Damage Me (Crystal Gulf Book 2) (10 page)

He grunted and moved into the back. “Sweets?” he murmured, tone uncharacteristically soft. “Wake up.” She whimpered. “Should I take her to the hospital?”

Turn over damn it!
“No,” I answered, because something started to nag at me. Bach said she’d been able to scream. Why wasn’t she screaming anymore? “Roll her over.”

“Why?”

“Do it.”

Bach gently grasped her wrist and pulled her until she was on her back. He removed the hair from her face and then that’s when I saw it. There was a bruise under her right eye. It was already starting to form. When Bach figured it out, he released her, walked away, and screamed at the water.

I could see her face now.

Her eyes were closed, and her lids were smeared with dark pink eye shadow. Her eyelashes were thick with mascara. Some of it was smudged on her bruise and in the corner. Her face was small, housing petite features I could only describe as
adorable.
I cringed during my assessment but kept going. After adorable it was all downhill from there anyway. Her skin was creamy and smooth, filled with just the hint of a tan, as if she didn’t spend much time in the sun this summer. Her hair was splayed around her head, thick and blond. There was a red mark on her bottom lip. I wondered if she’d bitten it. Blood crusted around the wound, staining her chin.

As I stared a sense of fury slowly overtook me. How could anyone want to hurt her? She looked so small and fragile in the backseat. I’ve done dirty filthy things to women, but they were just like me, they wanted it. We were filthy together. I’d never hurt one. I’d never take something this good and damage it. To know a man like Zane had drugged her, hit her, and tried to take something that wasn’t his, made me feel a level of rage I had never experienced before. It was scorching. It was worse than Harley’s betrayal.

It was darker than the black in the sky.

I looked at Bach and caught his gaze. At that moment, we weren’t anyone but the team we’d been since we were kids. Bach and Dylan, two punk kids with shitty hands. But we played those hands, and we won just enough with them to keep going.

“Put her in the house. I’ll get up there somehow.”

He understood what I was saying, giving me a curt nod. “Harley will get over it. I’ve done worse shit.” He walked around back and then returned with my crutches, setting them alongside my door. “I was with you all night,” he warned, reaching in to get his sister.

He cradled her carefully in his arms and traveled up the stairs. Her face was wide open. It was small and wounded, making me think of someone defacing something perfect to make room for all of the imperfections they suffered from.

I took my crutches and positioned them under my armpits. Taking a deep breath, I pushed to my left leg. The full brunt of my weight increased the pressure on my wounds. Pain overshadowed my rage. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to place my crutches down so I could swing my body forward. Landing on my left leg was jarring. My eyes blurred, and my stomach turned. It didn’t help that the front lawn was soggy. By the time I made it to the stairs, Bach was already coming down empty handed.

He didn’t comment nor did he acknowledge me. He simply got in his truck and drove away, leaving me staring up in fear at the twenty stairs. I tried to convince myself I’d been through worse things. That one time my old man came home with his blood full of whiskey and laid into me until I couldn’t walk. Bach had brought me bowls of cereal until I could make it out of my bedroom. When my Mom lost all her money at the casino in Houston. I’d been too small to understand she wasn’t mad me as she wailed on my face. She was mad at herself, at her life, but she’d been beating me, and that’s all I understood. Still understood.

When I found out Whitney was pregnant, I spent a lot of time thinking of everything I wouldn’t do to my daughter. No matter what Aubrey did I would never hit her. I would never leave her hungry, or leave her on her own; if my parents had done it I would do the opposite. I grunted in pain, which kind I wasn’t sure; emotional and physical bombarded me from all angles.

I paused on the fifth stair and watched the waves roll in, black on black, with the moon shimmering silver. Maybe Whitney keeping her away from me was a good thing. I had nothing to give my kid but what I had, and unfortunately that was nothing but bloody wounds and scars. The realization that she was better off without me increased the pain until my body was flooded with it.

By the time I made it up the stairs my coming home was obliterated. It felt as if I hadn’t even left. I didn’t go to the army, I didn’t learn the taste of blood, and I didn’t have my life unfold before my eyes. My baby was gone. My girlfriend was with my best friend, and come to find out he had a sister.

