by Amiee Louise
“Sam.”
My voice is barely a whisper
“I’m here, angel.”
He squeezes my hand in reassurance, and I’m not sure where it comes from, but a tear slips down my cheek. All of this, being in hospital, the events leading up to this moment, is all a little overwhelming.
“You’re safe now.”
Suddenly, everything that happened in the chapel hits me like a Boeing 747, and it feels like I am reliving it all over again. The gunshots, the bloodcurdling screams of terror coming from the people I love, the mysterious, chilling figure wielding the gun like something out of a Hollywood movie sequence. The remember moment I felt the bullet rip through my stomach and the moment I fell to the floor and my whole world went dark.
“Sam,” I sob.
“Shhh, it’s ok. You’re safe, no one can hurt you now.”
He gets to his feet, and he winces in pain.
“You’re hurt,” I whisper, and my voice sounds foreign in my throat.
He shakes his head as he smiles his dazzling smile. It feels like a lifetime since I saw him smile.
“It’s just a scratch, angel. I’m fine.”
He kisses my forehead and I reach up to grip his t-shirt in my hand, pulling him closer to me. I need him. I need him like I need air to breathe. I bury my face in his chest, and the masculine scent of him instantly soothes me. I know at that moment, we’ll get through this, as long as we have each other.
***
Sam
How the fuck do I tell the woman I love more than life itself that her best friend is dead? How can I be the one to blow her world apart like that? How can I be the one to put that look of pure heartbreak in her eyes? I can’t, I just can’t.
I held her for a while, softly soothed her, and told her everything was going to be alright until she drifted off to sleep. Both of us are lucky to be alive. The physical damage is always repairable, but the mental and psychological damage is irreversible. I’m lying in my hospital bed in near dark, almost drifting off to sleep, when the door taps softly. The door opens, and I’m greeted by the last person in the world I expect: Remy Logan. He is walking with a crutch and is wearing loose, grey, jogging bottoms, a white vest, and a dark grey, chunky knit cardigan.
“Newbolt.”
I nod curtly. He enters the room and closes the door behind him. He drops down heavily onto the chair next to my bed. He leans his crutch against the wall and scrubs his hands down his face.
“How are you holding up? I’m so sorry to hear about Ruby,” I say, breaking the heavy silence.
He looks up at me with such pain in his eyes that I actually feel genuinely sorry for him.
“Thanks, I can’t fucking believe she’s gone…my baby sister.”
His voice breaks as he says those final three words.
“It seems so…surreal, it feels like a bad dream. My mum and dad are in bits, I bet Peyton is devastated.”
I half turn my head away and avert my gaze elsewhere.
“She doesn’t know, does she?” he states matter-of-factly, and I shake my head.
“She’s just come around, I couldn’t hit her with that. Call me selfish, but I can’t do that to her, not yet.”
He looks me square in the face and nods in understanding.
“Maybe I should be the one to tell her. She was my sister, after all, and I feel like I owe her that.”
The emotion in his voice is too much for me to take in, and for once, I don’t argue.
***
Peyton
I wake, and it takes me a few moments to gather my bearings. When I do, I turn to look into the eyes of Remy. He looks pale and older than his thirty-three years. His deep, hazel eyes look sad and troubled.
“Rem”.
He reaches over and clutches my hand in his.
“Beaut.” I squeeze his hand tighter. “How are you feeling?”
I nod.
“Sore, but I’m ok.”
I manage a weak smile, and the look Remy gives me tells me that there’s something that he’s holding back.
“Rem, is something wrong?”
He briefly closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they are filled with tears.
“Ruby didn’t make it…she’s gone, beaut.”
As he says those words, my whole world collapses around me. It has to be some sort of sick joke. Ruby can’t be dead, she can’t be. It takes me a moment to process what Remy has just told me, and as I do, the dam breaks. I sob hard and uncontrollably. Remy stands up, and I move gingerly to make room for him. He climbs up onto the bed and holds me while I cry for my best friend and the baby she was carrying.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but I wake with a damp face and I feel exhausted.
“Beaut,” Remy says sleepily.
“What happened, Rem? I have to know.”
He turns his head away and looks up to the ceiling.
“She was shot in the head, it was…Jesus, words can’t describe it. There was so much blood.”
He swallows hard, and I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for him.
“The ambulance got there, and it was kind of hazy after that. We got to the hospital, and the doctors told us that they could keep her alive long enough for the baby to survive. We had to make the decision to save her baby…she was eight months pregnant. She had a daughter, beaut. Jax is a dad, and I’m an uncle.”
He lets out a sob, and I squeeze him tighter as I sob softly.
