Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (84 page)

Sleep came late and left early and I rose on that Friday, unsure of what I meant to do with myself. The weather had swung around radically overnight, leaving my sinuses aching. I dug out a coat and decided I'd go for a walk. When I passed the office, the door was closed. No matter, I decided; Tom rose early that day to get to work and locked himself in. Nothing amiss there, nothing out of the ordinary.

The air outside was crisp. It was a clear day, edging from coat weather into jacket weather, and the leaves were all down, swirling around the street in little dust devils. I set out with no destination in mind and ended up walking over to Commerce Street to the shoe store. I stood out front for a while, looking up at the narrow windows of our old living room. A year ago, if I was standing here, Hawk would show up. He wouldn't have to call me or text me. He'd just know I was here. That was always how it was. We could predict each other's moves that way.

For some reason I stood there as if he might show. He didn't. I started walking.

Up Commerce and then to the park. I circled the big walking track inside, trying to organize my thoughts, silently quiz myself for my intro to biology exam the next week. The material was child's play for me, but I kept going over and over it. When I was thinking about mitochondria and cell division I wasn't thinking about Hawk.

He crept into my thoughts anyway. Everything I saw reminded me of him. That bench over there was where we sat the day a wasp stung his eyelid. That tree over there was where we found a toad. That grove of ash was where we smoked our first and only joint Todd gave Hawk in exchange for writing an English paper for him. It just gave me a headache, but Hawk liked it. It didn't matter, though, he never smoked again that I knew of because I wasn't into it. No conversation, that's just how it went.

I swear, every spot, every tree in that park had some memory attached to it. Silly things like catching fireflies, or once I thought he would kiss me but he didn't. I don't even know if he looked at me that way then. By the time I made the walking track circuit and came around to standing in front of the war memorial at the gates, I felt like I was a million years old. How could I be only eighteen-going-on-nineteen if all this shit happened to me? Losing him aged me the most. I wasn't alive anymore, I was mourning my life.

I started home and ended up walking back to the shoe store. I forgot I didn't live there anymore. That was the last straw. I broke down and sobbed right there in the street, stood there crying softly to myself, hands thrust in my pockets.

"Are you okay?"

Startled, I jumped back. A tall woman on a bicycle stopped right next to me, looking confused. She was bundled up for the weather and a long auburn braid hung over her shoulder, from under a battered, scuffed helmet.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"You don't look fine. Do I know you?"

I blinked a few times.

"I don't think so… wait, are you a teacher?"

She nodded. "Yes. I teach at No. 2."

"You were new when I graduated. I remember."

"I thought you looked familiar, but I don't remember you from class."

She stuck out her hand. I took it and shook it.

"Alexis."

"Jennifer. Are you sure you're okay? You look upset."

I looked up at the apartment. "I am upset."

She let out a long sigh, and her breath puffed in the chill air.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not today," I started to say, but I changed my mind. "Wait. Sure."

She swung down from her bike and walked it alongside me, down the block to the I Bean Missing You, the coffee shop. She locked up her bike outside and we went in. She took hers black; I ordered a pumpkin spice latte and we sat down in the corner.

"You just graduated," she said.

"Yeah."

"I remember you from the senior trip. Is it your boyfriend?"

"He's not…" I started to say, reflexively.

Every time somebody joked about Hawk being my boyfriend flooded back into my head and it landed on me like a ton of bricks: They weren't joking, and they were right.

I held my cup in my hands and looked down, trying to look like I was staring into it, and not starting to cry again.

"I'm sorry," Jennifer said softly, and rested her hand on mind. "I don't want to pry, but did he-"

"I don't know," I whimpered. "He just disappeared. He was supposed to pick me up after the last day of school so we could go on a real date and he never showed up."

Jennifer sipped her coffee. Her voice was strangely flat. "Do you know where he is?"

"No. Nobody will tell me?"

"Have you gone to the police?"

I froze. "What?"

"Have you gone to the police?"