“Welcome home,” I forced out, closing the front door.

The beach house looked different. Gone was the mess, the booze, and the empty condom wrappers. In its place were gleaming wooden floors, new furniture, and a kitchen that shone. There was a play area in the corner for Aubrey where my fish tank had been. Amongst this new space I stood there. Sweat poured down my face and soaked my shirt. I smelled like musk and ass. There was no room for me.

I shouldn’t be surprised. You had to make room in this life, and if there still wasn’t enough, you spread your body out and took shit for finding your place.

It was unsettling how smoothly I transitioned. One car ride and I was back to the place I’d run from my entire life.

To make matters worse, I couldn’t even run. My leg throbbed unbearably as I forced my body across the living room to the couch. Taking a seat felt more painful than relieving. I settled in the supple leather and kept my knees bent, doing my best to remain motionless.

After the pain calmed, I didn’t move. The sounds of the house began to penetrate the painful haze. The fridge whirred on, creating a soft buzz in the back of my brain. The beach was roaring in the background. And on the edge of all of that, I heard the distinct sound of whimpering. Soft feminine moans that sounded displeased and afraid.

“Hillary?” My deep voice broke the quiet of the beach house.

She didn’t respond. The whimpers continued, these delicate mewing moans that felt terrified.

“Damn it.” I grabbed my crutches from where they were leaning on the side of the couch and struggled to push to a standing position. Once upright, I shuffled to the hall, taking a short break before continuing. My bedroom door was closed, but Bach’s was open.

From my spot I could barely detect Hillary’s feet. They were small and delicate, her toes twisting in the sheets. Her skirt had ridden up, revealing her legs and panties. She wasn’t tall, at least not lying down. Her legs were thick. The kind I grabbed on to and held while I pounded into them. Her hair was the color of the sun. This intense gold that was so solid it warmed the dark room. The blanket lay on the other end of the bed, tossed in the midst of her nightmare. As she flailed, she tossed her head from side to side, giving me small glimpses of her face. Deep down inside of me, in a part only Harley ever touched, I had to admit she was the kind of gorgeous women envied. The kind of gorgeous bad men fell for, good men wanted, and then men who knew they could never have it.

And then there were men like me who would undoubtedly damage her. I would do to this girl what I had done to all others. Even to Harley. And though a part of me wanted to do just that, to show Bach he couldn’t have two good women, another part of me pointed out the bruise on her eye. She’d suffered enough. She didn’t need some dickhead like me to add to her wounds.

I’d lost her as soon as I found her.

Her whimpering suddenly became a word. “Stop,” she pleaded. A tear trailed down the side of her face, and her lips parted, making way for her heavy breathing. “Please,” she moaned, her hand lifting off the bed.

I looked around helplessly. She was in the middle of the bed. I couldn’t get close enough without compromising my leg. But the moment she was crying and begging, my damn heart gripped in my chest. I couldn’t remember if that had ever happened before. It wasn’t the same feeling I got when I looked at Aubrey, or even Harley. Both of them had never been broken.

Bach better maim the son of a bitch.

I grunted as I entered his room, edging closer. I leaned my right crutch aside on the end of the bed, ignored Harley’s panties on the floor, and then rested my left knee on the end of the mattress. In this position my right leg supported me, causing an acute burning to flood my system. I grabbed her foot and gave it a shake.

“Hillary. Wake up.”

Her foot tried to free itself from my grip and her moaning deepened. Her movements, however, were strange. They were slow and contorted, as if fear and reason weren’t working together. If she were drugged she still might be. She exhaled and relaxed onto her back; breathing labored and eyes closed.

My resolve to turn Hillary into a lesson began to waver indefinitely. How could Bach leave her with me? She looked fragile and breakable. This delicate thing twisted in the sheets. I shouldn’t be left with something so precious. I broke things. I damaged them. I took the good and made it bad. Not on purpose, at least not every time. If good things were common, I wouldn’t miss Harley so damn much, and women like Hillary wouldn’t be so special.

