Privileged

by J.M. Downey

  Keith continued to drag her down the hall.

  “Katie, don’t let him tear us apart,” Shelly shouted.

  Keith stopped walking and turned to look at Shelly. His eyes filled with the dark glare. She squeezed the hand that he had gripped in a fist. Please God protect her. Please.

  “You’ll never talk to her again,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m not going to allow this,” Shelly declared.

  “Shelly don’t, please,” she whispered. “You have no idea what….”

  Keith jerked her back around, and dragged her out. Her sister’s ashen face was imprinted in her mind.

  Once in the limo, she leaned her head against the leather seat. A pain seared through her heart. Please Lord take me home soon. I can’t live like this. She couldn’t live another day without her family. She inhaled deeply, trying to dry all the tears. She would not cry. Not anymore.

  She focused on the red carpet with gold crowns as they made their way into the hotel room. How was she going to survive? To make it one more day? Maybe if she had not seen her family with the pale look of death on their faces. Then she could have made it, but that image was burned into her mind. And her sister’s....

  “What are you doing here?” Keith demanded.

  Katie looked up and gasped. Standing in front of her was the man in her dreams. The same stoic face, tall slender form. Eyes with no life. He was real.

  “Checking for bugs,” the man said, running a device over the TV.

  Katie squeezed her husband’s hand as her body began to shake. If he was real, then did Keith really inject something into her? Katie pressed down on her head. But how could she not remember?

  The man finished with the TV and placed the device in his pocket. He nodded before walking out of the room. She couldn’t take her eyes off the door as Keith led her to the bedroom.

  “What a day.” He turned to look at her, but the smile fled from his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve seen that man in my dreams,” she said, pointing to the door.

  Keith’s mouth fell open.

  “He was holding me down while you injected me with something. I always thought it was a dream, but now I wonder.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

  Keith closed his eyes. “Katie, I….”

  “Tell me the truth!”

  He opened his eyes. “Something happen that you couldn’t remember.”

  “What?” she whispered.

  Keith knelt in front of Katie, and took her hands as a tear ran down his cheek. “If I had known you were pregnant, I wouldn’t have let it happened even if you couldn’t remember.”

  The baby. All sense of feelings fled from her - her knees buckled - her hand flew to Keith’s shoulder to steady herself. What had he just admitted? Images floated through her mind: him apologizing, saying it was his fault as tears rushed down his face. What had they done to her? Keith pulled her into his lap and embraced her. His hot tears poured onto her face - meshing with her own.

  “I won’t let you be hurt again,” he cried into her ear. “I promise.”

  Katie caressed her wrist. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Katie wrenched herself from Keith’s embrace and headed towards the bathroom.

  Keith studied the gold crowns on the carpet. She knew. Every last detail he had tried to keep from her. He had failed. He needed to let her go before things got worse, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t live without her. He closed his eyes. What should he do?

  The door closed as he buried his face into his hands. Something tugged at him, calling to him. That same deep pull clenching in him. He had no idea what it was. But he knew who called him. Didn’t this God realize that he couldn’t fight his father? Live a pure life. A life like Katie’s. No, he was a spawn of Satan with an angel trapped in his grip. An angel with no life left in her.

  Maybe he could find some way to let her go before he hurt her again. If you care please help me let her go.

  Something hard thumped on the floor. Keith sprang to his feet. He rushed to the bathroom door, pulling at the knob, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Katie,” he screamed. No one answered. He spun around, and grabbed a chair and pounded on the door until he had smashed a hole through it. He reached in, slicing his skin on the shattered wood and unlocked it, pushing it opened.

  He stopped cold. Katie lay motionless in a puddle of blood.

  “Katie!” He rushed to her, pulling her onto his lap. He focused on her half-open eyes and reached for his phone, but it slipped from his grasp. She was going to die. He had killed her. A white color spread across her cheeks.

