by Scott, S. L.
Looking down, I see the flashing dot on the screen. “That’s not good.” I can tell he wants to say something, but hesitates. “What? Just say it.”
“It’s not good.” Looking up, keeping tabs on our whereabouts, he adds, “He would have checked in. He’s trained. He knows to fight and then to contact us. I won’t lie to you. I’m concerned for him and for your safety. This could be an ambush. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
“The police could be there already. Maybe it’s in their hands, and they have it sorted.”
“There have been calls to the police. We tracked three over a scanner. No one on duty has claimed the calls. No one’s en route. They were asking for available officers to report to the scene. There’s no response.”
Looking at my watch. “It’s been over ten minutes.”
He looks down at the tracking device flashing red. “I know.”
“What’s going on, Lars?”
“I don’t know, but we need to be careful.”
“I started a private social site. We talked about girls and whose parents we could steal a few beers from without getting caught.” The lights racing by outside hold my sight, but my thoughts are back in high school. I have no idea why my mind decided now was a good time to reminisce. “Twelve years later, I’m sitting here praying to God that a man who has become my friend isn’t dead because of me. Is this the meaning of success? Is this the happiness that money was supposed to buy?” I turn to Lars. “I’d trade it all for the last year to disappear.”
“Success comes in many forms. You aren’t responsible for Ms. Davis’s accident or for Aaron.”
“Then who is? Because I’m feeling pretty damn responsible when the woman I love is being thrown into traffic after being told I’m going to pay the price for who knows what.”
He goes quiet when a text appears on his screen. “The police are on their way, and we still haven’t found the suspect from this afternoon’s incident.”
“It’s not an incident if he intended to murder her.”
“Two minutes. Remain in the vehicle until I’ve secured the premises.”
I stare straight ahead, adrenaline pumping through my veins. The tires screech as we round the block to Singer’s street. As soon as it comes to a stop, I jump out. Lars is already yelling, “Stop him.”
He doesn’t have to.
We all stop at the same time.
With the headlights from the car shining toward the middle of the road, we see Aaron, eclipsed by the bright lights. Blood runs down his face, his shirt soaked, his arms full—a woman’s body.
Oh God.
Fuck.
I’ve witnessed many emotions in my life—sadness, happiness, heartbreak, anger, deceit, and more. But I’ve never witnessed devastation.
Until now.
Edging closer to us is a version of this man I’ve never seen before. Aaron has always been so . . . unshakable, undaunted. “I . . .” he starts, but then he lowers his head without finishing.
Her body is limp. Fuck. An image of Singer confuses me. And then I realize why. “Singer said I could borrow the dress. I hope you don’t mind, Ethan.”
“No. It fits. It looks nice.”
“We’re the same size, and thank you. I’ve never felt more beautiful.”
. . . Oh God. The dress. Melanie was wearing Singer’s dress to the wedding.
The team moves in and I run to them, lifting her neck as Lars helps Aaron hold on to her body. “Melanie? Melanie?”
When we move her to the back of the SUV, she remains motionless, not responding. Not breathing.
Sirens roar in the distance, fast approaching, but there’s no time to waste. I don’t know if it’s too late, but I will try my damnedest to save her.
I reach to take the pulse on her neck. “Melanie? Can you hear me? Mel, wake up.” Struggling to find a pulse, I glance at Aaron, who’s shaking his head.
“I already tried to revive her.” He falters, his eyes rolling back. I catch him when he’s too weak to stand, and he says, “I’ve been shot. Twice.”
Holding him up, I shout, “Has an ambulance been called?”
Aaron clears his throat, but blood drips from the corner. Fuck.
He says, “My phone.” Stopping to swallow, color draining from his face, he says, “I can’t find it.”
Lars responds, “We called.”
Lights drown us in red and blue and we’re surrounded as Lars holds on to Aaron. I shout to the police, “We need help. Our friends have been shot.” I grab hold of Melanie’s hand and hover over her, searching for life. Fucking hell.
Please, God, save her.
The ambulance pulls up behind the police cars, the paramedics rushing between the cops who have their guns aimed at us. The paramedics drop to help Aaron while the officers come closer, and demand, “Show us your weapons.”
Lars raises his hands. “We’re licensed gun carriers. We’re private security for Ethan Everest.”
“I’m Ethan,” I say with my arms held up. “Melanie Lazarus. She’s in the back of the SUV.”
“She’s been shot,” Aaron garbles.
They approach slowly and I watch as one of the paramedics jumps up and pushes between us. “How long ago?” With a walkie-talkie, he calls for backup as he runs to the ambulance. “We’ve got to get her to the ambulance.”
Staring at the cops, I say, “I don’t have a weapon on me. I’m going to help him.” I don’t wait for permission. As soon as he returns, I help move her to the backboard. He’s quick to secure her and then we lift. Aaron is rolled onto a gurney and maneuvered behind us.
Once we set her inside the ambulance, the paramedic jumps in and pulls the board. He’s quick to check her pulse again and lower his ear to her mouth. There’s a pause that extends. My movements are sluggish, realization setting in. From the other side of Melanie’s body, the paramedic looks at me. It’s the sadness, the distinctive look of sorrow that only comes from grief. She’s gone. “We’ll do the best we can.”
