AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I don’t even remember the ride home. I feel like someone else is going through the motions for me. Like I am a puppet and they’re pulling the strings to make one foot go in front of the other as I walk inside the house.
Lucas disappears almost immediately once he breaks the threshold. Julius looks to Teddy with concern splashed all over his face.
“Leave him. You know how he gets,” Teddy reassures him.
He nods and turns to leave, but I reach for him, catching the cuff of his blood-soaked suit. “Thank you.”
I’m not sure a thank-you is even in order. I could have handled Simon on my own, but Julius didn’t give me a chance. He saw Simon grab me and without a second thought rushed him. He did what he did for me—at least that’s what I’m trying to make my mind believe. Maybe he thinks I’m weak and needed saving, that’s why he did it. That’s why Teddy did what he did too, but we know that the furthest thing from the truth. Simon would still be dead even if he never touched me. As Teddy said, he did what he had to do.
Julius nods at me with soft eyes before disappearing the same way Lucas did.
I stand in the doorway, the cold night air biting at my exposed skin, not knowing what to do. I knew these men were killers. I knew they were bad, but seeing it makes it more real than repeating it to myself in my head.
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Shock is a funny thing and allows you to forget the simplest of motions, like talking, breathing, walking. I try to croak out a word, any word, but it’s useless. Nothing comes from my mouth other than air. I reach for my neck, almost as if touching it will magically make my vocal cords work, but again, nothing.
Tears invade my vision and fall to my cheeks, and for once I don’t stop them. I sob silently in the doorway for a moment before Teddy places a hand on my back and hooks the other behind my knees. He carries me the rest of the way through the door and up the staircase to the right.
All the important things are downstairs. Kitchen, library, gym, all the rooms. I’ve never been upstairs and not sure what’s waiting for me, but I don’t fight him. When we make it to the top, I expect him to set me down, but he doesn’t. He keeps his pace until he’s in front of a set of double wooden doors.
He leans and flicks the thin golden handle with his fingers, still cupping my back, and walks us through the doors. The layout is pretty similar to my own, but it’s bigger and more vacant. A California king bed sits directly in the middle of the room covered with black satin sheets. Thin, black curtains drape the windows, pushing out any light there may be from the moon, and two dark wood nightstands stand on either side of it. That’s it. There is nothing else in this room. No TV, no closet, no dresser. It’s absent of everything, including the door that once separated it from the bathroom.
Teddy walks to the bathroom and finally sets me down. I don’t make any motion to move; my feet are glued to the spot they hit on the floor.
The bathroom is pretty basic too. There is a toilet tucked into the far-left corner, a single standing sink with no mirror above it, and a huge freestanding, oval-shaped bathtub big enough to fit four men sits alone without a shower.
Without speaking, Teddy slides the thin straps of my dress off my shoulders and lets it fall. It slides off effortlessly, bunching around my feet. He stoops in front of me and gently lifts one foot. I don’t make any attempt to move. He takes off my shoe, then repeats the motion with the other. Moving his hand up my leg, he undoes the buckles belonging to my holster, then gently sets it on the floor.
He looks up to me while he’s still perched on the floor. His blue eyes bore into mine. I can see the apology in them, but he won’t speak the words. He breaks away and stands, then walks to the tub and turns the water on. I watch as he rolls his sleeves to test the water with his wrist. When he’s satisfied with the temperature, he walks back to me and lightly grabs my hand. He leads me to the tub and holds me as I step in.
He slips to the floor beside the tub and just watches me for a while. I just sit there, motionless, void of all emotion.
“Monkshood?”
I can hear him, but my mouth doesn’t want to answer. I drag my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, resting my chin on top.
He reaches out, sweeping the hair from my face, and I flinch. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his face completely melt. “I would never hurt you,” he whispers, and I know he’s telling the truth.
My heart stirs at his confession while my mind screams. How can I want the same hands that are painted from murder to touch me, to hold me, to comfort me? I turn my head, letting my cheek rest on my knee so I can study him.
The cut along his face is almost healed. A frown rests on his lips, replacing his usual hard line, and his eyes, the eyes I remember, are there. Like a punch to the gut, I finally remember where I’ve seen them. The same sad expression depicted all over his face shone bright in his eyes the first time I saw them.
“I remember you,” I squeak, thankful my voice is willing to work.
His anguished eyes light up the slightest bit. “Oh yeah?”
“You were watching me. I was seventeen.”
He smiles sadly. “I’ve watched you a lot, Monkshood.”
I turn a bit and adjust my head to look at him head-on. “But this is the first time I had seen you, or part of you.” I look down, embarrassed it never clicked before.
When I was seventeen, my mother died. I never cared about her because I never knew her, but my dad still dragged me to her funeral. My mom was nothing more than a junkie. I’m sure before all of the drugs she was beautiful, but seeing her lying in a casket, I had a different opinion of her. She was encased in loads of makeup, which appeared to be a failed attempt to try and cover the marks all over her face, from picking, no doubt. She definitely didn’t depict beauty.
I remember I cried that day. Not for me, but for my dad. He’d always hoped my mom would come back to us. She had played the role of an informant. A washed-up junkie looking for any way to get a fix, and the department offered to pay her. My dad, being the big-hearted fool he was, fell for her, and a short time later, I was conceived. He threw her in rehab and hoped she would stay, but she was only there long enough to carry me. As soon as I was born, she fled, returning to her life on the streets.
I never met her and feel as though I was better off as a result. My dad, however, was a different story. No matter how much time passed, his feelings never died for her. He spent a lot of my life looking for her, hoping he could find her to help her, but he never made it. She overdosed before he ever got the chance. He loved her so much in life, and even more in death.
Seeing them lower her body into the ground, my dad sobbed. I stood by his side with tears streaming down my cheeks. Not because I was heartbroken at the loss of someone I did not know, but because my dad was hurting, and catching sight of him in pain killed me.
