by W Winters
“Men?” I question.
“A number of them. In cars that seem… expensive. Same with the clothes.”
“Are you suggesting I’m some sort of escort, Mrs. Walker?” I throw in a bit more contempt than I should, in an attempt to get her to back off.
“No. I think they’re drug dealers.” Her answer isn’t judgmental. Just matter of fact.
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and I have to cross my arms a bit tighter.
“This is what happened to your sister. Isn’t it?”
Words escape me. The memory of my sister on the steps right in front of me causes the cold to seep into my skin, and then deeper within. I can see her there still. I can’t tear my eyes away from her. God help me, I’m losing it. She looks just as I saw her last. Except for her hair, she’s wearing it like our mom used to. Memories flood my thoughts. None of them good.
“Are you all right? You’re as white as the snow,” Mrs. Walker says as she grips my shoulder and I snap, pulling myself away from her.
“Please leave me alone,” I tell her and refuse to look back at my sister. I can feel Jenny’s gaze on me. It’s like she’s sitting right there on the porch steps. Watching us now, but not saying anything.
I don’t move until Mrs. Walker does, leaving in silence. It’s only when she’s walking down the stairs that I dare look at them.
My sister’s not there. Of course she’s not. She’s gone. My sister’s gone.
Whipping my door open, I pace in the hall.
What the fuck is wrong with me? I need to get the fuck out of here.
My keys jingle as I lift them from the hook in my foyer. I nearly leave just as I am: unshowered and in pajamas. I haven’t even brushed my hair yet today. With my hand on the doorknob, I settle my nerves.
Just take one breath at a time. One day at a time.
Shower. Dress. And then I’m heading to Laura’s.
She’ll help me. She has to know a way out.
If Jase loves me, he’ll give me space. I just need to breathe. He’ll understand if I go away for just a little while. I’ll do what Aiden said. I’ll go away. Somewhere no one knows. I have to get away from here. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my inner bitch is laughing at me for thinking Jase would ever let me leave. He doesn’t know what my mother told me though. I can’t fall for him. I can’t risk it and knowing that makes me want to run faster than I’ve ever run in my life.
Jase
It’s always quiet out here. Although it was quiet last time as well, and that’s when everything fell apart.
Rows and rows of stones. Centuries have passed and nothing’s changed. I think that’s why I come here. It doesn’t matter what happened before or after, the stones stay in familiar rows like silent sentinels.
I’ve lived with many regrets and many failures. It’s not often that I can see them the moment they happen. I shouldn’t have told her to marry me. Now that it’s done though, I can’t stop from wanting to tell her again and again until she agrees.
I can make that right.
Unlike so many other things I can’t fix. The gust of breeze blows dried flower petals across the gravestone before me. With the petals clear of it, it’s easy to read my brother’s name etched in stone.
I’ll make it right with her. There’s only so much I can make right, and she deserves it. Not many do.
If I had to pinpoint a time when everything changed, a single moment when everything went wrong, I’d be forced to choose between two.
The first is the moment Romano hired a hit on me that went awry and resulted in a funeral for my closest brother. An old soul at such a young age, he never did anything to anyone. Tragedy changes a man forever.
If fate had ended its interference there, I don’t think my brothers and I would have a normal life, but it wouldn’t be one so cruel. Maybe one more empty though.
“I figured I’d find you here,” Seth calls out from a distance. Shoving his hands into his black windbreaker he makes his way to me. I’m not ready to leave though.
The second moment is when Carter was taken by Nicholas Talvery, beaten, and changed into a broken boy hell-bent on fighting the men who lived to destroy us. He blazed the path for us, viciously and mercilessly. Because of him we stayed. We didn’t have to run; we were more than capable of fighting together.
Two old men, men who ruled ruthlessly, they’re the ones so easy to blame.
Since then, everyone has left us and no one could be trusted. Pillars of life crumbled to insignificant dust in favor of simply surviving and adapting to be more like them. To dedicate our lives to destroying them before they could do the same to us.
I hate what we’ve become, but I can’t let go of how it all started and what still needs to be done.
Talvery is dead; Romano is close to gone, but Marcus is still here. Still giving orders, still deciding everyone’s fate as if it’s his right. They may be the root cause of it all, but Marcus planted the seeds, Marcus knew.
“I’ll make them all pay.” The promise to my brother drifts away in the bitter wind.
“What’s that?” Seth asks and then braces against the harsh chill, zipping his jacket before glancing at the stone on the ground. I can see the question written on his face, but he doesn’t voice it. Instead he tells me, “I didn’t hear what you said.”
He’s taller than me, just barely. But on the hill of the grave he looks taller still.
“You found me,” I comment and huff a sarcastic laugh. “Should have gone somewhere else.”
“I have good news and bad. I didn’t think you’d want to wait for either,” Seth tells me, and the way he lowers his voice suggests an apologetic tone.
“Let’s have the good news first,” I tell him, staring off into the distance past the rows of gravestones to the green grass, waiting to be filled.
