Wrong For Me

by Meagan Brandy

I rush into the bathroom, yanking the shower curtain down. I quickly turn on the water and wet it the best I can. I run back into Alec’s room with it.

  I lay it across his body, hoping it does something to protect him from the heat of the fire if it grows closer before I can … before I can … what?

  I’m fucked!

  I run over to the window, attempting to pull it open, but find screws at the bottom, locking it in place.

  This bitch thought of everything.

  I lift the office chair. With a deep grunt, I attempt to crash it against the window, but it merely bounces back, and a desperate laugh escapes.

  Please tell me these windows aren’t shatterproof.

  The fire is getting closer. I’ve got to get him into my room. It’s the farthest from the fire and the only option at the moment.

  The smoke is getting stronger and stronger by the minute, and I know we’re running out of time.

  I drop onto my ass, planting my feet against the dresser with my knees bent, and grab both of Alec’s ankles. Using the position of my feet as support, I pull until my back hits the carpet, and his body is inches closer to the center of the floor.

  A gargling sound leaves him, and I gasp, scurrying toward his face.

  “Alec! Can you hear me?” My eyes flit between his, and I see them moving behind his closed lids before his head falls to the side again.

  I go to switch positions, ready to attempt to lift him again, but the smoke hits the room full force, and my eyes start to burn.

  That’s when I hear the banging.

  I jump up, unsure of whether I should grab the gun or scream for help.

  I run to the hall for the gun and then follow the sound of the banging on my bedroom window.

  I lift the gun as I pull open the blinds, and Rowan’s fear-stricken eyes widen even more.

  A sob escapes me, and I put my hand on the window, quickly pulling it back when I find it’s already warming.

  “Row!”

  “Oakley, get out of the way!”

  I step back, and he throws a planter pot against the glass, but it only rattles, the porcelain pot shattering on the outside.

  “I think it’s shatterproof, Rowan!” I shout, coughing more. “And she screwed them shut!”

  His eyes fly around the road, and he nods before looking back to me, the edges of his eyes tightening like they do before he lies. “I’m gonna get you out of there! Just hang tight.”

  “She shot him!” I cry, and he smashes his lips together. “She shot him, Rowan! I can’t—”

  “Stop it!” He shakes his head. “Hang in there, Oaks. I’m coming!” I start to sway on my feet, and his voice grows louder. “Oakley! I’m—”

  He spins around when a vehicle pulls up behind him. I think I hear him yelling some more, but my head starts to grow heavy, my vision blurry, and I lose my balance.

  I fall against my mattress, muddled shouts surrounding me.

  I just need a minute. Just a minute to rest.

  There’s a loud crash, followed by more banging, more shouting, and then the weight of my body disappears.

  The room shakes around me, and just when my throat begins to lock, fresh oxygen hits my nose, and I cough until I’m retching.

  “Open your eyes!” someone shouts, my shoulders shaking lightly, and then I’m gently placed on the grass.

  “Oh, fucking shit, her leg! Was she shot?”

  “Quiet.”

  “Oh my God, she was shot!”

  “I said, quiet!”

  My brows pull in at the sound of multiple voices.

  “Alec …” I rasp, and someone moves my hair from my face. “Where … he …”

  “Don’t talk. Just breathe.”

  My muscles lock, and I swear, my heart stops.

  I force my eyes open, and I’m met with the most familiar blue. Tears spill as I stare up at him, wanting to reach out but not having the strength to do so.

  His hand runs along my hairline. “It’s okay, baby girl. I’m here.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Oakley

  My limp hands fly up, tearing at the oxygen mask, but my wrists are held down.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, opening them to spot Havannah at my side, her eyes wide with panic as she stares at me. And then my gaze shifts right, and a sob bubbles from me.

  He offers a sad, one-sided smile, his eyes sloped at the edges, regret and uncertainty swimming in his stare. “Hi, baby girl.”

  “Dad … you’re … is this real?” I whisper.

