For3ver (19 page)

"Gage stop!" Liam yells as Gage pushes me higher and higher on the swing.

Liam is always afraid of Gage playing too rough with me, but I like playing with Gage. He's nice to me. 

  "She's fine, Liam. Don't be such a pussy." He yells to his brother.

Gage is only a year older than us, but he uses lots of bad words. Liam tells me never to repeat what he says because it'll get me in trouble and he doesn't want me to get in trouble. 

Gage pushes me higher, the tire swing spinning and spinning, higher and higher. The colors of everything around me are blurring and I can't focus on anything anymore. I love this! 

  "Higher, Gage!" I squeal, laughing at the feeling of flying through the air. 

Gage pushes me higher, twirling the tire swing faster this time. My grip loosens at the sudden jolt and I lose my balance on the swing. Screaming, because this time I was afraid, I hear Liam's voice right before I lose it. 

  "RYLEY!" 

There was that noise again. I didn't want to hear that noise, that noise meant pain. More noises made me wonder what was going on, but I came up empty. I heard someone crying, hushed voices, beeping of something, but I was pretty blissful there while I let myself float back to the darkness that calmed me and took away the pain. 

"Hey, Ry," Liam whispers to me. I hear him, but I don't want to move. I'm so comfortable. "Ryley Anne Reynolds," he whispers again in a deeper voice. I love his deep voice, I love him.

At twelve, I know that I love this boy and I will be with him forever. 

I giggle as he starts tickling me, but I refuse to open my eyes. I want to stay snuggled under this tree by the pond for the rest of the summer. This is our spot, me, Liam, and Gage. Now, though, it is more me and Liam. Gage has other, older friends and doesn't always want to hang out with us. I'm okay with that and I think Liam is too. We like hanging out with each other. 

  "Ry, your mama's gonna be mad at you," he whines.

Liam hates when I get in trouble, but daddy isn't home tonight so even if mama is mad, it won't be terrible. 

  "I know. It'll be ok, Liam," I answer, eyes still closed. 

  "I knew you were awake, twerp!" he tickles me harder and I roll over in the grass, laughing harder and louder as he attacks me with Liam tickles. The best tickles ever. 

My mom starts calling then. I always hate this time of night, the time when I have to leave Liam and go home by myself to a quiet house. 

  "Ryley, come home!" I hear her voice. "Ryley, please, time to come back to us."

Us? She's home alone tonight I thought. 

  "Please baby, come back to us." I hear my dad's voice. Something's wrong, he's out of town on business. 

There was that beeping, and the voices, and GOD, everything hurt. 

I moaned, the pain almost unbearable. 

  "Ryley!?" I heard her voice, but I couldn't answer. I still couldn't open my eyes, but when I tried moving my hand that time, it moved. 

  "She's moving! Doctor! She's moving! I think she's really waking up this time!" 

Doctor? What? I was trying to move again, but everything hurt so bad. 

  "Baby, don't move. You need to relax," I heard my mom's voice again. 

Dammit, I was not that weak. Forcing myself to move my lids through the ungodly amount of pain, I finally opened them. My eyes were so watery it took me a minute to realize where I was. A hospital room. Laying in a bed in a hospital room. 

That was when I remembered. Staring at the wall in front of me, unable to talk, unable to communicate, barely able to move, I was stuck inside the living hell of remembering everything that put me there in that hospital bed. Every hit, every nasty word. Every-fucking-thing. 

Carl, he.... Oh GOD. It couldn't be real, that didn't really happen! I tried to scream, to get the anger out from being.... Oh GOD, Carl raped me. I tried screaming, crying, anything, but everything hurt so much I was stuck there, pouring tears all over me, remembering everything that he did to me. The images from that night flooded my memory, bringing with them an assault of pain in every part of my body, physical and emotional. I'd been destroyed by that man. That monster. He took what I held dearest to me, he took my pride, my ability to choose for myself.

  "Able!" I screamed through my tears, remembering what Carl threatened to do. 

  "Shh. Ryley, he's fine. He's okay. Jenny has him." My mom reached over to touch my shoulder, but when I flinched away, turning my head to the side so she didn't see the fear on my face, I heard her start to weep.  

