CHAPTER 3 #2
My anxiety steadily rose higher and higher as I drove roads that were suddenly so familiar to me once again, even after ten years away.
The closer I got to Colt’s apartment, the harder my heart pounded and the more and more sweaty my hands became on my steering wheel.
It used to be my apartment too. It used to be home.
Now it was just an apartment filled with the dark, haunting memories of the aftermath of my attack ten years before.
“I can carry you up there if you need me to?” Deak spoke up after what had been way too long a time of me sat in my now stopped car in the underground parking lot below the apartment building.
I was freaking out inside. I honestly didn’t know if I could bring myself to walk back into that apartment and open myself up to all of the fear and pain I had worked so hard to lock away for so long.
“No,” I shook my head as I turned to him and forced myself to get it together. I wasn’t the terrified kid I’d been ten years ago. I’d been through so much and seen so much worse since then. I could do this. “I’m good. We should move.”
I didn’t even give him a chance to reply, openein the driver’s side door and turning to get myself out.
My entore body was shaking hard as I got to my feet and grabbed my stick from where I’d pushed it behind me into the back seat.
My back was in spasm the second I got upright and I couldn’t atop the gasp of agony that slipped from me.
“Ava?” Deacon raced around the car and stood at my side in an instant, his hands held out like he wanted to grab me, but dare not.
“I…I’m okay,” I panted. “J…Just give me a…a second.”
“You know there’s only you and I here right now. No one else will ever know if you just take my hand and let me help just the tiniest bit,” he sighed as he held his hand out to me and stared me down.
“I don’t…” I began, but he but me off.
“…need help. I know. I heard you when you spouted that bull earlier, but you’re doing a terrible job of selling it now, Ava. Just let me take some of the strain while we get you upstairs, please. It’s killing me to watch you struggle. I swear I’ll never tell a soul you gave in just this once.”
I looked up into his eyes and saw he genuinely looked worried.
The fisted hand at his side showed how hard he was holding back from just grabbing me like he clearly wanted to and the temptation to give in just won out.
I didn’t have anything left inside of me to keep up my armor any longer, and my mask of indifference was long gone, taken by the pain rippling through me. I was kidding no one and I knew it.
“Fine,” I sighed as I placed my shaky hand in his much larger one. “But only because I don’t want you to nag anymore,” I added with a bravado I couldn’t hold on to.
“Whatever it takes,” he shrugged with the hint of a smile as he led me away from the car and then wrapped his free arm around my back gently. I knew I should protest, but the relief of him taking so much of my weight as he practically carried me, was too great to turn down right then.
“You’re shaking so hard. Do you have meds to help with he pain?” Deacon asked as we moved slowly towards the elevators.
“Yeah,” I laughed dryly. “A whole damned pharmacy in my back pack, but they’re not much use. I just need to get some sleep and I’ll be good to go again.”
“That’s all the doctors can do for you? Fucking drugs?” He almost growled the words and when I glanced up at him he looked pissed.
“Physio helps, especially when I was doing it every day, but my insurance wouldn’t cover the cost once I was walking again. I have a few sessions a week, but money’s tight since I was medically retired with my bullshit pension.”
“Fucking assholes. This world if full of them,” he sighed.
“Amen to that,” I joked as we stepped into he elevator and I hit the button for the top floor, trying hard not to freak out at the memories that were easily finding their way back to me.
“What the hell am I doing? We have to take you to the emergency room, Ava,” Colt panicked. He held me in his arms and I couldn’t stop shaking. I could feel blood pouring down my naked back beneath the blanket I was wrapped in, and my head was pounding hard.
“No! Colt…pl-please. I can’t. No strangers….no one t-touching me….please,” I whimpered as I looked up at him through the one eye that wasn’t too swollen to see out of.
“I need to call Mace. He’ll know what to do. He can catch the guy who did this to you.”
“NO!” I cried desperately as I grabbed a fist full of his shirt collar and looked up at him pleadingly.
“No one c-can know. I…I d-don’t want to be a victim Colt.
Please…..no one can know a-about this. Please…
” Tears flowed down my cheeks, causing the cuts to sting savagely, but I didn’t drop my gaze from Colt.
I needed him to understand. I needed him to promise no one but he and I would ever know what a stupid, na?ve, little fool I had been that night.
“Ava? You hear me, honey?” I looked up with a start, pulled back from the past that ha dragged me under so far, so fast, and found Deak crouched so his eyes were level with mine.
“Sorry,” I whispered as I took a deep breath and tried to gather myself.
“You’re crying,” he said as he swiped my wet cheek with his thumb.
“Oh fuck.” I swiped angrily at my face to get rid of the tears and looked up at him with a grimace. “Ignore that. I’m okay. Just tired. Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re in pain and exhausted. I think a few tears are allowed, but don’t worry, I won’t tell a sole about that either,” he winked at me, then before I could even react he had me lifted from my fight and in his arms like he was going to carry me across the damned threshold.
“Deacon!” I cried in shock. “Put me down now!”
