Flesh: Part Seventeen (The Flesh Series Book 17) (2 page)

“Doesn't matter. I moved out.” She takes a step to the side to start working on another section of clothes.

“I know,” I sigh. “I guess what I'm trying to say is that we both hurt each other. But I want to get past that. You're still my best friend, you know.” I bend slightly, trying to get her attention.

She pauses for a moment as if she's thinking, then she continues scanning clothing, her movements a lot less hurried than before. “I'm sorry about what happened with...him,” the word is so full of malice that it sounds venomous.

“He's sorry too, and so am I. I realize that it's just as much his fault as it was yours. Probably more his.”

“Definitely more his,” she corrects me.

“Why didn't you just tell me from the beginning that he told you it was over between us?” I move closer.

“Because I didn't want to hurt you. That was something he needed to tell you, not me. But it was obviously a lie, so what does it matter now.”

“It was a lie.” I glance back at Lucian. “We moved in together.”

“Good for you.” She doesn't seem the least bit happy about it.

“It is good for—”

“Listen, Amy,” she cuts me off. “Now isn't the time for catching up. I really need to work, and you're distracting me.”

“Oh.” A sick feeling pools in the pit of my stomach from the thought that she's rejecting me and that this was all for nothing. “Can we catch up some other time though?” I'm hopeful.

She drops the scanner to her side with an exasperated sigh and looks at me. The muscles in her face seem to relax as her expression turns from frustrated to sad. Then she averts her eyes and nods. “Yeah. I think that would be alright. Don't expect any miracles though. It's going to take me a while to get over this.”

“We can take as long as you want.” I try not to bounce as my face breaks into a smile.

“Now get out of here. I have work to do.” She gestures absentmindedly with the scanner.

“So you'll respond to my texts now, right?” I walk backward towards Lucian.

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbles.

I turn around and jog the rest of the way, trying to expel some of the energy that reconnecting with Janice has built up inside of me. Mending our relationship has lifted the last veil of darkness that has been hanging over my life since Lucian came into it and screwed everything up. Now, things are almost back to normal. Better than almost back to normal.

“It went alright?” Lucian asks though my expression is all the answer he needs.

“Yes. I think we're going to be okay.” I grab onto his arm and hug it, pressing my face against his shoulder and closing my eyes, so full of relief that I can barely contain it all.

“Good.”

“Can we still get ice cream though?” I look up at him with puppy eyes.

He grins. “Of course. How could I possibly refuse you.”

CHAPTER TWO

It's late. Almost too late to go to an ice cream parlor. Everything will be closing within the next thirty minutes, and I don't want to feel rushed, so I decide that we should stop at a gas station to pick up some ice cream and take it home instead.

“We could have gotten ice cream at Walmart,” Lucian grumbles as I pull into the gas station parking lot.

“I didn't think about it when we were at Walmart.” I find a spot between two cars and kill the engine. “You can wait in the car if you want.”

He wrinkles his nose as if he's thinking, then he unbuckles his seat belt. “No. You might end up getting a flavor I don't like, like mint chocolate chip.”

“Mmm mint chocolate chip.” I get out of the car. Actually, I had planned on getting rocky road, but he doesn't need to know that.

We walk into the store, and I immediately head to the ice cream cooler. Lucian trails behind me less enthusiastically, opens the cooler, grabs a pint of butter pecan and shoves it into my hand before telling me that he's going to take a piss.

“Sexy.” I roll my eyes at him as he walks away.

He doesn't respond, continuing on to the bathroom.

Now that I'm standing in front of the cooler, I'm not so sure I want rocky road anymore. Chocolate chip cookie dough is looking awfully yummy. Then again, so is cookies 'n cream. After several minutes, I settle on a pint of Italian cream cake flavored ice cream.

I look towards the bathroom, but Lucian hasn't come out yet. Briefly, I wonder if he wants anything else. Most likely not. If he had wanted something, he probably would have picked it up at Walmart.

For a few seconds, I think about continuing to wait for him. But then I decide that I'll surprise him by paying for the ice cream. It's not much, but it's something. Usually, he pays for everything that we do, complaining if I offer to pay for anything. This will be a small token of my appreciation.

