Twisted (19 page)

Cole walks up to me. “Get
ready to run. We need to get back to the motorcycles and get out of the area.”

I feel numb as I nod.

Blake pulls out a match and
lights it before calmly tossing it at the car. There is a thunderous
whoosh
and flames immediately engulf the car, the night lighting up brightly with
bright orange and yellow flickering shadows.

Cole's hand tightens in mine and
then we are running across the gravel lot, through the break in the fence, and
across the field. It doesn't take long to make our way through the woods this
time since we are running and the guys seem to know exactly where to go. We
hear a loud explosion in the distance and I know the car has exploded. The only
relief I get out of it is knowing that all the evidence has been destroyed.

When we reach the
motorcycles, we are all out of breath. “Son of a bitch,” Cole gasps a bit
painfully.

I can hear the sound of
vomiting and I realize Blake is throwing up near a bush. I'm close to losing my
supper as well.

“Blake needs to take you
home,” Cole tells me through clenched teeth.

My head swings toward him in
the dark. “What?”

“Yeah, man. Why can't you?”
Blake demands as he walks up.

“Because I've been shot or
grazed in the arm, dumbass. I need to find a way to take care of it without
going to the hospital.” Then he turns away, kicking at the nearest tree. “Fuck,
fuck,
fuck
! My DNA's probably all over the crime scene.”

Concern sweeps through me and
I hurry over to him, touching his chest. “Take me back to your place and I'll
help you.” I'm mad he dragged me into this mess but I don't have it in me to
turn my feelings off for him. I care about him too much to ignore the fact that
he's hurt.

Cole shrugs me off. “Your
brother is a damn cop. You need to go home and we need to get the hell out of
here. We've stayed too long.”

Blake grabs my arm. “Let's
go.”

I look at Cole worriedly, not
budging and Blake finally lets me go to stalk off towards his motorcycle. “Will
you be okay?”

He brushes a quick kiss
across my lips. “I'll be fine. We'll talk tomorrow,” he says before he hurries
to his own motorcycle.

“
Blayre
!”
Blake says sharply.

I quickly hurry over and
climb on behind him to see that Cole is already roaring out of the park. It
feels weird to hold onto Blake. The ride back to Tate's is quick and he drops
me off a block away from the house. Neither of us speak as I climb off and
quickly walk away.

When I hurry up to the house,
I see that all the lights are still off. I quickly make my way through the gate
again and over to the tree. Going down was easier than going up and after
fifteen minutes of struggling and suffering scratched palms, I climb through
the window and fall—toppling onto the carpet. I find myself shaking violently
as I realize what I've done tonight. Then I am scrambling to my feet and
rushing to the bathroom where I vomit into the toilet. I'm gasping and heaving,
almost on the verge of sobbing uncontrollably

I don't know how to calm
myself down and I feel like I am having a panic attack. Instinctively, I do
what normally works. I yank open the closet door and fumble for my box of
tampons on the shelf. I feel the cool razor against my fingertips and a hint of
relief shoots through me. I'm not thinking clearly—my mind a panicked, jumbled
mess, as I rush to the sink and angrily draw the razor across the inside of my
forearm. I need the immediate rush of cutting to calm me down before I lose it
entirely. I'm in a bad state and somewhere inside me, I know I am messing up. I
never
cut myself where anyone can see.

The pain that suddenly burns
into my senses seems to drive away some of my panic. I blink slowly before
paying attention to the blood that is dropping steadily all over the white
porcelain sink.

My eyes widen with alarm.
“Too much,” I whisper faintly as a new kind of horror sweeps through me.

I've cut too deep.

Panic swells and I quickly
rush to grab a towel out of the closet as I wrap it around my arm. I have a
single moment of clarity and grab the razor, rinse it off in the blood smeared
sink, before shoving it back in with my tampons. Then I rush back to my room,
cradling my arm to my chest as I try to figure out what to do now. Slowly, I
unwrap the now bloody towel and peer at the damage I've inflicted upon myself.

Shit.

I'm going to need stitches
because it's bad. I've got at least a three inch gash and the skin is pulled
apart, blood oozing from the wound in steady rivulets.

Survival mode should be taking
over and I should be rushing for help but instead I am standing in the middle
of my room, scrambling for a plausible excuse to explain the sorry state of my
arm. I
couldn't
let anyone know I did this to myself.

My eyes rest on the window
I'd fallen through earlier. Perfect. I look around for anything hard enough to
break the window. My eyes land on my lamp and I keep my injured arm cradled
close to my chest as I use my free hand to unplug the lamp. I wrap my good hand
around the base and quickly head for the window.

