Absolution (35 page)

“Okay.”

He closed the gap between them, grimacing as he knelt in front of her to take her hands. “It’s just a little blip on the radar, I’m gonna fix this. Everything’s gonna be fine, you’ll see.”

She nodded, her hands trembling in his, her body threatening to follow suit. He pulled her into his arms and she found herself burying her head into his shoulder as she tried to shut out the idea that they were being watched.

“Stay here with me tonight?” she begged, her noble intentions disappearing in a flood of fear.

“I’m staying right here, I promise.”

Jack sat in the antique chair in the hallway, staring up at the grandfather clock. It ticked sombrely, matching his mood. His body ached, his soul too. What the hell had he done, bringing this shit here, to her?

The quiet hum of voices in the kitchen grew louder. He should be in there, going in to bat for himself, but truthfully, he didn’t think he had it in him right now. Shame overwhelmed him. He was letting Ally fight this battle, one that wasn’t even hers to fight. What kind of man did that? What would his Dad say?

He had argued against getting Callum, Jane and Maggie involved, but Ally had insisted. The more heads together, she said, the more chance they have of making sure this goes away. He should have argued harder, he should have stood up to her, but he didn’t.

He could make a break for it, but there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t come back here once he was gone. He couldn’t risk that. Jimmy said they knew where she lived. The other option was to go to the cops, but what if they couldn’t protect her? He could take Ally and go on the run, but what kind of life would that be, constantly looking over their shoulder? Clearly, Ben had resources he didn’t know about, or how else would he have found him? It was a sobering thought, and the frustration grew.

A chair scraped against the wooden floorboards. Callum was talking about calling the cops. Before he could think of standing up and going in there, Ally answered for him, repeating what he had told her earlier. It seemed to satisfy Callum. The voices lowered and conversation resumed. He sat there, listening to them.

“Okay,” Jane said after a few moments. “Then let’s talk about the money.”

Jack sat forward, resting his head in his palms, his head throbbing.

The money. What the hell am I gonna do about the money?

“How much do you have?”

He looked up. Callum stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting.

“A little over five grand,” he said, straightening up again. “If I sell my car, I’ll get another grand, maybe less.”

“That leaves you four grand short.”

Might as well be four hundred grand. Close is not good enough. Close is not gonna get them off my back – or hers.

Callum moved aside as Ally appeared in the doorway, moving through into the hall. She made her way towards him slowly, powering her wheelchair with slight, even strokes.

“I have two thousand dollars from my inheritance, from Gran. I want you to have it,” she said, stopping beside him. “You can pay me back, if it makes you feel better about taking it.”

He stared at her, his blood pressure rising. He shouldn’t need her help, or her money. He should be taking care of this on his own. It was his mess, not hers.

“No. I’ll figure out a way to do this myself.”

“So you’re gonna find four grand in forty-eight hours – are you kidding me?” Callum shook his head. “What are you gonna do, rob a bank? This is like déjà-vu. Pull your head out of your ass for a change. This isn’t just about you!”

Jack struggled to keep his anger in check. “I’ll figure it out.”

“How?” Maggie asked, from behind Callum. “How are you gonna raise four grand? Tell us how and we’ll back off.”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll fix it.”

If he had a job, this would be so much easier but no bank on earth would give him a loan if he had no means to pay it back.

“Bullshit you will, because there is no other solution,” Callum said roughly. “I’ve got about a grand in the bank and can borrow more. Ally has two – take it, and you can pay us both back. Whatever it takes to make this go away, that’s what you’re gonna do.”

Jack glared at him, his pride insisting he throw it all back in their faces, but his head screaming that he was out of options. Frustration built inside of him, pushing his lungs up into his throat. Callum was right. This was about more than just his pride. The smart thing to do was to acknowledge that doing the right thing wasn’t always easy. So why the hell did it feel like he was being trapped into doing the wrong thing here? Wouldn’t the right thing be to handle this himself, without getting anyone else involved? Isn’t that what he should be doing?

“Jack, please.”

The heartbreak in Ally’s voice turned his stomach.

“You’re not alone anymore,” she said. “You don’t have to do this by yourself. Let us help, please? It’s not a sign of weakness, no one will think any less of you for it.”

