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“We both know I’m already dead to you. Let’s not rip open old wounds.” Telling my mum that Dex was the one who had Oscar killed wouldn’t have done me any favors. She wouldn’t have believed me. And Dex wouldn’t have told mum about White Fox either. He wouldn’t have told anyone. Dex wanted all the money for himself. And as soon as I could find a way to get him the money, I’d be done with all of this.
“Come on, Becky,” Dex curled his fingers into her waist and steered her away, “you don’t deserve to listen to this nonsense.”
The two walked away, leaving me soaked and shivering in the cold rain. A tear slipped from my eye as the little boy in me watched his mum go. I’d spent years loving her blindly, even after the multiple attempts on my life. I’d be a liar if I said I never starved for my mum’s love, or that it didn’t kill me to watch her slip down the rabbit hole of addiction and her illness. I’d read many books, kept track of her symptoms growing up. It had all lead to a form of dissociative identity disorder, though she’d never listened to me or cared to seek help. Her only refuge had been a proper hit of heroin.
Back in the station wagon, I beat my fist into the steering wheel, over and over before turning the engine and backing out. A few miles passed when my eyes moved from the windshield to the rearview mirror, and I spotted a car following too close behind. I pulled off the street to let them pass, but they didn’t. They pulled up behind me as another car passed by and parked in front of the station wagon, blocking me in. I got out, rain beating over my back, coming down hard, and threw my hands up in the air as I walked toward the car parked behind me. Two men got out, and I shouted curses against the thunderstorm brewing above.
One of them was Dex, and his lips moved, “Get him.”
A force struck my head from behind, and I dropped to the ground, the gravel embedding into the side of my face. I tried to get to my feet when a boot kicked me in the stomach, stealing all the air from my lungs. My eyes squinted against the ice-cold rain, and I grabbed an ankle, tearing the bloke from a standing position, putting him on his arse before climbing over him. Before I could throw my first punch, I was struck again against my spine, temporarily disabling me.
“I warned you, Oliver,” Dex shouted against the roaring Thunder. I pulled myself up on all fours, trying to get back to my feet. When I lifted my head, lightning lit up the sky, illuminating Dex’s vicious grin. A kick to my stomach flipped me over, and my back hit the curb. Then more blows and punches hammered over me. Two or three men, and no matter which way I turned, I couldn’t get out from the bottom.
Eventually, they left. I’d heard the cars peel from the side of the road, gravel flying and hitting my face, but couldn’t move. I laid there in the frostbite under the raging storm, bleeding, shivering, and frozen. And my gaze fixed as blood trickled from my mouth and ran along the currents between pebbles, the rain washing it away.
I don’t remember how I’d gotten back to the hotel, but it was nothing short of a miracle—a saving grace.
“Oh-my-god,” Mia cried, scurrying from under a throw blanket over the couch of the hotel room as I stood in a daze in the doorway, dripping water and blood. Tears gathered in her eyes as she touched my mouth. I turned my head away from her, hating her to see me like this. I couldn’t protect myself. How was I supposed to protect her? Her voice and hands were panicked as she unbuttoned my shirt with a pained look in her expression, tears helplessly falling from her brown eyes. “I have to get you out of these clothes. You’re shaking. You’ll get sick.” She made fast work at the buttons before peeling the shirt from around my shoulders. Her hands were hot against my quivering flesh. “Let me take you to the hospital. You need to go to the hospital.”
I snatched her wrist. “No, Mia. You can’t.” They’d ask questions, file a police report.
“They could’ve killed you!” she cried out.
“Dex won’t kill me. Not until he gets his money.” I winced and clutched my ribcage, my entire body sore, trembling from the cold, and bruised from the inside out.
Silently, Mia unlatched my belt and unbuttoned my slacks before taking my hand and walking me to the bathroom.
Pausing in the doorway, I leaned into the frame to steady myself as she bent over to turn on the water. “I’m ru
Voices from the telly competed against the water ru
I managed to nod and let her undress me. Both the slacks and boxers rolled down my thighs until the wet clothes hit the ground at my feet.
After sinking inside the bathwater, the hot temperature burned my wounds, but my shakes slowly declined before going away completely. Mia sat over the floor, leaning over the edge of the tub. “I’m so mad at you right now,” she scolded, dabbing a hand towel over my busted lip. Another tear slipped down her cheek, and I closed my eyes, unable to see her like this.
“I’ll be alright, love,” I whispered, cringing. It hurt to breathe let alone speak. Mia dropped her hand and tucked her head into her arms over the tub. I’d seen her break down, punch walls, mirrors, letting out her absolute worst, but never had I’d seen her so defeated at my expense. My hand came up, and I wrapped my fingers around her neck and in her hair. “I promise. I’m going to be fine. It’s going to be alright.”
She lifted her head, her chin resting over her arm. “I can’t lose you.”
“You’re not losing me.”
“Promise me.”
“You’re never losing me,” I repeated. “I promise.”
Mia nursed my wounds and helped me into the bed. I’d been through worse before, but it seemed to make her feel better to help.
I spotted my book lying over the nightstand and asked her about it.
“They have a bookstore close by,” she shrugged from the other room, picking up my wet clothes from the floor and disappearing into the bathroom, her voice trailing after her, “I went and grabbed a copy of Oliver Masters poetry book, volume one.”
“Oh, yeah?” This made me smile. I’d left her a few ponies, and I knew how much the book cost. “I could’ve given you a copy, love.”
Mia re-appeared into the room, cleaning and unable to sit still. “I wanted to buy it to support you. But it didn’t occur to me until I was walking back to the hotel that you pretty much just paid for your own book because it wasn’t even my money, to begin with.”
“Your money,” I corrected her, wincing as I turned on my side so I could watch her.
Her brows bunched together. “Huh?”
“Everything I’ve built was for our future. It’s as much yours as it is mine.”
“Don’t say that,” she shook her head, “It’s all your hard work. I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”
Mia walked around the room and slipped under the covers beside me in the king-sized bed, careful not to touch me, but I wanted her to. I tried to sit up, but an ache shot through my back. Groaning, I fell back into the bed. “Have you read the poetry, Mia?” White teeth dug into her bottom lip as her eyes locked on mine. Slowly, she shook her head, and my other hand came up to graze her jawline and down the base of her neck, despite the amount of pain coursing through me. “My love for you bleeds onto those pages. I write because I can’t contain my feelings for you, but I publish because I want the entire world to know a love like ours exists.” Her breath shuddered, and my thumb moved over her bottom lip. “It gives people hope, something to believe in. Something to never stop searching for.”