“There are patterns in the movements of the men we’ve been watching.” Seth takes a half step closer and adds, “Marcus’s men.”
I focus all my attention back to Seth. “Patterns?” He nods and says, “Between the ferry and the trains. They’re transporting something.”
The smell of fresh dirt and sod blow by us as he adds, “They’re spending a lot of time at each location. Declan thinks there are holding points.”
“And what about Marcus? Where is he?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Find him.” My answer is clipped, but easy enough. It’s progress in this slow game of chess and we’re carefully moving pieces on the board.
“Bethany still doesn’t know about Jenny?”
“No. I’m not telling her until I know where she is and that she’s alive still.”
“Right,” he says. The single word brings defeat to the air and I can’t place my finger as to why. “I don’t know that we’d be able to sneak up on him or set something up without him knowing. He has eyes everywhere. The more people we follow, the more are involved--”
I cut him off, knowing the risk involved, knowing Marcus will more than likely know when we come for him. “Just find him.”
“Of course. I’m on it.”
“And the bad news?”
Bethany
“Why don’t we take it from the top?” Laura asks me in her living room as I pace in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the park. Although, from up here on the twentieth floor, it’s merely a square of green.
“Which top?” I ask her. “The one that involves Jase or the one that’s easier to swallow?”
“I get the easy one, you’re on leave and need to go on vacation before Aiden will quit being an ass. That one I’ve got. How about the one where you went to jail?”
“I don’t think I was technically in jail since I never saw a cell.” I don’t stop my pacing.
“So the money is gone, but Jase doesn’t care. All the evidence is gone and he wants you to marry him just in case this happens again?”
I only nod.
“See, it’s
the marriage thing that I may be hung up on…” she trails off as she lowers herself to a dusty rose velvet chair and takes a sip from her tall wine glass. She settled on prosecco when I said I didn’t want any coffee and word-vomited up everything – including seeing my sister on my front porch steps. I’m surprised she didn’t go straight for the vodka.
“The ‘marry me’ part? Not seeing my dead sister and feeling her there?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes we see what we want to see. You feel alone and need someone to talk to. You didn’t want to tell me about the money. She was your rock for a long time…”
Was. Past tense. My steps slow to a stop as I pull my still-damp-from-the-shower hair away from my face and look back down at the park.
“I’m sorry about the money,” I say and have to clear my throat after speaking. I’d say anything for her not to bring up Jenny again. She’s gone. Truly gone.
Fuck. It shouldn’t hurt like this still, should it?
“Don’t worry about the money--”
Cutting her off, I ask, “Will you hide me?” Shock flashes in her eyes. Swallowing thickly, I continue, “I don’t know how you got the money, but there’s obviously a lot I don’t know. If there’s any way to hide me – please do it. I just need to get away for a while.”
“Away from Jase, you mean?” She barely says the words and I nod.
“I need to cope and think on my own and he’s just…”
“All consuming,” she finishes my statement for me, but somehow the words seem to be meant for someone else as she looks past me, staring at the white and blush striped curtains instead.
“Yes.”
She nods once, downing her glass and then standing up, all the while not looking at me. As she rounds the corner to her kitchen, no doubt to fill her glass, she tells me, “I have someone I can call. I can ask him for a favor.”
Hope is nowhere in her cadence; her tone is resigned.
I can feel some hope though. A tiny bit at the idea of being away for just a little while. Enough to get out of the chaos. Enough to breathe. Taking out my phone, I contemplate telling Jase just that. To give me space and time. That I’ll be back.
I slip my phone back into my jeans. Not yet. He’s not going to like it. He needs to get over it, though. There are plenty of things I don’t like about this arrangement either, and I’ve rolled with the punches as best as I can. I return to gazing at the park and brush my fingers against the cool glass. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never been so… so helpless.
I hear Laura before I see her and I’m quick to turn my back on my reflection as she lets out a long breath.
“Did you call?” I ask her and she doesn’t answer immediately. Instead she stares through me, looking to the park outside.
She snaps out of it as I bite out her name.
“What?”
“Did you call?” I ask her again and an eerie feeling crawls over my skin at the way she swallows before answering me, although she only nods.
“What’s wrong?” I question her and she shakes her head, then returns to her seat.
“It’s just work. Not you.”
Relief isn’t so forthcoming, but I don’t think Laura’s lying to me. Especially not when she offers me a tight smile.
“Is it Michelle? Is she okay? I heard dealing with the pica condition has been difficult.”
Her hair swishes as she shakes her head. “She’s doing fine. All your patients are fine,” she says as she leans back, moving her hair to one side and braiding it. “Don’t worry about them, you workaholic, you.”
“What is it then?” I ask her. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Did I tell you about the patient with no name?” she says and her features turn serious. A haunting memory reveals itself in her eyes.
“Just initials?”
“Right. The woman with only initials…” She pauses before telling me the rest. “Somehow… someway, she got hold of a bottle of antifreeze.”
“What the hell?”
“She tried to kill herself. She drank the entire thing and needed an emergency transfusion. Every ounce of her blood had to be drained for her not to die.”
