The Complete Captive Heart Duet

by Carrie Aarons

  And then, in a moment of clarity, my father’s voice comes to me.

  “You’re going to get hit real hard out there in the NFL. Some linebacker or blocker is going to come out of nowhere and try to run your body into the ground. And it is going to hurt. Real fucking bad. And you’ll have five seconds, five second only to let that pain and that fear and that weakness course through your body. You count to five, let yourself feel it, and then after that, that’s it. That’s all you get. Five seconds.”

  Who knew that man would actually be good for something one day?

  So I let it come. I concentrate on my breathing, the pain, the fear, the what ifs. I let it in and count …

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

  And then it was over. And my mind and body were like a machine.

  I scooped Charlotte up, wrapping her in all of the blankets we’d accumulated. I went to the bunk where she kept her purse. Not that she’d needed it for the last three and a half months, but I knew where she kept it.

  I found the car keys in there and slung it over my shoulder. She was going to need her license at some point. Whether we lied about our names at the hospital … well, I hadn’t figured that out just yet.

  Loading Char into the car, I start it and thank God the engine turns over. While we haven’t driven it anywhere, I have started it periodically through this frigid winter. I just pray we can make it up the hill and down the long gravel driveway to the main road.

  I clear the snow and thank God the defrost still works because the windows begin to de-ice. I also thank us that we haven’t used this to get warm. It still has almost a half tank of gas.

  And another little miracle, I know where the hospital in the Poconos area is located. Thanks to Timmy Frasier for shooting me with an archery arrow when I was eleven, and had to be rushed to the ER for stitches.

  It’s about twenty-five minutes away, and I hope that Char can pull through for a little longer. I press some snow onto her forehead, thinking it might cool her down, and she makes a humming noise as if I’ve just shot her up with drugs for the first time.

  “Try and hang on, baby. I’m going to get you help.”

  I buckle us both in and adjust all of the mirrors, ready to speed to the hospital and hope like hell we don’t get pulled over on the way. And that no one recognizes our plates. Because I know for sure that they’re monitoring the highway for her white Camry.

  My foot is hesitant on the gas as I put the car in drive, and when I first start to move, I’m too lead footed. We both lurch forward as I brake hard in the middle of the quad to avoid hitting a cabin. Char slumps forward, her head almost hitting the dashboard, and I shoot my arm out to push her back into the seat.

  “Please be okay. Please be okay.”

  I keep muttering this to myself as I wind us up the snowy, icy hill leading away from Camp Marsh and back to the main road. I want Char to be okay. I want the car to be okay.

  The only thing I don’t care about being okay is myself. I don’t care if they catch me. I don’t care if the admitting nurse in the ER recognizes us straight away and calls security.

  I. Don’t. Care.

  All I care about is that Char lives. And if that means I’m going to jail, if it means I spend the rest of my life locked up, behind bars, then so be it. I got her into this mess, and I’m not going to sit around while I get her killed.

  36

  CHARLOTTE

  The whole world is fuzzy and a little bit muted. I feel like I’m looking at everything through tinted glasses, or maybe like I’m in a fishbowl and the world is just outside the glass.

  My arm feels heavy and prickly, and it feels like my skin is melting off my bones.

  I realize, in a delayed sort of way, that I’m moving. In a car. I turn, my eyes on a split-second time delay as well, and see Tucker looking at me from the driver’s seat, his mouth moving but my ears aren’t registering any of the sounds.

  “What are we doing?” My tongue feels swollen in my mouth.

  I strain hard to hear Tucker’s answer, but all I get are the words “coyote” and “hospital.”

  Closing my eyes, I swallow back the urge to puke my guts all over my lap. Coyote. Oh God. The coyote.

  I forgot all about the attack. But now it comes rushing back in sharp pain and color. How it felt to see him in the supply room, his beady, yellow eyes turning on me, my body freezing up with fear. How it felt when he sunk his teeth through my flesh, tendons and bone and tore away at me.

  I wince as I make contact with the bite. Tucker must have wrapped it in towels, and I must be in shock. Because I can’t feel the full extent of what I know must be a horrific bite. And infected.

  “Rabies!” I start to weep at the memory that my blood is turning to poison.

  “Shh.” Tucker soothes me and tears one hand from the wheel to rub my shoulder as he speeds down a highway.

  “Where are we going?” I ask again. He looks at me like he’s already answered the question, and I start to cry harder.

  We can’t be out on the roads. They’ll find us. They’ll take him away from me.

  Tucker presses a cold hand to my neck and it feels like the best thing in the entire world.

  “I have to take you to the hospital. You have to get treated and they need to fix you. I love you, please, baby. Just keep looking at me.”

  I hear that loud and clear, and even though it feels like I can’t do or say anything right now, I manage an, “I love you too.”

  And I stare at him. I lock my vision on him as hard as my slipping focus will allow me.

  All I see is Tucker until someone pulls me from the passenger side and carries my limp body to a surface and lays me down. Then my vision goes black.

  37

  TUCKER

  Some men and women in scrubs are loitering around the emergency room entrance when I pull up with a screech.