  Keith pressed the circle of his iPhone, and turned for his bag, spilling the contents on the floor and grasping the rubber, he used so often on his arm.

  A beep filled the room. “911, Siri,” he shouted.

  Looping the rubber around her bloody wrist, he yanked it closed, but blood still seeped out, like a trickling fountain. What had he done to her? To lead her to this?

  He cradled her face as an operator answered in the background.

  “Help,” he mumbled, as the light left her eyes, and they rolled back into her head.

  A sob rose in him, but he swallowed it back as his fingers trailed her other arm and reached to the vein. A light thump pushed against his fingers, but it slowed with each beat. Her life was seeping from her, just like the blood from her wound.

  He bent to her lips while tears rushed down his face. There was nothing he could do. Nothing any man on this earth could do. Keith closed his eyes tight. The words give in fluttered across his mind.

  “Save her,” he whispered. “And I will.” Keith scrunched up his face. Please. Tears rushed faster from his eyes as the thumping slowed to a smooth rhythm and then ceased after one last faint tick. Not even God could save her. His last hope had been torn from him.

  A sob rose up in him, pushing from him in a guttural cry as a deep pain seared across him. Never again would he see her eyes full of life. Taste her warm lips. All because of him.

  “I’m sorry.” He slammed his free hand on the floor. “I’m sorry, Lord, for it all. Please don’t punish her for me.”

  He lay his forehead across hers, letting the tears mix into her hair. I will do what you want.

  A small warmth brushed his nose. Keith stilled as a thump grew against his fingers.

  Katie’s eyes fluttered open and focused on his as she gasped for breath.

  Keith rushed back, his head slamming against the sink. Feet rushed towards him as men knelt before her, and a cart was rolled in.

  “The wound’s not deep. I think we can save her,” a man said.

  Keith swallowed hard as the words: Follow me floated in his mind.

  To be continued....

 

  Continue reading for a sneak peak at Pardoned.

  Available now on Amazon.

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  PARDONED

  ONE

  There is no more innocence in her eyes. Keith ran a finger down Katie’s pale cheek, feeling dampness- evidence of her tears. His hand trailed to the bandages over her wrist, covering the ten stitches it took to close up the wound. A deep sob formed in his throat before a few tears slipped out. He pushed a fist into his eye, trying to push the pain away, but it only grew. What had he done? He had destroyed her. Keith turned from where she lay on the bed, covered in his black silk sheets, and walked into the hallway as a voice as soft as the wind beckoned to him. Leave, it called. Whenever he stopped to listen to it, it vanished like a ghost exposed to light. He walked outside of his Manhattan penthouse to the balcony, and placed his hands on the rail of the deck - the cool dry air floated around him - feeling like an omen. From this view he could gaze at the tall skyscrapers that pierced into the night sky, as if trying to prove their dominance. Car lig
hts shined like moving stars, down dark narrow paths. His father wanted to give him the world. But what would it matter? He was going to lose his soul.

  Keith closed his eyes as images blurred in his mind; images of a future he knew he was destined for. Already, he could feel the heat spreading over him, seeping into his inner being. He didn’t want this world. He wanted to be back at Yale, before he broke her – a place he’d never get to again.

  With his hands, Keith clamped down on his head – pushing hard. How could he continue this life? He had made a promise. The moment she had breathed, he knew he had to listen to what that voice wanted, and that voice wanted him to follow it. He just wished he knew where.

  Dropping his hands to his sides, Keith opened his eyes and looked up at the night sky, void of stars. If I give in, what do I do?

  Leave, the words echoed in his mind as if someone whispered in his ear. But where?

  Keith dug his hands into his pockets and walked into the apartment. He couldn't stay. He was no longer the same person. The little pieces of his old life had started to be chipped away, bit by bit. His old thoughts, goals, and agenda vanished a little more every day. He walked into his home office, and pushed his shoulders back, looking at the bookshelf full of books she had collected over the years. But what could he do? If he left, his father would destroy him-- use her against him. Hadn’t he said once, he’d slice her pretty throat if she caused problems? The only reason she still lived was because she carried a child in her womb. A child who could possibly be the next Wilkerson heir. But maybe the voice would protect her. He could obviously overcome death.