For the first time ever, I am
thankful that Noah is deaf.

I slam the lamp into the
window and it shatters, glass falling across the carpet below the window. Good
enough. I set the lamp back down on my nightstand and finally rush to get help.
There is no point in knocking on Noah's door, so I barge right into his room
and fumble along the wall for the light switch. I flip it on when my fingers
brush against it.

Noah is sprawled across his bed
on his stomach, fast asleep. A weird calmness takes over me and I walk over to
him. The towel wrapped around my arm is now soaked through and I figure I've
nicked an artery or something. Since the light doesn't bring Noah around, I
touch his bare shoulder with my good hand and give him a shake.

His eyelids flicker and then
open. He immediately winces from the bright light and rubs his eyes sleepily
before he rolls over to sit up, his eyes squinting at me. I watch as his eyes
focus on my face with confusion before dropping to the bloody towel wrapped
around my arm. His eyes widen and then he flings back the sheet and rushes at
me. “Let me see,” he orders as he stands before me in nothing but a pair of
tight black boxer briefs. If it were under different circumstances, I'd be
enjoying the sight.

I peel back the towel to show
him.

He lets out a curse. “Don't
move!” he orders as he hurries out of the room.

My eyes slide around his room
curiously. The fact that I am more interested in his room than my injury tells
me I must be going into shock. Who the hell would be inspecting someone's room
at a time like this?

Noah rushes back up to me,
drawing my attention to him once again. He calmly eases the saturated towel
from my arm and wraps a new one around it tightly. His eyes lift to mine. “Put
pressure on it,” he orders.

I nod.

He quickly goes to his
dresser and yanks out a pair of jeans and jerks them on. Then he grabs the
first shirt he sees in his closet and shoves his feet in sandals. Once his car
keys are in hand, he puts a firm hand on my back and ushers me out of his room
and downstairs.

A second later we are in
Noah’s car and he is driving me to the hospital. The towel has turned crimson
and sticky. As I stare dazedly at the dashboard, I see that Noah is driving
just a little over the speed limit. I'm feeling drained from the nights events
and I let my head fall back against the head rest.

“Don't pass out on me,
Blayre
,” Noah says sharply from the driver's seat.

“I'm just tired,” I mutter,
forgetting that he can't hear me.

I wish life came with a “do
over” button. I'd do this night over in a heartbeat, minus the robbery and
minus my stupidity with the razor.

The first thing I become aware
of is the steady, throbbing pain in my left arm. My brain feels foggy as I
shift restlessly against the sheets on my bed. I manage to pry my eyes open and
blink a few times. My mouth feels dry, like
its
been stuffed with cotton balls. I can sense that
something is...off.

My eyes skim my room and my
eyebrows draw together at the sight of the comfy looking office chair that is
sitting next to my bed. I swear I've seen that chair before...

I think it came from Noah's
room.

Is that a
board
over
one of my windows? Part of my room is in shadows because someone had nailed a
large board over my window.

Carefully, I sit up, pushing
aside the pain in my arm as I struggle to pull my thoughts together. My door is
wide open and I always keep it shut. After a second of bewilderment, my eyes
shift back to my left arm and I see that it is completely wrapped in gauze from
my wrist to elbow. How did that happen?

I press a hand to my temple
and try hard to remember last night. I remember making dinner with Noah and
then going to bed. No, wait...my phone woke me up. Cole wanted me to meet him
because...

My eyes widen with horror.

No, no, no. I did
not
help Cole and Blake rob a store. And my arm... I look down at the gauze and in
my mind I relive the moment where I angrily drew the razor across my skin. I
find myself recoiling against the headboard of my bed. How could this all have
happened? Why couldn't I have ignored Cole's text messages last night? If I'd
ignored him...

How was I ever going to live
with the guilt of knowing I'd helped commit a crime?

Movement comes from my
doorway and I look up to see Noah walking in my room, a bottle of water in his
hand. He looks relieved to see that I'm awake. “You've been out for so long, I
was worried. You didn't even stir when I boarded up your window last night,” he
says as he hands me the bottle of water and then reaches for a bottle of pills
from my nightstand that I hadn't noticed earlier. He shakes out a pill and
holds it out to me. “You're long overdue.”

I stare at the pill, not
moving to take it as my eyes lift to his. “My brain is a mess. Did I take those
last night?”

“It's the pain medication
they prescribed.”

I shake my head. “I don't
want it. I'm still struggling to pull my thoughts together.”

