I Found You (43 page)

Declan had stopped laughing. He wouldn’t even be here if he wasn’t high on cocaine. He just looked at me. “Take them away,” I said to him. “Didn’t you hurt me enough? You knew I was sick, and you used me.”

He started to get up, but I didn’t know if it was to fight or leave.

“You can fucking have her…” he said viciously to Jason, turning.

The other guys burst into laughter and turned too.

I turned and hugged Jason, my arms about his shoulders, while he stayed still, his attention on the guys, as they got back in the car.

I heard the doors slamming and then, when there was a noise of tire wheels screeching on the road as it pulled away, I started sobbing, holding Jason tightly with my face pressed into his neck as he hugged me back, gripping me hard. I felt the muscles in the whole of Jason’s body relax.

“Come on, Rach, let’s get you in.” I couldn’t stop crying, and I started shaking. I felt the cold now, and my feet were like the ice they were stood on. As though he knew, once he’d pressed the code in, he picked me up, swinging me into his arms. I gripped his shoulders, pressing my face against the firm muscle of his pecs as he carried me.

“Shit, Rach…” Jason said, as he pressed the elevator button. “Why the hell did you come out? You should’ve just woken me; and with no fucking shoes on…”

It was the bridge all over again, I knew he thought it too.

“I just didn’t think,” I said in a sob against his chest, gripping him harder.

“Well, Rach, next time you’re not thinking, just try to put some clothes on.” His voice had lightened like he was jesting and trying to make me laugh. But I couldn’t laugh. I just cried more, and I didn’t think he could really joke either.

When we got up to the apartment he had to put me down, to search for the key in his jeans pocket. Now my feet were burning, while my body still shook. I just wanted to be inside, safe. I clasped my arms across my chest.

When he got the door open, he held it for me to go past him. I did. I felt like I’d taken drugs. I felt in shock.

He followed.

My legs were too weak to hold me up, and I just sat down with my back up to the wall by the TV. I clutched my knees and put my head down. I felt sick and faint all at once, and I was still shaking.

“Rach?” I squatted down in front of her, my sneakers slipping off my heels. It seemed like seconds since I’d woken when the door banged, and realized Rach wasn’t in bed. I’d got up ‘cause I couldn’t understand why the door had banged. Then I’d looked out the window and seen the guys getting out of the car below. God, my heart had been thumping like the fucking loudest bassline rhythm ever since. I don’t even remember how I’d got downstairs or even powering into the asshole. But fuck, I remembered seeing him slap her and her head whip sideways from the force and I remembered punching him. The first had been to stop him, the second… the second had been revenge, and I’d felt his ribs crack.

She was shivering, and she hadn’t lifted her head, I lifted it for her and turned her face so I could see where he’d hit her. There was a dark bruise already. I kissed it. I was shaking myself, as the adrenaline started to ebb from my muscles. She could do with an ice pack on it, but I couldn’t give her that when she was freezing.

“I’ll run a bath,” I whispered. God, this was taking me back. I went and turned the taps on in the bathroom, but my own muscles were shaking more. Shit, I needed to stay focused. I needed to help her.

I went back into the living room. She hadn’t moved, but I didn’t go back to her. I went over and flicked the switch on the kettle, to make some instant coffee. It boiled in a couple of minutes as I stood watching her. Her shoulders were jerking but I didn’t know if that was because she was crying or just cold.

“Rach?” I said as I poured the water onto the coffee I’d spooned into the cups.

Her head came up, but her green eyes were blank, like they’d been the night I met her. She didn’t answer. I was starting to worry, starting to wonder if I needed to get her to a hospital. “You okay?” I asked, pouring some milk into the cups.

She shook her head and tears spilled down her cheeks, in two narrow streams. This
wasn’t
like the night I’d met her, she hadn’t shown any emotion then. She’d been as tough as steel on the outside, that night. I shoveled teaspoons of sugar into both cups, even though neither of us took it. We both needed an energy rush.

I took them over and then knelt down in front of her, setting the cups on the floor.

I didn’t need to reach for her, she reached for me, opening her knees and leaning through them. I stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Rach,” I said quietly. “They’re gone.”