There's a line at the register, and I file in behind a mother and a little boy around the age of four. They're holding hands, and the little boy is staring up at her. In her free hand is a jug of milk. There's a stuffed dinosaur clutched in his arm. They're an adorable pair. Just looking at them gives me baby fever, and I can't help but wonder if Lucian wants children. It must have been hard losing his son, but hopefully that hasn't scared him away from the idea of trying for a family again some day.

My smile falters, and I gaze down at the red pumps I'm wearing. It's way too early in our relationship for me to be thinking about babies. But the truth is that I'm pretty sure I'm ready for them. I want to get married and have kids and a family. I need to give us time though. We just moved in together, and while things have been perfect, everything prior to that was a lot less than perfect. Wanting a family with Lucian right now is just ludicrous.

I feel something poking at my back, and my smile returns as I realize that Lucian is standing behind me in line. I wonder how he's going to react to the mother and child in front of us, or if he even will react, for that matter. Men aren't wired the same way that women are. He probably won't even take a second glance at them.

That thought goes away when I look over my shoulder and notice that the man standing behind me isn't Lucian. The thing pressing against my back isn't a finger, either.

My mouth falls open and both pints of ice cream slip from my hands the moment I hear the man say, “Everybody freeze. This is a robbery.”

Instantly, my heart goes into my throat. Everything gets brighter, and a sickness takes over me that resonates throughout my entire body.

The man wraps his arm around my neck, pulling me back against him as he edges closer to the register. “You people, on the floor.” He gestures to everyone around us.

I watch as the mother grabs onto her son and pulls him down to the floor while she gets on her knees. He's too young to understand what's going on and starts sobbing loudly. She holds him close and tries to shush him the best she can, tears streaming down her face as her lips move in silent prayer between giving him directions.

I keep my eyes fixed on her, too afraid to look for Lucian. Has he come out of the bathroom? Is he seeing this? Am I going to die like his wife did? That last thought makes me start crying though I try desperately to keep my frightened mewling to a minimum.

The robber hands the cashier a bag and tells her to empty the register into it. He jerks me around as he waves the gun at her, and I finally catch a glimpse of Lucian out of my peripheral vision. He's on the ground like everyone else, his hands over his head, though he's staring up at the robber. I expect him to look at me, but he never does. I can't help but wonder what he's thinking. If I die, my last thoughts will be of him.

Once the cashier is finished filling up the bag and hands it back to the robber, I half-expect him to let me go. The terror isn't over yet though. He drags me over to the mother and son, telling her to give him all of her money. The child screams as his mother lets go of him to do what she was told, and the robber screams back at the kid, instantly shutting him up. The shrillness of his husky voice in my ear makes a cold shiver roll down my spine. It's at that moment I realize that he's either tweaked out on something or batshit insane. Either one isn't good. Either one means he's probably trigger happy.

“Please,” I repeat quietly over and over again though I know there's no point in asking for my release. He's not going to let me go until he's good and ready.

Every chance I get, I glance over at Lucian, but he's never looking at me. Always at the robber. It hurts my heart, but I know that he's traumatized. If he loses me, he'll never recover from it. I'm almost certain of that.

After the man has emptied the woman's billfold, he makes his way around to the handful of other people in the store. Most of them only have a few dollars in their pockets, but he takes it anyway. Then he gets to Lucian.

“Stay on the floor and give me all of your money.” The robber presses the gun to my temple. I let out a short yelp, silently telling Lucian to just do what the guy asks.

Lucian reaches behind himself and tries to pull his wallet out of his back pocket. “It's stuck.”

“Well, it better get unstuck real fucking quick.” The robber waves his gun at Lucian before turning it back to my head.

Lucian starts to stand up, and the robber jumps back, dragging me with him. My breath hitches in fear that he's going to shoot either me or Lucian, but Lucian holds his hands up in surrender.

“Calm down, guy. I just want to get my wallet for you.”

“I'm not fucking playing.” The robber presses the barrel into my flesh so hard that my head throbs. “One funny move and I blow her brains out.”

“Dude, she's my girlfriend. I'm not going to do anything funny, okay.” Very slowly, Lucian reaches back to free his wallet. Then he starts to hand it over to the guy and drops it at my feet. “Shit.” He cringes as if he knows he's just made a big mistake.

I stare at him in disbelief. My life is on the line here, and he's fumbling. What in the hell?

“You did that on purpose.” The robber gestures at him erratically with the gun.

Lucian holds his hands up again. “I didn't. I swear. I'm just fucking terrified is all. Give me a break.”

