by Zoey Parker
Abby was screaming.
I tried the knob, but of course it was locked. Throwing my shoulder into it, I had to crush myself against it several times before it burst open to reveal a room colored in white and baby pink. And lying on the bed with her shirt torn to shreds, her bra half tugged down, was Abby. She was crying and struggling, and the redheaded man that I now knew as James Austin was on top of her, clawing at her clothing desperately.
“Mine, mine,” he kept saying over and over again, not even seeming to notice me.
I roared, a sound of pure rage as I rushed him. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and yanked him away from her, throwing him to the ground beside the bed. My fist connected with his face until I felt something break—my hand or his face.
He’d stopped moving, but I pulled back to punch him again—blood was spurting from his nose—but then I heard her sob.
“Oh, god!”
I released the man, letting him slump back to the floor into unconsciousness. Maybe he was dead. Still on the bed was Abby. She was clutching her arms over her chest, trying to cover herself up, tears marring her pretty face. The tatters of her shirt clung to her arms and shoulders, telling me it had probably been long sleeved.
She stared at me with blue eyes that were huge, looking like I was the best thing that had ever happened to her. I couldn’t leave her sitting like that. I ran to her, scooping her up into my arms and holding her against me like she was everything. Like she was the only thing. She sobbed into my shoulder and I couldn’t even shush her. I was just so relieved.
I held her to me, thankful that I’d gotten there in time, thankful that James was dealt with. Even if he was dead on the floor, I would deal with whatever consequences that entailed.
“Kade! No!” Abby cried suddenly, using her bodyweight and gravity to pull me down on top of her. I was startled and didn’t know what to make of it, but then I heard the crack of a gun. A bullet lodged itself in the wall at the same level where my head had been a second earlier.
“She’s mine!” screamed the lunatic holding the gun.
I turned to see him. I’d thought I’d put him down, but James had managed to pull himself back up, his face looking like a bloody piece of hamburger meat, but he’d done it. He was aiming the gun at me still, his eyes wide, his hand shaking. I saw him squeeze the trigger before I could react and did my best to cover Abby with my own body—the only thing I could think to do. She screamed as he yanked on the trigger.
But nothing happened.
Surprised, I looked back to him and saw that he was slapping at the gun as though something was wrong. It’s jammed, I realized and took that moment to leap up from the bed, pushing to get to James.
His eyes widened further until they looked ready to spring from his sockets. He hadn’t planned for this, apparently, because he stumbled back at my charge. He nearly tripped as he stumbled out the door, but he managed to slam it in my face before I could reach it.
“Damnit!” I cried out angrily, trying the knob and shoving at the door. It budged slightly, but wouldn’t one hundred percent give.
“This isn’t over!” I heard a muffled sound coming through the door. It sounded like it was farther away and through the slight crack I’d made in the door, I saw that James was at the top of the stairs, still fiddling with his gun. He was pale and wild looking, shaking all over and I didn’t think it was from the rain.
I looked back at Abby, her terrified face reminding me that I had a decision now. Get Abby out of here or go after James.
I can’t let James escape. He’ll only come after her again, I realized. But I needed to get Abby out of here, too.
“Go, get out of here. Get to your car, or take my bike, and go. The others will be here soon, but I can’t let him get away. You know he won’t stop, not now.”
She worried at her lower lip, reminding me of every vulnerable moment she’d shown me, of every smiling moment and happy one. Of every time she had shown me the real woman beneath the makeup and the money. She was wonderful in ways I had never imagined and even if this was the last moment I would get with her, I’d be complete for at least having known her.
“I don’t want to go without you,” she murmured. “Please, let’s get out of here together. Come with me!”
But I shook my head firmly. I knew I was right and somewhere deep inside, she did, too. My heart ached at the knowledge that she wanted me with her, even though I knew it was because she was terrified and I’d just saved her. All the same, I hoped. Even though I had ended it, even though Caleb had forbidden me from seeking her out, and reminded me why, I hoped that she still wanted me.
It was a foolish want, but it didn’t change what I was inside.
“Abby, I can’t. You have to go. I’ll take care of James once and for all.”
Then I left her before she could plead with me any longer with those huge eyes. I raced out the door and up the stairs, checking at the top to make sure that he wasn’t there waiting to blindside me. The gun had failed once, but there was every possibility that he had fixed whatever had jammed it, or that he’d stashed another one somewhere.
But he wasn’t there waiting. It gave me some confidence that maybe he hadn’t gotten the gun to work. Maybe he was unarmed. Or maybe he was setting a trap.
Still, I’d find him and Abby had to get the hell out of here. I called back down to her to let her know that it was safe—or as safe as it could be.
She came up the stairs behind me and I urged her to the car. “Go now. I’ll make sure he doesn’t come after you,” I promised.
