CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Chris
“Chris.” Ky’s voice called out from the edge of the darkness.
The darkness that was just on the outskirts of my vision. I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t call out to him as I lay there on the cold, hard floor. I couldn’t move.
“Chris,” he called again.
Where are you Ky? Help her. They have her.
I tried to speak but as my mouth fell open, only dry air rushed out of my lungs.
Cold.
I felt so cold. Yet I was sweating. I didn’t understand it. Or why it felt like my body was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering together. And why did I have a sharp pain in my side? Something that felt like a cramp, but worse. Did I need to take a dump? No, that wasn’t it. This was much stronger than some back door problem.
What was that running down my neck? Why couldn’t I move?
Ingram.
I had to save Ingram. I had to tell Ky that they took her. Only some of them though. I was pretty sure there were still three in the house. But where were they?
I couldn’t hear anything over the weird, loud buzzing in my ear. A strange ringing sound only more like a horrible hum. What was that? Where was it coming from?
“Baby, wake up. Chris, open your eyes.”
There was Ky again. Where was he?
“Open your eyes.”
If my eyes were closed, then how could I see the floor in front of me? And the door, it was just right there. If I could get to my feet, I could go out there and save Ingram.
There was something warm and wet, pressed against my neck, but on the opposite side of the pain. What was that?
Lips.
Soft, full lips.
Kissing me.
It felt so good, I wanted more of it.
“Open your eyes.”
His words whispered to me again, over the ringing, over the pain.
My eyes shot open and my lungs suddenly filled with air like I hadn’t been breathing. But I knew that I had. It was like some kind of shock.
I snapped awake to Ky wrapped around me almost delicately like he was afraid he’d hurt me. My pulse raced under his hand which was warm and comforting, pressing flat against my chest.
It wasn’t real.
I kept telling myself that over and over. Only it was. A warped sense of what had actually happened that night. It hadn’t haunted me until now. I imagined being back in my house, crossing over the very same spot where I’d fallen to the ground had something to do with it. Where I’d been stuck, frozen in place, unable to move and save Ingram. Where I’d been helpless and useless and possibly even near death.
But I didn’t want to think about that now. Or ever, if I was being honest. It wasn’t in me to deal with those sort of things.
“Talk to me.” His words came out low next to my ear.
“Isn’t that my line?” I asked in a joking way as my heart began to slow back to a normal rhythm.
“No jokes. No running. Talk to me.” It wasn’t a request, of course, and I knew there wouldn’t be any charming my way out of this.
I focused on what was around me, what was real. The soft bed and cool sheets. His light but warm breaths on my shoulder. The hum of the ceiling fan. Once I felt the room around me, I began to speak.
“Ingram and I were eating pizza rolls. We were sitting on the couch watching…something. The doorbell rang and I didn’t even think anything of it. I mean, the guys stop by randomly sometimes. So I answered it without even looking. I remember hearing Ingram laugh in the background at something on the TV. I had a smile on my face because hearing her laugh and be free, well, it makes me smile.”
I knew he’d get it even if I couldn’t really explain it.
“There were five people standing there. At first, I thought they were like those door-to-door religious people by the way they looked. I didn’t even think. Then one of them stepped forward. He was tall but skinny. His hair was brown and I remember thinking that he really looked like he needed a haircut. His eyes were void of life almost. I couldn’t explain it. Then I saw the knife, but only a flash before he stuck it in me.”
I gasped as the memories flooded my head. I hated it but I couldn’t help it. Just like I couldn’t help the tears that started streaming down my face.
The pain. I couldn’t even begin to describe the pain that I felt at that moment. Not just physical. No, because the moment my flesh was ripped open, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop what was to come.
“I stumbled back thinking that I had to get away. That I needed to get to Ingram before they did. He still had a hold of the knife and I could feel it slicing my skin more as I pulled away. I turned, but he grabbed my arm. So then I thought that I should try to fight him. Stupid, right? Me—fight someone off. So I tried. I got a few punches in and then he brought the knife up. I didn’t think, I just reached for his arm with both of my hands. I wasn’t strong enough, I knew it, he knew it. I don’t know what happened but I think my body twisted as I lost my hold and the knife slice my throat.”
I couldn’t help but bring my hand up and touch the bandage covered wound. The mark that I knew would be there forever. The jagged scar that would haunt me every time I looked in the mirror. The pity I’d see reflected in the eyes of the ones that would see it.
“Someone else pushed me down. He kicked me but I remember not really feeling it over the pain from the hole in my side. They stepped over my body like I was nothing. I tried to push myself up but my arms felt so heavy and weak. I was so pathetic, Ky. So fucking useless and…”
“Chris,” he said as he propped himself up on his arm and looked down into my eyes. “I want to sit here and tell you how you are none of those things, not even in that moment, but I know words are cheap and you won’t believe me. All I can do is tell you to look into my eyes. Tell me what you see?”
I cleared my throat. Ky was a closed book most of the time. But his eyes—his eyes always told me what I needed to know. He tried to hide them every time he was trying to shut me out. Every time he didn’t want me to know how he really felt.
I couldn’t open my mouth to speak. There were too many things dancing in his eyes. It pulled me in and wrapped me in warmth. It begged me to smile and kissed away my sorrows. It was beautiful and magical. And it was all for me. Just me.
“Everything,” I whispered in a hoarse voice. “I see everything.”
He kissed me, hard and unrelenting. He took the weight of the world away from me and he gave me life again. It was desperate. It was needy. It was full of too many emotions to hold on to.
