Harper pulled up to the curb and jumped out of the car.
“What’s the emergency? You said to come quickly? What’s happened?” He asked, looking from me to Milligan and back again. Milligan hadn’t even turned to acknowledge his presence.
“Let’s get out of here.” I said as I made to move towards the car. Milligan flicked out his hand to grasp my wrist. He wasn’t holding it too tightly, but there was no way that I would wriggle out of it.
“Wait. Talk to me, Carrie. Tell me what I can do to make this right.”
“No. There’s nothing you can do. Get off of me, Milligan.”
He didn’t. He just stood there staring at me.
“What’s going on?” Harper stepped forward, clearly concerned but unsure what he was supposed to do.
“Let go of me, Milligan. Now.” I glared at him with all the hatred that I could muster.
When he made no sign to move, Harper stepped closer still and put a hand on Milligan’s forearm. “Let go of her. Now.” His tone was menacing, but he didn’t frighten me in the way that Milligan did. I knew that Harper would never hurt me.
Milligan swung his eyes slowly to Harper. This was where the phrase ‘If looks could kill’ would have come in to play. I thought that they were going to start fighting over me. That was the last thing that I wanted to happen. But, Milligan surprised me by abruptly letting go of my arm and I stumbled into Harper. He caught me and shoved me quickly towards the car.
As soon as we were safely inside, he started the engine and sped away.
“What the fuck was all that about?” He demanded. I knew that he was only shouting because he was concerned about me, but it was the last thing I needed right now.
“He just went crazy.” I turned to look out of the window as the night blurred by us.
“Did he hurt you?” I knew that tone in his voice. It was the one that said there would be some serious ass kicking going on if the answer was yes.
“No.” There was no point in saying anything. There was no lasting damage. Not even a bruise. Compared to what had happened to the boy, it didn’t even count.
“Are you sure?”
After what I had just seen, did he really think that I was going to go out of my way to defend Milligan? Sure, I had got caught up in the scuffle, but there was no point in harping on about it. It would only make matters worse. “Yes. I’m sure. He didn’t hurt me. He beat up some random kid that bumped into me.”
“He did what? Why?” Harper glanced over at me but the look on my face told him that it would be a better idea to keep his eyes on the road.
“I told you. This kid just bumped into me. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t hurt me in any way, shape or form. But, Milligan just went ballistic. He beat the shit out of him and he wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t get him to stop.” A shudder ran through me. I was mentally exhausted. I couldn’t even find the strength to cry.
“It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry, Carrie” He looked over at me again briefly, but this time I didn’t look away. What did he mean by that? It was all his fault?
He must have seen the question written all over my face, as he said “It was me that told him to come and see you at the hospital. If he hadn’t of known where you were, he wouldn’t have come. This wouldn’t have happened. I’m so sorry. All I wanted was to make you happy.”
“Don’t even think like that. I’m just glad that I found out what he was really like now rather than later.” And, I really meant that.
“I just wish it hadn’t happened like this, though.”
We were quiet for the rest of the trip home. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I didn’t even want to think about it. Milligan wasn’t the man that I had thought that he was. It was a lucky break, really. I could have got myself too involved with him and then written it off as a one-off. I couldn’t let this slide like that. I had already been in deep enough. Too deep for my liking. I’d been feeling things for him that I had never felt before. He had done things to me that I had never experienced before. I was glad that I could put an end to all of this now. If it had happened later and I had fallen for him in a big way, then I knew that I would have been able to talk myself out of this and seen what he had been trying to tell me, that he was only protecting me. I wouldn’t be able to see him for the psycho that he really was.
When we got home, I went straight into my bedroom. Milligan had been sitting out outside the apartment building in his car. I had no idea how he had got here so fast, but he had beaten us to it. Harper wanted to go and confront him, but I refused to let him. I didn’t want to speak to him. I didn’t want Harper getting caught up in the middle. Milligan didn’t get out of the car. He just watched my every move. It scared me.
When we got inside, Harper didn’t say anything else to me or try to stop me and make me talk. He knew me better than to do that. I needed to sleep. I needed to run and hide and forget. I couldn’t waste any more time thinking about Milligan. I had too much on my plate already. In my head, he was already out of my life and I was moving on. Not that I had much moving on to do. He hadn’t exactly been a huge part of my life. I had only known him for a mere few days. I wasn’t willing to make meeting him into a bigger deal than it was. This was something that I could forget. A dip in the road. That was all.
