Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (25 page)

Think, Ellie. I have to get back to him somehow. We have to get out of this. There has to be something I can do, someone I can call for help.

No, I’m going to have to help myself.

When we’re in the air I lean back and close my eye. Might as well play along. I won’t sleep, I can’t.

I do anyway.

I’m in the dark. Shadows and mists gather and fade away, flowing out of the black like thunderheads in a massive storm. I hear distant voices and every few seconds catch my name whispered, like a nail dragging across my skin.

No, not whispered, shouted but muffled by distance or something else. Images slide by my eyes. A street lamp rises from the mist like a mythical creature rising from the depths, bent and twisted, the broken light’s jagged teeth like a lamprey’s mouth. An animal screech in the distance drags red-hot spikes down my bones.

I can feel my body. Halfway between sleeping and waking, I know it’s a dream, but it grabs my feet and pulls me deeper into the dark. The blackness grows deeper, impenetrable. I can’t see my own hands, or maybe in this place of shadow and dust I simply don’t have any.

A familiar voice flows through the darkness, like a warm wind in my face.

“Ellie.”

That’s my dad. My dad’s voice. I haven’t heard his voice in ten years. I run toward it even if I can’t feel my feet.

“This is insane, Jessica. I’ve had enough. I took her to your goddamn personal trainer yesterday. I waited around until she changed and came out to exercise with him. I could see her ribs through her clothes. You’re not going to starve my daughter and you’re not going to push her into show business. I know what they do to girls like her. It’s not happening. Period.”

I feel wood under my hands. Old and worn smooth by age. Cold. A brass doorknob under my fingers. Where am I? I open my eyes and I’m not on a plane, I’m in the hallway. At home, in my house. The carpet is soft under my toes. The doorknob is cold in my left hand…

I can feel my hand.

My unscarred hand. The skin smooth and pale, each slender finger ending in a neatly trimmed nail. I didn’t paint my fingernails but my toenails were pink. Jack thought it was funny.

The doorknob turns easily around its oiled core, and the door swings open.

“What are you guys yelling about?”

My voice comes out of my throat high and clear, and foreign. I always knew that my voice changed after the accident but I wasn’t sure how, I had no way to compare it. There are pictures and movies but I’ve never looked at any of them, I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to see what I’d lost.

“Nothing, honey,” Dad says.

He stands in Jessica’s office in slacks and a wool cardigan. I feel like something cold just walked on my back. It’s the set of clothes he died in.

“Don’t you have to get ready for your little date tonight?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I’m like a passenger in my own body, trapped behind my own eyes. My feet carry me back to my bedroom. It feels so much bigger, more open. I sit down at the dresser and my unscarred face stares back at me. I start to brush my hair.

Oh God, I can’t do this. Not this. Make it
stop
.

It’s still happening. I put my hair in a French braid. It’s not really long enough but it looks cute. I layer on too much makeup but I don’t know that, and change into the sexiest dress I’m allowed to own.

Dad is right. I can feel my ribs when I run my hands down my body. Jack… Jack said something to me about it and I got mad at him. That’s right, he said I was getting too skinny, he was going to hog-tie me and feed me pizza.

“Ellie?”

“Yes?”

Dad walks into my bedroom and looms over me. He was an enormous man, six-foot-six and a former college football player. My mother, my
real
mother, was tiny by comparison. They met in school; she was a nursing major.

“You look spectacular,” he says.

With a more practiced eye I realize how silly he thinks my makeup looks. Oh, Dad, why did you have to die?

I want to hug him, but this isn’t happening, I can’t make it real. I’m dreaming. It starts to fade.

Nightmares aren’t as bad as this. I don’t remember any of this, the last thing I remember was that morning—

“Ellie?”

Jack’s voice calls from the hallway.

“She’s up here.”

He’s so young. Kind of gawky, even. Cute more than handsome, his whole body quivering with boyish energy that dampens when he realizes my father is watching us. He walks up and takes my hands and kisses me on the cheek.

“You look great. Shall we go?”

“Yeah. You driving, kid?” Dad says.