"No, I… I mean…"

"Probably not a good idea," she said, softly. "Do you think he's…"

"I don't know," I whimpered. I didn't want the fucking pumpkin spice latte anymore. I slammed it down on the table.

The coffee lapped over the sides and stung my fingers with the heat.

"I wish there was something I could do to help," Jennifer said, softly. "If you want to talk again, look me up on the school directory. My number's there. Do you want me to walk home with you?"

"No, that's okay," I said, dabbing up spilled coffee with a napkin. "I'll be fine."

I felt bad about the coffee, so I stuffed a ten dollar bill into the tip jar and walked home.

It was Friday and the dorms reopened on Sunday. When I got home I went back to studying. May came in and we hung out and ended up playing games on her phone. I felt butterflies in my stomach whenever I thought about my tests but I desperately needed to just goof off with my sister, so I did.

Saturday was much the same.

On Sunday morning I had all my things packed and was ready to leave. I finished filling the big suitcase when there was a knock at my door. Expecting May, I opened it eagerly and found Tom standing outside. Flanking him on either side were two Paradise Falls cops.

"What's going on?" I said, barely able to talk. It felt like my throat was closing.

"You're coming with us."

"I can't, I have to go back to school," I said, lamely.

"It doesn't matter. You're not going anywhere."

"I can't, I have exams!"

Tom stepped back. "Take her."

I didn't stand a chance. Two grown men grabbed my arms, and they handcuffed me. May was screaming, and Tom told Lance to drag her back into her room. My mother watched dully, scratching her chin as they carried me down the stairs and out the back door, to a police car parked in the backyard, in front of the carriage house, and shoved me inside. The door slamming shut was like the door to my coffin. Inside it was hot and smelled awful, like dried blood in a dirty bathroom.

As soon as the cops got in I demanded, "Where are you taking me?"

Terror pounded in my chest, tried to crack my ribs. They were going to do to me what they did to Hawk.

It got worse from there.

My memories of the next few days are in and out, fragmentary. I remember images more than events, scents and voices. Lying on a bed strapped down with thick leather bands around my wrists and ankles as lights swept overhead, florescent lights, hospital lights. An IV bag next to the bed. They had me tied down for days, I don't even remember getting up. At some point I ended up in a white room.

The only thing I really remember is when Tom came in.

I couldn't really move. My arms and legs felt like sand, my bones like lead weights. I could turn my head to look at him. They closed the door behind him and I heard it lock, and he pulled up a chair.

"Hello, Alexis."

I didn't answer him. I wasn't sure if I could.

"We've taken steps to take care of you," he said, his gaze never leaving mine. "Your behavior has been increasingly erratic over the last few days. Your mother and I were afraid you'd hurt yourself, so she signed papers to have you hospitalized."

"You," I choked out, "had me committed."

"No, she did. At least, she signed the papers."

"I can't," it took too much effort to speak, "Can't move."

"No, you've been sedated. Heavily. You won't be awake much longer, so I want you to pay special attention to what I'm about to tell you."

He stood up, and he put his hand on my stomach. I wanted to tense up, my brain told my body tense up, but I couldn't move. His hand moved up and
almost
cupped my breast, just rested right below my chest, then went down. I wanted to puke as I felt his hand trace down my stomach and along my leg.

"You’re my daughter now," he said, very calmly. "You have two choices. You can behave, or."

"What?"

He reached in his pocket and flicked open a knife. It wasn't very big, the blade couldn't have been more than three inches long. He pressed it to the inside of my leg and I felt it split open the hospital pajamas and felt the hot, rough touch of the sharp edge on my skin.

"I'll cut you. Deep. It'll hit the artery. You'll bleed out in about thirty seconds. It’ll hurt a great deal. A very traumatic and painful way to die. I'm told only drowning is worse."

"You can't."

"They'll mark it down as a suicide. It’ll be very tragic. You’ll be buried and forgotten, and then your sister will be given the same choice. Behave or…"

I felt the knife move.

"Please no," I croaked out. "Please please."