  "Don't... touch me," I was able to whisper. I didn't want to be touched; I didn't want people to look at me. Hell, I didn't even want to be on earth. 

Able would be okay with my parents. Liam could take him; he would be a good dad. I just couldn't take living with those memories. I couldn't live knowing that Liam was repulsed by me when he looked at me. Everything was ruined and I just wanted to disappear. 

Sobbing, I brought my hands to my face to cover the bruises I knew were tarnishing my face. 

  "Leave.... Please," I whispered through my shaking hands. I didn't want anyone to see me, to look at what I let him do to me. To judge me. 

  "Ryley, you don't need to be alone right now," I heard my father say. 

  "Go!" I screamed, feeling needles rip through the tissue in my throat. 

It was silent other than my sobs racking my body. I heard my mom's sniffles, my dad's sigh. Then I heard nothing. It was just me and the room and I wanted nothing to do with it anymore. 

Closing my eyes, I drifted back to the darkness that I was truly beginning to enjoy.

CHAPTER 13

LIAM

Refusing to sit on the dilapidated bench in the holding cell, I stood, leaned against the dingy wall. I stood for hours until my legs couldn't take it anymore and I slid down the wall, folding my legs into my chest, trying to get as small as I could. I had all night to think about what I did to that piece of shit, but I didn't, all I thought about was her and my son. I dozed off for what felt like hours, but when I looked at the clock, it had only been forty minutes. 

  "Liam." Mr. Reynolds approached the bars and I immediately sprang to my feet, thinking the worst. "I'm sorry for waking you." He put his hand out in a calming manner, telling me to settle down. "I just came to see what was happening. I didn't know you were here all night with no answers." 

  "Yeah," I gruffly said. I was exhausted and sore. My arms were throbbing under the wraps. "How's Ryley?" 

  "Same." He looked away, his lips pursed. 

  "Able?" It killed me I did something so horrific and it kept me from being with him. 

  "He misses his mom." He nodded. "Listen, I'm putting in a call to Art. He needs to get this figured out. You need to be there for Ryley when she wakes." 

  "Thanks, Mr. Reynolds." 

When he left I sat in that cell for a few more hours before Art Montgomery came into the station. It'd already been sixteen hours since I'd left the hospital. Holding a cup of coffee, I hadn't sipped it once because I forgot it was in my hands, but when I finally lifted it to my lips it was ice cold. Cold enough to where I spit it back into the cup. I lifted my head and found a clock. I'd been sitting for seven hours. I was stiff, I felt mentally numb, and I needed to get back to Ryley. I wanted to be there when she woke up, and according to her mom three hours prior, she hadn't woken up. My phone had been dead for two hours and no one in that shit-hole had a compatible charger. It was amazing how different things were outside of that small town, and I didn't understand how Ryley put up with it. I knew she knew what was out there in the world, she'd left the small cities and visited Memphis, Nashville; it was like stepping into a time portal. It was pathetic. I couldn't take it anymore. I spent one night in a jail cell and the next sitting on a steel chair in front of Sandra. 

  "Fuck!" I groaned, bouncing to my feet. "Sorry, Sandra," I said to the middle-aged woman behind the desk. "Mr. Montgomery?" I knocked on his closed office door. "I need out of here. I need to go back to the hospital. Either book me, or I'm walking." 

I waited for some sort of sign he heard me, but got nothing. I looked to Sandra, who had avoided me most of the time I'd been forced to sit there.

Extending my arms above my head, I stretched, trying to get my blood flowing properly after not moving for hours. As I lowered my arms, I saw Sandra's eyes focused on my exposed stomach, and I quickly dropped them then grinned. Not because I wanted the fifty-something-year-old woman checking me out, but because I was going to use it to my advantage. 

  "Sandra." I leaned on her desk and her eyes focused on my hands. "Where's Art?" 

  "In his office." Her eyes only quickly flashed to mine. 

  "Sleeping? I've been here almost seven hours." 

  "I know. Just have a seat, Liam; he'll be with you soon." 

  "Sandra." I leaned in closer. "The love of my life is in bad shape in the hospital and I really want to be there when she wakes up. Imagine that were you, imagine I'm not there when you wake." 

Even though Ry wasn't expecting me, Sandra didn't need to know that. 

