Tortured

  When Brecken lunged toward him, I was already there. “This is what he wants.” I planted my hands on his chest and pushed. “Don’t give it to him.”

  Brecken didn’t take his eyes off of Crew, the exchange between them in that look more impactful than any brawl could have been.

  “Get Keenan.” A tremor reverberated down Brecken’s back from holding himself back. “We’re leaving.”

  I didn’t wait. The more time those two spent inside this room, the more dangerous it became. I was a few steps away from the door when I heard it. The metallic ring of a bullet being loaded into a chamber.

  Spinning around, I found Crew in the same spot he’d been on the floor, but the bottom drawer of the dresser was open now and a pistol was in his hand. His eyes were on me, but the barrel was aimed at Brecken.

  “What did you teach her to save her from this, hotshot?” When Crew aimed the gun at me, Brecken went to lunge in front of me. “Make another move and I’ll put one in your spawn after I put one in her.”

  Brecken froze. “What are you going to do, Crew? Huh? Shoot her? Shoot me?” His voice walked the blade’s edge of controlled and crazed. “You know what they do to cops in jails? Do you really want to find out?”

  Crew sat up, still grabbing at his side with his other hand. He blinked at Brecken across the room. “You lost it. After all of the interviews, the article in the paper today, your secret lover calling it off when she realized it was wrong. You lost it.” Crew’s face remained flat, his expression the same as he kept the gun aimed at my chest. “You went crazy. Started attacking my wife, your ex-lover.” Crew’s gaze circled the bedroom, a disturbed, bloody scene. “I had to kill you,” he said matter-of-factly around a shrug. “Unfortunately, my beloved wife died of the injuries you gave her.”

  He’d worked this all out already. With his connections in the department, I didn’t doubt he could find a way to bend the evidence to prove just that.

  “Keenan …” That was where every worry led to. My child. The life I’d sacrificed everything to preserve.

  “Oh, don’t you worry. I’ll look after him.” Crew smirked at me, his teeth stained with blood. “I’ll raise him to grow up to be just like me.”

  When my body responded by lunging toward Crew, he shoved off the wall, his finger on the trigger. “Show me what you’ve got now, bitch.”

  A blast.

  A bullet.

  A blur of movement.

  “Run!” Brecken’s voice booming back at me.

  A body falling to the floor.

  A scream was rising from my chest, but it never surfaced. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t linger.

  I had to run.

  I had to save my son. I had to save his son.

  As soon as I spun around and started for the door, another blast went off. I didn’t know where the second bullet settled, if it was in my arm or in the wall beside me. I just kept running.

  As I rounded into the hall, I saw Crew shove himself off the wall and follow me. I saw the other body on the floor, facedown, still. I ran. When I wanted to stay, I ran. Because I knew it was what he wanted. Because I knew part of him was inside the five-year-old boy I was running toward.

  Crew was shouting after me, his footsteps coming faster. When I reached Keenan’s bedroom door, I realized I wouldn’t make it. There wasn’t time for me to grab him and get out. Crew was steps behind me and had been firing ten thousand rounds at the shooting range every year for years. He wouldn’t miss again.

  I’d left the body of the man I loved. And now I was moving away from the child I’d brought into the world. My whole life. All of it felt like it just had been or was about to be taken away from me.

  As Crew’s shadow moved out of the bedroom, I sprinted down the hall and disappeared right before he stepped out into the darkness. I was too scared to breathe for fear he’d hear it, so I stayed silent and still, letting the dark conceal me. He paused outside of Keenan’s room, listening for a moment. He kept his gun high as he limped by it.

  “Camryn.” He sang my name in a way that had my skin prickling. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

  I crouched into as small of a ball as I could as he crept closer, looking over the edge of the stairway downstairs.

  “Come out. I know you’re in here, and you can’t hide forever.” He moved toward the stairs, paused at the top, and listened again. “I put a bullet in your boyfriend. He can’t save you this time.”