She just cried more.

“Rach, you need the medicine, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“Just 48 hours, honey. Two days. We’ll stay that long, and then we’ll get them to ship all your records to Portland, and we’re out of here, okay? That won’t happen again. And if you like, we’ll move to a hotel before we go.”

She was still crying, but she shook her head against my shoulder. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have gone down. But he was going to ring the buzzer, and I didn’t want him here…” She sobbed. “I didn’t know about the others.”

I asked the question I didn’t want to ask, but it was stuck in the back of my throat and it forced its way out. “Have you been with all of them?”

My stomach plummeted when in answer she just cried harder, her body shaking beneath my hands.

God
, I had seen it all now. The stuff she’d had, the place she’d lived in, and now just how she’d lived. They’d taken advantage of her. I’d worked that out long ago though, but not how much.

“The bath.” I’d left it running. I got up and went to turn it off. It was nearly brimful. I had to let some water out. I left it deep enough for the two of us. I needed to get in it too.

I went back in to her. “Come on, honey, you need to get warm.”

She didn’t really respond.

Dropping to one knee, I stripped off the tee she’d put on, and then pulled her up on to her feet. I could see her feet were sore though, they were bright red. I bet they stung like hell. I only had to slip my boxers off her a little and then they fell all the way down, they were so loose. She stepped out of them, but I didn’t encourage her to walk. I picked her up. Her body was pliant as I lifted her. In the bathroom I set her on her feet and left her, so she could use the toilet if she needed, going back for our coffee.

When I came back in, she was lying in the bath, reminding me of the night I met her. “Sit up,” I said, “I’m getting in with you. But don’t turn around just stay as you are, then I can hug you while you drink your coffee.”

She nodded, sitting up and making the water sluice.

I knocked the toilet seat down and set the coffee on it, using it like a table, then undid the buttons of my fly. My jeans and boxers slid into a heap on the floor, and I left them there, along with my sneakers, getting into the bath behind her. She fitted perfectly between my legs, and rested her back against my chest. Tipping her head back on my shoulder, she started crying again.

“Rach?” I stroked her hair off her face as warm steam and hot water surrounded us. “Are your feet stinging?” She nodded.

I wanted more words from her. Words were the only thing that would convince me she was okay.

They came as she turned sideways, swilling the water over the edge of the bath and slipping her arms about my chest. “Do you hate me? God, you must. I can’t believe they came here…” She spoke against my neck, as she clung, so different to the girl who would have run from me when we’d talked about her promiscuity weeks ago.

Did I care about those guys? Yes. I felt sick. I was still angry. I still felt violent. But I wasn’t letting her go. That was her past. I was her future.

I held her. “No. I don’t hate you, I love you, and I don’t think you’re awful, just unlucky, ill and confused. But we know that. You know that. And you’re going to get help, and you’ve got me. And we’re moving away from this city. You’re going to be small town, like me soon, Rach, and you’re going to be safe.” I stroked her hair and she nodded against my chest.

“Jason,” she said against my chest. “When the baby’s born, that note you got from Declan won’t stand for anything. We need a lawyer. Would your mom and dad help? I want you to get a legal statement from him. I want you to adopt the baby. Will you?”

“God, Rach, of course, I will––” The anger shifted to something else. Love. God I loved her, it didn’t matter who she’d been with before. It didn’t change who she was and it didn’t change how I felt.

“It’s just if anything happened to me––”

“Nothing is going to happen to you, sweetheart.”

“I know, but it would terrify me to think the child would go to Declan.”

“It won’t.”

Her cheek brushed my chest as she nodded.

“We’ll sort it out. I promise.” My hand stroked over her hair again. I’d thought those guys were either going to abduct her or kill her. But she was okay––safe.

Her fingers pressed on my chest, as she rose up a little, to look into my eyes. The tears in hers caught the light. “Jason. I’m not sure it’s his. It could be someone else’s. But he never––”

“It doesn’t matter, Rach.” I was going to spend the rest of my life making sure she was okay. She needed me. She’d taken me into hell with her tonight. I’d glimpsed the sort of stuff I’d only ever seen in movies. Shit. I couldn’t believe that was how she’d lived.