Ruby had a daughter?
37
Sam
I’m still trying to find the courage to tell Peyton the real reason why this is happening to us.
“Grow some fucking balls, Newbolt,” Brody growls.
“You have to tell her, you can’t keep it from her. She has a fucking right to know, and you’re being a prick for keeping her in the dark. This has impacted us all. We’ve lost people who have been with us for over ten fucking years, man. Cole might never walk again.”
He runs his hand over his head. He’s more than a little agitated; he hates hospitals.
“She doesn’t deserve this. She almost fucking died, so did you. Jax lost the woman he loved, and he has a child to take care of now,” he says, and I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that Jax is a dad.
“Eight people are fucking dead, Sam, people we cared about!” he says, with a clenched jaw. “Now, would be the perfect time to get fucking high, shit. I have to go, I can’t fucking be here.”
He curses and storms out of the room. A few moments later, the door knocks once, and I wonder who the fuck it is this time.
“Come in,” I rasp, and as I look up, my eyes meet those of Seb Henry.
He gestures to the chair next to my bed.
“May I?”
I nod, and he sits down.
“I know what you’re going to say, mate,” I say to Seb, and he nods once curtly. “Tell me what happened,” I ask out of morbid curiosity, and he leans forward to rest his arms on his knees.
“When I heard the shots, my military training kicked in. All I saw was a target that had to be taken down, it was just instinct. By the time I got there, she’d already shot so many people. We’re not trained to think, we’re trained to take out the threat, and she was a threat. I was near the back of the room, so I was out of her peripheral vision. I managed to sneak in behind her, and I took her down.”
Listening to his account of how he killed my sister, I can’t put into words how I feel. She murdered innocent people that were close to us, and injured so many others, but she was still my sister. She was still my flesh and blood.
“How?” I murmur, as if I could possibly torture myself more.
He briefly squeezes his eyes shut.
“I broke her neck.”
I look up to meet his eyes.
“I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to feel about this…Thank you for telling me personally. Now…I just need some space to process.”
He nods in under
standing, and he stands up. Before he leaves, he moves closer to me and squeezes my shoulder.
“I’m sorry, mate, genuinely I am,” he says sincerely as he turns and leaves the room.
The few minutes that pass after he leaves allows me to process the true extent of what has happened, and I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to tell Peyton that it was my sister that caused all of this…mindless slaughter.
Get it together, Newbolt, you have to tell her.
I manage to manoeuvre myself into the wheelchair at the side of my bed.
A fucking wheelchair, I inwardly curse as I drop down into it, wincing at the pain in my side.
I wheel myself down the corridor, nodding to Kai as he helps me with the door and places the iPad he has in his hand on my lap. I navigate my way through her door, and Kai closes it behind me as my eyes lock with hers. She looks so upset, so devastated.
“She’s gone, Sam. Ruby’s gone,” she sobs, and I move towards the bed.
I clutch her hand in mine and plant a kiss on the back.
“I know, angel. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
I know that once she knows what I have to tell her, all hell is going to break loose. Fuck.
I can’t hold back any longer. Brody’s right, she has to know. I’m a dick for keeping it from her. I take a deep breath, and I know it’s now or never.
“Angel, there’s something you need to know.”
She lifts her head and the look in her eyes says, ‘what more could you possibly have to tell me?’ I tap the screen on the iPad a few times and turn it towards her as the person on the screen begins to speak.
***
“If you’re watching this video, it means I’m either dead or in prison. J.D was the only one who believed me, and you took him away from me, that’s why you all had to fucking pay. I was nine years old, the first time Jed Dalton raped me. At the age of eleven I told my mother, who told me I shouldn’t tell such vicious lies and that people would stop loving me if I kept on lying. I didn’t say anything to anyone again, until I was fourteen years old and John walked in on me crying in my bedroom. I told him everything. He was the only person I could ever truly trust, and we formed a bond thicker than blood. You see, John and me, we had the sort of relationship that Sam and me should have had. He had my back, and I had his.... I always felt like an outsider, even in my own family. There was never a connection, not like I had with John, it was unbreakable. He never felt good enough in his family, and I understood that, because I felt the same. Our bond was so strong that he even killed his dad for me. He did it to make him pay for what he did to me, all those years ago. John made it look like Jed died of a heart attack, when in fact John poisoned him with ricin, which is untraceable.”
The tears roll freely down Peyton’s cheeks, and every tear feels like a knife to my fucking heart. I can’t stand to see that look in her eyes, it shreds me. I softly stroke her knuckles in a gesture of reassurance as we continue to watch.