She bit her lower lip and clearly didn’t want to leave me, but nodded all the same. “Please be careful,” she murmured, then reached up and sealed her lips to mine, a kiss that told me she felt things for me, deep and unchangeable things.
Then she broke it and turned away, hurrying to her car. I watched her until she reached the door and slid in, then I took off for the house. I raced in through the front where the door was now banging open against the rain and the wind.
It hadn’t been open before.
Moving slowly and steadily, I went inside in search of James. The place was dark, making it difficult to make things out. Definitely not something in my favor. If I wasn’t careful, James would catch me by surprise.
I headed deeper into the house, my eyes adjusting as much as they would to the darkness. I searched for James, but didn’t see much of anything. I cursed myself silently for losing him. This had to end tonight. I wouldn’t leave without finding him, damnit.
Where is the bastard?
I made it past the foyer and into the adjacent kitchen. It, too, was empty. As I continued on through the kitchen, moving toward the back portion of the house, I heard the door slam in the front. I whirled around toward it.
Had he doubled back to try and leave through the front? Or had he gone after Abby?
I hurried around back to the front room, worried all of a sudden that Abby hadn’t made it far enough yet. That she’d gotten stuck in the mud…that she hadn’t listened to me at all.
I came through the doorway from the kitchen into the front foyer to find that Abby was there, sopping wet, half dressed, and searching the house frantically. Her eyes lighted on me and she made to move toward me. “Kade!” she called out. “I couldn’t leave you!”
There should have been plenty of time for me to reach her and her to reach me, but everything happened at once. James appeared out of nowhere, barreling into Abby. She slammed harshly onto the ground, immediately scrambling to try and get away from him.
I saw his gun again and all hope that it wasn’t working still or that it was out of ammunition or that he would somehow fuck up this shot, too, left me in a terrible whoosh of fear. He was aiming for Abby.
“You were supposed to love me!” he screamed at her, gun shaking in his hand as he aimed it at her head. “You were supposed to be mine!”
There were tears streaking down her face as she tried to scoot back on the fl
oor only to have her back hit the far wall. Her hair was still damp, hanging in clumps about her face and shoulders, and she was only wearing her bra, her shirt in tatters around her breasts. She was utterly terrified and she had nowhere else to go.
“Please,” she begged him. “Don’t do this!
But he wasn’t listening. I saw his finger squeezing the trigger. I saw all of this in slow motion as though someone had stopped time to little more than a trickle. It seemed like I had eternity to just walk over there and stop the whole thing, except that I, too, was moving through time like an ocean of molasses.
I reached for her, lunging as I tried desperately to put myself in front of her.
The gun went off, a loud shock of sound in the otherwise quiet house. It sparked, giving us just a blink of light, like lightning and thunder all at once, and then there was just smoke and the rain jittering along the rooftop and against the windows. I felt a sharp spike of pain. That was when time seemed to snap back. Everything moved quickly from then on.
I slammed to the ground harshly, clutching at my shoulder where pain was bleating from it, pumping like blood between my fingers. I couldn’t say if I cried out or not, but it was hard to breathe all of a sudden.
From somewhere nearby, I heard Abby scream even though my ears were still ringing with the echoes of the gunshot.
I felt her cool, delicate hands fluttering over me, touching my face and my hands, everywhere they could. My name fell from her lips a thousand times, watery and desperate. I tried to answer her, but wasn’t sure if I managed it. I did see James in the background. He had his gun still in hand and he looked a little shocked, like maybe he’d never shot someone before.
He shot me, I thought strangely, detached and unafraid, though I knew I should have been.
I saw him shift the gun upwards again, however, that murderous look in his eye all over again. I realized that he was pointing it at Abby again and I tried to pull her to me, tried to roll us over so that my back was to the gun and she was nearer the wall.
But I was too weak. My body was trembling, in shock, and I felt dizzy and nauseous. I couldn’t make myself move. I realized how badly I must have been bleeding, the red color smeared across Abby’s smooth skin and slipping between my own fingers. She was crying, screaming, begging me to get up, but I just wanted to tell her to get out of there.
I heard another shot go off and waited for her to slump against my body.
But she didn’t. Instead, her head swiveled around and she shouted something that sounded like “Caleb” and “please.” But I couldn’t think much about that. All I cared about was the fact that Abby, despite her tears, was okay and the man with the red hair was lying on the ground, staring with glazed, blank eyes right at me.
Dead, I thought with a strange sort of relief. He’s dead.
And that was enough reassurance for me that despite Abby’s pleas, I could go to sleep. My eyes fluttered closed and I drifted off, letting the blackness swallow me whole.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Abby
I was sitting in the same chair since they let me in to see him. He was in surgery for a while, which was heart stopping for me. I had been sure that as he lay in my arms after James’s attack that he was dead. There had been so much blood.
