Seventeen
A CHERON WAS NURSING a half-empty glass of room-temperature brandy in his hand when Wickham came out of the guest bedroom, followed by Dr. Alistair Mortensen, whose looks and build often had people asking him if he had Vikings in his family tree.
"What's the prognosis?" Acheron asked as his long-time friend joined him at his private bar.
"Dehydration, and while I'll need tests for actual confirmation, I suspect drug use in the past forty-eight hours." Track marks - and their location - could say a lot about a person's habits, when one knew what to look for.
Acheron knew a 'but' tone when he heard one, and his lips tightened. "There's something else, isn't it?"
"I also believe she's a victim of physical abuse, most likely domestic." Alistair paused. "But you and Wickham are already aware of this, aren't you?"
"The three of us belonged to the same...family when we were young."
"No need to pussyfoot on my account, Wick." Glancing at his friend, Acheron said evenly, "She was already the big man's mistress when Wick and I were recruited. Had been so since she was thirteen."
Alistair bit out an expletive.
The Greek billionaire inclined his head. "My sentiments exactly."
"If not for Amy's interference," Wick said heavily, "we might never have been able to leave the gang at all."
"But she didn't go with you," Alistair surmised.
"It's too late for her." It was always the excuse Amelia gave Acheron every damn time he tried to convince her to start a new life, and his voice held a bitter edge as he repeated the words for his friend.
Listening to Acheron's story, Alistair started remembering some of the oldest conversations he had with his friend, and he drew his breath when the truth eventually dawned on him. "It's her, isn't it?" he asked in surprise. "Amy is Amelia. The great love from your past that you used to talk about whenever you're trousered."
The all-too-British term had Acheron's lips twisting in a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "She is an important person in my life, ne ."
Alistair's puzzlement only grew. "Then shouldn't you be happy she's finally left the old life behind? That's what she's here for, isn't it?"
"She also thinks we can resume our relationship," Acheron revealed curtly, "and I have a feeling she'll bolt the moment I tell her that ship's long sailed."
"Then just fake it until she's strong enough to handle being on her own." Alistair had always been a pragmatic man, and romantic feelings had never been of much importance to him.
Acheron downed the rest of his brandy in one gulp. "I can't."
Before Alistair could ask why, a suddenly uneasy-looking Wickham interrupted them then, saying tensely, "There's something you should know, Mr. Simonides. Earlier, I was trying to tell you—-"
"Ah, yes." Acheron did recall Wickham making several attempts to call his attention to something, but in his concern to get Amelia away from prying eyes, he had told the other man to keep a lid on it until he had his ex-lover safely settled in his apartment. "What was it you wanted to say?"
"It's Ms. Jones, sir."
Acheron stiffened.
"Since I had left strict instructions that you were not to be disturbed, security had been intending to see Amy out when she started causing a disturbance. Ms. Jones witnessed their altercation—-"
Acheron could feel the blood draining from his face. "Are you saying Pippi's seen Amelia?"
"It's more than that." Wickham's tone was heavy. "Ms. Jones chose to intervene on Amy's behalf, and it was she who called me. She said...a woman who had introduced herself as your girlfriend——"
FUCK.
He excused himself from his friend, and he already had his phone out and was dialing Pippi's number even before he reached his study. But it was as he feared, and his call went straight to voice mail once more.
GODDAMMIT.
The sickening feeling in his stomach was disturbingly familiar now, and cold sweat enveloped his skin as he thought of all the things he had to make up to Pippi. If she ended up asking for his head, he'd gladly serve it on a silver platter.
Right now, all he needed was to have her back.
****
I T WAS ALMOST EIGHT in the evening when Pippi got off the bus, feeling emptier than ever but thankfully dry-eyed, which was all she cared about. It hadn't been the case when she left the office, and the hurt had just kept swelling inside of her that she had found herself running to the nearest alley.
And then she had bawled like a child.
I should've known he was only messing with me.
I should've known.
I should've known.
And with her tears showing no signs of stopping, she had decided to send Astrid a message and lied about having overtime. After that, she had walked aimlessly around town, walking and walking until she had run out of tears to cry.
The only thing left to do now , she thought, was to make sure she could act like everything was okay .
But when she went around the corner, Pippi realized there were other bigger things she had to worry about than keeping her family from realizing how heartbroken she was.
Things like...an ambulance blocking the main road leading to her house.
She rushed towards the paramedic standing next to the van's back doors, heart beating mad and mind racing with all sorts of heinous possibilities. She could see her home from here, and the lights peeking out of the edges of the bay window gave her a modicum of relief. That meant they were okay. That this ambulance hadn't anything to do with them. Right?
Pippi came up to the paramedic standing next to the ambulance. "Excuse me. Sir?" The man was tall and powerfully built, with his uniform emphasizing the impressive breadth of his shoulders. Definitely a shoo-in for Sexiest Paramedic Alive, Pippi thought absently.