Her words sank in slowly, leaving footprints on his heart. He couldn’t hurt her again, not now, when she had given him the one thing he had longed for all this time: a second chance. He had to do the right thing. And if the right thing meant borrowing money off his friends, then that’s what he must do.

He imagined a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tight, encouraging him and he closed his eyes.

I feel you, Dad. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.

Opening his eyes, he reached for Ally’s hand. “Thank you.”

He looked over at Callum, Maggie and Jane standing by the kitchen doorway.

“Thank you,” he repeated, addressing Callum. “I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” Ally murmured.

She sounded so sure, so confident, he had almost convinced himself that he believed her.

The night was quiet and still. Ally had gone to bed a couple of hours earlier, but Jack was on a knife edge, twitchy and restless. Every imagined little noise had him up, investigating. Callum had called him when he got home, saying that he hadn’t seen anything unusual when they left, but Jimmy was no amateur – if he said they were watching both houses, Jack believed him. He checked the front door again, and walked down the length of the hall in his bare feet, checking the back door for good measure. Even though he had done this a gazillion times tonight, he would probably do it a gazillion more before the night was out.

He walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table. The medication that Ally had given him earlier was wearing off. His brain ran in circles. How could he have been so stupid as to think that Ben wouldn’t track him back here? He eased against the chair back, his bruised ribs aching with the movement. Insult on top of injury. He closed his eyes, exhausted with the weight of responsibility.

It was merely a couple of weeks earlier that he had sat in that wretched little apartment and wondered if his life could get any worse. And now – here it was, a hundred times worse. It was time to grow up. The only reason he was in this mess was because he had been so used to running away from his problems, the odds had been stacked against him from the outset. After spending four years on the run from himself, he still hadn’t learnt his lesson.

All that had to change, right here, right now. No more running away, no more hiding from the truth. He owed his father more, he owed Ally more and he owed himself more. Once all this was over, he was going out to find a job and he was paying everyone back.

A single brief, sharp knock at the front door stopped him in his mental tracks.

His heart raced. He waited, but it was not repeated. He flew up from his seat and into the living room, peering out between the curtains onto an empty front yard, glowing in the street light. His heart battered against his ribcage as he crept to the front door. He unlocked it, opening it a crack and peering out. Nothing. Opening it wider, he glanced along the porch but saw nothing out of the ordinary. His pulse raced as his gaze swept over the front yard. Turning to go back into the house, he was about to dismiss the whole episode as part of his overactive imagination when he saw a note tacked to the front door. He yanked it off, disappearing into the house, closing, locking and double-checking the door behind him. Stepping further down the hallway, he stared at the note in his hand.

10pm Tuesday. Lewis Street house. Come alone. Sweet dreams.

Crushing the note in his hand, he shoved it deep into his jeans pocket and walked slowly back into the living room. He sank down into the couch, his aches and pains forgotten. How the hell had it come to this? He leaned back against the cushion.

Adrenaline abandoned him, leaving emptiness in its wake.

“
The past is never where you think you left it.
”

- Katherine Anne Porter

Everything was too quiet. No birdsong, unusual for this time of the morning, not even the sound of a breeze rustling the leaves cut through the early morning air. The only sound was that of Ally’s footsteps on gravel, each step kicking up small stones behind her. It would have been relaxing if only she had let herself go, but somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice whispered that all was not well. She ignored the twist in her gut and ran onwards, turning off at the edge of the park and heading up River Road.

The slight incline made her calves and thighs burn with the extra effort required, but she didn’t care. For some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, she welcomed the sensation. Up ahead, she heard voices and she slowed down to try and make them out. Almost instantly, she recognised Jack’s voice, picking up the panic in it that kick-started her into a full-blown sprint. He screamed and her heart raced, her arms pumping harder as she fought to get to him. It felt like forever before she could finally see him, and when she did, she stopped still. He was trapped inside his car, overturned in the middle of the road. She looked around for help but there was no one around. He was desperately trying to pull himself out of the car but getting nowhere. She ran to him, falling to the asphalt beside him and ignoring the stones that cut into her knees.