  "What happened to her?" she whispered like she was watching some sort of drama movie. 

  "She was beat within inches of her life and stabbed, all by a man she trusted—" 

  "You?" she gasped. 

I sighed and sat back down. The woman was too stupid for me to deal with at that moment. I felt like I was going to lose it. 

  "No, not me," I muttered and narrowed my eyes, staring at Art's door. 

  "I'll buzz in there," she quietly said and picked up her phone. 

After a few 'mm-hmm's and 'okay's she hung up the phone and looked at me. 

  "He said give him a few minutes. He's been in a meeting all day." 

Pulling my hands down my face, I loudly exhaled and talked myself down from tearing the place apart. If I was going to prison it might as well have been for something deserved, right? Me killing a man that tried to kill a woman, then kidnapped her son isn't a good enough reason for me to go to prison. I just kept telling myself that. 

It took the bastard forty more minutes before he exited his office. 

  "Liam." He nodded to the chair, wanting me to sit. 

My arms were throbbing as I didn't have any pain pills because I'd been in jail. Anger was rearing its ugly head as thoughts I'd never be able to play drums again terrorized me. I needed to play, it was a release, and I needed a release right then.

Biting back my anger, I responded, "I've been sitting all day, Mr. Montgomery, I'd prefer to stand, sir." 

  "You killed a man." 

I glanced over my shoulder at Sandra, but she didn't seem to care.

He went on. "I'm not saying the son of a bitch didn't deserve it." He slightly shook his head in contemplation for a moment. "I had to know what kind of shit storm we were headed for and that was why I pulled you back in. The only living relative of Mr. Greene is his father and they have an estranged relationship. When he found out about his son's death he...." He looked away like he couldn't fathom it. "He just didn't care." He slide his hand over his bald spot. "You can't just go around killin' people—" 

  "He had my son hostage!" I threw my hands up.

  "You also interfered with a police investigation." He scowled and I glared at him, biting back from telling him he could barely do his job.

  "He put Ryley in the hospital fighting for her life!" 

  "Ryley Reynolds?" Sandra asked with a gasp, but my gaze didn't leave him. 

  "I know. I know that, son. I'm not saying what you did wasn't justified." 

  "He had a knife to Able and you weren't doing anything to save the innocent life of a five year old!" I couldn't hold it back. 

  "We went about it by the books." 

  "The books suck!" I grumbled. "So now what? Sixteen hours ago you let me believe I could leave this town with my son and Ryley."    

  "I thought that was the case." He nodded apologetically. 

I was fully prepared to pay for my actions. It'd been a day from hell and I felt absolutely no remorse for killing a man. Like I had already said, I would have gone back and done it again, but I fully understood the repercussions. 

  "Please, just transport me or something. I need... sleep," I muttered; I needed Ryley. 

  "Son, you need to attend some classes—" 

  "What?" I barked, not in the mood for any of his backwater justice bullshit. 

  "Anger management." He put his arm around my shoulders and walked me away from Sandra. "I'm not saying we're sweepin' this under the rug, you need to enroll in some classes, Liam." 

  "Classes, sure." I waved him off. "Do I need to be cuffed? What the fuck's going on?" I grunted, stepping away from him before I lost it and attacked. 

  "Go on and get to that hospital. We'll be in touch, just keep your mouth shut about today's events."

Was he kidding?! And that was why I got out of that town. 

I wasn't sure how much more I could take, but I wasn't giving up until I saw Ryley again. My truck was at the station impound and once it was released to me I was able to change before going to the hospital. Then I ran until I was boxed in the elevator. Breaking out of the elevator, I ran until I was bursting into her empty room, except for her. She was laying in the same position and I began to feel enraged they left her, no one was there. What if she had woken up! 

I sighed and walked to her bedside, dropping my head. I'd been hoping for some sort of miracle that she'd be awake, walking around, talking. 

  "Fuck, Ry," I groaned in anger.

RYLEY

I heard him open the door, and then I heard nothing but the machines. His footsteps came closer, stopping on the side of the bed; I heard him take a breath and sigh. 

  "Fuck, Ry," he groaned. 

I opened my eyes and looked at the man standing by my bed. The man who should have been well on his way back to Wisconsin, but he wasn't. He was there for me, staring at me like I was a ghost. 