“
Blayre
,
you have almost thirty stitches in your arm. You've got to be in pain.”

“I'm used to pain,” I mumble.

Noah gives me an odd look.
“What exactly does that mean?”

With a groan, I flop back
onto my bed, my eyes shutting as I try to control my thoughts and my wayward
mouth.

“
Blayre
?”

“I get migraines,” I finally
say as my eyes peel back open.

He studies me for a minute
and then he sets the pill on the nightstand and sits down in the chair. “What
do you remember from last night?”

I exhale loudly and try to
remember what had happened after I woke Noah up. Everything was such a blur. I
have memories of being in the Emergency Room while the doctor stitched up my
arm. Noah hadn't been in there with me. In fact, I don't think he'd been there
at all, which meant he'd been stuck in the waiting room most of the time since
he wasn't considered family.

The next thing I remember
after the ER was Noah leaning over me and buckling my seatbelt as he took me
back home. There's another brief memory of feeling totally out of it as he
carried me upstairs and to my room. I think he set me on the bed and urged me
to change but...everything was a blank after that.

My eyes drop down to my chest
and I see that I'm not wearing anything that belongs to me. I happen to be
wearing one of Noah's tee shirts and my shorts are gone, leaving me in just
panties beneath it.

“You changed me?” I ask
sharply as I sit straight up, my eyes accusing. Had he seen my scars?

Noah stares at me and then
frowns. “You passed out before I could try to get you to change yourself. I
figured the easiest thing to do was to change you into one of my shirts. I
tried to be decent about it,
Blayre
. You should know
by now that I wouldn't take advantage of you.”

“What did you see?” I demand.

He stares at me long and
hard, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Your shirt was soaked with blood and I had
to work to get it off. You weren't wearing a bra so I saw your breasts. I tried
to be honorable and quick as I undressed you and pulled the shirt down. I
didn't pay attention. Hell, I don't even know what color of panties you are
wearing.”

My eyes search his, trying to
see if there's any hint that he's lying to me. I supposed there was a
possibility he might not have seen my scars. They were pretty high up and my
panties covered the ones around my pelvic region.

“Damn it,
Blayre
.
Just because I kissed you once doesn't mean I'm a pervert.”

I've completely offended him
and tears suddenly burn my eyes. My emotions are so out of whack right now.
“I'm sorry. I wouldn't think that. I'm just...I'm not thinking clearly.”

Noah's silent for a long
minute and then he slowly exhales. “Fine.”

“Are you mad at me?”

His expression softens. “No.
But I'd like it if you could explain to me what happened last night. The nurse
told me you said something about sneaking in your window and falling through
it, breaking it.” He gives me a hard look. “You sneak out through your window
when you're sharing a house with a
deaf
man?”

I grimace. “I know sometimes
you're up late.”

“I'm assuming you went out to
meet Cole,” he says flatly.

With sheepish eyes, I nod. “I
got caught in a branch on the way back in and hit the window harder than I
anticipated.”

“What the hell happened to
him wanting space? Or was that just a lie to throw me off your plans to sneak
out tonight?”

“No! I didn't lie to you, I
swear.
He
text messaged me and asked me to meet him
after I went to bed. His text woke me up.”

“So you decided to go out
your
window
to meet him?” he asks dryly.

“Pretty much,” I say softly.

“What was so damn important that
it couldn't wait until morning?” 

My mind draws a blank and I
fall silent.

Noah runs his hands over his
face, looking weary. “Forget it, I don't want to know.”

He's mad, I can tell. I lick my
dry lips and look at him uncertainly. Then my eyes drop to the chair he is
sitting on, and I recall seeing it in his room last night in front of his
computer desk. In fact, Noah looks quite rumpled. His shirt is wrinkled and his
hair is mussed slightly more than normal, while a five o' clock shadow is
evident across his jaw. “Did you bring that in here this morning?” I ask,
nodding to the chair once his attention is back on my face.

“No. I was worried when you
didn't wake up when I pounded those nails in your wall after we got back from
the hospital. I kept an eye on you throughout the night.”

Oh. “Thanks,” I murmur
quietly as warmth spreads through me. I still can't get over the fact that he
cares about me.

“You need to take something
for the pain. If you won't take what they prescribed, at least take some
Ibuprofen. You also need to get something in your stomach, what do you feel up
to?”

“I'm fine, Noah. I can go
downstairs and make something myself.”

He shakes his head. “No, just
stay put. You're still really pale and I have more to talk to you about. Yogurt
okay?”

I nod.

He stands up and leaves.