He stared up at her, wide-eyed and frantic. As she reached for him, she found that suddenly their positions were reversed. She was the one inside the car and he was the one outside, trying to help her escape. What she had assumed was sharp stones cutting into her knees was in fact mangled metal, trapping her inside the car so she couldn’t move. The pain was excruciating and she screamed even as he tried to soothe her, begging her to keep still while he brutally yanked at the door that refused to budge.

Smoke curled up beside her and she looked around, wrenching her neck as she strained to see where it was coming from. Jack swore loudly, a string of curses tumbling from him in a high-pitched yowl that scared her even more. She begged for help as the smoke turned into flames that licked at her, searing her skin. She screamed, renewing the struggle, ignoring the metal that dug into her knees. Her eyes stung from the smoke, and the smell of burning flesh turned her stomach. She watched in horror as the flames turned the flesh on her legs a blistering red.

Jack bolted into consciousness. He sat still on the couch for a moment, his body tingling, his heart racing, as he struggled to wake up properly. What had woken him? He had no idea how long he had been asleep, but it didn’t feel like long. Ally screamed, then – a short, sharp, sob-like scream that set his teeth on edge. He shot out of the couch and made a dive for the doorway, almost colliding with it in his haste.

He pushed open the door, peering into her room. “Ally? Are you okay?”

She whimpered in the darkness as he approached the bed. She screamed again, short and shrill, suddenly thrashing about so much he wondered if someone was trying to hurt her. His mind raced as he felt for the bedside lamp, flicking it on only to see her alone in bed, pillows scattered around her. She was clearly dreaming, her eyes firmly shut, face contorted as the whimpering continued.

He leaned over and tried to grab her arms. “Hey, come on, wake up.”

“I’m burning!” she sobbed, pushing him away.

“No, you’re not, you’re dreaming, Ally – wake up.”

“My legs!”

He glanced down at her legs beneath the blankets. “You’re alright, nothing’s burning.”

She whimpered again, still fighting him off.

“Wake up, Ally – come on, wake up for me now.”

Her eyes flew open with a sharp intake of breath, followed by a coughing fit. He pulled her towards him, rubbing her back rhythmically. “You’re okay, you were dreaming. Just take it easy, breathe slowly, that’s it. You’re okay.”

After a few moments, she struggled free of him and reached down to push the covers off her legs. She stared at them for a moment, as if reassuring herself. There was no doubt that her body had changed since the accident, but what did that matter? Something like this was merely physical. What was important went so much deeper than that.

Shuddering, she quickly drew the blankets over her legs again. She turned to gaze up at him in confusion. “Am I dreaming?”

“You were, but you’re not now. You were having a nightmare.”

She struggled through to consciousness. “Are you real?”

He smiled in spite of himself. “I’m real.”

He saw the light slowly returning to her eyes as the tension in her body eased. She wrapped her arms around him, and he pulled her in close. They sat, safe in each other’s arms, for the longest time. It felt so familiar, so comfortable, his body relaxed into hers. All thoughts of Jimmy and his previous life were washed clean away, and he found himself wondering how he could have lived without her all this time.

“I think I can feel them sometimes,” she whispered. “My legs. Just for a few seconds, when I wake up.”

“Can you?”

“I don’t know if it’s… it feels so real.” 

He tried to imagine the torture of fleeting sensation. “What were you dreaming about, just now?”

She pulled him closer, fitting herself even more tightly into his body. “The accident.”

He smoothed her hair gently with his fingertips, remembering his conversation with Callum. “You thought your legs were on fire.”

“It felt like they were burning.”

“Can you still feel them?”

“No,” she sighed. “It’s gone now.”

He held her tight.

“I’ve never had a dream like that before, where my legs were on fire.”

He gently rubbed her back.

“What do you think it means?” she whispered, vulnerability oozing out of her and soaking the air around them.

“I don’t know,” he mumbled, remembering the night of the accident and the fumes that had turned his stomach and forced him into making a choice that changed both their lives. Did she remember too, somewhere deep down in her subconscious? “It’s gonna be okay, I promise. I’m here now.”

He held her until his arms began to go numb. Her slow, rhythmic breathing indicated that she had fallen asleep again, as he gently eased them both back onto the pillows behind him and closed his eyes.