The robber looks around nervously for a moment, then he loosens his grip on me before nudging me in the back with his hand. “Pick it up.”

He keeps his gun pointed at Lucian while I slowly kneel to retrieve the wallet. Internally, I'm cursing at the situation. Now the robber is mad. He'll probably shoot me when he's done out of spite for Lucian dropping the wallet.

My hands are trembling as they reach for the wallet. Lucian's standing only a foot away from me, and I see his shoes shuffle quickly. Everything happens so fast that I can't even process what's going on. The gun goes off, and then there's the weight of a body rolling off of my back.

I flatten myself on the floor, completely forgetting about the wallet. People are screaming. Someone gets up and runs though I can't tell who it is.

I turn just in time to see Lucian fighting the robber on the floor a few feet away. Fight is an overstatement. Somehow, Lucian has managed to get the guy on his stomach. His knee is between the robber's shoulder blades, and he's trying to pry the gun out of his hands. It goes off a second time, causing me to flinch.

Shit, Lucian. You shouldn't have done that. If he gets the advantage, we're all going to die.

I muster up as much courage as I can to crawl away and hide behind a display. When I glance around the store, I notice that the mother and child have also taken cover. The mother is holding her son in her lap, practically forming a protective cocoon around him, covering his ears with her hands and crying into his hair.

By the time I look back at Lucian, he's gotten the gun away from the robber. The man's arm is twisted behind his back, the other arm flailing on the floor like a fish out of the water. He's screaming obscenities about how Lucian is a bastard and that he's going to kill everyone Lucian knows.

The look in Lucian's eyes is oddly stoic. He's panting for breath, but he doesn't seem the least bit stressed out.

Relief rushes through me as I realize that it's over. We're saved. The police will be here soon, and we can put this whole thing behind us.

But then I watch as Lucian cocks the gun and points it at the back of the robber's head. His words are cold, and they fill me with an overwhelming sense of dread. “Some people don't get a second chance.”

And then he pulls the trigger.

CHAPTER THREE

I've seen dead bodies at funerals. I've seen dead bodies on television. Nothing could have prepared me for this though.

The sound of the bullet leaving the chamber rings throughout the store. And then there's an eerie silence. One second, Lucian is sitting on top of the robber. His eyes are cold, his expression blank. The next second, his perfect face is dotted with blood. The robber is unmoving beneath him, a pool of blood forming around his head.

I feel like my heart has stopped beating. It's at the back of my throat staring out of my gaping mouth.

I just watched a murder.

I just watched Lucian kill a man.

Everything inside of me is vibrating, assimilating that new information. The man who pulled the trigger, I don't know who he is. He's a stranger. Someone without emotions or compassion.

Lucian wipes the blood from his face with his shirt. Then he turns to me and stands. He approaches me with the gun still in his grasp and extends his hand to me. Gingerly, I take it, getting up before shying away from the dead body on the floor.

Lucian wraps his arms around me. “You're safe now. He can't hurt you,” he whispers into my ear before pulling back from me slightly to look around the store. “Everyone can get up. It's safe now.”

Slowly, people rise from the aisles like gophers from holes. The look of relief on their faces is apparent.

Within a matter of minutes, there's a crowd of people around us appreciatively patting Lucian on the back for doing a good job. While I'm not the only one still mortified, it blows my mind that people are congratulating him for killing another human being. Yes, we were all in danger, but he didn't need to kill the guy. He had the advantage. He could have just stayed on top of the robber until the police showed up.

The mother ushers her child outside, and I feel like following, but I know I shouldn't leave Lucian. Still, I can't force myself to stay near the body. Instead, I make my way to the back of the store, staring at my reflection in the drink cooler.

My hair is a mess. My eyes are bloodshot. I can see the legs of the dead robber behind me, and it makes me want to vomit.

“Are you alright?” I hear Lucian's voice ask.

“I almost died, and you just killed a man. Of course, I'm not alright.” I hug myself, feeling like I need protection from everything around me, including him.

He reaches out to touch me but then doesn't, perhaps aware that I'm afraid of him. I'm so confused about what I should be thinking and feeling. Everyone else seems fine with the fact that he just shot a man. Well, as fine as scared people can be. Is my reaction strange?