“Kade!” I screamed at him, shaking his limp body. He was bleeding profusely from the shoulder, the dark liquid seeping into his already soaking wet shirt through the hand that had been trying vainly to slow the tide. “Kade!”
But he wasn’t answering. His eyes were open and I was positive that he was dead, that he was staring off into oblivion, his soul having already left his body. But then he blinked.
“Oh, thank god!” I cried, leaning forward and trailing my blood tinted hands across his cheeks and his lips, not caring what a mess the two of us were.
I looked worse for wear. My hair was damp from the rain outside, though it was trying to dry, and my bra was clearly visible thanks to my torn shirt. James had ripped it off of me, tearing like a wild man until he got to the flesh beneath. He’d held me down on the bed in there and was working on getting my clothes off. It was so reminiscent of that night in the alley that I was almost too panicked to do anything.
But I wasn’t drunk this time. I was sober and I was wired with adrenaline. I fought him off with everything I had, the struggle paying off as Kade broke through the door to my rescue before James could do much more than tear at my clothes.
We should have both escaped then and there, but he was determined to save me. Not just tonight, but forever. And he proved it when James pointed a gun at me, pulling the trigger with the barrel aimed at my forehead. He had been prepared to kill me if he couldn’t have me, and I thought that with the arrival of Kade, he had discovered just that.
He couldn’t have me.
But it wasn’t in the cards for me to die tonight. Kade appeared out of nowhere from one of the back rooms. He raced into the foyer where I was pressed against a wall with nowhere to go and he threw himself between me and the gun.
And now he lay bleeding in my arms, just barely conscious, bleeding so fiercely that he was pale, that he was surely dying.
Behind me, I registered that James had recovered from his shock of actually shooting someone, but I didn’t even turn to look at him. I clung to Kade desperately, trying to wake him up, to get him to move. I had to get him out of there, to the hospital where they might still be able to save him.
When the gun went off the second time, I was sure I was dead. But then there was a heavy thump on the floor behind me and I tore my eyes away from Kade long enough to see that James was lying dead on the floor. I let out a sob as I saw my uncle standing in the doorway with a gun still smoking.
“Caleb!” I cried, relieved that help had finally come. “Oh god, Caleb! He’s hurt! Kade’s been shot. Oh please, we have to help him! Oh god, please!”
Caleb hurried over to me, taking in the whole scene with one sweep of his eyes. His expression was grim, but he told me, “He’ll be alright. You’ve got your car?”
I nodded.
“Good, we’ll put him in there and drive him to the hospital. We don’t have time to explain all this to the cops right now.”
I agreed and grabbed my keys from the table—they were the reason I’d come back in the first place—and hurried out the door with Caleb trailing behind me. He was carrying Kade across his shoulders, an impressive feat given that Kade was not a small man. But then, neither was Caleb.
“He’ll be alright, Abby,” Caleb reassured me as he shoved the other man into the backseat. “Let’s get going.”
I drove him to the hospital.
They worked on him for a long time. Hours. It had me worried sick and when the lady tried to block me further by saying that only family was allowed to visit him after the surgery, I nearly lost my mind. I almost blew up—which wouldn’t have really helped my cause—but then Caleb stepped up.
“We are family,” he said firmly. “He’s my nephew.”
My eyes widened at this proclamation, but I didn’t question it. In fact, I was too desperate to see Kade to care about what excuse he provided to get me in there or the true meaning behind it.
All I cared about was seeing Kade.
Now I was sitting beside him as he slept off whatever painkillers they’d given him for the surgery. I would wait patiently until he woke up, unwilling to leave his side. Caleb came in and out, bringing in coffee when he could find it.
At this moment, however, he was gone—stretching his legs—and the coffee he’d brought me last was lukewarm. I was saved from having to drink it by the opening of the door and the smell of fresh, real coffee.
“Hey, how you holding up?”
I looked up at April, offering the tiniest of smiles as I accepted one of the coffees in her hand. It was fresh brewed from an all-night place. “Thanks,” I mumbled.
She took a seat beside me, wrapping her hand around mine. She squeezed. “He’ll be fine.”
I nodded.
April had been safe the entire time and maybe if I’d known that, none of this would have happened and Kade never would have gotten shot. Her phone had been dead when I’d called it, she told me, and she hadn’t made it home yet. In fact, she’d stopped to see her mother who was in town for once and considered staying with her. One hour with the overbearing woman and April had reconsidered, but it certainly explained my inability to reach her. She told me that she’d texted me—and then called several times after—to get a hold of me as soon as she discovered what had happened, but by then I was already at James’s rinky-dink little house.
I tried to shove the memory of it away.
We sipped coffee and waited for a while, but eventually I told April to go home. She did and I was surprised to see Brody escort her out, promising that he’d keep an eye on her to make sure she was safe. Under normal circumstances I might have wondered if there was something happening there, but just then I couldn’t focus on anything but Kade.