“The Tuner-Jones wedding?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m assuming you’re not just going to hand out anoraks.”
Her face dropped. I’d offended her. I didn’t care.
“It has been moved to the wedding suite.”
“Thanks.”
Kudos to Beth and Jack for planning ahead.
I drank my coffee, read the Sunday news on my iPad, did my usual Google search on Jesse, hoping he’d popped up somewhere – he hadn’t – and called him, twice in succession. I only got his voicemail. No surprise there.
I got more worried with each day that passed and I didn’t hear from him. I knew grief could screw you up. I’d seen it. I’d experienced it, and I couldn’t imagine the impact losing your entire family would have.
I left my breakfast untouched, unable to settle my nerves enough to stomach food, and headed to the shower – a double shower. Again, no surprise there.
The hot pellets of water stung my skin as I tipped my head back and allowed them to hit my face. I should have come up with a plan. Screw my negligence over the last four months that meant I had no choice but to come here and fly blind.
I could just go home. I’d told myself I just wanted to see Skye and make sure she was okay. I’d gotten more than I ever hoped for or expected. But something told me she wasn’t okay; I saw it last night. She was not okay. I shut the shower off and stood listening as the water trickled down my body and dripped onto the shower floor. I allowed nothing else to enter my mind, except for the gradually slowing drips. I waited for them to stop and when they had, I had a plan.
I was going to the wedding.
I sat at the back, in the corner, as far away from involvement as I could. People entered the room in their couples and groups and took their seats around me, allowing me to remain hidden. I’d always been good at hiding and it was imperative it stayed that way. I saw Jack at the front, with three men besides him, smiling and joking with the groom. He looked like the happiest man in the world. There was no hint of doubt in his eyes. He was ready to be a husband, to the women he’s once competed against for business.
A piece of string music began playing and everyone turned to look at the back as the double doors opened. Two young boys entered first, one around nine-years-old and the other, not much older than twelve; they were dressed in black suits with plum waistcoats. They were followed by two couples; two blondes in plum silk dresses, with two men in suits the same as the boys. And then Skye entered alone, clutching a silver-framed photo of Ollie in one hand, and a small cream stuffed rabbit in the other. She smiled, a smile I knew was forced, and followed behind the others, standing with the women at the altar and rubbing the ear of the rabbit between her thumb and forefinger. The Wedding March began. Beth made her entrance and walked the aisle alone, her eyes on Jack. I didn’t look away from Skye. My eyes stayed on her throughout the entire ceremony.
Thirty Nine
Revival.
April 20th, 2014
I sat in the garden, shielded from the rain, while the wedding dinner took place. I couldn’t go, as much as I wanted to see Skye, it was too open. There was hiding in plain sight and then there was risking ruining someone’s wedding. I couldn’t allow myself to do that, no matter how selfish I was.
“Curtis?”
I heard Beth’s voice when it was too late to hide and she stepped out under the shelter with me. I almost died on the spot. To me, she had a fraction of Skye’s beauty, but seeing her, looking so much like the woman I loved and dressed in a white wedding dress made of silk and diamonds, was enough not to just end my life, but to already have me reduced to nothing but ashes and scattered over the garden. I looked away. It was just too much.
“Congratulations, Beth,” I said. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She stepped in front of me and I had no choice but to look at her. “I thought I saw you earlier. Why aren’t you inside?”
“I have to get back. I just wanted to congratulate you. You and Jack will be happy together.”
“We will.” She smiled and squeezed my hand in gratitude. “Thank you for coming. Will you come and say goodbye to Jack before you leave?”
“I can't, Beth,” I muttered. Then stuttered. “I don’t have time.”
“Please?”
Her eyes shone into mine and I was done. They had the same effect as her sister’s. I couldn’t say no.
My mind screamed at me to stop, pleaded with me not to take a step. My body began to protest, weighing itself down, trying to keep me rooted to the spot. My heart slowed. It slowed. It was winding down in preparation for what was coming. My fingers and toes went cold, my failing heart unable to pump blood to them.
And still I remained under control. Whose? I had no fucking idea, but I wanted to kill whoever held it. Whoever kept it from me. Whoever stole it time and time again and laughed at me when I realised I was nothing without it.
It wasn’t me reaching out to accept Beth’s hand. It wasn’t me who turned and helped her up the steps so she wouldn’t trip on the bottom of her dress. It wasn’t me who lifted one heavy foot and stepped inside. And it sure as hell wasn’t me who walked alongside Beth and willingly entered the reception hall.
The Grim Reaper must have turned up and was giving me a gentle nudge in the right direction.
My fate was sealed.
It was coming to an end.
I spotted Jack on the dance floor, dancing to whatever the DJ was playing – I couldn’t hear beyond the ringing in my ears when I saw him. He spun Skye around and around, rocking her one way, then the other. They pulled back, they moved closer. They did this twist that brought their arm behind the other’s head and they danced to the track as they separated. She looked so happy. She had energy. I knew she was hurting, but still she participated. For her sister. For her new brother. For her dead brother. Ollie.
I tried to pull out of Beth’s hold but I was paralysed from the waist up. I found myself squeezing her hand tighter and tighter as we approached the dancing duo.