  He moves Havannah’s hand from my wrist to slip his hand into mine.

  “Are you here?”

  “I’m here.”

  I start to shake my head, but the sound of an explosion behind me has me jolting up.

  “Whoa!” Havannah catches me by the shoulders.

  My hand flies to my head, but I scurry around to look at the house. When I find more than half of it is up in flames, my eyes widen, and I try to hop up but collapse with a cry.

  “Oakley, stay still.”

  “Alec is in there!” I shout, spinning to look at my dad. “He’s in there, and he’s shot! I’m not gonna sit here while—”

  “Rowan went in after him.”

  Oh my God!

  I fight their hold on me but fail to break away as they keep me pinned on the floor.

  “Dad!” I cry, my eyes sliding between his in terror. “Not both of them.”

  “He can do this, sweetheart. He’s stronger than I thought.” He smiles ruefully. “He’s as strong as you said he was.”

  Another loud bang has our heads snapping toward the house, and we watch as the roof above the living room starts to cave in.

  I bite into my lip. Havannah’s hand slides into my right hand as my dad’s slides into my left, and we wait.

  What feels like hours is only seconds, and a loud groan pulls our attention to my bedroom window. Rowan’s face emerges, Alec thrown over his shoulder.

  My dad runs for the window and helps pull him out. He quickly moves to drop him beside me.

  I jerk from Havannah’s hold and pull myself closer to him, transferring my oxygen mask to him.

  “Come on, baby. Come on …” I whisper.

  “Oakley, you need to keep that on—”

  My glare flies to Havannah, and her mouth clamps shut. And then my brows pull in because what the hell is she even doing here?

  Before I can ask, my dad comes back … dropping Marissa’s beat-up body beside me.

  My eyes fly to his, and he holds my stare before looking to Rowan.

  Rowan drops his eyes to the grass when mine seek his out. “I couldn’t leave her in there,” he whispers, looking to his brother. “That’s his wife.”

  Right. He doesn’t know she’s the one who did all this.

  Alec starts coughing right then, and I gasp, my shaky hand shifting to smooth across his hairline.

  His eyes pop open a moment, and the second he spots me, they narrow in fear.

  When I smile softly, his body relaxes, and his eyes close again.

  “He’ll be okay, sweetheart,” my dad whispers. “He—”

  A car door slams and all our gazes shift to the police car that’s just pulled up, half-blocked by the SUV my dad must have shown up in.

  “Thank God,” Rowan breathes a sigh of relief.

  But my body grows rigid, and I shift in front of Alec’s. My dad steps forward, trying to block both Havannah and me.

  “Ms. Rivera,” the voice cautiously calls out. “That you over there?”

  “Yeah!” I croak out, my heart about to beat out of my chest. “It’s me.”

  Detective Murphy steps into view, and before he has time to lift the gun he has hiding behind his back, I rip the one from my dad’s ankle strap, point, and shoot, hitting him right in the chest.

  “What the hell?” Rowan shouts.

  Havannah screams, but my dad simply pries the gun from my grasp.

  The adrenaline starts to wear out
, and my body slumps across Alec’s.

  Voices call me as the sirens grow closer, but I sprawl my hand across Alec’s wound and let deprivation win over it all.

  When my eyes open again, paramedics are moving above me. I’m rolled onto my back and lying across a stretcher.

  The woman looks down with a small smile. “It’s going to be okay, ma’am.”

  “I’m fine.” I cough. “Just tired.” I try to push myself into a sitting position, but my arm slips, and I fall back again.

  “I know you are, but it’s better we help you out, all right?”

  I don’t respond and look to the side as they cut open Alec’s shirt. They start poking and prodding at him as they are doing to me.

  His head shakes a little, and his eyes peel open.

  “Alec,” I try to call him, but my voice is no more than a scratchy whisper.

  He hears me though, and his eyes snap to mine even though he can’t move his head with the neck brace in place.

  They only just connect with mine when he’s lifted and carted away.