The night of the accident came back to him in Technicolour and he let it play out this time, conscious of every move he made. From leaning over to turn the radio down to dragging Ally out of the car and across the damp grass, he relived all of it. The pain in his chest had nothing to do with Ally leaning against it and everything to do with a decision he made that night that he would never forget.

Ally woke up slowly, her back aching. After a few minutes, the ache turned into tiny fingers of pain, like daggers burying themselves deep in the vertebrae. Opening her eyes, she realised she was in Jack’s arms, half-lying and half-sitting against the headboard. He breathed slowly and evenly beneath her and every rise and fall of his chest caused the daggers to dig deeper.  After several minutes, she could stand it no longer. She braced her hand on the mattress as she tried to move but a sudden stabbing pain in her spine forced out a gasp of surprise, stopping her in her tracks.

Jack squirmed beneath her and the movement buried the daggers deeper still, settling them in her bones until she didn’t care about anything but making the pain stop.

“Jack, wake up,” she hissed through clenched teeth, her chin quivering as she tried not to cry out.

“What is it?” he murmured groggily, stretching the arm that wasn’t draped over her.

She sucked in a breath, the pain instantly intensifying with the movement. “You need to move.”

“What?”

“Please – you need to move,” she pleaded, not caring how she sounded anymore. “Need to lay flat.”

He froze, then began to ease out from under her.

“Slowly,” she ordered, sucking in the curse words that were building beneath the pain.

“Okay.”

That one word was infused with both confusion and fear. She knew she would have to explain this later, but right now she needed to do something about the pain.

He moved out slowly from beneath her. Each tiny position change was agony. She cussed liberally in her head, although she was incapable of saying much aloud.

After what seemed like an eternity, he sat next to her and she was sprawled, half on her front and half on her side, in utter misery.

“What can I do?” he said gently. “How can I help?”

She tried to breathe evenly, clenching her teeth, staring at the pillow she was half-buried in.

“Pills, table, behind me,” she breathed.

Jack climbed off the bed carefully as she lay there, even the tiny movements caused by breathing sending pain rocketing through her spine.

“They’re not here,” he said desperately. “Oh wait – I think they’re still on the coffee table. I’ll get them.”

Careful to keep her breathing shallow, it felt like he was gone forever. When he finally came back with them, he knelt down on the floor beside the bed with the bottle of pills and some water.

“How many?”

“One,” she ground out through teeth clenched tight against the pain.

“Just one? Are you sure?”

“For now.”

He uncapped the bottle and she released the sheet she had clutched in her fist and opened her hand to take the pill from him. Carefully slipping it into onto her tongue, she fought the urge to cry out against the pain that simple movement caused. He handed her a glass of water and she slurped at it, spilling some on the pillow beneath her but swallowing enough to take the pill with it.

“Now what?” he murmured.

She pinched her eyes shut. “Wait.”

She felt him slip his hand into hers and squeeze gently. She hadn’t meant it as a question, but as a statement of fact. If she were in her right mind, she would have insisted he leave her alone to deal with this, but she wasn’t in her right mind. The pain overwhelmed her, sucking up every other emotion she had, including humiliation, and viciously discarding them. She kept her eyes shut to block everything out, even as Jack whispered something that she didn’t catch over the blood rushing in her ears. The only sense that hadn’t deserted her was touch, and she felt him softly stroking the side of her hand with his thumb. She concentrated on his gentle, smooth strokes as the pain slowly receded.

Eventually, she opened her eyes. Jack sat on the floor, his head resting on the bed, still holding her hand. His face was drawn tight with anxiety and a wave of love rose from deep within her belly as she felt herself fighting off tears.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she sniffed, trying to recover her self-control.

“Did I do this? Because if I did, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured, meeting his worried gaze out of the corner of her eye. “I should have known better than to fall asleep all twisted up like that. It’s my fault, not yours.”

“You said you had back pain sometimes, but I didn’t expect this. I thought… well, I don’t know what I thought, to be honest.”

He looked so miserable, she wanted to smile, to sit up, to tell him that she was fine. But she wasn’t capable of any of that yet.