  Keith walked to her desk, which sat opposite his, and picked up her iBook. Just as long as the voice protected her and the child, he would be fine with whatever happened to him.

  Keith pushed the iBook, full of her various works in progress, under his arm and strolled to a closet, taking out a duffle bag and slipping the computer in along with her Kindle and a photo album of her family - all items he had begun piling against the wall over the last week. Hopefully, these items wouldn’t remind her of him. For it would be best if she never thought of him again.

  Keith tugged at his collar, adjusting his tie, while he poured over a contract between two major oil corporations - a document that didn’t contain one bit of truth. The pen in his hand rattled back and forth before he let it fall to the oak desk. Something once so easy now seemed so hard -- impossible. His father walked by his office, fixing that famous cavernous black glare on him, and Keith felt like the child he once was before he began slipping into the man his father wanted him to be.

  He nodded and then looked away as his father’s retreating steps announced his departure. He knew. He must be waiting for the right moment to strike. Would he take down his only heir?

  Keith stood and walked to the office door, and looked out at the vast, open office space. The secretary had gone home, and now only a dim light covered the desk and chairs. He looked towards his father’s office. A lifeline waited in that room - documents he could use to keep the man at bay, but Keith knew he’d sign his wife’s death warrant if he took one piece of paper.

  He needed something. But what? He turned back around and grabbed his coat, slipping it on. Walking out, he closed the door as the feeling that he had just left that office for the last time swept over him. If there was just something he could take with him, every document he had at his apartment had somehow mysteriously disappeared. No doubt, Sullivan had visited before he brought his wife home from the hospital.

  “William.”

  Keith stopped, and turned to look at the large, imposing form draped in a dark suit that blended in with his coal-colored hair. A chill sliced through him, as his father’s glare seeped right through him.

  Keith folded his hands at his waist. “Yes, Father?”

  “Has the McCormick, Inc. case been corrected?”

  He meant falsified, but Keith wouldn’t mention that. “Everything is in order.”

  “Go home,” he said before turning back to his office.

  Keith tiptoed back as he turned and walked out of the office, taking slow steps down the stairs that led out of the building. Once reaching the bottom, he pushed open the steel door leading to the basement parking lot as a coldness filled him. His gaze darted around the large, almost-empty lot with only two vehicles, his black BMW and his father’s gray Mercedes. No soul seemed to occupy the place, but that didn’t mean Sullivan hadn’t blended in with the walls. Keith gripped his keys and pushed the button, making the golden lights on his car blink.

  Just keep her safe, he whispered as he pushed from the door, racing to his vehicle as if rushing to home plate. He gripped the handle of the driver’s side door, yanked it open and threw himself into the car seat, jamming his shoulder on the center console. Pain shot up his arm, but he barely felt it. His hand immediately smashed the lock button. His gaze once again darted around the enclosure, noticing no shadows lurching towards him. All he saw were grey concrete beams, revealed by a golden light.

  His chest rose and fell in deep gasps as he fumbled with his keys, trying to find the car key. His father better not do anything to her. If he tried.... Keith gripped his key and jammed it in the ignition. He would.... What? Keith turned the key, making the engine roar to life. Talk to the press. An idea flickered in his mind. He reached for an iPad from his leather suitcase. No, he couldn’t take any documents, but he could use everything he knew about the untold history of Arther’s rise to power in order to keep them safe.

  Other Works by J.M. Downey

  A Time to Say Goodbye

  A Time to Overcome

  The Bonds of Tradition

  American Prince

  Pardoned

  Persecuted

  Proclaimed

  To learn more about J.M. Downey follow her at

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