ALL THINGS PRETTY PART TWO (5 page)

“Tommi,” I say as I roll Barber onto his belly.
 
“Get the gun. Travis, find me something
to tie these two up with.”

Before any of this takes place, though, I hear a sudden
bang, like a door being thrown open. It’s followed by the loud order to, “Drop
it!”

I don’t even have to turn around to know it’s the
cavalry.
 
There’s not a criminal in
history that can effectively master that command like an officer of the
law.
 

“Don’t shoot. I’m a cop.”
 
I raise my hands, letting my gun fall
around my trigger finger like Chaps did.
 
Slowly, I stand and turn around.
 
Poised just inside the door are two cops, dressed in gear that tells me
they were ready to storm this place the minute I texted it in. Black from head
to toe, Kevlar vest, face protection, assault rifles at the ready–they’re
prepared for war.
 
Behind them, I
see four more filing in. There are probably more outside, posted in different
positions surrounding this place.
 
“Damn
it’s good to see you boys!”

“On your knees!”

I do as I’m told.
 
I know they have to subdue us all until they can confirm who I am. I
smile as one of the men
quick-steps
toward me to kick
my gun away.
 
I’m in the home
stretch.

It’s not until they haul me up by my cuffed hands that I
look around and am reminded of the emptiness of the room again.
 
My satisfaction is somewhat muted.
 

Shit!
 
I just hope all this wasn’t for
nothing.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE- TOMMI

I’ve had so many nightmarish days in my life.
 
There have been days of death and
violence, blood and crime, loss and grief, but somehow I’ve weathered it
all.
 
Never have I felt like dying
would be a blessed relief.
 

Until today.
 

Today, I experienced more freedom and more betrayal than
I’ve ever known. Today, I experienced the love I’ve always craved and the
heartache I’ve always dreaded.
 
Today, I experienced truth and lies, sacrifice and selfishness, bliss
and desperation, and it’s tearing me apart.
 

I had Sig.
 
His
love, his trust, his understanding, and for a few minutes, I had hope.
 
Real hope.
 
But then, with just a few sentences, it
was ripped cruelly from my grasp, from my heart. Now I’m left with the tattered
remains of a life that I hated and a future that’s questionable at best.
 
And pain.
  
A lot of pain.

As I sit at the police station, locked in an interrogation
room, wondering what’s happening with my brother, I fight back tears.
 
I don’t often allow myself the luxury of
tears, or of feeling sorry for myself, but right now I don’t think I can fight
either one.
 
All that I’ve done to
keep my brother with me, all that I’ve done to pave the way for a better life
for us, was a waste.
 
It was all for
nothing.
 
Here we are, separated,
staring down the barrel of disaster, just like I’ve worked so hard to avoid.
 
All because I trusted.
I trusted someone I shouldn’t and it bit me in the butt.
 
Just like I knew it would.

Thinking of Sig, of his betrayal steals my breath.
 
The ache in my chest is so poignant, I
lean forward in my chair, resting my forehead on the edge of the cool, metal
table, praying that the pain will go away.
 
To think, I was on the verge of telling him that I love him.
 
That would’ve been the cream on top of an
already epic fail of a day.
 

But I didn’t, I didn’t tell him. At least I’ll have my
pride–or a little of it, anyway–to keep me company in the tiny
cubicle of a prison cell somewhere.
 
What a cold comfort that will be!

The door opens and I bolt upright.
 
My heart both leaps and shatters when I
see Sig slip into the room and close
himself
in with
me.
 
He stares at me with those
deep, dark eyes, eyes that fooled me.
 
Me,
a streetwise, hardened bitch-of-a-girl.
 
A cop got the better of me.
 
And he did it with those eyes. And that
smile.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” I snap bitterly, hating the
quaver in my voice, resenting the lump in my throat that I have to force the
words past.

Sig doesn’t bother to hide how my words crush him.
 
That or he’s just pretending.
 
He’s good at that.
 
Really good.
 
Why he would need to pretend
anything
at this point, though, is
beyond me. Still, there’s no way I’d trust that what I see is real. No.
Freakin
’. Way.

“How could you even think that?
 
This is not at all how I wanted, how I
expected
things to turn out.
 
Surely you don’t think I did any of this
on purpose.”

“Of course I do!
 
You’re a cop, for
godssake
.
 
Lying to catch people like me is what
you do.”

“This was never about catching
you
.
 
It was always
about Tonin.
 
The only way I planned
for this to affect you was to
free
you.
 
To free you and Travis
from whatever hold he had on you.”

“Well, congratulations.
 
We’re free of him all right.
 
Free to spend our lives in misery, separated from each other.
 
Me rotting in prison,
Travis rotting in some kind of mental institution somewhere.”

Sig walks to the table and slides into the chair across from
me.
 
He reaches over to lay one of
his hands on top of my balled fist.
 
His touch is oddly welcome, a realization that hits me like a face full
of fire.
 
I jerk away from him,
determined not to let him trick me into feeling anything other than disdain and
betrayal.
 

He looks stung, but says nothing. Just drags his
hand back
and claps it with his other on the table in front
of him. “I would never let that happen. And I hate that you think I would.”

“Never let that happen?
 
How can you stop it?
 
It’s
over, Sig!” I rail. “The cat’s out of the bag and there’s nothing either of us
can do to put it back in.”

I’m breathing hard, half-standing with my palms planted on
the table.
Sig just watches me
,
hurt
playing over his features
.
 
“Do you really think I could do that to you? That I would just let that
happen?”

My butt thumps as I fall back into my chair, deflated.
 
“There’s nothing you can do about
it.
 
You’re a cop.
 
Putting bad guys away is what you do.
 
Besides, I’m sure this goes over your
head. Lance is a big bust and he’ll do whatever he has to in order to keep me
quiet and make me pay.
 