“How could that have even happened? That’s impossible.” She shakes her head only ever so slightly, but her expression holds a different answer. My hands tremble as I walk toward her. I can’t believe it. “When did this happen?”
“Three days ago.”
“How the hell did it happen?” I walk closer to her, unable to contain the horror and shock that a patient in our facility was able to obtain a means to end it.
“That’s the thing,” she says and looks me dead in the eyes. “There is no investigation.”
Chills flow down my arms. All my concerns seem so meaningless in comparison. I’ve never been so grateful for a tragedy.
“She had to have dialysis, the antifreeze did so much damage. We were waiting to hear what kind of inquiries would be made. What paperwork and interviews we needed to prepare for… but Aiden told us that it never happened. To act like there was no incident and not to speak a word of it. So you… you better not tell him I told you.”
“How can there be no investigation?” The question leaves me slowly, barely able to form itself.
“Whoever is paying for her to be there paid for the antidote, the dialysis… all of it with cash and they don’t want any attention brought to it.”
I drop into the seat next to her, processing it all and unable to shake the cold sensation that’s taken over.
“Whoever it is, they want her there and they don’t want anyone to know about it.”
“Did they give her the antifreeze?” I dare to question.
“No. Aiden’s the only one on her charts. After he told us, I followed him to his office.” She swallows thickly. “I think it was an accident. He’s on her charts, bringing her items she asked for. I think he made a mistake. But I don’t understand why he’s not fired. He should have checked it.”
“Aiden? No.” I can’t believe that. Aiden’s better at his job than that.
“I think he fucked up. She’s smart and wants to die. Really wants to die.” She licks her lower lip and then tells me, “But whoever’s paying for all of this? They want her alive.”
A cheerful series of dings in different octaves fills the room, forcing her knuckles to turn white as she grips the chair and then cusses beneath her breath.
“Your doorbell is going to give you a heart attack,” I comment and then look to the large cobalt door. “Who is that?”
She doesn’t look back at me as she stands and tells me, “The person I called.”
There are little moments when you know someone’s screwed you over before they show their cards.
It’s in the way they talk; the way they look at you. Even the way Laura walks right now. Unlocking the deadbolt and opening the door without speaking, without checking to see who it is.
All the while I sit there, denying this feeling of betrayal as if it’s not really happening.
Even when Seth walks through the door, tall, handsome and demanding Seth, I still want to deny it.
“I’m tired of being the last to know,” is all I can mutter, leaning back and hating that the last person I had in my corner denied me a chance to get out of this mess. “I suppose it’s my problem to deal with, isn’t it?”
I can hear her apologies, her pleas for me to understand all the while Seth is saying something, but it’s all white noise. I’m not interested in hearing what her excuse is. She of all people should know I need to get away. She lives in solace. She preaches it to me constantly.
“So, Seth?” I finally speak up although my ass is still firm in the chair. “Seth’s who you called? Or did you go straight to Jase?”
They both speak at the same time.
“You have to forgive me, Bethany – I didn’t have a choice.”
“Jase doesn’t have to know you were thinking about leaving him.”
The chai
r pushes back against the wall; it would have tipped over if the wall hadn’t been there to block its path because I stood so quickly.
“First off, you always have a choice,” I push the words through clenched teeth at Laura and then turn to Seth. “Secondly, I wasn’t leaving him. I wasn’t running, so fucking tell him for all I care!” I don’t mean to scream.
I don’t mean to lose control. Who the fuck am I kidding? What control did I ever have?
“Beth, please,” Laura says as she reaches out for me and I snatch my arm away.
“How could you?” I can’t look at her. Not because of anger. Because of the hurt that rests across my chest.
“One day I’ll tell you why. Just forgive me,” she pleads with me.
“I love you,” I tell her. “But right now, I really hate you.”
She covers her mouth with one hand and watches me walk to Seth, who hasn’t moved from the threshold.
“Seth.”
“Bethany.” He says my name sweeter than I say his. He even affords me a smile. “Are you ready?”
“No. No, I’m not. I wasn’t expecting you. When I asked my good friend,” I pause to look at her from the corner of my eyes, only to see her leaning against the wall. Her arms are crossed over her chest and her focus is straight ahead at the window rather than at us. “When I asked her to call someone, I wanted to leave. Not go back to Jase.” Before he can respond I add, “Not right now. I just need to breathe.”
“No, you don’t,” he tells me as if he knows what I need. As if he knows what I’m going through.
“I hear things. I see things. I don’t feel okay.” I don’t expect my voice to crack or the admission to stir up so much emotion, but it does.
“Hey,” he says then reaches out to brush my shoulder, and I notice how that gets Laura’s attention, how she watches him touch me.
He squeezes my shoulder gently when he tells me, “It’s going to be all right.” His voice is soothing, his dark eyes calming. “Come on, come with me.” Seth holds out his hand for me to take once he’s released his grip, as if he’s some sort of savior. “Jase doesn’t know, but you should tell him what you’re feeling.”