  "Hey," I managed to croak. My throat was so dry I tried swallowing, but that made it hurt. 

  "You're awake!" he blurted and looked around like he was looking for someone. "Where is everyone? Your parents?" 

  "I told them to leave. I didn't want everyone in here. No one needs to see me like this," I said as I watched him try to decide what to do with me now. 

He reached for my hand, but I pulled it away; I didn't want to be touched. I didn't want to be pitied. I just wanted to be alone.

  "Liam." I coughed and he handed me the water by the side of my bed.

My shaking hands took the cup from him and I sipped on the room temperature water.  

  "You didn't need to come back for this. You have a business to run. My parents are out in the waiting room probably. You should go say hi," I told him, hoping that he would leave me alone. 

His eyebrows scrunched. "I didn't come back for this. I'm the one that found this!" He was getting upset and louder until I flinched. "I'm sorry." He quickly sat on the ledge of the bed. "I'm sorry, but, Ry." He tried to take my hand again but I quickly moved it away. "Fuck, Ry," he whispered. 

He was sitting on the side of the bed, something that would normally have made me happy that he wanted to be close to me, but after everything it only made my whole body start to shake. What Carl did to me had forever changed me, couldn't Liam see that? I couldn't even sit next to him without trembling! Add to it the fact that Liam found me like that; he should've been disgusted with me. He saw what-what that dirtbag did to me. He was never going to want me again and I couldn't blame him.

My breath started coming in short spurts, unable to take a deep breath to calm myself, I tried to lay my head back on the pillow, but just the movement made me dizzy. I closed my eyes and tried to get him to leave me alone again, hoping that time he would get the picture. 

  "I'm sorry you had to see that, Liam. I.... I just need to be alone," I was able to whisper. 

I silently started to beg, 'Please just let me be, please leave me'. He couldn't see me like that. I was ruined. I felt a tear streak down my face as I sat there waiting for him to leave, but he didn't move. I didn't know how long we sat there in silence, but he wouldn't budge. 

When I opened my eyes, he was staring at me, red rimmed eyes swollen from the tears that were rolling down his face. Then he gave me the saddest smile he'd ever given me. 

  "Ry, listen to me." Even though I flinched, he carefully moved the hair out of my eyes. "I love you, baby, and I'm sorry I walked away when I did two nights ago. I got two hundred miles before I couldn't go any farther. I need this, want this. You, Able, our family. Dammit, Ryley, we deserve this and after the hell we all just went through, we're going to do this. You're hell was the worst, baby." He very carefully thumbed away a tear rolling down my sore cheek and I closed my eyes, instinctively turning into his hand. "When I found you...." He looked away with agony on his face. "I never want to experience something like that again and I will make sure nothing like this ever happens to you again. I told you once that I'd always protect you. Let me take care of you and Able, Ry. Please, baby. Whatever happened to you." His jaw tensed for a moment. "We'll work through that together. I'll never walk away unless you force me, and I'll be fighting the whole time. I love you; I want this more than anything. I want Able to grow up with a little sister or brother." He softly smiled and looked away like he was really thinking about it. "I want to fall asleep with you at my side, then wake with you there. Every fucking day of our lives. I shouldn't have left and I'll never forgive myself for leaving that night. I'll spend a lifetime making it up to you. I love you, Ry. I'm sorry." 

I heard him, I heard the words he was saying, but I didn't really believe him. He found me; he knew what Carl did to me. God, I was sure he knew all of the details. No one would want to be with someone after they let someone do that to them. 

  "Liam.... We have all changed. I just don't think you know what you want. I'm sure finding me like that was... difficult. I just.... I don't think this is what you want anymore.…" I trailed off, not really knowing what to say to him. I didn't want him to leave, but I knew if he stayed he would be staying with a broken woman, and that wasn't fair to him. 

  "I've known what I've wanted for years, Ryley. Don't tell me I don't know what I want. I want you, all of you. And-and I know.... I know what you went through." He rubbed his red eyes. "I'm going to fix it, fix all of this. Whatever that asshole did to you I will spend days, weeks, months erasing, so one day the only touch, the only voice, the only smell you'll remember is mine."