“You might want to have a talk with her, then.”
“Why’s that?” I growl.
“Bates submitted his plea bargain the same day Rocky went to see him in county lockup—two days ago.”
Part Four
Life is a Lesson
(It’s only after that we understand.)
Twenty-Eight
Rocky
“Are you certain?” Link snarls, his fingers turning white from the tight grip on his phone.
My belly twists and I set my fork down, pushing the plate away. Something’s wrong. Very, very wrong. The thought of food churns my stomach. It’s never ending, this roller coaster we’re stuck on.
“I’ll be in touch.” With that, he ends the call, his angered eyes locking onto mine as he moves toward me, and I know he knows. He’d never look at me in this way if he didn’t.
My heart lodges itself in my throat.
He takes a seat beside me and I can see he’s physically trying to compose himself. I can also see it isn’t working.
“Is there anything you need to tell me?” he asks roughly.
I don’t want to do this. But there’s no point in delaying it and no easy way to explain myself, so I just—say it.
“I saw Bates.”
The moment I utter Bates’ name, Link’s eyes flash with malice. His entire body is eerily still, all except the muscle throbbing in his cheek. I shiver, because though I know he’d never hurt me, the way he’s looking at me is terrifying. I’m guessing this is the Linken Elliot that Aaron Woods met just before he died.
“What?” he growls through gritted teeth.
“I went to the jail Tuesday and visited Carter Bates.”
His eyes narrow. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
“Because,” I try to justify, “I made a deal with him.”
Link looks at me as if I slapped him. The color drains from his face. I’ve never witnessed anything like it before. The healthy glow of his skin completely disappears, leaving him sickly pallid. “What did you do?”
“Just that. I just went to see him. I gave him five minutes. And in exchange, he agreed to change his plea to guilty—I didn’t know it would take the death penalty away. He didn’t… He didn’t tell me that part. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But you won’t have to testify against him. I won’t have to testify. No more trial. Just a sentencing.”
“Why? Why would you do that?” He stands abruptly, his chair knocking loudly into the wall. I don’t flinch, fully prepared for his outburst.
“I just told you why. So he’d plead guilty. So you can be done with him. So you can sleep at night. So I can start to move past it, knowing it’s finally over. We can raise our child, not having to worry about Carter Bates. I thought that’s what you wanted?”
He turns away as if he can’t bear the sight of me, his hands clutching the back of his neck. “I didn’t ask you to do that. I didn’t… I thought that’s what I wanted too, but I wanted him to die.” He paces to the window, staring outside, his nostrils flaring with each of his angered breaths. “Why would you help save his life? Again?”
“I didn’t know,” I breathe. “You have to believe I didn’t know.”
“What happened?” he asks without looking at me. “Why did it take you until now to say something? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me before you went?” Before I can answer, he lifts his face to the ceiling, shaking his head. “Tuesday. You went Tuesday. The day you told me you were sick. You used our baby to lie to me.”
“You wouldn’t have let me go if I told you the truth.”
He whirls around, covering the length of the kitchen floor before I have a chance to blink. His hands slap down hard on the table. It wobbles, causing one of our glasses to tip. Water glides along the wooden grooves, dripping onto the floor.
“No shit, I wouldn’t have let my pregnant girlfriend walk into the county jail full of inmates for a meet-n-greet with the man who tried to kill her.” He lowers his face closer to mine, his tone dropping. “He did kill Livie—after he brutalized her. After he raped her. After he stabbed me in the back eighteen fucking times. And you willingly waltzed in there to give him five minutes of your time? He shouldn’t be allowed to lay eyes on you, let alone speak to you.”
He presses his forehead to mine, grabbing onto my hair. His hold isn’t hurtful, but it is firm. “I can’t—” His voice gives out and he shakes his head, jerking mine along with it. “I’m so fucking pissed at you. I can’t stand the thought of him looking at you.”
I lift my hands, cupping each side of his cheeks, my thumbs brushing back and forth over the rough shadow lining his jaw. “I was never in danger. And I had to do it. Please try to understand.”
He shakes his head again, eyes pinching shut. “You didn’t have to. You shouldn’t have done it. What did he say to you? I need to know every word. Every word, Rocky. Every word.”
This is the part I’ve been dreading the most. The part I didn’t want to tell him.
“Link, listen to me,” I utter. “Please. Promise me you won’t do anything.”
His hands drop away and he pulls back. The expression on his face is deliberately blank. His eyes gray slits of steal. He doesn’t reply. He doesn’t agree or disagree. He gives me nothing.
“Tell me,” he demands.
Moisture blurs my vision. I hate Carter Bates. I loathe him with everything inside of me. He’s a wretched human. An evil, disgusting monster.
“TELL ME,” Link roars. This time I jump. He’s never raised his voice at me. I wish he could understand how much I regret going to see Bates. If not for the way he played with me, toying with me just to hurt me, I’d regret it for the look on Link’s face right now alone.
“I can’t.”