But it was okay, now, and every down moment like this was worth every up moment with her. It was. She was special.

Dammit, I sounded like I was trying to convince myself. But she was addictive, like a rollercoaster ride I couldn’t resist. I did love her.

“Would you get the coffee, Rach?” I was really cold, and shivering more than her now, as shock twisted to an overload of emotion.
My God.

I sat up, slipping from Jason’s hold. The water swished. It was hot, and my feet were tingling and stinging. I gripped one coffee and handed it to him. Then I saw the knuckles on his right hand when he took it. They were cut and red, from when he’d hit Declan. I brushed my fingertips across them. “Jason…?” Then I noticed how much he was shaking.

I turned in the bath, swilling more water over the edge on to the floor. “…Your hand?” I said, still looking at his knuckles.

“It’s okay,” he answered. “Just sore.”

But there was something different in his voice that made me look up. A catch. “Jason…” He was crying; a tear had slipped from his eye and onto his cheek, and his gaze sparkled. “Are you okay?” He wiped the tear away and nodded sharply, going manly on me again.

But then he said, a moment after he’d sniffed his tears away. “It’s just, God, Rach, I could’ve lost you…”

He was crying over me.
For me!
I hugged him, fiercely, sending water sloshing over the side of the bath and coffee swilling over the edge of his cup. No one had ever cried for me… “I love you.”

His hand ran over my hair. “I love you, too.”

I sat up then, reaching for my coffee. It was sickly sweet, but I knew he’d sweetened them to fend off the cold and the shock. God, every time I thought about what he’d seen, I cringed with embarrassment nearly as much as the fear I was still suffering. He knew
everything
now.

He’d said he didn’t mind but…

“Rach, they could’ve killed you…” He had known the danger he was in then, but he hadn’t thought of his safety only mine. His dark eyes were wide and bright.

Then I remembered. “Jason, what about the cops?” Surely they should’ve come by now.

He shook his head. “I never called them. I didn’t want to waste the time. I bluffed. Those guys could’ve got you in that car before I’d got down there… And then… God, Rach…”

He’d known the danger we were both in. That was why he’d cried.

With my free hand I gripped his, and we sat facing one another, silent, like we were coming down from cocaine, but we were coming down from fear…

“You, okay?” Jason said again, after a little while.

This time, I nodded.

“And you’re, okay?” He smiled and nodded too. His hands weren’t shaking anymore.

Warmth throbbed through me and I began feeling normal. But that was not because I was in a hot bath. That was because I was with him.

I remembered the first time I’d lain in his bath, and the sense of déjà-vu I’d had that night. It hadn’t been a memory. It had been a prophecy. Jason was always meant for me. I’d just had to find him.

I’d found him.

I wasn’t scared about going back to his home town with him anymore. I was glad to be going. I had a new name, I already was a new person, and soon I was going to not only have a new life, but a whole new world to live in. The world I’d only seen in the fantasy of films. That was going to be my life.

“When we get out of the bath, Jason, I’m gonna bandage your hand.” He smiled, capturing the quirk of fate in that statement.

I could be like him. I was like him, now. Smiling, I set my empty cup down, and then took his and set it down too. Then he gripped my hand and pulled me against him, just holding me, holding me in a way no one had done before him.

Epilogue

“I can’t believe your parents did this,” I whispered to Jason, overwhelmed by the number of people.

His parents had thrown us a surprise wedding breakfast in the town hall.

We’d arrived early on Friday and they’d kept this secret until today, Saturday.

I couldn’t believe how many people were here though, and they were all being nice.

I’d shaken so many hands, and had my cheek kissed so many times, I was feeling all smiled out, my cheeks were actually hurting.

Jason had been wary of how our coming back was going to be received. He was in hyper-protective mode after the other night. But surely this meant it was going to be okay. Still I didn’t mind his hyper-protective mood. I hadn’t been more than a couple of inches distance from him since
it
had happened. I was terrified of leaving him for an instant. At his parents’ I followed him about everywhere, and his mom had noticed. But not said a word. Of course she’d noticed the bruise on my face too, but she hadn’t asked about that either.