The Last Thing You See (19 page)

If I thought people were interested the first time Walter attacked me and Nick saved me, they were absolutely frothing at the mouth over this one.  It was a media-frenzy.

So great was public interest that there had been police stationed outside our house twenty-four hours a day for the last few days, just making sure people kept their distance.  Flowers and messages of support were all over our fence and littered the sidewalk on either side of the driveway.

I met Nick’s friend and boss, Johnny, the day after the night at Walter’s.  At his insistence, he’d recommended one of his guys who was qualified for freelance security to stay with me as much as possible until I could figure out how I was going to handle my bodyguard situation in the future.  The police repeated their earlier recommendation for such measures.

My temporary bodyguard, Bryant, had been staying in the guesthouse since then and kindly doubled as my driver this morning.  When we arrived, for the first time in I had no idea how many years and despite how many people were there waiting for me, nobody asked for an autograph.   There was nothing but people yelling encouragement.  Bryant didn’t even have to do anything but follow me.

When we went upstairs and down the hall to the right room, Bryant waited at the door while I went inside.  I stepped around the curtain and saw that he was already awake, staring out of the window at the morning sky with a day-dreamy kind of look on his face.

My heart just about exploded with happiness, it felt like it was swelled up to double the normal size and I didn’t have enough room for it anymore.  The pressure of it seemed to lift the corners of my mouth, and I couldn’t stop myself from breaking into the silliest of grins.

“A penny for your thoughts,” I said.

Nick looked at me and smiled.  “A penny?  After all that, all I get is a penny?”

“I also stopped by your apartment and found the flowers from the last time you were in hospital.  Brought them, but forgot them in the car.  Shall I have my manservant go get them?”

“Oh boy, don’t let him hear that,” Nick chuckled and then winced, reaching for his ribs.

I reached the side of his bed and held his hand.  “So what were you thinking about?”

“Ah.  I was just thinking… I hate getting shot.  I hate getting stabbed.  I hate getting hit by a car.  I hate getting the crap beaten out of me in general.  I hate…”

“Jeez, why so negative?  Isn’t there
anything
you like?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Puppies?”

“Worst things in the world.”

“Ice cream?”

“It’ll give you a heart attack in the long run.”

I looked around the room conspiratorially and then tentatively climbed on the bed.  Nick’s eyebrows rose and he held his hands out in a semi-defensive posture.

“Easy… easy… I’m still pretty… uh… tender here.”

I was
very
careful when I straddled him, gently putting my weight down on his upper legs and then leaning forward until our foreheads touched.  Our eyes were only a couple of inches apart and I felt his hands on my thighs, his grip still strong despite everything he’d been through.

“What about… kisses?

I held the sides of his face and lowered my lips to his, kissing him softly and then just a little harder.  When our mouths parted, I opened my eyes again and let myself get lost for a moment.

“OK.  I think I like those.  Kisses you call them?” he asked.

I nodded.  “Yeah.”

Shifting my position as if the slightest wrong move might break him, I laid myself down on the side of the bed and snuggled up against him with his arm around me.  For a few minutes, we silently looked out the window together.

“You have any other stalkers I should know about?” he asked.

“I’m sure I can always get more,” I said.

Nick shook his head with a smirk.  “That was pretty scary, wasn’t it?”

“Yup.”

“I love you,” he said.

I sighed.  How could I find the words to tell this man everything that I felt?  What do you say to somebody who saved your life in every way a life
could
be saved?

He gave me back my birth mom and gave me the courage to reclaim my adopted mom.  He was the one person I most wanted to see in the morning and rush back to after work in the evening.  I wanted to talk to him about silly things, serious things, and all the things in between, every day of my life.  Our life.  I wanted to feel him with my entire body and give him mine in return.

Maybe there are no words that
really
say all that and let the full meaning shine through.  At that moment, I felt like if I could actually put the full force of my emotions into speech, I might set the world on fire.  I tried anyway.

With the tips of my fingers on his chin, I turned his head to look at me.  “I love you too, Nick.  I’m yours and you’re mine, OK?”

“Absolutely.”

###

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did
like this story you may like
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For aspiring singer, Beatrice Hampton, the future used to be a sweet thing to look forward to, filled with the kind of joy you could write a song about.  However, after losing her parents while still in high school, she is left crushed, alone, and harboring a bitter resentment towards the wealthier members of society, whom she partially blames for the destruction of her hopes and dreams.  After years of lonely struggle, she can hardly remember the last time she felt happy.

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This is the story of how she got that special part of herself back.