When the paramedic finally turned to face her, Pippi had to crane her neck to look into his eyes, which were the only thing his surgical mask didn't cover. "Is anyone seriously hurt?"
The paramedic stepped close, and she had the strangest feeling that he seemed awfully familiar. His height, his build, his hair—-
Oh.
Her eyes widened, and almost as if this had been the cue he was waiting for, the paramedic took another step closer, near enough for Pippi to hear him ask behind his mask, "Could we talk?"
Pippi shouldn't have been shocked, but she was, and it made the next few minutes a blur. Somehow, she ended up following Acheron into the back of the ambulance and collapsing in the paramedic seat while Wickham shut the doors close before taking the wheel.
Even the sound of the engine running and seeing her house’s window as the vehicle drove past, it felt like nothing but illusions. It was only when she saw Acheron, who of course looked at home in his paramedic uniform (was there nothing in this world that didn't suit the man?), crouching down in front of her that shock finally lost its paralytic grip on her body, and all the blasted memories came hurtling back in.
"No!" Pippi shrank back in instinctive protest the moment Acheron tried reaching for her hands. How could he even think she would let him touch her, after everything?
Acheron's jaw clenched at her show of rejection, but what hurt him even more was the look of fear and pain in her eyes. "I know I've fucked up more than once today, and I'm sorry for it."
Pippi fought against the sound of pain she heard in his voice. He's lying. Lying. Lying!
"I despise myself for it, and if I had known how things would turn out—-"
"Like me finding out you have a girlfriend?" she cut in unevenly.
"Amelia isn't my girlfriend." His tone was harsh, and his hard gaze captured hers as if demanding Pippi to see the truth in them.
Her chest heaved, and she turned her head sharply away. No more , she thought doggedly. I'm over trusting this guy.
"I'm not lying, Pippi."
"I don't care. It's not my right to care—-"
"It is, damn you." She looked so damn blank, but now he could see past it, and he knew just how much she was hurting...because of him. "Amelia—-"
"Don't you call her 'Amy'?" she couldn't help asking with a masochistic sense of bitterness.
"Wickham and the others call her that," he bit out. "But I never did." His voice became level. "I've never been the one to use nicknames."
And yet he called her Pippi.
The thought had her wanting to cry in sheer despair. Stop fooling yourself. Stop trying to make excuses for him. Just stop!
"I just need you to listen to me."
The words were met with stoic silence, and he knew it was her way of shutting him out.
"Amelia and I go a long way back."
Not a single flicker of emotion in her blank blue eyes, but he saw past this, too. The silence was to mask the pain, and because he knew he was the cause of it, Acheron forced himself to do the one thing that he had once sworn he would never admit.
"She saved me...from being..." He tried to say it. But he couldn't. And when he heard her gasp, and saw her eyes starting to water, he realized that she already knew.
"I'm so sorry, Acheron."
She was no longer silent, no longer blank, but even though this was what he wanted, a part of him already wanted to erase the words.
Just saying them out loud made Acheron want to throw up in remembered fear.
People who liked to play the victim card were the people who had never been one.
You only had to be a victim once, and you would never be able to forget how it was, no matter how much you tried.
You only had to feel powerless once, and you would never wish to speak it again.
Once was all it took.
Just once.
And even the vaguest memories of it would be enough to kill you—-
"Please. Stop. It's enough. Please."
A whisper yanked him out of the darkness, and he heard himself gasp and open eyes that he hadn't even remembered closing.
Pippi watched Acheron turn his gaze to hers, and the haunted look in them nearly destroyed her.
"Have I told you...everything?"
The controlled tightness of his voice said so, so much, and Pippi bit her lip hard. "You did." Her tone shook, and her heart proved to be just as unwieldy, having lost so many pieces to Acheron's pain that it could no longer remember the proper way to beat.
He remained kneeling before her, her very own beautiful Greek god, but for once she was blind to his perfection. For once, she couldn't see him. Her mind was still drowning in the abyss of his past, and all she could see was a motherless fifteen-year-old boy, holding a knife under his pillow, because the monsters were real, and every night, there was that one chance they could get him for good.
"Don't look at me like that." Acheron's tone was savage. "I don't want your pity, dammit."
"Good." Pippi fought hard to keep her tone steady, knowing that anything less would be misconstrued. "Because you don't have it."
"I only needed you to understand why I can't turn Amelia away."
"I know."
Relief had Acheron breathing hard.
"And I can't thank her enough—-"
His head jerked up, his stunned gaze flying to hers.
"Because if it hadn't been for her, you w-wouldn't be here, and I'd never be so lucky to m-meet—-" Her voice caught. " You."
Ah, God.
She really was the loveliest little thing, but even knowing that she deserved better, even knowing he could only dirty someone like her -
He just couldn't let her go.