He slams his palm down on the table. “That’s not an option anymore,” he spits.
I lower my gaze, unable to look at him when I say it. “He wanted me to give you a message,” I whisper.
His hands curl into tight fists. “What did he say?”
I hesitate and he makes a noise in his chest, the sound frightening. A chill slithers down my spine.
“He thinks—” I have to stop and clear my throat, swallow down the panic seizing my vocal chords. “He thinks you killed Woods. And Morrison. He threatened to share his suspicions with the police.”
“What else?”
“He said if I gave you a message, he’d keep his theories to himself. He’d plead guilty to his current charges, and we’d never hear from him again.”
Link releases a dry, bitter laugh. “And you believed him? You’re not stupid, Rocky. Why would you fall for that?”
“Because I had to believe him. I needed to.”
His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. His eyes flit down to the table, watching the droplets of water fall. “What’s the message? What does he want you to tell me?”
I shake my head forcefully. My hands won’t stop trembling. Link kneels in front of me laying his fingers over mine. He’s warm, and I wish I could just burrow into him.
I wish I didn’t let Bates’ statement about Link joining him in prison get to me. I wish I had walked away and never heard his message.
I don’t want to hurt him.
“Tell me,” he repeats flatly.
I grasp his shirt. I cling to him, afraid of what he’ll do if I let go.
“He said…” Tears slide down my cheeks making me feel weak and pathetic. I don’t want to say it. He’ll never forgive me for keeping it in this long. For lying. For going behind his back.
His fingers tighten around mine, squeezing uncomfortably. I’m not sure he even realizes he’s doing it. “What? Just say it.”
“He said to ask you if... ‘If you ever wonder what her final words were?’”
Twenty-Nine
Link
“If you ever wonder what her final words were?”
Her final words.
Her.
She doesn’t say who, but ther
e’s no need.
I push to my feet. Rocky’s voice is far away, background noise to my hammering heartbeat. She’s clutching my arm, nails piercing through the skin. I feel it, but it too doesn’t register as it should. Instinctively, I utilize a self-defense move, lifting her pinky with ease and causing her to lose her grip. She stands, but I put pressure on her shoulder, sitting her back down in the chair. I touch her face, my palm to her damp cheek. The tears are cold; that I feel.
“I need to go. Please don’t follow me.”
And then I walk out the front door, closing it behind me, effectively silencing her pleas.
I can’t. Not right now. I need distance. Or time. Or air.
I don’t understand what I need.
Just—
Away.
I’m in my car, and I don’t realize until I turn the engine over that I took the wrong vehicle. This is Rocky’s car now. But I don’t stop. The tires squeal as I back out of the parking space.
I need to get away.
I need to get away.
From lies and betrayal and memories and murderous thoughts.
I want to kill him.
I want to use my bare hands to drain the life from his body, watching his pupils fade, turning that unseeing gray of death. I want it. I want it so badly.
I need it.
Somehow, I ended up at my house without intending to, and by the time I pull into my driveway, I realize it has all followed me.
Every thought.
Every recollection.
Every lethal image.
Because I can’t get away from them. Not when they’re inside of me. There’s no outrunning myself.
The house is musty-smelling. It’s been a while since I’ve spent any real time here. I stand at the middle of my living room, in the dark, my lungs straining to fill. I wonder if this is how it felt for Olivia as she died.
Fuck.
God.
No. She had it so much worse. This is nothing in comparison to the agony she suffered.
She suffered.
She suffered so much.
What did she say when she realized it would be the last words to ever leave her mouth?
Bates is right about that. I think about it. I obsessed over it for years. Hated myself for not knowing when I was only a few feet away from her when she left this world.
As if Livie is fading, I’ve thought about it less and less lately.
I’ve let her memory wither.
I rub my chest where her name is inked into my flesh. Over my heart. Where I swore she’d always be.
In a daze, I reach for my wallet, tugging it from my back pocket. I remove the creased and worn photo I keep there. My hand shakes, making it hard to see her face. I set it on the counter separating the kitchen from the living room.
My phone rings. And rings. And rings. I ignore it, letting it go to voicemail as I stare into Liv’s blue eyes. She had such beautiful eyes. Did Bates watch them cloud in lifelessness?
A million questions—all unanswered. I’ve grown to accept the fact that I’ll never know.
Now one very important answer is at my fingertips. But in order to get it, I need to go to Bates. Plead with him for this information he should never have known. That’s exactly what he wants. To hold this power over me. To dangle this knowledge in front of me like a bone. Otherwise, he’d have never brought it up.
He wants me to be his dog, crawling on all fours, begging for a scrap.
I won’t.
I can’t.
But I can’t ignore it.
And yet, I can’t hear it spoken through Bates vile mouth.
I can’t.
I can’t.
I can’t.
My phone rings again. I don’t need to look to see who it is. I’m pretty sure I already know. I pry it from my pocket, flinging it at the wall. It hits with a dull thud, landing on the floor, broken.
Broken.