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Remember Our Song: A Billionaire Romance (Our Song #3)

Beatrice Holt seems to have it all. She's got a passionate and loving marriage to the perfect man, billionaire Jeremy Holt, and all the opportunities and financial security that comes with it. However, life wasn't always so wonderful. When a tragic accident results in amnesia, she is effectively transported back to a time when all her emotional wounds are still causing her intense pain. She can't remember how those wounds were healed the first time around, she can't remember her marriage, she can't remember the man behind the money at all. All she sees in Jeremy is the very kind of man she swore she would never fall for.
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Author’s Note: This is the first chapter or so of my next novel, in a very raw form.  It’s un-outlined, unedited and a long way from what the finished product will be, but for those of you that enjoyed The Last Thing You See, I hope this puts you on the edge of your seat from now until released day!

One time, Christabelle Jayne defied death.  Learning to live and love again is going to be so much harder.

Chapter 1: Christie

I'd been feeling sick to my stomach for hours by the time He started showing signs of food poisoning too.  He gave me the pills a little earlier than normal, the pills that sedated me and made sure I didn't try to escape when he was asleep, or away, or unable to keep an eye on me for whatever reason.  Then, gripping his mid-section with an uncomfortable expression on his face that I could easily relate to at that moment, he rushed out the door, locking it behind him.

A few minutes later I heard a motorbike start up outside and tear away at great speed, leaving me with a head that felt like the next throb might be the one to make it explode, hot and cold flushes, and a gurgling stomach like a volcano waiting for its time to shine.  It could only have been a few minutes, but my sheets were already soaked with sweat when it happened.

I never thought I would have been thankful for undercooked chicken but, when I saw those two little spots of color in the messy puddle on the floor, I was.  One white, one orange, I had just vomited up the pills along with dinner.

For a minute I couldn't quite comprehend the significance what I was looking at, my mind was still utterly preoccupied with the nausea, but there was a voice somewhere in my mind, the part that still had any fight left, that said this was important.  Really important.  Then it hit me.

For the first time in... how long had it been?  I had no idea, the drugs made me lose days.  Sometimes I felt like I was living underwater, struggling for air, for weeks at a stretch.  I didn't have anything reliable to judge the passing of time with.

One thing I did know was that it had been a long time.  He showed me a newspaper clipping that said the police had run out of leads on my missing persons case.  I was presumed dead.  My memorial service would be held on... the date was blanked out.

I
felt
dead now, more so than usual.  When He took me, I couldn't honestly say I had a strong inclination to live.  Nick, my boyfriend, my future husband, the love of my life, was gone, killed in action while he was in the Marines.  That's why I was out wandering around by myself that night.  With my eyes blurred by tears, I never saw Him coming.  I could still feel the scar on the back of my head though, it was still there under my hair.

But
something
was still alive in me, sparked by the sight of those pills in the middle of that ugly mess on the floor.  Tonight, for the first time since I was taken, He was not guarding me
and
I was not drugged.  I was awake, and every second my mind seemed to get clearer, a mental breeze blowing at the fog of a long captivity.

If somebody, at that very moment, had asked me what I had to live for, I couldn't have told them in any succinct way.  Nick was gone, my future was gone, my family and friends had said their goodbyes.  Everything good was gone.

No.  The only answer I could have given wouldn't have made much sense.  It would have been almost gibberish, a flow of images and sounds that came from the most basic survival-oriented part of the brain.

The closest translation into English might have looked something like
fight, Fight, FIGHT, BREATHE, FIGHT, KICK, PUNCH, SCREAM, CLAW, BREATHE, SCREAM, RUN, RUN, RUN YOU BITCH, RUN, GO, GO, HATE HIM, HATE, HATE, RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN
.

Adrenaline was flooding my system, tonight was my chance.  Even without a clear reason to live, my hatred for Him was enough to want to escape.  He said I was nothing but an item of stock for him, an All-American girl-next-door for him to sell to the first bidder to meet his reserve.  A sex-slave waiting to happen.

I would rather have died.  That was reason enough to get out or kill myself trying.  Even just going somewhere to curl into a tiny little ball and wait for the end would be better.

I wondered if they ever found Nick's body.  Did they bury him next to 'me'?  Or create a memorial next to mine?  It wasn’t fair.  We… we were supposed to have it all.  I doubled over and heaved again, a fresh splash adding to the swill on the ground.

I reached for the bottle of water He had left and rinsed my mouth out.  I wished I could see his face when he came back to find nothing but this mess and his 'stock', his meal-ticket, gone.  But how to get 'gone'?

Looking around the room didn't offer any obvious solutions, and I fought down the raw panic.  I wanted to see his face when he found I had escaped, not when he found me undrugged but still right where he had left me.

There were no windows, the door was locked and far too heavy for me to break down.  The sinking feeling of hope snatched away made my head spin and I sat on the edge of my bed with my forearms resting on my knees for a moment, tears blurring my vision as much as that spinning sensation, until the fighter in my mind emphasized one of its go-to words. 
Kick
.

