Chapter 18 Allie
Allie
This isn’t happening.
It’s a nightmare.
It has to be a nightmare.
I don’t understand what I’m seeing.
Why is there so much blood on my hands? What happened?
There’s a voice somewhere in the middle of it all. Someone is screaming. I realize then the sound is coming from me. Slowly, another voice fills my ears. Someone yells my name.
I look around, my scream finally cutting off, searching for whoever the voice belongs to.
“Allie!”
My head flops back and forth like a doll.
“Stop! Listen to me!”
Somehow, that voice breaks through to me.
I blink at him, trying hard to focus on his face. “Kade?” It’s barely a croak.
“What the fuck happened?” I can see the panic in his eyes, and I make the mistake of looking down at the body lying across my legs. The panic rises again, and this time, it’ll kill me, I know it. It’s going to choke me until I have no air left to breathe.
“Allie!” Kade’s face is close to mine, filling my vision. “Stop screaming. Breathe. Look at me.” He cups my cheeks, his voice gentling. Soft like I haven’t heard in a very long time.
“...I didn’t…”
He looks down at the body. The dead body.
The dead body lying on top of me. I’m losing it again.
The world starts to go gray, and I’m almost glad.
This has to end. I can’t handle it. “Relax. Stay with me,” he whispers in that soft tone, and I want that softness so much that I do what he says for once in my life.
“Help me.” He’s my only hope now. The only thing I can cling to.
His features tighten and harden, or at least his jaw does, but his eyes remain soft and on me.
“Please,” I beg, babbling, while his face blurs through my tears.
“I-I don’t know what happened. He was… he was trying to…
” I can’t bring myself to finish speaking. I don’t even want to think about it.
It’s a relief when he takes Jackson by the shoulders and rolls him off me—at least, until I see my fiancé’s blank, dead eyes.
They’re still wide open, like he was surprised by what happened.
What happened? The last thing I remember is blacking out.
I couldn’t have done this. I wouldn’t kill someone.
Kade straightens, his gaze darting around, almost like he’s sizing up the scene. “You need to get up.”
I want to, but I still can’t move. Jackson might not be on top of me anymore, but my body is so numb and in shock that I can’t seem to make it move. I can’t make my body do anything. My dress is ripped, and I can’t stop shaking. “I don’t remember what happened. Why can’t I remember what happened?”
“It’s your brain’s response to trauma.” He speaks so nonchalantly like discovering me this way isn’t a big deal. When I don’t make an effort to stand, he takes me under the arms and pulls me to my feet gently, paying close attention to set me down outside the puddle of blood.
I whimper when my ripped panties slip down my legs and fall to the floor. Standing, I can see just how horrific the scene is. There’s blood everywhere.
On the floor, on the lamp. Especially on the lamp.
Is that what killed him? Did I do this?
“Why don’t I remember?” I repeat on a sob.
“I already told you.” He looks me up and down, then narrows his eyes when he sees my panties. His jaw sets a little tighter, and he takes a step away to rub his face and pace.
Does he think I would—that I—
My dress is so heavy, soaking and sticking to my skin, and the feel of it hanging now that I’m standing makes my stomach lurch.
When I gag, Kade stalks back and shakes me again, more gently this time.
“Pull it together. There’s shit that has to be done.
Take this off and leave it on the floor.
All of it, and don’t touch anything,” he adds, looking around the room.
“We don’t want a shit ton of fingerprints. ”
I can barely keep up with all of his orders.
When I reach behind me for the zipper, my hands shake too hard for me to grab onto it.
“For fuck’s sake, Allie,” he whispers, but there’s no heat in it.
He takes hold of me, yanks the zipper down, and pulls the silk off.
I stare down at my body. The blood soaked through and has stained my skin in so many places.
It’s like even though the dress is off, the evidence of what I’ve done lingers.
When Kade is finished stripping me down to nothing, he gives me a push toward the stairs.
“Go upstairs and take a shower. Scrub yourself raw. I’m going to make a phone call.
” He pulls out his phone. “We have to get this cleaned up before Emma comes home.”
Mom. Oh God. How will I explain this to Mom? I wouldn’t even know where to start. How can I explain myself, explain that I didn’t kill him when I don’t know if I did or not?
He was choking me. I remember that.
My throat throbs. I touch a hand to it and wince.