No, at this
point, there’s nothing anyone can do to save me.”
 
I glance down at my fingers, the edge of
one nail raw from where I’ve picked at it.
 
The anger, the vital emotion that’s keeping me upright and functional at
the moment, drains away, leaving me with nothing but sadness and hopelessness
and a strange hollow feeling.
 
“Some
part of me always wondered if I could
ever
really
get away with what I’ve done. I suppose after so long, I started to
believe that I could.
 
But life just
doesn’t work out that way.
 
Everybody
has to pay the piper. And now it’s my turn.”
 

For a few seconds, when I look up at Sig, I see him
as he was
.
 
I see the man who loved me with his
hands and his mouth and his body and his eyes. I see the man who cared about me.
 
The man I’ve fallen in love with.

But then, like the flip of a switch, I see him as he is now.
I see him as someone who let me down when I needed him most and then left me
all alone.
 

That’s when the tears start again.
 
In earnest, sobs shaking my entire body
like the tremors of an earthquake. “Promise me you’ll see that they go easy on
Travis,” I bawl, my despair only worsening when I think of what’s to become of
my brother.
 
“He has only ever done
what I’ve asked him to do. He can’t be held responsible for any of this.
 
They all took advantage of him.
We all
took advantage of him.
 
I knew he’d go along with my plan. I
knew he’d do whatever I asked of him, as long as it would keep us safe and
together.
 
He’d have done anything
not to go back to
juvie
.
 
Not after what those boys did to him.”

I wail so hysterically that I start to gag, so I push away
from the table and lay my chest flat against my thighs.
 
Oh God, how could things have gone so
wrong?
 
How can we be here?
 
Here,
where nothing is within my control anymore?
 
Here,
where Travis is at the mercy of people who don’t understand him?
 
Here
where he stands only to get hurt?
 
How?

“Please, please, please, Sig,” I plead, tears dripping off
my nose in a steady stream that splatters onto the concrete squares of the
floor.
 
“Please look out for him. If
you ever cared about me
at all
,
please loo–”

My words are cut off when strong hands wrap around my upper
arms and jerk me to my feet.
 
I’m
nose to nose with an angry, blurry Sig, my toes barely touching the
ground.
 

“I won’t let anything happen to either of you!
 
Don’t you dare give up! This isn’t
over.
 
I promised that you could
trust me, and you can. You might not believe me, but it’s true.”
 

I blink away the tears, the fingers of hysteria slowly
loosening their grip, and I focus on the handsome, determined face of my
betrayer.
 
I laugh, a bitter, arid
sound that comes from a soul as dry as desert sand.
 
“I
did
believe you.
 
And look where it
got me.”

Sig shakes me.
 
Not
too hard, but enough to rattle my teeth.
 
“Stop it!
 
Just because I
didn’t plan it this way doesn’t mean that I’ll let it end here.
 
If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get
you out of here and you’ll be with Travis.”

“Why?” I ask miserably. “Why would you risk a damn thing for
us?
 
For
me?”

“Because.”

“Because
why?”

“Because I think I’m falling in love with you, dammit!
 
I won’t leave you in here to rot.”

Don’t listen, don’t
listen,
don’t
listen!
 
I caution myself, but the tiny,
nearly-suffocated part of me that has always wanted so desperately to hear
those words, to feel that love, clings to his claim as though it were a single
drop of rain after a lifetime of draught.
 

“No.”
 
I close my
eyes against him, against weakness, shaking my head.
 
“No. I don’t believe you.”

“Then I’ll make you see,” he hisses.
 
“You won’t have any other choice than to
believe me.
 
Because
it’s true, Tommi.
 
Everything
I’ve said to you
about us
is
true.
 
I don’t blame you for not
believing me, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
 
That’s why I’m going to prove it to
you.
 
I promise.”

The last is said with such sincerity, such heart-wrenching
determination that I open my eyes.
 
In so many ways, I want to
see
it,
to feel it, to believe it. I
want
for
him to prove it.
 
More than I ever
thought I could want something.

 
“You can’t be
falling in love with me.
 
Love is
pretty, not ugly.
 
And I’m ugly,” I
tell him brokenly, the fight drained out of me, left lying on the floor with my
puddle of tears.

“You’re wrong.
 
Sometimes
love is
ugly
. And not all things
pretty are loveable.
 
But you…you’re
not just pretty. You’re beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Inside and out.
 
You did all this for your brother.
 
Since you were nothing more than a kid yourself, you’ve fought for him
with whatever weapons you had.
 
That
makes you worthy of the best kind of love.
The kind that’s
unconditional.
 
The kind that
never leaves you, no matter how hard you push back.
The kind
that finds a way, against all odds.
 
You deserve that.
 
Actually,
you deserve
more than that.
 
You deserve more than I can give
you, better than me.
 
But maybe one
day, after all this is over,
I
can be
worth
your
love.”

I sink into his eyes, into the deep, rich color, into the
warmth that’s like a cozy fire welcoming me in from the cold.
 
Part of me wants to tell him that I’m
already there, and that’s why it hurt so much to find out he’d lied to me.
 
But part of me, the part that has
survived all this time and done things that no self-respecting girl would ever
do, keeps those words to myself.
 
They come at too high a cost. And at the moment, I’m broke.

As if sensing that he’ll get no confessions from me right
now, Sig presses his lips to my forehead and then crushes me against his
chest.
 
“Sit tight. I’ll take care
of Travis.
 
No matter what, just
remember that you’re not alone.
 
I’ll fix this.
 
I promise
you, I’ll fix this.”

When he releases me, he turns and walks right out the door
without a backward glance, closing it softly behind him. Despite his warning, I
feel more alone than ever before.