If I left Hillary to sleep, she’d suffer. If I woke her up, she’d be left with the nightmare she endured when she was awake. I should be able to better understand these options. That was my life. Choosing between two choices I shouldn’t be choosing from at all. At least asleep she was resting. In Afghanistan, the lack of sleep was just as much our enemy as the opponent. When we were exhausted our brain overcompensated, and more often than not it went to places it shouldn’t in an effort to relieve our reality.

So I shuffled out of the room as quietly as possible and managed to close her door, leaving it open just enough so when she woke she wouldn’t panic. I wondered if she’d been to the beach house before and if she’d ever woken up to a son of a bitch like me.

I smirked when I considered her reaction and then promptly lost my smirk when I sank down on the couch. Having nothing else to do, I lowered my head and closed my eyes, calling forth sleep. Of course I should have known better. Between sleep and unconsciousness, I felt my hackles rise and my senses sharpen …

I could smell the threat in the air, the promise of danger. There were abandoned houses all around us, broken down from past bombs. Roofs collapsed on old memories. I often wondered about the families who’d lived in them, but the guilt in my heart forced the thought away. Most of the city had been evacuated, and houses lay in ruin. My unit, consisting of Ryan, Two Finger, Tex, and Spits, hovered around us. The sky was dark, but dawn hovered on the horizon.

“All clear,” Tex said, gun in hand.

I shook my head. All I thought about in those times when it wasn’t about surviving was going home. “We’re not alone,” I informed him, eyes peeled. I could feel someone watching us. Our guns were poised, so that meant he wasn’t faraway. The threat of us was still a threat to him.

“Bullshit,” Two Finger, aptly named for his ability to get women off with both appendages. Tex swore he had a small dick; that’s why he stuck his claim to fame on his nickname. “We’ve looked twice, Dylan. We’re clear. Let’s go back. I’m starving.”

Spits met my eyes. He felt it too. “One more time,” he ordered, spitting some chew onto the ground. “Two Finger, Tex, and Ryan, you keep an eye out. Dylan and I will look this place over. Once we’re clear, the convoy can move through.”

They took off down the road, and Spits and I headed back into the houses, searching for the eyes we felt on us. I scanned the mountains in the distance, but they were too far away for what I felt. I kept looking, ignoring Ryan’s griping. On a rooftop, something moved. If I hadn’t had my eyes peeled, I wouldn’t have caught it at all. A black shadow in the darkness. But it was too late. My reaction was instant. We were over. Shots rang out, and my unit came in to the street. Searing pain exploded in my leg. Pain so brutal I screamed. The smell of blood filled the air. The shouts of my men. Of their lifeless bodies. I met Spits’ cold eyes. They were dark brown. He had a kid at home. He talked about him, wanted Aubrey to be his friend. Blood stained his face and surrounded his body.

His empty stare bored into me. There was no more life in them. My unit lay around me, still and bloody. There was so much blood. It filled the air, made my breaths taste like it.

I could taste their blood all over my face.

In the distance, I watched him take off, and the action chilled me. He thought his job was done.

We were done.

I had little in the way of family. My parents hadn’t truly ever wanted me. I was a mistake they were stuck with. I didn’t miss them. All I ever had was Bach. At that moment, all I wanted was my daughter, my best friend, and the one woman who was supposed to prove the rest wrong.

I wanted Harley at the end.

I had no idea that she wasn’t mine to want anymore.

My screams woke me. Bloodcurdling shouts as I watched my unit fall. My friends. As my blood created a pool around me and the bullets filled the air. Aubrey would grow up without me.

A movement caught my attention. I looked over to find a girl in my living room. She was rumpled, and her cheeks were splotched red, but her hair was the color of the sun, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. She had pale sea green eyes.

Those were Bach’s eyes.

There was an angel in my living room with Bach’s eyes.

And by the look in them, she had fallen.

***

Hillary

It was just a dream.

I stared, stuck on the man in the living room. This was Bach’s place. I recognized it from the few times I’d been here. These were his floors beneath my feet. Those were his walls closing in on me. That was his couch, and on that couch was a man I did not know. Terror shot through me. This awful stomach clenching kind of terror. My knees knocked with it. My hand shot out. I braced myself against the wall.