  I pictured their faces. The sound of their laughter.

  I found my strength.

  Slipping out from behind the guest room door, I rushed toward him. Full sprint, arms out, hands spread, I channeled everything I was feeling into that charge.

  He heard me before he saw me. As he started to spin around, my hands planted into his back and the inertia of my body discharged into his. His body teetered at the top of the stairs. The gun fell from his hands as he spilled down them. Head over feet, the sickening symphony of noise created by flesh on wood, the gasp of air expunged from one’s lungs from each impact.

  I felt like I was watching my own fall down those same stairs. I felt like I was reliving it. But this time, I was walking away unbroken.

  When Crew’s body crashed to the floor below, he didn’t move. A pathetic whimper crept from his mouth, but there was nothing else.

  After walking down a couple of steps to retrieve his gun, I went back up and stared down at his broken body. “I can save myself.” I said it to him, but really, I think I was saying it to myself.

  I hadn’t realized it until now, but it was true. I could save myself.

  Once I was certain Crew wasn’t going to be getting up any time soon, I rushed down the hall and paused outside of Keenan’s room. Opening his door, I sagged with relief when I saw that he was still out, the headphones secure on his head, his superhero stuffie clutched in his arms. I whispered the door closed, then I raced toward the master bedroom.

  The sound of that first bullet firing. The noise he’d made when it hit him. The thud his body had made when striking the floor. I didn’t know what I’d find when I rounded into the bedroom, but I told myself I would be strong no matter what.

  Brecken’s body was in the same position on the floor, motionless. My heart throbbed as I moved toward him, falling to my knees when I reached his head. A pool of blood spread across the carpet, coming from his chest.

  Reaching into his back pocket, I pulled out his phone. My finger was shaking as I punched in three numbers.

  The other end clicked. “Nine, one, one. Where is your emergency.”

  My hand dropped to Brecken’s neck, searching for a pulse. That was when I noticed the dog tags. They were stained with blood all over again.

  “I lost him,” I said, finally letting myself cry. “I lost him again.”

  His death the first time around had been staged.

  This time it was real.

  Those two instances shared one common thread—he came back from both.

  It had been almost six months since that night. Some days, it felt like it had just happened yesterday, and others, it felt like a lifetime ago. Life was like that though, ever-changing, keeping one on their toes.

  God knew it had kept me on mine for the past half a year. My life had changed so much that I still woke up some mornings feeling like I was living a stranger’s life. The house, the sounds, the peace, the landscape, the people. I didn’t wake up feeling like that every morning, but I did awake each morning with a profound sense of gratitude.

  An arm lolled across the beach blanket toward mine, his hand braiding through mine. “Stay or go?”

  I checked the general position of the sun on the horizon. It was close to dinnertime and would be dark soon. My head turned toward the sound of Keenan cheering after making a goal through a couple of laid out beach toys with the friends he’d made today at the beach.

  Then I looked at the man stretched out beside me, broken and whole. Perfect and imperfe
ct. Scarred and healed.

  The man who’d jumped in front of a bullet for me.

  “Stay.” My hand squeezed his as I rolled onto my side. “Did you have a nice nap?”

  “I did. And I didn’t wake up in a sweating mess, so it was an extra nice nap.” Brecken stretched his free arm above his head, tipping his glasses back to search for Keenan. When he found him, he smiled.

  “No nightmares?” I asked.

  “No nightmares.” He took off his glasses, letting me see his eyes wander my body. “But I might have been dreaming about something else that got my heart racing.”

  My hand went to his chest. Sure enough, it was beating good and fast.

  “Later. Just as long as you’re tucked in and asleep by eleven.” I examined the permanent shadows under his eyes.

  He still didn’t sleep much at night—he didn’t trust himself to not wake up in some crazed fit—but each morning, he seemed to trust himself a little more. We were figuring out this new life together, one day at a time.

