“It’s just a graze,” she murmured. “The doc will clean you up, maybe give you a couple of stitches. You’ll be good as new.”
Her hand wrapped around mine, squeezing lightly.
Tia scrambled out of the way and I realized I was sitting in the backseat of another black SUV. Then King was in front of me, his arms wrapped tightly around my body.
My own arms lifted and curled around his back.
“Thank God you’re all right,” he growled, hugging me so close I couldn’t breathe.
My eyes lifted to meet Tia’s over his shoulder. Though she didn’t say anything, I knew she understood I’d never be all right again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Four Weeks Later
‡
It was a dream. It had to be a dream.
I stood in the middle of the field that surrounded the white building where I nearly died. The sun shone down on me, so bright it almost hurt my eyes. Standing about fifteen feet from me was Katie.
It wasn’t the gaunt, damaged woman I’d last seen. This was the Katie I’d met years ago, pretty, sweet, and young. The Katie I knew before life ruined her.
“Why?” she asked me, her hands clutching at her belly.
I looked down and saw the gun clasped loosely in my right hand. Horrified, I dropped it on the grass.
When I lifted my eyes again, Katie was much closer. She stood about five feet from me, holding out her hands. Her palms were dripping with thick, dark red blood. I watched in horror as fat droplets fell to the ground, staining the bright green grass and turning it brown.
More blood welled out of the holes in her torso, all five of them.
“Why, Jena?” she whimpered. “Why did you kill me?”
“I had to,” I answered in a whisper. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She took a shambling step forward. “You always have a choice, Jena. You wanted to kill me. You wanted to hurt me.”
Closing my eyes, I put my hands over my ears like a child, wanting to block out her words. “That’s not true. I never wanted to hurt you, Katie. I loved you.”
Her sticky hands closed over my wrists, yanking them away from my head. My eyes flew open and I gasped in terror.
Katie’s face began to turn brown, then black, withering before my very eyes. Her eyes were bulging out of her skull and her lips peeled back from her teeth.
“Admit it, Jena. You’re just like me. You enjoyed killing me.”
“NO!” I shrieked, fighting against her hold. “NONONONO!”
Screams tore from my throat as the dream shattered around me and I scrambled out of the bed, hitting the floor hard.
Rolling onto my back, I crab walked away from the figure standing over me, crying out in terror.
The lamp next to the bed flipped on, revealing King’s half naked body. I stopped my desperate attempts to escape, collapsing against the cold floor.
When he crouched down, hesitantly reaching out for me, I dove into his arms. He rocked back on his ass, holding me close.
I buried my face in his neck and let the sobs overwhelm me. I cried and cried. I didn’t understand how the human body could hold so many tears. Every day since it happened, I’d cried more tears than I did when Justin died.
“Shh, darlin’. I got you. I’m right here,” King crooned in my ear, his hand stroking over my hair.
My body bucked harder and I clutched at him almost violently. I wanted him to absorb me, his strength to swallow my weakness so I never had to stand alone again.
“Was it the same dream, baby?” he whispered.
I nodded against his neck, the spasms lessening.
He rocked me in his lap, his hand stroking over my hair, as I cried out the rest of my tears. When the storm subsided, he lifted me up and laid me gently on the bed.
He disappeared into the bathroom while I blew my nose and mopped the last of the tears from my cheeks. A few seconds later he returned with a cool, damp cloth, a glass of water, and three pills.
I took the pills, looking at them suspiciously. “What are these?”
“Ibuprofen.”
“And?”
He sighed and sat on the bed next to my hip. “Something to help you sleep.” When I started to shake my head, he leaned forward and laid his lips on mine. “Please, darlin’. You need some uninterrupted sleep. You can’t heal like this.”
Deliberately, I misunderstood him. “My arm is fine, King. The doctor took the stitches out weeks ago.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it,” he stated firmly, calling me on my denial.
“I hate the way they make me feel,” I muttered.
His hands cupped my face, tilting it up so our eyes met. “And I hate the way hearing you scream in the middle of the night makes me feel. Please just compromise for tonight, baby. It hurts me to listen to you cry like that.”
Without another word of argument, I tossed the pills back and washed them down with water. I could clearly see in his eyes that King was sincere. He hurt for me, and I didn’t want to cause him the same kind of pain I was feeling.
* * *
The last few weeks had been a revelation.
I’d been too distraught in the days following the shooting to talk to anyone. A doctor hired by Wick had come to King’s house and sedated me. They’d had to keep me sedated for more than forty-eight hours.
When I’d finally calmed down enough to talk, I told King everything, breaking down several times during the story. At the time I hadn’t thought to ask if the police needed to speak to me. I’d been little more than a zombie by this time.
It wasn’t until over a week later that I found out that they’d never called the cops. Instead, Katie had just disappeared. I had no idea what they did with her body. King wouldn’t tell me.
I hadn’t spoken to anyone for days after that. It had taken Tia to snap me out of it.
I’d been holed up in the guest room, keeping everyone locked out. Tia picked the lock and came to sit by me on the bed. We sat together in silence for a few moments.
“You realize I agreed with King, don’t you?” she asked.
“What?”
“About what should be done. I agreed with Wick and King. They couldn’t call the cops into this.”
I sat straight up on the mattress. “Yeah, but what happens when they find the body? I’ll be brought up on murder charges when they figure out what happened.”
“They’ll never find her,” Tia promised.
Katie didn’t have any family left. She’d bounced around in foster homes the last two years of high school because she hadn’t had anyone to take care of her. No one would miss her but her friends and coworkers.
“It was wrong,” I whispered harshly. “They should have told the police.”
Tia grabbed my good arm and shook me roughly. “If they had called the cops, they would be in jail right now and Renaldo would have an opportunity to establish his foothold in Dallas. He would come after you on principal, Jena. Just because you’re King’s woman, you’d be dead.”
“You don’t know that,” I argued.
She sighed. “Jena, you’ve been in your own little world the last two weeks. King and Wick brought me in, explained what’s going on. I understand men like Renaldo and they were right to put your safety, and their own, above doing what was legal.”
I stared up at her with wide eyes. “They brought you in?” I whispered. “Oh God, what have I done? I got you tangled up in this mess.”
“Shut up, Jena. You have no idea what I’ve been doing the last few years. This is better by far.”
My mouth fell open then. “Maybe you should tell me what you’ve been up to the last five years.”
Tia shook her head. “Not right now,” she stated. “You’ve had enough shocks and hits lately. Once you’re better, we’ll talk again.”
“Promise?” I asked.