A cry of anguish rips through my heart, shredding it.
Singer.
When I turn around, I see her standing with her hands over her mouth, tears streaking down her face. Boxer shorts and a T-shirt, sneakers with no socks, she’s in the middle of the street next to a cab, eyes are fixed on Melanie. She runs, and I run, catching her before she can get any closer. She cries, “I need to be with her.”
“Singer,” I caution, my own grief hitting hard. All the money in the world . . . none of it matters if I can’t protect the ones I care about. “Stay with me.” I don’t know if I say it for her or me, but I hold her even tighter.
Her eyes track every minute movement inside the ambulance as the paramedic tends to her best friend. Hitting my chest, she screams at me, “Let me go. I’m the only one she has.”
“You can’t.”
“Let go of me, Ethan.” Pushing off me, she punches my shoulder to make my hold loosen, but it’s a losing battle. I secure my grip around her and whisper, “No. No. You can’t help her.” And I’m helpless. Fuck. I can’t help either of them.
Who did this?
Who hates me this much?
She stops fighting me, her body stilling in my arms and tensing under my touch. I hate it. When she looks at me, she whispers, “I need to be there for her.”
When I don’t speak right away, her eyes narrow. Then her arms stretch out, pushing me away again. “What?”
Shaking my head, I hold her until the ambulance drives away, and then I release her. “Why did you do that? I need to be there when she wakes up.” On a mission, she turns to go back to the cab, so I say the only thing she won’t want to hear, but the only thing that will stop her from leaving. “She’s gone.”
“She’s gone to the hospital?” she asks, almost hopeful. Almost. “I’m going to follow them.”
“Singer.” With one foot in the cab, she looks up. “She didn’t make it,” I say it the only way I can manage to, but it doesn’t d
ull the truth.
She gets in the cab and closes the door, but the car doesn’t move. When I see her head drop into her hands, her shoulders shaking as sobs break her apart.
I walk to the car and open the door. Tears flood her eyes, her anguish worn in the lines of her face. I reach in and help her out, bringing her into my arms. Dropping my forehead onto her shoulder, I beg, “Please forgive me.”
Please don’t leave me.
Please forgive me.
Even if she forgives me, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for dragging her into my nightmare. For being the cause of her immense and devastating loss.
30
Singer
Ethan’s back is to me. Whispers are exchanged and then he and the nurse look my way.
The phone rings seven times.
Three nods from the nurse.
He taps the counter twice.
Eleven steps to the chair next to me.
Four Mississippi seconds before he speaks. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
“No.”
His hand covers mine, the blood that covered them earlier all gone. He did the best he could to clean up, but his clothes are still stained. “I think we should.” His eyes are scanning the waiting room.
Twelve people. I counted. Twelve people who may have their lives changed forever after tonight. Maybe they have already.
I have. Mine has.
Focus on the numbers. Count. Don’t stray from facts. Forty-six black tiles. Thirty-two chairs. Nine magazines. Five books. Are people waiting here long enough to read books?
“Come with me, Singer.”
I do as I’m told because that’s easier than thinking for myself right now. Four overhead messages calling for Dr. Schneider.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four . . .
The air is not as I expected. It’s not fresh. It’s stifling. I need to be inside, closer to Melanie. “When can I see her?”
We stop near a bench a few feet from the hospital’s entrance. He’s staring at me with eyes I don’t recognize, piercing my heart before he says the words. “Melanie is gone.”
I stare at him, at his right eyebrow, never noticing that dark spot before. Reaching to touch it, I smooth it down, then pull my hand back. My breathing halts, my throat closing. He grabs my wrist when I discover the color came off, my eyes fixated on the dark red on my skin. “Singer?”
My stomach revolts. I turn and vomit into the bushes.
Melanie is gone.
Melanie is gone.
No.
I refuse to accept that.
Ethan needs to stop saying that.
He’s wrong.
“You’re lying,” I say, my entangled emotions coming out harsher toward him.
“No.” He doesn’t temper his words or the intensity of his eyes. “I’m not.”
Salty tears mix with dry heaves as the reality of his words sink in, my body giving out.
I’m grabbed, held tight, as I cry. “Melanie is not dead.” I search his eyes, trying to find the sagey green that doesn’t lie. “Right, Ethan? She’s not.”
He’s lifting me to my feet when all I want to do is sleep. I need this nightmare to stop. “Singer? Look at me. Look at me, baby.” My head is shaking, denying his tone. My eyelids are weighted as I fight against the burning that started in my stomach. When I finally look up, tears fill his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
He’s sorry?
I try to process his words. Sorry for—No. I can’t. No. Not that. “No.”
“Singer.”
There’s that tone again. “Don’t say my name like that. Please.”
The tears fall like rain down my face, the pads of his thumbs trying to soothe my pain away. But the gentlest of touches can’t heal this wound. He says, “I need you to hear me. Aaron is alive, Singer. He wants to see you—”
“I need to see him.” Aaron is alive. I swipe the back of my hands across my cheeks, and push out of his hold. “Come on.”