“Sure.”

Jack looks a little rattled when my father drops the keys to his car in Jack’s hands.

“I trust you with my little girl, what’s a car?”

Jack nods. “Come on, our reservation is at six.”

It’s awkward riding to the restaurant with my father in the backseat, but I get used to it. He’s treating us to dinner.

We walk right in when we arrive. Jack got us a great table. There’s an open-air terrace overlooking the sidewalk, with people walking by and the honking horns and noise of the city. Jack looks nervously at my father—as if either of them is hurting for money—before ordering a spread of appetizers on my behalf.

There’s something wrong. It hangs over the meal like a storm cloud over the horizon.

We’re waiting for dessert when the storm breaks.

“I have something to discuss with both of you,” my father says.

Neither of us speak. Spoke. Whatever.

I start to shake, knowing what he’s going to say.

“Ellie, your stepmother has been putting you under a lot of pressure lately. She’s recently told me that she’s been arranging auditions for you for a bit part in a television show. Some teenybopper thing like girls your age watch.”

I feel the color drain from my face.

“Do you want to do that?”

I look at Jack. He looks at me.

“No. I don’t.”

“Then you don’t have to. I’m going to put a stop to it. Ellie, I’ve been talking to an attorney. I think your stepmother and I are going to separate. Things have been tough between us for a year now.”

I had no idea.

“This crazy plan of hers is the last straw.”

“Dad…”

“No. I’m not going to let someone try to force you down a path they choose. You have your whole life ahead of you. It should be the life
you
want. The greatest crime the old can commit is to force their mistakes on their offspring. I want you to be happy most of all, Ellie. Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go in your life, I’ll be happy to support you.”

Silence falls over the table. The waiter brings dessert and brings my dad a scotch.

“I wish my father was like you,” Jack says, very quietly.

Dad smiles at him. “You know, I’m supposed to hate my daughter’s boyfriend, but you make me hope that one day you’ll join our family.”

Jack beams.

“Ellie, I think I’m going to ask Jessica to move out of the house this week. I’ve had enough.”

“Okay,” I say softly. “It’s your decision.”

“Do you want her to stay?”

I bite my lip.

“No.”

My past self eats cheesecake slowly, savoring the tastes. It’s not something she’s had lately. Real food. All protein shakes and bars and crap from Jessica. For me every bite is heavier and heavier, one step closer to the inevitable.

No. Please. Let me just freeze it right here. This is good enough, I don’t want any more.

I finish. Jack finishes. Dad downs his scotch. The boys argue over the bill. Jack tries to pay. I try to drag myself back but the three of us walk down to the street.

The car starts normally, drives normally. Jack is completely sober, and a cautious driver. He uses his turn signals.

No, no, no,
stop
.

Please!

“Hey,” Jack says, his voice rising in confusion and panic. “Hey man, the brakes aren’t working.”

“What?”

“I don’t… The engine is speeding up, what the fuck—”

“Put it in neutral!”

“I did, nothing is happening, the shifter isn’t connected or something!”

“Turn!
Turn
!”

The wheel is frozen in his hands. He twists it with all his might and it barely budges, chokes it with white knuckles until veins bulge on his neck, but it doesn’t move.

The street lamp rises ahead, casting its sickly orange glow down over us. The world rises, turns. With the tires free from the pavement the engine shrieks, its death cry growing shrill as it spins itself to oblivion. Everything turns lazily upside down, and the car crunches in around me.

Razors claw into my legs, my sides. A giant hammer crashes down on my hand and I feel every bone shatter, but that’s not the worst. A claw rakes across my face, shearing flesh from bone.

It
burns
. Nothing hurts worse than burning. Nothing smells worse than your own flesh cooking.

Then I am truly lost.

The next thing is a cough. I suck some water from a straw. My head is a mass of bandages as big as a basketball. I can only barely move my lips. Talking is like pulling a hot razor through my throat.

“Where’s… Jack…? Where’s… Dad?”

Jessica’s calm voice is like honey flowing over butter.

“Ellie,” she says, “Rest now. We can talk later.”