It's not much longer before the police arrive. Most of the people in the store stick around to give their statements. They paint Lucian as a hero, and I feel obligated to go along with it. Not that I'd rat out my boyfriend for killing a man when he could have just as easily waited for the police to arrive. He potentially saved my life. Potentially saved all of our lives. But things could have gone so wrong. One slip up, and what he did could have cost us everything.

Despite everyone praising Lucian for taking down the criminal, he still ends up handcuffed in the back of a cop car, and I'm forced to follow him to the station. I have a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel the whole drive there, my brain going over everything that had happened—the multiple scenarios of how things could have turned out. I keep returning to the thought that no one had to die. But I also have to remember that the gun was loaded. That meant there was a very real possibility that the robber would have shot someone had Lucian not stepped in. There was also the possibility that the misfired rounds could have hit someone as well though. So many possibilities.

By the time Lucian gets processed at the police station, I feel more numb than anything else. I sit in the waiting room, texting everyone about what just happened. Derrick is of the opinion that it's a good thing that Lucian shot the robber. But he wasn't there. He didn't see it play out. He doesn't really know what happened—what could have happened.

Few things are more depressing than sitting in a cold waiting room waiting for your boyfriend to get out of jail, especially when you're not sure if it's going to happen or not. No one at the police station is very helpful. I'm told that it may take a while, but I still stick around for two hours before finally deciding to go home. Lucian will understand. More than likely, he'll call Gerald, his limo driver, to come pick him up.

In the few weeks that I've lived with Lucian, it's been rare that I've walked into his house when he wasn't there. It feels bigger somehow, lonelier, like it's swallowing me whole. My eyes dart to the clean walls and new furniture. This is what we've built together. The interior of the house is miles away from how it used to look. Where there was once clutter is now open space. I loved it when we first redecorated, but tonight it feels less homey. Cold, like Lucian's eyes when he shot the robber.

I drearily find my way to the sofa in the living room and sit down, leaning back and just existing for a while. The gunshot is still ringing in my ears, even though it happened hours ago. All I can think about is the blood, the man's soul leaving his body. What if he had a family?

Finally, I allow myself to cry. Wrecking sobs jostle me until I fall over and feel helpless against the torrent of emotions spewing out of me. I'm scared and sorrowful and happy all at the same time. Most of all, I'm alive. I'm alive. Lucian is alive. We're okay. Shouldn't that be all that matters in the end? I think it should be, but I'm not sure.

After crying the poison out of my system, I go to the bedroom to undress. Oddly, I feel like a ghost drifting through the empty house. This is weird and I don't like it. Nothing I've ever experienced before can compare. Perhaps this is just how someone feels when they watch someone die in a horrific manner.

Once I'm undressed, I crawl into bed and hug my pillow, curling up into a little ball. Hopefully, sleep will wash away a lot of the horrible emotions swirling inside of me. This night needs to end.

***

It takes another hour for me to go to sleep. My mind is woefully busy, obsessing over the events of the night. That's to be expected though, I suppose.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I feel Lucian slip into bed beside me. I might have slept through it had he not put his arm around me. Waking up makes me cranky, especially since I'm so exhausted.

For a few brief moments, I forget about what happened. About the robber and the gunshot and the blood. But then consciousness claims me, and it all comes back, carrying many of the same nasty feelings I was experiencing earlier.

“Did I wake you?” Lucian whispers, though it's quite obvious that he had every intention of waking me.

“What time is it?” I roll around to face him, drawing my hand up to my temple and trying to hide the scowl on my face.

“It's almost six.” He takes my hand and pulls it to his lips, giving it a gentle kiss.

I glance over to see him propped up on one elbow. He's naked and looking down at me sleepily.

“What happened?” I nuzzle my head against the pillow, trying to get comfortable. It feels like I could pass back out at any second.

“Not much. They just held me for a while. I spoke to my lawyer. It seems there's going to be a trial, but he's not too worried about anything. It was self-defense. I potentially saved all of those people. Everything should turn out alright.” He lowers himself down onto the bed, keeping eye level with me.

“Did Gerald pick you up?” I stare at him in the darkness.

“Yeah. I tried to call you, but you must have been asleep.” He sounds a bit disappointed.

“Oh shit.” I roll over to grab my phone off of the bedside table. It's not there, which means I must have left it in my purse in the living room. That certainly doesn't earn me any good girlfriend points.

“Don't worry about it.” Lucian shakes his head. “I'm just glad to be home. I'm so fucking tired, and I have a surgery tomorrow. I'm going to be chugging 5 Hour Energy like it is nobody's business.”

