Mastering the Devil (Rush Series Book 4) (17 page)

The blonde gave her what seemed to be a sincere smile. “Sorry, I thought you were one of the staff from the hotel.”
It was then the woman noticed her clothes. “Oh my!” she exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

Devon blinked as she tried to detect any falseness in her apparent concern. “Nothing… it’s a long story. Is Alex still here?” she asked.

The woman turned to glance behind her before her lips firmed into a grim line. “Uhh, yes,” she said, hesitantly to Devon.

Wanting to pull the woman from behind the door and beat her senseless then turn her fury on Alex, Devon instead just said more sharply than she’d intended, “I need to see
him.”

The woman glanced behind herself again, but this time when she turned back, a mask of passivity covered her face. “I’m sorry, but Alex is… indisposed at the moment. If you’d like to come back tomorrow or the next day, I’m sure he’d be delighted to see you. Maybe you could call first?”

The blood roared in Devon’s ear as an image of Alex lying naked on top of the bed, popped into her head. Envious hurt welled up inside her and those stupid tears she’d battled all day rose up fiercely and she willed herself not to blink furiously so as not to give herself away.

Quietly, with as much muster as she could manage, she replied, “I’ll do that.”
Making herself appear casual, she turned and made her way back the way she’d come.

She held it together until she reached the parking lot. She glanced around wild
ly and spotted a bench a little way down the sidewalk which ran the length of the hotel. With haggard steps, she made her way and slumped down onto it. She looked away from the entrance of the hotel and bowed her head as useless tears slid down her cheeks. No matter how many times she berated herself for them, they continued to slide heedlessly down her cheeks and splash on her bared thighs. Her entire life had gone straight to hell!

Through her tears, she tried to
again think rationally, but when the thought of waiting until Alex left the hotel to catch him entered her mind, a deep sob was wrenched from her. She couldn’t stand seeing him with that woman, probably with his arm draped easily around her petite shoulders. What was she to do? Desperation clawed at her. She was in the city of her youth and she didn’t have one person she could call for help.

Angrily, she swiped at the offensive and useless tears. Once more looking at her options
- minus the one of Alex, she made a decision. She had no choice; she’d have to make her way to her house and try to scavenge something. With every part of her body in protest, she rose and turned once more to the street running in front of the hotel. She glanced up and saw the sun was now far to the west of its center position. She figured it’d be dark before she actually arrived at her shell of a home… just like her life, a shell filled with burned and scattered things. A shell that would, with time, fall away into a state of nothingness – as if it’d never existed. A shell that had been irrevocably destroyed.

She’d been walking for two hours when the rain started. Rain in Mexico wasn’t uncommon, but for Devon, it was extremely unwelcomed. The straps holding her flip-flops on her feet rubbed harshly and abrasively against her skin, and it wasn’t long before a blisters formed. She considered removing them and walking barefooted, but decided against it. So she continued on down the sidewalks of town, as the rain drenched her clothing in a matter of seconds.

It wasn’t long after that she began to shiver, which surprised her because of how humid and warm the air actually was. Her body automatically tensed against the shivers, which made her even more acutely aware of every pain and ache in her body. She glanced down at the pain
pills prescribed to her clutched in the ineffectual, sodden paper bag. How ironic that she was soaked to the bone and yet did not have enough water to take even one damned pill! Mindlessly, she continued to place one foot in front of the other. The squelching of her feet against the rubber of her shoes really began to grate on her nerves. Hopelessness began to settle like a mantel over her shoulders until she felt bogged down in it.

The only bright spot was that at least the rain had rinsed most of the blood from her clothes. She wanted to laugh at the absurdness of the thought, but was afraid if she started to laugh, it would immediately turn into gut-wrenching sobs. The wind began to pick up and it seemed to sling the raindrops harshly against her face, stinging her skin like the bites of a thousand little mosquitoes.

The image of her mother’s legs kept returning to her mind over and over again. It seemed no matter how hard she tried to turn away from it, her mind just wouldn’t let it go. Pain at her loss burned in her chest. She was relieved when she finally turned onto the street her house had been situated on. Her relief, however, was short lived as she slowly approached what had been her home since she’d been a young girl. She blinked against the rain as she struggled to see what was left. While the explosion was responsible for destroying the back of the house; fire was responsible for the rest.

Yellow crime
scene tape was strung between two great oaks which adorned her front yard, but now also bore the scars of the fire. The smell of burned wood and melted plastic still hung heavily in the air. Even the rain had been unable to remove its stench. She stood still, her lips trembling as she took in the devastation of the last connection she’d had with not only her parents, but her old life; the life she’d had before Miguel Munoz had barged his way into their lives and completely destroyed it… destroyed them.

Suddenly more weary than she’d ever been in her life. She allowed her shoulders to slump, which sent sharp stabs of protest from
her re-healing shoulder. She didn’t care, she welcomed the pain. Her outer afflictions couldn’t compare to the violent turmoil she was weathering internally.

Not knowing what to do or where to go, she moved under the relatively sparse protection of one of the great oaks. While the limbs of the tree offered some relief from the rain, it certainly didn’t stop it. She slid down the rough bark of the tree and drew her bare legs up to her body and stretched her sopping T-shirt out and slipped her bend legs underneath it. She rested her
arm on her knees, before laying her head down. Exhaustion warred heavily with the hollow ache she now had in her chest.

She closed her eyes
and now that her defenses were well and truly beaten down, she felt the warmth of her tears as they slid slowly down her cheeks. For the first time in her whole life, she had no end-game. She didn’t know where she was going or how she’d even get there if she had known. Miguel had finally beaten her. She had no more reserves. He’d taken everything, little by little, until there was nothing left – her parents, Roman, Alex, and even the death of her ‘so-called’ career could ultimately be laid at his feet.