  “Please help!” I yell at them, jamming the car into park and running around to Char’s side.

  Two of the scrubs people run over to the car and lift Char from her seat when I yank open the door. No one is looking at me like I’ve been on the run for the last three months, so I follow them as they lift her onto the gurney.

  “What happened?” One of doctors in teal scrubs yells at me.

  “I … uh … she was bitten. By a coyote.”

  I watch him glance down and take in all of my Camp Marsh attire, and his confused look sets my nerves on edge.

  “How long has she been like this?” The female doctor in salmon colored-scrubs is unwrapping Char’s arm and looks seriously up at the other doctors.

  “Is she going to be okay?” I shout at her as they wheel a groaning Charlotte into the hospital.

  She repeats her question. “Sir, how long has she been like this?”

  “I … I don’t know. She was bitten yesterday, she wanted to see if it would get better by this morning. And when we woke up, her arm was the size of a pool raft. Oh God … oh Char!”

  I start to pull at my hair, all of that fear and anxiety I’d tamped down rising like bile in my throat.

  “All right, sir. I’m going to need you to wait here while we check her out.” Male doctor in teal tells me.

  I brush him off. “No, I want to come with her!”

  “Only family is allowed in the back Mr. …” Salmon scrubs trails off, and I know she’s looking for my name.

  I blank out for one second, but then I’m back, full force. “Mr. Marsh. And this is my wife, Patricia Marsh. Please, let me stay with her.”

  For a minute I think they won’t let me follow her gurney, but then they both nod and I grab Char’s good hand and we’re on the move again.

  They take her to a room made of windows, and shut all of the blinds.

  Male in teal points to a chair on Char’s good side. “You have to stay over there, out of the way. We need to examine her hand and she has a mighty high fever. Don’t get in the way.”

  I nod, just wanting them to stop fo
cusing on me and help her.

  And then they start ignoring me.

  “She’s got a temp of 103 and rising, we need to get some fluids and Tylenol in her stat!”

  “This cut is jagged, and the animal might have hit bone, can you take a look at this?”

  “You there, start an IV drip!”

  “The cut has started to clot, but she’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “Why is this pussing like this?”

  The last question flying around the room hits me and I supply him with the answer.

  “The coyote, I think it had rabies. It was swaying and foaming at the mouth. Please help her.”

  The doctors all look at me, and then go back to talking to each other.

  “Someone get me a rabies vaccination!”

  “Do we need to call the animal patrol?”

  “Sir, where were you when you saw the rabid animal?”

  I realize a doctor has stepped in front of my face, blocking my vision and leaving me unable to see Charlotte.

  “Sir?”

  Salmon scrubs is still talking to me. It’s then I realize I need a back story as to how the hell we showed up here looking like this, in this state.

  “We were staying at my Uncle’s camp for the holidays, we wanted a quiet retreat. We never took a honeymoon last year when we got married. It’s all closed up for the winter to the public so he told us to stay as long as we liked. We ended staying longer than we thought we would and raided the canteen for their comfy sweatshirts. Yesterday morning, my wife, Patricia, she was getting a snack from the mess hall. It attacked her and I was too late, too late…”

  Being a drug addict also made me a great liar. I could con people into almost anything. It should make me feel filthy, like scum, but right now all I am is grateful for it. We might make it out of this. Char is going to get better and we’re going to walk out of here. And I’m going to have a plan that allows us to stay together.

  “Why didn’t you bring her in yesterday, sir?” Salmon scrubs is pissed, and doesn’t have any sympathy for the great fake tears I’m trying to muster.

  “Tricia … she didn’t think it was that bad … she thought she could rest it.”

  She rolls her eyes so hard at me I think they might fall back into her head. She grumbles something about us being idiots and then goes back to working on Char.

  No one asks me anymore questions, and we’re left alone for hours after they stitch up her arm and put her on fluids and antibiotics.

  It’s not until the sun sets and the hospital windows are dark that Char finally opens her eyes.

  “Tucker?”

  I lift my head from where I had it resting on her bed, my hand gripping her pale one on the scratchy hospital-issue blanket.

  “Hi, babe.” I leap up and palm her face, relishing the feel of her cool skin under my fingers. “How are you feeling?”

  She manages a small smile. “Better. Much better. How long have we been here?”

  “Maybe ten hours? They pumped you full of the good stuff. You look … jeez …”

  I break off, catching the clog of emotion in my throat threatening to make me cry. I look down and blink, not wanting her to see me break down.

  “Hey … it’s okay. I’m all right.”

  I sniff. “I know, I just … you were in bad shape, baby. I should have never listened to you yesterday, I should have brought you here sooner.”

  “But I’m fine now,” she says, and she pulls me in for a kiss.

  “You should rest. And while you rest I’ll come up with a plan. This is going to work, babe. It really is.”

  Char sighs and leans back into her pillows. She squeezes my hand, and for the first time in weeks I feel like this is really going to work out. I love her and she loves me and we are going to face the world together.