  I freeze when my dad steps into my sight again, and he sighs, dropping beside me.

  “She’s okay, but we need to take her in. Her lungs took a hit, and she’s got a graze on her leg that we should clean.”

  He lifts a brow to ask if I’ll allow it, and I shrug against the cot.

  He chuckles, but it’s sad. He tells the woman he’ll follow behind.

  Rowan pops up as they lift me.

  I reach out for his hand, and he squeezes, walking with me.

  “Ride with me, Row?”

  “Think I’d let you tell me no?” he jokes, but it doesn’t have any power, and his eyes grow glossy.

  “My ride or die,” I tease, and that time, I get a real laugh.

  They turn around to back me into the ambulance. I stare at my dad as they close the door, and Havannah steps up beside him, looking around at all the chaos.

  Rowan and I don’t talk on the drive, but he never lets go of my hand, not even when they hook a handcuff from my wrist to the side post. I don’t ask questions. I did beat a chick with a metal rod and shot a cop tonight. A little metal never hurt.

  When we arrive at the hospital and I’m wheeled away, he shouts, “I’ll find Alec and call my mom.”

  My eyes tighten at the edges, and his shoulders fall.

  “He’ll be okay, Oakley. He’s strong.”

  I close my eyes and picture his.

  He is strong … but am I strong enough to forgive?

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Oakley

  “Who knew?” I ask, unable to wipe the frown from my face.

  My dad sighs and glances toward Havannah before looking back to me. “The only person who was supposed to know was ‘Officer’ Bennett, who is actually an old student of mine. I got word that Mitch Murphy paid off the right people and was showing up here with a badge that wasn’t his. Made a few calls, and we weaseled Bennett in here to help just before Murphy showed up.”

  “Is Murphy even a cop at all?”

  “No. But he has friends in high places, so he was able to ‘borrow’ an interrogation room without raising questions.”

  “You should have told me,” I whisper, selfishly angry even though I understand why he did it.

  “I couldn’t risk it. I did consider telling Alec, but I knew that would be asking too much of him, and in the end, it would likely be a secret too big. One you wouldn’t be able to forgive him for, and I couldn’t live with that. It came down to everyone having to believe it for it to work.”

  My eyes slide to Havannah, and she looks down.

  “I called you over and over again. I called you.”

  She still won’t meet my eyes. “I know. I—”

  My dad cuts her off, “I couldn’t go to the hospital after I was shot, couldn’t risk being seen, so I went to the only place I could think of—far enough away from everything but close enough in case I needed to rush home.”

  “Havannah’s.”

  He nods. “I knew she’d call you right away, so first thing I did was disconnect the wires in the house. Then, I took her phone. She managed to sneak it back to send you a quick text, but I didn’t even want that to happen in case the lie became too much for her.” He glances her way before looking back to me. “She helped me out, removed the bullet, and sewed me up all on her own. Turned out to be a perfect place to lie low until everything worked itself out.”

  “You were shot?”

  He nods. “Marissa.”

  A shaky breath leaves me. “How’d she find you?”

  “I led her to me.”

  “The phone call.”

  He nods, and I shake my head.

  “Why would Murphy even bother telling me about the call?”

  “To throw you off maybe, or to make his daughter seem innocent, so she could sneak around without raising flags. I’m not really sure. Alec was sent there to find me, collect the documents, and then take you back to Murphy, but I let her find me first, knowing she was unstable and would give Alec more time to find a way to protect you.”

  “You let a murdering lunatic come live in our home, the daughter of the madman you got messed up with.”

  “I didn’t know he moved her in—”

  “I tried to tell Havannah.”

  “I turned off her phone.”

  “You’re not her father or her keeper!” Tears threaten to spill. I’m being irrational, but I’m pissed and hurt and so fucking confused.

  I can’t help but feel like the all-around odd man out, and it’s not right.

