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We pull back into the drive, and everything I was feeling disappears. The gate is open, and Teddy’s Challenger sits parked by the steps. I’m assuming Julius is here, but that doesn’t explain why the gate is wide open. Lucas slows as we pass the guard shack. I lean over and look with him to see the guard from earlier lying with a single gunshot to the head. My heart sinks. Everything was supposed to be over now. This shouldn’t be happening.
“Stay in the car,” he says as we creep further in and park.
He steps out and walks up the steps slowly, surveying the surroundings. The sun is completely gone now, which gives no light to really see. The trees sway lightly in the wind, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Lucas reaches for the door, but before he can open it, a shadow appears from by the fountain in the yard. I want to scream and tell him, but I don’t want to scare whoever it is. With the shadow getting closer and closer to him from behind, I open my door quietly and step out. I sprint up behind him and grab him around the neck. “Who are you!” I yell, grabbing Lucas’s attention.
He turns around quickly and hurries back down the steps. “I should have known you’d be a problem,” he growls.
When he’s only a few steps from us, the man throws his elbow back and connects with my stomach. A scream rips from my mouth as I drop my hands and wrap them around myself. I look to Lucas and beg him with my eyes to make it all go away. Dropping to my knees, I try and catch my breath, but it leaves me again with the events that start to unfold in front of me.
Lucas’s eyes grow wide before they turn dark and disbelief and determination covers his features. In one quick motion, he pulls the brass knuckles from his pocket and slips them on. The man raises a gun, but he never gets a chance to use it. Just as he looks up, Lucas drives into his face. His head flies back as his arm shoots in front of him and a single shot is fired into the window. The silencer on the end is enough to ensure no one will hear, but the glass shattering does the opposite.
Carl, Julius, and Cat all run out the front door and down the steps. When Julius sees the scene in front of him, he turns to Carl. “Take her back inside.”
Carl nods and grabs Cat by the shoulders, then turns to go back inside. Julius stands silently looking down on Lucas beating the man on the lawn. Over and over, his fist slams into him and doesn’t stop.
Blood splatters onto Lucas’s face every time his fist comes back, but it doesn’t stop him. Every blow is directed in a new area of the body, mangling the guy’s appearance. His once sandy hair is now red and matted to what’s left of his head. Bones crunch under Lucas’s fist, but no one stops him.
Pain pulsates in my stomach and core, but I can’t bring myself to stand. My eyes stay locked onto Lucas covered in blood, still steadily pounding into whoever this man is. He’s a beautiful disaster being sent over the edge.
Finally, when the man doesn’t resemble the person who grabbed me at all, Julius steps forward and grabs Lucas by the shoulder. “It’s done, brother.”
“No!” he roars, continuing his assault.
Julius grabs his waist and pulls him away as he continues to swing. “He hit her!” he yells. “He hurt her!”
Julius finally get him upright and places himself between Lucas and the man, who isn’t much of a man anymore. “Lucas.” He grabs his face and tries to turn it toward him, but it doesn’t work. His eyes stay zeroed in on the guy as blood drips from his still-balled fists and face, running down his chest. “He’s done, Lucas,” Julius tries.
I take another look at his body lying in front of me and immediately feel sick. His head isn’t round. Instead, it’s smashed in and deformed in ways I can’t even fathom. One of his eyes hangs out of its socket, and his skin slips off him like water on an oily surface.
“I’m okay,” I say, finally standing and moving my eyes to Lucas. But it’s a lie. Something isn’t right, and I can feel it. “Look at me, Lucas. I’m okay.” I step closer and his eyes finally switch to me.
The horror I saw before doesn’t compare to what I’m seeing now. He unravels his fingers, letting the brass knuckles clatter to the ground with pieces of flesh embedded in them. “You’re not okay.” His voice has a new pain to it.
I hold up my hand and place it on his bloody cheek. “No, I am. I’m okay.”
His eyebrows pull together as his face contorts with agony and points down. “Julius, call Dr. Kelly.” Julius doesn’t say a word and does what he does best—he stays silent and hurries back inside.
I look down to where his attention is directed and see the blood seeping through my pants. I reach between my legs and feel, then bring it to my face to make sure what I’m seeing is real. My fingertips are drenched in blood. “I’m not okay,” I whisper.
Lucas steps forward and grabs me, pulling me into his bloodstained body. “You need to sit down.”
He ushers me inside and through the hall until we reach Teddy’s room. He pushes open the door, then walks me to the bed. Gently, he helps ease me down onto the soft mattress and white sheets. He props pillows behind me, then walks into the bathroom. When he comes back, he has a stack of white towels in his hands, but they’re already covered in blood.
“Fuck.” He drops them and goes back to the door. “Carl! Towels!”
He closes the door, then walks back to me. His hands never stop moving. They twitch by his sides as he paces in a small circle in front of me, then push into his hair. I want to try and comfort him the same way he does me, but I can’t. I don’t know if things will be okay.
The door opens again and Carl steps in. He comes straight to my side and starts unfolding towels. “Put these between your legs so we can monitor the bleeding in some way before Peter gets here. And you”—he turns to Lucas—“go wash that man off of you.”
Lucas looks hesitant, but he ultimately obeys Carl’s order and walks into the bathroom. He strips out of his clothes and leaves them in a pile on the marble floor as he gets into the shower.
“Who was he, Carl?” I ask, doing my best not to cry. It isn’t that I’m sad for the guy because I’m not. He jeopardized my child’s life, so he deserved what he got. I’m just worried what all of this means for Hale.
Carl sits on the edge of the bed and moves the towel back a bit to look between my legs. Normally I would be embarrassed or shocked, but I’m clothed. “Emil’s new right hand. I assumed he would be handled with Emil, but I guess not. No sense in dwelling on it now though. What’s done is done.”
I nod.