“Singer, wait.”
No, go. I must go to him. I don’t make it halfway down the hall before I’m grabbed. “Let go of me, Ethan.”
“He’s in surgery. We have to wait.”
“But—”
“He told me before he was taken in. We can be here when he wakes up, but that will be hours from now. I think we should go home and you should rest.”
I yank my hands from his. “Go home? Home to where my friend was hurt?” Hurt, not murdered. Please let her be okay. Please, God.
“I meant the penthouse.”
“No.” My head is shaking, the motion matching my hands. “That’s your home.” Taking a step back, I say, “Home. Home. Melanie. Oh God, what has happened?” I start to slip, my body too weak to carry the reality of what’s real—she’s gone. “She liked Mike. She thought it could be more. Tonight . . . she was excited to wear the dress. My dress. Something so pretty. She looked so pretty. I’m sorry I didn’t ask you if you minded. I couldn’t say no to her. We’re sisters. Not blood, but through love. She’s my family.” My mind starts looping. “I couldn’t say no—”
“It’s okay. Of course I don’t mind. Singer, breathe.”
Squeezing my eyes closed, I focus on one word.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
It’s rough, my throat dry, but I breathe. Then I exhale slowly and open my eyes. “Strangers ask us if we’re sisters. All the time. We don’t look much alike, but our hair is a similar color, and we wear the same size. She’s much prettier though. Her personality eclipses everyone’s.”
“She thought the same about you.”
“Thought?”
Past tense. Thought.
Breathe.
We were sisters.
Breathe.
She was so much prettier.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Pressing my forehead to his chest, his arms come around me. I whisper, “She’s gone, isn’t she?”
“I’m sorry.”
I try to push away, but he holds on tighter. “I need to talk to Melanie’s family, Ethan. I need to talk to mine.” Tears take over again, slipping between my lips. “Mike.” Sobs wrack my body. “He needs to be called.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Moving us off to the side, he lowers his voice. “Take a breath. Take a deep breath. You’re in shock. Understandably, but I need you. Tell me how I can help you.”
“I’m alive. I don’t need help. I just need to know what happened.”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“But you know.”
“We shouldn’t be talking here.”
Looking right and then down the hall toward the exit to the left, I don’t see anything but desperation in the faces of families waiting and nurses busy making rounds. “Why?”
He stares at me a good few seconds before whispering, “Someone tried to kill you. Have you forgotten?”
We’re getting stares. He has blood all over him. “No, how could I?’” My arms are wide. “How could I forget?” Covering my face with my hands, I bury myself in the comfort of his arms. “I’m the one who should be dead. Not her.”
Taking me by the elbow, he’s not asking this time. “We have to go.”
I free my arm, but follow. The tension between us is almost audible. Lars sits in the passenger seat and when I look at the driver, he’s unfamiliar, upsetting my stomach again. Ethan doesn’t say anything, but he hands me tissues.
I hate this—this dread, this tension, this fear, this anger, this nightmare we’re living. I gasp, covering my mouth.
The dress.
The shoes.
The apartment.
We look like sisters.
Oh God.
“Her hair only varied by a few shades,” I say, my thoughts barely voiced as my stomach sickens from the realization. I think I’m going to be sick.
“They thought she was me.”
Lars and the driver don’t react, both
great at their jobs and minding their own business—eyes forward at all times. On the contrary, Ethan is staring at me like I’m already a ghost. The lights from the street reflect against the water in his eyes. Guilt forces his gaze to his lap, and then morphs into shame. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I ask, my anger simmering. This is not the man I know. Images of that party last year come flashing back with every street lamp that lights up the car.
White smile. Full lips.
Dynamic green eyes.
Six three and impossible to ignore.
I turn away, not because he’s not still so damn stunningly handsome, but because he can’t look me in the eyes when he replies, “For Melanie.”
Hearing her name causes my stomach to lurch and the pain is too much to contain. It leaks through tears and cries I can’t hold back, not even to reassure him. The door opens and I hesitate. Looking at the steel elevator that leads to the penthouse feels more like a sentence than a safe haven.
But I get out.
I know I don’t have a choice.
I also don’t have anywhere else to go.
Lars rides up. His back is to us like the first time Ethan brought me here. This time there’s no flirting or sneaky peeks. No sexual tension and no undressing each other. Our souls are already bared to the point of ragged. Nothing exists, but three people who went to war and two who came back injured.
Stepping out first, I catch a glimpse of the photo of me, but I don’t stop. I keep walking through the penthouse and straight to the bedroom. The dim light comes on when I walk into the bathroom. Sitting on the edge of the tub, I stare ahead at the large mirror. Similar to how I didn’t recognize Ethan back in the vehicle, I don’t recognize myself now.
Sallow.
Dark circles.
Exhausted eyes that refuse to open wider.
I turn and start to fill the bath with water. I don’t bother turning the lights any brighter. I like the nighttime setting. It’s comforting in the darkness. Stripping off my clothes, I leave them in a pile at my feet before painstakingly pulling the bandages from my knees. I feel as dirty as I look, so I step in before the tub is full and sink down under the water. Holding my breath for as long as I can.