“Why? Am I hurting you?” he asked as he paused just outside of the elevator on the top floor of the apartment building. I tried hard to focus only on him and not the hallway around usm terrified of the memories that could come back if I did look around me.
“I don’t need you to fucking carry me. I can walk. I said you could help me, not treat me like some weak damsel in distress,” I hissed.
“Why is a damsel in distress weak? You think it’s weak to need help sometimes?” he asked as his eyes remained locked on mine.
“No, but I don’t need help, and I’m certainly not in distress.
I can cope just fine by myself,” I threw back.
I tried to struggle from his arms, but he was just so huge.
My fight wasn’t getting me anyway, and I’d never felt so small as I did there in his arms. I was far from a petite woman, but compared to him I felt it for the first time in my entire life.
“Ava, stop fighting and tell me if I’m hurting you,” he said flatly. I let out a loud huff of annoyance and glared up at him.
“No, you’re not,” I snapped.
“Good. Then sit still and just let me carry you for this last few steps, yeah?”
“You’re just lucky my gun is in my backpack,” I growled as I realized I had left the bag in the damn car. Fat lot of use my gun and meds would be there.
“Noted. I’ll check you’re unarmed before I ever attempt this again,” He told me with a grin on his handsome, but smug face. Asshole.
“Don’t you ever dare attempt this shit again. The only reason I’m not kicking your ass right now is because it’s been a really long, shitty few hours,” I warned, but it was hardly intimidating when my words were trembling and sounded weak even to me.
“I think you’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” Deak chuckled as he moved down the hall and stopped before the door of Colt’s place.
“There’s a keypad…” I started to tell him, but he obviously already knew because he typed a code into he pad beside the door, then pressed his thumb to the access pad.
“I crash here sometimes,” he explained as the door beeped and released. Deak pushed it open and stepped inside.
“You’re closer friends than you made out,” I questioned with surprise.
In the years I had lived with Colt the only guys he ever had over to our place were Jack and Mason, and that was a rarity.
He tended to socialize at the clubs and restaurants he owned and I really knew little of his personal life, if I were honest.
“The alarm’s not set,” Deak told me, capturing my attention as I lifted my head and looked around the darkened living space we had entered.
We both went silent as I indicated for him to drop me back to my feet.
I was glad when he did as I asked without argument.
He silently closed the door behind him, then I waved a hand towards the kitchen, indicating he should move off to the right, while I went to the left and headed for the bedrooms and Colt’s office.
Deacon looked like he wanted to argue, but he stopped himself when I pulled a small knife from my boot and gripped it in my right hand tightly.
All of my anxiety about being back in that place, pain throughout my body, and sheer exhaustion faded and adrenaline took over as I propped my stick against the door, then pressed my back to the wall and started moving stealthily through the apartment.
My police training kicked in automatically and I moved through the living room, clearing the space around me as I limped my way through the space and headed for the hallway.
The fact the entire apartment was completely silent was a sign that no one was in there, but that didn’t stop me from worrying who could have already been in there, and it didn’t ease my terror every time I opened a door and looked into each room, that I’d find Colt laid cold and dead before me.
The last door was the master bathroom and as I placed my hand on the cool metal of the handle images of my mother, laid in the bathtub, surrounded by blood stained water played through my mind uncontrollably. I could smell the metallic scent of her blood as it pooled on the yellowing tiles below.
My heart raced even faster and my grip on the knife almost slipped as my hands soaked with sweat. I couldn’t face it again. I couldn’t face finding Colt the way I had found my mom.
Knowing that no matter what, I had to get it together and face reality – whatever that may be, I pushed down the metal handle and threw the bathroom door open.
It was dark inside the bathroom, but there was enough light coming through the small window to see the entire space and take in the fact it was empty.
I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding my breath until I gasped in some much needed oxygen, and stumbled back against the wall behind me.
All of my pain and exhaustion hit me at once and I slid down until my ass hit the marble tiles of the bathroom floor.
“Anything?” I swiped a tear from my cheek discreetly as I looked up at Deacon. He was in the doorway, his arm above his head holding onto the door frame as he awaited my reply.
“All clear,” I told him, my voice a quiet rasp. “You?”
“Nothing. The place is just as tidy as it always is,” he replied, and I nodded.
“Colt’s n-not here.” I wasn’t sure if the last part was for Deak, or me assuring myself once again that Colt was not laid dead anywhere.
“We’ll find him. He’ll be alright,” he told me confidently.
“I have to,” I whispered in a moment of weakness.
I had been such a bitch to push Colt the way I had for so long, over the last couple of years.
Now I might have lost him forever and he probably thought I didn’t give two fucks about him.
I had been such a selfish, self-absorbed excuse for a sister and I hated myself for it.
“Come on. Let me help you settle somewhere more comfortable, then I’ll go to the car and get your bag for you, okay?
” Deak said as he held a hand out to me.
I didn’t even have it in me to try and argue with him.
He was a complete stranger to me, but he seemed to want to help and for once I didn’t want to turn that help away.