  Before Char closes her eyes, I lean in and kiss her forehead. “Oh, by the way, your name is Patricia if anyone asks.”

  38

  CHARLOTTE

  I wake to the sounds of my heart monitor, steady and beeping.

  For the first time in days, my head feels normal again, clear and not like it’s weighing down my shoulders.

  I wiggle my fingers as the sunlight streams through the hospital window. My arm is still swollen and tingly to the touch, but feels like a normal appendage now. For days, I couldn’t even lift it without agonizing pain shooting through my body.

  We’ve been in the hospital for maybe three days now, and it’s been a journey. On-edge and tired all of the time between my injury and the fear of getting caught, I’m ready to get out of here now.

  The worst of my sickness and healing time has passed, and I don’t want to risk getting ourselves in any deeper than we already are. It was a risk, coming here, and Tucker sacrificed himself for me.

  If I weren’t already madly in love with him, this would have sealed the deal. He stepped up, he put my life before his. I was already willing to do it, but now I’ll put mine on the line in order to stay with him wherever that might take us.

  Which is why today is the day we leave. Tucker and I have been discussing it in hushed tones when the hospital lays quiet at night. How he’ll get my IV out, which stairwell and exit we will take. How he parked my car in a lot around the corner.

  “I have your clothes here. I charmed them back from a nurse who felt bad because your legs were cold.”

  “You flirted with her, didn’t you?”

  Tucker grins. “You can’t be mad at my charming ways when I’m using them to break us out of here.”

  “I guess not.”

  He crowds me in the bed, shoving his body almost beneath mine so that we can snuggle together on the lumpy twin bed.

  “Where will we go?”

  He plants a kiss on top of my head. “You let me worry about that. I just want you to get better.”

  “This is helping.” I nuzzle into his neck, feeling more relief just from his skin on mine than any drug or treatment could bring.

  Tucker has been with me every second here in the hospital. He hasn’t left my side, even though the doctors or nurses, or even other patients, could recognize him at any minute.

  By some grace of God, we haven’t been discovered. We’ve had full, hot meals. And warm showers. And Tucker even bought me flowers from the gift shop. And the new Jodi Picoult book.

  The ability to stay in one place, out of the cold and with all of the amenities the hospital offers … they’ve been, wonderful. But it’s time to go.

  “Tucker.” I shake him awake with my good hand.

  He groans and glances up, his face creased and his dark curls matted to the side from where he’s slept on them. God, he looks edible.

  “Hi, baby.” He grins, a sleepy, seductive smile, and I almost forget we’re in a hospital.

  I haven’t been able to touch him, to have him inside of me, for five days now. I’ve been too sick, or we’ve been surrounded by people. It’s been a culture-shock, being dumped into a place with so much activity after being alone with him for almost four months. Icy fingers of doubt and dread have crept into my brain before I’m able to banish them. They chant at me, what will happen if you two can never return to the real world?

  I try not to think about it.

  “Today is the day.” I lift his hand to my lips and kiss it, so thankful that this man came back into my life.

  I was so lost. In life, in my relationships. In my job. Not only did he steal me. No, he found me. Where no one could.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” He stands, bending over my bed and bringing his face to mine.

  His lips hover over my own until I answer. “I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life.”

  And then he kisses me. Seeks out my love as if he’ll be able to take it from within my mouth. And I give him all I have. Our tongues caress each other, our sighs and breaths become one.

  “I love you.” He palms my face.

  “I love you.” I press our noses together
.

  “If you don’t get your hands off of her this very second, so help me God I will kill you myself.”

  We both snap to attention, the icy tone floating in from the door making the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Because I’d know that voice anywhere.

  “Mother,” I gasp, suddenly not able to breathe. “How … how did you know?”

  She removes her scarf and walks into the room as if she owns the hospital and all of the land it sits on. She’s as put together as ever. My mouth goes dry, and Tucker isn’t touching me anymore. He’s scooted to the outer wall of the room, his brown eyes casing the joint, panicking.

  “Come now, dears. You didn’t think you could pull this little stunt for much longer did you?”

  We both stare at her, speechless. We can’t escape this now.

  She huffs. “This idiot parked your car around the corner. With a license plate that has been on the police’s radar for the last three months. It only took them a day to identify it. Hell, the way you two came into this hospital, you raised a million flags.”

  I think my jaw is somewhere down on the floor I’m so shocked and appalled. What is she doing?

  I can barely see anymore with the tears clouding my vision. I can practically feel the doom hanging over our heads. “You … you’ve known for days?”

  My mother’s laugh is like nails on a chalkboard. “Oh we’ve had undercover police surrounding your room for days. But no need to get you all riled up when you needed to be getting better. We knew we could take this piece of trash off to jail where he belongs once you had fully recovered.”

  I choke out a sob and Tucker rushes to my side, trying to protect me from the horrible words my mother is spitting out.

  “Tucker Lynch. Look who crawled out of the gutter and decided to kidnap my daughter, steal her from the world. I can’t wait to see you behind bars.”

  We both know it’s all over, there is nowhere for us to run now. My head spins from the agony of what is happening before my eyes.