It was coming.
God, it was coming and I couldn’t stop it.
“Jack? Babe, look who’s here.”
They stopped dancing and Jack swung Skye round and tucked her into his side. It struck me as odd, until I saw it was Skye who gripped Jack. She was looking right at me and there was no mystery this time; no magic that brought us together. If her legs were working, she would have run.
“Curtis. Glad you could make it.”
As he offered me his free hand to shake, Skye threw herself out of his hold and smacked it away. She stood between Jack and me, her beautiful eyes hidden by the frown that moved in.
“Skye, honey.” Beth rested her hand on her shoulder, but she shook it off, her focus on me. Her anger on me. Her pain sending a hundred icy shards to penetrate my soul
Beth pulled back, burned, and the couple looked on in shock.
“Get out,” she seethed. Her voice was tight and low. Husky and full of hatred. “Get. Out.”
I took a tentative step away as the rejection I knew I would have to face washed over me and left me unable to breathe. Cold. One foot in the proverbial grave. God, that look. She hated me. She couldn’t bear to look at me.
Her eyes flitted around the room, falling on anything but me as she repeated in a voice thick with shame and disgust, “Get out. Now.”
She hit my chest, keeping her hand over my heart, the precious organ that had only ever beat for her and her fingers flexed as she attempted to push me away. I let her, taking uneven steps, raising my hand when Jack tried to stop her.
The music stopped. Guests gasped and stared. Skye ploughed me through the room and out into the foyer. She was shaking, her hand burnt through my shirt and seared my skin. Her eyes had turned to a roaring amber, ablaze with whatever had become her. Still I allowed her to push, keeping my steps fluid so she wouldn’t lose her footing. I kept my eyes on hers, trying to calm her without words, but she refused to look back.
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She was going to be exhausted when she stopped. She’d pushed me the entire length of the hotel, from the gardens at the back where we kissed on the bandstand less than twenty four hours ago, and now we were outside; first sheltered by the entrance and then out into the curved driveway as the rain continued its downpour.
“Take a break,” I mumbled to the valet as Skye shoved me past him and into the middle of the road.
“Shut up,” she growled. It was almost cute, were I not fearful that she’d grow fangs and attack my jugular.
I nodded once, signalling my compliance. She had my full attention.
“It was you.” It wasn’t a question. I didn’t reply. “Last night. It was you in the garden.”
I opened my mouth but before I could speak, her hand swiped across my cheek. I took it. I straightened my head and waited for the cool rain to soothe my burning skin. Skye stood still, not breathing a word, but she was looking at me now. A glare that pierced every cell in my body.
“Why are you here?”
“Beth invited me.”
She shivered and her eyes closed for a second as her lips parted.
“Why?”
“Can we get out of the rain? Or at least out of the road?”
“No.” her hands pounded my chest, just once. We stepped further into the road. “Answer the question.”
“I had to see you. I had to see if you were okay.”
“Do I look okay to you?”
She threw her arms out and turned slowly. The rain water soaked her, sticking her dress to her body. I wanted to not look, I desperately tried but her body was my paradise and the way her dress clung to her left nothing to the imagination I’d had to use for years. I was angry, I was hurting, I was so fucking happy she was wasting her time on me, my mind was a cluster-fuck. A conflicting raucous in my mind always led to a response in my body. I was genetically programmed to get a raging hard-on whenever an emotion presented itself. I was such a mess, I thought I’d explode on the spot.
“Well?”
I blinked, focusing; Skye was in front of me with her hands on her hips. Those fucking hands on those goddamn hips.
“No.”
“There. You’ve got your answer. You can leave now.”
“I’m not leaving.”
She slapped me again and I clenched my jaw. She wasn’t going to let me talk.
“Yes. You are.”
I shook my head. “You can hit me as many times as you want. I’m not leaving.”
She didn’t hit me.
Her bottom lip trembled and even in the rain, I saw the tears well up.
“I need you to leave, or I will.”
“Skye-” I stepped forward.
“Don’t.”
She stepped back, retreating; she slipped on a rain soaked rock and my hands shot out to catch her.
Her head shook rapidly. Her eyes glassed over, but she didn’t push me away. She wasn’t here and only I knew where she was. 2003.
“You rejected me,” she whispered. “You threw me away like I was nothing. You abandoned me when you knew you were all I had left.” She shook me off and I let her go reluctantly. Her words struck me to the core. “I didn’t want money. I didn’t want a perfect life free of pain, because I would have lived with pain and looked into your eyes every day and known we were healing each other.”
“I’m sorry, Skye.”
“That’s it?” she laughed through the tears. “That’s what you came here to say? You shouldn’t have wasted your time, or mine. Your words mean nothing to me anymore.”
“Skye-”
“Save it.”
She turned away from me. She wasn’t going to listen. I couldn’t stop her; I’d lost control and I couldn’t get it back from the one person I needed to exert it over. Something bubbled deep in my gut as Skye took a step; a hesitant step. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to take it, but she refused to give me the power to hurt her. I knew it and yet I still lowered my voice, straightened my stance and clenched my fists.