I bolt awake in the plane and claw at the armrests. I don’t know which side is real anymore, this or that. The car… The steering, the brakes, all the controls.
Our
car.

Dad was going to divorce her. I wasn’t going to be a television star. She was losing.

I look over at my mother.

“Ellie? Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah, just had a bad dream.”

She smiles warmly. “It’s okay, honey. We’ll be home soon, and everything will be like it should be.”

You miserable fucking
bitch
.

I know what you did.

Jack

“She couldn’t,” I say.

“She wouldn’t,” he says.

“Oh yeah?”

My father looks at me in defeat. “Is that what you’ve thought this entire time? That I’d risk your death, over what? Because I didn’t like your girlfriend? I liked her just fine before she got her face fucked up.”

I sigh. “You are the most disgusting human being on the entire fucking planet, do you know that?”

“There have to be at least fifty people worse than me.”

I tug on the handcuffs. “Get this fucking thing off me. You know it and I know it now. I thought you were trying to kill Ellie.”

“You really think that of me?”

“I wouldn’t fucking put it past you. I never thought it was
Jessica
.
Why?”

My father stands and fishes a handcuff key out of his pocket. The cuff clicks and I yank my hand free, rubbing at my raw wrist.

“You want to know the reason why?”

I nod.

“She had no kids by Ellie’s biological father. Once he was out of the picture, everything would go to her. Jessica would get nothing.”

“She told you this?”

“No, she didn’t have to. Not that she needs it, she’s done quite well for herself. She’s a smart woman, Jessica. Why do you think I married her?”

“Did you know? Did she tell you anything about this?”

“Of course not. I thought what everyone else thought. It was an accident. I read the police report. They blamed you.”

“I know,” I spit.

“Tell me again what happened?”

As he sits down, I glare at him. “How many goddamn times do we have to go through it, Dad? You never listened to me before.”

He grits his teeth. “Do you have any idea what the accident could have done to your political career?”

“Fuck my political career, okay? I don’t have a political career. This is what happened: I was driving and everything fucking stopped working. The car hit a lamppost and flipped over and caught fire. I don’t remember the impact. I woke up with my goddamn leg broken and tried to get Ellie out but the door wouldn’t budge. They had to tear the car open with those big shears. By the time they got to her, her father was dead and her fucking face was on fire.”

I clutch the sides of my head. “It doesn’t matter what caused it, it was my fault. There had to be something I could do. If I’d figured out a way, if I’d gotten the door open and gotten her out, something. There had to be something.”

“You were collateral damage.”

“What?”

“Jessica had the car sabotaged. She set you up. That’s why she waited until you were in the car with them—teenage rich boy gets drunk on a date, wrecks a fast car, very sad, move along, nothing to see here. She didn’t figure on the two of you living.”

“Why would she—”

Because she’d eliminate the heir to the family fortune along with Ellie’s father, making herself the sole heir to his fortune and the sole beneficiary to any insurance that he had. I’d bet you a million dollars that he put her in his will when they got married and didn’t bother changing it before he died.”

“Mother puss bucket.”

“Yeah.”

“Dad, look at me.”

He looks at me. His face goes slack. Something like defeat rests in his eyes.

“I’m not going to run for president or congress or any other fucking thing, do you understand me? I’m just not, and you’re going to have to accept it. That’s not the life I want and no one is going to put a leash on me and force me down a path I don’t want to follow. I don’t know where I’m going to end up, what I’m going to do. If I have to get a studio apartment with Ellie and work at a gas station, that’s what I’ll do.”

“You understand I told you I’d cut you off if you don’t cooperate.”

“I could have a billion dollars, but without Ellie I’d be poor. Don’t you get it?”

“You care about her that much?”

I look at him, my gaze unwavering, my eyes locked on his.

“Do you know how many times I’ve prayed since the accident? How many times I offered the man upstairs a deal? Take me instead. Change it. Let her get out of the car with the broken leg and burn my face off. Let me die in the backseat so she could go home with her father instead.”

“You would do that? If you really could, you’d do that?”

“
Yes
.”