  “Then we’d better get the boy to bed right about now.” He checked his wrist, where he wasn’t wearing a watch. “Because I’ve got a big night planned for us.”

  I tipped my sunhat back so he could see my eyebrows. “What ‘big plans’ do you have for us tonight?”

  His shoulder lifted as he rolled onto his side to face me. “Making love to pretty much every square inch of your body. For starters.”

  My teeth bit into my lip to keep from laughing. “Anything else?”

  “Just begging you to marry me until you finally agree.”

  “So pretty much the same plans as every other night?” I played along.

  “Basically, yeah.”

  His hand dropped to the bend of my waist, smoothing the material of my cover-up. Even though I usually kept my cover-up on whenever we came to the beach, I no longer had the need, or felt the need to cover myself up from head to toe. Some scars had faded, some never would, but they were all a part of me. There was nothing to hide.

  “First, and I don’t know why I need to keep repeating this,” I said, lifting my left hand. The platinum band was gone. In its place was the old birthstone ring he’d won me a lifetime ago. “I agreed to marry you a good ten years ago.”

  “But we’re not married.” Brecken lifted his bare left hand. “I’m not going to stop begging you to marry me until you actually do.”

  “Yeah, I think I’m starting to figure that out.” I sat up so I could grab the sunscreen. Brecken used to have skin that would tan at the first hint of sun, but now he burned if we didn’t keep to a sunscreen schedule. Six years in the dark had a way of changing a person, from the surface layer of skin to what went much deeper.

  “Second, I can’t marry you until everything’s finalized from before.”

  I distracted myself with the sunscreen so he didn’t have to see the look in my eye whenever I thought about Crew. His hand found mine, not caring that it was wet and goopy with sunscreen.

  “I know,” he said, our hands slippery together. “I’m not going anywhere. My whole life is here, with you and Keenan.”

  I scooted toward him so I could rub the SPF Albino into his chest and shoulders first. He sat up in front of me, giving me a goofy grin as I started to rub it onto his body.

  I hadn’t seen Crew since the night he’d shot Brecken. He’d spent the first month in a hospital and rehab center, recovering from the injuries sustained from his fall. He’d broken in far more places than I had taking the same fall, leading me to wonder who’d truly been the weaker of us. Since then, he’d been living it up in the county jail, going between court hearings, where he’d been found guilty of attempted murder and repeated offenses of domestic assault, thanks to the photos Brecken had thought to take and I’d been brave enough to bring forward.

  Crew was going to spend a lot of time in prison. A lot more than most men in his situation probably, given the fact that the person he’d attempted to murder was an American hero. Crew might have been a cop with connections, but all of that clout bled back into the woodwork when who’d he shot made national headlines. He was lucky he’d made it from the courthouse to the armored van without being shot.

  After he’d been sentenced, Crew’s chief cleared out his desk and sent me all of the contents. That was where I found the key. The one that went to a security box at one of the banks in town. The one where he’d stashed all of the “evidence” that I was an unfit mother.

  Brecken and I had burned it all that night, not leaving until the last ash had smoldered out.

  Crew was gone from our lives. Exorcised. For good.

  After squeezing another dime of sunscreen onto my palm, I smoothed it into the freshest mark on his skin. A puckered circular one, right to the side of his breastplate. “More scars to add to the collection?” My fingers smoothed over the bullet mark.

  He glanced down at it like it was an old scratch. “At least when people look at me, they’ll know.”

  “What will they know?”

  He glanced down at himself again, eyeing a few of the many scars that marred him. “That I lived. That I bled for what I believed in. That I fought for the people I loved.” He leaned forward to kiss my forehead, then he spun around when I twirled my finger at him. “I told you I’d die for you.” He glanced over his shoulder as I sunscreened his back.

  “You didn’t die,” I said, sounding more stubborn than I’d intended. It was a touchy subject for me.

