Now
I pace the small office like a caged tiger. Thirty fucking minutes. Dex has been gone for thirty motherfucking minutes. And if he doesn’t walk through that door soon, I’ll kill him myself.
There has been no word sent our way, no communication as to what’s going on outside those doors. And Holly hasn’t come back here. I’ve no idea where either of them is. I’m one heartbeat away from losing it when the door opens.
Dex strolls in. I pounce, crossing the room. My hand cracks across his face before I realize what I’m doing. He wraps one arm around my waist, while his other hand dives into my hair, squeezing until my scalp feels tight. He kisses me.
It’s not a gentle or loving kiss. It’s demanding, domineering. It’s an attempt to put me in my place, to show me who’s in charge. It’s very effective. I whimper.
A throat clears.
“Whoa,” Dawn mutters.
“As hot as it is to watch you two tongue fuck each other…” Bridget says. “It’s a little cramped in here. Can we get out of this room?”
“I don’t know. I can stay behind if you need an audience?” Spaz offers.
Spencer smacks him in the back of the head.
“We need to go. Marcus was shot. Holly’s with him in the ambulance. She’s fine, but we need to get to the hospital. Now.”
At that, Dex grabs my arm and steers me out of the room. We weave through the maze of halls, heading toward the parking garage where my car is.
“Did you catch him?”
“No.”
“What’re we going to do now? Go back to waiting for him to show up?”
“No.”
“Can you say something other than no?”
“No.”
Okay, then. I’ll shut up. He obviously doesn’t want to talk. Can I blame him? We’re rushing to the car to go to the hospital where the life of his brother, his Evan, hangs in the balance. Or at least I assume it’s that bad by the grim expression he wears. I know he’s upset because he isn’t hiding it. Or perhaps, he isn’t hiding it from me.
The drive to the hospital doesn’t take long. The time in the waiting room lasts much longer as we await the outcome of Marcus’s surgery. Dawn, Ruby, and Bridget comfort a distraught Holly while I sit by Dex’s side. He hasn’t spoken to me since we left the Black Building, but he grips my hand tight, like I’m his lifeline.
I’m barely holding on myself. Being in hospitals brings back so many dark memories. I know why they don’t sell hospital cleaning supplies to the general public—no one would buy them. That smell has to be host to so many horrific memories.
Dex’s hair is wild. He’s been running his hands through it nonstop since we got here.
“Dexter McClellan?” a doctor calls. He’s wearing green scrubs, while a surgeon’s mask hangs loosely around his neck.
“I’m him,” Dex answers, walking to meet him.
“He made it through surgery, but he’s still not out of the woods,” the doctor says, placing a comforting hand on Dex’s shoulder. “You can go back and see him, but only one at a time.”
Dex asks a few questions, and the doctor answers them, leaving Dex with directions to Marcus’s room. When he turns his eyes to me, they look haunted, pleading.
“Go to him,” I say. “He needs your strength right now. I’ll be fine.”
He nods absently. I watch him walk down the hall to the all-too-familiar doors leading into the ICU. They slide open silently in front of him, and he disappears inside.
I go to Holly in his absence. Stroking her hair as she curls into my shoulder, I ask the question that has been stuck in my mind since we left the Black Building.
“What happened?”
She’s silent for a moment. “Some sick son of a bitch. It all happened fuckin’ fast. I didn’t see his face. The fucker grabbed me. Started dragging me toward the emergency exit. Marcus tackled him. Then the shots.” She blinks, shaking her head. “Marcus didn’t bleed like I expected him to. We were stepped on. People were panicking to get out. There were just dark holes in his shirt. His eyes rolled back in his head. So pale.”
A sob wrenches from her mouth. Her body is trembling again.
“He was after you?” I ask, tears welling in my eyes.
My heart was breaking for her, with her, because of her.
“Yeah,” she chokes out.
Fuck. He’s trying to hurt me through my friends. We hear a commotion down the hall, doctors and nurses rushing into the ICU.
“Dawn,” I say turning my attention back to my friends. “When you leave here, take her back to your place. I think it’s safer for all of you to be in the Black Building right now. I can’t—”
Dawn takes my hand with a nod. “Of course, we’ll stay safe. But you need to, too.”
Dex stumbles out of the ICU, interrupting my reply. He leans against the wall, pressing the heel of his hands into his eyes before his legs give out and he slides down.
It all happens in slow motion. Or at least it feels like it.
Jumping from my seat, I feel like my feet are stuck in tar. I can’t get to him fast enough. Holly moves with me, but Bridget and Ruby catch her as she falls to her knees. A keening wail that’ll haunt my dreams escapes Holly’s lips. Dex doesn’t look up. His shoulders jerk and I know he’s crying.