I round the counter, pulling the cabinets open. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I keep yanking, exposing the near empty shelves. At the end, I stand perfectly still, staring into the shadowy space. There’s nothing. There’s nothing here for me.
This isn’t my home anymore.
My fingers tighten, squeezing the knob like I’m trying to smother it. I pull. Hard. The wood groans in protest and the small hinge snaps. The screws once fastening it to the cupboard make a clinking sound as they hit the tile on the other side of the room.
The door hangs crookedly by the last remaining joint.
Broken.
My gaze fixates on it, and then I wrench it all the way free, towing it with me as I stalk into the hall. I move into my bedroom, hand settling on top of the bookshelf.
But there’s nothing here either.
There’s just nothing.
The steps creak as I trudge into the basement. My body feels heavy. Weighted down. My gaze skates over the storage closet I kept Woods locked in. Taped up and gagged.
I chose the wrong guy.
He was the wrong fucking animal.
It should have been Bates.
It should have been his fingers I snapped in half. His face I beat until it was misshapen and purple. His body I stuffed into a trunk.
It would have felt so good.
Freeing.
Healing.
I didn’t feel redemption when I killed Woods, but that’s because he wasn’t Bates.
The cabinet door is still in my hand. I rear back and pitch it at the storeroom. The crack echoes through the space.
The pang of loss is potent. I’ll never have that chance now—not when he’s going to be sentenced without a trial, not when I can’t stand in court and beg for them to kill him. My rage grows more and more rapidly, like a pot about to boil over. I can feel it. I can taste it. My control is slipping.
I don’t try to hold on anymore. Too tiring. Instead, I welcome it in and let it seep through my veins, thick and gelatinous. It wants to takeover and I want to let it. It’s who I am meant to be.
There are boxes stacked along one wall. Belongings I’ve never used. Workout equipment I’ve replaced. Things. Just things. None of which have importance to me.
I pick the closest one up and heave that too. Followed by the next. And the next. My muscles flex and bend, tighten and stretch. I put more and more force behind each throw.
Just things.
Broken.
They mean nothing.
Not important.
Not much is.
Livie.
Rocky.
The baby.
My breath comes in ragged drags through my throat. I ache, inside and out—mind, body, and soul.
It’s not nearly enough to feed the fury.
There’s a flash through my mind. An idea. A way to make it stop. To calm the fears and ease the pain.
A stillness washes over me, slow and dizzying.
I move up the stairs, past the kitchen, through the living room, and out the front door.
***
I stand over his sleeping form, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. His foot hangs off the side of the bed, the blanket wrapped around his ankle, toes exposed. I picture myself applying pressure in the right place, snapping the bones in that fucking leg. He’d scream. He’d writhe in pain.
Or I could press my blade into his jugular. Watch his white sheets color crimson.
My fingers flex around the handle of the knife. It would be so easy.
So. Damn. Easy.
I could kill him.
I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.
He deserves it. He deserves more than death for what he did to Rocky.
I could do that too.
I made the mistake of letting one live, but I can fix it. I can make it better, starting with him. I can slit his throat and it’d be over.
She’d be safe.
They’d be safe.
He’s sleeping serenely, no remorse for his crime plaguing his dreams. It sh
ouldn’t be that way. The monsters shouldn’t be the ones capable of sleeping peacefully while the victims continue to fear.
There are these moments I wake up panicked, and I’m not even sure why. I’ll reach for Rocky, needing the reassurance that she’s there—that she’s okay. I’ll drag her across the bed, clenching her body to mine. And she always lets me.
Because I’m scared.
Every noise is another attacker.
Every shadow a hiding assailant.
Every second a chance to lose her like I lost Liv.
We’ll never be free.
Why should he get to be?
He’d never know. One second here. The next gone.
The light from the bathroom glints off the blade of my knife, shining onto his face as I inch in, moving closer.
Thirty
Rocky
One day, someone will come into your life, and you will understand what it’s like to live.
Link is that person for me.
He gives me the motivation to get up each day. Why I leave my apartment. The sole reason I find comfort in being touched as opposed to cringing on contact. He’s everything to me.
And I hurt him.
It doesn’t matter what my intentions were. Good or bad. Right or wrong. I fucked up.
Now he’s gone. And he won’t answer my calls.
I rush to the bathroom, getting the toilet lid up just in time to empty my stomach.
This is definitely not morning sickness.
This is grief.
Smothering, suffocating misery for hurting the person I care about most in the world.
I don’t know where he’s at or if he’s okay.
Of course he’s not okay.
Of course he’s not.
I wash my hands and brush my teeth, trying to rid myself of the filthiness clinging to me. My eyes stay downcast, refusing to look at my reflection.
Moving from window to window, I check the locks, close the blinds. But someone coming in isn’t what I’m afraid of right now.
Right now, I’m afraid for Link. What he’ll do. Or what his thoughts will do to him. I know the dark depths of an anguished mind. We’re old friends. Before we can reacquaint ourselves, I text Joe, asking him to stop by.