“I knew he was in love with Sam, I’ve known for years. When I saw what his relationship with Peyton was doing to John, I had to do something to protect him. I cut the brakes on Peyton’s car, but the bitch survived. Then, after what happened in Las Vegas, John seemed happier. He had the relationship with Sam he’d craved for so many years. They were close for the first time in a long time, but he went off the rails after Sam tried to end his own life. He fell deeper and deeper into drugs, until he couldn’t see a way out. The night before he took Sam, he called me. He was out of his mind on cocaine, babbling about how he was going to make Sam love him. I had no fucking idea what he was going to do, I swear. After that, my true brother was arrested and died in prison, all because Sam fucking Newbolt fell in love with the wrong person. John would have gone to the end of the fucking earth for Sam, that’s why I have to avenge his death. I have to show every single fucking one of you that there are consequences.”
Peyton can’t hold back the sob that escapes her as she pushes the iPad back towards me. The look in her eyes fucking destroys me, and she doesn’t speak for a few moments. After what feels like a lifetime, she swallows a few times and her eyes, full of tears, lock with mine.
“Savannah was working with J.D all this fucking time?”
Her voice is shaky, and it is as if her saying it out loud brings it home. My sister, Savannah Newbolt, was working with J.D, and she was the one who was behind this. She was the one behind the shooting, she was the one who cut Peyton’s brakes, which started the wheels in motion. She was the one who tried to run us off the road…all of it, with the help of J.D, was her. My flesh and blood.
I can’t get my fucking head around any of it.
***
Peyton
Seeing Savannah’s confession on the screen in front of me…it doesn’t seem real. Sam’s sister was working with J.D all along, and none of us had a clue. As if we haven’t been through enough with the shooting, this happens.
How much more can we take?
“Is she…?”
I can’t say the words out loud. What I want to say is “Is the psycho bitch dead?”, but she’s still Sam’s sister. It is as if he knows what I want to say, and he simply nods.
“Seb killed her,” he says flatly, with no emotion to his voice, and I reach for his hand. “Eight people died and twenty-three people were injured, Peyton. No matter if she was my sister, my blood, I can’t fucking forgive her for that,” he rasps. “Cole may never walk again, he was shot in the hip. Ruby, Alistair, Lex, and Blu are all dead.”
Words can’t describe how I’m feeling right now. My best friend is gone as are a number of people from Sam’s entourage. They were people I got to know through my association with him and are all gone, lives cut short because of some psycho bitch with a fucking grudge. I can’t comprehend the enormity of this.
It’s too much.
“My mum and both of my brothers were injured, and my baby sister, Willow. How could she fucking do this to us?”
He puts his hand to his head and tugs his hair hard. I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for him. We are interrupted by an abrupt knock on the door.
“Come in,” Sam says gruffly, and the door opens.
Marlowe enters the room, and the look on his face is grave and ashen.
I know this isn’t going to be good news.
“Sam, it’s your mother…she…”
He sniffs and takes a moment to compose himself. Sam manages to get his feet, clutching his side.
“Dad? What’s happened?”
Marlowe places his hand on Sam’s shoulder.
“She’s gone, son.”
Sam sinks down to the floor and starts to sob hard.
“No! No! No!” He wails.
I feel helpless as I lay in my hospital bed, watching the man I love crumble because his mum is dead. A tear slips down my cheek, and I wipe it away quickly. Marlowe drops to the floor and pulls Sam into his arms. He reminds me of a small child, and my heart breaks watching the scene unfold before me. Sam’s right, our lives will never be the same again.
***
Sam
Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I find out my mum is dead. Another victim of my sister’s killing spree. My head starts to spin, and the enormity of this whole thing strikes like a bolt of lightning.
My mum is gone.
The woman who bought me into this world and nurtured me into the man I am today. Something inside me fucking snaps, and the strangled sob that finds its way out of my mouth doesn’t sound like my own. I sit on the floor, letting my dad hold me and soothe me for the longest time. The overwhelming sense of grief and loss cripples me until I feel like I can’t be here any longer. I need to leave, I need to deal with this the only way I know how, and that is to beat the living shit out of anything I can lay my hands on…just so I can feel anything other than this gut wrenching agony.
I pull away from my dad’s tight embrace and manage to get to my feet. My dad stands up at
the same time, and the look in his tired green eyes mirrors mine. I lean over to kiss Peyton on the forehead and leave the room in silence. I stride down the corridor, with purpose, ignoring the pain that tears through my chest, and stop in front of the coffee machine. I pull a dollar out of my pocket and insert it into the machine. I press the button for coffee, and as the cup pops out, I notice a tea bag in the bottom of the cup.