52. Othelia
Chapter fifty-two
Othelia
Warmth cocoons me as I stare up at the green glow in the dark stars on the ceiling above me. The smell of Rook surrounds me and, for the first time in what feels like forever, my whole body relaxes.
“Rook,” I groan, his weight becoming too much, crushing me. He remains motionless, except for his head slumping against my shoulder. I glance around, taking in Rook’s childhood bedroom, snapping back into reality and the danger we’re in, and panic seizes me.
“Rook!” Tears stream down my face as I desperately try to shake him, but my bound hands restrict my movements. However, I feel a glimmer of hope as I wiggle my right hand and finally free it from its restraints. The chair that had held me captive now lies in shattered pieces beneath us.
As I shift, Rook’s body rolls enough for me to adjust underneath him, but I freeze when I see the blood trickling down his face.
“Oh, my God.” I gasp, clutching my hand over my mouth. He’s been shot.
I push him to the side, my body protesting the movement, cupping his face as he rolls off me, protecting it.
“Rook, Rook… Rook!” I squeal as I run my fingers through his hair, searching for the wound. As my fingers graze across his hairline, his face scrunches in pain and I cry out in relief as his eyes flutter open and his stormy blue eyes slowly roam over my face.
He jolts, eyes wide before he pushes his body back into mine and I wrap my arms around him. “Are you okay?” We embrace. He buries his face in my neck, inhaling deeply, the mingling scents of sweat and blood permeating the air.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I think I hit my head on the broken chair as we fell.”
“Oh, my God, I thought you were dead.” With that word, we both freeze, slowly pulling back from our embrace as we look over to the other side of the room.
Clay stands frozen, gripping his stomach, covered in blood.
A dead Randall at his feet.
Rook pulls me up as his gaze never leaves Clay, who just stares at the body of his father. The eyes I have looked into so many times flick to me, staring unblinking. Rook steps forward, nudging me behind him with his shoulder.
I reach for a pair of scissors on the desk behind us, slipping the blades gently between Rook’s wrist and the cable ties. They spring free with a snap and Rook stretches his wrists before taking the scissors in a tight grip in his hand.
He places one hand back against me, pushing me back further as he speaks softly, not wanting to startle Clay, whose hands now shake as they remain wrapped tightly around the gun.
“Clay?”
As the words sink in, his eyes register the gravity of the situation. He blinks slowly, his vacant stare returning to the lifeless body of his father.
“Clay?” Rook says, firmer this time.
“He made me do it.” His voice is hollow, eyes never straying from the body now pooling in blood. “He told me taking Tilly, helping him, would make him proud.”
Just as I’m about to take a step towards Rook, he quickly raises his hand, blocking my path. “Clay, you need to be seen by a doctor. You’re bleeding.”
His gaze casually drifts down to his stomach, where the wound persists in bleeding, causing his formerly crisp shirt to become marred with a combination of our blood.
“I just wanted to be you. No matter what I did, I was never enough. My mother was never enough. We were never you.” His voice hardens as he inhales deeply.
“Clay, that wasn’t your fault, or your mother’s. He was a narcissistic asshole who hurt everyone he touched,” I say softly from behind Rook.
Clay’s eyes turn cold. “And what does that make me? Huh?” He shakes the gun towards us. His eyes widen at the gun in his hands, as if noticing it for the first time. His breaths increase and his hands clench around the handle of the gun.
“Oh, my God, what have I done?” He runs his hands through his hair as he paces next to the body.
Rook pushes me tighter against his back and makes a step towards the door.
“STOP.” Clay’s hands flail with the gun as he screams, while sirens grow louder and red and blue lights flash through the window. “Fuck! I need to go. I need to get out of here.”
He paces to the window peering out of the curtains at the road, now quickly filling with Seattle police. “Fuck!” he screams again before turning back at us, eyes wild. “You don’t say a fucking word about my part in this. Do you hear me?”
Gone is the remorseful Clay. This is the Clay I recognize. The Clay that always puts his own self-preservation ahead of the needs of anyone else.
