“Damn,” Wyatt hissed. A thick piece of wood from the window had punctured Hollis in the side. The glass had shredded his arm as well, and blood was seeping from another cut in his neck.
“Get that wood out of him!” Aviana exclaimed.
“No,” Wyatt said. “That could make it worse.”
Aviana put her hand to Hollis’ neck to stop the blood. “We need an ambulance! Open the gate for them!” Wyatt checked over Milan first. He still hadn’t moved. Then Wyatt ran down the driveway, shouting for help.
Hollis’ eyelids fluttered and opened. His voice was little more than a whisper. “Hey, Ballpunch.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Aviana said, tears coming to her eyes. He had to be. She loved him.
Like her love was a ward to keep him safe. Like it had any power but to leave her behind, and broken into a thousand pieces. She pressed her hand in harder, willing him to stay alive and with her. Milan twitched feebly and went still. Grief rose in her throat at the thought of him living while Hollis died.
His eyes were closing. “Hollis?” she pleaded. Officers raced up the driveway, voices shouting and sirens pealing, and she screamed for them to go faster. Then she, Hollis, and Milan were surrounded, men and women stooping to Milan to take his pulse and demanding that Aviana back away.
Hollis turned his head, his eyes opening once more. He spoke, his voice even fainter now. “I love you, Aviana.”
“You need to back off, miss,” someone said.
“No!” she cried, and then Wyatt was there. He pulled her away to let them work.
The EMTs came with a stretcher. “Tell me that he’ll be okay,” she begged Wyatt thickly.
“He’ll be okay,” Wyatt said with complete certainty, and she believed him because she could not bear the alternative.
Epilogue
Hey! Hey, Milan, do you want to be part of our group?
She had trusted that he was just another boy in her class. On the surface, he was. Jeans and a T-shirt. A backpack and sneakers. There hadn’t been any sign of the darkness in his heart as he pulled over his desk beside hers.
Or if there had been, she was too young and naive to recognize it. One moment, one throwaway offer, bound them together in ways she hadn’t foreseen at the time. If she had only known what was about to unfold . . . but she had not. No one could have known what was on the other side of the door.
The final, devastating blow of Wyatt’s had caused a hemorrhage in Milan’s brain. Hollis’ shove through the window and the consequent fall only added insult to injury. For two weeks, medical professionals did all they could to spare Milan’s life. But he never responded, and one night he died.
She had thought that she would be overcome with joy to have him gone. No longer would she have to look over her shoulder, or worry that a hang-up call was anything malevolent. She didn’t have to pull the curtains shut. His death returned Aviana to life. The limits were gone. The terror was unnecessary. He did not have the power to stalk her from beyond death. She could breathe.
But joy was not what she felt. Wyatt held her in their hotel room at night when she struggled to explain, and finally he said, “Stop it. Happiness isn’t a fair emotion to expect from yourself for this. Who won, Avvie?”
Wyatt had always been able to see ahead. To see more deeply, and that gave her pause to take in his words and turn them over within herself for closer examination. Who had won? Not Milan, twenty-two years old and in the morgue. Not his family, who had done what they could, but nothing was powerful enough to save Milan from his demons. And not Aviana, who had reconfigured her entire existence for years around her fear of him. Now she had to untangle herself from his bindings, and they could not be cast aside in a day. The day might never come that she was free of all of them.
His obituary in the online edition of her hometown newspaper was brief. He had lived; he had died; he was survived by his loving family. She supposed there wasn’t much else to say about him. Although a date was included for his burial, the family wanted the services to be private.
No one had won. Happiness was for birthday cakes and wedding proposals, the goal that won the game and well-earned vacations. Not for this. Wyatt understood, and that helped her to let it go.
She couldn’t bear to spend one more night in that house, and they had taken a room in the hotel near the hospital so that she could spend the days at Hollis’ bedside. Wyatt went back and forth from the hotel to the hospital to finding a new home for them to live. Aviana wanted a place that Milan had never seen, never touched, never crept about and incorporated into his delusions. She also wanted a place where she did not have to remember Hollis vanishing through the window, and bleeding profusely into the grass. They did not have to escape to New York now, but a new home in California was non-negotiable for her.
Both Milan and Hollis had entered the hospital in critical condition, whisked to surgery and afterwards to the intensive care unit. But as Milan weakened, Hollis strengthened. In time he was transferred to a regular room, where he joked with the nurses and fidgeted from boredom. Aviana watched endless movies with him and took him out to the courtyard in a wheelchair as frequently as the hospital staff let her do so. When he went in for a second surgery to repair his shoulder, she was on pins and needles in the waiting room. There were pictures in an email of the house Wyatt had picked out, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at them. The house didn’t matter. Wyatt would pick out the perfect place. Of that she had no doubt. But it wouldn’t ever be perfect to Aviana if Hollis didn’t live there, too.
As children, Hollis had made her laugh while Wyatt kept her safe. As adults, they had become more than that. She was safe with both of them.
