Trust Me (34 page)

Until I’ll hear you scream

His words were sang so perfect, so on pitch and meant to break a woman down in heartache. This was the Chad that I knew long before we dated. This guy singing was the man I thought I had tames, thought loved me… then I saw her. Trisha took a microphone and the stage alongside Chad. Her voice like the perfect counterpart to him she joined in and her words were gutting me.

Say my name and I’ll say yours

First things first, don’t walk out the door

Get lost in me with your deepest stare

Take my body baby and handle with care.

It was like a song intended for me to learn my lesson and crushed I couldn’t look away from the former lovers and their tragic tale on stage. Chad was looking out at the crowd but his words were intended for me even if he didn’t think they were. I was the Trisha in this song, the fool who hopelessly loved a man who would never see the pain he caused.

You ask for things that I can’t give

You’ve seen my moves and how I live

Handle with care is not my style.

What
is, is making you scream my name for a while.

But when
I’m done and out your door,

You will see I was never meant for more

I live this way and keep it real

I don’t know your name or how you feel

And leave you guessing if I was real.

Cal is in the middle of them now and the fans are going crazy. Trisha is taking the song to a whole new level as she storms toward Noah and leans beside him as he follows his bass perfect. Chad looks back over the crowd, the song slower and just carried by his rhythm guitar now the bridge having come to an end.

A warm body beside me to keep me warm

I’m a hurricane, a tornado and a mighty storm

It’s over now, don’t be so blue.

I’ll do the same thing to the next girl too.

The crowd went crazy as the band came back in and Chad focused all his attention on his guitar refusing to look at Trisha as she finished her part of the song.

You broke my heart, it’s all I know

Doubts now my truth and all I know

Don’t hold my hand and whisper me lies

Because lies are still lies when you open your eyes

Forget my name
there’s nothing to say

All between us was only a game

Kiss me goodbye with your sad smile

Our memories will repeat for a very long while

His hands were on his guitar stroking the strings with the same enthusiasm he carried through the song. He was intense and strong and so fucking talented. His voice echoed as deep as his words and I knew the truth behind them. Visions of him inside of me earlier, begging me never to leave him flashing like lightening in my mind. I could hear his pained voice, telling me I was his, to license his roving hands. I wanted to be sick. I felt like a fool and now when I looked at him, I saw how easily he played me, just as easily as he is playing the crowd before him with her at his side. This song is the Chad Blake I never met.

I thought I would be stronger by the time she left the stage but by the fifth song I was crying, unable to think of anything but the reality crashing around me. I looked to Candy who was watching and dancing enthralled by the show and I envied her joy. Just hours before the bomb that Trisha dropped, I would have been dancing along with her. Now I was running away from everyone, letting the truth fall where it may.

I told Candy I was running to the bathroom when in reality I was running home to lick my wounds and hide. I made my way out of the stadium and called for a cab when Ben arrived with a polite grin. “Miss Beckett, Miss True told me to follow if you were leaving and Mr. Blake and Mr. Beckett would fire me if I let you leave alone.” I should have known that Candy wouldn’t be fooled. She suspected I would run and she probably knew she was right. Ben placed his hand on my lower back and guided me toward a sleek black sedan and opened the back door for me. “Mr. Corbin said the use of the car was for anyone on the tour Miss Beckett and that includes you. Monte is your driver and he will see to it that you arrive safely wherever you wish to go.”

Once he had me in the car he strode off talking into his mouthpiece. The car was ridiculously awesome. A full wet bar to my right, and a sound system with television combined straight ahead of me where a partition separated me from the driver. The lead singer of the Sinners, Ryan Corbin, clearly liked his guests feeling his extravagance even when he wasn’t around.

I appreciated the ride, but I would have taken a bus if it meant getting away from my heartache while he played songs and made love to thousands of screaming women. It hadn’t bothered me before tonight, perhaps it was Trisha’s words, words I was desperately hoping were lies, or the fact that he was as I always thought he was and that was out of my league.

*

By the time I made it home to Gig Harbor, the day’s events had come back and I was admittedly scared to go inside. After a ten minute pep talk with myself and Monte the driver assuming I was insane, I stepped from the car with a promise to call Uncle Seth to come get me if he could. It was after midnight, but we had learned at a young age to fear our dad and never give him the benefit of the doubt. Asleep or not I was making Uncle Seth come and get me.

I grabbed my clutch and reached inside for my keys and cell phone, giving a quick wave and smile to Monte who left once I made it to the door. “Seth it’s Carrie.” I stated when my uncle’s tired voice answered the phone.

“What’s going on Carrie? It’s almost midnight?” Seth was on alert immediately.

I decided to gently lie and explain my arrival back home. “I got in a fight with Chad and got a ride back home. I was mad and hurting and didn’t think about the fact dad had texted me after watching me. I’m nervous being here but didn’t want my ride to have to drive me to another place. Can you come get me and let me-“ The phone went flying from my hand the instant I shut the door behind me. Burning pain assailed me and I knew, knew who fucking hit me. No one hit like dear old dad.

I tried to follow the light from the phone, my immediate response to scream to Seth and hope like hell he could hear me, not sure if the phone hung up when it went flying. All the same I screamed for help, crawling toward the light coming from my phone. I could hear his footsteps charging toward me before I felt the hard kick to my ribs, my stomach and one to the back of my head before seeing the light on my phone go out.

Tears were falling in abundance while I tried to make my mind work but my words wouldn’t come. I could hear his voice but the words weren’t making sense. I think he kicked me to hard, my head was throbbing and a pain was lancing deeply through my stomach making me want to vomit. I saw the phone on the floor light up but still I didn’t hear anything, it continued to light up every few seconds and didn’t stop. I felt hopeless then, my mind coming back online, I knew it was probably Seth calling me curious what happened. He must not have heard my screams.