“Stop,” I growled, still containing as much as I could.
It was my last hope. Everything was riding on my utterance of one word. Skye paused, stopping still, dropping her hands and her head. The water dripped from her long tresses and I wanted to take hold of them, to pull and tug and use them to bind her to me. She’d stopped. She’d given in.
And then she took another step.
“No!”
I flew at her, taking hold of the tops of her arms. My fingertips dug into her flesh as I spun her around to face me. She was expressionless in her gaze back. Her chest rose once with a deep breath and she shivered from the cold.
“Let me go, Curtis.”
“You need to listen to me.” I bent my knees, dropping to her eye level. “Please, Skye.”
“Get your hands off her.”
I let go in shock at the intrusion of a new voice. A voice both new and old, and I looked past Skye to find the source standing under the shelter.
What the fuck?
“Dad, I’m fine,” she yelled over her shoulder.
My body froze over. I clutched my heart and fell to my knees.
I was done.
It all made sense now.
I had failed.
“Get up.” Skye grabbed my jacket and tried to pull me up. “Get up.”
I was acutely aware of her voice, vaguely aware of the water soaking into my trousers and freezing my knees from the puddle where I’d fallen apart, but I didn’t move. I didn’t look at Skye. I stared beyond her and into evil eyes as an equally evil smile greeted me.
“Skye?” I choked, gasping for air and rubbing my chest to loosen it. To start it. To stop it. I didn’t know.
A tear fell.
One single fucking tear that told me everything I was conditioned to believe.
I was a failure.
“What?” She snapped, pulling again.
“Skye, is he…is that…your dad?”
“Yes. Beth invited him, too. It seems she’s on a mission.”
The mission.
The one I’d failed.
God, kill me now.
No.
I pressed my fists to the ground and dropped my head.
I wasn’t dead. I’d been brought back to life. I had all the answers I needed right here. Finally, I had the truth. I was Cut Throat fucking Curtis. I wasn’t dead.
But the man on the steps of the hotel would be.
I reared up, launching myself off the ground and bounded towards him. He didn’t move. He waited.
Did he think I was afraid?
Did he think I wouldn’t do it?
He was wrong.
I reached him and grabbed him by the throat, threw him against the wall and held him to it. I felt my hand tighten around his neck. I felt his pulse spike. A pulse that would soon stop. His eyes widened in shock; he thought he’d break me, but how wrong he was.
He’d awoken the beast. He’d given me the revival I needed.
I was going to kill him and no one was going to stop me.
I squeezed tighter and drew my arm back.
“Hello, Uncle Phil.”
The story continues in book 3 of the Twisted series…
Thrive (Twisted #3)
Secrets. Dirty little secrets. Filthy nasty secrets.
The world was full of them. Lies and deceit, self-obsession, arrogance and narcissism. It was why you kept secrets in the first place. A hint of a conscience told you that what you were doing was wrong, and self-preservation, the instinct to hide our sins from those around us and protect ourselves from punishment, meant we told those destructive tales of deception.
We lied, we kept secrets, and we hoped we would never be caught.
Time. A measurable but uncontrollable variable. Hours, minutes and seconds ticked by.
Time. The continued progress of existence. Indefinite. Unpredictable. Uncontrollable.
We spent our lives looking at the clock, either willing
it to speed up – to bring us closer to what we wanted. Or we wished we had more. We wished we had the time to go back and change the things we regretted. We wished we had a few more minutes before we had to make a decision.
It moved too fast.
It didn’t move fast enough…
When you kept secrets – when you hid yourself and your actions – it was only a matter of time before you had to face your demons. Explain your actions. Atone for your sins.
It was only a matter of time before your lies were exposed, one by one.
It was only a matter of time before the truth revealed itself, and the world around you ceased to exist as you knew it.
The time had come.
There was no time to fight for survival.
There was no time to beg for revival.
There was no other option. There was no choice.
What happened now?
It was time to Thrive.
Acknowledgements
Writing the acknowledgements is always terrifying , . p P erhaps more than writing the synopsis. I don’t want to leave miss anyone out and I don’t want to fail to convey in conveying my gratitude for the people who mean the most to me. So, here goes…
My first thank you always goes to my son, Alfie. He’s the greatest teammate a mother could ask for – it’s Spider-Mum and Spider-Alf against the world. I wouldn’t trade one moment spent with him for anything. When I wrote Survival, he understood that Mummy had ‘work’ to do and, for the most part, he played, I wrote and we talked across the room. Revival was much different. He pushed the boundaries, he wanted to sit on my lap while I juggled my laptop and cup of cold coffee. And he had a temper that would put Curtis to shame. He changed when I morphed into Curtis-mode (those of you who had to put up with me during the writing process know what that was like!), and picked up what I’m now calling ‘Curtis-isms’ when I did. Did I think he’d pick up ‘fanfuckingtastic’? No. But he did, and he dropped them just as quickly (after a few rounds in time-out). So I thank him for being on this journey with me, and for putting my life into perspective every day. I love him more than life itself and there is nothing I wouldn’t do to see him grow up to be a happy, healthy and respectful man.
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