“I almost lost you. I’m not okay with that,” he said after he broke away and rested his forehead against mine. “Not when I was ready to give you my all. Not when I felt like I’d finally just found out what makes me whole. Not then, not ever.”
“Who knew you could be such a sap,” I said as I wiped the tears from my eyes.
“Don’t get used to it,” he said back and gave me a sexy as hell smirk.
“Do I need to point out that you called me baby?” I rolled my bottom lip into my mouth and pinched it between my teeth. Yeah, I might have been out of it and in some weird nightmare land, but I heard it and I sure as hell remembered it.
His head dropped to my shoulder and I felt his body shake with silent laughter. I smiled as my fingers ran up and down the smooth skin on his arm.
“Yeah, can we just forget that part?” he asked, his words sounding slightly muffled.
“Oh no, we cannot.”
“I figured,” he said then kissed my shoulder.
“Ky,” I said after a long while of breathing each other in.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I still don’t know how I feel. Or if I really feel anything.”
“This works both ways,” I said and let the words linger in the air for a moment before I spoke again. “I want to leave this room knowing that we aren’t hiding anymore. I want to get it all out and leave it behind. I want this with you and I don’t want anything to hold us back anymore.”
He shifted and I lifted my arm up. His head came to rest on my chest, right over my heart. I rested my hand on his hip and wasn’t surprised when his hand moved to hold mine.
“I’m not going to sit here and pretend like that was my first kill. We both know that would be a lie,” he started and I could feel the heaviness of it on his soul. “But I feel like it should feel different than the others. Only it doesn’t and I feel like that makes me really fucked up. I killed my parents. I can even say it and not feel anything.”
“Well, there’s a lot there. I kinda get it. Some might say it’s fucked up, but if you finally feel free then how is that wrong? Not only you, but Ingram too. I mean, I’m not sure how she feels about it all, and that is something we are going to have to sit down and deal with, but if you ask me, I don’t see the bad in it.”
“I think you’ve been hanging around outlaw bikers too long,” he said and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Did you just admit that you’re an outlaw?” I gasped in fake shock.
“Oh, please. I know you’re too smart for that shit. I’m not gonna tell you everything but I’m not going to treat you like you’re dumb either.”
“I can live with that.”
There was another long pause of silence. It didn’t feel awkward. If anything, it felt very much needed.
“What happens now, Chris? Because honestly, I feel pretty much clueless about everything. And I don’t like it.”
I barked out a laugh then winced at the sharp pain that shot through my gut.
“You okay? Want me to get you a pain pill? It’s past time for you to take one.”
I wasn’t even a little bit surprised that he knew that.
“No, I don’t want you to leave me just yet, even if it’s just for a minute.”
His stiff, ready-to-jump-up body relaxed back into mine.
“Okay,” he said like he wasn’t even going to argue.
“I don’t know. What do you want to happen next? With us, I mean.”
“I want us, I thought I made that clear. But I don’t have the first clue how to do…”
“A relationship?” I asked knowing that wasn’t exactly what he meant.
It was an odd line between trying to put yourself in a category and seeing it for what it was. At least to me. It wasn’t a gay relationship. It wasn’t man love, or something queer. It was me and it was him. His was the soul that called to mine and it had nothing to do with the fact that he had a dick between his legs. Though, it was a very nice dick.
But at the same time, I also understood all the things he was wrestling with and trying to figure out. The world around us was all about boxes, categories, places where others could put you. Name you. Label you. Give you a title so that they could judge you. It took me a lot of years to realize not only that I was just me, but to see that I really liked the me that I was.
I didn’t understand when or why it had become about who you loved and not just the simple fact of love. You know, why people had to tear down something beautiful and try to make it ugly.
But that was just me.
And I wasn’t sure if Ky would ever get there. It might be something that he struggled with for the rest of his life. I had seen it before and I’d be there with him, through it all. And at the same time, if he needed to put a label on himself to ease his mind, I’d be alright with that too.
It wasn’t something that I could just shine a light on and tell him that was the way. It was different for every person. With that said, I’d definitely help guide him and whatever else he needed.
“I think the problem is that you think too much about it,” I said. “You don’t have to have all the answers right now. It’s okay if you stumble through things and figure it out as you go along. I mean, I certainly don’t know everything.”
It felt like a generic answer but it was true to how I saw things.
“Okay,” he agreed and I felt like he really meant it. “So you’re my boyfriend?”
“I thought I was your fiancé!” I said with fake shock.
“Um,” he cleared his throat and I felt like I’d really gotten him. I only wish I could have seen his cheeks, I would have put money on the fact that they were pink. “This may sound weird, and I know we haven’t like, you know, much. One time, really. And this whole us thing is new and what have you. But the idea—the thought—of you…being that, well, it doesn’t scare me. I mean—fuck. I mean, I honestly don’t see my future without you.”
His words came out choppy and at times rushed. He stumbled over each statement and I could tell that he was having a hard time getting it out. That said, it didn’t mean he wasn’t speaking from the heart.
“Not to make this super mushy, but I feel the same way.” There. I said it. Not only to ease his insecurities but because it was the damn truth. “As for the rest, we can figure that out another time. I’m sure my mom is wondering what the hell we’re doing in here and when we’re going to come out.”
“Okay, fine,” he said with a chuckle.
Then we were slowly making our way out of bed, leaving all the heavy shit behind and moving forward.