  My dad and Alec had a secret they kept from me, one that could have cost me my life and almost cost my dad’s life. There were plenty of chances for them to come clean, but both chose to keep me in the dark.

  Now, I know my dad and Havannah had a secret while I was stuck here, trying to both honor and mourn my dad at the same time. Fighting myself to be strong when I felt weak, make him proud when I felt nothing but shame, all while he was well and alive and with her.

  To know so much could have been avoided, that my dad and Alec could have chosen to trust me. That the heavy weight of betrayal I carried day in and out, thinking Alec had not only let me down but that my dad had also died, trusting in him enough to will him his legacy and home. That Havannah could have found a way to tell me. All those things mixed together are a heavy load to carry on my own. I can hardly breathe.

  Havannah finally looks up, and the tears clouding my eyes match hers. I can’t say I understand it all or that I’ll forgive and forget so easy, but maybe now isn’t the time to get into that.

  Maybe we all need a little while to process.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  She gives a small, regretful smile.

  “You’re right, Oakley,” my dad speaks softly. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t say for sure that I wouldn’t do it again.”

  “How’d you know to come home last night?” I ask him.

  “The safe. I can remotely access it from my email. After that first week, I logged in and updated the information, so it was attached to Hillock’s old account, and I knew it was a safe move.” He sits back in his chair. “I changed the password to Marissa’s name, and then I waited for you to be ready to find the answers. When you guessed the code right, like I had known you would, I got the email and knew you’d confront Alec tonight. I needed to be there, so we hopped in the car and headed this way. What I hadn’t expected was it to be the same night Marissa realized she was nothing more than a stepping-stone in Alec’s eyes.” He squints. “How did she find out?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” I admit, looking away. “I left my bag in my room, and she went through it.”

  When my dad doesn’t respond right away, I glance back.

  His eyes are soft around the edges, and he leans forward. “She had to have known before last night—maybe not everything, but she suspected; I’m sure of it. Something she found must have set her off.”

 
My bottom lip starts to tremble, and he nods, moving to squeeze my hand.

  He knows.

  Call it father’s intuition. Somehow, he knows there was more at risk than my and Alec’s lives last night.

  I could have lost the baby.

  Marissa had to have seen the pregnancy test nestled between my sweatshirts, just beneath the files. I planned to toss them out in the dumpster at the academy the following day, but she found them first. As conniving as she is, there’s no way she didn’t tell him, if only to be the one to say it before me.

  “She could have killed us all.” I blankly stare at him, and he nods, guilt in his eyes. “And I can’t decide if it would have been your fault, his … or mine.”

  “Baby girl …” His voice breaks as his grip tightens.

  The tears won’t stay in now and freely run down my face.

  Rowan moves to sit beside me on the bed, his hand finding my shoulder, and I break, crying into my palms.

  This is all so crazy. I’m overwhelmed.

  My dad is alive, Alec is alive, and Rowan made it out, unharmed. Havannah didn’t abandon me but was helping my father heal, and I’m … I’m gonna be a mom.

  My baby, so small and defenseless, made it through … no thanks to me.

  A good mother would have left to protect her unborn child when the threat became clear, wouldn’t she have?

  God, my emotions are all over the place. I’m so fucking grateful right now, but I can’t help but think none of this would have had to happen if everyone had been honest with me from the start.

  But would I be sitting here with a little one growing inside me if they had?

  I shake my head, tears still falling.

  My dad shifts to sit on the other side of me, followed by Havannah, and they hug me while I cry.

  “Ms. Rivera.”

  I lift my head and peek past my dad to find Officer—or whatever the hell he is—Bennett in the doorway with his hands in his pockets. He avoids my gaze a moment before he looks up.

  “I just wanted to personally apologize to you for all this.”

  “This wasn’t your fault.”

  He shrugs. “No, but it was messed up. You had to grieve while that woman watched on. Probably shouldn’t say it, but I’m glad her lungs gave up on her. Wish her pops would have died right along with her, but I guess we can’t ask for too much in one night, huh?”