  “Pretty sure coding counts as dying.” His hands dropped to my feet, and he pulled me against him. “Give me a break.”

  Smiling at his back, I finished my sunscreening project just in time. The soccer game over, Keenan came jogging back. Brecken’s old dog tags were swinging from his neck.

  “Hey, Dad?” he called from a ways back. “Dad?”

  I nudged Brecken. “Dad.”

  “Oh, yeah. Still getting used to that.” He turned toward Keenan, unable to hide the grin on his face.

  A few months ago, we’d sat down and told Keenan the truth. Who his father really was. It had been hard and there’d been tears and questions, but in the end, it had been the right decision. Keenan should grow up knowing his father was a great man, instead of the opposite kind. Brecken had told him he didn’t have to call him dad if he didn’t want to, and at first, Keenan hadn’t. But now, it was coming more frequently. More Dads than Breckens. Both of them were still getting used to it, I guessed.

  Having to explain Crew’s situation to Keenan had been the hardest part, mainly because I had to say why he was spending the next couple of decades in jail—for hurting me and shooting Brecken. I’d been worried everything would leave Keenan with all of the emotional scars I’d worked so hard to keep from him, but in reality, he was far stronger and more resilient than I’d given him credit for. Brecken said Keenan got that from me. I said Keenan got it from him.

  In the end, I supposed he got it from us both.

  “What can I do for you, little man?” Brecken asked when Keenan broke to a stop just beside the blanket, grabbed a bottle of water, and chugged most of it.

  “Will you go boogie boarding with me?” Keenan pointed out at the waves.

  “Let’s see, I was really comfortable just sitting here doing nothing, and the sun’s going to be right in our eyes, and that water’s freezing cold …” Brecken lifted his brows as he bounced to his feet. “Let’s do it.”

  Keenan let out a little whoop, snagging one boogie board while Brecken grabbed another. They both jogged down to the water, looking like a couple of people who’d grown up accustomed to beach life.

  That little house as close to the beach as he could get was now our home. I loved it. It felt like it had always been my home, even though we’d just moved in. Good neighborhood, amazing school district, a ten-block walk to the beach, it was the perfect spot to raise a child. Better than all of that, it was a fresh start.

  “Hey, Mom!” Keenan came to a sudden stop, hollering back at me. “Want t
o come with us?”

  Without answering him, I stood, slid the cover-up over my head, and grabbed the last boogie board resting in the sand.

  I didn’t want to be anywhere without them.

  They were my peace.

  In the way a person wouldn’t know light without the darkness, I wouldn’t know peace without the pain. I was a survivor. Of life. Of torture. Of abuse.

  I must have been taking too long, because Brecken came jogging back with a grin on his face. His arms roped around me before he slung me over his shoulder.

  A laugh welled up from inside me as he jogged back toward Keenan. “Can’t a girl have a second to herself?”

  Brecken’s head shook, his arms tightening. “I missed out on six years. I’m not missing one more second. It’s torture without you.”

  Thank you for reading TORTURED

  by NEW YORK TIMES and USATODAY

  bestselling author, Nicole Williams.

  Nicole loves to hear from her readers. You can connect with her on

  Facebook: Nicole Williams (Official Author Page)

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  Blog: nicoleawilliams.blogspot.com

  Other Works by Nicole:

  MISTER WRONG

  HATE STORY

  CRASH, CLASH, and CRUSH (HarperCollins)

  UP IN FLAMES (Simon & Schuster UK)

  LOST & FOUND, NEAR & FAR, HEART & SOUL

  FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS WEEPERS

  STEALING HOME, TOUCHING DOWN

  COLLARED

  THE FABLE OF US

  THREE BROTHERS

  HARD KNOX, DAMAGED GOODS

  CROSSING STARS

  GREAT EXPLOITATIONS SAGA

  THE EDEN TRILOGY

  THE PATRICK CHRONICLES

 

 

  Nicole Williams, Tortured