Just Be Her Page 29

  His hands squeezed.

  I couldn’t breathe. Panic coursed through me, and I scratched at his face, his arms, his hands. He didn’t even seem to notice, his lips pulled back in a snarl, his eyes bulging, his face grotesque.

  My mouth opened wide, trying in vain to find a breath, as stars started to appear in my vision.

  Preston grunted, apparently unsatisfied with how long it was taking to kill me. He tugged me up by the neck, only to slam my head back into the ground. My vision momentarily flickered out as pain exploded at the back of my skull.

  I started flailing my arms, my body’s last-ditch effort to fight for survival.

  My right hand knocked over the half-empty glass of wine on the table, smashing it. Shards of glass fell over my shoulder as my hand connected with the wine bottle next. It toppled onto its side, and I gripped the neck.

  With the last bit of strength in my body, I swung.

  The bottle connected with Preston’s head with a sickening crunch, but it didn’t smash.

  His grip on my neck loosened as his body tipped to the side.

  Air rushed into my lungs, burning everything it touched on its way down. My vision cleared just in time to see Preston shake his head. His eyes narrowed on me again, his expression pure rage.

  I swung the bottle again, this time aiming for the corner of the coffee table. The impact reverberated up my arm, but the glass smashed.

  Preston’s hands closed around my throat again. I gritted my teeth and slashed at his face. The jagged glass cut two deep gashes in his cheek and jaw, blood dripping from the wounds.

  He roared and pushed away from me, then hit me in the face again—this time with his closed fist. More agony. I wasn’t sure how much more my head could take before I passed out.

  I swung again, catching his throat this time. Warm blood splashed onto my face and chest. Bile rose in my throat, but the wound was enough to make him lose his focus on me.

  He reached for his throat, eyes wide with panic. Blood oozed between his fingers, and he swayed. I dropped the bottle and shoved him in the chest, and he fell sideways onto the couch.

  I scrambled out from under him and got to my feet.

  I didn’t look back, didn’t stop to check if he was following—I just ran.

  Hands slick with blood, it took me a few tries to get a good grip on the door handle as my heart threw itself against my ribcage and adrenaline surged to my limbs, every fiber of my being demanding that I run.

  Finally I wrenched the door open and sprinted onto the street.

  I turned right, toward the only place I knew in the area—the Cottonmouth Inn. It was only two blocks. I knew the way—I’d walked it so many times in the past few days. People on the busy street gasped and jumped out of my way, some of them calling out, but I wasn’t listening, wasn’t stopping, still wasn’t completely sure he wasn’t following me.

  The sign with the snake above the door swung in the breeze. People milled about outside, their conversations dying midsentence as I barreled through, pumping my legs.

  The bouncer at the door—Tim? Tom? I couldn’t remember—took a step forward, holding his hand out as if to stop me. But a fight broke out just inside, drawing his attention away as he turned to deal with the bigger threat.

  I rushed through the door, past the fight, and finally came to a stop. My chest heaved as my eyes flew frantically about the room. People watched me warily and shifted away, creating a wide uneven circle around me.

  I must’ve looked like something out of a nightmare—my hair a mess, blood coating my face and chest—and as I registered the sticky floors, I realized I’d run there in bare feet.

  The music stopped. First the voice, then soon after, the other instruments. I looked up, past the crowd and right into Ren’s panicked eyes.

  “Alex?” His smooth voice had never sounded so discordant through a microphone.

  He jumped off the stage and disappeared from my view as he pushed through the stunned crowd, but it was Andre’s voice that reached me next.

  “Call an ambulance,” he barked. He rounded the bar, heading straight for me. “Someone turn the stereo on. Move, asshole!” He shoved a guy out of the way in his rush, spilling half the man’s beer, but Ren reached me first.

  Ren gripped my shoulders, his touch tentative, as his wide, horrified gaze flew up and down my body. He was sweaty from performing, his messy hair falling over his forehead. I wanted to reach up and brush it back, but my hands wouldn’t release his forearms. It had been over a week since I’d seen him, and despite the crazy, messed-up situation, having him standing before me made me realize just how much I’d missed him.

  “Where are you hurt?” He sounded panicked.

  The music came on through the speakers as Andre reached us. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Ren, reaching out as if to touch me but then just ghosting his hands uncertainly over my body instead.

  “Alex, show me where you’re hurt. Where is the blood coming from?” Ren shouted over the music and the crowd. Now that the bar’s patrons realized there was no immediate danger, they were getting back to partying.

  I opened my mouth and tried to tell him it wasn’t my blood, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate, so I mouthed the words instead.

  I wasn’t sure if he understood me, but in the next moment, he was picking me up bridal style and holding me to his chest. Andre cleared a path through the crowd, and we piled into the back corridor.

  Ren sat down at the bottom of the stairs, holding me in his lap. I clutched the front of his T-shirt with shaky hands, his leather necklaces tangling in my fingers.

  “We need to get her to a doctor. Right now. Fuck, there’s so much blood.” Andre looked frantic, stepping toward me as if to treat my injuries, then stepping toward the door as if to go get someone better qualified to do so.