My feet falter, and I slide the last few feet to his side. I wrap my arms around him. He pulls me to him and releases a sob. It hurts. His pain is blinding as it ricochets through me. I’ve heard that loving someone means that you feel their pain more fully than your own. At this moment, I know that nothing can be more true.
He doesn’t have to speak. I know. I know that Marcus didn’t make it. Holly knows it, too. And my heart breaks for both of them.
Then
“Did you ever think that maybe you should think twice before accusing your fiancée of cheating on you in a public place? That maybe I’ve never given you a reason to doubt me? And maybe it wasn’t fucking smart to air our dirty laundry for everyone with a fucking cell phone to record?” I said, breaking the long-held silence as I flung the car door open.
I’d kept quiet the entire ride back home, but I was just stewing in my anger. I had to say something, and he was going to hear it. Jared got out of the car, slamming the door. I turned and left the garage. He followed me after hitting the button to close the garage door.
“No reason?” He spat the words at me. “Every time you’re near him I have reason to doubt you. You’ve never seen that type of longing on my face for anyone.”
“Oh, please.” I stopped and turned to face him. “I’ve seen him a total of three times over the last three years. Two of which you were there for, and the other time, four other people were there who each told you that nothing fucking happened.” I turned back to the house and kept walking.
“Those were the only times I found out about. There could be more. There probably is; otherwise, why the fuck is he still hanging onto hope after three fucking years!” His voice held a slightly hysterical tone.
“I don’t know what his problem is, but that’s just it. It’s his problem.”
I unlocked the door and went into the house. He followed me, shutting off the alarm.
“You still haven’t explained why you two were in the bathroom together.”
“That’s because, one, you never fucking asked. And two, you haven’t even given me a chance. You just flew off the fucking handle. And I can deal with your PTSD bullshit, but when you start accusing me of shit without so much as a second to explain, that’s too fucking much to handle.”
“Then explain it to me now, Maddie.”
“Why bother? It crystal fucking clear that you have such a low opinion of me that no matter what I say, you won’t believe me. Why are you even with me if this is how you feel?”
“Or maybe you have something to hide?”
“Or maybe you’re just a jealous asshole,” I said, turning around and leaning toward him, “because you know deep down that he was a way better fuck than you. He wasn’t satisfied focusing on what made him happy. He took the time to get to know me, and he knows parts of me that you’ll never know because he wasn’t a selfish dick—”
The room exploded into stars as his hand cracked across my face. Tears sprang from my eyes unbidden, and my body reacted out of instinct as I moved to take him down to the ground where I’d a better chance of fighting back. I’m not sure why I wasn’t prepared for his countermove, but it still caught me off guard. I lost my footing and fell backward. I twisted to catch myself but wasn’t quick enough, and my cheekbone slammed hard into the edge of the coffee table.
I sat there, stunned for a second, before he came at me again. I met his momentum with the heel of my palm to his nose. He fell back, and I took the opening to wrap my legs around his waist, but before I could get a lock on his arms, his head flew back as he bucked and nailed me in the forehead. I dropped back as black spots floated in my vision. He twisted around, and his hands wrapped around my neck, cutting off my air.
His eyes were vacant as if he wasn’t seeing me as I clawed at him.
“Jared,” I managed to croak out with a gasp.
His eyes refocused and his hands were gone from my neck as his jaw dropped. He crab-crawled backward away from me.
“Maddie—fuck—I’m sorry—” He clawed at his head, pulling on his hair. A sob tore through him. “What the fuck am I doing, Maddie? What’s wrong with me?”
I fought to catch my breath, my throat tight. “Get out,” I wheezed.
“Maddie, please. I’m sorry. I didn’t know—I thought I was there.”
“You need help, but I can’t give it to you. We—I can’t.” I pulled his ring off my finger and tossed it toward him. “I won’t marry you until you get better. If that ever happens.”
“Fuck, please don’t do this.” He crawled back toward me, and I cringed away from him. He hesitated. “I didn’t mean to do it. I swear, I’ll get help. I’ll go to a live-in clinic for however long. Just, please don’t give up on me—on us.”
“I don’t want you near the girls either.” I closed my eyes to shut out the vision of his pleading eyes.
“Maddie—”
“I don’t want to hear anything else from you. You’re dangerous, Jared. You could’ve killed me. You need to leave. Right. Fucking. Now!” I yelled as loud as my voice would go. It was coarse and choked sounding, even to my own ears.
He sobbed again, “I can’t live without you. I need you, please.”
“Get out!” I used every last bit of energy and vocal capacity that was left in me to scream those words at him.
He didn’t say another word as he got up and left the house.
I didn’t move, just leaned back against the couch and let the tears roll down my face. What the hell did I do to deserve this? Where did we go fucking wrong? We were happy once. And I know I said shit that I shouldn’t have said. But we couldn’t continue like this. I was becoming someone I didn’t recognize anymore. And I was beginning to fear that next time—if I let there be a next time—he would kill me.