I wanted to curl up and die due to the pain in my stomach, each time I coughed I could taste the coppery thickness of blood and I knew he definitely hit me too hard.

“Why?” I choked, blood seeping from the side of my mouth. His laughter was something I wasn’t used to. He never laughed or smiled, never showed a moment of kindness. The man was a sociopath with no moral compass. He was all ego, always had been. His being a Lieutenant for Seattle PD had made him the fearless man he was today. “I called Seth, he’s on his way you’ll be arrested and we will tell everything!”

I spat those words with all the hate and disgust I held for him. I was tired of being afraid, tired of memories that would never go away. I was tired of seeing Noah’s needles every few years when he couldn’t take it. I was tired of justifying why we stayed silent and ran. I was tired of TRUST ME and how it did me no good now. I wanted him to rot in hell forever and a day. I wanted to kill him, slowly and that thought terrified me because I knew I would feel no shame.

“Please Princess, remember who I am and bite your tongue. Seth aint doing shit. As far as the police department here, let the four cops in Gig Harbor come running.” He laughed and it was cocky and fearless. Jesus, fuck I hated him.

“I don’t care. Noah has proof and you know it.”

“You would let your precious Noah embarrass himself and you with that ‘proof’ just to see me behind bars?”

He said the word proof with a smirk and I knew he thought we were bluffing, but we took no chances when it came to him. We set him up and he would never find our proof. “Keep telling yourself that. I will stand before any jury and rattle off my years of sexual abuse, Noah’s physical abuse and the mental abuse to us both. I will give every grimy detail to your fellow officers. There is nothing I won’t do at this point to see you suffer.” The pain in my stomach is making it hard to breathe, combined with the rib pain and the head wound I was close to passing out. Passing out in my state was bad fucking news.

“How can you call what I did for you abuse? Sexual assault my ass Caroline. You begged me at times to take you, I was giving in to you at your request.”

Yep I puked again, blood splashed against the floor, blood from my stomach and the pain was so severe I couldn’t open my eyes. “We will find a way to kill you. I swear to god I will do it myself…”

The pain took hold and I couldn’t finish my threat. Even in my worst moment of weakness, I refused to back down to him, refused to accept whatever he came to finish.

“Not if I kill first Caroline.” He said and bent, pressing against my stomach. Pain thrashed against every nerve in my body, whatever he hit was bleeding and bad. I was dying right here and he was going to let me. I only had one card to play, this was my only hand.

“The minute my heart stops Noah will find you, kill you but not before he destroys you. Word gets out I’m dead, he has three different people holding those tapes and pictures. There won’t be a place for you to hide and when he kills you, I’ll be there dragging your ass to hell and watching you burn.
Dad
!”

My final words might have been bad ass but the feel of my body fading rapidly terrified me. Thoughts of Chad giving me flowers, thoughts of Noah sneaking me out windows, thoughts of Candy smiling when she looked at Noah, and last I saw Chad with Trisha and it all made sense. He was nervous at the meet and greet, scared she would tell me the truth perhaps? I would never know.

The lights went out and I was gone.

If this world is wearing thin

And you’re thinking of escape

I’ll go anywhere with you

Just wrap me up in chains

But if you try to go alone

Don’t think I’ll understand

Stay with me

Stay with me

Shakespeare’s Sister

Chapter
Twenty-One

A low beeping noise rose me from my sleep, my head weighed a million pounds and every move I made felt like a million UFC fighters were kicking the shit out of me. My jaw hurt and I tried to move my mouth but couldn’t open it, or my eyes. Panic set in, the beeping getting faster but I knew nothing, trapped in a state between sleep and reality.

No clue where I was I just prayed that I wasn’t still at home bleeding out on the floor, or worse, waiting to meet my dad on a trip to hell. Panic remembering everything he said, everything he did. I puked blood; I remembered the pain but nothing after my threat of vicious murder. Had I killed him? I hoped like hell I had. Was I dead now and this was my punishment for hiding and lying about the truth? That’s when I heard it, faint but heard it all the same. “What is that, what’s happening?” It was Noah’s voice, panic and duress lining every syllable. I wanted to tell him to wake me up, but it was like everything was broken.

“Her heart rate is up, but her vitals are good.” It was a woman’s voice, sweet and gentle. I knew immediately it wasn’t Candy. I wanted it to be Candy, I wanted to hear her voice in case I died. I loved her, she was my best friend and sister of my heart. I always teased her and never told her how amazing a friend she was to me.

“Noah you should go home and rest sweetie. She is still induced for her own safety, a few more days and we will know more.”

Induced? What the fuck did that mean? I was in a coma maybe? Did I survive? Was I out of the woods? Fuck I wished they would talk more about my condition. I whimpered when I tried to move, I just wanted to hold his hand so he knew I heard him but pain attacked me at every turn.

“No because she moves and it hurts her I can see it. What if it gives her a heart attack or worse? I’ll stay right the fuck here but thanks anyway Brenda.” Noah sounded hurt and scared and sad, things he never let me see let alone hear. It was weird being alert, knowing what was going on around me, but still unable to move or awaken, like my brain was awake but my body was saying fuck off.

“We can control the pain Noah you know that. At least go eat.” That was the Brenda lady again but I didn’t get any other information because my mind shut down that quick shutting me off from any information scaring me as I drifted into dreamless sleep wondering if I would ever wake up.

*

“Noah please just get some rest.” Candy begged and I wanted to smile at her voice. I was back but I didn’t know how long I had been gone this time. It kept happening, every now and then I would hear them talking, Noah a lot and often Candy too. A few times I heard aunt Lilly crying and begging me to stay strong and fight. That was the only time I knew Noah left the room.