  I shook my head, but Ren answered for me, proving he had managed to read my lips earlier. “It’s not her blood.”

  “Holy shit, Alex.” Toni’s panicked words made me look up; she’d followed us. “What the fuck happened?”

  “Who did this to you?” Andre growled.

  Both of them looked about as shaken as I felt. The only thing keeping me from losing it completely was the feeling of Ren’s chest against my side, his strong hands holding me to him, his steady heartbeat under my fists.

  “Pres . . .” I couldn’t seem to get my throat to work. I tried a few times to get Preston’s name out, but he’d stolen my ability to speak the truth along with all the other things he’d taken from me. Tears of frustration welled in my eyes, but Toni figured it out.

  “Preston?”

  I nodded, and her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Who the fuck is Preston?” Andre couldn’t seem to say anything without growling, his hands constantly closing into fists and reopening.

  “He’s her cousin,” Toni explained. “He was going to buy half her business to bail her out of all the debt, until today.”

  My body was starting to realize it was no longer in danger—the adrenaline draining from my limbs, the oxygen returning to my brain—and my mind started to work properly again.

  I gasped.

  Releasing Ren’s shirt, I tried to scramble to my feet. In my rush to get away from my attacker, I may have allowed my mother to walk right into his clutches. She would be back from dinner with her friends at any moment. I had to get back there.

  Ren held me to him, and everyone spoke over each other, urging me to calm down, telling me I was safe, trying to soothe me.

  “No!” I managed to get the word out. They paused and watched me with questioning, wary eyes. “Mom . . . he’s still . . . there.”

  “Toni, call the police,” Andre ordered, then pressed his forehead to mine for the briefest of seconds. “I’ll make sure she’s safe. I love you.”

  I nodded as he rushed out the back door and into the alleyway, Toni shouting the address after him. She pressed her phone to her ear and rushed to the back of the corridor.<
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  Ren just rocked me back and forth.

  Toni came back a few moments later and handed him a wet tea towel, keeping another one for herself. With slow, gentle movements, they started to remove the blood from my skin. By the time the previously blue-checked tea towels were completely covered in crimson, the ambulance had arrived.

  They checked me over and asked me a bunch of questions, which I did my best to answer despite my throat not cooperating. They insisted on taking me to the hospital, saying there could be permanent damage and that my left cheek would likely need a scan. My whole head felt swollen, sore and throbbing.

  “One of you can ride in the ambulance with her,” the EMT told Ren and Toni as he packed his bag up.

  Ren hadn’t released my hand the entire time I was being examined, and he didn’t seem likely to relinquish it now as the stretcher was lifted into the back of the ambulance.

  Toni shot him an annoyed look but waved us off and said she’d meet us there.

  As we took off, Ren sat next to me and held my hand in both of his, his thumbs caressing the back of it as he took in the injuries on my face. His eyes filled with tears, and he dropped his head, breathing hard.

  I couldn’t say the comforting words I wanted to. I pulled my hand out from between his and cupped his cheek. He looked up at me, and a tear dripped off his chin.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but his phone went off in his pocket, and he rushed to answer it. The conversation was brief, a couple of OKs and an update on where they were taking me before he hung up.

  “Your mom is safe. She’s coming to the hospital with Andre,” he told me right away, his hands enclosing mine again.

  I breathed a massive sigh, even though it hurt my throat to do it. Tears of relief tracked down the sides of my face and into my hair.

  “I can’t believe I nearly lost you.” Ren’s voice was hoarse with emotion. “I’ve been such a dumbass. I’m so sorry, Alex. I hate that this is what it took to make me realize it, but I don’t want to imagine a world without you in it. I don’t want to live my life without you in it. I love you.”

  My heart swelled. I mouthed the words back to him, managing a smile but then wincing when it made my face hurt. The drugs they were pumping into me started to take effect, and I kept my gaze on his beautiful green eyes as I floated away on a cloud.

  …

  A: I’m bored. Can you bring me my laptop so I can work?

  T: I literally just left!!! Watch some daytime TV like a normal person.

  A: BORING!

  A: So you gonna speak to Oren?

  T: This is your solution to hospital boredom? Harassing me?

  A: ???

  T: I don’t know. I don’t think he’s interested. It’s over.

  A: Caroline didn’t think so. You two haven’t spoken since it all came out. He might be willing to listen.

  T: I think you’re all seeing something I’m not. He’s probably relieved he doesn’t have to go through with a sham marriage. Caroline said his dad is already talking about setting him up with other women so he can find a wife “the old-fashioned way.” *eyeroll

  A: Toni, I think you need to do this. You owe it to yourself to try. You told me you fell in love with this man, and now you’re just going to give up on that? That’s not the strong, confident, takes-no-shit woman I’ve gotten to know. If I’m being honest, I think you’ve been deliberately pushing people away for years.

  T: You think I don’t know this shit?

  A: What do you have to lose? If you try and he says no, you’ll be in the exact same position you’re in now, but at least you’ll know for sure.

  T: Shit, Alex. Maybe it’s better not knowing. The possibility of a yes not realized is so much less intimidating than the possibility of a definitive no.