More than anything, she wished she’d gone with Alex to his beloved Savannah when he’d asked her the first time all those years before.
She wondered if they’d have married by now, maybe even have had a couple of kids. She rubbed her tired face against the wet fabric of her shirt. Her mother would have liked being a grandmother. Her throat burned with the tears she struggled to contain. The chill of her skin seemed to burrow its way to her insides as desperation washed through her veins like tiny shards of icicles.

Once again, the
list of grievances she’d set against herself rolled through her mind. Her beautiful mother dead; and it was her fault. Dear sweet, young Roman, her very best-friend, dead; and it was her fault. Cash lying in a hospital, nearly killed; and it was her fault.
Alex
. Her heart twisted painfully in her chest at the mere thought of his name. Alex, the man she’d loved from the very first, the man she’d planned to eventually spend the rest of her life with, dead… or at least to her; and again, it was her fault.

She lifted her hand to brush the hair out of her face when she realized she still clutched the bottle of pain pills within her grasp. The white pharmacy bag had long since
disintegrated, just melted away with the pounding rain. She stared dispassionately at the small brownish bottle with a dozen or more tiny white pills contained within.

She swallowed as a thought
, so dark it scared her, crossed her mind. She stared intently at the tiny white pills, looking for answers to questions she didn’t dare speak out loud. The pills could be her way out. No more pain, no more sorrow… no more anything. Slowly she tilted the bottle first one way then the other as she contemplated her options. Sadly, she couldn’t really think of any other recourse but the one she currently held in her hand.

She thought briefly of Alex and Cash. They’d both be angry at her. But they each had their own lives and she was a hindrance to the both of them. As she had one arm bound to her body to heal, the only way she could open the child-proof lid was to place the bottom of the bottle between her teeth and push-in and twist the cap with her other hand. Once it was loosened enough to open, she took a deep breath, and for an instant considered the folly of her plan.
But the image of her mother’s legs jutting out from under the kitchen table flooded her mind once more. She’d be so happy not to have to see that image ever again.

She licked against the dryness of her lips and mouth. How was she supposed to swallow pills when she didn’t even have enough saliva to swallow properly? She looked up to the branches of the tree for guidance. With hands that trembled slightly, whether from fear or cold, she wasn’t
certain, she thumbed the loosened lid from the bottle and slowly tipped all the pills into mouth. Sticking the bottle out in front of her, she watched as rain was quickly captured in the now pill-less bottle.

The pills were bitter in her mouth
and they began to numb her tongue. She waited until the bottle was nearly full before bringing the capture rainwater to her lips. She swallowed and gagged against the pills, her throat nearly refusing to work as parched as it’d been for hours. Once again, she held the bottle out, then drank the tepid liquid. She did this once more before allowing the bottle to fall from her fingers. With a sigh, she once again laid her head on her folded arm. She wondered why she felt no regret and no guilt at her actions.

She began to get a little light-headed and her mind began to get cloudy. She struggled to think of things she knew were probably important, but she’d be damned if she could remember what they were. Feeling very discombobulated, s
oftly, she began to hum the tune to a Spanish lullaby her father used to croon to her as a young child. Then as her eyes began to drift closed, she began to softly sing the ending chorus of the sad, sweet song:
A lullaby for you, don’t worry, baby, I’ll be here by your side. May tomorrow be wonderful too, close to you I hope to stay, endlessly from today. Even through cloudy days you are not alone.

A lone tear slid down her cheek at the irony of those words; because she was indeed alone – very, very alone. As the dark fridges in her mind began to grow
and expand, in the distance, she was almost certain she could actually hear her father once again crooning those words in his pleasant baritone voice; and for the first time in days – she smiled
.

~M~

Alex opened his heavy lids at the gentle prodding against his arm. He looked again into Ensley’s now trouble blue eyes. He swallowed and his throat burned for the effort. Licking against his dry lips, he rasped, “What’s up?”

Turning from him, he watched as she quickly strode into the alcove situated between the bedroom and the bathroom, where a bar-sink was situated. She returned with a glass filled with water. She placed the glass against his lips and helped him drink from it. He found the effort tiring and had closed his eyes once more when he once again felt her hand on his arm. Wearily, he opened his eyes once more.

“I’m sorry, Alex, but I really need to tell you something. I’m hesitant to mention it because I think you really need to rest, but…” her voice trailed off.

His body ached and burned, and his head throbbed as he mentally cursed the good doctor. It took everything in him not to throw out a string of curse words as he watched her hesitate over whatever she’d thought important enough to wake him.
Just out with it
, he wanted to shout irritably.

As he struggled to keep his eyes opened, while
simultaneously ignoring the pain burning in his body, he watched as she stood before him in her wrinkled and creased clothes, wringing her hands before him. He’d never seen her so unkempt - not even when she’d returned to the hotel after an all-nighter from only God knows where. His anger crashed as he realized all she’d done for him and what she’d had to push aside to do so.

“What is it?” he finally asked calmly.

“I think I may have done something bad,” she finally said.

He gave a small shake of his head as he struggled to understand the situation. “I doubt that.”

She brushed a hand against her hair, which was tousled and appeared to have had her hands run through it before. “Alex…,“ she began once more.

Sighing heavily, his patience reaching an end, he snapped, “What is it, Ensley!”

Tightening her jaw, and lifting her chin, she blurted, “Devon was here.”

Her words crashed against his brain and caused his head to pound harder. “You didn’t let her in, did you?” he asked, hoping against hope that she hadn’t.