Hollis came out of the surgery in one piece, or as he put it, one piece plus a few extra made of metal. Her father came to the hospital the next day for a visit; the twins’ Uncle Seth had flown in to stay for several days and called daily to check up on him. Lynda sent only a card after Hollis had been in the hospital for weeks. The day it arrived, Hollis read it silently and gave it to Aviana to put in the trash.
She bridled at the casual message of feel better, from Mom. A real mother would have been beside herself at the news. A real mother would have flown out as soon as she heard, desperate to do anything to keep her cherished son alive. All Lynda had ever done as a mother was provide an egg that split.
“I’m sorry. I hate how she hurts you,” Aviana said once the card was in the trash where it belonged.
“It doesn’t hurt as much as it used to,” Hollis said. “You can only take what people have to give. Some will give a lot; some a little. She just doesn’t have anything to give whatsoever. It only hurts when you expect more than they have.”
It wasn’t just Wyatt who saw deeply but Hollis as well. They had that in common. Having little to give was how it was with Aviana’s father. He was only ever going to be there for Aviana in fair weather, and she had to choose how much she was going to let that hurt her. The father she wanted him to be was one she would never have, and it had nothing to do with Aviana as a human being.
“You’re getting wise,” she said to Hollis.
“Near death experience.”
“Really? White light and angels with wings and trumpets and everything?”
“No. But maybe wisdom is in what you use to patch up your broken places,” Hollis said. “I don’t want to fill up those gaps with sourness. I have a brother out there right now signing papers on a great house for all of us, and a girlfriend who practically lives at the hospital with me. I have an uncle who wants to be closer, and I haven’t let him. But he’s still reaching out, and I want to reach back. And your dad wasn’t the greatest at being a stepfather, but he took the time to see me. I still remember him cheering at my games when my mother couldn’t be bothered to show. I have to let those good things sate me, because it’s what I have. And put all together, it’s so much.”
Purpose. Gratitude. They were such small but crucial things to li
ving a good life. He hadn’t asked again whom she liked more between him and his brother. She had given him the answer, and he accepted it. There was never any competition for her heart.
The day that Hollis was released, Wyatt came to the hospital to pick up the two of them. Hollis had made himself so popular in his stay that three young nurses found reason to accompany him and his wheelchair down to the ground floor and outside. They waved once he was in the back seat of the Libation. As Wyatt pulled away, Aviana looked back at Hollis and said, “We could probably fit those nurses in the trunk if you want to take them home.”
“Oh, hell no,” Hollis said, adjusting his sling. “Drive fast, Wyatt. I want to see this new place of ours.”
“So do I,” Aviana said.
“You still haven’t seen it?”
“Not in person.”
“We’ll have a longer commute to Luxure, but this place is worth it,” Wyatt said. “As soon as your shoulder is better, you can hit the tennis court. Until then, you can exercise it in the pool and weight room.”
“Free weights or machines?” Hollis asked.
“Both, so take your pick. I got you everything. There are still boxes left to unpack, but the weight room is all set up and waiting.”
They pulled up to a red light, Aviana looking automatically out the window for Milan. How long would it take before she stopped searching for him among the pedestrians and cars? For today at least, it had to be a conscious decision for her to turn away. The light turned green and Wyatt steered for the freeway.
She could not be happy that Milan was dead. Relieved, yes. She could be happy that she was here, with Wyatt and Hollis, and all of them traveling to a new house that had not been selected purely for its prospects as a hiding place. The pictures had shown a large, Spanish-style estate poised around a courtyard with a beautiful fountain at its heart.
At a small sound from the back seat, Aviana said, “All right?”
“You forget.” Hollis’ gaze was going out the window to the stores beyond the freeway. Then a divider blocked them from view. “When you’re in the hospital, you forget the world outside it. Not that it’s expunged from your mind, but you’ve lost the connection. Everything is beautiful to me, even a dirty old freeway in Los Angeles with a sky full of smog overhead.” She reached back to hold his hand.
It was late afternoon when they got to the house. Aviana leaned forward in her seat, her jaw falling open at how the pictures had not done it justice. “Wyatt!” she exclaimed.
He chuckled, pleased with her reaction. As soon as the car stopped in the driveway, she threw open the door and got out to stare. The last house had been beautiful; this one was a palace. Wyatt came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I love it!” she said.
“Then it was worth it,” Wyatt said, tightening his arms. “Wait until you see the inside.”
In astonishment, Hollis said, “You outdid yourself.”
Wyatt laughed and swayed with Aviana, like he was hearing a little music in the breeze. She tilted her head to give him a kiss. Then she held out her arm to Hollis, who stepped up to join their embrace. He got a kiss as well.
The time to close down was over. It had run its course within all three of them and had no place here, where they would only have the joy from their open hearts. She linked her arms in theirs, and they walked to the front door together.
THE END
Other Books by Diamond Durango
All Grown Up: A Taboo Romance
One Last Night: MMF Paranormal Ménage Short Story
The Eleventh Wife: A Werebear Shifter Fairy Tale: Paranormal Steamy Romance
Stepbrother Romance: The Complete Box Set Page 20