  T: What if it was all in my head? What if I’m head over heels for him, and he was just having a bit of fun during a business transaction, and now he’s pissed because it didn’t go to plan. The man is textbook OCD. He can’t handle it when shit goes wrong.

  A: Remember when we first started this? You were convinced no one in your life knew you, no one cared enough to realize I wasn’t you?

  T: Yeah?

  A: And then Andre picked up on it on day one. And it turned out Loretta knew all along.

  T: What’s your point?

  A: That, sometimes, you underestimate how much people care for you. That it’s time to start letting them in. Just like you let me in.

  T: Get some rest. xo

  Twenty-Nine

  Toni

  I stood under the spray for so long, scrubbing the sleepless night and the blood of my sister’s attacker off my skin, that the water started to turn cold.

  The doctors had insisted on keeping Alex in for another few days as they continued to run a battery of tests. Apparently a victim of strangulation could die days, sometimes even weeks, after the attack if the effects were left untreated. We’d stayed with her all night. When they tried to get us to leave, Ren flat out refused, parking himself in a chair in the corner and glaring at the nurses. The rest of us made peace with the waiting room.

  Annabelle was hysterical at first, clearly reliving the trauma of losing a child. She clung to me until the doctors convinced her Alex would be OK. There was bruising and damage to her trachea, and she wouldn’t be able to speak for a little while, but they expected her to make a full recovery.

  Ren was snoring in his chair in the corner when Andre and I left to get a change of clothes for everyone. Alex had shooed us away silently, and we’d spent the entire drive home texting. It made me feel close to her; it was how we’d gotten to know each other while living each other’s lives. There was something comforting about seeing the three little dots appear and then getting her responses—she was still there, still being stubborn and demanding and sticking her nose in my business.

  When all traces of heat in the spray disappeared, I shut the water off.

  I got dressed in the first things my hands found in the wardrobe—a hot-pink pair of skinny jeans and my favorite T-shirt with the skull hand giving the finger. I piled my still-damp hair into a messy bun, then turned to find Ken had let himself in through the open balcony doors.

  “Hey, buddy.” I smiled at him and crouched down but didn’t approach. Crows were dangerous and stubborn. You had to let them come to you. “Long time no see.”

  He tipped his head back, watching me intently.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I promise. Sorry I was away for so long.”

  He maintained his skeptical pose, still as a statue.

  “You’re mad. I get it, but I’m back now. And guess what? I went and fell in love with a billionaire pretty boy, like a basic bitch.”

  After another moment of stillness, he squawked and walked toward me. He turned his head to the side, and I patted him gently with the back of my pointer finger. His shiny black feathers were impossibly soft under my touch.

  “So Alex—the one who looks like me but way less cool—turns out she’s my sister. And she thinks I should go try to win Oren back. That’s the billionaire pretty boy. I lied to him a lot, and now he hates me, so I don’t know.”

  Kennedy squawked again and flapped his wings.

  I pulled my hand back, resting my elbows on my knees, and sighed. “Of course you agree with her. Thing is, she nearly died last night, so I feel like I have to do what she tells me.”

  Ken cocked his head to the side, and I rolled my eyes.

  “OK, fine. Last night may or may not have made me realize life is short and shit and maybe I should try to go after what I want and, like, try to find happiness or whatever.”

  The more I thought about what happened, and all the points Alex had made, the more an odd feeling grew inside me. It was like a little spark of energy that propelled me to get moving, made me feel invigorated and terrified all at once.

  I’d been pushing people away since my parents died, not letting anyone see the real me. I was trying to protect myself
from the pain when they inevitably left me, but I’d come to realize I didn’t like being alone.

  Letting Alex in—and Annabelle and Andre and even Ren to an extent—felt good. It was kind of nice having people who gave a shit about what happened to you. And even though he’d done the thing I was most scared of—left me—I was even glad I’d let Oren in. Because in the few weeks we’d had together, I’d never felt more alive.

  “Shit, I’m gonna do this, aren’t I?” I pushed myself to my feet and bugged my eyes out at my raven friend. “Naturally, I decide to go fight for the man I love when he’s opening his new fancy-as-fuck jewelry store in front of a crowd of people. Maybe I should wait . . .”

  In response Ken flapped his wings and waddled toward me, practically shuffling me out the door.

  “OK, I’m going. Jeez!” I laughed as I pulled my boots on and grabbed my keys.

  Andre stepped out of his apartment at the same time, freshly showered, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.

  “Ready to head back?” he asked.

  “Actually, I gotta go do something. You got this?” I was already walking toward the stairs, bursting to get going, but his large hand wrapped around my elbow. He pulled me to a stop, then yanked me into a bear hug.

  I stiffened—old habits die hard—but then hugged him back. Fucker really did give good hugs.

  He pulled away and looked me dead in the eye. “Thank you, Toni.”

  “What for?”

  “For bringing her into my life.”

  “Well, shit. Since we’re sharing . . . thank you for having my back since day one, even though I was a total bitch to everyone.” It was awkward to say, but I resisted the urge to lower my gaze. I wanted him to know I was sincere.