Rook goes to move forward, but I slip my hand tightly in his and nod slowly at Clay. “We won’t say anything,” I agree.
There is no way in hell I won’t tell the cops everything when they get here, but right now, with Clay flailing that gun around, I’ll say anything he wants to get him to get the hell away from us.
Clay scans the room one more time, pausing on Randall, his face paling as his blood drains onto the rug surrounding him before he shoves passed us and out into the corridor, the sound of his loud footsteps on the stairs echo back to us as I crumple in Rook’s arms.
“Shh,” he soothes as he strokes my hair. “I’ve got you, baby.” Rook swiftly adapts, pulling me into his arms as we drop to the floor.
“I am so sorry,” I sob into his chest.
“Hey, hey.” He pulls back, cupping my face, thumbs tracing against the bruise along my cheekbone. “What do you possibly have to be sorry for?”
“I opened the door without checking.” I hiccup through another sob.
His chest moves up and down as he chuckles. “We will have to work on that.” He pulls me close, and I melt into his kiss.
What feels like one hundred police officers storm into the room, shouts come from all directions as Rook and I are ushered out of the bedroom, into the street and the awaiting paramedics.
We ask a passing officer about Clay but he apparently escaped down a back alleyway before the police knew to look for him, but they assure us that with the amount of blood he’s losing, it won’t take long for the dogs to catch up to him.
Sitting in the back of an ambulance, Rook’s arms wrap tightly around me. I pull the foil blanket tighter around us, unable to stop shaking.
“You found me,” I whisper up to Rook, whose eyes are now glossing over with unshed tears.
“I’ll always find you.”
I tip my face up to meet his, our lips fusing and sending electricity humming through my veins.
“Wait, how did the police get here?” I lean back, confused why it had taken them so long to get here or who even called them.
Rook’s lips tip up in a smile. “Jericho.”
“Uh what?” How the hell did Jericho know to call the police or where to even send them?
“I called him before I came inside, told him if he hadn’t heard from me in fifteen minutes, he needed to call them and gave him the address.” He just shrugs as he continues and I stare at him, bewildered. “I needed to know you were in there and I hadn’t gone to the wrong place. Didn’t want to send them on a wild goose chase, but if you were here, I knew I would need backup.”
He looks back out at the house. Red and blue lights strobe across the yard as he inhales, and I slip my hands into his, interlacing our fingers.
“So, this was your childhood house?” I ask, taking in the crumbling facade.
“Yeah,” he breathes out with a sigh. “As bad as things were with him, when it was just Mom and me, she made things so special here.”
The coroner and their assistants appear at the front door, dragging the stretcher out with Randall’s body now covered in plastic.
“Rook?” He turns his face to look at me. “It’s over. She is safe.”
He looks like he might break down but turns back to watch them roll the stretcher over the front yard and towards the blacked-out van, opening the doors to slide his body inside, locking him away forever.
“It really is over,” he says, almost disbelievingly, before he looks back at me. “I’ve been living my life in fear of that man and what he could do for so long. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do now.”
I smile as I take in his beautiful face. Even with these cuts and bruises, it takes nothing away from the unimaginable man he is inside.
I shrug. “I guess you could take me home?”
“Rockstar, I will take you anywhere.” He pulls me to him, bowing his forehead to mine as we both stare at the yard littered with police and investigators.
News quickly spreads, and soon vans arrive, bringing with them a swarm of reporters and photographers. Men in suits trailed by cameramen try to get past the police barricade for a glimpse of us sitting in the ambulance.
We shuffle back together, staying well out of their sight as my head drops back against the wall. “You have one more thing you need to do.”
“What’s that?” His head rolls along the wall to look at me and I smile up at him.
“Now you need to win us a cup.”
He grips my chin and smiles against my mouth as he crushes our lips together.
Leaning his forehead against mine, he chuckles. “Well then, if my girl wants a Stanley, I guess I’ve got some work to do.”