I didn’t sleep well.
Chapter Eight
The next morning I woke up with a banging headache. The last time I remembering looking at the clock, it flashed out in its taunting red LED that it was 4:32am. Now, my alarm was waking me up at 6am. Great. Just what I needed.
I heard Harper moving about. He was always an early riser, liking to warm up and work out before hitting the gym. I don’t know where he got all of that energy from. I wasn’t too sure that I was ready to face him just yet. I knew that he would want to talk about what happened with Milligan and all I wanted to do was forget about it.
I did the very bare essentials in the bathroom to get ready for work. We had another meeting today, hence why I was up ridiculously early, I knew that I was going to look like shit, no matter what I did, and that Steve would gripe about it when he saw me. No amount of make-up was going to hide the fact that I had lost another night’s sleep. In an attempt to make it look like I had at least made an effort, I took the time to twist my hair into a complicated up-do. That was a little better, I guessed.
At least there were no bruises from my little ‘scuffle’ last night. That would have been kind of hard to explain to Harper seeing as I said that Milligan hadn’t touched me.
“Morning.” Harper called as soon as I walked out of my bedroom. He sounded overly cheerful and chirpy. I knew that smile he wore was forced.
“Morning, Harper.” I passed by him to put on the kettle. I knew that he would need coffee this morning, and I hoped that the noise of the boiling water would deter him from talking. You can’t say that I didn’t think of everything.
No such luck.
“So, what are you going to do about Milligan?”
I purposely bustled looking around the kitchen for something to eat for breakfast. “Nothing at all.” I pulled out a chocolate croissant. I didn’t even bother to wait to warm it up before tucking in. “Have we heard anything else from the hospital?”
“Don’t try and change the subject.”
I turned around to look at him finally. I took my time finishing the mouthful I was chewing. He just looked at me and waited patiently. “Well, there’s nothing to talk about. Milligan is a total whack job and I am not seeing him again. End of story.”
Harper looked at me doubtfully. “But, I thought that you liked him. Don’t you want to talk to him about what happened last night?”
“Not really.”
“So, you’re just not going to see him ever again?”
“That’s right.” Why was he pushing like this? “No. I am not seeing him again. I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to talk to him. I haven’t known him long enough to have any kind of lasting affection. What I felt for him was purely physical. Nothing else. He killed that by acting like he did last night.” I explained further. If I had been speaking to anyone else, I would have probably gone red when I said about it being purely physical, but I knew that Harper wouldn’t judge me for it. He just wanted me to be happy.
“Well, I can’t say that I am really sorry.”
I looked up at him sharply. “So, why were you pushing me to talk to him?”
“I can see where you’re coming from, but I haven’t known him long enough to care. All I will look back on and remember was that he was a psycho and that I had a lucky escape.” I started to walk back out of the kitchen. I had to go and find some shoes to go with this outfit. “Oh, and I’ll remember that he was a damn good lay.” I called over my shoulder.
“Carrie!” Harper laughed and I was glad. It had lightened the moment again. I knew that he would have been a little shocked at me coming out with something like that, but I had said it purely to make him laugh. I shook my head and grinned, heading back into my bedroom. No sooner had I found my boots and slipped them, Harper shouted out to me.
“Carrie! Delivery!”
Hmmm. I wondered what on earth it could be. Especially so early in the morning. I hadn’t had the time to go online and order any books, so it couldn’t be that.
I walked into the hall just as Harper was shutting the front door. He held the biggest bouquet of flowers that I had ever seen in his arms. They must have cost an arm and a leg. I could smell their fragrance from where I was standing.
“Well, you might not want to speak to him, but he sure wants to make it up to you.” He smirked.
I didn’t find it funny.
They were an assortment of roses, all colours of the rainbow. There was no card with them but we both knew who they were from. It was just his style. All romantic and smooth and going for maximum effect. Well, bad luck for him because that sort of thing didn’t work on me. I just wasn’t the hearts and flowers kind of gal. He’d wasted him money trying that one on me.
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