“You're not going to call in?” I furrow my brow at him.

“I'm a surgeon, Amy. We don't call in,” he lets out a short laugh.

“Well, yeah, I know,” I hesitate. “But what happened tonight was traumatic. And you've spent pretty much all night in jail.”

“It doesn't matter. I have a job to do.” He yawns, turning onto his stomach, which usually means he's ready to sleep.

For some reason, the fact that he wants to work tomorrow has me wise awake. It bothers me that he seems so nonchalant about everything. Did he forget that he took a man's life?

I know he needs his sleep, but thinking about what happened and his reaction to it all gnaws at me until I can't keep my mouth shut any longer. “What happened tonight doesn't bother you at all?”

He glances at me. “Of course it does.”

“Then why don't you seem fazed by it? You
killed
someone.”

“You think that's the first life I've taken?” The look he's giving me sends a chill straight to my core, like what happened was just an everyday occurrence to him. Perhaps realizing that his words upset me, he pushes himself back up into his pre-ready to sleep stance. “Amy, I see blood and guts and gore on a daily basis. And while I've never intentionally killed someone up until last night, I have had a handful of patients die on me. Being a surgeon, I'm conditioned to handle things like this.”

“Oh, that's bullshit.” I frown. “You make it sound like shooting a guy in the back of the head was as easy for you as taking a crap in the morning.”

He gazes down at me. “You know what, it was easy for me. And do you want to know why? Because he had a gun to your head, Amy. You seem to be forgetting that part. He could have killed you, and I wasn't just going to lie there and watch it.”

“You don't know that he was going to pull the trigger.”

He averts his eyes, feeling the heat from the conversation. “You're mad at me for shooting him.”

“No one had to die tonight, Lucian.” I sit up, realizing that sleep isn't going to happen. “You could have just held him down until the police got there.”

“Do I look like a fucking mind reader to you?” He points to himself. “It could have been another hour until the police arrived. What if he would have gotten away from me somehow? The guy was tweaked out and pretty strong for a skinny guy. If he had gotten loose from me, he probably would have killed all of us. I made the call that I thought was right.”

“You had the gun, Lucian. If he had gotten loose, you could have shot him then. He was subdued beneath you. Helpless.”

Lucian lets out an exasperated sigh before grabbing his pillow. “I'll go sleep on the sofa.”

“No.” I clutch at his arm before he has a chance to stand up.

Suddenly, I feel guilty. We both had a tough night. I shouldn't be busting his balls over doing what he thought was right.

“I don't understand what you want from me.” He throws his pillow back in place and lays down with his back to me. It hurts more than I thought it would. We definitely shouldn't be arguing right now, not after everything that happened.

“I just...” I reach out to touch him, my fingertips gently sliding up his arm to his shoulder before recoiling. “I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying. I've just never seen anything like that before. It traumatized me.”

He rolls over abruptly, and I cower away, fearing his anger. “Well, you know what would have traumatized me? Seeing you dead. I would kill him a thousand times over again to ensure that didn't happen.” His voice is full of passion, his eyes blazing even in the darkness.

A small smile curves my lips, and I caress his face. “I know. I'm sorry. Really, I am.”

“Don't be sorry. Be grateful.” He jerks his face away from me, causing my heart to throb with pain.

“Lucian, I'm sorry. I can't say it enough.” I avert my eyes, wishing I'd never brought it up in the first place. “I just can't help but think, what if he had a family.”

“I don't know if he had a family.” Lucian shrugs. “But do you know who I do know had a family? The people in front of you in line. That mother and child. If I hadn't done something and he would have shot them, it would have been like watching what happened to me all over again. And knowing I could have done something about it, I never would have been able to live with myself.”

So he did think of them. He did think about his family at that moment. Now it makes a lot more sense. In some way, shooting that robber was probably revenge for him.

“One missed opportunity can change a person's life forever, Amy,” Lucian continues.

“And what if he would have shot you? How do you think that would have made me feel?” Tears come to my eyes unbidden. We definitely should have waited to have this conversation. It's too much for me right now.

“Then maybe you would have ended up just as damaged as me. I don't know.” He inhales deeply, rolling onto his back to look up at the ceiling.

“I'm just glad we're both alright.” I scoot closer to him, cuddling his side.