But then what?
“I said go!” Kade barks, and the sound gets me moving. I race up the stairs to my room and flip on the light. Then rush straight into the bathroom.
A broken sob bursts out of me as I flip on the hot shower spray. I couldn’t have killed Jackson. I don’t see how it’s possible, yet he’s dead. We were the only two people in the room. Kade came running in after I woke up. Didn’t he?
The water is almost boiling when I step into the shower.
I soap up my loofah and get to work, scrubbing away the evidence.
Watching bloody water swirl around the drain while tears roll down my cheeks.
Jackson tried to rape me. Did he succeed?
Fresh horror sweeps over me as I reach between my legs, looking down while I hold my breath.
There’s no bruising on my thighs. No blood, either.
No soreness. I almost sink to my knees in relief.
He didn’t live long enough.
I wedge my knuckles into my mouth to quiet the sobs spilling out of me, then lean against the wall, afraid that if I don’t, I’ll fall to the floor.
What will I do? Who’s going to believe me? How can they when I don’t even know everything that happened?
By the time the water turns cold, my skin is bright red, and it stings, but that’s still better than the stains I washed away. My fluffy bathrobe gives me no comfort, but I pull it tight around myself after wrapping my hair in a towel.
It takes a little time to work up the courage to go back out there and force myself to look at everything again.
I don’t know if I can, but I can’t stay in the bathroom forever, either.
I wait for a wave of nausea to pass before I force myself out of the steamy room to face whatever is going to happen next.
Kade isn’t in my bedroom when I enter it, so I muster the strength to go downstairs.
I slowly descend the stairs and freeze halfway down.
It’s gone. It’s all gone. The body. The blood.
The lamp, my dress, and shoes. All of it is clean, no remainders of what had occurred less than thirty minutes ago.
The only thing that proves I wasn’t hallucinating the whole ugly mess is Kade standing there in the space.
“Upstairs. You need to get dressed. After that, we’ll work out your story,” he murmurs, but I’m still so frozen with shock that I can’t make myself move.
“Move your ass,” he growls. “I can’t stay here forever, and we need to make sure you know exactly what to say.
” It’s not his usual growl, but still a snap, as if he knows his tone is the only thing that will motivate me.
I don’t care right now whether he likes me.
Or if I like him. Lord knows he’s put me through it lately.
But he’s here, and he’s helping me. I cling to that as tight as I can.
I scurry up the stairs and rush into my bedroom.
As soon as I enter, I drop my robe and pull out a pair of pajamas from the dresser.
Kade walks in as I’m dressing, and I can feel his eyes assessing me.
“Your story.” His voice is sharp enough, intense enough to cut through any shock still holding me back. “Here’s what happened. He brought you home. Straight home. Repeat that.”
“Jackson brought me straight home,” I whisper.
My throat hurts so much, though I can’t tell whether it was the screaming or Jackson choking me that made my voice raspy. Kade’s eyes roam every inch of my face, but it isn’t until he reaches my throat that the murderous look appears in his eyes.
“I want to bring him back to life so that I can kill him my fuckin’ self for touching you.”
I don’t know what to say, or even think, about that. I know he cares in his twisted way, know he considers me to be his, but he can’t mean anything other than as his possession, right?
He clenches his jaw and then continues. “He dropped you off. You were upset, but all you wanted was a shower and to go to bed. You wanted to put everything behind you. Say it.”
“I wanted to forget everything that happened tonight. I just wanted to get to sleep and forget all of it.”
“That’s good. Now this is the most important part. Are you listening to me?”
I nod. It’s a relief to be told what to do. I don’t have to think. I only have to listen.
“Jackson drove away. You don’t know where he went. He didn’t tell you anything. He left after you came inside, and that is the last you saw of him. Understood?”
Right away, something tickles at the back of my mind. “But the guardhouse. What about the—”
“They weren’t down there. Not sure why. You got lucky tonight.”
Sure. Lucky.
“And the security camera footage can be erased. I have someone working on it now,” he adds, ignoring my surprise.
How does he even know what to do here?
How did he get everything cleaned up? How long was I in the shower?
“How did you do this? How is everything gone?”
“This isn’t my first rodeo, Allie. Now focus on getting your story straight.” He checks the time on his phone and scowls. “The clock’s ticking. I want to hear it. What happened tonight?”