I frown after him and try to
struggle with the new turn of events I am dealing with. I haven't really had
time to think about what had gone down last night. But first, I have to deal
with Noah. After that, I am determined to make sure that no one got hurt last
night besides Cole. As for Cole... We're done. I just wish it wouldn't have
come to this in order for me to finally work up the nerve to do what needs to be
done.

Noah enters my room again and
I straighten up more against my head board, trying not to wince because my arm
is throbbing something fierce. He hands me the yogurt, a spoon already sticking
out of the open container. “Eat, I'll get the Ibuprofen.”

I’m actually kind of hungry
so I begin to eat. Noah comes back and holds out three Ibuprofen pills. “Thank
you,” I say as I accept them, and quickly wash them down with the water from
the bottle he'd brought me before I polish off my yogurt.

Noah sits down in the chair,
oddly silent.

My eyes are tentative as I
set the empty carton on my night stand. “You said there's more we need to talk
about?” I'm praying he hadn't lied earlier and the he wasn't about to hit
me with my scars.

Noah sighs, looking tired
now. “A friend of your brother's died last night. Tate's not back yet, so he
doesn't know.”

“What happened?” I ask with
shock.

“I don't have all the
details,” he says, shaking his head. “I only just heard it on the news this
morning. Sean worked with your brother at the department and I met him a few
times, he was a good guy. He was at a convenience store late last night,
probably running errands after a late shift. The store was robbed and he was
killed. The store clerk was shot as well, but he managed to pull through the
surgery and he's expected to survive.”

I stare at him, my mouth
falling open before my yogurt decides to make another reappearance. I fling
myself out of bed, nearly scrambling across Noah's lap—whose chair was in my
way before I rush to the bathroom and vomit in the toilet. My back shudders as
I dry heave, my body trying to bring more up but there's nothing left. Noah's
behind me, one hand holding my hair back while his other hand rubs soothing
circles across my back.

My mind is spinning out of
control. One of my brother's friends was dead because of me. An innocent man is
now dead because I couldn't be smart enough to ignore a text message I knew was
going to bring me nothing but trouble. I am responsible...

I clutch the toilet and dry
heave again until eventually my stomach settles down and I lean against the
toilet weakly. Julie and Steve were right all along. I'm a horrible person.

Noah gently releases his hold
on my hair and stands up. A second later he holds out a damp wash cloth and I
gratefully accept it and wipe my mouth. I am shaky as I slowly rise to my feet
and Noah moves in, wrapping a firm arm around me as he helps me back to my room
and into bed.

He looks down at me with a
hint of concern. “The meds must have upset your stomach.”

I nod, resting limply on the
bed. “I don't feel well. Can we talk later?”

Noah nods. “I'll check on you
in a bit.”

Once he leaves, I stare up at
my ceiling, my heart aching with the guilt of my decisions. I basically killed
a friend of my brother's last night. I may not have pulled the trigger, but I
might as well have. How could my life spiral out of control so fast?

My eyes shift towards my
dresser, where I normally leave my phone. My shorts from last night are folded
neatly and my phone rests on top of them. I drag myself out of bed and pick up
the phone before I walk back to the bed and sit down. I turn it on.

No text messages.

No voice mails or missed
calls.

Anger sweeps through me. Cole
caused all of this, the least he could do was have the balls to contact me. My
fingers fly across the small keyboard on my phone as I text him.
I need to
see you. Can you come pick me up?
I don't dare call him because this is not
a conversation I want to have over the phone. I wait for an answer back as I
purse my lips. I am going to give him a piece of my mind and then we are done.

My phone chimes. COLE: 
I
was just going to call you. I'm on my way.

I'm not in the mood to
acknowledge his last message, so I angrily toss my phone on my bed and rise to my
feet. I feel like crap and I am weak, but I need to have this out with Cole. I
have to know what went down last night and I need to know the reason behind the
death of an innocent man. I played a part in it, I need to understand it—if
that's even possible.

After stripping out of Noah's
shirt, I toss it on the bed and quickly yank on a bra, wincing when the
stitches pulled on my arm beneath the gauze. After slipping on a simple tee and
a pair of shorts, I head for the bathroom again. I can still smell the scent of
my vomit, and I spray some air freshener in the air before I use the brush to
calm the tangles in my long hair. Then I pulled it back into a simple ponytail.
My arm hurts too much to try to do anything more.

By the time I'm ready, I
figure Cole is probably only minutes away. I also know that Noah's not going to
be happy I'm running off. With that thought rolling around my head, I head
downstairs and find Noah in the kitchen, loading up the dishwasher.