He took the knife away, folded it, tucked it in his pocket.

"So you understand. That's good. You’re completely in my power now. When your mother married me, she joined my household, along with you and your sister. In my household, I’m the absolute authority. You’ll do what I say, when I say. When I tell you I want something done, you’ll do it without question. When I tell you to stay out of my office, you’ll stay out of my office. You’ll keep to yourself, and do as you’re told at all times. Do you understand?"

I nodded, a tiny twitch of my chin.

"If I tell you to drop everything at three in the morning and come home, you will. If I tell you to climb on the roof of the house, you will. When I say jump, you say how high. If you don't, you come back here, and next time I may not give you an option. Understood?"

I nodded.

He seemed satisfied. "We'll keep you here for, say, a week. I'll make arrangements with your instructors at the college. Your education will continue, but enough of this marine biology nonsense, you'll be changing your major to something more practical."

I wanted to scream.

"One more thing," he said, very softly. "Never ask about my eldest son again. Never speak his name. He's dead to you."

After Tom left, something cracked inside me.

He didn't say Hawk was dead.

He said
dead to you
.

Alexis

Now

"I'm going to kill him," Hawk says, softly.

I tense and suck in a breath. "You can't. Hawk, you can't do that."

"Why not?" he growls.

His arms tighten around my waist, I rest my hands on his and wriggle in his lap. He breathes on my scalp and sniffs at my hair.

"If you do that, they'll take you away from me again."

"You're right," he says, softly. "So what I am I supposed to do? I'm not leaving unless you come with me."

"I can't leave May."

He sighs, exasperated. "Bring her, too."

"How?" I say, turning. "Hawk, she's a minor. If we take her with us and run, they'll use her age against us. We'll go to jail and May will end up back here with your father."

Hawk goes quiet for a while. "There has to be something I can do."

"I don't know, I…"

I trail off and watch more rockets sail skyward. The big part of the display is spinning up now. We're running out of time.

"There's something I haven't told you."

"What?" he says. "Tell me."

"I've been working on getting him to trust me for years. When they let me out of the hospital I was terrified-"

His arms tighten around me again.

"-I did whatever he said, for months, through the next year. Then I realized May was going to be stuck in this hell even longer, even if I found a way to escape. I was thinking about escape. It started when I was off for the summer from my first year of school. I kept looking for a way to get away. Even something as silly as going on a class trip or something and just walking off, but Tom would never let me go if he even had a whiff that I was thinking about leaving, and I was sure he'd find me."

A popping rocket interrupts me, and we both go quiet as the main display starts. Music blasts from loudspeakers, starting with the
1812 Overture
. I go quiet and watch while Hawk holds me. I rest my head on his chest and let myself relax, rising and falling with his breathing. He radiates strength in a weird way. I feel safe, even if I'm in grave danger sitting here with him like this.

"What happened?" he asks, as the music dies down.

"I met somebody."

He perks up. "What?"

"No, not like that," I roll my eyes. "May was having issues at school. She brought home a note and told me she wanted me to call instead of Mom. I knew it was a bad idea, but it was May. It was this past year. Her English teacher wanted to talk to me. Said May was sullen and flighty at school, and she was worried that May was being abused."

"She is," Hawk growls.

"Yeah, nobody touches her, thank God, but it's hurting her. She's getting weird," my voice tightens, coils up. "I'm worried they'll do to her what they did to me, only keep her longer, if she acts out or tries to leave. Nobody will help us."

"I will," he says.

I choke out a sob. "I needed you. I needed you and you didn't come. I kept expecting you to burst through the door and rescue me."

He holds me tighter and I feel his lips on my neck. His breath tickles my skin.

"I'm so sorry. If I knew I'd have come."

"Wouldn't you get in trouble? Have to go to Navy jail or something?"

"I'd worry about that later. Nothing matters to me like you do, Alex. You're the only person I've ever known that I felt I truly had a connection with, besides…"

Besides his mother, but he doesn't say it.