There was little more than a bed, a toilet, a shower and a sink in my little area, aside from the exercise equipment.  Next to the treadmill and exer-cycle, he liked to keep his stock in good condition, were my running shoes. I'd need those if I got out.

Rising to my feet, I stumbled around the puddle on the floor and retrieved my shoes before staggering back to the bottom end of my bed to put them on.  After reaching down for so long to tie my shoelaces, I almost passed out when I sat up straight again.

No, no, no
.

I fought with everything I had to stay conscious until a new sheen of sweat stood out on my face, but the brown mist that had been encroaching around my field of vision did eventually recede, and I stood up again with one hand on the wall to steady myself.  When I went to the door I almost cried again at how solid it looked. What good would kicking it do?

Think harder, Christie
.

But it was so tough.  I hung my head and my shoulders slumped, a band of hopelessness beginning to tighten down on my chest.  My eyes were drawn away from the door to the wall next to it.  Sheetrock.  Strong enough to line a wall with... but I remembered when I was six years old and riding my bike inside the house despite my mom telling me not to.  I crashed, of course, because what else would a tomboy do, and my handlebar had put a good hole in the sheetrock.

Early on in my captivity I'd struggled to get out, I'd begun to kick at the wall, but he had quenched that rebellion with a calculated brutality that terrified me.  He didn't need the drugs to rob me of consciousness that night.  No close-fisted strikes, nothing to disfigure me or damage the resale value of his property, I was slapped unconscious over the course of God only know how many hours.  But he wasn't here this time.

I slowly crumpled down to the floor, my butt on the ground, one foot braced against the wall and the other cocked up and ready. 
Kick
.

“Please.  Please,” I whispered and lashed out with everything I had.

Thump!

Not a hole, but a dent.  The effort made my head swim again but the sight of the damage brought another surge of adrenaline and I kicked out repeatedly, right in the same spot, laughing maniacally when I saw the first hint of fluffy pink insulation from inside the wall.

I scrambled forwards, slipping my fingers behind the sheet rock and pulling with all my might.  It was a move that required altogether too much flexing of my abdominal muscles and brought forth the last contents of my stomach, some bile.

The dust and debris from the broken sheetrock mixed with the new puddle as I tore larger and larger chunks off, turning around and kicking again if it was too stubborn, until the area around me was scattered with it.  I vaguely remembered that you weren’t supposed to handle insulation with your bare hands for some reason, but ignored that little tip as I ripped it out easily, flinging it behind me to reveal another layer of sheetrock on the other side of the wooden frame inside the wall.

I turned around and kicked out again, seeing my foot crash right through the wall into the next room on my first attempt this time.  I felt the sting of cuts on my ankle as I dragged my foot back through the hole I had made, but paid them no mind at all.  That voice inside of me was getting more focussed.  It was screaming.  Screaming.

Run!  He’s coming back! Run! Run!

I kicked and kicked and kicked until I thought the hole was big enough for me to squeeze through, and I was crawling forwards before I paused and went back to my bed, the voice in my head screeching in disbelief.  There were things I might need, though.

The bottle of water, the blanket.  He had warned me that the house was in the middle of the woods, I’d die if I ever tried to escape.  Well, I’d die that much farther away with water and warmth.

I pushed my meagre supplies through the hole and crawled after them, feeling cuts and scrapes on my back and sides that only made me push harder.  For the first time in… a lifetime, I stood outside my prison.

A crippling fear shivered up my spine and made me press my back against the wall I had just broken through.  He would be so angry if he came back right now.  So angry.  Death might not be the worst fate he could unleash on me.

If I just went back in my room, he might understand.  He might even be pleased at my display of obedience, might take pleasure in the idea that he had finally broken me.  I seriously considered it.

Then I thought of what He had taken.  He'd stolen my time of grieving, he'd stopped me from saying goodbye to the one person that mattered more than all the others combined.  I thought about Nick.  What would he say if he heard I stopped fighting?

"I’ll never stop, babe," I said.

On a desk with a computer monitor was a block of chocolate.  I grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket after gathering my blanket and water from the floor and dealing with the hot flush and loss of balance that accompanied the maneuver.

There it was.  The front door.  I walked up to it with a fear and reverence no less intense than if I was walking up to the pearly gates themselves and grasped the handle.

I almost screamed when I twisted the door knob and the door wouldn't budge, then I spotted the deadlock and turned it with the hand holding the water bottle all wrapped up in the blanket.  When I tried the door again it swung open easily and silently.

Something cool...
wind
, hit me full in the face and I stood there for maybe almost a full minute in shock, savoring the rush of air on my feverish skin.  It was hard to believe it could be real, but this was
outside
.  I remembered it.

Laughing and crying at the same time, I ran out of the door and into the woods to meet my fate on my own terms.

###

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