Chapter Twenty-One

Pain

Juliana

I crouch down and cover my ears when he starts banging on the door again.

“Open the fucking door, you little whore!”

“Please, Peter, please just leave. I promise I won’t call the police, just—”

“Fuck you,” he slurs.

Stay awake, I repeat over and over in my head as I rock back and forth. Stay awake.

A loud kick forces me to stiffen. My entire body hurts.

“He’s calling you! The fucking piece of shit is calling you!”

Tell him I love him, I want to scream. I’m so angry that I didn’t say it back, and now...what if I never get the chance?

“The man who knocked you up and left you! He’s calling you! Why, Juliana? Why did you do this to us?” Now he’s crying. “I was going to marry you.”

A wave of nausea rolls through my stomach at the thought of what life would have been like for me, for Brandon. I cover my mouth as a sob escapes, thinking I may never see him again. My son. My little man. My boy.

Is that what yesterday was? I ask the question to myself, to God, to the universe. Was I given the best day of my life because today is the day I am going to die?

I put more pressure on the towel I have wrapped around my leg, where the bone is sticking out from when he pushed me down the stairs.

The bleeding is slowing. It is, I repeat in my head.

“I was going to marry a whore!” Now he laughs.

God, help me. Help me get the hell out of here.

“He fucking messaged you!” he yells. “My first love. My only fucking love. Always mine. Forever mine. Come back to me, Juliana,” he mocks the message Garrett sent me. “He’s pathetic.” Peter laughs manically. “Did you tell him you love him, too?”

“No,” I croak out the truth.

He’s quiet.

I’m tired. I’m sleepy. I’m bleeding.

“You did. You did, too!” he yells. “I know you love me; you told me you did.” He pauses. “In your eyes, I saw it,” he again reads Garrett messages. “Did your eyes tell him that? Did they?”

“No!” I cry out in frustration and pain.

“Open the door, Juliana. Open the door, and I’ll take you to the hospital,” he pleads. “You can tell them you fell. We can fix this.”

“Fuck you!” I snap.

“That’s fine, you bitch. Stay in there. Bleed to death for all I care.”

My eyes grow heavy, and I lean my head back against the door.

“Let me make this right,” he says. “Let me be your last love.”

***

I wake to the sound of a drill.

“She’s against the door,” I hear cried out and look up.

“Gail?” I see her in the window.

“Juliana, can you move, sweetheart? Can you move so Garrett can get in the door without hurting you?”

I close my eyes. “No.”

“Garrett!” she yells. “You need to get in there now, son. Right now!”

“I’m fucking trying!” I hear his panicked voice and smile, but it hurts.

Then I hear a big crunch and feel a cool breeze against my back.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, baby.” I feel him kissing my cheek. “Call the fucking ambulance!”

“I did, I did!” I swear I hear Gail crying.

“Bad?” I ask.

“No, baby, not bad.” The way he says it, I know he’s lying.

“Love you,” I tell him.

“I know. I know, dammit. Juliana, open your eyes. I wanna see them. I wanna see those words,” he begs softly.

“Peter,” I force out before I start to fall back to sleep.

“He’ll pay. I’m gonna kill him!” he snaps.

***

I wake up to the sound of a radio squawking.

“Shut that fucking thing off.” It’s Garrett.

“You want to know when we catch him or not, Mr. Falcon?”

“Won’t be too hard to miss. Fucker looks like a unicorn,” he snarls.

“You do know he’ll probably press charges for you assaulting him,” the other voice in the room states.

“I head-butted the shit stain. I should have broken him in half,” Garrett hisses.

“That’s enough, son.” It’s Gail.

“Do you, by any chance, know Gage Falcon?” the male voice asks.

“Yeah, I do. Why?” Garrett’s irritation is heightened.

“Good, man. I’ve known him for years,” the man says.

“Your name?” Gail asks.

“Nickolas DeAngelo,” he answers.

“Aw, yes,” she says.

“Could you two shut the fuck up?” Garrett snaps.

“Manners,” Gail scolds him.

“Please shut the fuck up,” he says. Then, “She’s smiling. I think she’s smiling. Mom, is she smiling?” his voice is rising, like Brandon’s when he gets excited.

“I think she is,” Gail says softly.

“I would appreciate it if, when she does open her eyes, you allow me to get the name of the person responsible so that I can write up the report and get this handled swiftly.”

“Give the fucker to me, and I’ll swiftly kick his ass off the hospital roof,” Garrett snaps.

“What he means, Detective DeAngelo, is yes.”

I clear my throat. “Peter Vinkle.”

“Are you awake, Mrs. Falcon?”

I force my eyes open and look at Garrett. “I’m sorry.”

“I know, baby, I know,” he says as a tear rolls down his cheek. I lift my hand to wipe it away, but it hurts really bad.

“Don’t move, Juliana. Don’t, okay?” Garrett’s eyes plead with his words.

“Okay.” I begin to close my eyes again.

“Mrs. Falcon, can you tell me the name of the person who attacked you?”

“For fuck’s sake, she just did.”

“Peter Vinkle. He was supposed to be at work. I came home to get some picture books and movies on my SD cards. While I was walking down the attic ladder, he grabbed my foot.” I pause, silently crying, because doing it out loud hurts so much.

“Juliana, please hush, please,” Garrett begs.

“Go on, Mrs. Falcon; the more information, the better case we can build,” the detective says.

“He pulled me off the ladder and kicked me over, and over, and over again.” I stop and close my eyes.

“He needs to fucking die. He needs to, and I’m gonna—”

“Shhh, Garrett,” I whisper.

“Go on,” the detective encourages.

“I stood up when he bent to get the albums and tried to run. He kicked me down the stairs.” I stop again when I feel tears sliding down my cheek. “I have no idea how, but I managed to get to the bathroom and lock the door. I couldn’t call...My phone, he had my phone. He read Garrett’s messages.”

“Fuck,” Garrett says. “So, I fucking did this? I fucking hurt you?”

“No, of course not.” I look at him and slowly shake my head, and then I look at the detective. “Then...Then Garrett was there.”

“And none too soon. You lost a lot of blood,” Gail tells me as she rubs his back.

“I’ll let you rest, Mrs. Falcon. When we get him, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, if you see him—”

“We’re at Shore General?” I feel my hands start to shake. He works here. The detective said they haven’t caught him. He’s going to finish what he started. He’s going to kill me.

“I’m here. I can promise you that motherfucker isn’t going to show his face.” Garrett’s eyes bore into mine.

“I don’t want to be here, Garrett. Please, I don’t—”

“Okay, baby, I’ll do whatever I can to get you the fuck out of here,” he promises.

“In the meantime, there will be officers posted at your door, and all entrances and exits to this floor.”

“Thank you, Detective DeAngelo,” Gail says as she walks him out.

“Garrett,” I cry. “Please get me out of here.”

“Where do you wanna go, beautiful?” He kisses my forehead lightly.

“I want to go to your cabin. I want to go there.” I close my eyes. “I want to go now.”

He kisses one eyelid, then the other. “As soon as your stable and can be moved without putting you in harm’s way, that’s exactly where you’ll go.”

“You want Brandon to see you like this?” Gail asks.

I gasp. “How bad am I?”

“You fell down two flights of stairs, Juliana; you’re pretty banged up.” Garrett gently smiles, rubbing his fingertips up and down the side of my face. “We’ll just tell Brand that he’s lucky he got his lack of clumsiness from me.”